Lace (63 page)

Kate caught her breath—Lili really was exquisite. She had flawless, olive skin, huge dark eyes, an almost perfect profile. Even Lili’s back view was entrancing, thought Kate. When
she threw off the fur coat, ready for action, a black, silk curtain of hair hung down past her ribs, stopping just above the tiny waist. Her exquisitely modelled buttocks and satin thighs were
visible under those ridiculous rags as she walked toward the clearing. A fawnlike innocence emanated from her, as if she might melt at any moment into the misty forest behind her.

On the set, Kate hadn’t expected to feel anything except cold, but she was awestruck by the quietly magical quality that seemed to radiate from Lili as she moved, barefoot and graceful,
through the forest.

They had very nearly finished the movie, which was well over schedule and budget. Everyone except Lili seemed to be strained, bad-tempered and bitchy. The director was only speaking to the
cameraman through his assistant, and most of the company were not speaking to each other at all. In between takes, wardrobe rushed forward with a bowl of hot water in which Lili put her frozen feet
until the company was ready for the next take.

Later, in the trailer, Kate interviewed Lili, who spoke good English. Serge had insisted that she learn to speak fluent English and ride a horse—both important, he said, to a movie career.
Lili was composed and quiet when answering questions about her acting.

“How do you start to interpret a role?” Kate began.

“Oh, I don’t think of it that way, not at all. I just read the part over and over again, until I know how I would behave if I were that character. I . . . brood over it . . . until
it’s obvious how that character behaves, and then suddenly, I feel that I
am
that character, and the character then becomes more real to me than my real self. I’ve always
playacted this way since I was a little girl, so it’s not difficult for me.”

Lili looked wary when Kate started to question her about her notoriety and asked if she enjoyed being in the limelight. “Of course not, but this is part of my job, so I do it,” Lili
said, speaking accurately but with a heavy French accent.

“I hate these unpleasant things that are printed about me. I cannot bear what the newspapers say—always I am in bed with this man or that man. They just write lies. I would never get
any sleep if I slept with all the men I am supposed to.”

“You mean you
don’t
enjoy being a celebrity?” Kate asked. “You don’t enjoy heads turning in restaurants, people recognizing you at airports, kids asking for
your autograph, all that stuff?”

“If you think that is enjoyable, it is only because you have not experienced it,” Lili said in an earnest voice.

She became a little agitated as Kate started to probe into her private life and ask questions about her first public appearances. Kate had taken Lili’s cuttings envelope out of the
Globe
library, and finally she produced early photographs of Lili in the notorious see-through communion dress.

“You can’t expect to do this sort of thing and get good publicity.”

“Those photographs were taken when I was thirteen; I did as I was told. I expect
you
did, when you were thirteen.”

“But why did your parents allow it?”

“I’m an orphan, I ran away from my foster parents because . . . they beat me,” Lili said, as Serge had taught her. Then suddenly she added, “As a matter of fact, I was
pushed into it. . . .” And for the first time, she found herself describing that first long-ago photo session in Serge’s Paris studio.

As Lili spoke, Kate saw the helpless girl-child, saw how easy it must have been to exploit her timid vulnerability. She sensed that while Lili seemed surrounded by care and attention, in fact,
she was only getting it from people who were making money off her.

“But don’t you have any friends?”

“Not me, I don’t have time.” Lili sounded resigned. “But Serge knows
lots
of people.”

The last thing Kate had expected to feel for a sexpot starlet was affection and pity.

“Get cracking, I want that piece in by five o’clock,” said Scotty. Kate sat down, hashed it out and handed it in with half an hour to spare. Scotty quickly
scanned her copy, then gave an exasperated groan. “I can’t use this in the page three slot! This hearts and flowers stuff won’t sell newspapers.” He read aloud:
“’Strangely insecure and unsure of herself . . . quivering like a deer ready to dart back into the forest. . . .’ For God’s sake, Kate! Let’s see your
notes.”

He looked at them and grunted. “Give this stuff to Bruce, he’s just got time to do a rewrite. He can do this stuff in his sleep!”

The article started, “
‘Always I am in bed with this man or that man,’
said Miss Muck, known to the porn trade as Lili.” It was a scathing
attack; contemptuous and—apart from the starting sentence—more or less accurate. Unfortunately, it was accidentally printed under Kate’s byline.

“Nice,” said Scotty. “A real killer.”

Kate hit the roof. “Why was it run under my byline?”

Scotty shrugged his shoulders. “
You
know these things sometimes happen on a daily.”

“See what happens if you’re interviewed without me?” Serge sneered angrily. “This English cunt tied you up in knots! You can’t do a goddamn thing
properly by yourself, whether it’s giving an interview or jumping out of the window!”

“I didn’t jump!”

“No, but you were going to in Paris if I hadn’t come in and grabbed you from behind.”

Serge threw the newspaper to the floor of their hotel bedroom and poured himself another whiskey. “Why can’t they give you a full ice bucket? Even at the goddamn
Dorchester!”

He stood looking out over the treetops of Hyde Park, watching the wet traffic slowly pass in the lamplight beneath him, ghostlike in the light London fog.

“You know your problem, Lili? You’re fucking stupid. You don’t even know who you are unless I’m around to remind you.”

“No,” said Lili sadly, thinking of
vraie maman,
“I don’t know who I am.”

“Well, you’ll never be able to stand on your own feet unless you find out, and until that day—you
need
me baby! In the meantime, just remember that you’re now a
high-class act, so start behaving like one!” He picked up the crumpled copy of the
Globe.
“You
must
have said it, it
sounds
like you, ‘always I am in bed with
this man or that man’, Christ, you stupid bitch!”

“She’s left out parts of what I said. I didn’t mean it that way. We were talking for over an hour in the evening and I find it so tiring suddenly to talk English all the
time.”

“But all this about the see-through communion dress! You sound like something from the gutter, a crude little whore.”

“Well, aren’t I?” Lili was getting exasperated.

“What’s the point of staying in the best places, buying you the best clothes, angling all the publicity to your acting, if you let some smart bitch of a journalist say that
you’re just a cheap pair of tits?”

Serge looked at her in disgust and drained his glass. “Even if it’s true,” he said, “it’s bad for business.”

By 1968 “Swinging London” was in full swing. Fashion was suddenly one vast fancy dress party. The miniskirt had given reality to lustful, commuter dreams. Women
dressed as tattered gypsies, Indian squaws with leather forehead bands and frizzy hair, fantasy female cowboys with fringed buckskin hot pants, wagon-train settlers in patchwork or as
flower-sprigged, straw-hatted milkmaids. Laura Ashley made a fortune. Carnaby Street was fantasy land, where once-staid British businessmen now bought their tight-assed bell-bottoms, velvet
three-piece suits, flowered shirts, rainbow sweaters, high-heeled boots, necklaces and even handbags.

London was a boom town and the stock market was soaring. Kate had eventually persuaded her mother’s lawyer to change stockbrokers, her persuasion having consisted of a list of share
comparisons over the previous ten years and a threat to take the matter to court on the grounds of gross negligence. Having had to study the figures herself, Kate finally became intrigued by them
and decided that she might as well play the stock market on her own. She borrowed from her bank, using her house as collateral, took a quick, lucky plunge into the Australian nickel market with
Western Mining and found that she had made more than two years’ salary in one month.

After that, Kate had no time to think about anything except her work because Scotty gave her a new job. On the theory that nobody does much on Sundays and therefore there isn’t always much
news on Mondays—which meant a dull paper—Scotty gave Kate a new section to edit, called LIFE + STYLE. It was intended to cover the whole frenetic new scene and the people who were
making it. Kate knew little about editing, but she had now been working for Scotty for five years and she took to it quickly, working far into the night, arguing with Scotty over the content, the
photographs and the articles. She no longer had time to leave the office during the day. She sat in a small, windowless cubicle behind a large desk with five telephones in front of her. Her
secretary and three assistants were located in further little cubicles, opening off the corridor. Kate planned, argued, listened and gave briefings. She cut copy and dealt with crises and
problems.

LIFE + STYLE was a success from the first day it was published. Advertisers lined up, the section was immediately copied by all the
Globe
’s rivals and women wrote to L + S in
droves.

“You’ve hit on a winning formula,” Scotty told her one night. “It’s about time you had a night on the town. Me, too.” He reached into an inside pocket of his
jacket. “Hunter Baggs has just bought a vast house in Campden Hill and he’s giving a party tonight. I can’t find it, but the invitation promised a fantastic housewarming or
something like that. Why don’t I take you?”

So they ate supper at San Freddiano and arrived at the party around eleven that evening. Lights beamed from uncurtained windows, cars swarmed around a pillared porch and the noise was a bit like
being on a battlefield again.

Once inside the door, Kate blinked. It wasn’t a fantastic party, it was a fancy-dress party—but a bizarre one. Several showgirls wore pigtails, short gym suits, frilly panties, black
stockings and garters. A nun wore a long black habit that was slit to the thigh, revealing fishnet stockings and frilly red satin garters as she danced with a youth who wore only a golden G string
and a halo around his sprayed golden curls.

A lethal champagne cocktail was being served from a big silver punch bowl by their host, who was dressed as Count Dracula, immaculate in tuxedo, red-lined cloak and vampire teeth. He said,
“Hello and welcome, darlings.”

“Hunter, what
is
this?” Scotty asked.

“Don’t you read your invitations, darling?” asked Baggs pleasantly. “It said ‘Dress as your own favourite sexual fantasy,’ and as you see almost everyone
has.”

He waved a hand around the entrance hall.

Kate looked around. Two lady SS officers danced together wearing black peaked hats, black shirts, black tights and jackboots. There seemed to be a great many black leather garments, whips,
see-through plastic macs and the odd brandished dildo. One man wore an old gray mackintosh, sockless shoes and a furtive look. A couple of devils danced with two black bunny girls in thigh-high
satin swimsuits with little white cotton tails.

“Why don’t you go upstairs?” suggested Baggs. “There’s a poker room, a roulette room, a blackjack game and a blue-movie room with a water bed.”

A tall, familiar figure dressed as a schoolgirl whirled past Kate, and—feeling slightly sick—Kate saw that it was her former husband, Toby.

Kate said to Scotty, “I think I’ll give it a miss and turn in early.”

As she walked toward the entrance she almost collided with a beautiful girl in a white lace catsuit who was angrily saying to her escort, “No, sorry—I have to put up with this sort
of thing in my work, but I’m damned if I see why I should do it in my free time!” She tossed her luxuriant dark hair, which fell to her waist from a demure white lace cap tied under her
chin with a satin bow.

“That’s Lili!” The whisper ran around the huge hall, “That’s Lili, that’s Lili.” The girl in white walked out into the night.

PART
EIGHT

I
’
M SURPRISED THAT
you ever
managed
to lure a man in here,” Maxine sniffed, “or that any man
manages to find his way
out
of this mess. You’re a closet magpie, Judy! You’ve never been able to throw anything away. You’re a thirty-five-year-old pack rat, that’s
what!”

“Well, I guess that’s because it was a long time before I
had
anything to throw away! And please remember that my bedroom is also my
working
area. This is where I read,
brood and scheme, as well as sleep. It’s where I make my money, Maxine!”

“You always realised that money was important, Judy. It took the rest of us longer to learn.”

Maxine stood up and opened the doors to the two walk-in closets that separated the bedroom from the living room. One of them was full of shoes.

Judy said, “Real protection isn’t a man—it’s money! That’s what gives you the power to do good, the power to be bad, the power to stay or to leave.”

Maxine peered at shoe shelves, which were lined in crimson moiré taffeta. “Most women prefer not to think about money. They think that dealing with money is tedious.”

“Not so tedious as being without it, and only if you haven’t been taught how to handle it,” Judy replied sharply. “We should
all
have been taught how to earn it,
how to make it, how to multiply it, how to
keep
it! But women are merely taught how to spend it. And when there’s trouble, few women have any money,
that
I have
noticed.”

Maxine agreed. “When a couple split up, the woman gets possession of the children, but the man gets possession of the money. Of course that is exactly when a woman realises the importance
of the stuff.”