101 Pieces of Me (13 page)

T
he noise must have been the slamming of the heavy door that led to the area of the studios where only those with permission could go. It must have been slammed very hard indeed, because the board forbidding unauthorized personnel to enter had been loosened by the impact and was hanging by one half-hammered-in nail. While Maria and I watched, the door was opened from the other side, only about twelve inches, and slammed shut again. Very hard. The board crashed to the floor.

Suddenly anxious, I gathered my robe and went to the door. Behind it I could hear voices – masculine voices – one of them louder than the other. Then there was a thump, and a cry, then another thump. The door was opened again by an unseen hand, but before I could take a step it was slammed again with as much force as before.

Then I heard a voice. “Good God, what on earth is going on?”

Jeanette, Robert, Dennis and half a dozen other people had appeared and were standing apprehensively in the corridor. It was Jeanette who had spoken.
“That’s David!”
she exclaimed, approaching the door. “Who’s he talking to?”

“He’s more than
talking
to someone, Jeannie,” said Dennis. “You’d better stand back.”

He turned the handle and leaned against the heavy door. It did not budge. “There’s something blocking it,” he said, his face pinched with exertion. “Come on, let’s all push.”

We pushed. Slowly the great door opened.

It had been blocked by a weight, a solid metal block with a recessed handle used in the studios for counter balancing the pulleys that moved overhead lights and scenery. It had been placed behind the door to stop anyone from getting in or out until the person who had put it there had finished his business.

That person, clearly, was David. On the floor lay Aidan, covering his face with his arms and swinging his legs in a vain attempt to stop the blows. Over and over again David hit and kicked him, and would have continued if Dennis and other crew members had not pulled him off.

Maria and Jeanette had their hands over their mouths. Jeanette’s eyes filled with tears as Aidan rolled over, coughing and clutching his stomach. “You bloody madman!” he spluttered. “You damned near killed me! I’ll sue you!”

David tried to shake off the restraining hands, and when this proved impossible he resorted, like Aidan, to verbal abuse. “
You’re
the madman, you useless streak of … uselessness!” He tried to kick Aidan in the small of the back but Dennis was too quick for him and got between them. David began shouting even louder. “You’ve had your final warning and now I’ve had enough!” He lashed out again, and was again restrained. His face bright pink with frustration, he thrust his head as close to Aidan as he could get it and shouted. “You’re sacked, do you hear me? You’re off this film and any other film I ever make! I’ll get you on a blacklist! I’ll sue
you
! I’ll ruin you!”

Everyone started to talk at once. I stood there in my robe, with cold cream all over my face, wondering anxiously how the man I loved could be so different from last night. He looked wild, with loathing in his eyes, his clothing dishevelled, his knuckles reddened and a bruise coming up on his temple. I did not countenance Aidan, whose punishment I was sure he had asked for. I cared for only David.

T
he next day David was not there. Jeanette found me alone in my dressing room at half past two in the afternoon, in full costume and make-up, waiting to start. “David telephoned,” she said. “He’s on his way from London and he wants to talk to us all. Could you be on the set at three o’clock, please?”

“What’s going on?” I asked.

She grimaced. “He’s been to see the money men.”

As instructed, we gathered in the studio half an hour later. David did not sit down in the director’s chair but stood, one hand in his pocket, the other holding a lit cigarette, despite the smoking ban on the set. He looked exhausted and his clothes were crumpled, as if he had not changed them from the day before. The swelling on his temple had partly closed his right eye. “Been a long night,” he said, “but I’ve managed to get them to agree to finance the overrun made necessary by the departure of you-know-who.”

There was a general murmur. “Great news, David!” called Dennis. “When’s the new deadline?”

“End of February.” David drew deeply on his cigarette. “Aidan’s scenes are more or less complete, but we have to film long shots with a stand-in and the back of the stand-in’s head to cut in with shots of people talking to him. And we’ll use bits of film of Aidan’s face, from try-outs and so on. It’ll be tight, but we’ll do it.”

“Who’ve you got to stand in?” asked Robert. “Rudolph Valentino?”

“Gregory Wright-Hanson,” said David.

A groan went round. “That
bore
!” complained Godfrey.

“He does the job,” said David steadily, “unlike some actors I could mention.” He shot a look at me. “Clara, you’ll like old Gregory.”

“I hope so,” I said doubtfully.

David smiled, but I could tell he was suppressing impatience. “My dear Clara, don’t make yourself anxious. The film will be finished on time, and everything will be all right. Oh, and the money men have at last decided what to call the film.
Innocence
.”

No one spoke.

“To reflect both the unjust beheading of Charles de Montfort and the naiveté of his lover,” David added. “I think it’s a pretty good title.”

I did too. The thought of seeing the title on the screen, followed by
starring Clara Hope and Aidan Tobias
, thrilled me more deeply than I could admit.

“Right,” said David, finishing his cigarette and stubbing it out in a coffee cup, since there were no ashtrays. “We start in half an hour. Gregory’s coming tomorrow.”

G
regory Wright-Hanson had been chosen for his physical resemblance, at a distance, to Aidan. But his behaviour off-screen could not have been more different. He did not forever have a cigarette in his hand, nor did he keep a bottle of whisky in his pocket. He did not amuse himself by antagonizing David. And time was not wasted while he argued or had to have his wig straightened or his nose powdered again because he had walked off the set to blow it on a borrowed handkerchief.

Furthermore, Gregory made no attempt to befriend me, advise me or take me out to dinner, but treated me with sycophantic respect. I could not even prevail upon him to call me Clara. To him I was Miss Hope, always. He repeated his lines perfectly and did everything David wanted, however many times he wanted it, without complaint. He was, as Godfrey had suggested, rather dull.

But he was pretty good at his job; once the camera started rolling, his movements were as “big” as David wanted without looking unrealistic. But he lacked something I struggled to name. Presence? Personality? Charm? Whatever it was, I missed it sorely during those final weeks. Watching the rushes at the end of each day, I noticed how much more skilful an actress I had become, so much so that having to re-do some of my scenes, and a large number of what Harry called “headshots”, hardly seemed a difficult task. It was merely work. Over the last six months I had, I suppose, transformed myself from a beginner into a professional.

Aidan would be amazed. But what did it matter what Aidan thought? When the filming was over, I was going to go away with David, to Brighton for the weekend. Every time I thought about it my heart quickened and a picture leapt into my imagination. My darling David and me on our first holiday together, away from everyone, wrapped in each other’s arms and enduringly in love.

T
he filming was completed exactly on time. On the last day of February, David threw a party at the Café Royal. Very late, as we and the few remaining couples danced to the band’s final number, David held me closely and whispered into my hair.

“This time tomorrow, my darling, we shall be alone together by the sea. We had better sign the register under assumed names. How does Mr and Mrs David Williams sound? Given your lovely lilt, don’t you think a Welsh name will add verisimilitude? I could always try and do a Welsh accent too, for fun.”

I had not expected this. He had assured me, several times, that he was a gentleman. “Do you mean we are going to pretend to be
married
?”

“Ah.” I felt his breath on my scalp as he sighed softly. “How delightfully innocent you are!”

He was right; I
was
innocent. But Florence, Mary and I knew that being married to a man involved sharing his bed and succumbing to the advances he made there. Growing up in the moral confines of Haverth, it had taken a while to dawn on me that such things also happened between people who were not married, and sometimes resulted in a girl “getting into trouble”. If her baby’s father did not agree to marry her, children that arrived by this means were absorbed into the girl’s family. But tolerant though this might sound, shame and disapproval still attended the unmarried mother. Mam had made this very clear to me. “She’s no better than she should be,” she would say, shaking her head sadly when the offending female passed. “And her mother isn’t much better!”

This meant, of course, that if I were to get into trouble myself, it would reflect upon Mam’s upbringing of her daughter as much as on my own irresponsibility. Mindful of this, I guarded my virginity with vigilance. Eager though I was to hear about Florence’s adventures with Bobby Pritchard (though where he put his hands and what she said to him was about all it amounted to) no one had ever impressed me with the desire to abandon my own principles.

But now, at least, I knew that if I were ever to permit anyone to unlock the secrets of whatever married, or unmarried, people did in their beds, that person would be David. His caresses had shown me how easy it would be to be weak, and how difficult some women found it to resist. But I knew he loved me, and we would soon be married –
really
married, not pretending, like those poor souls who conducted illicit affairs.

“But if this troubles you, then we shall not be Mr and Mrs David Williams,” said David. “Why don’t you be Miss Clara Williams, and I’ll think of another name for myself?”

I smiled up at him. “Thank you. It is so good of you to respect my wishes.”

“How could I do otherwise? Now you have made your position clear, a man would have to be an absolute cad to suggest anything else.”

Eyes closed, I nestled my cheek against his chin. “We shall have a wonderful weekend,” I assured him. “But morality is as important as love, you know.”

These words were not my own but those of Reverend Morris, the vicar of Haverth. And he had not said them to me, but to Mary Trease’s sister Megan and her husband-to-be when they had gone to receive his pre-marriage advice. Megan had told Mary, and she had reported the phrase to me. “I think the vicar’s quite right, don’t you, Sarah?” she’d said stoutly. “If anyone tries to get
me
into trouble, however much I love him, I’ll think of the Reverend and resist!” I had agreed that I would too, and now the test had come, I had passed it. Reverend Morris, I could not help thinking, would be very satisfied indeed.