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By the time I’d collected all the parts for his disguise it was late, the shops were about to close for the evening, so I had no choice but to stay at Altman’s – which was not quite the place I had in mind when I set out to buy the perfect evening dress. (I should be astonished if Pola Negri had ever crossed its threshold. Ditto for the last Mrs Valentino.)
But then there it was! Just crying out to me . . . the most beautiful dress I had ever laid eyes on and, by the way, at seventy-five dollars, the most expensive dress I have bought in my entire life.
It’s of pale blue, made from the sheerest, sleekest satin, with a hemline a little lower at the back but to the knee at the front. And there are flowers embroidered at the back – which scoops very low – and at the hip-band there are flowers too, only slightly larger ones.
And then, of course, I had to buy a set of beads to bring out the blue of the flowers, and slippers to match the beads – if only I’d stopped there. I was about to. But on my way out, when already I was feeling quite sick about the money I’d spent – I saw the stole. It was of rabbit skin – like the stole Papa gave me, and which I gave to Madeleine in the midst of all my angry grief when I simply couldn’t bear to look at the thing again. It was the same colour. That’s all. How many hundreds of rabbit skins have I seen in the intervening years and thought nothing about them? But this one stopped me, on this hot August day. There I was on my way out of the store, and I simply couldn’t move away from it. Exhaustion, I suppose, mental and physical. I stood in the middle of Altman’s, my fingers running through the fur and the maddest tears streaming down my face: tears for my father, tears I haven’t wept in many years, and they wouldn’t stop.
I felt quite a prize fool. And I’m sure Mr Sigmund Inhibitions-and-Anxieties Freud would have plenty to say on the matter. Too bad. Only it’s true that just then, at that particular moment, I felt my papa very close.
Buck up, my silly friend, I could hear him saying. He would have been horribly embarrassed. And pleased, perhaps, and even surprised – as surprised as I was – to discover that I miss him still, and that I am still so very, very fond of him. I felt his arms around me. Truly, I did. How silly is that? I could hear him teasing me; and it made me smile. And I picked up the wretched rabbit fur – all fifty-eight dollars of it, if you please – and I gave it to the shopgirl, who wrapped it up in tissue. I have it here, lying on the bed, still wrapped in tissue. It’s far too hot for tonight. Too hot for Hollywood. Heaven only knows what I shall do with it.
Chapter 4
1916–17
Long Island
The plan, so far as I understood it, had been for Papa to go back to the city with Mr de Saulles first thing the following morning. Mr de Saulles had, until that point, taken quite a shine to Papa, of course, and I think he’d been intending for the pair of them to have a lot of fun together. He would show my father round town a bit, and help him to drum up work among his rich friends.
But I guess Mr de Saulles’s friendly and helpful intentions were just too advantageous for Papa not to feel driven to sabotage them. I often wondered if Mrs de Saulles hadn’t played some part in it too – if she and Papa hadn’t cooked up something together the previous evening. It doesn’t matter anyway. The point is, Papa had fallen madly in love with her and was, as always, unwilling to fight or even to hide it. His budding friendship with her husband, which promised to be so helpful to his career, rather withered on the branch as a result. It didn’t survive beyond breakfast, in actual fact.
Papa informed everyone in the dining room that morning (young Jack Junior and myself included) that he had decided not to travel to Manhattan with his host but to stay behind at The Box.
‘Would you mind awfully, Jack?’ Papa said, pulling a long face. ‘Only it’s so frightfully hot in the city. And my lungs . . . ’ He gave a series of feeble little coughs. ‘It would be far better for me if I stayed here a while. Until it cools down. I could set to work at once . . . Perhaps begin with a painting of your delightful son . . . Or perhaps Mrs de Saulles . . . if she will permit it?’
A silence fell. An awkward clattering of knives and forks. My father’s intentions were obvious and I think, even in that brazen crowd, everyone was slightly embarrassed.
Mr de Saulles didn’t bother to look up from his plate. After a while, his mouth still full of griddled waffle, he said, ‘Your lungs are perfectly fine, old sport. And I’ve made all sorts of plans for you. Come back to town with me.’
My father coughed a bit louder.
‘Oh, do stop,’ Mr de Saulles said.
‘I wish I could stop, Jack. Sincerely. I do. ’ (Cough cough.) ‘I really think I should call a doctor.’
Mr de Saulles just kept shovelling in more of the griddled waffle, and nobody spoke.
‘I must say,’ the duke finally piped up, ‘you seemed perfectly fine last night. It’s rather boring of you to – suddenly decide you’re ill. Just like that.’
‘I couldn’t agree with you more. And I can’t tell you how sorry I am.’ Cough cough cough. ‘But last night is one thing. This morning, I hardly need to point out to you, Your Grace, is entirely another.’
Silence again. This time it was Mrs de Saulles who broke it. Looking not at her husband or at my father but at Rudy, she said, ‘Well, if you’re utterly determined that Marcus should paint me, Jack . . . Although honestly I can’t see why you would be . . . ’
‘Because, sweetest, you are my wife. And I should like to have a painting of you.’
‘Well, then, he might as well paint me now as later. I intend to be home in Santiago by the end of next month in any case.’
Clearly, it was the first he had heard of it. He looked at his wife – they all looked at her, the duke, the thin man with the waxy face, Miss Sawyer, my father – all of them looked at her, except the one whose attention she sought: Rudy, I think, made a point of looking anywhere else. He caught my eye, briefly, sent me the smallest flicker of a smile, and I felt myself blushing.
So, the meal ended on what might be called a sour note. Papa got what he wanted. As, of course, did Mrs de Saulles, even if her motivation was less immediately obvious. After breakfast Mr de Saulles climbed into his car, Miss Sawyer at his side and a black cloud over his head. He drove off without addressing a word to anyone, except his son. There was a moment, as the boy clung to his father’s leg, when it seemed he might even have taken the child with him, simply scooped him up and dropped him in the back of the auto. But then he glanced at his wife, seemed to wince slightly at the look she gave him, and apparently thought better of it.
‘I shall come and fetch you in a day or two,’ he said instead. ‘Don’t cry, little fellow. Crying is for girls. Instead, Jack, as soon as I get into the car you must start counting. All right? And I promise you, before you have reached a hundred hours, I shall be here again! Understand? Start counting, Jack. I shall be back before you know it . . . And with a whole carful of toys!’
There was a grim, subdued flurry as the guests said their goodbyes. Nobody quite knew how to deal with my father, who stood before the front of the house, waving them off as if the house were his already. I think that was the first time I wondered if Papa was altogether – all there. It looks a bit rotten, seeing it on paper like that, but there was a hint of something unhinged about the utterly determined, quite shameless fashion of his standing there. I remember feeling embarrassed – worse: I felt ashamed.
Before getting into the waiting auto Rudy crossed the gravel to say goodbye to them both. He reached out for Mrs de Saulles’s languid little hand.
‘Mr Hademak will call you when I am ready for more dance classes,’ I heard her saying. ‘Perhaps in a day or two . . . ’
‘I shall look forward to it,’ he said. But he didn’t smile, and neither did she, and then she glanced at my father, so attentive to her – and even before the cars drove off, the two of them had started their slow wander back into the house.
Rudy said goodbye to me last. He sought me out, took my hand with both of his and, in a low voice that only I could hear, told me how he hoped we should meet again soon. ‘I enjoyed our dance together very much,’ he said.
And then he was gone, and we at The Box were left alone: Papa, Mrs de Saulles, young Jack, his Jane Eyre and the rest of the servants. The place felt very still.
I looked across at the little boy, who was trying hard not to cry. God knows how I broke the ice – I wasn’t accustomed to children – but somehow I persuaded him to take my hand, and before long he and I were chattering happily and he was taking me to visit his nursery.
I remember he hesitated just as we were about to open the door. He looked up at me with those big brown eyes. ‘You know, after this, you probably shan’t like me terribly much,’ he said. ‘I mean to say when you see all my toys. You shall probably think I’m dreadfully spoiled.’
I don’t know what I answered – something soothing and untrue about having a nursery of my own back home in London, so full of toys I couldn’t open the door. ‘In any case, I’ve already seen your nursery, and so far I like you very much.’ And suddenly, inexplicably, he simply melted into giggles.
It’s nothing. Just a stupid thing. But something about the way he laughed – far from dislike him – I loved him right away. He was the sweetest, warmest, frankest, most humorous, most entirely adorable little boy I ever met . . . But I am getting maudlin. I miss him. That’s all. And I wonder whatever became of him.
Papa was a slow worker. He always pretended not to care about his work, presumably because he had failed to make much of a mark with it, but I know he did care, passionately. Not just from the look of concentration that came over his face as soon as he had pencil in hand, but from his stubborn unwillingness ever to accept that a piece of work was finished. Perhaps if he had cared a little less he might have done a little better. Probably. It doesn’t matter now, in any case. Either way, when the time came for him to leave The Box he had little to show for all the hours he’d spent closeted away with his muse: a canvas that was almost blank – and a collection of small sketches. But they were wonderful sketches. Some of the best of his I ever saw. In spite of his ardour – or perhaps because of it – he had uncovered something in her that most people never saw: the harshness in her elfin face; and in those big doe eyes, an unmistakable gleam of ruthlessness. If only he could have heeded it as sharply as he drew it. But taking heed was not in his nature. By the end of that first day, he and Mrs de Saulles had retired to her bedroom, and for the next few weeks we saw very little of them.
In the meantime Mr de Saulles barely appeared at The Box. When he did, it was with a large group of friends in tow, and Papa would usually start up with his coughing again and stay in bed. But young Jack was not forgotten. He often travelled back and forth to visit his father in the city. And each time, when he returned (with a nursery-maid, sadly never with me – I don’t think Mr de Saulles much wanted to be reminded of anything related to my father’s existence) he looked exhausted. I used to tell him about the long nights I spent with my own father and his friends back home in London. ‘The trick,’ I said, ‘is to learn to sleep while still at the table, in a position that looks as though you’re awake. Then they won’t disturb you, and you won’t disturb them.’
We used to practise it together, with the two elbows in front and a hand covering each cheek, carefully obscuring the eyes. Finally, after we agreed he had perfected the position, he lifted his face from his chubby young hands, and he said, with that sweet formality of his, ‘And now I shall never be able to forget you, Jennifer, even after you leave, because I shall think of you every time I fall asleep.’
Oh . . . but damn it! Now the tears are welling again, and I shall ruin everything . . .
Jack and I would spend hours together up in that overcrowded nursery. We would lie on the floor side by side, dismantling that wretched steam engine, and I would tell him stories about an imaginary England, a magical England, full of kings and queens and knights – oh, and of loving, living mothers and so forth – and nothing of the brutal, dowdy wartime England that I had left behind and barely missed at all.
When Jack was away with his father I used to feel quite bereft. I would mope about the house hoping for a chance to catch Papa alone, which I never did, and mostly feeling rather sorry for myself.
But he was not my only friend, of course. Madeleine and I enjoyed each other’s company. We used to reminisce about Europe – though her memories of Ireland and mine of London had very little in common. And we used to spend enjoyable stolen minutes, swapping tales of outrage about our dreadful employer. For the most part, though, Mrs de Saulles was so demanding, sending poor Madeleine this way and that, and winding her up to a point of such terrible tension, she rarely had the mind or the time to chatter. It wasn’t until later that we became close friends.
Mr Hademak, too, would occasionally pause from his nervous activity, and we would sit in the kitchen and discuss the ‘flickers’, as he still insisted on calling them. There was plenty for us to talk about, since – though back then I had only the faintest idea of what it might involve – I was already determined to forge some sort of career as a writer of movies. I told Mr Hademak so, and he was quite encouraging. He found an unwanted typewriter, which belonged to Mr de Saulles, and he arranged for me to have use of it, though only, he said, when Mrs de Saulles was out of the house, for fear the noise disturb her. We talked about that – my unformed dreams of the future. Mostly, though, it would be Mr Hademak doing the talking, telling me how much improved every film on earth would be if only the director had had the foresight to make Mary Pickford its star. He adored Mary Pickford to such a degree that I wondered sometimes where it left his beloved Mrs de Saulles.
The highlight of my life, of course, was when Rudy came by. And as her affair with my father continued (at some volume, I might add, especially when she knew Rudy was near) Mrs de Saulles began to summon him more and more, until there came a point when he would be at The Box almost daily. She told Hademak she was keen to have as many dance lessons as possible before her return to Chile – but the truth was, there was no return to Chile booked, and though Rudy came, day after day, Mrs de Saulles only rarely bothered to come down from her little tower, even to speak to him.
Rudy didn’t seem to mind. He seemed to know what game she was playing – and since she paid him well for his time I have to presume he was grateful for the money. He would sit on the veranda gazing out over that garden, smoking one cigarette after another, with the cries of his employer’s love-making echoing overhead.
At first, when he came from the city, I would hide away, too shy to let him see me. But then one day Jack and I were in the garden when Rudy’s car pulled up.
Jack began to dance about – he adored Rudy, as I imagined all children would. In any case I snapped at him to be still and he stopped dancing at once. He looked at me consideringly – long and hard. He said, ‘Are you in love with Mr Guglielmi?’
‘What? Don’t be ridiculous!’
‘All the girls are. My papa said. So I don’t see why you wouldn’t be.’
‘For Heaven’s sake!’
Jack ignored my plea to stay quiet, and bounded over the garden to greet him. I hung back, watching with some jealousy, I suppose, as Rudy’s face lit up. He threw down his cigarette, caught the boy in his open arms, with that peculiar grace of his, and tossed him high in the air. You could hear their laughter through the garden – over the grunts and groans oozing from other quarters . . . Oh, I’m exaggerating, of course. But the truth is, it was wonderful to watch them together: an unexpected blast of joy in that miserable, complicated household.
I had planned to slip quietly away, but Rudy saw me before I got a chance. ‘Aha! Jennifer!’ he cried. ‘I was hoping I would see you! But where are you going?’
‘I’m going . . . ’ Where was I going? ‘Well, I’m going to the house, of course. But I shall be back in a minute,’ I said. ‘I have to fetch something from the nursery.’
I saw Jack mumbling something into his ear, then Rudy nodding solemnly, smiling slightly, glancing back at me.
‘That’s all it is.’ Jack whispered loudly. ‘You see?’
‘Oh, absolutely,’ Rudy said – loud enough for me to hear it. ‘How extremely fortunate for me.’
At which point I’m almost certain I broke into a run.
Madeleine was in the hall – at a loose end for once. ‘Wait up!’ she said, delighted to find someone to gossip with. ‘Have you seen who’s here again, Jennifer?’
‘I have,’ I said.
‘Surprised you’re not out there. Batting your eyelids.’
‘Oh, be quiet.’
‘He’s handsome.’
‘I know it.’
‘And so does she.’ She indicated the tower boudoir. ‘Crazy bitch,’ she added, because she always did.
Madeleine followed me into the nursery and I suppose half an hour passed while she filled me in with details, some of which I could have survived without, regarding the conversation she had only that morning overheard between Mrs de Saulles and my father.
‘Though it wasn’t really a conversation, to be honest with you, Jennifer,’ she was saying. ‘More a series of grunts.’
‘I don’t believe you.’
‘Yes, you do. And with me in the room, too! Good God, to look at them both – him an old man and her fragile as feather – on the outside. The crazy bitch. You wouldn’t believe they had it in them.’
‘Yes – well. The racket they make, I should think the whole of Long Island knows it by now,’ I said.
‘And there was me thinking, after a certain number of years, the mechanism stopped working. Didn’t you? A man as old as your father . . . ’
‘He’s not that old . . . ’
‘But the mechanism—’
‘Anything! Please! Can we talk of anything but my filthy papa and his ancient mechanism!’
We were laughing loudly, both of us, sprawled out lazily on the nursery floor. I looked up and there, standing side by side, were Rudy and Jack.
Madeleine gave a silly shriek.
‘Sounds like I missed an excellent beginning,’ Rudy said.
‘Not at all,’ I said, scrambling to sit up. ‘Actually Madeleine was being disgusting.’
‘I didn’t mean to interrupt.’
‘No, no,’ said I. ‘No no no.’
Madeleine guffawed.
‘Only Jack told me,’ Rudy said, ‘there was a steam engine up here, not working as well as it once did?’
‘Quite the opposite, Mr Guglielmi,’ gurgled Madeleine. ‘On the contrary. Ask Jennifer’s papa!’
How I longed to knock her out! Rudy looked for a moment as if he might be about to laugh himself – but then I suppose he saw the mortification on my face and thought better of it. He said, ‘Jack said he had a toy train that was broken. I thought perhaps I could fix it.’
‘And Jack is absolutely right,’ I said. ‘Madeleine—’ I looked at her, and almost – very nearly – started giggling myself. ‘How clever of Jack to remember. He and I have spent days trying to put the wretched thing back together. I’m not sure it can be fixed. Nothing we try seems to work . . . ’
‘Well, perhaps I could – ah!’ He spotted the components, strewn across the table, and right away settled himself before them.
And so the four of us wiled away a little time, with Madeleine and me on the floor, Jack on my lap, and Rudy at the table, with his back to us, bent intently over his work. We talked of this and of that – of nothing, really. I don’t remember a word of it. But I do remember Madeleine, as Rudy worked away, slotting together small pieces of metal – I can see Madeleine now, pulling a face at me, rolling her eyes and pretending to swoon.
Jack said, ‘Mr Guglielmi, poor Madeleine is coming down with something pretty serious.’
He didn’t look up. He said, ‘Oh, I don’t really think so, Jack . . . ’
Rudy moves like a cat. You don’t hear him when he approaches. And he sees things when he doesn’t seem to be looking. Hardly reasons to fall in love with a man, I know. Nevertheless, when he said that, as cool as anything, and without even turning around, I remember even Madeleine blushed. Afterwards she always pretended she disliked him.
The steam train was put back together in no time. Too quickly. I believe that short half-hour, with none of us saying anything much, was the happiest half-hour I could remember. His voice, the faint smell of his cologne, his quiet concentration, the warmth of his presence – they softened the edges of the world for me. I could have stayed there for ever, with the boy on my lap, and Madeleine sulking, and Rudy, so very much there with us and yet so peacefully abstracted. I was in Heaven.
The weeks passed, and then the months. Christmas came and Christmas went. Rudy was at the house a great deal. Sometimes he would come by train, and Mr Hademak would pick him up from the station. Sometimes, though, much to Jack’s delight, he would arrive in his very own auto, and the two of them would spend happy hours playing with it. In any case, however he came, he would always seek us out.
It wasn’t entirely simple, however. Mr Hademak said he didn’t approve of Rudy ‘as a man’ (so he told me over tea one afternoon, though God knows quite what he meant by that). He was certainly very jealous of Mrs de Saulles’s affection for him.
On the other hand, Mr Hademak was undoubtedly fond of young Jack, and knowing how cheerfully he and Rudy played together, I am certain he would have been willing to overlook his disapproval. The problem (once again) was with his mistress. She, who never troubled to entertain the boy herself, who expected Rudy to sit indefinitely and wait, day after day, until she emerged from her sex-den to receive him, who barely acknowledged that I lived under the same roof with her, had ordered Hademak to ensure that the three of us be kept well apart: not simply Jack and Rudy, mind, but Rudy and me too.
‘She is worried what influence Mr Guglielmi might have,’ Mr Hademak told me, without quite looking at me. ‘Not just on the Little Man but on you, too, Miss Doyle. She has your best interests at heart.’ I remember laughing aloud when he said it. Mr Hademak chose not to react.
Her ruling meant that when the three of us were together, our meetings were always a little intense, and always conducted in whispers or at far corners of the garden, out of earshot of the house. Neither Jack nor Rudy nor I ever referred to the illicit nature of our lovely secret get-togethers. Needless to say, it only cemented our friendship further.
Not that Rudy and I were ever alone. In fact, since that first magical night on the terrace, we had not touched. We had barely spoken without young Jack being present. And yet there was a connection between us. Not simply – not only – of desire, but of tenderness, too. Oh, it seems so absurd and vain, seeing it written down here. Anybody who read these words would laugh and remind me that the very essence of Rudy is his magnetism. It is who he is; a man who has made half the world fall in love with him. And yet I know it was not imagined. I know it, because for all the long years when he was lost to me, it was this – this powerful, unspoken tenderness between us – that I could not give up on, that would never release its hold.
One evening, my father sought me out. He came to my room – something he had never done before. When I let him in, he sat himself morosely on the edge of my bed and gazed silently out of the window. I noticed he had lost weight – and heard myself asking if he was happy.
‘What?’ he said. ‘Happy? What an inane question, darling girl. Am I “happy”? Is that what you asked?’
