Silver Shadows, Golden Dreams

by Margaret Pemberton

  ‘I think I’d better let the doctor see me,’ she said, emerging from the bathroom white-faced. ‘I feel dreadful. I can’t even keep toast down. I must have a bug of some sort.’

  ‘Are you sure that’s all you’ve got?’ Ellie asked, straightening the sheets on the bed with unnecessary vigour.

  ‘What else could it be?’ Valentina asked, pushing away a cup of coffee before the sight of it should induce another attack of nausea.

  ‘When was the last time you menstruated?’ Ellie asked bluntly, thumping the pillows.

  Valentina stared at her. ‘I don’t know. What’s that got to do with it?’

  ‘Everything,’ Ellie said succinctly. ‘For a very bright lady you can be very dense at times. No periods and plenty of sickness adds up to one thing in my book.’

  Valentina sank on to her dressing-table stool, her face drained of blood. ‘I couldn’t be … It isn’t possible…’

  ‘Well,’ Ellie said, her eyes dark with concern, ‘only you know that, but if I were you I’d get along to a doctor right away.’

  Valentina passed a hand across her stomach wonderingly. A child? Vidal’s child. It was something she had never imagined. Never envisaged. ‘Ring Dr Helmann for me, Ellie. Tell him I want to see him straight away. This morning.’

  ‘And the studio?’ Ellie asked queryingly.

  ‘Ring Mr Rakoczi and tell him I won’t be in till later. I’m not needed this morning. It won’t disrupt his schedule.’

  Ellie did as Valentina asked, reflecting that if Valentina was pregnant, it would disrupt far more than his schedule.

  ‘No doubt about it,’ Doctor Helmann said as she stepped back into her skirt. ‘You’re at least two months pregnant. Possibly going on for three.’

  Dr Helmann was well aware of his patient’s identity. And of her single status.

  ‘I don’t perform abortions myself, but I recommend Doctor Gramercy highly. He’s efficient and he’s discreet. You’ll need a week of rest afterwards, but within ten days you’ll be back before the cameras as if nothing had happened.’

  Valentina stared at him. ‘I have no intention of having an abortion, Doctor Helmann.’

  This time it was the doctor’s turn to stare. ‘But my dear girl, you have no choice! Haven’t you seen the small print on your contract? “Moral turpitude.” No studio in town could touch you if you flaunted an irregular sex life so openly. It’s either an abortion or marriage, my dear. Anything else would be professional suicide.’

  She drew on her gloves. ‘Better professional suicide than the murder of my unborn child,’ she said quietly.

  Doctor Helmann shrugged. ‘I think you’re making a great mistake, but it’s your decision. Come back to me if you change your mind and I’ll give you a letter of introduction to Dr Gramercy.’

  ‘Thank you, Doctor Helmann,’ she said, walking towards the door, ‘but I don’t think we’ll be seeing each other again. Goodbye.’

  Valentina sat behind the wheel of her yellow Pierce-Arrow uncaring that without headscarf and dark glasses she was soon likely to draw attention.

  The years rolled away and she was vividly aware of a young woman with blonde hair and a baby in her arms, driving in a Model T Ford across the sun-parched earth to the convent at San Juan Capistrano. A woman who had not wanted her baby. Who had given her child away and driven off, never returning. Never writing.

  Her hands tightened on the wheel. The baby she was carrying would not be left loveless and alone. It would be loved and cherished. She felt such a surge of deep pleasure that she could hardly breathe. Her baby. Vidal’s baby. There were only another four weeks of shooting on The Heiress Helena. She could accomplish those easily without arousing anyone’s suspicions. But after that there could be no more films. Not for at least a year.

  She put the car into gear and drew away from the kerb. She would need to find a really good obstetrician; she would need to turn one of the rooms at the ranch into a nursery. She would need a hundred and one things. Baby clothes, a cot, a rocker. She edged into the stream of traffic going down Rodeo Drive. She had to see Vidal. She had to tell him the news immediately. The breeze lifted her smoke-dark hair away from her cheeks and she threw back her head, suffused with a feeling of pure joy.

  A baby was the last thing either of them had intended, but it had happened. They were about to become parents. Vidal had six or seven months in which to persuade Kariana to divorce him and enable their baby to be born legitimately.

  She headed towards the studio. Both she and Vidal had more money than they knew what to do with. Whatever treatment Kariana required, it would not suffer in quality if she divorced Vidal. She had sympathized with his sense of responsibility towards Kariana, but now his responsibility was towards her and their unborn child. A Mexican divorce would take only a few months. In less than a year they would be a family.

  The studio gates opened with swift deference as her Pierce-Arrow approached. Vidal’s joy at the prospect of a child would be as deep as her own. A production director walked by and she waved and smiled. They would tell no one. She would take a vacation until his divorce was final and once they were married, they would ride out the ensuing storm together.

  With the thunderous success of The Warror Queen, Theo had insisted on teaming her with Rogan in both A Woman in Scarlet and her present movie, The Heiress Helena. Rogan’s hurt pride had long been forgotten. He had married Romana de Santa a year ago and their marriage had already earned them the nickname of the ‘tussling Tennants’.

  ‘Hi Rogan,’ she called as she walked on to the set. ‘Where’s Vidal?’

  ‘Answering a telephone call in his office. I guess it was private. He refused to take it here.’

  Valentina nodded and began to walk across to Vidal’s bungalow. There were no secrets between them. He wouldn’t mind her walking in on a business call. She smiled to herself, amused at how unaware he was that their lives were about to be devastatingly transformed.

  ‘She’s gone!’ Hazel Renko said, her voice high-pitched with anxiety. ‘I knew she was heading for another breakdown. She’s been edgy and moody for days. This morning she just went off at a tangent at Chai. I went to get some tranquillizers to calm her down before it got out of hand, but when I got back to the living room, she’d disappeared.’

  ‘Did she take a car?’ Vidal rasped.

  ‘Yes, the Duesenberg.’

  ‘I’ll be right over.’

  There was a sob in Hazel’s throat. ‘She was only wearing her nightdress, Mr Rakoczi. I’ve checked and all her coats are still here, and her negligées and wraps.’

  ‘Dear Christ!’ Vidal slammed the receiver down and rounded his desk as Valentina opened the door.

  ‘I’ve got something to tell you,’ she said, her eyes glowing.

  ‘Not now,’ he said, continuing his swift stride to the door. ‘I have to go.’

  ‘No!’ She seized his arm. ‘This is important, Vidal. Please sit down for a moment and listen to me.’

  ‘Kariana is ill. I must get back to Villada immediately. I’ll see you later. We’ll have dinner at Chasen’s.’

  ‘I said it was important,’ she said, her voice rising.

  ‘Later,’ he said with a peremptory wave as he slid into the rear of the Rolls.

  ‘Vidal! Wait!’ She began to run after him, but it was too late. The Rolls was already speeding towards the main gates.

  She halted, staring after it, all her joy of the morning replaced by a slow, burning anger.

  Kariana. It was always Kariana. Yet he didn’t love her. Didn’t make love to her. Of that she had no doubt. Her fingers clenched tightly over the white leather of her purse. No woman could suffer from disease for as long as Kariana and still appear in public brimming with apparent good health. Even Vidal did not seem to know exactly what it was that was wrong with her. After her talk with Leila, she had asked him if it was tuberculosis, but he had said no, and that it wasn’t such an easily defined disease.

  ‘
I bet it isn’t!’ Valentina said to herself, her eyes bright with fury. ‘That bitch hasn’t a damned thing wrong with her!’

  She marched purposefully across to her Pierce-Arrow. She was now certain of what she had suspected for a long time. Kariana Rakoczi was a hypochondriac. She enjoyed playing the invalid whenever it suited her. No doubt it gave her a sense of perverted power to be able to summon Vidal away from his work whenever she desired. Well, she had done it for the last time. She was going up to Villada herself. She was going to confront the malingering Kariana, reclining like a latter-day Elizabeth Barrett Browning on her sick-bed, and she was going to open Vidal’s eyes once and for all to the triviality of his wife’s so-called illness.

  She swerved out on to the road, her face grim. She didn’t like what she was going to do but she had no choice. Vidal was being tied to a long-dead marriage under false pretences. The sooner he realized the truth the sooner they could start to build a life together. A life that would include their child.

  As she approached Villada she was surprised to see that the high wrought iron gates were open. She drove through, parking behind Vidal’s Rolls.

  Taking a deep breath she stepped out on to the smoothly raked gravel and walked towards the main door. That, too, was open. She paused, and then knocked with all the firmness that she could muster.

  Instead of Chai answering her, a young woman dashed to the door, her hair looking as if she had just run her hands through it, her eyes wild.

  ‘Oh God! I thought it was…’ She paused, leaning against the door, regaining her composure with difficulty. ‘I’m sorry. Mr and Mrs Rakoczi aren’t home at the moment.’ Without even asking if she could take a message, she began to close the door in Valentina’s face.

  Valentina slipped past her into the marble-floored hall. ‘I know that Mrs Rakoczi is not feeling very well, and I know that Mr Rakoczi is home. I would like to see him please,’ she said firmly.

  ‘Hazel!’ Vidal shouted urgently from an inner room.

  ‘Will you please leave, I…’

  Valentina ignored the hand that was physically pushing her towards the door and marched towards the sound of Vidal’s voice.

  ‘Stop! You can’t go in there!’ the woman cried, running after her and seizing her arm.

  Valentina shook herself free, convinced that whoever the woman was she needed psychiatric treatment.

  At the threshhold of the living-room she paused, her eyes widening in amazement. Instead of Kariana reclining limply on a sofa, Vidal at her side, the room was a hive of feverish activity.

  Vidal’s chauffeur was on one telephone, Vidal on another, and Chai was wringing his hands and moaning as if he had just had news of a terrible disaster.

  ‘Try every hospital in town!’ Vidal yelled across to his chauffeur and then to the person he was speaking to, ‘someone must report seeing her soon. It’s midday and she’s only wearing a nightdress!’

  ‘Was that the police?’ the woman who had followed Valentina into the room asked, crossing to Vidal’s side.

  ‘Yes,’ he said tersely. ‘They’ve had no reports in yet. Riley, go downtown. Hazel, take your Packard and comb Beverly Hills. Chai, I want you here to take any calls that come in.’

  ‘Where are you going to search?’ Hazel asked, grabbing her car keys.

  ‘The home of every male she’s on nodding acquaintance with,’ Vidal said, his nostrils pinched and white, his skin taut across his cheekbones.

  They all turned, heading for the door. At the sight of Valentina everyone, including Vidal, momentarily halted.

  ‘Get going,’ he said sharply to Hazel and Riley, and then to Valentina, ‘what the hell are you doing here?’

  His rage had never before been directed at her. ‘I came to see you… to see Kariana…’ She faltered, aware that something was terribly, terribly wrong.

  ‘I’ll see you tonight. If she’s found by then,’ he said curtly, striding past her towards the open front door. The sound of Hazel’s Packard could be heard roaring down the drive, Riley hot on her heels in the Rolls.

  ‘What do you mean, found?’ Valentina asked, running at his side in an effort to keep up with him as he marched across to the garage and the custom-built Voisin he rarely used. ‘I thought she was ill, not lost.’

  Vidal wrenched open the garage door. ‘She is ill,’ he said savagely, slamming the door of the car behind him and revving the engine. ‘But her illness isn’t bodily, it’s mental. My wife’s a schizophrenic. Now do you understand?’

  The car reversed sharply out on to the drive. ‘For weeks, months sometimes, she’s sweet, gentle, sane, and then this happens!’

  Valentina stumbled after the car. ‘But she’ll be all right, won’t she?’

  ‘No, she won’t!’ Vidal yelled, his face contorted with agony. ‘She’ll be sleeping with men she hasn’t even met before! She’ll be walking Sunset Boulevard at midday in nothing but a Goddamned nightdress! She’ll be getting herself jailed, raped or beaten. And afterwards, whatever happens to her, she’ll have no Goddamned memory of it!’

  The Voisin roared away from her, leaving her standing in a cloud of dust. Slowly the dust settled. A humming-bird darted from the trees, its wings flashing gold and vermilion in the sunlight. She couldn’t move. She stood there long after the sound of the Voisin had faded into the still air.

  She was pregnant by a man who could never marry her, in a town where such a sin would be seen as an act of flagrant carelessness and would never be condoned. She would be ostracised by those who had fawned around her. The press would pillory her. The wrath of the Legion of Decency would descend on her like the wrath of God and every women’s club in America would be outraged.

  If she had her baby her career would be over. Like a stab to the heart, piercing through the numbness she felt, came another realization. Not only her own career would be over, but Vidal’s as well.

  She opened the car door and half fell into the seat. She could have her baby and ruin Vidal. Or she could have her baby and never identify the father. It would mean losing him. Living without his love. She felt faint, as if everything in her were being wrenched apart. She clenched the steering wheel tightly.

  If she told Vidal the truth, he would have to choose between herself and Kariana. She knew instinctively that he would choose herself, but she knew also that their future life together would be tainted by Kariana’s shadow. Loving him, she had no choice. She had to protect him from the scandal of being publicly denounced as a married man who had fathered a child outside wedlock. If that news were made public, he would never work in Hollywood again.

  ‘Damn them for their hypocrisy,’ she whispered to herself, the tears coursing down her cheeks. ‘Why should it matter to anyone who the father of my baby is? Why should it matter to them if I am married or single? Why should it matter to anyone but myself?’ But in Hollywood, for a star of her repute, it did matter and she knew it.

  She eased the car through the still open gates. She would have to be seen around town with other men. There would have to be public doubt as to the identity of the father of her child. And there would have to be more than doubt in Vidal’s mind. He would have to be told quite categorically that the baby was not his. And he would have to believe it.

  She began to cry softly as the car took the first of the canyon’s curving bends. Vidal had said that she was a great actress. She would have to be for the part she now intended to play.

  Chapter Fifteen

  He telephoned her late that evening. ‘I’ll pick you up in fifteen minutes,’ he said, sounding unutterably weary. ‘We’ll eat at Chasen’s.’

  ‘Kariana? Is she all right?’ she asked anxiously.

  ‘Hazel found her just as she was about to enter a club down-town. Fortunately there weren’t many people around and those who did see her didn’t recognize her. She’s asleep now. Tomorrow morning she won’t even remember leaving the house.’

  Her heart broke at the pain in his voice and the knowledge of
the further pain she was about to inflict on him.

  ‘I’ll see you in a few minutes,’ she said, her voice unsteady, her hand trembling violently as she replaced the receiver.

  Would tonight be the last time that they would meet each other as lovers? The thought was unendurable. She would ask him one last time if they had any future together. Surely Kariana had a family who could care for her? Wally Barren had said she came from one of the most prestigious families on the east coast.

  Hope spurted and she clung to it tenaciously as she sprayed Aperge on her throat and shoulders and emphasized the deep colour of her eyes with soft eye-shadow.

  ‘Please God, let him say yes,’ she whispered as she fastened a rope of pearls around her neck. ‘Please let everything be all right. Please! Please!’

  He took her in his arms the minute he entered the room, kissing her long and lingeringly, and with deep need.

  ‘Today has been hell,’ he said when he at last released her. ‘Let’s have a drink and a meal, and talk.’

  ‘Yes,’ she said, picking up her purse, striving for composure. ‘We have a lot to talk about, Vidal,’

  At Chasen’s the head waiter approached with a deferential inclination of the head and Vidal asked for a table in the most secluded booth in the restaurant. Neither of them was interested in perusing the menu and Vidal left their order to the waiter’s discretion.

  When they were alone he took her hand in his across the table. ‘I’m sorry you walked in on that scene this morning. You must have wondered what was going on.’

  ‘I did. At first…’ Her fingers tightened in his. ‘Why didn’t you tell me before, Vidal? I had no idea that Kariana was… was sick in that way.’

  ‘Nor does anyone else. Only the household staff, and Theo.’

  ‘What about her family?’

  His face hardened. ‘They know that she is unbalanced, but they don’t know how badly.’

  ‘But why not? Surely you should tell them? They could help.’

  Vidal’s voice was bitter. ‘I’ve spoken to them and don’t intend doing so ever again. Their solution to any problem that is going to embarrass them is to pretend that it doesn’t exist. Failing that, their solution is to hide it.’