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Chapter 3

Hotel Continental

New York

Saturday, 14 August 1926

Not so sure what to do with myself. Don’t want to sit, in case the dress creases. But it’s only seven o’clock. I have two hours to kill and – oh, hell, maybe I should change back into my chemise, just for a short while. But then I shall want to shower again, in this heat, and it was a long enough wait to get a turn in there the first time, and then suppose they ran out of water? Besides, it so happens I look just about as good at this particular instant as I have in my entire life.

The party’s too far to walk. Maybe I’ll take a taxicab, which means leaving at – what time? I mustn’t arrive before Rudy. They may not even let me in! But if I arrive too long after he does he may think I’m not coming at all.

I’m so goddamn nervous. I could have dined with him at the Colony tonight, and gone on with him to see the show. Why didn’t I? He said he’d come by and pick me up, and I know he wanted to.

He said, I can’t contemplate a whole evening without you . . . Only I couldn’t contemplate an evening of sharing him, I suppose; of dining with him and all the others whom I know he is obliged to be dining with tonight. I couldn’t have done it – as his date? I think not! As his newly engaged scenario writer? Perhaps . . . Except then I would have to sit there in my off-the-peg beautiful, beautiful dress, and my off-thepeg beautiful satin slippers, and smile sweetly, which isn’t my style, and they would all bawl at one another across the table about this and that, and whether Rudy and Pola intend to be here or there . . . I couldn’t quite have done it. I would have half shrunk into the floorboards, and that’s no way to keep a man’s interest, when he’s recently been voted the most desirable movie star in history . . .

The party tonight is in his honour, as parties he attends are prone to be, these days. I should have preferred not to go to that either, and to wait to see him tomorrow, when we can be alone again, but he wouldn’t hear of it. He said he would send his driver to fetch me. I said I didn’t know where I would be, and he said he would order his driver to search every corner of the city until he found me.

So I’ve said to the nice fat guy – the room clerk – at the front desk that when a driver and a big car arrives for me he is to send them right away again. The fat guy was dreadfully curious, needless to say, but I wouldn’t give him any more details.

I shall make my own way. When I’m good and calm and ready. That’s what I’ll do. Call a taxicab. Or something . . . Oh, God . . .

A cigarette!

And a cold shower.

The trouble with this new-fangled, fancy-pants typewriter, which I adore more than anything I ever had, except the dress – no, including the dress – the trouble with this beautiful machine is you can get the words out so fast that you wind up scribbling down any amount of hogwash. So. A little self-control is what I seem to be lacking. (Nothing new there, I guess.)

Two hours to kill until I see him, or slightly less now, and not enough running water in the joint for me to be sure of another cold shower. I wish I could sit still. I wish I could stop remembering his hands on me, his eyes on me, his tongue, his fingers, his kiss, his . . . Oh, I shall go crazy any minute. I shall go stark raving round the twist.

– – –

A long, deep breath . . . A slurp of magic, rancid moonshine from my little flask . . .

Much better.

This Is What I Did Today

On the Second Best Day of My Life

By Lola Nightingale

a.k.a. Jennifer Doyle

a.k.a. Mrs Rudolph Valent— I’m getting ahead

of myself.

– – –

So I slept for six hours straight and I swear I’ve not done that since God knows when. First, I didn’t sleep until the day was already begun and I could hear the autos honking and grinding outside, and my skin was already beginning to prickle with the morning heat. And then, finally, when I woke, half the day was already gone. I heard a bang and a crash outside, and somebody knocking at my door. I staggered out of my cot with every intention of being vile to whomever I found on the other side.

Fortunately for them, by the time I opened the door there was no one out there – not a soul. Just the biggest, sweetest-smelling mountain of pink lilies that I ever laid eyes on, and in the middle of it all this typewriter! With a great ribbon tied around it. Not just any typewriter either . . . Rudy left a card tucked in. I have it here:

Ha ha ha! [it says. That’s what he wrote.]

Cara Mia, thank you!

And by the way, if you are wondering what the long wire is for . . . you have to plug this machine into an electrical point before it can record your wonderful words.

You are brilliant as well as beautiful. XXXXXX

Imagine that. Brilliant as well as beautiful.

I don’t suppose even Frances Marion has an electrical typewriting machine she can call her own. She probably doesn’t know they exist. I certainly did not until this morning. I don’t think they have even heard of them at the studio, because Mr Silverman, the old tyrant, is very proud of his modern approach with gadgets so I’m certain if he knew there was such a machine he would have acquired one by now so all the people passing through the outer office could admire it, and think what a fine, modern fellow he is. God only knows where Rudy must have found it – or when – between last night and today . . . But here it is. And, come what may, just as soon as I am the slightest bit cooler – in body and mind – I intend to use it religiously, to write hundreds of photoplays. Some of them for Phoebe and Lorna, of course, because I promised I would, and I must. And then all the rest of them – for not a soul but Rudy. If that’s what he would like.

Well – except the one I must write for Miss Davies, I suppose. If Miss Marion says I should.

– – –

I was meant to watch that wretched Marion Davies movie this morning. I had been meaning to watch it in time to meet Frances Marion for luncheon, but then she left a message saying she couldn’t make our appointment after all. And what a stroke of luck that was, considering by the time I got the message I had already slept right through it anyway.

It frightens me, though, to have been so careless. It frightens me even more to notice just how little I can bring myself to care.

One hour and forty minutes . . . Oh, but it’s so humid tonight! Perhaps if I type with my elbows out . . . like this . . . and I have a jug of coolish water by the bed perhaps I can dab it on my forehead . . . carefully . . . else my hair will go into a frizz . . .

Tomorrow, if Rudy has nothing better to do, he might come with me back to the Strand, and we can watch the movie together. If he kept his hat on, or he wore the silly disguise I just bought him . . . and if we sat at the back, and we stayed as quiet as possible and he made a great effort to look entirely innocuous – might he still be spotted? He tells me he goes regularly to the movies back in Hollywood, despite having a screening room of his own at home. But then, I suppose, Hollywood is Hollywood. There are stars about wherever you care to look. Take a walk down Sunset and you’ll generally spot one or another driving by . . . Only last week, in fact, Pola Negri almost ran me down in her Pierce Arrow. Her turquoise-and-gold Pierce Arrow. If you please. Ha! If she’d known whom she was steering towards, she might have tried a little harder. The point is, in Hollywood even a star as big as Rudy is let alone to go about his business without being constantly mobbed.

Trouble is, this isn’t Hollywood, and in New York people get a little crazy. You’d think mobbing the stars was some kind of a city sport, the way they behave. It’s as if they read something in the paper and the next thing they can’t leave it alone. They’ve just got to be a part of the story.

– – –

I did ask Rudy about Pola. Eventually. I think it was before we got into that beautiful Chinese bed, but maybe it was after. She seemed irrelevant. She did, and she still does, but I had to ask him because it’s been in the papers for months. Every article they write, they ask him about it, and he always answers the same. He says, You must ask the lady. It’s his stock reply. He won’t say yes, and he won’t say no. Whereas when they interview Pola, she won’t shut up about it . . .

So, I asked him if he was engaged to be married to her and I do believe if he’d told me to ask the lady I would have done – what? He didn’t say it, of course. He simply laughed.

He said, ‘Oh, Lord, Jennifer, is that a serious question?’

I said it was.

He said, ‘You ask me that? Now? When I look at you like this, and you look at me as you do, you can ask me that?’

‘I just did, didn’t I?’

And he sighed. ‘Well, now . . . ’ he began carefully ‘ . . . Pola . . . is a sweet girl.’

‘Oh! Sweet!’ I interrupted. ‘Is that right?’ Because there are plenty of adjectives that spring to mind when describing that attention-seeking little sex-crazy minx. But sweet for sure ain’t one of ’em!

He smiled. ‘Oh. Well – perhaps that’s not entirely right,’ he said. ‘No, I suppose, not entirely. But . . . I am fond of her. She has some remarkable aspects . . . ’ For a moment he looked on the point of laughter, but he pulled himself back. ‘Really, Jennifer, I am no more engaged to be married to Pola than I am engaged to William Randolph Hearst. How could you possibly imagine, after all we have said and done—’

‘Because she keeps on saying it,’ I said. ‘And nobody ever seems to contradict her.’

‘It wouldn’t be terribly chivalrous . . . ’

There was a pause between us then. I wasn’t so sure how to fill it. Until suddenly he shuddered and then, rather sheepishly, he added, ‘Jennifer, if you want to know, she is a nightmare. A crazy woman!’

‘A crazy woman – whom you formed an attachment to?’

‘Well, I admit that I did form a sort of attachment to her, briefly . . . after the divorce . . . I was dreadfully low. But she’s like a dog with a bone! By that I mean to say,’ he added quickly, ‘she’s a very sweet girl in her own way . . . An extraordinary girl – and I am full of admiration . . . But if anyone could advise me on how to shake her . . . ’

I must admit, I felt rather better after that. I didn’t mention her name again. And I’m not thinking too much about her. Not so much. If I do – if I allow myself to dwell on Pola, not to mention all the others – I shall soon be even madder than she is, and furthermore without an eighth of her beauty, wealth or fame. In any case I am delighted she’s not in New York at the moment. She’s back in Los Angeles, shooting a movie about a wicked count and an adorable servant girl . . . And good luck to her, I guess.

I went shopping again this afternoon. I had to. I came to New York with just two evening dresses – three, I guess, if you count the other one, which was only ever meant as a spare. I tried it on in front of the glass and I knew at once it was all wrong. It looked cheap, even to my not-so-terribly-expensive eye . . . And Rudy isn’t like a lot of men: he certainly notices these things. He appreciates beauty, elegance and all that. So I was standing there in front of the glass, seeing the wretched dress as I imagined he would see it, and just knowing I would have to go and buy another, and thinking about all the other things I had meant to do today – watch the Marion Davies movie, visit Papa’s grave, which I’ve not done, not even once, not since . . . and then I realised that, more than anything else, more than a new dress, even, I needed to get a gift for Rudy.

I wandered up and down Fifth Avenue in a ferment of indecision. A mah-jong set? A cigarette case? Something terribly clever? I went to some lengths to discover what was the most recent offering from Sigmund Freud . . . Inhibitions, Symptoms and Anxiety . . . Well, I flicked through that pretty briefly, and thought I would probably die from all the symptoms of every anxiety under the sun, if I ever laid eyes on the thing again . . . Finally, I was on the point of buying a live parrot (green and yellow and quite stunning – Rudy adores animals) when I had the most wonderful brainwave.

I headed to Altman’s and bought him the disguise. There is a Homburg hat and some spectacles, and a wig made from the hair of some poor German, I suppose. Or Swede. It’s quite blond – actually it reminded me of Justin Hademak. I don’t suppose Rudy will much want to wear it, my funny wig – but he might. He doesn’t complain but I see how it gnaws at him to be constantly recognised and fawned over. I think in some ways he is horrified by what he has done – the crazy whirlwind he has created. But perhaps it won’t last for ever. Perhaps one day he will be forgotten again, and we will be free to wander about, with our children around us, like any ordinary couple in love. Perhaps we could live in Italy. And he could build his cars and breed his horses, and I could write . . .

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.