Secrets From the Past (21 page)

My own special remembrances of Dad were many, but I chose to talk about the endless hours, days, weeks and months he had spent training me to keep myself safe on the front line: how to dodge bullets, cleverly hide myself if necessary, and how to know when it was vital to vacate a combat zone, PDQ.

This was not one of the stories that made anyone laugh, but they listened attentively, which pleased me.

There was a certain stillness around the table when I’d finished, and I knew that Harry, Zac and Geoff were suddenly thinking of their own experiences, and remembering a lot.

Just after this, breaking the quiet mood that surrounded us, Jessica lifted her glass, and said, ‘Here’s a toast to Mom, Tommy’s other half.’

‘And the lynchpin of his life,’ Harry added, lifting his wine glass, as we all did.

After the toast, Cara said, ‘She was the lynchpin of our lives as well. Mom was Mother Earth, always there for us, and she never let her fame or career get in the way. She was always our mother, occasionally a movie star. And she had one rule, which was never broken. We were never allowed to be in the limelight, never photographed. We remained anonymous. She protected us in that way, because she wanted us to be safe.’

Jessica looked across at me, and then glanced around the table. She said, ‘As the youngest, Serena got away with murder. And since she was also a bit cheeky, plus intrepid, she asked Mom a lot of questions – questions Cara and I would have never dared to ask.’ Smiling at me, she added, ‘Go on, Serena, tell us about the time you quizzed Mom about her many husbands.’

Cara exclaimed, ‘Oh yes, I love that story! Go on, Serena, start talking.’

I made a slight grimace, but began, ‘I knew Mom had had three husbands before Dad. Since she was only in her early thirties when she married Tommy, I asked her how old she had been when she’d married the first husband.’

I took a sip of wine, and went on, ‘She told me she had married Andrew Miller when she was twenty-three. Mostly in order to escape from home. And for her independence. She soon discovered she couldn’t stand him, and they were divorced within a year. She was twenty-five when she married David Carstairs. She was in awe of him, admired him. He was a famous director, and an intellectual. But that blew up, too, after four years. Her third was Malcolm Thompson. And she married him because he convinced her he wanted a family, like she did. But that didn’t happen either—’ I broke off, thinking I’d now said enough.

‘Don’t stop, Pidge!’ Jessica exclaimed. ‘After all, you’re the one who knows about these marriages. She never discussed them with us.’

‘It was my understanding that Malcolm didn’t really want a family,’ I said. ‘So the relationship became tumultuous and the divorce was acrimonious. Mom took off for France to make a movie.’

‘And then later she met Dad one day, and it was love at first sight,’ Cara finished for me with a triumphant flourish.

‘That’s the absolute truth,’ Harry interjected. ‘I was with Tommy when he met Elizabeth, and it was indeed love at first sight – a genuine
coup de foudre
. It was the most romantic and beautiful love affair I ever witnessed, and it lasted until the day Elizabeth died.’

‘And even after that,’ Cara murmured. ‘Dad never stopped loving Mom.’

A short while later, Jessica led the men into the peach sitting room, and Cara and I stayed behind to help Adeline clear the table, which we did with great speed.

At one moment, when Cara and I were alone, I asked, ‘What was all that about earlier with Geoff?’

‘I don’t know,’ she replied, shrugging her shoulders lightly. ‘He stared at me. I stared at him. And we connected in an uncanny way. I guess something clicked. How do you explain these things?’ She looked baffled, then gave me a diffident smile. ‘Don’t you like him, Serena?’

‘Of course I do!’ I said at once. ‘He’s been a good friend over the years. And it was selfless and brave of him to risk his life, going into Helmand Province to get Zac out the way he did.’

‘Yes, it was,’ she agreed. She stared at me intently. ‘We just glommed onto each other, I guess.’

‘No kidding!’ I exclaimed.

She had the good grace to laugh at my sarcastic comment.

Cara and I finally joined the others in the peach sitting room. The storm was still raging outside, and Harry had banked up the fire. We all sat around the hearth, enjoying the warmth and cosiness, sipping coffee and cognacs, and talking into the night.

Harry spoke again about Mom and Dad, and our parents’ enduring love story, and we listened to him attentively, having always loved his ‘take’ on them. After all he had been their closest friend, and Dad’s lifelong friend, part of our family always.

At one moment Harry came and sat next to me on the sofa. He took hold of my hand. ‘It’s been a great evening, Serena, just the way Tommy and Elizabeth would have wanted it … a celebration of their lives. And there was nothing sad about it.’

I simply nodded, suddenly feeling choked up. I gave Harry a quavery smile, and he put his arm around me, brought me closer to him.

He said softly, ‘Tommy used to say that we must never look back, only look forward, go forward and meet the new day. That’s what you must do now – what we all must do.’

Several hours later I awakened with a sudden start and sat up. Zac had left my bed at some point during the night, because he was restless, and shouting in his sleep. There was no sound now, but nonetheless I got up and went to see if he was all right.

He was sound asleep, no longer appeared restless. This pleased me. I was also gratified that he had been careful about his intake of alcohol, had drunk much more coffee than cognac after dinner. He was obviously keeping a check on himself. A very good sign, as far as I was concerned.

Returning to my room, I sat down on the edge of the bed. I was wide awake. Something was nagging at the back of my mind, but I couldn’t pinpoint it. I looked at the clock, was startled to see that it was almost six in the morning. I felt a sudden compulsion to go downstairs, stepped into my slippers, pulled on my robe and left the room.

A few seconds later I was walking into the kitchen. All the lights were on and Cara was kneeling next to Jessica, who was prone on the floor.

‘My God! What’s happened?’ I cried and rushed to my sisters, filled with alarm and concern.

Jessica explained, ‘I came down to make the coffee, and I don’t know exactly what happened, but I tripped and fell. I think I sprained my ankle.’

Cara said, ‘I got up to go running, but as I was getting into my tracksuit, I felt that something was wrong with Jessica. So I rushed to her room. You know how twins are. When she wasn’t there, I came down here. And sure enough, I found her on the floor, incapacitated.’

‘I’d just fallen a few minutes before,’ Jessica added. ‘And I was finding it hard to get up.’

‘We’re going to help you,’ Cara said reassuringly.

Taking charge in her usual way whenever there was a crisis, she continued: ‘I’m going to bend down behind you, Jess, and put my hands under your arms. And Serena, I want you to stand on Jessica’s right. Stand sideways and put your right arm in front of her, so she can grab your arm with both hands. Put your left arm around her waist, to keep her steady.’

I did exactly as Cara had instructed.

Cara said to Jessica, ‘I want you to put your weight on your left foot as we attempt to pull you up. Okay?’

‘Understood,’ Jessica answered, sounding strained, worried.

Bending forward, Cara put her hands under Jessica’s arms. Jessica reached out to me, held onto my right arm tightly. I smiled at her encouragingly.

Somehow, with a bit of an effort, we managed to get our sister off the floor and upright. We helped her to hop over to the alcove, where she could sit down. But before she sat, she put her right foot on the floor and took a step, and winced with pain.

‘I have a feeling my ankle’s broken,’ she muttered, and sat down heavily on the chair.

As usual, Cara voiced her troubled thoughts immediately, but she was also echoing mine, when she said, ‘I’m afraid you might have the same type of rare osteoporosis Mom had. I think you will have to have more bone tests.’

Jessica remained silent, simply nodded her assent.

Cara continued, ‘After we’ve had some coffee and toast, we’ll take you to the hospital in Nice. To Emergency.’ She glanced at me. ‘I’m going upstairs to change, and I’ll get some Aleve for Jess. Please make the coffee, Serena, and I’ll be back before you can say Jack Robinson.’

Despite the seriousness of the situation, Jessica and I both laughed, as we always did when Cara spouted one of Granny’s old sayings.

As I prepared the coffee I prayed that Jessica did not have that awful disease which had so debilitated our mother. But it was hard to dispel my anxiety, and I found myself thinking the worst.

So absolutely good is truth, truth never hurts

The Teller.

Robert Browning, ‘Fifine at the Fair’

Truth stood on one side and Ease on the other; it has often been so.

Theodore Parker

Down in the flood of remembrance, I weep like a child for the past.

D. H. Lawrence, ‘Piano’

So absolutely good is truth, truth never hurts

The Teller.

Robert Browning, ‘Fifine at the Fair’

Truth stood on one side and Ease on the other; it has often been so.

Theodore Parker

Down in the flood of remembrance, I weep like a child for the past.

D. H. Lawrence, ‘Piano’

F
or the first time in some years I was entirely alone at Jardin des Fleurs. Harry was back in New York. Geoff had gone to London to run Global Images. And everyone else had taken off earlier in the day.

Not too long ago, Zac had gone to Nice to keep an appointment with Dr Biron, who had treated Dad at times, and Cara had rushed up to her two huge greenhouses, built on her hilltop land adjoining the gardens of the house.

Jessica, needing to keep an appointment at the auction house, had asked Adeline to drive her to the city, and Adeline had been happy to do so. She was going to the market to do the shopping for the weekend anyway, and it presented no problem. Only Raffi, the gardener, was around somewhere in the grounds, plying his trade.

I was working on the dining-room table, where Zac and I had set up our base. There were masses of photographs for Dad’s war book, and the large round table offered plenty of space, so we had a useful overview of all the pictures.

The house was so quiet and still it was almost like being in another place altogether. I enjoyed the peace and tranquillity because it was so conducive to work.

Usually there was noise from the kitchen, when Adeline and her sister Magali were working there, and Jessica, a music lover, frequently had an opera or a movie soundtrack on the sound system. As for Zac, he had at least one television turned on downstairs, and I had come to understand that Cara and I were the two quietest people in the house.

Zac and I had been concentrating on the photographs for the book for over ten days. Within the first few hours of looking at them properly, studying them, we realized how important they were. Actually, they were extraordinary – dramatic, savage, heartrending and touching beyond belief. Many had moved me to tears, and every single one of them was brilliant.

Tommy had captured the relentlessness of war, and its evil; counterbalancing this was the power of peace. The photos of the military men and women showed their courage, compassion and great humanity. There were many images of civilians, the ordinary people of the world, which were a tribute to their indomitability and the triumph of the human spirit. Those were uplifting, and needed to be in the book.

It was obvious that Dad had put a lot of time and effort into the dummy; he had selected the best photographs, had arranged them the way he wanted them to appear in the book. Zac and I only had a few more files to go through, and it wasn’t a daunting task.

My father had always been efficient when it came to his work. He had identified every shot, left copious notes, and we had been thrilled that we’d been able to move ahead with such speed. Thanks to Harry and his connections, we even had a potential publisher in New York, who was apparently genuinely interested in the book, and this had spurred us on.

I was sorting through a file marked GULF WAR in large letters when I came across a truly dramatic picture. As I studied it, I suddenly realized one corner of it was stuck to another photograph underneath. After attempting to separate them without success, I went and got a sharp knife from the kitchen, and pushed it carefully between the two pictures where they were attached at the corner.

They came apart without any damage to either, and I was momentarily surprised to find the photo stuck to the war shot was one of my mother.

Well, not so surprised really, since there were hundreds of photographs of her in his studio. Dad had obviously been looking at this one of Mom when he was selecting those for his book.

I gazed at her image – shimmering … incandescent, my mother at her best. I turned it over, and saw that it was stamped with the logo of Twentieth Century Fox; it was obviously a publicity still taken by one of the studio photographers. She was wearing a white dress, and I recognized it.

I sat back in the chair, still holding the picture in my hand.

The decades dropped away, and I remembered the day that this particular photograph had been taken.

Dad and I had gone to the studio to pick Mom up. She was working only half a day, and Dad was taking us both to lunch at the Bel Air Hotel before he left for New York.

I’d been to the backlot many times before, and always enjoyed being there, unlike Jessica and Cara, who never wanted to go. I loved the cameras, the giant arc lights, the dolly tracks, the commotion and the excitement; all the marvellous ballyhoo of major movie-making at its best.