My Life in Black and White (15 page)

T
he fog was so thick I could barely make out the townhouse from the road where the cabbie let me out. I picked my way along the walkway, and my fingers were just touching the key to the lock in the front door when I was grabbed on the shoulder. I was about to scream but a hand clamped down over my mouth. My assailant spun me around and I saw that it was Niall. He released me immediately. “What the hell are you doing?” I demanded, my heart racing. “I didn’t want you to scream bloody murder,” he explained, a little too nonchalantly for my liking.

“You wanted to give me a heart attack instead?”

“I wasn’t worried. You’re tougher than you look.”

I gave him the once-over. It amazed me that despite everything that had happened, the sight of Niall excited me as much as it infuriated me.

“How was your visit with Amber?” I asked sharply.

He seemed surprised that I knew about it; then, in a flash, that wry grin he had was back. “Larry Hayward!” he said and snapped his fingers. “You didn’t hear from me so you got yourself mixed up with Larry.”

“I’m not mixed up,” I argued. “He was willing to help, unlike you. I need a reliable man.”

“What did you promise him?” He smirked as he said it. “Your undying affection? You have to be careful with a bloke like Larry. He’s lonely. I’d hate to see him get hurt.”

The accusation enraged me, probably because of how close it came to the promise I’d made to Frederick. “How dare you accuse me of such a thing? He didn’t want anything of the sort,” I said. “I may have told him a few facts to write about Dean so he’d get a scoop. And he’ll get some bylines in the U.S., like I promised you.”

“You’ve got it all covered,” he said, still smiling as he shook his head.

“Why would you give that girl the time of day?” I couldn’t resist asking.

His smile vanished. “Your jealousy is giving me a bad taste in my mouth. I interviewed her out of curiosity. See what about her gets up your crumpet so bad. She’s just a kid.”

“She’s sleeping with a married man! My married man. There’s a code between women and she broke it. I would never do that,” I said. “What is it about blondes that men can’t resist?”

He looked offended. “I didn’t say I couldn’t resist her.” He grabbed my arm and pulled me towards him. What had gotten into men all of sudden that overpowering a girl was the thing to do?

“You’re the second man to grab me like that and I don’t like it.” I tried to pull away, but Niall was too strong, and he pulled me closer until I disappeared into his arms. As I lifted my head to breathe, his lips landed on mine and he kissed me. His kiss wasn’t as violent as Frederick’s. It was tender, passionate and, what’s more, I
did
like it. When he was done kissing me, he shoved me away. I wiped my mouth so he would think I
didn’t
like it, that I wanted to erase the taste of him.

“You should learn to
let
a man kiss you. It’s less repellent than you think.”

He walked away, but he hadn’t gone two steps before he stopped
abruptly and turned back to face me. “By the way, that husband of yours, Dean?”

I stood rigid and stuck my chin in the air to take what was coming. What else had Dean done to me? “What did you find out?”

He grunted disdainfully. “Only that he’s not worth any of this. Just a hunch.” Then he turned away and disappeared into the fog.

By the time I got to the flat, I was desperate to call Frederick and prayed that Trinity was out somewhere. No such luck; she was stretched out on the sofa reading a magazine. There was a half-empty bottle of cheap wine on the coffee table and two glasses; one used, one not.

“So glad you’re back!” she slurred. It wasn’t like her to be half-drunk during the day.

“Are you okay? Did something happen?” I asked. “What’s with the wine?”

“I wanted to celebrate. I have an audition for Frederick Marshall’s new movie! The second lead. I may borrow one of your dresses,” she said, bubbling over with excitement.

“Of course,” I said, equally excited for her. “That’s wonderful news!” It was a relief that she got the audition. She’d be happy, and it was one step closer to showing me that Frederick could be trusted to do what I asked of him.

“Yes, I’m going tomorrow. Will have to leave early what with this fog and all.”

“Yes, damn stuff,” I agreed. I wanted to call Frederick to get an update on Alice’s audition and see how far he’d gotten with that part of our deal, but I couldn’t talk to him with Trinity in the room. It would take too much explaining as to why I was trying to get another actress a part. She wouldn’t like it; even though my plan was for Alice to have the lead, she’d still view it as competition. So out I went,
making my way back through the swelling cloud of coal dust to the phone booth on the corner. A man answered, only it wasn’t Frederick, and judging by his officious tone he was either his accountant or his butler.

“I’d like to leave a message. You’ll need to write it down,” I said by way of warning that what I had to say wasn’t short or sweet.

“I’m quite capable, I assure you, madame,” the voice boomed.

The message was about Alice’s audition at Paramount. I wanted to know what Frederick wanted her to read, a monologue or scene from another screwball comedy like
Bringing Up Baby
. I also wanted to find out precisely when it was going to happen, so I could send her a telegram as soon as possible so she had plenty of time to prepare. My voice picked up speed and intensity with each syllable. I felt like an agent closing a deal.

“Got all that?” I asked when I was finished talking.

“Of course,” he said. Only he wasn’t finished with me. He had a message too. “Mr. Marshall was expecting your call,” he said, which shouldn’t have surprised me. “He wanted to let you know he is meeting with Mr. Lapointe this afternoon. He said you should start packing because your trip is imminent. Good day, Miss Bishop.” Then the man hung up on me.

T
he next morning the fog hadn’t lifted; if anything, it was worse. I went to the newsstand and bought Talk and flipped through the pages until I found what I was looking for buried inside in the entertainment section. Larry’s writing was brief and to the point:
American-style variety show
Daddy’s Girls
shows little class to showcase English girls’ singing talent. Cheap sets and lousy lighting make it look like the producers scraped the bottom of the barrel for this one. Hollywood’s Dean Lapointe, the show’s so-called producer, wants you to watch his show, but he really wants you to know he’d prefer to direct
real
movies (his words). His lack of respect for the variety genre makes this reporter want to turn off …

Ouch. It didn’t get any better after that. A wave of guilt rushed through me in such a hurry it was gone before I knew it. It was one story, and as I knew all too well from years in the tabloid trenches, one tiny article wasn’t going to change anything. But it would embarrass him. And that was just the beginning. I had big plans for Larry to roll out a whole series. Wait until I got the story wired to
Hollywood Hush
… But then another item caught my eye. It was a tiny “upcoming” ad and it made me mad as hell:
Gentlemen, You’ll Prefer this Blonde. The latest bombshell from Tinseltown is in London and set to start a fire in the hearts of Englishmen. Read my in-depth feature on a day in the life of Amber Ward in tomorrow’s paper. Zowie!

That son of a bitch! He was going to do it. I quickly flipped through the pages of the
Daily Buzz
looking for a byline of Niall’s, but there was nothing … yet.

Furious, I tucked the papers under my arm, intending to march back to the flat as fast as I could, but I was slowed down by the air itself. I coughed and covered my mouth with the papers to try to filter out some of the pollution. This was worse than the worst LA smog. I made it back, nearly bumping into several other pedestrians. I threw open the door and startled poor Trinity, who was quietly reciting her lines for the audition.

“What on earth?” she exclaimed.

I then showed her the pieces in
Talk
. She sighed. “I told you nothing good would come out of this vendetta of yours.”

“How can you say that? I did nothing wrong. I was a good wife to that man. If Amber hadn’t gone after him, he’d still be with me.”

“Tsk tsk,” Trinity scolded me. “You don’t know if your marriage would have lasted. It’s the fifties now, and divorce is more common than you think! Now I have to rehearse, so unless you’re going to run the lines with me,” she hinted for me to get lost.

Fuming, I sat at the desk in my room and stared at the typewriter. Alicia Steele’s notes were clear. Clara would enlist Rod to kill her husband. He had it coming and she was as cold-hearted as they come. But the bit in
Talk
about Amber got to me, and I read it over and over, then stared at it until I was completely consumed by thoughts of her. What happened next made perfect sense, and I was sure Alicia would approve of a slight change in the plot. I began to type …

I stopped typing and pulled the page out of the machine. I didn’t need a mirror to know I was grinning ear to ear. The femme fatale always gets the bum rap in film noir. She never gets away with it and usually gets whacked by the hoodlum or even the leading man. In the postwar era, no one liked their women to be tough and independent and act like men; if they were, they paid for it with their lives. But The
Woman Scorned
was from the femme fatale point of view, and I’d be damned if I’d let the fictional Clara be destroyed by the time the end credits rolled. I was writing the screenplay now, and the mistress would die a horrible death at the hands of Clara. It would be a happy ending of a sort.

The phone rang in the other room, and I could hear Trinity answer it. She put on an act so thick with honey, it had to Frederick. I leapt out of my chair and dashed to the living room. She nodded.

“Yes, Mr. Marshall, she’s right here. One moment please.” Her hands were shaking when she handed me the receiver.

“Hello, Frederick,” I said. We didn’t speak long; what he had to say wasn’t much other than he had arranged for Alicia Steele to do a screen test in LA because of the fog. She could read from anything she wanted. It was up to her. I was disheartened because it meant I wouldn’t meet Alice, and I worried if I could keep her safe from such
a distance. I didn’t ask him how his meeting with Dean went, and he didn’t offer up any information. There would be time later to find out. I could imagine Dean sucking up. Whatever the outcome, I’d find a way to use it against him.

By early afternoon Trinity was off for her audition, her head wrapped in a silk scarf to protect her face and lungs from the onslaught of smog. Equally shrouded in a hat and scarf, I headed over to the local telegraph office, which had been a grubby Internet café, or rather, was destined to become one. Alice would just be waking up. I pictured her in our house on Camrose Drive, as Lyle and Lillian were no doubt lying together in some other bed somewhere in LA. Alice would be making breakfast for my mother. I’d seen photos of Marjorie when she was five. Beautiful and innocent, unaware of the horrible fate her equally beautiful mother had in store. Not if I could help it; if it were up to me, things would be very different. Fortunately, miraculously, fate seemed to be in my hands. I wrote the telegram.

Dear Alicia
,

I understand your audition is soon. I regret more than you know not being able to fly you to London. What the English are calling the Great Smog has grounded all aircraft. The film’s producer, Frederick Marshall, asks you to choose from whatever script you wish and use it in your audition. Good luck. You’re going to be a big star. Warmest regards, Clara Bishop
.

I paid the man to wire the cable and walked back onto the street. The sign for The White Stallion appeared through the dense air and, still reeling from Larry’s stunt, I wanted nothing more than a stiff drink despite it being pre-cocktail hour.

Saffron was on me the second I strolled in. I didn’t have much time for her either.

“I’m sorry for Larry,” she sputtered. “He told me who Dean is, and I was stunned to read such horrible things in
Talk
this morning.”

I waved away her concerns. “Don’t bother about that part of it. He did what I wanted in
that
story.”

I sat down at the bar and she poured me bourbon without my having to ask.

“You wanted him to write bad things about your husband?”

“Don’t be so surprised. He’s kind of a heel,” I said, still taken aback by my unintentional fifties vernacular. It started to occur to me that eventually the era might swallow me whole, just like the Great Smog had swallowed London. I took a big gulp of the bourbon.

“But you’re right about one thing, Saffron. I am livid with your cousin,” I said tersely. She stood there, waiting for me to continue. “He’s about to publish a gushy article on this untalented no-good actress named Amber Ward when I told him not to. You should be angry as the devil too. She has less experience than you. Why hasn’t he written about you?”

My missile hit its target. Saffron was enraged now. “That rotten son of a gun!”

“And while we’re on the subject, I wasn’t too thrilled to find out you told Larry that I might be up for some romantic interludes because, and I quote, I am ‘a lonely American’?”

She looked like she wanted to disappear into the smog, which amused me. “I’m … I’m …” she stuttered.

“Desperate to get yourself in the press?” I finished the sentence for her. She nodded.

“It was wrong of me,” she said contritely. “But you must understand, I need all the help I can get. It’s tough trying to get noticed.”

The last problem a girl with Saffron’s looks had was getting noticed. But I took her point.

“Well, I would have done the story on you. But now that Larry
didn’t uphold his end of the bargain, I’m afraid I just can’t.” This was, of course, a lie, but I didn’t care. I wanted Larry to pay for his mistake, even if the worst thing that would happen was tension at the family dinner table at Christmas.

Satisfied, I swivelled on my bar stool and saw Niall sitting at “our table” alone. I sauntered over and tossed the newspaper down in front of him.

“Have you seen
Talk
this morning?” I asked, not even trying to hide my irritation.

“I did,” he said. “You should be happy. Or do you always react to getting what you want by throwing newspaper about?”

“What Larry wrote about Dean was fine. It’s the other piece. The one that’s coming out tomorrow that I’m upset about. All about Amber. Like the world needs to know all about Amber!”

He pulled a cigarette out of his pocket, twirled it in his hands a moment, then lit it up.

“How can you smoke when the entire city is covered in the filthy stuff?” I asked, recalling the pack of cigarettes that remained in my train case at the flat.

“You think this one cigarette will make a difference?” he asked, perplexed.

“Haven’t you heard that smoking can kill?”

“No,” he said sharply and inhaled a long deep drag. “Do you want to try one again?”

After that first attempt I wasn’t so sure. Still, I took one from the packet and held it in my fingers like I knew you were supposed to. Niall struck a match and held it up for me. I had no choice but to try to smoke again. I would make an excuse that the fog was getting to me to explain the coughing fit that was sure to follow. I inhaled and watched the paper burn away. Then a funny thing happened. I didn’t choke, sputter or cough. Instead, I blew the smoke out of my
parted lips just like any femme fatale worth her salt could do. Just like Lauren Bacall. I wondered if I looked half as good as she did.

“You seem agitated yourself,” I said after we’d sat in smoky silence longer than was comfortable.

“I spoke to my editor. They won’t let me cover the smog story.”

“Why not?”

“That little matter of my being accused of wiretapping a cabinet minister, remember?”

“I remember,” I said sympathetically, and got the point that even in 1952 Niall Adamson was a shamed journalist.