My Life in Black and White (10 page)

P
anicked, I leapt from my bed and whipped open the curtains, but to my horror the entire city was a sea of grey, black and white. I needed to find Trinity. I hoped she’d know what was going on. Then I caught sight of my reflection in the small mirror and stopped dead. My well-worn cotton pyjamas were no more; instead, I was wearing a long flowing nightdress complete with frilly collar and cuffs. I must have screamed because Trinity was pounding on my door all of a sudden.

“What on earth is the matter?” she shouted.

I had to calm down. “I thought I saw a mouse,” I said quickly.

“Oh, not another one!”

“Another one?” I asked and panicked further. I was terrified of mice.

She remained on the other side of the door as she spoke up. “I’ve had this problem before. I may have to borrow Clifford, the neighbour’s cat, again.”

“I was probably seeing things,” I said, knowing how true that was. The tone of her voice was its usual upbeat self, so I decided to test the waters. “Is everything okay with you this morning?”

“Fine and dandy,” she chirped.

It wasn’t what I wanted to hear. Whatever this was, it was only happening to me.

“I’ll be out in a minute. I need to get dressed,” I said.

“Come out when you’re ready,” she said. “I’ve put coffee on. But I have to run out for a bit.”

I waited until I heard the lock turning in the door before coming out of my room. Immediately, I saw how the flat had changed. Gone was the giant shoe-shaped chair and animal-print rug. The Arborite kitchen set remained, but otherwise the furniture and art were completely different. I walked around the room and touched the sofa, the chairs and lamps. It all looked familiar even though I’d never seen it before. Then it dawned on me. I recognized the look from years of décor magazines and my mother’s obsession with mid-twentieth-century style. Everything in the flat was early 1950s. I crossed the room to the window. The venetian blinds were closed tight like eyelids. I twirled the plastic wand to open them as wide as they could go, praying that the morning light would flood the room with colour. Instead, bright white strips of sunlight landed across every surface, creating a black and white striped pattern. The blacks were blacker, the whites, whiter; everything else was a shade of grey.

My anxiety rose like a pot of water boiling over. I raced to my room to get dressed, desperate to get out and find a reasonable explanation, even though I had no idea where to go for one. I practically ripped the nightdress off, but in my haste I couldn’t locate the pair of jeans or any of the clothes from yesterday. I had no choice but to wear one of Alice’s dresses. I grabbed the green one from the photo and slipped it on and stepped into a pair of kitten-heeled shoes. Then I noticed the handbag for the first time. It was on top of the dresser. It was delicate and feminine—a lady’s handbag. I opened it and found some pound notes inside, along with a lipstick. Looking in the mirror, I carefully traced my mouth with the lipstick and ran a brush through my hair, the curls from Trinity’s makeover still bouncy and full.

Armed only with my grandmother’s things, I scrambled out the
door and marched onto the street. I hadn’t taken two steps when I noticed that I was not the only person in vintage clothes. Everywhere I looked, men were going about their business wearing suits and hats, and women were clothed in pretty day dresses with wasp waists and flared skirts. That wasn’t all. The cars and buildings, the signs and sounds, were of another era, as though my life had rolled backwards. Yet everything had a fake look about it, like it belonged on a studio backlot, a living, breathing movie set. I half expected to see giant HMI lights and cranes and director’s chairs in every corner. Only there weren’t any. Everything and everyone seemed to be playing their part, and I was the only one who was in on it.

Alarmed, I darted down the alley that ran the length of Trinity’s townhouse. A cat hissed at me and leapt onto an old trash can. I dashed further down the alley, coming to another small side street where a woman was bringing in laundry from a clothesline. I stopped and stood, panting a little from the exertion.

“Can I ask you a question?” I blurted.

She barely looked at me. “How can I help?”

“What is today’s date?”

“Second of the month.”

“December?”

“Course it is. What else follows November?”

I paused, knowing what I was about to ask next would sound crazy. I asked her anyway. “What year is it?”

That made her stop what she was doing and stare hard at me. “Are you all right in the head?”

“I think so,” I answered.

She looked me up and down and seemed to decide that tricksters, criminals or the insane didn’t dress in bouclé and kitten heels, and that whatever was wrong with me wasn’t going to beat her to death or steal her life savings. That didn’t stop her from snatching the last
article of clothing from the line and holding her basket in front of her like a shield. “It’s 1952,” she snapped, then rushed away towards her house.

I reeled from her words. What she said was impossible, and yet everywhere I turned was evidence that backed her up.

Shaken, I slowly made my way back home, taking the high-street route, and wondered if I was still dreaming or insane with grief over losing Dean. Maybe it was some sort of hallucinatory post-traumatic stress disorder. But as I walked, I took in every sight and sensation, indulging in the beauty of a city sculpted from shadow and light, where everything from people to cars to buildings had a sharp silhouette, as though the great cinematographer Gregg Toland had lit the entire world for Orson Wells’ next picture. If this were all a dream, part of me didn’t want to wake up, not yet.

There was no one at the flat when I returned. I turned on the radio to Doris Day singing
Sentimental Journey
. I adjusted the dial only to find Rosemary Clooney. I turned it off and went back to my room where
The Woman Scorned
glared at me from the desk. Maybe there was a clue in its pages.

“I guess you want to be read.” Curled up on the bed, I devoured the screenplay, and when I was finished, I didn’t know what to make of it. The plot and characters were haunting, the script full of eerie coincidences that were tough to ignore. As I’d suspected when I first found the unfinished script and her notes, Alice’s fictional Clara could have been me, the jilted wife. But that’s where the similarities ended. I wasn’t a vengeful woman. Her Clara sought revenge in the harshest way possible: murder. She plotted to kill her husband and was attempting to persuade Rod, the private detective, to do it. I turned once more to the page of notes that Alice had jotted down and felt that same chill shoot through me as it had done the first time I’d read them.

Then I heard the door open and my name called out. “Clara?”
It was Trinity at last. I raced out to the living room and there she was. Only she wasn’t her usual self. Like the rest of London, she was clothed head to toe in a costume; hers was a pale suit with a matching hat pinned to her hair. Under normal circumstances, I would have said the look suited her. But there was nothing normal about it.

“You okay? Were you sleeping?” she said and stepped closer.

“Must have been,” I said and stepped back. From the looks of things, she wasn’t aware anything was amiss. “You look nice.”

“Thanks.”

“Does anything look different to you?” I asked. She gave me a puzzled look.

“Everything looks fine.” Concerned, she surveyed her flat, then smiled slyly. “Did you buy me a present? A new lamp or something?”

I shook my head. Then she saw the script in my hand. “Is that the screenplay?”

Relief washed over me. Some things were evidently the same. Maybe I was on the verge of waking up after all. “So you do remember our talk from yesterday?”

“Only that you still have to get me the audition with Frederick Marshall. I assume that’s his movie script in your hands?”

Whatever was going on, the same people, Trinity and now Frederick, had made the trip back to 1952 with me. Only I seemed to be the sole person aware of it.

“I’m destined to star alongside David Niven,” she said excitedly.

“David Niven?” I exclaimed.

“He’s so suave,” she said, as though it needed explaining. “By the way, this came for you just now. The boy caught me when I was coming through the front door.”

It was a telegram. I’d only ever seen them in the movies. The point of origin was LA.

“It’s from my mother,” I said, rattled by the turn of events, not to
mention the century. It must be her response to the email I’d sent last night. I supposed it made sense that yesterday’s email would be today’s telegram. I opened it, hoping to be told she was on the next flight to London. What I got shocked me enough that I had to sit down.

“Is everything okay?” Trinity asked, alarmed.

There was no way I could share the contents of the telegram with Trinity.

“Everything’s fine. I’m just tired. If you’ll excuse me, I’m going back to lie down.”

“Okay, I’m going to draw a bath. I’m still so thrilled to have a flat with its own bathroom!”

“What do you mean?” I asked her. The flat had a bathroom all right, but I wasn’t sure why it was worth noting.

“You Americans are spoiled,” she said cheerfully. “You probably all have bathrooms, one for each person! We just got them over here; only modern flats and houses have them.”

She went into the bathroom and I heard the water running. I read the telegram again to be certain I got it right the first time. I had.

Dear Miss Clara Bishop
,

I’m responding on behalf of Marjorie. You asked her to meet you in London, England. You must have meant another Marjorie. My Marjorie is only five years old, and believe me, she has no friends in England. Signed, Alicia Steele. December 2, 1952
.

It was from my grandmother, and she had signed it using her screen name. She was alive. Of course, if this was 1952 London, she was across the ocean in 1952 Los Angeles. My mother was at this moment a little girl. The grandmother I never met just sent me a telegram. I read it several times over before I focused on the most significant part of all. December 2. She would be dead in eight days. She would be
dead in eight days unless I stopped her from driving over that cliff, but how? I clutched the screenplay in my hand and returned to my room and picked up her screen-test photo. Standing in front of the mirror, I saw once more the resemblance, and it was more than the wardrobe and hairstyle. Like me, Alice was in mourning over her husband’s betrayal. And like me, winning back a lost love could set things straight, but there wasn’t a weapon or potion invented to make a person love you. But a woman needed more than love, she needed to be something, just like Cora did in
The Postman Always Rings Twice
.

From that moment, I knew what I had to do. It was so simple. I had made a wish, and part of that wish was to have been able to help Alice, if only I’d been around in 1952. Now here I was. I would save her and, in return, she would save me. So I connected the dots. Alice wanted to be a star. If she’d got the role in whatever film the screen test was for, then maybe she wouldn’t have taken her own life. Or maybe had she finished
The Woman Scorned
and sold it, she would have been satisfied with that success. Either scenario might have given her something to live for and made her realize she wasn’t a failure, instead of being pushed beyond the brink and leaving her child alone in the world.

I would get her a movie role, a starring one if possible. I would also finish her script and try to sell it. And I knew the man who could make it all happen.

W
hen the telephone rang a few moments later I knew who it would be.

“Do you want me to answer it?” I called out to Trinity. I could hear her splashing about in the bath.

“Please do, darling.”

Still clutching the telegram, I picked up the receiver.

“Hello?” I said cautiously. Just as I expected, it was Frederick.

“Good afternoon, Miss Bishop,” he said politely; 1952 seemed to have softened his edges. “I assume we’re on for this evening? You must be anxious to get your things back.”

My knapsack! How I wanted to believe that life would return to normal when I got my knapsack and all its contents, the real Clara Bishop, back. But I had a job to do, and instinctively I knew that how I acted from now on would be vital to ensuring my plan’s success, so I said sweetly, “How nice of you to remember.”

When Trinity emerged from the bath in a fluffy robe, she asked about the call. I admitted it was Frederick and that we had made plans to meet that evening. She chattered on about his film, though I only half listened.

“Don’t forget about me. I want a part in that movie!” She winked, as though she were joking.

I smiled. “I remember. But I need your help with my hair, and I need to borrow some makeup. Frederick has all of mine.”

“Sure!”

“We don’t have much time,” I said, checking the clock on the wall.

Hair and makeup aside, there was the matter of what I would wear. Judging by the contents of the suitcase, my grandmother wasn’t big on slacks or casualwear. I was pretty much restricted to dresses and skirt suits.

Then a long satin gown caught my eye, glistening in its whiteness. I ran the satin through my fingers; it was sleek and soft. There was a familiarity to the gown that got to me. But unlike the green dress, what I recollected wasn’t from a photo. It was the very same satin slip dress that Alice had written about. I flipped through the script until I found the part.

That was the dress all right. I grinned, undecided if Alice’s script was all corn or all classic. I slipped on the dress. No sooner had the bodice and skirt slid into place than an icy draft blew through the room sending the satin swirling into shimmering pools at my feet. I raced to the window. The temperature had fallen suddenly, and as I peered into the night sky I saw fog rolling in, like a distant smoke signal. I latched the window shut, but it was too late. The room itself seemed hazy now and the cold was biting. I searched around for some kind of cover-up. A mink stole was lying on the floor begging to be picked up and cuddled. Wrapped in satin and mink, I was overdressed for dinner, no matter how rich and successful Frederick was. As I made final preparations to leave, there came over me another feeling, one that masked all the fear and confusion. It was courage gained from having nothing left to lose.