Lace

  Inside, on dark-green velvet, to celebrate the Year of the Emerald, lay a magnificent bracelet of blazing emeralds encrusted with diamonds, an emerald and diamond brooch, a pair of green stud earrings, a pair of heavy, chandelier earrings and two matching finger rings—both square cut emeralds—banded with diamonds. But the piece de resistance was a magnificent emerald necklace.

  Slowly, with both hands, Lili picked it up and held it to her white throat. Her fatigue fell away as she looked in the mirror at the green fire that flashed against her breast.

  “It does tricks,” said Judy, “let me show you.” She picked up a silver diadem, and hooked the necklace over the top spikes, converting it into a tiara. Gently she lifted it onto Lili’s head. Lili seemed to grow six inches, as regal as a Snow Queen.

  “That will do nicely,” said Judy. “We’ll photograph you in that after you’ve freshened up. Sorry about the rush, but we need pictures right away for the press kits. There’s a hairdresser waiting in your suite.”

  By five o’clock that evening, the big reception room was hazy with cigarette smoke and buzzing with journalists flipping through their dark-green press kits. They quieted down as Judy stood on the dais to introduce Lili, then looked expectantly toward the door, outside which Lili was slowly counting to ten before making her entrance.

  Suddenly, she was in the room, head thrown back, chin high, in a white satin evening dress that was a perfect background for the emeralds that shone from her hair, her throat, her ears, her wrists.

  She gave a slow, gentle smile, then walked over to Judy, green fire flashing, her satin dress like a moonbeam. She’s got class, Judy thought with satisfaction, she looks like a princess, not the two-bit stripper they’d expected. What a contrast to those wet rags she wore in the movie! And why not, Judy thought. She’d had Guy Saint Simon design the entire tour wardrobe.

  All over America, hotel detectives were waiting for them and the police had been alerted. After the “Today” show and other TV and some newspaper interviews in New York, they flew to Seattle, then down to Houston, Dallas and Atlanta, then north again to Philadelphia, Boston, Cleveland, Baltimore and Detroit, followed by Los Angeles, Cincinnati and Pittsburgh, where Lili was mobbed at the airport and they quickly decided to switch hotels. To Lili, the cities were a bewildering blur of hotel suites, heavily guarded cars, planes, tape recorders, cameras and questions. She had to concentrate to catch the often fast-spoken queries in the strange accents; sometimes her own answers exasperated her; sometimes she fumbled for words; but the press was amiable and the coverage was fantastic.

  Merv Griffin was affable. Phil Donahue was lovable. Mike Douglas gave Lili an easy ride on what a poor orphan felt like when wearing two million dollars’ worth of emeralds: he jokingly concluded that the emeralds were almost an inconvenience for any normal happy woman—too much trouble, too much of a responsibility. Johnny Carson took to Lili on sight and managed to cover her career truthfully, but sympathetically, without making the sordid parts sound terrible, as if they were some kind of obstacle course Lili had bravely circumvented in order to reach her true destiny—the spotlight of fame and the flashing green fire of those emeralds.

  Nevertheless, Lili felt that she was repeating herself too frequently as she tried, haltingly, to give different answers to the same questions repeated over and over again by different mouths in front of different microphones. She rarely left her hotel and ate her evening meal in her suite. Sometimes she switched on the television, but she was generally asleep before the program ended.

  In spite of the luxury and care that surrounded her, by Monday of the fourth week she was red-eyed, depressed, exhausted and sneezing in the biting cold January wind of Chicago.

  “Cheer up, you’re on your last week,” consoled Judy. The kid had been no trouble up to now. Quiet, almost limp in fact, although she came to life miraculously as soon as she saw a camera. “You’ve done very well so far. Everybody is exhausted and disoriented after three weeks on the road. They’ve all said the same thing over and over. Tell you what, if you really feel too ill to do it, I’ll cancel everything for the afternoon. The only really important spot is Soapy Finnegan this evening. After that we’ll tuck you into bed and leave you alone with a couple of aspirin.”

  Soapy Finnegan was a smiling, self-opinionated Irishman with a double ration of blarney and a treble quota of charm that was carefully beamed at his audience of respectable, suburban matrons. Soapy knew their reaction to his every word, innuendo and gesture; he could almost see them all out there, feet up, coffee cup in hand, comfortably watching their good friend Soapy, who shared their values and their viewpoint, who wanted the same sort of things that they wanted, a quiet life with no problems, who enjoyed the same simple family pleasures that they did. They were not to know that Soapy Finnegan wore a girdle under his suit, had just had his second facelift and was obsessed by constipation remedies, especially enemas applied by young male nurses.

  Waiting to be cued by the floor manager, Lili willed herself not to sit down on the offered chair. If she sat down she’d never get up. She only had to do this one little show, then she could collapse into bed and they’d get her a doctor. Her forehead was burning, her head throbbed and her ears felt muffled. Certainly, she couldn’t go on tomorrow.

  Later she was to wish that she had not struggled on that evening, as Soapy Finnegan mercilessly slaughtered her on the altar of respectability. He had been charmingly solicitous to her in the green room, so Lili was unprepared when he suddenly started to attack her, raised his voice in a loud, fast, judgmental monologue, hurled questions at her as if she were being cross-examined and then answered them himself, not giving Lili time to speak. After a long tirade, he suddenly switched away from the camera and turned to the bewildered Lili.

  “How exactly would you describe yourself?”

  “Why, as an actress.”

  “You wouldn’t describe yourself as a woman who exposed herself when hardly out of school to whichever gentleman was willing to pay for this doubtful pleasure?” His voice became louder, faster. In the producer’s box Judy sprang to her feet. She could see what was coming. The self-righteous voice continued to accuse Lili. “Flaunting your body for a string of emeralds!”

  Judy ran along the passage that led to the studio. Lili could never handle this alone.

  But she could. Bewildered by the loud stream of accusations, trying to answer, groping for the English words, stuttering, Lili was at first afraid that she was going to burst into tears. But she’d cried enough in private. So far she’d always managed to conceal her true feelings in public—that had been her only protection—and her secret pride. So why cry for this bastard? Almost without thinking, she concealed her emotion with anger and action as she sprang to her feet and tore the emeralds from her ears. “They’re not my emeralds,” she said in a low voice. “I’ve had enough of you and I’ve had enough of them. I knew they were unlucky. Emeralds are always unlucky!”

  She tugged the bracelets from her wrists, then with both hands she yanked at the necklace, breaking the safety clasp and scratching the back of her neck. “You keep them,” she cried, throwing the jewels into the plump lap of the astounded Soapy Finnegan. “You see what it feels like to be paraded like a circus animal.” Hardly knowing what she was doing, knowing only that she had to escape, Lili ran from the cameras and past her bodyguards at the studio door and bumped into Judy, who was rushing down the passage in the opposite direction.

  “Please, Lili, go back, we’ll go on together. Please, please.”

  Lili pushed her away and glared at her.

  “Lili, I’m on your side. You can’t afford to lose your temper.”

  Lili continued to glare.

  Judy’s own temper flared up. “So why should people always be nice? You should have shut up and smiled, or looked dignified, for Chrissake, then you might have got some audience sympathy. Now you’ve behaved like a stupid street brat, which is exactly how he described you. And you calle
d the emeralds unlucky! Twice! That’ll be all over America within hours.”

  She beckoned to the hovering bodyguards. “Let’s get back to your dressing room, Lili. Christ, I can’t decide whether to phone the Jewelry Federation and apologise or quietly slit my throat.”

  Or yours, she thought, as she hurried Lili down the corridor, waving people away, still muttering. “I can’t believe you let him get to you so easily; it’s so goddamn unprofessional, Lili. Can you imagine Jane Fonda or Liza Minnelli behaving like this? Or any reputable actress? Oh, God, where can I get a jeweler at this hour to mend that necklace before we leave tomorrow?”

  “I leave now,” said Lili, in an offhand voice, as they entered her dressing room. “No more tour.”

  “You can’t go off in midtour,” said Judy, aghast.

  “Yes, yes, indeed, I can. Oh, I forgot these.” And she tugged the rings from her fingers, carefully placed them on the makeup counter, grabbed up her coat and walked out.

  Back at the hotel, Lili threw a few clothes into a suitcase and put a call through to Serge. He wasn’t in his bungalow.

  She telephoned him again when she reached O’Hare, but there was still no reply.

  So, head throbbing, she sat and waited two hours for a plane to Los Angeles and peace.

  Serge was astounded to see a bedraggled Lili appear in his room in the middle of the night. He sat up in bed. He was alone. They both noticed that. “What the hell’s happening? You’re supposed to be on tour for another week.” He squinted sleepy eyes against the sudden light. “Where’s that PR woman? Stop crying, cherub, come to papa.”

  Lili flung herself into his arms. Serge terrified her, Serge depressed her, and Serge physically abused her, but nevertheless Lili basically felt safe with him.

  “She’s st . . . st . . . still at Chicago. I telephoned you from the ho . . . ho . . . hotel, then I telephoned again when I re . . . re . . . reached the airport, they paged you but y . . . y . . . you weren’t there so I wai . . . wai . . . waited at O’Hare and c . . . c . . . caught the next plane to L.A.” She burst into tears again.

  “There, there, cherub, calm down. Whatever’s happened, Serge will fix it. There, there. There.” He stroked her hair until the sobs turned to sniffs, then he pulled her around and kissed her. “Now tell Serge, cherub.”

  There was a pause, then Lili said, “The first part was fine. The reception in New York was fine; they gave me a very easy time.” She paused again. “The woman from the agency was nice and friendly. But we did so many shows a day and my English just wasn’t up to it.” She sneezed. “It’s such a relief to be talking French to you again. And to talk without being guarded.” She coughed hard. “And always in English, you see, and very fast. Then I caught a virus, so the hotel doctor, in Michigan I think it was, gave me pills, but they made me sleepy and stupid. My head felt like a big balloon stuffed with cotton.”

  Lili grabbed another tissue as she started to sneeze again. “By yesterday evening I also had a throbbing headache, so I took some different pills; otherwise I swear I don’t think I could have moved.”

  She pulled her shoes off, then her clothes, dropping them in a heap by the side of the bed. “And after all that, this loathsome little swine said these revolting things to me in front of thousands of people—what a filthy whore I was, a shocking example to the youth of America. . . .”

  Serge thought even with her nose and eyes streaming, even when she had totally lost her cool, Lili naked was nevertheless one terrific sight. And much to his surprise, he’d missed her. It was like finding that you missed a dog you were used to kicking.

  “I felt as if I were being cross-examined in a murder case.”

  “There, there, petal,” soothed Serge, one arm comfortingly around her.

  Serge telephoned Judy in Chicago and sorrowfully explained that Lili had a fever, a temperature of 102 degrees and was under doctor’s orders not to be disturbed. He hoped she’d be better in a couple of days. Maybe he shouldn’t have let her go on tour, poor kid. She’d had a hectic year, she was really too tired, and now she’d caught the flu.

  But Lili didn’t recover after a couple of days. She had worked nonstop under pressure for months, she had been coaxed, wheedled and pushed beyond her powers of endurance by Serge. Two weeks later, Lili still lay in bed, listless. She didn’t seem to hear Serge, she wept silent tears if anyone spoke to her, she didn’t want to eat or drink or read or watch television. She just lay in bed, limp as a rag doll.

  “We’d better transfer her to a private clinic,” the doctor said. “She’s suffering from what you could call exhaustion or a clinical depression—that’s how this condition is generally described when the sufferer is a celebrity. But I’m afraid she’s heading for a serious nervous breakdown.”

  There was a pause.

  Serge looked worried.

  “When will she be able to work again?” he asked.

  45

  CAP CAMERAT IS a rocky headland on the French Riviera, half an hour’s drive from St. Tropez. A white lighthouse on the tip of the cliff warns ships to keep their distance. Beyond it, clinging tenaciously to the steep mountainside, is a newly built cluster of villas constructed of naked brick, exposed concrete and unadorned wood. These dwellings are furnished in what the French call “contemporary” style, with conical wickerwork chairs that look incapable of supporting a round human bottom, tables inset with handmade ceramic tiles and messy splashes of violent colour.

  In the spring of 1970, Serge borrowed one of these villas from a bachelor friend so that Lili could recuperate in the warm air of the Mediterranean. He was glad to have her off his hands for a month. She seemed to have no energy, no stamina, and dissolved into tears whenever he suggested a little work.

  Since her breakdown, the twenty-year-old Lili had lost her self-confidence and nerve. At the age of twenty, she was now frightened of being with strangers and terrified of being alone. Serge found her easier to manipulate when she was obedient and listless, but he also knew that she had lost the strange vitality she used to possess when facing the camera.

  For the moment, Lili’s magic had gone. The face was the same, the body the same, but she had no life in her. Lili had had little to do with normal people; her sort of success inevitably attracted gapers, con men and sexual exploiters. Women were always on their guard against Lili; they mistrusted her, and they were jealous of her because of the mesmeric effect she had on men. So she had no close girlfriends to coax her back to vitality. Serge had tried everything. He soothed the little bitch, flattered her, fucked her silly, frightened her, even roughed her up a couple of times. Two films had been cancelled—it was bloody lucky he was covered by the medical clause—and he’d lost a lucrative poster contract. She hadn’t earned a penny for him in the last six months, and she was costing him a fortune in medical fees.

  The doctor had recommended plenty of sun and a quiet life—no parties, no late nights, and even . . . no Serge. So he had hired a nurse to look after her. Someone he could trust. Serge promised himself he’d be on the first plane to Nice if there was the slightest sign of another man sniffing about. He’d given the nurse an immense bonus for keeping Lili under constant surveillance, and just to make sure of AC as well as DC, he’d picked the ugliest bitch on the nursing agency’s books.

  Lili sensed that she was being spied on, but she didn’t care. She just wanted to be left alone. Nevertheless, she cheered up as soon as she and the nurse were driven beyond the palm trees of Nice airport under the Mediterranean sun.

  From inside the house, the view of the sea was almost obscured by a mass of green vegetation that hung over the glass doors from the roof above: the light that filtered through was dim and green. But outside on the patio in the brilliant, Provencal sunlight, standing in a writhing, dark green jungle dotted with tenacious pink geraniums and watching little white yachts slowly move over the dark blue sea under a pale blue sky, Lili stretched her arms up to the sun. At last she felt alone, unpressured and at pe
ace.

  Few of the neighbouring villas were occupied so early in the year, so Lili was able to wander about the village unrecognised. Every morning she sunbathed naked on her private beach, although the water was still too cold for swimming.

  One morning, just as she was about to climb back up the winding, rock path to the house for lunch, she felt a shadow fall across her body. Opening her eyes, she was alarmed to see a black, rubber-clad figure leaning over her.

  “Lili! I thought I recognised you!” said Zimmer, who had been spearfishing in the bay.

  Lili was delighted to see him, and Zimmer was obviously just as pleased to see her. “I’m staying in the next bay; I shut myself up for a month to write a screenplay. You’re the first woman I’ve seen for weeks. I leave on Monday, which means I’m not going to see much of you because I’ve promised to lunch with the Fouriers tomorrow.” He looked at her. He’d heard she was ill and had had to cancel a couple of things, but she seemed fine now. “Their parties are always terrific. Why don’t you come with me?”

  “I don’t want to see people.”

  “Wear a yashmak and talk to me alone,” Zimmer said. “Serge can’t object if you’re with me.”

  Lili had never been anywhere so exotic as the Fourier place. Monsieur Fourier was a rich Belgian in the transport business. To offset the toughness of his work, he surrounded himself with opulent luxury, which included an art collection consisting mostly of nudes. His pornography was covered by a veil of respectability: all his art was either virtuously antique or else the product of famous sculptors and painters. The oak door was flanked by a couple of naked ladies desperately clutching their slipped marble draperies; the vast room beyond was hung with Russell Flint watercolours—gypsy women in various alluring states of undress. A maroon-leather visitors’ book lay open upon the entrance table, next to which lay a plaster cast of Madame Fourier when newly married—to be exact, it was a hand-tinted replica of her buttocks, which had, at the time, been heavily smeared with Vaseline before being slathered with plaster of Paris.