Reality and Dreams (11 page)

They
ate their good French dinner in rather a better mood, both feeling that by
their visit to the campsite they had exhausted their duty. The very fancified
menu was translated into an English which they contemplated with some pleasure,
the main course being ‘steak with an escort of green runner beans and a fanfare
of pan-fried red pepper.’

CHAPTER
ELEVEN

The amusement of Tom and
Claire over the wording of the menu was a small matter compared to the hilarity
of Marigold and her new lover, shacked up as they were in one of the forlorn
trailers on the campsite where her parents had stood surveying the desolate
scene.

‘They
had a hunch I’d be here,’ spluttered Marigold, ‘and I had a hunch that they’d
have that hunch. He’s obsessed with his hamburger girl, and there they were
standing and looking right at us.’

‘Why
didn’t they look thoroughly? They could easily have found us. Why shouldn’t we
be here, anyway?’

‘They
don’t want to find me,’ Marigold said. She was now smiling her very grim smile.
‘That’s the truth. Deep down, they don’t want me around.’

‘What a
laugh! To see them standing there … Will you let them know?’

‘One
day, yes.’

They
had been three days in the trailer and were about to leave. Marigold had only
partly dreamed that Tom and Claire would follow her to this very spot which she
had read about in some of the film’s pre-release publicity. The place had been
in his mind for over a year. ‘The idea came to Tom Richards when he made a
casual stop at a campsite…’ The actual place had been photographed, in the
fullness of its high summer activity. Buckets and washing and children’s
swings. People in shorts. Children everywhere. At the entrance a little kiosk
with a girl with her back to the camera serving hamburgers. It was anybody’s
campsite, but it was near the village Tom had mentioned so often. That had been
the reality from which Tom’s dream had emerged. The trailers were now empty,
detached from their motors. ‘Let’s wait here,’ Marigold had said. ‘I’m sure
this is the spot. But will he come here looking for me? It’s a long, long shot
but we could wait and see.’

Her
companion made a deal for three days with the trailer’s owner, actually a
brother of the man who owned the hotel. And on the third day, at five-twenty in
the afternoon, look! ‘That’s my mother and father,’ she said, peeping from the
window, incredulous.

‘What a
bitch you are!’ said the man. With which observation Marigold seemed well
pleased.

The producers of Tom’s
film worried about the effect of Marigold’s disappearance.

The police
had moved on to a theory of suicide. Any scenario would fit: that she was
depressed by the desertion of her husband to the extent that she had taken
herself to the Alps and thrown herself over a precipice; that she had taken
herself out to sea and jumped overboard (but from what boat?); that her body
was lying at the bottom of a deep Scottish loch. She was sighted in New
Orleans, however, having a good time in a discothèque; she was sighted in a
cathedral in Spain, wearing a black mantilla, going to confession; she was ‘seen’
in New Delhi buying a ruby and diamond bracelet. Interpol got nowhere with
these various signals and sightings. It was impossible to say whether the film
was affected. Certainly, Tom’s personal popularity was low, for, in the meantime,
Rose Woodward and Jeanne had grabbed as much publicity as possible out of the
burning event, as if with long-handled tongs. Rose admitted her affair with
Tom: ‘He was fantastically in love with me until the Disappearance. I feel sure
Marigold was wounded and sometimes I blame myself. Tom neglected his daughter,
I know. She wasn’t beautiful, she had no glamour. Yes, I know I’m talking in
the past tense. I’m well aware of it. But I can’t help feeling that Marigold is
no longer with us in this world. No, Tom frankly
didn’t like
Marigold.
She was the first to visit him after his recent accident, when he fell from a
crane in the studio — (I was there) — Marigold would have done anything for
him. Her mother, Claire, was I think rather cold, for a mother. Poor Marigold,
she did what she could to keep her family together. She has a half-sister,
Cora. Cora was always the favourite. I don’t know — I doubt — if Tom will ever
make another film. The original Jeanne, the girl who made hamburgers for a
holiday camp, was no longer on his mind when we got together in the course of
the film. Jeanne, the little actress who plays the part of the original girl,
was really puzzled I think that Tom had no passion for her outside of her
professional role about which he was always enthusiastic, of course. But Jeanne
as a person — no.

‘I
think Jeanne had met Marigold, and it could be that Marigold was trying to get
her father to take an interest in getting Jeanne another job now that the movie
was over. She was out of work. But Tom simply wasn’t interested. If he in fact
knows where Marigold is, as some of us believe, he should come forward openly.
It has made a vital difference to my life as a friend of Tom, indeed to
everyone’s life. We are all very upset.’

Jeanne’s
main interview, published in a weekly paper, went: ‘As Jeanne, the namesake
part I played in the movie, I felt I had at last arrived. It was actually the
most important role, and my first big chance. Tom Richards meant everything to
me. He was my inspiration and guide. When he had his accident I felt I could
never act for anyone else but I was under pressure by Claire, Tom’s wife,
mainly. She assured me that Tom wanted me to press ahead until he was out and
about again. We were told that the movie was off; then it was on again. Well I
know he had a family and the girls Cora and Marigold. The other actors in the
film didn’t greatly interest me although they were terribly kind and very, very
competent. I did my best to make a big part of it but somehow Tom’s story line
treated me like a secondary star and Rose Woodstock as a first even though the
story shows a different situation, in fact quite the reverse. All I had to do
really in the movie was stand and make hamburgers taken from different shots.

‘After
this opportunity I want truly to find my feet in a more important part. I’m out
of work, redundant. I actually contacted Marigold as she’s a sort of consultant.
I think personally that Marigold is still alive. Only she felt, as I felt, Tom
Richards’ neglect. Now Rose Woodstock is I believe on the margin of his
interest as a result of his involvement with Marigold’s disappearance. It is a
mystery I don’t want to be mixed up with, personally.’

In the
mail came anonymous letters to Tom either with ‘clues’ as to Marigold’s
whereabouts or with accusations: WHAT HAVE YOU DONE WITH MARIGOLD?

All
these, Tom passed to the police. His life had changed.

As the weeks passed it was
plain that Marigold had not been kidnapped. Various attempts to extort money
from Claire on this basis had been easily exposed. ‘She’s of age. She can come
and go as she pleases,’ the chief police investigator explained to Tom. ‘But we’re
keeping all possibilities open. We haven’t given up.’ Tom sensed a touch of
impatience with people whose lifestyle permitted the probability that they
were not murdered or kidnapped — people who could just walk out of one life
into another.

Claire
had employed a private investigator: ‘Could she, in your opinion, have taken an
overdose? Was she on drugs?’

‘Oh it’s
possible,’ said Tom. ‘They all are.’

‘But do
you yourself think so?’

‘No, I
don’t. The girl’s very puritanical.’

‘That’s
not to say…’ said the investigator.

‘True
enough. But you could still find her, couldn’t you?’ Marigold’s formidable face
continued for a while to look out of the pages of the glossy magazines, accompanied
by captions such as ‘Marigold: Was she a dropout in the eyes of her glamorous
parents?’ Inset would be a picture of Claire and Tom, in deck-chairs, looking
radiant. Or a picture of gorgeous Cora: ‘The sister whose good looks Marigold
could never attain.’

‘And
yet,’ Tom said to Claire, ‘Marigold could be quite handsome. It isn’t her
features, it’s her expression that’s so awful. If she could only get rid of
that expression she could have a certain
look.
I don’t know what part
she could be cast in, but there is a part somewhere for her.’

‘The
part of a bloody bore,’ said Claire.

‘Well,
in fact, you’re right,’ he said. ‘She is nemesis in drag. She is the Last
Judgement. Alive or dead, that’s what she is. And in the meantime, I’m getting
a bad press. You — and Cora — are also getting a bad press, although you don’t
deserve it in any way.’

‘Neither
do you,’ said Claire.

‘Perhaps
I do, but I don’t know how,’ Tom said. ‘I only know the nicest thing that could
happen to Marigold, and make her happy, is that we should have a bad
reputation on her account. And you know it’s true.’

‘There’s
a touch of blackmail involved in her disappearance.

‘More
than a touch.’

Claire’s investigator,
Ivan Simpson, a young, good-looking man not yet thirty, was galvanised by Cora’s
beauty into volunteering for longer hours than were normally called for in the
search for a missing person. He put it to Cora: ‘As her sister — well,
half-sister — your help would be invaluable. I have a few ideas where we could
go, some likely places where she has to be looked for. I’m going to talk about
them to your step-mother. Will you help?’ Cora said, ‘Fine. But if she saw me,
wouldn’t she go further into hiding?’

‘She
won’t see you. Leave it to me.’

‘If she
doesn’t want to be found maybe she should be left alone …

‘Come
with me,’ he said to the lovely girl. He thought she had the clearest
complexion, the clearest eyes and whitest teeth it was possible to imagine. He
noticed that her features were perfect, her body charming. She wore brief
skirts or tight blue jeans. Her brown hair fell about her shoulders.

He came
to Claire who was busy with her charities — her ledgers and lists — and told
her his plan. France, the United States: he had clues to follow and he wanted
Cora with him.

‘And
Cora?’ said Claire.

‘She’ll
come.’

‘Ask
her father,’ said Claire. ‘If Tom’s willing, so am I. We’ll pay whatever’s
necessary. If Marigold doesn’t want to come back, that’s all right. We just
want to know. Everyone wants to know.’

Tom
said, when he saw the young man, ‘I’ve lost Marigold — I don’t want to lose
Cora.’

‘You
won’t lose Cora,’ said the young man. ‘It’s just a fact-finding trip. I have a
few clues.’

Cora
rang up from Paris the next night, late. ‘There’s been a probable sighting,’
she said. ‘That’s all we can tell you.’

‘Where?’
said Tom.

‘I
mustn’t say.’

‘Well
keep in touch — just a minute’ — he turned to speak to Claire. ‘They believe
they’ve found a sighting.’ Then, returning his voice to the phone, he said, ‘If
it’s true, what a relief. Claire says, keep in touch with us. Do keep in touch.’

‘Every
day,’ Cora promised.

‘I
hope,’ said Claire to Tom, ‘that those two are having a good time while they’re
about it.’

‘So do
I.’

When they were in England
Tom and Claire lived in a large house at Wimbledon, in four acres of garden,
well off the road. It had been built in 1932 and had always been occupied by
film people — producers, film tycoons, stars of fame and substance.

For
Jeanne, who had by no means given up her inscrutable campaign against Tom, the
house itself was a provocation. In reality it frightened her, its size, its
silence behind the curtained windows and closed doors, and its loftiness
inside, in the circular entrance hall, on the few occasions that the door was
opened to admit her.

‘I want
to see Mr. Richards.’

A new
face had opened the door every time she had called. A series of young men,
secretaries, helpers of the Richards family according as they were told off to
open the door. Claire kept no live-in servants except the cook, also called
Claire. But in the world of films there were always nice young girls, nice
young men hanging around.