Land of Dreams: A Novel (31 page)

I also, finally, finished my painting of Suri.

I had covered it up after our terrible scene and put it in a corner of the room. One morning I just decided to face her again.

I had a nasty
Dorian Gray
moment of fear, but when I pulled back the cloth and saw Suri’s face, I was surprised only by how beautiful and serene she looked. It was a risk calling on Jackson after our last conversation, but I knew that this painting belonged to him—not to me. I made a few small adjustments and left it to dry for two days, before leaving Susan in charge of Bridie and packing the picture carefully in the back of the truck.

As I knocked on the door, the canvas propped at my side with a loose cloth hanging from it, barely touching the paint, I had a moment of dread. Suppose Jackson got angry with me again and turned me away. Then I pulled myself together and thought,
What if he does?
Looking after Bridie had given me a strange confidence in myself. I was a good person, and I knew that now. I may have acted stupidly in the past, but it was always with the best of intentions. This painting was a gift to Jackson and, if he didn’t like it, well then, he could do what he liked with it.

However, he was delighted to see me and gratifyingly moved by the painting.

“It’s still a bit wet,” I said as I carefully picked off the sheet, “but ready to hang, if you’re happy with it unframed.”

“I’ll get it framed,” he said straightaway. He was gazing at his wife’s face. “It’s beautiful,” he said.

“Well—” I was uncomfortable when people admired my work in front of me. I liked a detached, professional opinion, but awe and appreciative emotion around my work made me squirm, for some reason. “Suri is a very beautiful woman,” I said. “I’m glad you like it.”

Thankfully he didn’t wax lyrical, but simply asked, “Have you time for tea?”

We sat and talked as if nothing unpleasant had ever happened between us. He gave me news of Suri and her in-laws. They were all living together in a small, one-room house and, by the sound of it, had fixed it up into some kind of a home.

“Suri is very creative,” he said. “She can make a home anywhere, out of anything.”

When he spoke of her, he nodded at the picture as if it was her, and I found myself doing the same.

When the subject of Suri was exhausted and there was still tea left in my cup, I found myself asking, “How’s Stan?”

As soon as I asked I wished I hadn’t.

Stan had not called me since the day we had made love, nor I him. Enough weeks had passed to call it an estrangement, but I had decided that it was up to him to call me—although obviously he thought it was the other way around. He didn’t know about Bridie, or that I was painting again. I missed him, but if he cared, he would call.

“Oh, he’s
gre-eat
,” Jackson said, “he met this
gre-eat
woman.”

Not simply great, but
gre-eat
. Two of them—and a “woman.”

“How great . . . ,” I said.

Except, of course, I couldn’t leave it at that. Although, as it turned out, there was no need. Clearly this woman was so
gre-eat
that Jackson was happy to volunteer information all about her.

“Not his usual type at all—you know how Stan has this extraordinary reputation for bedding all those beautiful young blonde actresses?”

No, I did not know that; but I just nodded and smiled, trying to keep my teeth nicely apart.
No wonder he’s so popular,
I thought,
if he’s servicing half the starlets in Hollywood!

“Well, this woman—Marjorie—is not his usual type at all. She’s not so young (around your age, I guess), but really elegant and beautiful, plus she’s smart, and funny. She’s a screenwriter, not an actress. Beauty and brains: I think he might actually settle down. He seems pretty serious about her.”

“Well, that’s just
gre-eat
to hear,” I said, “
do
be sure to send him my best.” And I got up to leave.

Jackson walked me to the door and waved me off, as I got into my truck and drove around the corner. There, as soon as I was out of sight, I pulled over, turned off the engine and started to shake with anger.

I did not even know where to begin being offended. Every word Jackson had said about Stan had seared itself into my brain as clearly as if he had written it into my flesh.

First, Stan had deliberately hidden from me his reputation as a womanizer. Second, he had given me to believe that I was a special woman—an exception to his rule, a one-off; yet here he was, dating a woman who did not sound so very unlike me at all. Except for the offensive way that Jackson had implied that
she
was elegant, and smart and funny; even though she had the crippling misfortune of being the same age as me, she was no drudge.

I was beyond furious. What a vile, deceiving little man he was! I was well rid of him.

I took a deep breath and started the pickup again. I had a family to look after, I had people relying on me. I did not have time for all this nonsense and I was better than all this; I was better than
him
.

At the same time as my anger was pumping through me, I could not help but feel a deep sadness at the back of it—a dream fading; the scent of perfume snatched by a desert wind.

C
HAPTER
T
HIRTY

We read about the red-carpet opening for
Five Graves to Cairo
in the paper, but were not invited. Leo was upset, but optimistic. Freddie assured us there was nothing to worry about and that it was no big thing.

“Nah! Those events are all for show. They make the stars go—it’s written into their contracts that they have to go. It’s a tacky business. Who wants to walk down a red carpet with all those photographers and press hanging off you—all that fuss?”

I certainly don’t,
I thought,
but I’m pretty sure the rest of you would give your eye teeth for the chance
. I had a bad feeling about it, but Freddie’s story worked for Leo, which was the main thing, and so, with great excitement, we left Bridie at home with Susan and headed off as a family to watch Leo’s big-screen performance.

Freddie made us get all dressed up, as if it were a real event, and we filled our laps with popcorn and candy. Leo was like a child again, giggling and wondering out loud how far along in the film his scene would be. As the lights went down and the titles flashed up in front of us, I squeezed my son’s arm and had to admit that, despite my trepidation about his film career, I was beyond excited at the prospect of seeing him on the cinema screen.

After the first twenty minutes Leo touched my arm and said, “I think my bit is on soon.” Ten minutes later I felt my son shift in his seat, his mood tightening. “I should have been on now,” he said. “Freddie, I think that was my scene—where am I? Freddie, where am I?” he repeated.

Freddie was uncharacteristically silent.

“I’m sure you’ll be on in a minute,” I said.

“Shhhh,” a man behind us muttered.

I knew Leo wouldn’t be on now, and that the moment in the movie had passed without him, because he had spent months telling us all about the scene he was in, in minute detail. A terrible dread passed over me for every further minute that my son did not appear on screen.

The film was exactly ninety-six minutes long and we watched it to the bitter end. Freddie’s face was like a stone; he was afraid to look at me, and just chewed on cigarette after cigarette. Even Tom picked up on the dreadful atmosphere. After I whispered furiously at him to stop asking when Leo would be on, he got up from his seat, bought some more popcorn and moved to another empty seat, away from his weird, cringing family. We might have walked out, but all of us were paralyzed with disappointment, and sitting there watching the whole film was at least a way to delay facing the terrible truth; in any case, as long as the images flickered on the screen there was a chance that Leo could suddenly appear before us. He didn’t. I spent the last ten minutes of the film girding myself for the onslaught, and thinking of how to put a positive spin on it for both the boys, hoping that Leo might, at least, appear in the credits. We sat through the speedy scroll of a thousand names, searching for Leo Irvington—but even then there was nothing.

All that time and energy wasted. My son’s dream shattered.

As soon as we got outside, Freddie threw down his cigarette and immediately lit another. “I can’t believe they cut Leo. I can’t believe it!”

Leo, however, was amazingly calm.

“I’m disappointed—I really thought I gave a good performance. But you know what? That’s the film business; it’s tough, and I had better get used to it.”

His mature attitude frightened me more than any tantrum, because it indicated to me, again, that Leo was deadly serious about becoming an actor—a decision that my months living here had done nothing to suggest would lead to a wholesome or fulfilling career path.

In any case his philosophical stance was soon shot when, less than a week later, he got official word that his contract was not going to be renewed.

Leo was beside himself—and screamed out as if in actual physical pain when he tore open the letter and read its contents. (A reaction far more immediate, I guiltily noted, than when his father had died, although, as his mother, I could not help but believe that one thing had led to the other.)

He rushed around the house, screaming and banging surfaces, until I was afraid for all of us. Unable to soothe him, I rang Freddie, who rushed home from work to be with him.

“My life is over,” Leo wailed. “I will never work again.”

“There are other studios,” Freddie reassured him, but Leo was bereft.

Until now he had believed that the only thing standing between him and a future as a Hollywood movie star was his mother. I was easily pushed aside, but now he had been rejected by the very people he was counting on to believe in him.

“I’m going to call Universal,” Freddie said. “They’ll love you—of course they will. I know one of the guys in the editing suite at Paramount. We’ll get your scenes from him. I’ll get a show-reel cut. Never say never, Leo—this show ain’t over yet.”

I could tell from the clip in Freddie’s voice that he was not entirely certain that was true.

As I watched my distraught son pace the room, then collapse with dramatic anguish, I realized something. It was my prerogative as Leo’s mother to pour cold water on his dreams, as I had attempted to do, in the name of common sense and out of my duty to secure him a good future. But—and the three-letter word began to ring as loudly in my head as a fire alarm—BUT no
other
force was going to stand in the way of my son’s dream. Cut him out of their film? How dare they! Refuse to renew his contract? By letter? Who the hell did these people think they were?

“I’m going in to see them,” I said, grabbing the letter from the kitchen table and checking the name of the sniveling little bureaucrat who had sent it. “This is ridiculous—they can’t do this to you, Leo. You are too talented and you have worked too hard. I am going up there now to sort this out . . .”

I went out to the hall and pulled a tailored jacket on over my shoulders to smarten myself up, then hurriedly grabbed my lipstick from the hall stand.

“Leo, you go and get Susan—
now
! Tell her it’s an emergency and ask if she can come in right away. Freddie? You stay here until she arrives.”

“Mrs. Hogan . . .”

“Susan won’t be long, Freddie, she only lives a few doors down, and then you’ll be able to get back to work . . .”

“Mrs. Hogan—Ellie!”

His voice was so sharp that it stopped me, and I turned back to see what the fuss was about.

Freddie moved forward and gently took my arm; both he and Leo were looking at me as if I were quite mad.

“I don’t think you should go to the studio, Mrs. H. What’s the point?”

“Well, to get them to renew Leo’s contract.”

“And how are you going to do that?”

His tone wasn’t accusatory or even sarcastic, and I realized that the young man was simply trying to reason with me.

This was the same impulsive gesture as my going to “rescue” Suri—and it would surely have the same disastrous result.

“Well, what
can
we do, Freddie? This is not fair. We have to do something.”

Freddie shrugged. “Hollywood is all about who you know, Mrs. Hogan—and I know a lot of people, but to be honest, I’m all out of love right now. I’ve played every card at Paramount and, to tell you the truth, I can’t think what we can do now. I’ve played all my cards . . .” Then, looking at Leo’s crestfallen expression, he added, “We can try Universal—and I think we
should
—but . . .”

I didn’t like the “but.”

“You’ve got to have an in, a name. You’ve got to know one of the big boys—and I don’t mean know them like I know them, a handshake at a party. You’ve got to know them personally, know them like
friends
.”

Freddie looked at me and I knew what he was thinking, and he knew that I knew what he was thinking, but he was smart enough to leave it at that.

I hated Stan. I thought he was a deceitful, disgusting weasel of a man. For all I knew, he was having sex with pneumatic blondes, then coming straight over to eat food at my table and play nice guy with my sons. Over the next day and night I could see Freddie looking at me, wondering, willing me to contact him. Leo, thank goodness, never made the connection. As his mother, my role was always going to be one of a useless nag. I could not possibly do anything, or know anyone, who could actually help him. Except for Stan.

I did not want to telephone Stan, I did not want to call at his house. But as much as I didn’t want to do those things, I wanted to help my son more.

“I’m going to ask Stan if he can help get another contract for Leo,” I said to Freddie when we were on our own.

“You’re making the right decision,” he said, before I had barely got the sentence out. “You wanna call him now?”

If I was going to humiliate myself in this way, throw myself on Stan’s mercy, beg for his help, then I had to give myself the best possible chance of it working, and it was too easy for him to say “no” over the telephone.