Читать книгу Mirror, Mirror - Paula Byrne - Страница 8

It’s funny how I can remember every single person who’s ever been kind to me.

When I look back now, I see so much, but I guess that’s the way it is for most people. I never knew my age in those days when we first went to Hollywood. That was because Mother constantly changed it, so I never had a chance to celebrate my birthday. To her friends and fans, I was a baby, to others, I was a young girl of nine, or maybe eight. All I knew was that I had the most beautiful mother in the world and that I was ugly.

My face was covered with pimples. Mother blamed the cream pastries I ate. It was one of the things I most loved about America: the food. For breakfast, the maid would bring me a stack of pancakes with maple syrup and whipped butter. There were strips of salty bacon ‘on the side’. American waffles with cream and blueberries. Gloriosky!

Mother glared at me, sipping water mixed with Epsom Salts. This was how she stayed pencil thin.

‘Sweetheart, hurry. The car is here. That Big Girl’s Blouse will be weeping into his coffee if I’m even five minutes late.’

Her co-star was English. Peter somebody. On the whole, she disliked Englishmen, ‘thick, white ankles, fingers like uncooked sausages’. She was obsessed by the beauty of her own slender ankles. ‘Aristocrats have thin ankles, only peasants have thick ones.’ She looked at my fat ankles, accusingly, as she said this.

I felt sorrow for my mother because she had given birth to such a plain child. I looked exactly like my father, but what was handsome in a man was plain in a female. In the mirrored dining table where we were eating a hurried breakfast I could see my reflection: high forehead, large flat nose, and deep-set eyes. My bushy eyebrows made me look perpetually cross. My hair was fine and a pale shade of ginger. I had blotchy brown freckles that I tried to scrub off with lemon juice. It never worked. But I had a lovely mouth, with a Cupid’s bow. It was the only feature that I had inherited from my mother. I decided then that it might be best to avoid mirrors.

As usual, it was an early-morning call. Mother was expected to be in Make-up at 5 a.m. Her car and driver were already outside the house. A hot Santa Ana wind had been blowing that week, and the Hollywood hills were sharp-edged and the colour of elephant skin. The morning air was cold, however, and I wrapped a warm rug around Mother’s legs. On the way to the studio, she talked non-stop: ‘It’s fine for stage actors, they’re the fortunate ones, they don’t have to be acting a love-scene at 9 a.m. after being in Make-up since 6 a.m.’

‘Any country that can make a dog a film star is not to be taken seriously.’

‘Harlow was at the dinner. That shows you the level of intelligence there last night!’

‘Abominable country, America.’

Mother was always edgy during pre-production. I listened and nodded and smiled and tried not to get carsick. I longed for the studio, and the hum of the carpenter’s saw. Only then would I know I was home.

She continued to complain that no drawings had been sent to her, and Nellie, her hairdresser, had not seen a single wig sketch. Von Goldberg, she knew, was still making adjustments to the script. What was everyone doing at Paramount? Hiding W. C. Fields’ gin bottles?

We drew up at the Bronson Gate. In those days – before the big earthquake – there was an elaborate stone belfry framing the famous archway. I nodded to the frieze of Shakespeare, who seemed to be presiding over the studio lot.

‘Good morning, Miss Madou. Good morning, Miss Kater.’

‘Harry, take me straight to Wardrobe. I need to speak to Travis.’

‘Yes, Miss Madou.’

That was the day I became my mother’s dresser.

Like most little girls, I thought my mother was perfect. Except my mother really was perfect. Everyone told me so, and she had the face and body to prove it. I guess that’s why I never told anybody the truth. Who would believe me? It’s strange how people refuse to think badly of the beautiful.

I remember the first time that my mother went to an airport full of ‘civilians’ – that is, not ‘Hollywood People’. She was horrified by the ugliness, the commonplace, the fleshy bodies. At the top of her voice, she exclaimed, to whoever cared to listen: ‘No wonder they pay us so much!’

In later years, when she had left the film industry, she was bemused by modern actresses, who relied on their talent and not their good looks to succeed. Not that she truly cared about her beauty; it was a commodity: ‘Glamour is what I sell. It’s my stock in trade.’ Mother liked her maxims: ‘Darling, the legs aren’t so beautiful; I just know what to do with them.’ Another favourite: ‘The Possible we do immediately. The Impossible may take a little longer.’ And another: ‘Nothing bad can ever happen to you when you’re with your mother.’ But the one she liked best was this: ‘Kater, remember, the mirror never lies.’