A Woman of Integrity

by J David Simons

  Chapter Eighteen

  The Hepburn Archives

  Extract from an unpublished memoir

  I still rented the flat in Pimlico with the little money I had left over from The Woman Walks Free. It was an empty, lonely place with Max gone and room-mate Lucy married and moved out. There had been a terrible flood that winter and my property, close to the Thames as it was, had just managed to escape undamaged. Somehow the threat of those dirty swollen waters lapping at my doorstep summed up the darkness at the edges of my moods. Even when I found the energy to extricate myself from my bed and the flat, the streets were awfully dull and quiet. I think the area was populated mainly by civil servants who led sombre and secret lives. The jazz clubs and dance halls in the city centre were packed but London in all its imperial magnificence offered me nothing. Hubert Hoffstetter had been right in one respect though. The talkies killed off the silent movies. Al Jolson in The Jazz Singer – the first full length feature film with synchronised sound – had taken the city by storm. But the last thing I felt like doing was going into the West End to see it. Instead, I finally convinced myself to take the train down to Five Elms Down to visit my mother.

  ‘You don’t look well, Georgie,’ she told me almost as soon as I had entered the cottage. She began to trim a bunch of flowers recently plucked from her garden. In the years since my father had died, she had this tendency only to speak to me when she was distracted by doing something else.

  ‘I’m tired. That’s all.’

  ‘Are you still stepping out with that Jew?’

  ‘That finished over a year ago. I told you that already.’

  She started to arrange the flowers in a tall glass vase. Freesias, long-stemmed roses, baby’s breath, she was really good at that kind of thing. ‘I never liked them,’ she said.

  ‘Freesias?’

  ‘Jews.’

  ‘What Jews do you know? There are certainly none around here.’

  ‘Just as well then.’ She stood back to view her handiwork. ‘Are you staying for long?’

  ‘I’m not sure.’

  ‘I have a schedule, you know. The Women’s Institute. The church, of course. I can’t be expected to stop everything at the drop of a hat. When you turn up like this with hardly any notice.’

  ‘I realise that.’

  ‘Will you be going over to see your Aunt Ginny and the new baby?’

  ‘I came to see you.’

  My words actually made my mother stop on her journey between sorting out the flowers in the vase and some as yet undefined task. ‘I see,’ she said. ‘Well, I went over.’

  ‘Why wouldn’t you? You have a niece now.’

  ‘I never know what to say,’ she said picking up a dust rag. ‘I don’t really like them very much when they’re that age.’

  I was tempted to say that she didn’t really like them very much at any age. Instead I asked: ‘How is she?’

  ‘Oh, you know what she’s like. Takes these things in her stride. She’s always been good at that.’

  ‘I meant the baby. Susan.’

  My mother picked up a photograph of my father, wiped the glass. A pilot in his uniform. ‘As I said. I never know what to say. I did take her over some of your old dresses.’

  ‘You’ve kept my baby things?’

  ‘Why not? Someone in the family was going to need them at some time. Shame to waste.’

  I stayed for a week. I went for long walks on the Downs, visited places my father used to take me to, my mood would lift from the fresh air, the views and the exercise only to be brought down again as soon as I returned to the cottage. My mother’s comments went something like this, often repeated throughout my stay:

  ‘I’m so pleased your acting days are over,’ she said as she boiled up a pot of raspberries for her jam jars. ‘Simply not the right kind of vocation for any decent young woman.’

  And while she stitched away at her embroidery. ‘Dorothy Wheatley finally got married last month. You remember Dorothy? She was in your class at school. To think I was barely eighteen when I was wed.’

  Or when I helped her prune the roses. ‘It’s a pity you didn’t let me teach you properly about working with flowers. A florist is a good job for a young woman these days. Missus Dorward’s daughter helps her out in the shop now.’

  Or during her evening tea and biscuits. ‘I see Robbie Longland has returned to the village. His mother’s not so well, needs looking after. And appreciates the company as well, no doubt.’

  I could never work out whether these were simply throw-away remarks that I in my vulnerable state took as veiled criticisms or if she was really trying to upset me. She never mentioned my father even though his presence still looked out at us from the various photographs displayed throughout the house. Ten years after his death and his clothes still hung in the bedroom wardrobe. Eventually I had to stop my mother in whatever task she was engaged in, got her to sit down and listen to me properly.

  ‘What’s happened to us?’ I asked.

  My mother fiddled with her wedding ring. ‘What do you mean? We get on just fine.’

  ‘You never talk to me.’

  ‘We talk all the time.’

  ‘You don’t even look at me when you are speaking.’

  She raised her eyes from her fiddling. I could see her desperately trying to hold my gaze from behind her spectacles. It was a fearful look. ‘What do you want to talk about?’

  ‘About you and me. After Papa died.’

  ‘What is it you want to know?’

  ‘You seemed to disappear from me then.’

  ‘I disappeared from you? Where were you when suddenly I had a house to run, bills to pay? I’ll tell you. Out with that Polly… what’s her name? Both your heads full of nonsense about being stars of the silver screen? Look where it’s got you, Georgie. Just look where it’s got you.’ My mother stood up, smoothed down her apron. ‘I have too much to do,’ she announced before disappearing into the kitchen.

  I returned to London feeling worse than when I had left. I had reached rock bottom. That was exactly how it felt. Such a cliché. To reach a point from where it was not possible to descend further. To arrive at that hard pebble of a place inside myself where nothing else could hurt me. Nowadays I would probably have been diagnosed with depression. Back then I was said to be suffering from melancholia. Or nerves. Such a woman’s complaint. Especially for one without a husband, children or any hope for the future. Rock bottom. From where there was nowhere else to go but up. Or out. To leave this world behind. But what I discovered was that having been stripped naked by my despair, I actually possessed the strength and will to rebuild myself. It was a resilience, an emotional and mental toughness, an inner strength that I felt had been instilled into me by my father. The power to start again. To start again armed with the knowledge that having descended into this deep and dark place, I had the ability to survive. That there was nothing left in this world that could defeat me. Yes, I could start again. But how would I do this? And then it came to me. It was so obvious. So bloody obvious. It was, as my dear Papa used to say, a universal truth.

  Chapter Nineteen

  The Play’s the Thing

  Laura had not slept well but somehow she had awoken full of energy. Or was it just the backed-up flow of frustration? She had argued with Sal all the way back to London on the basis he had not handled Quentin at all well.

  ‘You could see he’s a delicate being,’ she had said. ‘He needed to be caressed not mauled into giving us what we wanted.’

  Sal had laughed at that, pressed down harder on the accelerator, swerved into the outside lane. ‘Delicate being?’ he shouted into the wind. ‘Delicate being? Well, if you call a toad a delicate being I suppose he is. But that guy… there’s something… I don’t know… he’s the trustee of Georgie’s estate after all… he should be trying to promote her memory. Not erasing it.’

  ‘That’s very American of you. Marketing her memory.’

  ‘And that’s very Eng
lish of you. All this pussy-footing around. Getting us nowhere.’

  Either way, Sal was right. They had gotten nowhere. And now, that brief feeling of elation she had experienced at finally being able to take on her dream project was slowly evaporating. She decided not to think about it. Instead, she would use all this pent-up energy to do some gardening. She would start by retrieving her mobile phone from the fish pond. She had already bought a new one which now sat on her patio table. But she worried that some kind of chemical corrosion or seepage from the battery of her old one could be destroying her poor carp. Although they seemed to be swimming around healthily enough. She rolled up a sleeve, was just about to plunge her arm into the water when the message alert went off on her new phone. She hesitated. Probably Sal with an apology. Let him wait then. She looked down at the green slime, then stood up, walked over to the patio table. A text from Quentin Holloway. There had been an exchange of numbers before they had left his manor house but somehow she couldn’t imagine Quentin in his dressing gown and cravat punching out letters on a tiny keypad. Yet here he was:

  ‘Coming to London Thursday. Meet for lunch? Members Room. Tate Modern. 1 PM. Q.’

  She immediately called Sal.

  ‘He’s all yours,’ he told her.

  ‘What do you mean, he’s all mine?’

  ‘I’ve gotta get back to the States to edit my film.’

  ‘When did your pet project become my pet project?’

  ‘When I realised how desperate you were.’

  ‘That’s not fair.’

  ‘I guess it isn’t. But you’ll do a good job. Passion and desperation are good qualities to bring to the table.’

  ‘I thought we were in this together.’

  ‘Don’t worry. I’ll be back over here as soon as possible. In the meantime, I’m sure you can hold the fort with Quentin. He’s only a delicate being after all.’

  ‘Maybe he just wants lunch.’

  ‘I doubt it.’

  So there she was, back down south of the river, twice in the space of a week. She was surprised at Quentin’s choice of venue. She would have put him down as a Tate Britain kind of gallery member. Or better still, the Royal Academy. But a patron of the industrial cathedral that was Tate Modern? She didn’t think that was his style at all.

  She managed her arrival so that she was ten minutes late but to her annoyance discovered Quentin hadn’t turned up either. She was able to persuade the door attendant to let her into the Members’ Room and was led to a reserved table with breath-taking views of the Thames and St Paul’s, the Inns of Court, Unilever House and the rest of the skyline she considered as her London. She tended to ignore the new London to the east with its Docklands, gherkins, shards and domes spreading upriver in all its youthful exuberance. She sat down, was just about to pretend she had some important emails to deal with when Quentin arrived. He was dressed in a cream suit draped over an open-necked Hawaiian shirt that was printed in deep blue with large white floral patterns. He wore a pink rose in his lapel, held a straw sunhat in one hand, a briefcase in the other. She had been mistaken. Tate Modern was an ideal venue for him. She stood up to greet him.

  ‘I hope you don’t mind sitting inside on such a beautiful day,’ he said, kissing her on both cheeks without an apology for his lateness. ‘But I find these marble benches out on the deck quite uncomfortable. And I do want that we should be comfortable for our little chat.’

  ‘So we’re having a little chat?’

  ‘And a very pleasant lunch I hope.’

  They agreed to skip the starters, they both opted for the hake as a main, Quentin suggested a white Burgundy (Chassagne-Montrachet 2011). When the wine came, Quentin raised and clinked his glass with hers.

  ‘To Aunt Georgie,’ he said.

  ‘To Aunt Georgie.’

  ‘If you don’t mind me saying,’ he said. ‘You do look a bit like her.’

  ‘So I’ve been told.’

  ‘Is that what attracted you to her? The likeness.’

  ‘It was the other way around. She made such a huge impression on me when I was young. So I guess my face tried to morph itself into hers.’

  He laughed at that. ‘I think you would make a wonderful Georgie. You have the same sense of humour.’

  ‘I thought that wasn’t going to happen.’

  Quentin pulled his briefcase on to his lap, extracted a rather bulky envelope.

  ‘Are these her papers?’ she asked excitedly.

  ‘No. These are my papers.’

  ‘What do you mean?’

  Quentin placed the envelope by his side-plate. ‘This is my play,’ he said with an affectionate pat on the manila.

  ‘I don’t understand.’

  ‘I told you I was writing a play.’

  ‘I think you did mention it.’

  ‘Well, here it is.’

  ‘I see.’

  ‘It is called Maimonides.’

  ‘Maimonides?’

  ‘He was a famous philosopher from around the twelfth century.’

  ‘So this is a play about him?’

  ‘Not so much about him as about his philosophy. He is well known for what is commonly called his doctrine of negative attributes.’ Quentin paused, pulled back to give her a schoolmasterly stare with those little eyes of his. ‘Have you heard about him before?’

  ‘I’m afraid twelfth century philosophers weren’t on the curriculum at my drama school.’

  Quentin sniffed in a manner that suggested perhaps they should have been and then went on. ‘In his doctrine of negative attributes, Maimonides says you should think of God in terms of what He isn’t, rather than what He is. Do you believe in God, Laura?’

  ‘Not really.’ Why were people asking her all these questions recently? Did she want to know when she was going to die? Did God exist? ‘What I mean is that I don’t know.’

  Quentin folded his hands under his chin. ‘I see. Well, Maimonides thought that if you try to describe God positively – in terms of what He is – then you merely end up limiting the limitless by your language and your concept.’

  ‘I have no idea what you are talking about.’

  ‘In simple terms, it means that if you say God is good, you are limiting God by your definition and idea of what ‘good’ is. It would be better to say ‘God is not bad’ because the concept of what is ‘not bad’ is limitless.’ Quentin spread his arms as if to indicate the infinite nature of God and the universe. ‘Such is the doctrine of negative attributes.’

  Laura sipped her wine as she pondered what had been said. The aroma was discreet, hints of citrus and vanilla, exactly as described on the wine list. No negative attributes about it. Suitably refreshed, she ventured. ‘So, instead of saying God is powerful, I should say God is not weak.’

  ‘Exactly.’

  ‘God is not cruel. Rather than God is merciful.’

  ‘Correct again.’

  ‘And what has this got to do with your play?’

  ‘Well my play uses this doctrine of negative attributes as a kind of fun metaphor. Not that my play is a comedy exactly. Perhaps you could say it is a dark comedy.’

  ‘Or not a light drama.’

  ‘That is very funny, Laura. I’ve already said you share Aunt Georgie’s sense of humour. Ah look, here comes our food. Some more wine?’

  She shook her head. ‘Look, Quentin. Can you just tell me what is going on here?’

  ‘We are hopefully having a pleasant lunch.’

  ‘You know what I mean.’ It was her turn to pat the manila envelope.

  ‘I have a proposition to make to you. And to your American friend.’

  ‘And that is?’

  ‘I would like you to arrange for a proper run-through of my play with professional actors.’

  ‘Really?’

  ‘Yes. And I would like it all to be properly filmed in the same way as you intend to make your documentary about Aunt Georgie.’

  ‘That’s quite a large undertaking. What’s in it for
me?’ My God, she thought, I’m beginning to sound like Sal.

  Quentin sat back smugly in his chair, placed his hands into a steeple formation. ‘In exchange, I will permit you access to all of the Hepburn archives. Everything. Absolutely everything. Free of charge. Gratis.’

  Chapter Twenty

  The Hepburn Archives

  Extract from an unpublished memoir

  As with the century, I was also thirty at the beginning of that particular decade. Like almost all women of my age and of my era, I should have been married with a family rather than being a lonely spinster. My mother – as she was so proud of telling me – was only eighteen when she gave birth to me. But I had learned a very important lesson during the Roaring Twenties. And that was I would no longer rely on fame or the vagaries of men to make me happy. I was a strong, healthy, intelligent and independent woman. I was determined not to let anyone or anything undermine my worth. I was going to live to my full potential. I was going to fly.

  With some financial assistance from my dear, ever-supportive Aunt Ginny and the gift of flying time from a couple of wartime pilots turned flight trainers who had flown with my late father, I took my certificate out of Hanworth Club in Hounslow on a de Havilland 60G Gipsy Moth in June 1931. The Moth was an aircraft not that dissimilar from the Sopwith Camel my father flew when he was shot down over the Western Front. It was still a flimsy open-cockpit bi-plane, its wings and fuselage made mostly out of plywood and fabric, but the engine was lighter and extremely reliable. It was also a two-seater which made it ideal for training purposes and gave room for a co-pilot on those long flights. I discovered I had a real sense for manoeuvring a craft within three dimensions rather than two (I didn’t learn to drive a motor car until much later) and it didn’t take me long to get my wings.

  However, if you think I was some kind of female pioneer in what has become known as the Golden Age of Flight you would be most mistaken. There were so many brave and wonderful women aviators in those heady days, I think nearly one hundred and fifty of us had licences by then. Dear Amy Johnson, of course, she was probably the most famous but there were lots of others too. The fearless Pauline Gower, the glorious and notorious Beryl Markham, that beautiful Kiwi, Jean Batten, and the irreverent speedster Mildred Bruce. And how could I forget the formidable Mary Russell, the ‘Winged’ Duchess of Bedford, who learned to fly at the ripe old age of sixty-one? Or Winnie Brown, the Lancashire butcher’s daughter, the first woman to win the King’s Cup, the 700 miles air-race around England?