Melting the Snow on Hester Street. Daisy Waugh

was – how old? She’d lied about it so often, she honestly didn’t know any more. What did it matter? She still looked young. They could make her look young: with the best flat lighting, she didn’t look a day over twenty-five.

      There was absolutely nothing to worry about.

      Even so, she chose not to open the package. Not just yet. Instead she leaned back against her lovely plumped-up pillows, on her magnificent, giant bed, in her beautiful sun-filled bedroom; sipped the tea which her maid had delivered, and mulled over the events of the previous evening.

      Max was quite right about the party’s success. Except for the unpleasant interlude with Dougie – Dougie, of all people! – and then the dreadful moment with the candelabra, it had been a splendid night: better than previous years, for all sorts of reasons, not least the unexpected presence of Marion Davies. Which was quite a coup, whatever way you looked at it.

      Not just a coup: a pleasure.

      Marion had pulled Eleanor aside after dinner, pulled her right off the dance floor, thrust a cocktail glass into her hand, clinked their two glasses together, winked at her. And downed her drink in one. ‘That was a lovely thing you did b-back then,’ she said, wiping her mouth with the back of her hand.

      ‘It was?’ Eleanor was confused. She hadn’t done anything. ‘W-what you said to Dougie …’

      ‘But I didn’t! I didn’t say anything!’

      ‘I mean to say, the way you looked at him. The way you refused to laugh.’

      ‘Oh! But I wanted to do so much more! Only I wasn’t sure if you had even heard him, and then I thought it was better not to fuss – I am so sorry, Marion. I can’t apologize enough …’

      ‘You m-made him feel like a sap.’

      ‘You think so?’

      ‘Ha!’

      There was a long pause, a peculiar pause, as if Marion were on the point of saying something else, something terribly important. But then, at the last second, she seemed to balk at it. ‘… I just wanted to tell you, th-thank you,’ she said instead. ‘That’s all. And I was thinking. Well, I was thinking it anyway. But I wanted to ask you up to San Simeon. Would you come to San Simeon if I asked?’

      ‘Of course!’ Eleanor had replied. ‘We would love that, Marion.’

      ‘Next week or something,’ she mumbled. ‘Real soon. I’ll fix it up for the week after next. Are you free?’

      ‘Well …’ Eleanor laughed. ‘Absolutely. We’re free. We’ve both just wrapped.’

      ‘I know you just wrapped.’ Marion winked at her. ‘It’s too perfect, isn’t it? Next Monday then. How about it? I’ll get a good crowd up, I promise. And I’ll send you all the stuff you need. Tickets and so on … Don’t worry about any of it.’

      ‘Next Monday … Max will be delighted.’ And then, suddenly, with the smallest hiccup, Marion had lurched forward and enfolded Eleanor in the tightest, warmest embrace. It lasted several seconds. She rested her head on Eleanor’s shoulder, squeezed her, clung to her and then, just as abruptly, released her and without looking at Eleanor again, quickly swung away.

      It was, Eleanor decided, looking back, a most peculiar moment and, because of the warmth, one of the high points of her evening. Marion had mentioned the invitation to San Simeon again as she was leaving. She would send a car round with the train tickets later on in the week. So maybe, Eleanor thought – maybe she actually meant it?

      Other than that, Marion had kept herself perfectly busy, of course: smooched half the night with Charlie Chaplin, until Charlie spotted the little Von Stroheim protégée, barely in her teens, poor little thing …

      She’d danced with Gary Cooper for a while, but he was in the middle of a movie and had slipped away early; staggered across the garden in the moonlight, and taken a back route home through the Beecham grounds to avoid fans at his own gateway. After that, she’d latched onto John Gilbert. It would have been perfect – except of course then La Garbo decided to kick up the usual stink, which was pretty rich, reflected Eleanor, considering Greta hadn’t even arrived with John Gilbert that night. Considering Greta had actually spent most of the night in a hot, dark corner with Miss Lilyan Tashman … Eleanor smiled to herself. Holy cow, if her public could have seen her! If Irving could have seen her! Too bad he’d already left … The girl only had a handful of movies behind her – and not even a talkie among them, yet Greta Garbo acted like the Queen of Sheba.

      Eleanor glanced again at the script package on her breakfast tray. Greta was ten years younger than she was, that was the truth. And beautiful. Just too damn beautiful. Nobody could compete. Nobody stood a goddamn chance …

      She wouldn’t open it. Not yet.

      Her mind turned, before she could stop it, to Little Miss Blanche Williams, chief feature writer –

      Much better to open the script.

      There it still was, lying there. So what was stopping her? Mermaids had grossed over $1.3 million, for crying out loud.

      Meanwhile Greta hadn’t even made the transition to talkies.

      Over $1.3 million!

      There’d been three other pictures since, of course, each one grossing less than the one before. And then came the last, the real turkey, disdained by viewers and reviewers both.

      ‘Whatever has become of this once vibrant actress?’ wrote the critic in American Mercury. ‘Eleanor Beecham’s performance is her most dull and lifeless yet. Maybe it’s time the good people at Lionsfiel pulled the curtain on a talent long since spent, before La Beecham’s name becomes a by-word for Films You Definitely Want to Miss!’

      Fuck.

      Fuck all of them. Eleanor felt sick.

      What was Blanche Williams doing, sitting in place of honour, anyway? Why had she come at all?

      Because Max had insisted upon it. That was why. He’d told Eleanor he owed it to Blanche, after the write-up Blanche gave his last movie. So maybe he did owe it to her. He owed all sorts of people all sorts of things. He hadn’t invited them and it wasn’t why he invited her. He invited her because he was screwing her. And probably because she insisted on it. And because she had the sort of hold on him any woman has on a man when he particularly, especially, enjoys screwing her.

      Eleanor didn’t want to think about that. Not this morning. Not today. She didn’t want to think about Max. She didn’t want to think about the studio. She didn’t want to think about her failing career, her fading looks, her philandering husband …

      Deliberately, she turned her mind to Butch.

      Sometimes it helped to think about him. But not this morning. This morning his name conjured nothing but guilt and sadness – and a churning of lust – and nothing …

      And then unbidden, inescapable, always in her mind, always there, always waiting, came the face of Isha, three years old, waxy with the fever, sobbing –

      Only the nice letters made it to Eleanor’s breakfast tray, generally. Invitations were allowed through, and personal notes (and the scripts, of course, because they were unavoidable). And then, every few months – less and less often, actually –

      This.

      Her heart missed a beat.

      5

      Eleanor stared at the letter. Postmarked Reno, as it always was, wrapped in the same dull brown envelope, and with no name above the address. She tore it open.

       Dear Miss Kappelman,

       As one of our most valued clients [she read], I am writing to inform you of sad recent events.