Last Dance with Valentino

‘Because . . . ’ she said, edging further in ‘ . . . because, Rudy, you are my only friend.’ He looked at her, fondly, I think – and yet unconvinced. She was standing very close, so close they could feel each other’s breath, I’m sure; so close he could have kissed her at any moment. He looked, I think, as if he wanted to.

I felt horribly jealous! Even then. And (I admit) entirely riveted, too. Part of me could hardly believe my good fortune to be walking in on such intrigue – and my first night in a new place! The other half wished the world would swallow me. There was a long pause between them and I noticed his expression soften. He ran a fingertip along her bare arm – as if he’d done it many times before – and he smiled. ‘Sweetheart,’ he said, ‘you have a new “friend” every fortnight so far as I can tell.’

‘Don’t be horrid.’

He didn’t say anything.

Gently, she dropped her head onto his shoulder. ‘You don’t believe me,’ she murmured, ‘but, Rudy, you are my only true friend. In all the world,’ and it sounded for a moment as if she might be about to cry.

‘I am trying to believe you, Blanca,’ he replied, briefly touching her dark hair. ‘I should love to believe you. Or – no, I don’t mean that. I mean to say – I should love to believe that we were even friends at all . . . ’ Gently, he stepped away from her, so she had no choice but to take back her head. ‘Only I’m not even certain you understand what is meant by the word.’

‘How can you say that?’

‘In any case you have friends everywhere, Blanca. Lovers, friends . . . Wherever you are. People fall at your feet. The English gentleman this evening, the portrait painter, for a simple example. He can’t take his eyes off you. And I know you will deny it but even your husband – he looks over to you even while he is dancing with Joan.’

She waved it aside. ‘You don’t adore me, though,’ she said.

He laughed aloud. ‘Self-preservation, Blanca! I know you well enough. In any case,’ he added, ‘I’m only the dance tutor. It’s not my place to adore you.’

‘One can adore a woman from any place. From her bed, in particular. I seem to remember.’

‘Yes, perhaps.’ He pulled out his cigarette box. She watched him tapping on it nervously. I watched him, too. ‘I want to help you,’ he said. ‘Of course I want to help you. Except I’m convinced you only ask me as a sort of – test. A proof of your power, as a woman. Regardless of what the consequences to me may be.’

‘Oh, Rudy, that’s ridiculous.’

‘Only because I won’t fall at your feet, like all the other men.’

‘You fell into my bed!’

‘We fell into your bed together. And it was hardly – frankly – it was hardly as if I were the first. Or the second. Or the third . . . ’

‘But you were!’

‘Ha! Which, Blanca?’

Her lip trembled. ‘You are too revolting,’ she whispered – and he seemed to relent a little. He stroked her hair again, with affection and tenderness, until she recovered.

‘I am poor, and Italian, and an immigrant. Your husband, with half Tammany Hall behind him – he would cause nothing but trouble for me. Have me thrown in jail. Have me returned to Italy. God knows . . . ’

‘Don’t be absurd, Rudy,’ she said carelessly. ‘Of course not.’

‘At very least,’ he said, ‘I will lose my job. You know it.’

‘Does our friendship mean so little to you, then? That you wouldn’t even sacrifice that?’

‘I would sacrifice it and much more – and for any friend – if I believed it was truly necessary. But it is not. There are so many others, with nothing to lose, who would be perfectly willing – Ruth, for example. She would do it for you! She adores you! And she’s richer than Croesus. Your husband couldn’t harm her. He wouldn’t want to and he wouldn’t dare. Why don’t you go and ask her – now? Right now, while your husband is still dancing?’

‘I don’t want—’ she started angrily, but stopped herself. Sighed a small sigh, light as little feather. ‘Rudy, darling Rudy, you are mistaken. Ruth is not a friend! I despise her! I despise them all! You, Rudy, are my only friend. Whether you are willing to acknowledge it or not. Tell me – truly – who else can I ask?’

‘We go over it again,’ he sighed, ‘but you don’t listen. I said to you last time I could write a list of ten or more names. And I will even ask them for you. They would be willing to give evidence for you . . . People who have nothing to lose by it, who would be more than happy to help.’

She continued in the same pitiful voice as if he hadn’t spoken. ‘I am alone, Rudy, far away from my family . . . far away from everyone I love . . . And I know you know what it is to be alone. You have told me so. You know what it is like to yearn for home . . . ’

‘I do.’ He sounded weary.

‘And you have seen me crying my heart out . . . ’

‘I have.’

‘And yet still you refuse me? Even though you understand my torment . . . and the others don’t . . . Oh, I long for my home, Rudy. I am sick for it. You don’t have children. You can’t imagine . . . how a mother feels.’

He gave a burst of laughter. ‘What on earth does that have to do with it?’

‘All I ask is that you attest to something in a courtroom which you know to be true . . . Is it so much to ask?’

Her small white hand was back on his shoulder. She was edged so close to him, and in the long, warm silence that followed, I swear they might have kissed. But just then a loud voice came from the drawing room: ‘Blanquita? . . . Blanca, darling? . . . Anyone seen my wife?’

‘She’s on the loggia with the wop,’ we heard His Grace declare, ‘having a smoki-poo or some such . . . Wish I could persuade her to have a smoki-poo with me . . . ’

A moment later, in time for Rudy and Mrs de Saulles to step apart, her husband was at the french windows. ‘Sweetheart,’ he said, ignoring Rudy and not noticing me, still flattened between window and wall, barely two foot away from him, ‘why don’t you come dance, sweetie? I should so love to dance with you.’

‘I’m very tired,’ she said.

‘Just a quick dance?’ he said, stumbling slightly, as he stepped towards her. ‘Please? With your admiring husband . . . who so entirely admires and adores you?’ He was very drunk.

She turned away. ‘I’m not certain I can imagine anything I should like to do less,’ she said. ‘Besides, I can see Joan over there, looking awfully hopeful. I’m convinced she’s longing to dance with you again . . . ’

And with that she hurried away, leaving my employer and his not-quite-guest in uncomfortable silence. They looked at one another, Rudy with some dislike, I think, Mr de Saulles with something much closer to anger. He hesitated, as if on the point of saying something, but then seemed to think better of it. Without another word he spun around and followed his wife’s path back into the house.

And still I stood there. Rudy turned back to the position he’d taken before Mrs de Saulles had interrupted him, and snapped open his cigarette box. It glinted in the moonlight . . . I watched again as flame and cigarette connected, as the light of the flame played on his face, and the smoke rose from his lips. I watched him gaze out into the darkness, deep in thought. And once again I was amazed by him – his elegance and grace.

After what felt an unendurably long pause, during which I’m quite certain I neither moved nor breathed, he suddenly said, ‘It’s all right, by the way – you can come out now. It’s quite safe.’

I didn’t. I clung to my wall, and to the forlorn hope that he might perhaps have been talking to someone else. But then he turned and looked directly at me. ‘I’ll step away from this spot, shall I,’ he said, ‘to a spot over here, where we can’t be seen? Come out and tell me why you’ve been standing there all this time.’ He smiled at me. ‘Spying on us . . . ’

‘I wasn’t spying.’

‘What else could you call it?’

‘I was stuck.’

‘Ah.’

By then he had travelled to the far end of the veranda, out of view of the french windows. He turned and beckoned for me to join him there so, with some reluctance, I edged from my hiding place to be beside him . . . And we stood in silence, quite close to one another, with the music from the Victrola seeping out through the warm night air, and with me wondering at nothing, in spite of all I had just witnessed, but the richness of his voice . . .

He seemed to be waiting for further explanation and I felt an irresistible urge to fill the delicious silence with some of my habitual babble.

So I told him the truth – something I always do when I’m nervous (I still do it today, despite quite strenuous efforts to break the habit). I explained how I’d come down from my room because I had wanted to watch the dancing . . . and I might easily have finished it there, except I didn’t. I told him everything about how mad I was for the new type of dancing – and about how I’d read a little of Miss Sawyer while I was still in England, and about how I had always longed to see a real tango, danced by the professionals, and about how I thought he and Miss Sawyer were the most fabulous, most magical dancers I had ever set eyes on. ‘I was going to watch you from the garden,’ I said to him, ‘but then I realised the windows were open and I could get a better view from the porch, and – I’m so sorry, truly – very sorry, Mr Guglielmi. I didn’t hear a word you and Mrs de Saulles were saying. Not a word.’

He smiled. ‘Your hearing is damaged?’

‘By which I mean, that is, not a word that made the slightest bit of sense to me . . . In any case, it has nothing to do with me. I am sorry, but there was nothing I could do. First you came out and then she came out. And then he came out ... And I was utterly trapped . . . ’

He asked me my name after that and I told him. Jennifer. Jennifer Doyle from London. ‘My father is the portrait painter in there. The one who can’t remove his eyes from Mrs de Saulles.’

‘No one ever can,’ he said grimly.

I wasn’t sure what to make of that. ‘It drives her quite mad if we aren’t all head over heels in love with her,’ he said.

‘Well,’ I replied carefully, ‘then I suppose my father is keeping her happy.’

He glanced at me. ‘It’s hard for her. To be here. So far from family . . . ’

‘I’m sure it is.’

‘But tell me – never mind that – tell me something more about yourself. What are you doing, here at this house?’

‘Well – I am – his daughter. And he is an excellent painter. And I’m here to teach the boy to speak good English, I think. Though I don’t quite understand that because his mother seems to speak perfectly good English herself.’

‘Of course, because she was educated in England.’

‘She was? . . . Well. Well, then, I’m not certain. I’m also meant to keep company with Mrs de Saulles, apparently. Due to her being so far away from home, my father said. But she doesn’t much seem to want that and – apart from just now – I’ve not really even met her yet . . . I asked Mr Hademak several times this afternoon what my job here was meant to be – and all he can say is, I’m supposed to make them “giggle”, which isn’t something I’ve ever been particularly good at. But. Anyway, I have no idea what I’m doing here really, Mr Guglielmi. I wish I did . . . I’m a not-quite-guest,’ I added, ‘a bit like you’ – and immediately regretted it. ‘Only even more so, because they don’t seem to want me to do anything . . . Except stay out of sight.’

He laughed aloud at that. A wonderful laugh, it was – it still is: heartfelt, so warm, and so magically infectious. I heard myself laughing with him . . . And then, from the drawing room, the music reached us . . . just a silly ditty, it was. So silly.

You made me love you . . . I didn’t want to do it . . . You made me want you . . . And all the time you knew it . . . I guess you always knew it . . . I guess you always knew it . . .

I think I fell silent. He said, ‘You look worried.’ But I wasn’t worried! I was listening to the music, and the night creatures, and feeling the warm air on my skin. I could feel nothing but the music, the warm air – and his voice – and I longed for him to ask me to dance, and in my head the longing obscured everything. I was frightened he might ask me to dance and yet even more frightened that he would not, and that this moment would end without his arms around me, and he said, ‘It’s beautiful music, isn’t it?’

And it was!

You made me love you . . . I didn’t want to do it . . . You made me want you . . . And all the time you knew it . . .

‘Do you like to dance, Jenny?’

I told him I loved to dance. And whatever else it may have been, it was bold of me, I think, to dare to dance with him, after I had seen him dance with Miss Sawyer.

For once, I resisted the urge to babble. I was silent. Without any more words, he turned to me – and we danced. There on the veranda, by the light of the moon . . . I swear I never danced so well. I think, in his arms, it would have been impossible to dance badly – as if his grace were like his laughter: irresistibly, magically infectious . . . the most generous dancer, the most generous lover; the most generous man in the world.

. . . . Did I write that I hadn’t fallen in love with him that night? Did I write that?

How absurd!

And now I simply have to sleep.

Chapter 3

Hotel Continental

New York

Saturday, 14 August 1926

Not so sure what to do with myself. Don’t want to sit, in case the dress creases. But it’s only seven o’clock. I have two hours to kill and – oh, hell, maybe I should change back into my chemise, just for a short while. But then I shall want to shower again, in this heat, and it was a long enough wait to get a turn in there the first time, and then suppose they ran out of water? Besides, it so happens I look just about as good at this particular instant as I have in my entire life.

The party’s too far to walk. Maybe I’ll take a taxicab, which means leaving at – what time? I mustn’t arrive before Rudy. They may not even let me in! But if I arrive too long after he does he may think I’m not coming at all.

I’m so goddamn nervous. I could have dined with him at the Colony tonight, and gone on with him to see the show. Why didn’t I? He said he’d come by and pick me up, and I know he wanted to.

He said, I can’t contemplate a whole evening without you . . . Only I couldn’t contemplate an evening of sharing him, I suppose; of dining with him and all the others whom I know he is obliged to be dining with tonight. I couldn’t have done it – as his date? I think not! As his newly engaged scenario writer? Perhaps . . . Except then I would have to sit there in my off-the-peg beautiful, beautiful dress, and my off-thepeg beautiful satin slippers, and smile sweetly, which isn’t my style, and they would all bawl at one another across the table about this and that, and whether Rudy and Pola intend to be here or there . . . I couldn’t quite have done it. I would have half shrunk into the floorboards, and that’s no way to keep a man’s interest, when he’s recently been voted the most desirable movie star in history . . .

The party tonight is in his honour, as parties he attends are prone to be, these days. I should have preferred not to go to that either, and to wait to see him tomorrow, when we can be alone again, but he wouldn’t hear of it. He said he would send his driver to fetch me. I said I didn’t know where I would be, and he said he would order his driver to search every corner of the city until he found me.

So I’ve said to the nice fat guy – the room clerk – at the front desk that when a driver and a big car arrives for me he is to send them right away again. The fat guy was dreadfully curious, needless to say, but I wouldn’t give him any more details.

I shall make my own way. When I’m good and calm and ready. That’s what I’ll do. Call a taxicab. Or something . . . Oh, God . . .

A cigarette!

And a cold shower.

The trouble with this new-fangled, fancy-pants typewriter, which I adore more than anything I ever had, except the dress – no, including the dress – the trouble with this beautiful machine is you can get the words out so fast that you wind up scribbling down any amount of hogwash. So. A little self-control is what I seem to be lacking. (Nothing new there, I guess.)

Two hours to kill until I see him, or slightly less now, and not enough running water in the joint for me to be sure of another cold shower. I wish I could sit still. I wish I could stop remembering his hands on me, his eyes on me, his tongue, his fingers, his kiss, his . . . Oh, I shall go crazy any minute. I shall go stark raving round the twist.

– – –

A long, deep breath . . . A slurp of magic, rancid moonshine from my little flask . . .

Much better.

This Is What I Did Today

On the Second Best Day of My Life

By Lola Nightingale

a.k.a. Jennifer Doyle

a.k.a. Mrs Rudolph Valent— I’m getting ahead

of myself.

– – –

So I slept for six hours straight and I swear I’ve not done that since God knows when. First, I didn’t sleep until the day was already begun and I could hear the autos honking and grinding outside, and my skin was already beginning to prickle with the morning heat. And then, finally, when I woke, half the day was already gone. I heard a bang and a crash outside, and somebody knocking at my door. I staggered out of my cot with every intention of being vile to whomever I found on the other side.

Fortunately for them, by the time I opened the door there was no one out there – not a soul. Just the biggest, sweetest-smelling mountain of pink lilies that I ever laid eyes on, and in the middle of it all this typewriter! With a great ribbon tied around it. Not just any typewriter either . . . Rudy left a card tucked in. I have it here:

Ha ha ha! [it says. That’s what he wrote.]

Cara Mia, thank you!

And by the way, if you are wondering what the long wire is for . . . you have to plug this machine into an electrical point before it can record your wonderful words.

You are brilliant as well as beautiful. XXXXXX

Imagine that. Brilliant as well as beautiful.

I don’t suppose even Frances Marion has an electrical typewriting machine she can call her own. She probably doesn’t know they exist. I certainly did not until this morning. I don’t think they have even heard of them at the studio, because Mr Silverman, the old tyrant, is very proud of his modern approach with gadgets so I’m certain if he knew there was such a machine he would have acquired one by now so all the people passing through the outer office could admire it, and think what a fine, modern fellow he is. God only knows where Rudy must have found it – or when – between last night and today . . . But here it is. And, come what may, just as soon as I am the slightest bit cooler – in body and mind – I intend to use it religiously, to write hundreds of photoplays. Some of them for Phoebe and Lorna, of course, because I promised I would, and I must. And then all the rest of them – for not a soul but Rudy. If that’s what he would like.

Well – except the one I must write for Miss Davies, I suppose. If Miss Marion says I should.

– – –

I was meant to watch that wretched Marion Davies movie this morning. I had been meaning to watch it in time to meet Frances Marion for luncheon, but then she left a message saying she couldn’t make our appointment after all. And what a stroke of luck that was, considering by the time I got the message I had already slept right through it anyway.

It frightens me, though, to have been so careless. It frightens me even more to notice just how little I can bring myself to care.

One hour and forty minutes . . . Oh, but it’s so humid tonight! Perhaps if I type with my elbows out . . . like this . . . and I have a jug of coolish water by the bed perhaps I can dab it on my forehead . . . carefully . . . else my hair will go into a frizz . . .

Tomorrow, if Rudy has nothing better to do, he might come with me back to the Strand, and we can watch the movie together. If he kept his hat on, or he wore the silly disguise I just bought him . . . and if we sat at the back, and we stayed as quiet as possible and he made a great effort to look entirely innocuous – might he still be spotted? He tells me he goes regularly to the movies back in Hollywood, despite having a screening room of his own at home. But then, I suppose, Hollywood is Hollywood. There are stars about wherever you care to look. Take a walk down Sunset and you’ll generally spot one or another driving by . . . Only last week, in fact, Pola Negri almost ran me down in her Pierce Arrow. Her turquoise-and-gold Pierce Arrow. If you please. Ha! If she’d known whom she was steering towards, she might have tried a little harder. The point is, in Hollywood even a star as big as Rudy is let alone to go about his business without being constantly mobbed.

Trouble is, this isn’t Hollywood, and in New York people get a little crazy. You’d think mobbing the stars was some kind of a city sport, the way they behave. It’s as if they read something in the paper and the next thing they can’t leave it alone. They’ve just got to be a part of the story.

– – –

I did ask Rudy about Pola. Eventually. I think it was before we got into that beautiful Chinese bed, but maybe it was after. She seemed irrelevant. She did, and she still does, but I had to ask him because it’s been in the papers for months. Every article they write, they ask him about it, and he always answers the same. He says, You must ask the lady. It’s his stock reply. He won’t say yes, and he won’t say no. Whereas when they interview Pola, she won’t shut up about it . . .

So, I asked him if he was engaged to be married to her and I do believe if he’d told me to ask the lady I would have done – what? He didn’t say it, of course. He simply laughed.

He said, ‘Oh, Lord, Jennifer, is that a serious question?’

I said it was.

He said, ‘You ask me that? Now? When I look at you like this, and you look at me as you do, you can ask me that?’

‘I just did, didn’t I?’

And he sighed. ‘Well, now . . . ’ he began carefully ‘ . . . Pola . . . is a sweet girl.’

‘Oh! Sweet!’ I interrupted. ‘Is that right?’ Because there are plenty of adjectives that spring to mind when describing that attention-seeking little sex-crazy minx. But sweet for sure ain’t one of ’em!

He smiled. ‘Oh. Well – perhaps that’s not entirely right,’ he said. ‘No, I suppose, not entirely. But . . . I am fond of her. She has some remarkable aspects . . . ’ For a moment he looked on the point of laughter, but he pulled himself back. ‘Really, Jennifer, I am no more engaged to be married to Pola than I am engaged to William Randolph Hearst. How could you possibly imagine, after all we have said and done—’

‘Because she keeps on saying it,’ I said. ‘And nobody ever seems to contradict her.’

‘It wouldn’t be terribly chivalrous . . . ’

There was a pause between us then. I wasn’t so sure how to fill it. Until suddenly he shuddered and then, rather sheepishly, he added, ‘Jennifer, if you want to know, she is a nightmare. A crazy woman!’

‘A crazy woman – whom you formed an attachment to?’

‘Well, I admit that I did form a sort of attachment to her, briefly . . . after the divorce . . . I was dreadfully low. But she’s like a dog with a bone! By that I mean to say,’ he added quickly, ‘she’s a very sweet girl in her own way . . . An extraordinary girl – and I am full of admiration . . . But if anyone could advise me on how to shake her . . . ’

I must admit, I felt rather better after that. I didn’t mention her name again. And I’m not thinking too much about her. Not so much. If I do – if I allow myself to dwell on Pola, not to mention all the others – I shall soon be even madder than she is, and furthermore without an eighth of her beauty, wealth or fame. In any case I am delighted she’s not in New York at the moment. She’s back in Los Angeles, shooting a movie about a wicked count and an adorable servant girl . . . And good luck to her, I guess.