Land of Dreams: A Novel (13 page)

“She’s only eighteen,” Leo said, “so you see, I am not too young to be an actor.”

There was no way that Crystal, with her bleached blonde hair and made-up face, would see twenty-one again—and I could intuit from her maternal manner toward my son that that was a generous assessment. However, I kept my mouth shut for the time being. I had found Leo, he was alive and well, and until we had eaten dinner and I got him on his own, that was enough.

We took a booth in Greenblatt’s, a deli-restaurant on Sunset Boulevard, just down the hill outside the hotel—a short walk. It was a relief to be eating good deli food after three days’ traveling, and the busy interior reminded me of New York.

Mostly it was a relief to be with Leo, although he seemed different in a way I could not quite put my finger on. As I watched him nudging and laughing with these two new friends, I realized that—strange though it was, and loath though I was to admit it—I had never seen him so happy before in his short life.

Leo had always been at best a thoughtful child and, at worst, and certainly since his father died, quietly troubled. He adored his baby brother, Tom, and they had fun fooling around the place together, but sometimes I would catch him when he thought I wasn’t looking, and his expression of studious worry would break my heart. I often tried to talk to him, to get him to open up to me, but he never did.

“You can tell me anything,” I would say, “never carry cares around with you, Leo—you can always come and talk to me.”

“I know,” he said, “but I’m fine.”

So it came to be that a muted “fine” was the pinnacle of Leo’s emotion as a teenage boy—never too happy or unnaturally sad, but in a constant quietude somewhere in between.

“He’s just quiet,” Bridie would say to reassure me, “he’s content enough.”

I never quite believed her.

“I bet you I can eat this sandwich in four clean bites,” he said now to Crystal.

“Bet me what?” she said.

“Bet you’ll be fat in a week,” he said, then she pinched him and he raised his eyebrows, his eyes full of laughter and light, and poked her playfully in the arm.

“Children, children . . .” Freddie said. He lit a cigarette and passed me the packet and I took one. Although I hadn’t smoked in a while, I felt as if I needed something.

Over the next hour Freddie filled me in or, rather, sold his story to me.

He was from up the coast in Santa Cruz and his father was a bigshot movie producer, whom he didn’t know on account of the fact that he had abandoned Freddie’s mother when she was pregnant with him. Freddie had come to search for him when he was eighteen, and “fell into movies” by getting bit parts and working as crew.

“Then I met this lovely lady—and got into the scouting side of things.”

Crystal looked across at him with adoring eyes.

“Yes, indeed—there is my fortune sitting right there, Mademoiselle Crystal Paris Marseille; the rest is history.”

I could not believe the drivel I was hearing.

“And Leo,” Crystal said, “he’s going to be a star too.”

“Of course,” Freddie said. “A big star.” Although he did not sound as convinced.

“You must be doing really well,” I said. “Where are your offices?”

“We’re between offices right now,” he said, shifting in his seat, “but everyone knows I’m at the Chateau.”

I wondered who “everyone” was.

The story, as far as I could gather, underneath the not-very-convincing smokescreen of Hollywood bull, was that the young couple had been one of hundreds of guests at the Knoxes party this past summer. Crystal had spotted Leo and persuaded Freddie to give him his card.

“Of course I am Freddie’s main star,” Crystal said, “but he really needs a man on his books too, and as soon as I saw Leo—well, he’s got that look.”

Leo gazed out of the window dramatically, playfully arching his eyebrows to show me what she meant. Bizarrely, he did look something like a film actor.

“So when Leo called him up, I said, ‘Freddie, you have to get him out here. We’ve already got the chalet, and as long as he can get himself here—well, you’ve got nothing to lose!’ ”

Freddie smiled over at me to confirm the story, but he did not look as convinced as his girlfriend.

Leo had been sleeping on a settee in their small chalet, but I gathered from Freddie’s manner that he was almost relieved that I had turned up.

“Oh sure, this kid’s gonna be a great screen actor, then it’ll all come good,” which I took to mean that Freddie had been feeding and clothing my son, because he was being bullied by his girlfriend, was too kind to send Leo home or did not have enough money to provide him with the train fare back to New York. Possibly a little of all three.

I called for the bill and paid it. Freddie made a big show of reaching for his wallet, but I could tell he was happy to have “the kid’s” mother foot the bill.

We went back to their chalet to collect Leo’s things, although in truth most of the things littered about the living area of their small chalet seemed to be on loan from Freddie.

“Did you even bring a toothbrush with you, Leo?” I asked as he tried to find his schoolbag and halfheartedly checked over various socks and undergarments before deciding if they were his.

I was beginning to feel for this young couple. For all the horrendous worry their foolishness had put me through, they clearly had been acting in some approximation of
in loco parentis
with my son. Once we returned to New York I would be sure to send them a check.

Crystal went straight into the bedroom while Freddie ran around tidying the place up, hanging ties on the backs of chairs and apologizing for the mess—I think he even claimed something about his secretary being on holiday. Despite all the ridiculous movie puff and artifice, he was really rather sweet.

He cleared a space on the sofa for me to sit down and offered me coffee, but I declined.

“Leo and I had better get up to our room—we have a lot to talk about. We’ll call again tomorrow, if we have time before our train leaves.”

Crystal ran out of the bedroom.

“Oh no, you can’t go tomorrow. Leo has a screen test at Paramount. For the next big movie! I know he’ll get the part. You have to wait until then.”

“Now, baby,” Freddie jumped in, “you heard what the lady said. The kid’s still in school . . .”

“You can’t let him go, Freddie, not now—I won’t allow it!” she said, standing in front of my son.

My hackles rose, but something prevented me from acting. Some hint of desperation in the pretty young woman’s eyes.

Our room in the hotel was actually an apartment much the same size as the chalet. Freddie had explained over dinner that Chateau Marmont had originally been opened as luxury private apartments for the Hollywood set, but the rents were too high and once the Depression came, the owners had to turn it into a hotel to make ends meet. Prices were reasonable, to keep the place filled, and it ran on a skeleton staff. Most of the residents were long-term, living there for months—some for years at a time. Freddie looked as if he was struggling with the rent, and I guessed this was the kind of place where you could live on credit until “the big break” came. That way of carrying on was anathema to me.
But then
, I thought,
I don’t have to live here!

Our apartment had a small kitchenette with an electric stove, a refrigerator and a separate eating area with a jolly red table and shelves above it, stocked with tea and coffee and a generous supply of alcoholic beverages and snacks. I poured myself a gin and tonic and opened a bottle of Coca-Cola for Leo.

“Oh, this is charming,” I kept saying, “isn’t it, Leo? Quite lovely. And the bed seems very comfortable.”

It hardly seemed worth unpacking my case for one night, but at the same time I wanted to make the room cozy for us. I had decided that there was no point in reprimanding my son any more than I already had. What was done was done, and there was no damage evident to his character or his body—I would leave it at that, and allow us both to use this whole silly experience as an excuse to simply enjoy the next few days that we would have on our own together.

Leo remained silent. It had been a shock, me turning up like this. I had taken him away from his new friends. It was understandable, but he’d get over it. By morning we’d be back to normal. Friends again.

“I had better go down to reception and ring Bridie and Maureen shortly; they will be so glad I found you. We’ll have a few days in Yonkers when we get back—maybe go to your old school up there, or find a new one. But sure, we can talk about that on the way back. We have plenty of time to sort things out, Leo, eh? Plenty of time, don’t we?”

“Yes, Mam,” he said.

“I’ll organize our tickets in the morning. I’ve no idea what time the train leaves. I wonder if there even is one tomorrow—the war has disrupted all the services on top of everything . . .”

“If there isn’t a train, can I go to the Paramount studios for the screen test?”

It came bursting out of him, a shot of enthusiastic, hopeful energy.

“No, Leo, it is out of the question. You are far, far too young to be carrying on with that sort of thing.”

Leo hung his head in disappointment, although it also looked like shame. He was wearing just his underwear. His naked legs were dangling over the side of the bed. He was still tanned from the summer, and the light from the lamp caught the downy blond hair on his forearms and calves. His large feet were set squarely on the floor. My son was a good foot taller than me these days; he did not look like a child anymore. However much I did not care to admit it, he could easily pass for twenty.

“You do understand that, Leo, don’t you?”

He paused, then looked up at me and said, “Yes, I understand.”

I could tell from his face that he understood, but did not like it. He was not being petulant, he was just offering me the automatic compliance of an obedient child who doesn’t want to upset or anger his parents. At that moment something inside me snapped. An old memory made itself known to me: I had fallen in love and run away to Dublin and got married when I was only one year older than Leo was now. My parents had disowned me for a time, and John’s guardians were furious—but, as kind-hearted people, they helped us nonetheless.

Compliance was not in my nature. So now I had this sweet son, who would do as I bid him. Was that such a good thing after all?

“Tell me then,” I said, “about this audition.”

His face lit up immediately with the possibility that he might persuade me. He became animated and expressive in a way I had never seen in him before. It was for a movie called
Five Graves to Cairo
—a war film, of sorts—and Leo was auditioning to play a young soldier.

“The thing about the movies is it’s not just about acting. It’s all about having ‘the look.’ ”

He talked absolute nonsense about wasting long tracts of his school study time reading foolish magazines and gossip columns, which explained why he was so behind academically. While I barely listened to what he was saying, I observed his mannerisms closely and saw, once again, what I hoped I had been mistaken in seeing earlier.

Leo was happy. When he talked about acting and movies, he lit up from the inside. He looked as if he was in love, and I knew that denying him this chance would only crush him.

This was not the life I wanted for my son, not by a long shot, but then . . . my own father had wanted me to be a nun, and I had run away to marry John. Was that the right thing to have done? I still could not tell, but it had happened and my parents’ reaction in rejecting me had only caused me, and them, pain. I could make Leo do my bidding, because he was not as headstrong as I was, although in running away he had proved himself determined.

“We’ll stay for the audition tomorrow,” I said, “and a few days besides, until we see if you get it.”

He flung his arms around me, and his joyful kiss on my cheeks was sweeter than that of any lover.

“But no more lying about your age—and straight home if it doesn’t come through, Leo. You can take acting lessons in New York and come back when you are twenty-one and have finished college. Have we a deal?”

“Of course—thank you, thank you. Can I go and tell Crystal and Freddie—please?”

I smiled and let him go.

As he shut the door behind him I sat on the bed and cried pathetically painful tears for the passing of time and the loss of the darling little boy I had so desperately wanted to mother forever.

Part Two

Chateau Marmont,
Hollywood
1942

C
HAPTER
T
HIRTEEN

I had no inkling that night that the screen test would be a success, and that I would still be at Chateau Marmont almost a month later.

Leo’s first audition was with a casting director from Paramount, and she put him in an item for the factual film series
Popular Science
, which was shooting at a location upstate, about an hour away from Los Angeles, a few days later.
Popular Science
was a series of short films shown in cinemas before the main movie, and featured true-life stories of interesting scientific discoveries and facts. They did not normally use actors, as the items were news-oriented, but they were doing a segment on a gym resort that was using state-of-the-art equipment and needed a fit, healthy young man to ride a stationary bicycle. Seemingly the “real” practitioners were not as fit as they might have been and were a little coy about being filmed in their shorts and undershirts.

“This is a big opportunity for Leo,” Freddie said, almost exploding with excitement. I was skeptical—it was hardly
Gone With the Wind—
but at least it would be over soon and I would be able to get him back to New York, happy that the trip to Los Angeles had made some small part of his dream a reality.

Leo had one line, which he practiced over and over and over again.

“When the announcer comes and asks me how I am getting on, I have to reply, ‘A little worn out.’ Now, Mam—you be the announcer.”

He would kneel up on the desk chair in our room and say his line in a variety of different styles and voices.