‘You know perfectly well what I’m going to say.’
‘That everybody worships me. I’m tired of being worshipped. It’s nauseating.’
‘There’s hell to pay if they don’t.’
She smiles.
‘So you think I’m an egomaniac? I work hard to keep everyone fed and clothed. My life is not my own – I belong to my work.’
‘You know what I always say, dearest: work is more fun than fun.’
‘What will my fate be, mirror? I suppose it is written in the stars?’
‘I don’t believe in astrology; the only stars that I can blame for my failures are those that walk about the stage.’
She laughs. I can always make her laugh. She looks across to the window, and the inky-black night. It’s nights like these that make her feel far from home. A necklace of bright stars arcs around the sky.
She lights a cigarette and blows blue smoke into my face. She smokes slowly and methodically, no matter how much nervous strain she feels. I leave her to her thoughts. She stubs out her cigarette, sets the alarm to 4.30, turns out the lamp, and slips into bed.
In the morning, Mother called for me, and I breathed not a single word for fear she would remember Mo’s admonitions, and send me to school. It was freezing cold as we climbed into the studio car; a reminder of the desert that Hollywood was built upon. I had learned to dress with several layers, shedding each skin as the sun rose and became scorching hot. I looked like a roly-poly caterpillar; a look not enhanced by Mother plonking a beige knitted woolly hat on my head.
It was pitch dark on the lot, except for the street lamps, which lined Dressing Room Row. Back in her dressing room, the lovely aroma of greasepaint, coffee and Danish pastries filled the air. Nowadays, people ask me if I hated my life then, but, no, I loved it. Sure, I was sometimes lonely, but never, ever bored. Besides, back then, I knew no other life. Even now, the smell of greasepaint mixed with coffee takes me right back to those days, and the memories are warm and comforting. Bodies betray us.
We sprang into action; we knew our duties. That day, Mo was shooting an important scene; the Red Queen’s inspection of her Russian army. Mother would look her most beautiful, but there was much work to be done.
I placed her ashtray on a side table and brought a fine-boned china cup and saucer for her coffee. Mother undressed and was wrapped in a white cotton robe. Hair first. Always hair first. Nellie brushed her hair away from her face, twisting and plaiting with expert hands. Then Dot began her work. Nobody spoke. All was quiet concentration. I thinned out the eyelashes and handed them to Dot with the special glue. Mother scrutinised her face in the mirror. She took a hairpin, dipped it in white greasepaint and smeared it along the waterline of her eyes. They grew larger, magically. Then, the lips. The perfect Cupid’s bow.
Finally, it was time for the review dress. It was the green velvet one we’d seen in the sketch that first day. Edged with mink. Travis had excelled himself. Everyone would remember this dress. Garbo would be mad as hell when she saw it. Travis had created an oversized muff that matched the trim and the hat. Mother was right to insist that her hair should be pulled back, so the Cossack hat, set at a rakish angle, did not detract from the face. On anyone else the huge hat would be absurd. She had never looked more ravishing.
How to transport her to the soundstage, when the dress was so wide she could only exit the door sideways? A horse and cart were sent to her dressing room. I leapt forward to help her into the cart.
‘No, Angel. You must not touch the velvet or it will leave finger marks.’
Travis obliged, wearing special gloves. There was a special bucket seat at the back of the cart for me. Mother stood erect, holding onto a rail. The horse set off at a snail’s pace, transporting his most precious cargo.
When she entered the soundstage, the crew burst into spontaneous applause. Piercing whistles reverberated around the set. A film crew has seen and heard it all. They are tough, hard to please, impressed by nothing. Mother bestowed a tiny smile in grateful acknowledgement. Mo took her hands and kissed them reverently. Then he led her to the set. I followed behind, curious to see Mo’s latest creation. It was the most terrifying thing I’d ever seen.
Hundreds of grotesque, malformed gargoyles and hobgoblins writhed and screamed, or smirked insanely. They lined the doorways, corridors and tables of the Imperial Palace. Oversized Byzantine saints and martyrs glared menacingly from great heights. Wooden crucifixes with emaciated male figures peeked out between huge stone pillars. Flickering candles in iron-branched candelabras created shadows of frightening intensity.
Worst of all were the El Greco skeletons: they twisted over mantels, peered through windows; macabre guests at the long banqueting table, bent over bowls of rotting, waxen food. The figures were draped in mouldering shrouds and grave clothes, their lean fingers reaching out to me. On the wall, near the door, I saw a dried, withered body of a child hung up by its hair. On a pedestal, I saw a screaming man being forcibly sodomised by a metal pike.
Cleverly, these corpses only served to highlight Madou’s ethereal beauty, so she had no fear of them. Not that anything or anyone could inspire fear in my mother. As for worry about her small daughter witnessing this set of cruelty, she had no such concerns.
Nor did she need to fear the width of the iron doors: they were gargantuan. Looking back with adult eyes, I know that those doors were gigantic! It took at least five people to open and close them, so heavy they were. The imperial throne was shaped into a double-eagle, and there was a huge mirror curved into a winged gargoyle.
Finally, Mo pointed to his living sculpture: three topless maidens, looped by their wrists to a horizontal cartwheel, twirled their contorted bodies around and around in a slow dance like erotic trapeze artists. Mother did not flicker.
‘Mo, it’s superb. But I want to see my troops.’
First, she called for her special huge mirror, and it was rolled on, cables coiled around its base, snake-like. When the lights were plugged in, she looked at her reflection. A nimbus of light surrounded her face.
The Red Queen in lush green velvet. Mo kissed the back of her neck – looked at her in the long mirror, and smiled as he went back to work.
Madou was incomparable in that scene. Hundreds of handsome Cossacks created two straight lines. If she felt nervous, it did not show. She walked between them, to inspect her guard, staring intently at their crotches. She halted and looked down at one of the troops, talking to his trousers, and not his face, saying, ‘Hmm, you’re new here.’
When a sword was pushed into her abdomen, she purred, ‘Is that your sword, or are you just pleased to see me?’
She was magnificent, electrifying. She was in command. The spoilt German bride, transformed into an empress, ready to defeat her faithless, gormless husband and his army. Every male gaze was turned upon her, longing to kiss her hand, ready to die for their queen.
Then she turned, picked a piece of stray hay from a bale, and placed it seductively between her lips. She sucked the straw, staring boldly at her director. Teasing him, taunting him. He had not instructed her to do this. He who controlled her every movement, every gesture. I could tell by his face that she had overstepped the mark. There was a stunned silence. He stared at his star. She held his gaze, cool and still.
‘Cut. Print.’
Tonight, back home, they quarrel fiercely. He stalks over to her desk, where he finds a love letter. She sits, with her stillness,