Liberty Silk (12 page)

‘I’ll tell her to set up a test for you some time next week.’ Mr Stein turned on his heel, shot his cuffs, and was collared at once by a Lana Turner lookalike who had been loitering with intent.

Reeling, Baba turned to find herself face to face with an elegant gentleman of military bearing.

‘Good evening,’ he said in an impeccable upper-crust drawl. ‘Allow me to introduce myself. I’m—’

‘David Niven,’ she supplied.

‘And if I am not mistaken you are young Baba MacLeod, come all the way from London. Richard told me to look out for the new Brit in town, and you’re positively wet behind the ears.’

‘Actually, Mr Niven, I’ve changed my name.’

‘Oh? Richard didn’t mention that.’

‘He doesn’t know yet.’

‘I see. And what might your
nom de guerre
be?’

‘Lisa La Touche. You don’t think it’s silly?’

‘It’s no sillier than any other you might have chosen. Indeed, I’ve heard a lot sillier. Vivien Leigh’s agent wanted to call her “April Morn”. Welcome to Hollywood, Miss La Touche.’

‘Thank you. Please call me Lisa.’

‘And you may call me David. Now we’re perfectly cosy. You must have tea with me some day soon, and I’ll fill you in on all the ex-pat gossip.’

‘I’d love that!’

‘Here’s a nugget for openers. Did you know that Larry Olivier has such skinny legs that he has to pad them when he wears tights?’

‘No!’

‘And Merle Oberon had to sterilize her face after doing love scenes with him? And that Claudette Colbert insists on only ever being filmed from the left because she thinks her right profile is ugly?’

‘Oh!’ said Baba with a laugh. ‘It’s going to be such fun knowing you!’

‘You have Richard to thank for that. I don’t look out for just anyone, you know. Your fiancé was the only person at Stowe who didn’t tease me about my ears. You’re engaged to a thoroughly decent chap.’

‘Yes, I am,’ Lisa agreed meekly.

David Niven caught the eye of a passing flunkey, and their champagne saucers were instantly replenished.

‘Now that we’ve been introduced,’ he said, chinking his glass against hers, ‘let’s get down to brass tacks. Have you found work yet?’

‘No. But I have an audition next week with Mr Stein.’

‘Congratulations. When I first came here, I was labelled Anglo-Saxon Type Number 2008 in Central Casting. I hope you’re aiming a little higher than that.’

‘Goodness, I’d consider myself very lucky to even get work as an extra.’

‘I received some very good advice early on in my career. From no less than the King himself.’

‘You mean, Mr Gable?’

‘Yes,’ he said, handing her his card. ‘He’s never taken his success for granted and he’s a great believer in reciprocity. So any time you need the benefit of my words of wisdom, I’d be glad to help.’

‘Thank you! Everybody’s been so kind to me today.’

‘Milk it for all it’s worth. Those kind of days are rare here.’

‘I’ll remember that,’ said Lisa earnestly.

‘You’re sweet.’ And David gave her an amused look and bade her farewell before rejoining his glamorous tennis partner, Carole Lombard, who had changed into the kind of halter-necked satin lounging pyjamas that Lisa had always dreamed of wearing.

She took a thoughtful sip of champagne. Imagine being tagged ‘Anglo-Saxon Type Number 2008’, or lumped with a name like ‘April Morn’! Imagine being as beautiful as Claudette Colbert and yet be panicky about the way you photographed! Dorothy might have written off Baba’s persona as being vulgor, but nobody here had scoffed at her yet. So far – touch wood – Lisa La Touche seemed to have a canny knack for turning base metal into gold.

The picture Lisa was to test for was called
Crimson Lake
, a ‘B’ feature set in the roaring twenties with a screenplay by some has-been called Scott Fitzgerald. The ‘sides’ she received read as follows:

INT. GABRIEL’S STUDIO. DAY.

A comfortable room, but functional, too. The day bed boasts an intricately wrought Turkish counterpane; there are canvases stacked against the walls. On a side table two crystal glasses stand beside a bottle of wine. SUNLIGHT streams through the skylight into the room. From outside, we hear the crash of the OCEAN. DAPHNE and GABRIEL are at work – Daphne holding a pose. GABRIEL is standing at his easel, alongside which is a trestle table littered with painterly paraphernalia.

GABRIEL

You’ve held that pose for forty minutes now, and we’re losing light. Perhaps it’s time we finished for the day. Wine?

DAPHNE

Thank you.

[DAPHNE stretches as GABRIEL moves to the side table and pours wine. He hands DAPHNE a glass, then moves to the day bed.]

DAPHNE

Mud in your eye.

[She drinks.]

GABRIEL

You sure can put it away, honey. You must have been liquored to the ears the other evening.

DAPHNE

Never seen a girl do cartwheels before?

GABRIEL

I’ve never seen a duchess do cartwheels before. And certainly not along a sea wall.

DAPHNE

Easy peasy. Anyway, I’m not a duchess, I’m a countess.

[GABRIEL reaches out a hand and proceeds to unravel her coiffure.]

GABRIEL

Your hair is magnificent – though I’m not sure I have the colour right yet. I’ll need to mix in a little more Raw Sienna. I trust you’ve never considered having it bobbed?

DAPHNE

Are you crazy? Daphne Bolingbroke doesn’t follow trends, she sets them.

[GABRIEL smiles. He leans in and kisses her lightly on the lips.]

DAPHNE

Can’t you stop that damn ocean outside?

GABRIEL sets down his glass. They kiss again, with increasing ardour. He breaks the kiss and they look at each other for a long moment, registering their powerful mutual attraction.

[DISSOLVE TO:]

Lisa hadn’t a clue what the scene dissolved to, and cared less. Her entire focus was on those half dozen lines – or, more importantly, their subtext.

For the next few days, she studied the script over and over and allowed herself to hope. She had all the qualifications for the role of Daphne: she had the hair, the accent – and she thought she just might have the talent.

On the morning of the test she checked in to Hair and Make-up. Her hair was plaited and pinned, her face painted with pale foundation, her eyes rimmed with heavy kohl, and the curve of her lips emphasized with the ruby red Max Factor.

In Wardrobe she was kitted out in slinky bias-cut satin, the kind Jean Harlow had made famous. So close-fitting was the gown that it was clear that she could not wear her girdle underneath. In fact, the wardrobe girl advised her, it would be better if she wore no undergarments at all. Displaying a nonchalance she did not feel, Lisa returned to her changing cubicle and peeled off her underclothes.

The dress was a little tight over her breasts – and it was still warm from the previous actress who had tested. Lisa wondered how many other hopefuls were being considered for the role. Again and again she went over her lines, convinced that nerves would send them spinning from her brain; again and again she replayed in her head the advice that Amy, Mr Stein’s secretary, had given her:

‘The money’s in the kiss. The kiss is how they gauge screen chemistry, honey,’ she’d told her over the phone. ‘You want this part, you’re going to have to kiss like Theda Bara and Greta Garbo and Vivien Leigh rolled into one sweet package.’

What made things even more nerve-racking was that the actor she was to kiss was quite damnably attractive. His name was Lochlan Kinnear, and he had recently starred in an aviation feature that was doing great things at the box office.
Photoplay
had carried an interview with him in which he’d been quoted as saying that he performed all his own stunts because he liked taking risks.

Lisa looked at herself now as she stood in front of the full-length mirror in Wardrobe, naked but for a sheath of satin and a shaky smile.

She turned to the wardrobe girl, hoping for some words of reassurance. The girl’s eyes flicked over her with manifest unconcern.

‘You need to lose ten pounds,’ she said.

And then Lisa found herself on set, where an indifferent director was instructing an indifferent cameraman. An indifferent lighting man was tweaking lamps, and an indifferent props man was setting up Gabriel’s ‘easel’ while a make-up girl gossiped with the script girl. Lisa thought that if she stripped to her pett and recited ‘The Wreck of the Hesperus’ none of them would look twice.

But Lochlan Kinnear had been watching her very closely from the shadows of the sound stage, and when he strolled into the pool of light and fixed on her the full beam of his attention, everything else receded. It was as though he had conjured some special effect: suddenly they were the only two people in the plywood construct of the phoney artist’s studio.

‘Don’t worry about any of it,’ he told her in a low voice: ‘lines or camera angles. I’ll cover for you if you fluff, and I’ll make sure the camera favours you. Play the scene as if it’s a dance – a beguine. Just follow my lead.’

That was all Lisa needed to hear. It was as if he had held out his arms for her to fall into from a height. Together they segued into the scene – synchronizing glances, mirroring gestures – and when she spoke the final line –
Can’t you stop that damn ocean outside?
– Lochlan’s smile told her that their footwork had paid off. He reached out a hand and pushed aside her hair, allowing a finger to trail down her neck. His mouth was so close that she could feel his breath merge with hers, and his hand was hard against the back of her head as he drew her face in to his.

Nothing had prepared Lisa for the intensity. She had never been kissed like this by anybody in her life before. She found herself responding – hesitantly at first, then – as per the stage directions – with increasing ardour. Finally, Lochlan broke the kiss and they gazed at each other for a long moment, registering their powerful mutual desire.

‘And –
cut
!’ commanded the director.

Lochlan swept her off to the Sunset Tower Hotel, where a poker-faced concierge palmed a twenty-dollar bill.

A couple of hours later, slick with sweat and rosy with consummated lust, Lisa lay back against the pillows and said: ‘I have never done anything like this before. I promise you I haven’t. I know this sounds feeble, but I’m just not that kind of girl.’

‘I’ve never done anything like this before either,’ confessed Lochlan.

‘Then how did you know to sweeten the concierge?’ She regretted the words the minute they’d been uttered. What business was it of hers?

But Lochlan didn’t seem to be remotely fazed. ‘It was one of the first lessons my agent taught me,’ he replied, turning candid eyes on her. ‘He presented me with a list of guidelines if I ever became involved in what he termed an “indiscretion”. And I reckon that what happened between us on Sound Stage B this morning was about as indiscreet as it gets, Miss La Touche.’

‘Was there chemistry?’ she asked, with a disingenuous smile.

‘
Boy
, was there chemistry!’ Their smiles broadened as they lay looking at each other, then Lochlan reached out a hand to caress a strand of her gloriously dishevelled hair and closed his eyes. She watched his expression change as he uttered two words in such a low voice that she had to ask him to repeat them.

‘I’m married,’ he said.

It took her a couple of moments to respond. ‘But . . .
how
can you be married?’ she asked, feeling numb and very, very stupid. ‘I’m sure – I’m
sure
I read in
Photoplay
that you were single.’

‘I married on the q.t., a week ago in Vegas. It was a shotgun wedding; she’s pregnant. The reason the press haven’t cottoned on to it yet is because I told Sheilah Graham she could have an exclusive. She interviewed me last week for
Hollywood Today
.’

‘Oh.’ Lisa sat up, hugged her knees to her chest, and laid her forehead on them. She didn’t want to look at him.

‘I’m sorry.’

She felt his hand on her shoulder, and she shrugged it off, but he was persistent.

‘I’m truly sorry, Lisa. I never dreamed that anything like this would happen.’

‘What
has
happened?’ she said, tension making her shrill.

‘A thunderbolt, is what has happened.’

‘A thunderbolt? A kick to the head, more like.’ Lisa really did feel as though she’d been slapped. The sensuality in which she’d taken such pleasure earlier was shameful to her now; she felt dirty, used. She got out of bed and found her clothes. ‘How very, very unfortunate,’ she said, in her best finishing school tones, trying to pull on some dignity along with her garments, ‘that you neglected to tell me you were a married man.’

‘Would that have made a difference?’

She didn’t answer.

‘
Would that have made a difference, Lisa?
’ He got to his feet and grabbed her shoulders, searching her face, forcing her to look at him.

‘No,’ she admitted in a very small voice. They regarded each other with uncertain eyes, then: ‘What shall we do?’ she asked.

‘I don’t know.’ He hit himself, hard, on the forehead with the heel of his hand. ‘What
bloody
disastrous timing,’ he said. ‘My apologies. Please, excuse my French.’

‘Who is she?’

‘She’s nobody. I was extremely drunk and
monumentally
stupid one night, and . . . it just happened.’ Lochlan gave a hopeless shrug, and sat down heavily on the bed. ‘She threatened to go to the papers if I wouldn’t make an “honest woman” of her. So I went to my agent, asked for his advice. He told me I’d painted myself into a corner and the only thing to do was to marry her. Then, once the baby’s born and enough time has elapsed for us to cite “irreconcilable differences”, she’ll walk away with a hefty divorce settlement. It’s standard procedure in this town. I’m sorry – I’m so sorry. I feel like she’s taken me for a dupe, and there’s nothing I can do about it.’

Lisa was astonished to realize that Lochlan was on the verge of tears. She had never seen a man cry before, and she found it distressing. Crouching down beside him, she took his hands in hers. ‘Please don’t feel so bad,’ she said, earnestly. ‘I’m no saint either. I have a fiancé back home in London.’