Living With Miss G (21 page)

When it was finished it had a swimming pool that gleamed blue in the hot
sunshine. Far away you could see low hills, and there were a lot of grass and
flower beds. There was Spanish contoured mahogany furniture, a bit heavy for
my taste, and Spanish oak and polished walnut. There were lots of shelves filled
with books with bright covers. There were more records than we could have
listened to if we’d lived to be a hundred. Our collection of Frank Sinatra must
have dated from his first baby squawk to his tuneful middle age. There was a big
kitchen full of electric devices, polished brass pans hanging on the walls, and
big jars and bottles of wine stacked on the shelves.

La Bruja was a bit of a madhouse when the cartons and cases and bundles
began arriving from the States and, so it seemed, went on arriving forevermore.
At first they were stacked so high in the rooms that even the building contractors
couldn’t get inside to work.

We had one interesting “adventure” during this period. A rather snobby
couple we knew–I shall refer to them as the Senor and Senora because of the
complexity attached to this adventure. They owned a yacht, an opulent vessel,
and they were going cruising along the North African coast. Would we like to
come? We said yes, and there were two other guest couples.

We could have called our voyage “The Mystery of the Ships That Pass in
the Night.” The only trouble with our ships was they came right in close and
nestled against us. To start with, we sailed along very happily. We sunbathed,
took trips ashore at the small ports and town, changed our money at the banks,
and had a lovely time wasting it on useless trinkets. We drank the local wine and
ate meals at a lot of funny restaurants. We had a fine time. Back on board, there
were more drinks and a great deal of fresh air.

The first time we were alerted that something fishy might be going on
occurred one night after dinner. We were standing on the highest deck looking
over a dark sea, the shore lights a couple of miles away, the sky shimmering
with stars, and the breeze balmy–millionaire stuff.

“Hey,” said Miss G, “isn’t that a boat heading this way?” She pointed her
finger.
It looked like a small trawler or fishing boat, but its masthead and red and
green navigation lights were practically invisible. It came alongside and we
watched as one of those special landing ladders was lowered. Two guys carrying
cases jumped aboard and slipped in through a hatch two decks below us. Fifteen
minutes later they departed with the same silent speed, and the boat disappeared
into the darkness.
“Can’t be the pilot,” said Miss G frowning.
“Special dispatches for the captain, perhaps?” I said.
“They usually use a ship-to-shore radio for that sort of stuff,” said Miss G.
Every night after that we went up on top deck for a breath of fresh air stroll
and continued our detective work. Other mysterious boats paid us calls. Our
shore trips were irregular, but we did notice that the other guests always seemed
to be slipping away to “go to the bank.”
“For Christ sakes,” said Miss G, “they never buy anything ashore and they
can’t spend a single peseta aboard, so what are they doing?” She paused and
then went on. “I think they’re drawing money out, not putting it in.”
I said, “That isn’t unusual when you are on holiday.”
Miss G said, “Rene, let’s write the plot. Darkened boats come alongside;
mysterious men carrying cases jump aboard; mysterious men jump back onto
boats and sail off again. Now what is going on?”
“Drugs,” I guessed.
“Well, it sure as hell ain’t the white slave trade,” said Miss G. “That’s only
still going on in Hollywood.”
I said, “Is it any of our business?”
“Honey, we don’t want to be mixed up in this sort of scenario if what we
think is going on is going on,” replied Miss G.
“But we are stuck aboard this boat,” I reasoned.
“No, we are not,” said Miss G. “Next boat that comes alongside, we are
hitching a lift ashore.”
“Miss G,” I said trying to sound brave, “Isn’t that dangerous jumping
aboard a drug smuggler’s boat? It’s something for the movies.” Then to make
my point clear, “Why the hell invite us for a cruise when they’re doing this sort
of thing?”
Miss G shot back immediately, “because we are great cover, Rene. Who is
going to suspect drug smuggling when this is obviously only a fun-loving cruise
with that fun-loving Miss Ava Gardner as one of the party.”
“It would make some headline,” I said.
“Yeah, and get me barred from the States for the rest of my life.”
“Include me in that,” I said.
I still did not like the idea of a trip ashore in a drug smuggler’s boat. What
was to prevent them from tying an anchor around our necks and dropping us
overboard? I tried my last defensive ploy. “But, Miss G, what about the
luggage?”
“Leave the luggage,” answered Miss G, dismissing her eighteen suitcases
as if they were something she just carried Kleenex tissues in. “Just bring the
jewelry case.” The case held Miss G’s rings, necklaces, bracelets and the bits
and pieces she loved; about ninety thousand dollars’ worth in all. It also
contained our passports and credit cards.
I guess I sounded dismal. “Right,” I said. Miss G recognized my
apprehension, but remained resolute.
“Rene,” she said soberly, “there’s no other way. For all we know Interpol
might have a customs patrol boat tailing us waiting to catch us in the act.”
I thought that was over-dramatizing it a bit, but it didn’t make me feel any
better. I’ve got to admit, however, that when the opportune moment arrived,
Miss G handled our escape plan with great assurance. First, she sprung it upon
the Senor and Senora at the very last minute–the minute we saw the navigation
lights of the “next boat” approaching. The Senor and Senora were in the bar
with quite a few drinks inside them when Miss G marched in.
“Can you ask the captain of the supply boat to hang for a couple of minutes
to take us ashore?” she said airily. ”Rene and I thought we would have dinner in
a little café, find a small hotel and start shopping early tomorrow morning. We’ll
meet you when you come ashore tomorrow. It would be nice to be by ourselves
for a few hours, okay?”
So how could they stop us? Two dim innocents going ashore for a bit of
fun.
The message was passed down, and the guys aboard the trawler helped us
onto their craft. It was hard to distinguish their faces in the darkness. As we
chugged in towards the lights on the shore, the breeze was a bit chilly, but as we
nosed into the shelter of the small harbor we were pleased to see a circular quay
ringed with bright shops and cafes. We had struck lucky. Once ashore, we
walked at ease among the strolling population. From that day to this, we have
never known exactly where we were. We never did bother about such
unimportant details. As far as we were concerned, it was forever “some little
joint along the North African coastline.”
“We need a drink,” said Miss G heading towards a vacant table at an
outside open air café. People at the other tables were the normal Mediterranean
assortment and seemed quite relaxed and happy. A dark-skinned waiter trotted
up, and Miss G ordered anise with ice. Then she said to me, looking around, “A
bit like the set of Casablanca, Rene, huh?”
I said, “I’ve got the jewelry case tight between my knees under the table in
case Humphrey Bogart or Sydney Greenstreet happen along.”
We both grinned. After the fifth drink we were both relaxed, and Miss G
looked at me over the rim of her glass and said, “Glad to be ashore shipmate?”
Our “adventure” was almost over. Miss G waved a hand at the guy behind
the bar. “ I think that’s the patron. He’s giving us the eye. He’ll know the
whereabouts of a cute little hotel.” He did, and the hotel was comfortable, the
rest of the night uneventful. The next morning, we did not go shopping. We
hired a taxi and told him to take us to the nearest airport. Direct flights to
Madrid were no problem.
Our sudden disappearance aroused little interest. It was accepted as one of
those abrupt turnabouts for which Miss G was renowned. Back in Madrid, our
luggage appeared on our La Bruja doorstep about ten days later. Our
relationship with Senor and Senora was still affable, but we met them less
frequently. No mention of our sudden flight was ever made, and we formulated
only one resolution for the foreseeable future: we were sticking to dry land.
A regular feature in our social life during those summer months was the
Sunday afternoon bullfights. Miss G had been first indoctrinated by Papa
Hemingway and his book,
Death in the Afternoon
. Also, as she was now for all
intents and purposes the past mistress of the best matador in Spain, Luis Miguel
Dominguin, our status in bullfighting circles was akin to that of royalty. I know
that Miss G never ever thought of herself as anyone’s mistress; quite the
opposite in fact. If there was a jailhouse factor in any relationship, Miss G was
in charge of it.
Luis Miguel, during that long love affair with Miss G, had been recovering
from a goring he had sustained in the bull ring and was wondering if he should
retire permanently. In 1959 he did decide to return to his hazardous occupation
and fight in a series of mano-a-mano exhibitions against Antonio Ordonez. The
winner was the matador who performed best in the killing of six bulls. He made
bullfighting history. They were documented by Papa Hemingway in one of his
last books,
The Dangerous Summer
.
We were given the best seats on the shady side of the arena and
anesthetized ourselves against the sight of bloody violence by a steady intake of
strong drink. It steadied our nerves. It also blunted the inward agony we both
suffered at the sight of those magnificent animals being slaughtered.
The pageantry was brilliant, the atmosphere electrifying, the bullfighter’s
skill often breathtaking. Ostensibly Miss G became an aficionado. She knew all
the right phrases. She moved in a clique of other aficionados. She adored
associating with this company of men of immense courage. She was hypnotized
by the grace of the sweeping capes, the pirouettes, the drama of the killings and
the lethal risks. I always believed it was one of her best acting parts, a part she
tried hard to turn into reality. I can also remember the occasions when I
accompanied her to the ladies’ room to be physically sick at the sight she had
just witnessed. Long after she had abandoned all association with bullfighting,
she said often, “I don’t know how I managed to watch it all. I really don’t.”
We were even admitted to the bullfighters’ dressing rooms to watch them
arrayed in their ceremonial costumes. I lost count of the number of times when,
after the playing of music, the blasting of trumpets and the opening scenes
completed, a matador would offer his three-cornered hat and dedicate a portion
of the bull he was going to fight to Miss G. It was either an ear, a hoof or a tail.
Usually, she got the ear. Oh God, she collected so many ears we could have
opened an ear museum. What could we do with them, nail them above the
mantelpiece? No way!
I remember on one occasion we arrived back at La Bruja with me carrying
three ears. We had hardly got through our front door before a party of her posh
friends, hard on our heels, crashed in behind us. We had reached the drawing
room, and I gasped to Miss G, “What the hell do I do with these bloody things?”
Miss G gestured at the settee. “Stick them behind the cushion over there.
Quick!” I raced across and stuffed two large cushions over the hairy
monstrosities. I straightened up as a large and beaming Spanish matron came
through the door and headed in my direction. I realized she thought I was
straightening the cushions for her. She plopped down between Miss G and me.
We managed to weather that incident. Other incidents we could not weather.
With Miss G’s arrival in Madrid’s social scene as a famous, beautiful
Hollywood film star, she began to find she had made a great number of friends.
Some were very pleasant people; a few were a pain in the rear end. Two of our
nicest friends who lived out at Moraleja near us were Richard and Betty Secrist.
They had five kids and were very helpful in every way. Betty and Miss G
remained good friends for the rest of their lives.
Other lady friends, many of them ex-patriot Americans, influenced Miss G
in a way I hardly believed possible. I suppose I could mark this change in her as
beginning on the day when she marched into the drawing room where I was
cleaning up and sounded off.
She began, “Rene, I am a film star. Is that correct?”
I put the duster down. “Miss G, you are a film star.”
“Rene, you will admit that here in Spain I am treated like a queen?”
I sat down on the nearest chair. What was she up to? This sounded as
though it might take quite a while. “Miss G, in Spain you are treated like a
queen.”
“But over in the States because of the parts I play I am treated like a
whore.”
This was getting positively loony. I screwed up my face in protest. “Miss
G I don’t think that’s correct.”
“Well, I do. And now I know I’m a film star. I’m going to act like a film
star.” The film star flounced out of the room.
Betty Secrist, an American but very knowledgeable about Spain, had
managed to find us a pleasant husband and wife combination who were
employed to look after the household in general. My job, as usual, was general
factotum looker-after-Miss G and second-in-command. We also had a couple of
gardeners and a variety of other people around the house.
Now the newly crowned “film star” took over. In a tantrum one day she
sacked the husband and wife team. Over the next few weeks in similar film-star
tantrums she sacked a selection of other household staff. I could not believe that
this was the Miss G I knew. Even to this day I have difficulty reconciling what
was happening during these months. If I had to hazard a guess, it was a Miss G
trying subconsciously to face up to the lifestyle she had chosen.
Brazenly and publicly she had abandoned America and her film career. She
had given herself no room to maneuver. She had enough money. She was
footloose and fancy-free. Now an unknown future frightened her. She had
always worked. From the time when she was a tot she had been given small
duties which increased as she grew older: picking the bugs off the tobacco
plants, helping to get in the wood as winter approached, milking the cow,
leading home the mule. Then there came school. Her Mama ran a country
teacherage–lodgings and food for eight young school mistresses. Miss G lived
with them so she had no chance of dodging her homework or her chores. Mama
kept a shrewd eye on her youngest and most precious, seeing that she was busy.
Even when MGM whisked her away to Hollywood she was on duty from early
morning to five thirty in the evening: makeup, hairdressing, rehearsals, the
picture gallery, making movies. Now, God help her, she could lead the life of a
film star.
We were still receiving boxes and cartons from the United States
containing sufficient household material to equip a small hotel. Confusion
continued as Miss G’s inclination was to act as if she was the captain of a slave
ship in the middle of a hurricane. She also insisted on maintaining her sequence
of flamenco nights on the town with me in close attendance. Forty-eight-hour
days were commonplace.
Before the final shipwreck occurred, one should know a little about the
general atmosphere in Spain in the fifties. Franco, after the bloody and bitter
civil war that had started in 1936, was still firmly in power. His dictatorial clout
was massive. Law and order and the authority of the Catholic Church were
rigorously enforced. Nowadays the sunlit beaches of Spain are crowded with
comely topless girls enjoying displaying their nubile body language. In those
days such exhibition meant instant arrest. If you stole an automobile in Spain in
the fifties you went to jail for fifteen years. The result was no one stole
automobiles in Spain. Franco had restored the monarchy and aristocratic
privileges. Professional classes were top of the heap. The large and influential
middle class that exists today was only very slowly emerging. Servants and
peasants were still down in the straw. You could maintain, without much serious
contradiction, that Spain was probably the last great European power to be
dragged slowly into the twentieth century.