Last Dance with Valentino, page 32
So here I am, with a skull that feels like it’s cracked in half. And I can do nothing now, but wait. And scribble. And wait.
I told Larry where I hid my cash. Told him to bring it down to the station and pay the damn bail. He said he couldn’t come before his shift was over, and he said he didn’t know when that would be. ‘Maybe tonight, maybe in the morning, maybe not till afternoon … Mark ain’t feeling so well … ’ Mark being who? I have no idea. The other lobby clerk, I suppose. But what else could I do?
‘Couldn’t you send the boy down with it?’ I said to Larry. ‘Casey! Couldn’t you send Casey down?’
Larry laughed. ‘Send the boy to a police station with a handful of cash?’ he said. ‘I’ll be down as soon as I can.’
And maybe he will, maybe he won’t. Maybe he’ll take the cash and stay right where he is. But I am not going to let it eat me, this uncertainty. They can’t keep me in here for ever. They can’t. Can they?
Chapter 23
1926
Hollywood–New York
He didn’t sign with us after all, of course. Despite all that fresh paint and caviar, he signed with Joe Schenk at United Artists, just as everyone, in their hearts, had always known he should and would. The contract he signed, thanks to Mr Ullman (I should love him for this if for nothing else), expressly forbade his hateful, meddlesome wife from being present on set at any point before, during or after filming. So I wasn’t the only person who detested the sight of her. Truth be told, everybody did.
As a sweetener to his wife, Rudy had insisted that she be given a film of her own to produce and star in. And I have to report that that particular piece of pretentious nonsense – What Price Beauty? – came and sank without anybody noticing it one way or the other. I went to see it with Lorna, one idle Saturday afternoon. We were the only people in the theatre.
I suppose Rudy’s deal with United put the final nail into the coffin of their marriage. She went off to Europe shortly afterwards: her royal tour of Silverman Studios, in that wonderful bonnet, was one of her last official appearances as Mrs Rudolph Valentino. Nobody was terribly shocked to hear the marriage had come to an end.
But I don’t want to dwell on it. Gossip and tittle-tattle. When I think of Natacha Rambova, the second Mrs Valentino, I can only think of Mrs de Saulles, a little taller and with a golden turban on her head. Both of them were among the most poisonous women in the world – and Rudy bedded them both. But then – to quote Miss Clara Bow – it ain’t thinning the field so great. Rudy does a lot of bedding.
He signed with United Artists and almost at once, or very shortly afterwards, he disappeared into the desert to shoot Son of the Sheik (written by Frances Marion, it so happens. I understand she was offered such a vast fortune to write it, and Rudy to star in it, that neither could resist). I think Mr Silverman was quite annoyed about that, after all the trouble he took. But there – Miss Marion has such power in this town she can do just about whatever she likes.
In any case there was quite a dull feeling about the studio for a while afterwards. The smell of fresh paint stuck in people’s nostrils – especially Mr Silverman’s, I should think. Everyone felt a little foolish.
Though not half so foolish as I felt. The moment he turned away from me that day, something inside me surrendered. I can’t think of any other way to put it. It was as if I aged fifty years, right there on the spot. As soon as we were left alone, Mr Silverman’s secretary asked me what had compelled me to barge into the office ‘at a time like this?’ and I said, ‘Oh nothing very much … ’
And I wandered back to my desk, one foot in front of the other. Jean delivered a reproachful lecture about girls-like-me remembering my place. I typed the letters I was supposed to type, delivered the tea I was told to deliver, packaged up the photoplays other people had written and sent them wherever I was told I should. And I went home, and I related to Phoebe and Lorna all that had happened during the day, and after that I didn’t mention his name again. Nor did they.
One foot in front of the other. Several weeks passed. A month. Maybe even two. They passed very slowly. I returned, yet again, to Idol Dreams, rewriting it, this time, as if to rewrite my memory of our friendship. It was a bitter draft, and I am glad I never showed it to anyone. But I was angry with myself, and with Rudy, too, for failing to live up to my dreams. And I was tired. Tired, tired, tired – tired of everything; tired of trying; tired of loving; tired of hoping; tired of being such a fool. And so the days passed. Another and then another, and they were all much the same, only each was a little greyer than the previous one.
Phoebe and Lorna, I tried my best to avoid. I cooked for them sometimes, in a feeble effort to please or to make my dull presence in their sparkling, generous lives at least a little less of a terrible drag … Not that they ever said a word of reproach. Not one.
Other than that I lay low, cranked my thin face into a smile when they entered the room, and slunk away as quickly as was politely possible thereafter. They had heard more than enough of my problems and, though I believed they would have helped had I asked them – had I the faintest idea how to be helped – I was determined not to bother them any more.
And then there came … one bright sunny morning just exactly three weeks ago.
There we were, Jean and I, sitting opposite one another, working away in our usual silence … and in walked William from the post room. He smiled at me. He always does. He said, ‘Two wires for you, Miss Nightingale.’
Jean put out a hand to receive them.
‘They’re for Miss Nightingale,’ he said.
‘All wires come to me first, William. You know that.’
He hesitated. Looked from the envelopes, to me, to Jean, shrugged, and handed them to Jean. She opened them right there in front of me. First one. And then the next.
I watched the familiar flush creep slowly from chest, to neck, to ears and cheeks and forehead. I saw her mouth tighten. She removed her spectacles and wiped her eyes. Replaced the spectacles; shot me an irritable glance.
‘You’re not supposed to receive personal correspondence here at the office,’ she said. ‘I thought you understood that, Lola.’
‘But I can’t help it if people send me things, can I?’
‘It’s not really the point.’
‘In any case, if they’re personal, you had better pass them over.’
‘I shall give them to you,’ she said, folding them and putting them away in the drawer of her desk, ‘when you leave this evening. Otherwise,’ and I do believe she smiled at that point, ‘there’ll be no sense out of you all day. Have you finished the letter for Mr Dryden? It needs to go before luncheon. Do hurry up.’
It was another half an hour before she needed to go to the bathroom, and the silly woman forgot to take the telegrams with her. I hurried across the room the moment she stepped into the hallway.
LOLA NIGHTINGALE
SILVERMAN STUDIOS
DARLING GIRL CONGRATULATIONS ADORE MALICIOUS INTENT STOP AM HOLED UP IN FLORIDA BUT RETURN ALGONQUIN NEW YORK 14 AUGUST STOP SUGGEST ACT IMMEDIATELY REGARDING WICKED PLEASURES STOP GOOD LUCK SO HAPPY TO BE PROVED RIGHT STOP SEE YOU IN NEW YORK
FRANCES MARION
That was the first wire. Numbly I turned to the second:
LOLA NIGHTINGALE
SILVERMAN STUDIOS
MR RUDOLPH VALENTINO HAS ASKED ME TO CONVEY TO YOU HIS GREAT ADMIRATION FOR YOUR SCENARIO WICKED PLEASURES WHICH HE IS KEEN TO DISCUSS WITH YOU AT YOUR EARLIEST CONVENIENCE STOP MR VALENTINO STRESSES HIS ENTHUSIASM AND URGENCY THEREFORE TAKEN LIBERTY OF BOOKING YOU ONTO TRAIN LEAVING MIDNIGHT 7 AUGUST LOS ANGELES NEW YORK STOP A ROOM IN YOUR NAME IS BOOKED AT HOTEL CONTINENTAL, BROADWAY AND 41ST STOP ANTICIPATING YOUR ARRIVAL 12 AUGUST STOP ALL EXPENSES BILLED TO MR VALENTINO’S OFFICE STOP SUGGEST TELEPHONING MYSELF HERE AT AMBASSAD OR HOTEL ON ARRIVAL STOP CONGRATULATIONS AND BON VOYAGE STOP GEORGE ULLMAN MANAGER TO MR VALENTINO
It was eleven thirty on the morning of 7 August. Three weeks due to leave in less than twelve hours.
I shan’t bother to write the details of my negotiations with Jean, who was furious to remember that I was owed plenty of leave, and quite wretched at having to admit that, though the office was busy, with none of our directors due to start shooting before October, my request to take it could not have landed at a better time.
Nor will I write of my own elation, which in any case cannot be properly conveyed on a sheet of paper. I remained at my desk for the rest of the day, though I was utterly incapable of working, until by five o’clock, Jean’s pleasure at waylaying me was outweighed by her irritation at the smile on my face. She could find no decent reason to detain me and so I left, promising to be back at my desk before the end of the month. Her parting words, as I left, were ‘It may be that your replacement will be too good to let go again, Lola. I sincerely hope it works out for you.’
‘That’s very sweet of you,’ I said.
Phoebe and Lorna were out when I reached home. They were filming, both of them, and weren’t due back until late. I packed my bags, pulled my savings from the box beneath my bed – $457 in all – and left them a long, loving letter, promising that if all worked out I would set about writing any number of photoplays exclusively for them to star in. I don’t suppose they believed me, but I will. I will.
There followed five long days across country. I’d not been back east since I’d left nine years ago, a different woman entirely, I thought. Not a woman at all, perhaps. And I wondered, on that endless journey, about the woman I had become.
I thought about Rudy, who hadn’t recognised me, who had promised me he would never forget me, who had promised me that he loved me, and that there would always be a part of his soul that would miss me – who had promised me that, and allowed me to believe it; I thought about how he had looked at me and failed to see me in Mr Silverman’s office, with his monstrous, gold-turbaned wife beside him, and his manager behind him, and everyone so desperate to please him: I thought of how I had written to him, one of the million fan letters he had received, and been fobbed off with so many damned portraits I could build a house with them – and of how I had come to Los Angeles, to the address he had sent me … and finally, after all the years of constancy, a slow, cold, hard anger began to grow.
Had he known, when he had ordered Mr Ullman to wire to me, for whom he was really sending? Of course he hadn’t! How could he? I have changed my name. The photoplay was given to him – in my presence – and with a handful of others, written by Miss Marion or by other strangers. How could he possibly know? And if he did, if he could recognise a small part of our shared story in the one I had written for him – would it mean anything to him at all? Or – that is to say – anything more than a warm laugh, a fond memory, a hug from an old friend?
I couldn’t tell which might have been worse, more hurtful: nothing, no memory of me at all (but that seemed impossible, even in his cluttered, eventful life. We had been friends. We had loved one another when nobody else did). Would that be worse? Or a warm memory that meant nothing to him: ‘Well, if it isn’t Jennifer Doyle. Look at you! How have you been? You changed your hair! What a small world!’
The thought of that, of a fond greeting and nothing more, after all these years – I couldn’t bear it. So much so, as the train rumbled forward, on and on, through the wide, empty, unchanging landscape, through an America I had all but forgotten, I wondered whether it wouldn’t be better simply to leap out onto the track and head back home again to my safe and pleasant job at the studio, before my replacement stole it from under my nose. Before Rudy, with his easy touch, his warmth, the glow of light that shone from him, broke my heart once and for all, and all over again, just as I was learning to live without him.
I’m not entirely certain what prevented me doing it. Of course, there was the meeting with Frances Marion, and all that it promised for my work, but I’m ashamed to say that it barely featured in my considerations. Over and over again, I replayed the scene in my head, where Rudy recognised me at last and, with his easy, magnetic warmth, wielded his careless axe at my very being.
Good God, is it … is it really … is it Jennifer? JENNIFER! Of course!
Ha ha ha! How extraordinary! And to think – Why, I’d quite forgotten – but how lovely to see you!
Come here, old girl – give me a hug!
But what an altogether amusing coincidence!
And quite pretty too!
Do you know, Jennifer, what with all my wives and lovers and riches and stardom and the worldwide adoration and the vast fortune I have amassed and all that utterly silly stuff, I’d quite forgotten – I must admit I’d absolutely
entirely
and completely
forgotten
You ever lived!
It was with a mixture of rage, misery and dread that once again I stayed alone in my carriage for most of the journey. I didn’t jump off the train. I did not turn around and scurry home. Of course not. How could I have done? But I did conceive of a plan.
Since I was en route now, to meet a man I had loved unceasingly for ten years, and who, when last we met, had looked me straight in the eye and failed to recognise me, it seemed there was only one way I could make our inevitable reunion bearable. I have changed a great deal in any case of course since the days he first knew me: with my short blonde permanently waved hair, my Americanised accent and my Americanised walk, my stick-thin body and my lipstick and rouge and shaped eyebrows and kohled eyes. There are times when I wonder if I would recognise myself. With the help of a cloche hat pulled low over my forehead I realised I could get through our entire encounter as a stranger. It was not ideal, but it was preferable to the passionless, easy warmth he would offer me as an old friend. I couldn’t have borne that.
I took the subway to the hotel, dropped my luggage and, before even taking a shower, set out along Broadway to fix myself up with some kind of a disguise.
But then with so many dollars in my pocket and New York at my disposal, I wound up getting a little carried away: I purchased several new dresses and two new pairs of shoes and various other things – a set of long beads with earrings to match – because a person can still want to look attractive even if she’s in disguise, and then a wonderful hat, which I intended to wear pulled as far down over my face as possible; and finally (which purchase dismayed me rather, but I felt was essential if my heart was not to break) a pair of wire-rimmed eyeglasses. At length – and dripping with the August heat – I returned to the hotel and left my messages: one for Frances Marion at the Algonquin, though I knew she wasn’t due in New York for several days, and, finally, one for Mr Ullman at the Ambassador.
His secretary called back within the hour. I was to make my way to the Ambassador Hotel by five o’clock.
Mr Valentino would be waiting for me.
Two hours, then. Twelve blocks of hot and noisy New York streets to trample through. And two hours. I took a shower, and though the water ran hot, and the weather was sweltering, I couldn’t prevent myself shivering. My hands shook so badly I could not do the buttons of my new dress, until finally I had to give up on it altogether and put on another instead. The problem (of my shaking hands) was even more acute when it came to painting my face, which was quite waxy with the heat. By the time I was ready to leave, my whole body shook. It took me several attempts before I could hold the bedroom doorknob firmly enough to turn it. And then, in the lobby, I realised I had come down without my purse and had to go back up again, and down again, and up again, because I had forgotten to bring a copy of the scenario.
I resisted the strong temptation to take a slurp from my hip flask. I resisted that. But then, as I knew time was ticking by and I was already late, and I had been up and down to the lobby twice already, and Larry at the desk was already giving me the queerest of looks, I sat on the edge of my small bed and smoked one last cigarette; the last cigarette – so it felt, though I’m not certain why – of a condemned woman. One way or another, I realised that my life, after this meeting, would probably never be the same.
Perhaps, I thought – it seemed unimaginable – but perhaps, perhaps, his stardom had distorted him or distorted my memory – or both. Perhaps I would spy him this afternoon, from beneath my disguise, and see straight through him – and wonder at whatever I had loved in him, whatever I had been dreaming about all these years. And what miraculous liberation it would be! To be set free at last! And not only free (lest I forget) but on my way to a successful career as a Hollywood screenwriter.
I considered the scenario I had written so long ago and which, out of nowhere, was about to change my life. It was my twenty-eighth, I’d calculated on the train from Los Angeles (if you only counted the completed ones) and until now a long way from my favourite. I had started it – written the first of innumerable drafts – while I was living at Citrus Avenue with Perry.
The story was about Rudy, I suppose. Indirectly. It occurs to me that everything I have ever written is about Rudy, or a version of Rudy, or Rudy and me, or Rudy without me. This one was a simple story – called Wicked Pleasures. It tells the tale of a young, ambitious immigrant arriving penniless in New York, whose talent as a musician – a violinist – leads to his falling in with a fast, rich, society set. Finding himself dazzled by the swirl of decadence and debauchery around him, he briefly abandons his ambition and falls in love with a rich man’s beautiful wife – who persuades him to do something terrible to protect her from ruin. It saves her, but leads him to the brink of ruin instead, until finally his talent, ambition and newly acquired worldly wisdom combine to pull him back from the brink again … A simple story with a happy ending. He might just as well have been a talented and ambitious dancer. Wicked Pleasures was about loneliness, of course, and the perniciousness of glamour: two subjects that were bound to be close to Rudy’s heart. Nevertheless, I wondered what it was about the story that had so drawn him to it, and with such urgency, too.
