She sat quite still as he and the light swayed this way and that, from side to side and back again, flickering flame against dainty, deadly silken flag. She opened her mouth to protest …
‘HA HA HA! Can you imagine it, El?’
But she couldn’t hear him any more.
‘There I am. A man in tights!’
Her lungs had filled …
‘In tights, I tell you!’ shouted Douglas, laughing and swaying. She couldn’t breathe …
‘A man in tights! HA HA HA!’
There was a taste of smoke in her mouth, in her throat, and she could feel it … blackening her insides as it burned its path through her chest, scorching, melting, choking –
‘WHOOSH! WHOOSH! FIRE! HA HA!’
And then, somehow, Max was beside her, taking the candelabra from Dougie’s fist, placing it back on the table. ‘Eleanor,’ he said loud and clear, his strong hand on her shoulder … ‘Honey. I think it’s time we were on that dance floor, don’t you? They got the best Charleston playing … can you hear it? … It’s got my feet tip-tapping like nothing else …’
Eleanor smiled. Quickly, gratefully, feeling his touch, willing herself to recover. ‘I can hear it!’ she said, in the mellifluous voice she could use. ‘It’s too perfect! Let’s not sit a moment longer!’ But she was shaking. Max could feel it. He could feel her shoulder convulsing beneath his hand.
He bent across the table and kissed her. There and then. In front of everyone. Someone sighed, ‘Awwww …’, possibly Marion. The kiss lasted a second or two longer than expected, giving Eleanor time to collect herself. Douglas Fairbanks, observing it disconsolately, leaned down to Mary Pickford and kissed her on the lips, too.
‘Mary, my darling wife, I adore you!’ he cried.
‘Oh, for crying out l-loud, Dougie!’ Marion said. ‘P-pipe down for once in your life, why dontcha?’
And then Max and Eleanor pulled apart, Eleanor smiling at her husband. She stood up. ‘I hesitate to imagine what you’ve been discussing at this end of the table,’ Max said to everyone, but looking only at his wife. ‘I’m afraid we’ve been talking nothing but Investment Trusts, down our end …’
‘Eleanor, darling, you can’t even imagine how dull we’ve been!’ drawled Gloria Swanson.
‘Humblest apologies, Gloria,’ Max flashed her a smile. ‘We’ll do better next year, I promise.’
‘Except of course, if we’re to believe Charlie Chaplin,’ Eleanor said, with her lovely light smile, her beautiful soft voice, flirtatious and humouring to everyone around, ‘we shall all be in the poorhouse next year, anyway. There won’t be any parties!’
There followed plenty of laughter, and the scraping of chairs: chairs which, had Douglas bothered to look at them closely, he might have noticed were as familiar as the terrific little antique candelabra, and the terrific banqueting table, too. Every scrap was due to be returned to the studio props department first thing in the morning.
‘No more dullness!’ declared Max, ‘or Gloria Swanson might go home in a sulk. And none of us wants that! It’s a party, for God’s sakes. Added to which – except for Charlie – we all made a fortune today!’
‘God Bless America!’ cried Douglas Fairbanks.
Max ignored him. ‘Let’s dance!’ he commanded. And for a brief, uplifting moment the brilliant director, handsome as the devil himself, and his dazzling movie-star wife, were united again; and they were happy. He squeezed her hand and led her across their nautically themed, Italianate terrace, through the sweet-smelling hallway decked in blue and white lilies, onto the centre of the dance floor … And though they hardly noticed it, alone in their fragile cocoon, the cream of America’s fame and beauty followed close behind …
Nobody talked about Investment Trusts for the rest of the evening. And they danced until five in the morning.
4
Too often, in a soured marriage, such uplifting moments do more harm than good, and only serve to make the thud of the landing more painful.
Max was gone by the time the maid came in with Eleanor’s tea the next day. It arrived on a tray at eleven thirty, with the usual glass of freshly squeezed lemon juice, unsweetened, the usual small pile of pre-selected mail; and a small, square, leather jewel box. She took a gulp of the juice. Shuddered. And opened the box.
Every year, on the morning after the party, he gave her something precious. This – a large ruby pendant in the shape of a heart – was larger and more precious than last year’s jewel; she imagined because of their recent successes on the stock market. And beautiful, too. No doubt about that. Max had excellent taste. She shuddered once again as the last of the juice went down, laid the ruby heart back in its box, set it aside. She could hardly bring herself to touch it. Why a heart, of all things? A heart – how absurd! She wondered – what did he give to Blanche? A ruby pendant in the shape of a goddamn putz?
She laughed to herself, though she didn’t find it funny, and looked about for the accompanying envelope. There was always an envelope. She wished she could ignore it, simply not open it, because what could he say that would ever make it all right again? What could he say that wouldn’t hurt?
Darling,
Another wonderful night!
Enjoy your morning. You certainly earned it.
Your ever-loving,
Max
She put the letter down. Ever-loving. Indeed. Had he forgotten what it was all for? This night of nights? He never mentioned it. Never said a word … Gosh, her head was throbbing so – she must have drunk more than she realized.
She could hear the people downstairs, still clearing away the residue of the party. If she stayed up here long enough, as she fully intended, there’d be no evidence of the party at all by the time she went down there. The bunting, the flowers – the eighteen candelabra, the silver-threaded linen table cloth, the banqueting table, too – all of it borrowed, all of it gone. And she could forget about it until next year came round again. If it ever did.
She wallowed, briefly, in the pleasure of not having to get out of bed. Her last picture only wrapped at the weekend – so she’d enjoyed a few days to herself. And she knew well to treasure them. In fact … she glanced at the post on her tray and saw, with a familiar twist of anxiety, a familiar-looking package tucked away at the bottom of the pile.
Already, then. That was too bad.
There would be a one-page synopsis at the top, first of the plot, and then of her character’s part in it. And through the following eighty-odd pages of film script, her designated role in whatever movie had been chosen for her would have been underlined. And there it would be. No message, no discussion. Just a whole lot of new lines to be learned. And a reminder to Eleanor that, though she may be a star in Main Street America, not to mention in the hearts of the odd stray, crazy fan, at Lionsfiel Pictures she was only an employee – a single, shiny cog in a very large, very shiny machine. It was how the system worked. She did as she was told. They paid her handsomely. Eleanor had learned long ago that you could never win against the might of the Studio.
And no matter what, no matter how good she was, one day, it would surely happen, because one day it happened to them all – and to the women sooner than the men. One fine morning Eleanor would open up that familiar-looking package, delivered to her by her maid on her sunny breakfast tray, and discover that her moment in the limelight was passed. The screenplay’s leading role would not be underlined for her, having been underlined