Silver Shadows, Golden Dreams

by Margaret Pemberton

  He was eleven now, tall and loose-limbed, and with the unmistakeable look of his father.

  ‘My God,’ Leila had said, horrified when Valentina had first brought him to Hollywood, ‘you can’t educate him here, Valentina. You only have to look at him to see that he’s Vidal’s son.’

  A dangerous spark had flashed deep in Valentina’s eyes. She no longer wished to be reminded that Vidal had fathered Alexander. She wanted him to grow up like Paulos, sensitive and gentle. The harsh methods that Vidal employed in order to obtain Oscar-rating performances from his actors had become legendary; as had his womanizing. Valentina had no desire to see either trait in her son.

  ‘We’ve been separated for too long,’ she said to Leila obstinately. ‘I’m not going to be apart from him any longer.’

  ‘Then send him to school in San Diego. You can see him at weekends and holidays. If he remains here you’re going to have problems.’

  Valentina had tensed her jaw, knowing that what Leila said was true, but not wanting to accept it.

  ‘Does Alexander know that Vidal is his father?’ Leila asked, and flinched as Valentina rounded on her in a moment of rare rage.

  ‘No! Why should he? What has Vidal ever done for him? He knows that he is Alexander’s father! I told him in New York!’ She paced the room, resisting the urge to sweep her collection of rare glass figurines crashing to the floor. ‘He could have divorced Kariana and married me. He could have been a father to Alexander, but no. It wasn’t convenient. There was Kariana to care for.’ She whirled around, her dark eyes blazing in the pale oval of her face. ‘But he did divorce Kariana during the war, didn’t he? Perhaps he did it for Romana? For another of his girlfriends? But he didn’t do it for me! And he didn’t do it for Alexander.’

  She stormed from the room and a few seconds later Leila saw her striding across the lawn towards the swimming pool, her hands dug deep in her skirt pockets, her jaw clenched, her rage and hurt so great they could find no outlet.

  Alexander had gone to school in San Diego. Valentina had taken a permanent suite at the nearby Del Coronado Hotel, and if she was happy, it was a happiness reserved for the precious hours when she was far away from Hollywood and in the company of her son.

  ‘No, Theo,’ Valentina said, sparks flashing in her eyes. ‘No power on earth will persuade me to make a movie with Rakoczi!’

  Theo strove for patience. ‘Valentina, I want to make this movie. Vidal wants to make this movie. And the only star who can make the title part worthwhile is yourself.’

  ‘Get Joan Crawford. She could make the Los Angeles telephone directory a sensation.’

  ‘Mayer won’t loan her out,’ Theo said tersely, ‘and it’s not Crawford I want. It’s you.’

  ‘No. Never. Goodbye Theo.’ She swept from his office in a swirl of white fox, the door reverberating on its hinges behind her.

  Theo sighed. He had to have her for the part. The movie had all the ingredients of The Warrior Queen and only Vidal and Valentina together could give it class as well as splendour.

  ‘What did she say?’ Vidal asked when Theo walked into the projection room later that day.

  ‘She said “No. Never.” That no power on earth would persuade her to make another movie with you.’

  ‘Then we don’t make it,’ Vidal said, returning his attention to the screen. ‘It would be nothing more than a costume epic with any other actress in the lead.’

  ‘There’s always Romana.’

  Vidal looked at him pityingly. ‘Romana only ever plays Romana.’

  ‘There’s Hepburn,’ Theo said, desperation in his voice.

  ‘True, but she doesn’t have Valentina’s translucent beauty. No Valentina, no movie.’

  ‘F’Christ’s sake!’ Theo thundered. ‘What is it with you two? Other people have affairs that end and they still work together! Other people marry and divorce and still work together! All I want to do is make a movie. I don’t care if you don’t even speak to each other off set. I’m going to make The Empress Matilda, you’re going to direct it, and so help me, Valentina is going to star in it!’

  ‘It’s a good script,’ Leila said, passing a hand reflectively over her burgeoning stomach. ‘It almost makes me wish I were under contract again, and not about to become the great earth mother figure of all time.’

  Valentina remained stonily silent.

  ‘You haven’t had an Oscar nomination for four years. Your best work was done with Vidal. Why let personal feelings come between you and your acceptance speech?’

  There was still no response. Leila sighed and pressed a hand into the centre of her aching back.

  ‘If you want to give Vidal satisfaction, you’re sure going the right way about it. He knows the part is tailor-made for you. If you turn it down, he’s going to think it’s because you’re still in love with him.’

  ‘Like hell I am!’ Valentina flared.

  ‘Then take the part,’ Leila urged, sipping at a glass of milk and trying to adjust to the taste. ‘Show him that you are as indifferent to him as he is to you.’

  The costumes and setting were so similar to those of The Warrior Queen that Valentina was filled with an almost overwhelming feeling of déjà vu. She shook it from her determinedly. She was the Empress Matilda, not Margaret of Anjou. The girl who had played the part of Margaret no longer existed.

  The first morning that she walked on to the set, the atmosphere was charged with tension. ‘Okay,’ Vidal said tersely, ‘let’s start. I want to go over this morning’s scene with everyone that is in it.’

  The script girl drew her canvas chair towards Vidal’s. Valentina’s co-star did the same. The second assistant nervously picked up the black velvet covered chair that bore Valentina’s name in letters of gold, and placed it alongside. Valentina glared at him and marched towards the tight knit circle, her nails digging deep into her palms.

  They began to read the scene and professionalism calmed the tumult of emotions that his nearness aroused. He made subtle changes in the dialogue. The scene was repeated.

  ‘I want one work light on the set,’ Vidal said at last, ‘then we’ll go through the scene and see how it feels.’

  He rose to his feet, pushing his chair away from the circle impatiently with a leather gloved hand.

  ‘Move around, see where it feels natural to stand.’

  Her co-star was nervous of her reputation and Valentina sensed it and gave him a reassuring smile, enslaving him immediately.

  Vidal strode towards them, his brows pulled together as he studied the set. ‘More to the left,’ he said to her dispassionately.

  She obeyed, her pulse pounding. He was the father of her child and he was speaking to her as if they had never met before.

  From the first day of shooting to the last, not one unnecessary word passed between them. It was as if he could no longer bear the sight of her. The lines of her jaw were continually tense with the effort she made to remain calm. Occasionally, when he demanded that a scene be replayed yet again, she would give him a withering look but it was lost on him. Whenever she did so, he merely shrugged and waited for her to do as he asked.

  The familiar routine of film-making became her salvation. She left for the studio every morning at six. Once there she went straight into make-up, then haidressing and wardrobe. On the set there were her lines to concentrate on. Rehearsals. Changes. It was a world that gave little time for the indulgence of self-analysis.

  After eleven taut, traumatic weeks, the last scene was shot. Vidal’s terse ‘Cut, print’finally brought the movie to an end. As she walked off the set towards the privacy of her bungalow, he barred her way. ‘Just a moment,’ he said, his voice snaking across her nerve ends, scorching them raw, ‘I want to speak to you.’

  ‘Then do so,’ she said tightly.

  Fury flared in his eyes and was immediately suppressed. ‘Not here. In my office.’

  ‘I’m sorry. No…’ she began and was cut abruptly short as his leather-gloved hand s
hot out, imprisoning her wrist so tightly that she thought he would crush the bones.

  ‘Yes!’ he said, the menace in his voice naked.

  She tried to wrench herself away from his grasp. ‘Let me go or I’ll cause a scene here, in front of everyone.’

  ‘Do that and every grip and electrician will hear me ask after the welfare of my son!’

  She sucked in her breath, her eyes widening with horror. ‘Even you wouldn’t do that!’

  ‘Try me,’ he said, and at the savagery in his features she flinched.

  ‘It’s true what they say about you,’ she hissed. ‘You are a devil!’

  ‘Then let’s talk about the devil’s spawn,’ he said grimly as he marched her off the sound set, out into the sunlight and up the wooden steps leading to his office.

  Not until he had closed the door behind them did he release his hold of her.

  ‘What is it you want to know?’ she asked, her rage white-hot.

  ‘I want to know where he is.’

  ‘Why? You’ve shown not the slightest interest in him since the one and only time you set eyes on him.’

  ‘Within days of that meeting you were planning to marry Brook-Taylor,’ Vidal snapped, his eyes narrowing dangerously. ‘You were going to provide him with a stepfather and I thought it highly unlikely that you would have told him that his real father was a man you had no intention of having any further to do with.’

  ‘I never married Denton.’

  ‘No. No doubt you had other diversions,’ he said cruelly. ‘And I went to war. Now that I’m back, I want to see my son.’

  ‘No.’

  ‘Yes!’

  They faced each other like two warring animals, eyes blazing, every muscle in their bodies taut.

  ‘I will not let you destroy Alexander’s happiness!’

  ‘And I will not let you keep me away from my son!’

  His determination was ferocious. Looking at him, she knew it was a battle that she could not win. If he wanted to find out where Alexander was, he would do so easily enough. He was a man who always obtained what he wanted. Her rage ebbed on a tide of despair.

  ‘If Alexander must know the truth, he must learn it from me,’ she said at last.

  ‘And will you tell him?’

  ‘Yes,’ she said, knowing that when she did so the close bond between her and Alexander would never be the same again.

  Her fear of what Alexander would think of her showed on her face. At the sight of her pain, Vidal turned away abruptly. ‘Then I promise that until you have done so I shall make no attempt to see him.’

  ‘Thank you,’ she said quietly, and a moment later the door closed behind her and he sank down into the chair behind his desk, clenching his gloved hands against the pounding pain above his eyes.

  ‘I’m going to New Orleans for a short vacation and would like to take Alexander with me,’ she said to Mr Leavis, the headmaster of Alexander’s school.

  Mr Leavis felt his neck flush as Valentina’s almond-shaped eyes regarded him coaxingly. He had never been able to accustom himself to the fact that Alexander Khairetis’ mother was the legendary Valentina.

  ‘Yes,’ he said, overcome that an action of his could bring her pleasure. ‘Of course that can be arranged.’

  ‘Could I see him now, please?’

  Mr Leavis summoned his secretary. ‘Please tell Alexander Khairetis that his mother is in my office and would like to see him,’ he said and continued to gaze happily at Valentina. ‘New Orleans should prove interesting for Alexander,’ he said, wishing there was some way in which he could prolong her visit.

  ‘Yes.’ Her eyes were on the door, eager for the moment when Alexander would enter the room.

  ‘No doubt it will change him.’

  ‘I beg your pardon?’ She turned towards him, startled.

  ‘I said no doubt New Orleans will change him. I believe the city has that effect on people.’ He smiled beatifically.

  She sat very still. For a moment he wondered if she had heard him. Then, despite the heat of his study, she shivered, pulling the high collar of the mink coat closer around her throat. Things would be said in New Orleans that would have an irreversible effect on Alexander, and she didn’t want them to be said. She didn’t want him to change.

  There was a knock at the door and she wheeled round, chasing the shadows from her eyes as he entered the room.

  ‘Hello mother,’ Alexander said with a broad grin.

  Valentina sprang to her feet and they met in the middle of the book-lined room, hugging tightly. It was not behaviour that Mr Leavis would normally have tolerated, but Valentina was Valentina, and young Khairetis was half-Greek by birth, and the Greeks, as everyone knew, were an emotional race.

  Chapter Twenty-Eight

  The days they spent in New Orleans were to be etched in Valentina’s memory with searing brightness. Her son had become a companion. An exuberant, intelligent, fun-loving friend who teased her, showered her with affection, and instigated adventurous forays into the bayous and swamplands that surrounded the city.

  ‘But Alexander, there are alligators over there,’ she had protested when he had insisted that they take a trip by pirogue into the dim green world of overhanging mosses and whiskered trees.

  ‘And American bald eagles and Brown Pelicans and Catahoula Leopard Dogs,’ Alexander had said with relish.

  The eagles and leopard dogs had failed to appear, but they had glimpsed a pelican and Valentina had shuddered as their guide had lured an alligator to the surface of the sluggish bayou with a lump of meat pierced through the end of a pole.

  ‘Now it’s my turn to choose where we will sightsee,’ Valentina said determinedly the next day. ‘We’ll go on another boat trip, but an elegant boat trip. We’ll take a trip on one of the old paddle steamers.’

  ‘I think I would have enjoyed being a riverboat gambler,’ Alexander said, leaning against the rails of the Natchez with all the unconscious panâche of his father. ‘I would have lived in the Vieux Carré, drank mint juleps and sported a gold sateen waistcoat.’

  ‘I should never have taken you to see Gone with the Wind,’ Valentina said in amusement. ‘You’ve been modelling yourself on Clark Gable ever since.’

  ‘No, not Gable,’ Alexander said reflectively as he gazed down into the churning water. ‘If I were to model myself on anyone, it would be Vidal Rakoczi.’

  Valentina froze. She had still not told him about Vidal. A score of times she had framed the words but her courage had always failed her.

  ‘Why?’ she asked faintly.

  ‘I like him. I like the movies he directs. I like the way he works outside the system and not in it. He does what he wants to do. He sees things in a way other people don’t and it shows in his movies. That’s the sort of director that I want to be.’

  Now the moment had arrived. Her fingers tightened over the arms of her cane chair. ‘I never knew that you wanted to be a movie director,’ she said, wondering how he would react when he knew the truth.

  He turned to face her, leaning back on the rail with his elbows, his grin wide. ‘It’s all I’ve ever wanted to be. Ever since Ruby used to bring me to the theatre when you were rehearsing Hedda Gabler.’

  ‘Alexander, there’s something that I have to tell you.’ Her heart was racing. ‘I should have told you before, but…’ Her words were drowned as the all-black band picked up their instruments and the sound of jazz filled the air.

  ‘Aren’t they just great?’ Alexander said ecstatically, his tousled hair shining blue-black in the sun as he moved away from the rails. ‘I’m going down to hear them better. Just listen to that saxophone.’

  Valentina closed her eyes. The moment was past and gone. It would come again, and when it did she would be better prepared. She would not let her courage fail her again.

  ‘This is the deep south,’ Alexander said as they picnicked in the grounds of an antebellum mansion. ‘We should be eating jambalaya or bananas Foster or crabmeat salad,
not tucking into paté and Brie.’

  ‘Rubbish,’ Valentina said good-naturedly, reaching into the picnic basket for French bread and caviar.

  Alexander began to laugh. ‘You’re hopeless, Maman. No one picnics on Beluga caviar.’

  ‘I do,’ Valentina said firmly, ‘and champagne!’ Triumphantly she withdrew a bucket of crushed ice and a bottle of Lanson ’21.

  ‘This is some picnic,’ Alexander said, his eyes sparkling as he lounged on the grass by her side.

  ‘The champagne, young man,’ Valentina said in mock chastisement, ‘is not for you.’ She withdrew another bottle from the hamper and Alexander groaned. ‘This is yours.’

  ‘I loathe lemonade,’ he protested as she plunged it into the ice bucket with the champagne. ‘I’m eleven now. Surely I’m old enough for champagne?’

  ‘When I was eleven I…’ she began, laughing, and then halted in mid-sentence. When she had been eleven she had been living in the convent. She had not known that there were such things as champagne and caviar. Or that it was possible to love and to be loved.

  ‘What’s the matter, Maman?’ Alexander asked, the sparkle dying in his eyes as he reached a hand out to her in concern. Their fingers interlocked. ‘Nothing,’ she said, chasing the years away. ‘Just a silly memory.’

  ‘If it makes you sad, don’t think about it. Just think about how fantastic New Orleans is. How happy we are and how much I love you.’

  ‘I do,’ she said, the smile back in her eyes. ‘And for that gallant speech you deserve something a little more daring than lemonade. Open the champagne, Alexander. Let’s enjoy ourselves!’

  ‘Do I have to go back to school next week?’ Alexander asked a few days later as they strolled through the market in the French quarter.

  ‘I’m afraid so. I told Mr Leavis we would only be away for two weeks.’

  Alexander regarded the riot of fresh fruit and vegetables gloomily.

  ‘I much prefer it here with you,’ he said, pausing to buy some Louisiana oranges.

  ‘I prefer having you here with me,’ Valentina said, averting her gaze from some live crabs writhing on a fish stall, ‘but you would get terribly bored on your own all day and if I keep you away from school any longer, Mr Leavis might not take you back.’