‘A smile, Nickie, darling. You have such lovely teeth. Teeth always help so much.’
‘All right, Mother.’
She looked at the letter again. ‘Monique Alain,’ she muttered. ‘A sweet name.’ Then she swept away to yodel some more or sing some more or dance some more or have another lovely sparkling telephone conversation with Steve Adriano, who loomed mysteriously in the Las Vegas background and never actually appeared in the flesh.
All this time, of course, the Ninon de Lenclos project was going full blast. Ronnie, who had been swept out of our lives by Operation Las Vegas, was apparently making the best of a bad job. Although Mother chose to rise above it, you could hardly open a newspaper without being submitted to Sylvia’s lovely, ladylike photograph, and there was so much about her comeback in the columns that you’d have thought she’d spent the last five years in Outer Space. But there was a lot about Anny Rood and Family too and those were the bits Mother read.
One morning, about two weeks before the Opening, Lettie Leroy wrote:
A little bird tells me that Anny Rood’s act for Las Vegas is the biggest thing since Ben Hur. For my money, Anny and Garbo are still our most glamorous stars and they say the gown Balmain is whipping up for Anny in Paris is out of this world. Marlene Dietrich — look to your laurels.
Mother loved that. The next day she flew to Paris again for her final fittings. I could imagine the frightful scenes over hemlines with browbeaten little sewing women hurling themselves into the Seine by the dozen. Mother was the Scourge of the Haute Couture. I never could understand why M. Balmain allowed her to set foot in his store, let alone why he went on adoring her. I suppose it must have been something enormously French.
Four days later a telegram arrived.
DRESS DIVINE STOP TWO HUNDRED MILES OF PINK ORGANZA STOP AM BRINGING IT WITH ME SO MUCH SIMPLER STOP MEET ME PANAMERICAN FLIGHT TWENTY AT SEVEN AM TOMORROW STOP NICKIE NOT GINO STOP GINO MUSTNT MISS MORNING BARBELLS STOP PAM DEAR BRUSH UP TRAY'S’ HOWL PERHAPS USE IT FOR UNCLE HANS STOP DELIGHT PERHAPS IN THE FINALE....
It went on like that indefinitely. I was still reading it, making sure that the only item which applied to me was having to get up at six, when the phone rang. I was standing right by it so I answered it. It was Ronnie.
‘Nickie, get your Mother. Quick. I’m going out of my mind.’
The sound of his voice brought all my ‘peculiar’ Norma feelings rushing back.
‘Mother’s in Paris.’
‘Paris? For pity’s sake. When is she coming back?’
‘Tomorrow morning at seven. Ronnie, there’s nothing wrong, is there?’
‘Wrong?’ Ronnie gave a sepulchral groan and before I could say anything else he’d hung up.
The next morning I dragged myself out of bed at five-thirty and drove the Mercedes to the airport. Mother breezed out of her exit gate as fresh as a daisy in a new Balmain suit. She gave me little rhapsodic clutches and kisses. That was one of the touching things about her. She could never bear being separated from us for long.
‘Nickie darling, what heaven to be back. How’s everyone? Wait till you see The Dress. It’s a dream, and the customs men in New York! So divine. Making it all so simple.’
The moment we emerged from the ramp into the waiting rooms, fans from other planes started recognizing her. All the way to the baggage counter she was signing autographs and chattering to me in a mad kind of counterpoint.
‘Nickie darling, I’ve been thinking so much about the act … Excuse me, dear, what did you say your little girl’s name was? Shirley? That’s always a lovely name. I shall write Love to Little Shirley … Nickie, as I was saying, I’ve been thinking so much and I’m sure now that Billy was right. Dear Delight does push quite a bit too much. We must try to tone her down. Not just for the act, but for her own sake too. We don’t want her looking ridiculous, do we? … What, dear? Oh, is it your pen? Excuse me …’
When we reached the baggage counter, a hand-truck was already being wheeled in with an enormous amount of fancily wrapped packages perched on top of the suitcases.
Mother, sweeping through everyone, ravished the baggage clerks with a collective smile and pointed indiscriminately. ‘The packages - they’re mine. Twenty-seven. Do count them, please.’ She squeezed my hand. ‘Presents, dear - just little somethings for you and Pam and Uncle Hans and Gino and Delight and those dear patient servants and …’
At that moment a voice behind us said, ‘Anny.’
We both turned. There was Ronnie, looking like the raven which sat on Mr Poe’s pallid bust of Pallas. Mother, who would drive thousands of miles to pick up almost anyone who was arriving from almost any vehicle, was always childishly touched when anyone did it for her. She threw herself into Ronnie’s arms.
‘Ronnie, how divine. We’ll never get all this into the Mercedes. You can take the rest and drive behind us. Darling, there’s a present for you somewhere, but we’ll really have to wait.’
Already awestruck porters, garlanded with packages, were standing around us in a ring. While Mother swooped and organized, I looked at Ronnie and thought: Doom, doom, doom, doom until I had worked myself into a hysteria of anxiety.
Ronnie had brought his chauffeur with him. When finally all the presents were arranged in the two automobiles, he got into the front seat of the Mercedes with Mother and me. As we started off on the drive home, he gave a groan much like the groan I’d heard on the phone.
‘Anny,’ he said. ‘Oh, Anny.’
Instantly Mother became alert. ‘Ronnie, nothing’s wrong, is it?’
‘Wrong? Oh, Anny, it’s disaster. Sheer disaster. Sylvia …’
I knew it, I thought. I just knew it. As Sepulveda Boulevard seemed to wobble in front of me, I glanced at Mother. Even
she, with all her awful morning vitality, was looking worried.
‘Sylvia?’ she asked. ‘What’s Sylvia been doing?’
‘The Ninon contracts - they’ve been signed, you know. Weeks ago.’
‘Yes?’ said Mother. ‘Yes?’
‘And I thought that would be that. Once she’d got what she wanted, I thought that at least I’d escape from her in my private life. But, Anny, She’s been
living
with me. Every minute of the day She’s driving up in that terrible Jaguar, Mothering me, Healing my Wounds, Taking me out of Myself. And then - the evenings. Night after night, dancing at the Mocambo, tête-à-têtes at little intimate corner tables in Ciro's. I knew she was up to something. I just knew it. But, Anny, without you I was a broken man, exhausted, empty, a male praying mantis. And then, then … Oh, Anny, last night …’
I threw him a frantic glance and almost side-swiped an oil truck.
‘Yes?’ asked Mother briskly. ‘Last night?’
Ronnie gave his sepulchral groan. ‘Ciro’s again. Eartha Kitt. A particularly dreadful little intimate corner table. Sylvia, all delicious bare shoulders (She’s reducing) and gorgeous orange curls. Suddenly, in the middle of Eartha Kitt, she leaned across the table and squeezed my hand and said, ‘Ronnie, deah, isn’t this right? So calm, so relaxed. We’re really
together
, aren’t we? What
fools
we were to lose each other, what
utter, utter
fools!’ And then, when I could feel every nerve in my body snapping, she said, “Oh, by the way, I was down at Paul Denker’s office this afternoon. He’s not my agent, you know, just my personal lawyer, but I thought I really should show him the Ninon contracts. Darling, he thinks they’re lovely. But when I told him how in
tune
we are, how
right
together artistically, he thought it might be a marvelous idea for us to draw up another contract — an overall contract, say for two pictures a year for five years, with a tiny bit more money and perhaps a percentage …” ’
He broke off and groaned again. ‘That was all I needed. That was the one thing I needed to pull me out of my apathy. After all, the merger had gone through two days before. It was all settled. She could splash it over every newspaper in the country and it wouldn’t matter a damn any more. Suddenly I realized I was free of her, that I’d been free of her for forty-eight hours. It was the most glorious moment of my life. I leaned across the table — thank God Eartha Kitt was being particularly loud at the time — and I yelled, ‘Okay, play
Eternally Female
. Louse up Ninon de Lenclos so that, by the time you’re through with her, she’ll be a four-letter word on four continents. But I’m here to tell you that there’ll be no five-year contract, no tiny little bit more money, no percentage. Once you’re through with Ninon, I’ll see to it, with the last drop of my blood, that you’ll never work again, never, anywhere, not even on the sidewalks of your Birmingham birth slum.’ ‘
He spun around to Mother. ‘And, Anny, you should have seen her. All — positively all — the terrible dross in her character came out. Suddenly she was Medusa and she glared at me and she hissed, “What about your merger, darling?” And I hissed, “Too late, my sweet, too late. It’s closed, it’s fixed, it’s in the bag!” And then, still lovely and gracious, she hissed, “And what about your beloved Anny Rood?” And I yelled, “What can you do to Anny now, three weeks later when the file on Norma is slammed tight shut? Pay, pshaw, pooey.” And then, and then …’
Once again Ronnie had trouble with his 'and thens'.
‘And then — Anny, oh, Anny, she just went on smiling and pouting and tossing the orange curls, and she said, “Oh, my
darling, I think we’re getting a little mixed up. There will be a five-year contract and there’ll be something else too something far more cozy and, in the long run, even more profitable. Deahest Ronnie, there’s going to be Hollywood’s most romantic wedding since Vilma Banky and Rod La Roque. Ronald Light and Sylvia La Mann.” And, as I sat, turned to stone, she felt in her terrible pocket-book and she brought out, she brought out …’
With a palsied hand Ronnie felt in his breast pocket. His hand came out with a folded piece of paper. He unfolded it. It was a photostat. For a moment he sat gazing at it in despair.
‘Now we know how she found out about the merger. Now we know …’
‘But what is it?’ The words were wrenched from me.
‘Coming for her diet book was just an excuse to get upstairs and snoop. She rummaged and rummaged and found it in the drawer of the bed table. I didn’t find it. Oh, no. The police didn’t find it. The one who found it had to be that unspeakable …’
‘Found — what? For pity’s sake — what?’
Ronnie put his hand on Mother’s knee. ‘Anny, Norma couldn’t reach Miss Leroy on the phone so she started writing a letter instead. When you went into her room, she must have heard you coming and slipped it into the drawer. Read it. It’s a photostatic copy. Sylvia has the original in a sealed envelope in Paul Denker’s safe.’
He handed the paper to Mother, who drove me insane while she fumbled in her pocket-book for her scarlet reading glasses.
‘Read it out aloud, Mother. Read it out aloud.’
Mother put on her glasses and read:
Dearest Lettie,
You may find this hard to believe, having always misguidedly through the bigness of your heart been deceived by the appalling false facades of my disastrous husband and that elderly Swiss actress named Anny Rood. But you must please accept this as gospel and realize that it is your duty to your public to expose to the world the true nature of this couple of unspeakable monsters. As for my husband, not only has he been cheating the government for years on which I can give chapter and verse but at this very minute he is maneuvering the shadiest, most smoke-filled-roomed, criminal merger with Consolidated Cinema and TV which will net him millions that, needless to say, will not show up on his tax returns. And as for Anny Rood, not only has she been scheming in every possible manner to steal my Ninon part and my husband, but there are things I know about her — things from way back in Paris — which would curdle your blood. And, what’s more, she knows I know and she knows I’ve threatened to tell you. Oh, Lettie, She’s here right now in the house and they’ve cut off the phone. I’m terrified. She’s merciless; she’ll stop at nothing. At any minute I may hear her feet tapping along the corridor and I’ll now …
Mother stopped reading. Very slowly she took off her glasses and sat in silence.
At last she said, ‘That’s all.’
‘Yes,’ said Ronnie, ‘that must be all she got written before she heard you coming.’
By then I might as well have been driving blindfolded, for there was the abyss again. For a while it had all been lovely. Mother couldn’t have pushed to get the Ninon role because she hadn’t needed the Ninon role. But now.
Things about her — things from way back in Paris — which would curdle your blood…!
‘
Anny.’ Ronnie was looking at Mother with bottomless faith and love. ‘I know it’s all lies about you, but think if that got into the papers! Anny, darling, I’m hopelessly stuck. I’ll have to give Sylvia that five-year contract on her own terms. It’ll mean the end, the
Gotterdämmerung
of Ronald Light Productions. But … but … the other thing … Oh, Anny, you can save me from that. Don’t you see? Marry me — marry me now.’
What made it even worse was the look on Mother’s face. Never in my life before had I seen the maddeningly ‘on top of it'’ expression completely disappear. But it had gone now. She looked frightened and almost old.
‘Ronnie,’ she breathed. ‘Oh, my poor Ronnie. And it’s all my fault. If I hadn’t meddled, if I hadn’t tried to help Norma…’
‘But, Anny, you’re fond of me. I know it. It’s just this thing you’ve got against marriage. Anny, darling, this is far more important than any crazy principle. It’s my life; it’s yours. We can drive to Mexico right now. Nickie can drive us. I know you’re busy with your act, but it’s only one day twenty-four hours…’
‘Ronnie dear,’ broke in Mother, ‘please. You mustn’t think I’m not fond of you. I adore you and I’d marry you in a minute. It’s — it’s the least I could do. But … Oh, dear, for eighteen years I hoped and prayed I’d never have to say this.’ She threw me a despairing glance and then turned back to Ronnie. ‘You see — it’s the thing Norma talks about in the letter, the thing she was going to tell Miss Leroy. Norma was the only person in the world who knew. I can’t marry you, Ronnie, because I’m already married.’