Silver Shadows, Golden Dreams

by Margaret Pemberton

  When the last line had been uttered, there was a moment’s silence. To the cast it seemed to last for a lifetime, and then the applause erupted. It soared and swelled, surrounding them, deafening them. Hands clasped, they faced a house which had risen to its feet, stamping and cheering. The critics were running for the doors and their typewriters. The fans were throwing their buttonholes, their corsages of orchids, down on to the stage.

  The curtain fell, was raised, and fell again. The roar of applause grew louder, more intense. Only after curtain call after curtain call did the cast manage to leave the stage, and still the cheers rang in their ears.

  ‘We made it! My God, we made it!’ Stan was hugging her. Everyone was hugging her. Leila was crying. Champagne corks were exploding. A horde of people were trying to use their name and influence to gain backstage. In seconds her dressing room was a seething mass of admirers.

  ‘Ruby’s bringing Alexander backstage,’ Valentina gasped to Stan. ‘He’ll get crushed in this mob. Can you get them out, Stan? Just for five minutes?’

  It seemed to take for ever before the room was empty. She gazed at herself in the mirror. Not Hedda Gabler any more, but Valentina.

  She had no need to wait for the morning papers to know that she had been a success. She moved Denton Brook-Taylor’s massive bouquet of white roses to one side, and reached for a glass of Perrier water. Paulos would have been deeply proud of her. And Vidal? She pushed the thought away. She had lived without him for four years, and during those four years she had not allowed her thoughts to dwell on him. Her loyalty had been to Paulos. She had been both physically and mentally faithful to him. Now, in New York, it was much harder.

  She picked up a newspaper and saw his face. From a taxi cab she saw billboards announcing his latest movie. In Stan’s conversation his name occurred regularly. Yet nothing had changed. She had left him of her own accord. She had married, had been widowed. Their lives were separate and would continue to be so.

  The desolation she felt at the knowledge was reminiscent of the grief she had felt when Paulos had died. The adrenalin which had surged through her veins when she had stood before the wildly cheering audience evaporated. There would be no sleep for her. The whole cast would be partying at Denton Brook-Taylor’s expense until the first papers hit the street.

  There was a sharp rap on her door and she wheeled round, her eyes once more shining, her smile exultant. ‘Come in, darling,’ she called opening her arms to greet her son.

  When Vidal strode into the dressing room she stood like a statue, frozen into immobility.

  ‘I apologize for not being the person you were so obviously expecting,’ he said, his voice tight and hard and barely under control. ‘I came to congratulate you. Your performance was a masterpiece.’

  She couldn’t speak. Her heart was slamming so hard against her chest that the sound seemed to fill the whole room. He had changed. There was a streak of silver in his hair. Yet he was only thirty-five … thirty-six. The harsh lines running from nose to mouth had deepened, but there were no laugh lines around his eyes. He moved, commanding the room and the situation as he had always done. He picked up the card that had accompanied the roses, read it, and tossed it back into the array of white blossoms. Any moment Alexander would come bounding into the room; Alexander with his tumbling thatch of curls that fell across his forehead just as Vidal’s did. Alexander with his flashing dark eyes and beneath the childish contours of his face, the unmistakeable budding of high Slavic cheekbones, of a strong nose and powerful jaw.

  ‘Thank you,’ she said, praying for strength. Praying that Alexander would be delayed. ‘Now if you will excuse me, I am expecting someone.’

  ‘So I gathered!’ His eyes flashed to Denton’s card. ‘Are you intending marrying again with the same indecent haste as last time?’

  Her face was as bloodless as the roses. She dug her nails into her palms and turned her back to him, saying stiffly, ‘My personal affairs are no longer any concern of yours.’

  He seized hold of her wrist cruelly, swinging her round to face him, his eyes blazing. ‘Your personal affairs are everything to do with me! Why did you leave? In God’s name, Valentina, why?’ The pain in his voice ripped through the years and sent them scattering. She tried to draw away from him but the pressure of his fingers increased. Their bodies were touching and it was too late for feigned indifference. Too late for rage. Lust, love and longing surged through them, meeting and fusing.

  ‘Because…’ She tried to remember her reasons, the lies she had told him so long ago, but could remember nothing. She could feel his heat. She wanted to sink her teeth into his flesh. ‘Because…’ and then the door opened and Alexander ran into the room.

  ‘Maman! Maman!’ he began, and then halted as he saw that she was held in the tight grip of a stranger. For a long moment they were a frozen tableau. Every vestige of blood had left Valentina’s face as her son and his father stared at each other for the first time.

  ‘Holy mother of God,’ Vidal whispered, slowly releasing her wrists, staring at Valentina and then Alexander and then back to Alexander again. ‘So that was why you left!’

  ‘Alexander, please leave the room for a moment,’ Valentina said, her voice so high and brittle it was scarcely recognizable.

  ‘Don’t want to,’ Alexander said stubbornly, setting his feet apart, frowning steadfastly back at Vidal’s devouring gaze.

  ‘Do as I tell you, Alexander.’

  Alexander looked once more from the man who resembled the demon king in his fairytale book to his mother. She had never spoken to him in that tone of voice before.

  ‘All right,’ he said, his voice trembling dangerously as mystified tears welled up inside him. ‘I’ll go to Ruby. Ruby wants me.’

  He stalked from the room on sturdy legs, the picture of outraged dignity. The door closed behind him and Vidal turned once more towards her.

  ‘You not only left me,’ he said, his voice incredulous. ‘You took my son with you! Why did you do it, Valentina? Why?’

  The four years fell away as if they had never existed. She knew why. She remembered in agonizing detail.

  ‘Because if you had known you would have left Kariana and acknowledged Alexander.. Because your career would have been finished. Because our future would have been built on Kariana’s misery. Because I love you.’

  ‘And so you married your Greek. Did he know that the child you carried was not his?’

  She held his eyes steadily. ‘Yes, he knew.’

  ‘Did you love him?’

  The question was uttered like the pistol shot that had ended the play. ‘Yes,’ she said. Now was not the time to explain that her love for Paulos had been different to her love for him.

  He sucked in his breath, his eyes darkening. ‘So, for you there was happiness, while for me there was…’ He made a sharp savage movement full of revulsion. ‘Nem fontos. What a fool I was. If I had only known.’

  They stared across the years at each other.

  ‘You know now,’ she said simply.

  ‘Yes.’

  Their eyes held fast. His rage and jealousy faded. He knew now and he would not make the same mistake again. Fate was offering them a second chance.

  ‘I love you,’ he said, reaching out for her and drawing her into the circle of his arms. ‘I love you and I will never let you escape me again. Not you, or my son.’

  ‘He was Paulos’s son for four years,’ she said, raising her face to his. ‘You cannot claim him as your own so swiftly, Vidal. He will not understand.’

  ‘No.’ He traced the pure outline of her cheekbone and jaw with his forefinger. ‘But I can claim you, Valentina. Now. This moment.’ And he reached behind him and shot the bolt of the door home.

  Chapter Twenty-Two

  At first the crush at Sardi’s was so great that no one was immediately aware that the star of the show and Vidal Rakoczi were constantly beside one another. Stan Kennaway was exultant at receiving Vidal’s congratulati
ons. There wasn’t a Rakoczi movie that he had not seen. He had watched and watched again, constantly learning. Vidal Rakoczi did not work within the Hollywood system. He worked outside it and still he succeeded. To Stan the man was a living legend.

  ‘Vidal Rakoczi says that no one who was at tonight’s performance will ever forget it,’ he said exuberantly to one of Broadway’s leading critics. The critic could only raise his champagne glass high and agree with him.

  The whole room was awash with congratulations, flowers and the very best French champagne. Leila was drunk with success and happiness.

  ‘Oh, pinch me please, I think I’m dreaming,’ she said to another member of the cast who was rapidly becoming literally drunk. ‘Isn’t that Larry Olivier over there with Valentina and Vidal?’

  ‘He came right on over immediately after his performance in No Time for Comedy.’

  ‘Oh God! And is that Katherine Cornell with him? And Guthrie McClintic?’

  ‘The whole cast is here and you’d better put on your best smile darling. Elliott Arnold from the New York Telegraph is heading in your direction.’

  ‘What the hell is he doing here?’ Leila asked, frantically seizing another glass of champagne with which to fortify herself. ‘He should be writing his review of Hedda.’

  ‘If he’s here, it means he’s already done it, darling. And don’t worry about its content. I’ve a feeling that overnight we’ve all achieved fame and adulation.’

  ‘Thanks to Valentina,’ Leila said as Elliott Arnold approached. ‘No one could have failed as long as they were in her orbit.’

  Valentina. Valentina. The name was heard everywhere. She had stunned them. Dazed them. Inflamed them. The only person to stand aloof in the room was the host – Denton Brook-Taylor.

  The others were too high on nervous hysteria to notice that Valentina had entered not only with Vidal at her side, but with her hand tightly clasped in his. Even if they had noticed, they would have thought nothing of it. There were hugs and kisses all round. Vidal had been Valentina’s Svengali all through her movie-making days in Hollywood. Nothing was more natural than that he should be sharing her evening of glory in New York. But Denton knew instantly that with Vidal Rakoczi’s arrival, all his own carefully laid plans were about to be disrupted.

  That fervent hand-hold was not one of friendship. When their eyes met they looked as if they were eating one another alive. A knot of cold fury hardened deep in his gut. No one cheated him of anything that he had set his heart on. He would outbid, out-manoeuvre anyone who stood in his way. His grey eyes were glacial. Whatever part Vidal Rakoczi had played in Valentina’s past, he would be damned before he would allow him to step once more into her life. Rakoczi would have to go. But how and when?

  Stan Kennaway threw an arm round his shoulders. ‘You were right, Denton! Boy, oh boy, were you right!’

  Denton gave him a thin smile but his eyes remained on Valentina and Vidal. There would be a way. There always was.

  Leila, who had been mesmerized by Larry Olivier as the wild-eyed, arousingly sexual Heathcliff in Wuthering Heights, which had just been released, was overwhelmed at being in her idol’s presence. When he left her and made his way towards Denton, she pushed through the crowd surrounding Valentina and said, ‘My God! All this and Heathcliff too! I can’t believe it!’

  ‘Have you changed your mind about forsaking all for love?’ Valentina asked wickedly.

  ‘It’s very tempting, but no. In fact, I’m leaving now. I’ve just got to tell Rory about tonight.’ .

  ‘You mean he wasn’t in the audience?’ Valentina asked, aghast.

  Leila grinned sheepishly. ‘No. I was crippled with stage fright as it was. If I’d known Rory was out there, I would have been in a state of total collapse.’ She looked from Valentina’s radiant face to Vidal’s. The harshness had gone. His eyes were gleaming, his white teeth flashing as he smiled first at one of Valentina’s host of congratulating admirers and then another. Her eyes dropped to their tightly clasped hands and she grinned.

  ‘Here, Valentina. This is my key. I’m going down to Rory’s tonight. Bye.’

  ‘But why…?’ Valentina began. It was too late. Leila had been swallowed up in the crowd of well-wishers. She looked down at the key and a smile curved her lips. Leila knew, as she had always known. She couldn’t return to her suite with Vidal. Not with Alexander snugly occupying the twin bed in her room. And she had no desire to return to a strange hotel room with Vidal. Their lovemaking deserved less impersonal surroundings. Leila’s untidy, comfortable, familiar flat would be perfect.

  ‘What is that?’ Vidal asked, glancing down at the key in her hand.

  ‘The key to Leila’s apartment.’ She paused, her eyes sparkling. ‘Leila will not be occupying it. At least, not tonight.’

  The heat in his eyes made her bones melt. ‘Then let’s go,’ he said, his voice thickening. ‘There’s no need to wait for the first editions. The reviews are going to be raves. Come on.’ He began to force his way towards the door, Valentina in his wake.

  ‘Just a minute,’ she said urgently, pulling him back. ‘We can’t go straight there, Vidal. There’s Alexander. I have to return to the Plaza and say goodnight to him.’

  ‘But won’t he be asleep?’

  ‘I doubt it after the excitement of this evening, but even if he is, he’ll want to know where I am when he wakes up in the morning.’

  ‘But surely his nanny will be there?’

  Valentina smiled at him indulgently, ‘Yes she will, but he’ll want me.’

  Vidal stared down at her. She was right. It had never occurred to him before that being a parent could be highly inconveniencing. He thought of his curly-haired, exuberant son and grinned. Like hell they were inconveniencing. They were a privilege he had long been denied. ‘We’ll both to to the Plaza,’ he said, managing at last to reach the cream and gold doors. ‘I’ve a lot to catch up on where Alexander is concerned.’

  They fled down the corridor and out on to the sidewalk, terrified that their escape would be seen. Their fears were groundless. Only Denton Brook-Taylor saw them slip from the room and he remained where he was, the centre of a circle of congratulatory sycophants. Rakoczi. How many times had he heard the name and never given it a thought other than that one day the man might prove useful to him in his capacity as a director of extraordinary talent. Now he stood between him and what he wanted most in the world. His knuckles whitened as they tightened around the stem of his champagne glass. He had ruined greater men than the upstart Hungarian. All it needed was a little thought. And a lot of patience.

  ‘Is he asleep, Ruby?’ Valentina whispered as they entered her hotel suite.

  ‘No, ma’am. I’ve never seen a child so over-excited. He keeps talking about the people and the lights and the applause.’ There was a slight tone of disapproval in Ruby’s voice. She couldn’t understand why Valentina had allowed Alexander to witness her apparent death on stage. Surely it would be disturbing for him? Valentina had assured her that it would not be; that Alexander understood perfectly that she was only acting. Playing make-believe as he did. Ruby was not so sure. She had a practical mind and had never indulged in make-believe.

  ‘Don’t worry, Ruby. I’ll go in to him now and he’ll be asleep in a few minutes.’

  ‘Yes, ma’am.’ Ruby eyed the tall, dark stranger standing a little behind Valentina and felt suddenly shy. No one but Miss Crane was ever invited into Valentina’s suite. She wondered if he was a famous movie star. His face was very familiar. His nonchalant stance was reminiscent of Clark Gable, and for a moment she wondered if the King of Hollywood himself was standing only feet away from her. Then he moved forward and she saw that he was clean-shaven, and taller, more powerfully built than her idol. Her disappointment was fleeting. He had a face that she could not tear her eyes away from and his negligent sexuality was so overpowering that she instantly abandoned worship of Clark Gable and transferred it to the being before her.

  As Valenti
na entered the bedroom he followed her, remaining in the doorway, watching her as she spoke softly to Alexander and kissed him goodnight with an expression in his eyes that she could only describe as hunger.

  Alexander, satisfied now that his mother had come and kissed him goodnight, snuggled down under the bedclothes and closed his eyes. For a long moment Valentina and the man stood silently watching him.

  ‘I shan’t be back till late in the morning, Ruby. I’ve already explained to Alexander. Goodnight.’

  ‘Goodnight, ma’am,’ Ruby said, aware that her thoughts were travelling along improper lines, and aware too that she felt no censure at her employer’s behaviour. Only envy.

  They had driven from Sardi’s to the Plaza in Vidal’s silver-grey Pierce-Arrow. Now, with Vidal again at the wheel, they sped through the deserted streets to Leila’s apartment on East Sixty-First Street. She leaned close against him, her head on his shoulder. His hands on the wheel were strong and dextrous. She remembered the first time that she had driven with him. The knowledge that she was quite wilfully walking away from a world of safety and shelter and into a world where no path was charted. It was strange to think that if she had not left Lilli Rainer’s party with him all those years ago, she would be living quietly with Bob.

  Vidal took the corner of Park Avenue and East Sixty-First at a speed that would have brought him before the courts if it had been seen. She had not opted for a quiet, safe life with Bob. She had opted for the life she now led and she had never regretted it. It had brought her fame and adulation… and great pain. Her fingers dug deep through Vidal’s tuxedo into the flesh of his arm. The pain was over now, they were together again. Nothing else mattered.

  ‘Here it is,’ she said, the breath tight in her chest.