Not Without You (42 page)

I’m being flippant, forgive me. The truth is I think you might just read this letter this time, and I feel so damn nervous at the thought it’s difficult to decide what to say. I don’t know where you are, how you are, why you’ve disappeared. I do know I have to apologise for everything that happened, but I hope you’ll understand, too. It seems a nightmare, doesn’t it? Gosh, I wish you were just in front of me and I could look into your beautiful black eyes and tell you everything, tell you how stupid I’ve been, how much I regret not letting you visit me in jail, how ashamed I felt, how much I miss you and think about you, all the time.

Anyway. I sure wish you’d write back and tell me how you get on. I haven’t heard anything of you for the longest time. When I ask friends in the business what happened to you they shrug. ‘No idea. She went mad, didn’t she?’ But then every woman over thirty-five in this town who has an opinion is apparently mad, so I don’t pay much attention.

A few facts about me: I haven’t had a drink for seven years. There wasn’t a great deal of it to be had in jail, and I started up again after I got out but then quit. For good, I hope. I’m in New York. Still working, but for TV this time. I write for
The Janet Berry Show
– we’re number one and it’s going into a third season, so I guess it’s not just a fluke. I have a third-floor walk-up near the park. There’s a great Italian around the corner, it does out-of-this-world cannoli and they play Sinatra on a loop. I think of you whenever we go there. But I think of you often, anyway.

Write me, if you want. I really hope you’re well.

Yours,

Don

4th June 1970

Dear Don,

It was nice to hear from you.

I am well, thank you. I live in the countryside now, and I don’t act any more. The agents are there merely to pass on mail and residuals. Thanks to you I live in a little comfort from the money
A Girl Named Rose
brings in.

I can’t remember a lot about that time. You said you were going to come for me.
I will lift up mine eyes unto the hills, from whence cometh my help
. I looked all the time but you never came. Why didn’t you come for me?

Eve

September 12th, 1970

Dear Rose,

Forgive the tardiness; I only got your letter yesterday, though it’s dated June. Maybe you forgot to mail it? Or maybe the US postal service is doing its usual bang-up job.

I didn’t come for you because they arrested me. I said I’d do a favor for a friend, give him an alibi, and I was set up. Moss knew what he was doing, I was the easy solution, no one’d miss me. A drunk writer, and without Jerry I was nothing and he knew it. It’s all in the past now, but I couldn’t come for you because I was in jail and that was the worst weekend of my life, knowing you were waiting for me.

It was very hot, all the weekend we’d made our plans around. I could see out the window, up to the hills. I could picture you pacing up and down, growing impatient, looking at your watch. And then gradually giving up hope, thinking I was just another louse out to stiff you. It wasn’t like that. You know it wasn’t.

But like I say, it’s all in the past now.

You sound different, kind of distant, and I don’t blame you. Where are you living in England? Are you by yourself? Are you acting at all? Can you tell me a little more about your life? Or just tell me straight out if you want me to stop writing.

I’m glad
A Girl Named Rose
is providing you with some comfort. It’s the best thing I ever did, and I did it for you.

Don

1st January 1971

Dear Don,

I have good days and bad days. Your first letter arrived on a bad day. I couldn’t remember who you were, then I could, then I couldn’t. It comes and goes, like a mist, and the trouble is I don’t care to hold onto the memories, because so many of them were unhappy ones. You see, you were the one good thing in my life, and then I lost you. And I’m scared to remember it all again. I’ve spent a lot of time trying to forget. But I have to stop being stupid and remind myself you were the good part of it all, and to separate you out from the bad. Today’s a good day. (I’m sorry to sound so black and white, good and bad. I’m childlike sometimes, and don’t talk or write much.)

So yes, I’ll tell you what you want to know. I live in Gloucestershire, where I grew up, very close to Shakespeare country. It’s beautiful. I live in a white house. I’m trying to train ivy to climb up the side, but it’s reluctant to grow. I’m a terrible gardener. I’ve never really tried before.

When you ask these questions, you make me think it through again, and I have to make some sense of it in my mind, before I answer, which is why my letters are late. There’s so much I don’t remember. I tried so hard to get to you before you went to prison, Don, afterwards, too. I waited round the corner when they took you out of the courthouse. I didn’t see you, just people jostling. Then … I spent the next year holding on, I suppose. I shut myself down, waiting for you. But on the inside I was starting to think I was mad. I couldn’t look in mirrors. I couldn’t remember my name. I kept having dreams about my sister. She drowned when I was six, and I never saw her and that’s when it all started, my madness, the different parts of it all began then. You see they took her away and I didn’t see her, they wouldn’t let me see her. She was my sister and when I lost her, it’s as though I lost a piece of my mind too.

Our parents died, Don. They died when I was in Hollywood, and I can’t remember much about it. They had influenza; my father had a heart attack, then my mother caught the influenza. I think she was already very weak. She always had been, her faith was what sustained her, not food, or real life. We weren’t close, you see. They let me go and when I went it was as though I was like their other daughter, dead to them. I was seeing things in my mind by then, things I didn’t understand, and I don’t think it particularly sunk in that they’d gone. Then I knew I’d started my baby, and at the same time I got the letter about Rose. I think they hid it from me. Gilbert – whoever it was – all of them.

I can’t think about what happened, not today, anyway. Maybe another day.

I’m sorry if I caused you any upset. I am fine, just different now.

Happy New Year, dear Don. I wish you all happiness for the year ahead. Today, this first day of the year, it means a great deal to me to be sending you back this letter. There is frost on the ground and a tiny robin jumps about in the hawthorn beyond my window.

Eve

January 8th, 1971

So what happened? When you can next remember, write me. I’ll wait.

Don

4th April 1971

Dear Don,

This is the first anniversary. Your letter was dated 4th April 1970 and I’m replying to you now, late again, I’m afraid.

It’s spring here now, and the frost is long gone. But it’s still cold, I shiver at night. Do you remember the first time we met? We looked at the stars together, at that party in Beverly Hills. You gave me an avocado. It was a long time ago, wasn’t it? Fifteen years. What a baby I was and I was so impressed with you. You were kind, and handsome, and funny. You still are, I’m sure.

What happened to me? I think I had a breakdown. I’ve been piecing it together, writing it all down for you, tearing it up and starting again.

Conrad killed himself. I think that’s also what I couldn’t remember and when I do I feel so sad. I think of his death and how I heard of it and it is often the last thing I remember before everything goes blank. I think he killed himself because of me. He hated himself anyway, and was so ashamed of what he’d done to you, Don. He couldn’t see a way out. I was his friend and I was not his friend then, and for that … I think, yes, I think I was very guilty.

I listen to the radio a lot. It is my link to the outside world, other than the infrequent trips I make to the shops in my nearest town. I heard Jerry talking about his new film, only the other week. Hearing his voice was very strange, so immediate. Do you ever see him? He is, I understand, in New York too. I hope he has made amends to you for what he did.

I lost my baby girl. I was pregnant, she was moving inside me, Don. Then Conrad killed himself, Gilbert and I had a fight, he scared me, and I remember feeling as if my head was ripping in two. As if Eve and Rose were fighting to be inside my head. One is the film star who’s in control, who never complains, who’s always loyal to the system and does what she’s told; the other is the strange, terrifying child who was always disobeying our mother, our nanny, everyone around her, and that’s why she drowned, you see. I didn’t know where Rose had gone. You are the only person who calls me Rose.

They took me to hospital, and that’s where the baby was born, though she was never really born, not as they should be screaming and kicking. She didn’t move. I never saw her. I never even touched her. I wish I’d touched her skin, just once, Don. I don’t know where they took her afterwards and it hurt me so much, not just the pain of having her, the pain of losing her was much, much worse. They put me under and they took her away.

I was out of control, apparently. When I came around two days later I scratched and bit and hit and wouldn’t stop screaming. So that’s when I went into the clinic and they shocked me. I can feel the marks they left, now. One person to hold me down, another to strap the pads to my head, one on each side.

ECT is a terrible thing. I have to live and try to be happy, to know I have conquered the shocks they gave me. Because it meant I couldn’t remember, it changed the way I think, the person I am. It made me confused and terrified. There were marks on my temples, I can still feel them, I touch them when I don’t realise, sitting up at night reading in my room, if an animal howls in the woods and it sounds like a child, or – all sorts of things. And when I touch them, it’s the memory of sense that takes me back, and I can feel the gel before it went on, and the straps that burnt my skin as I writhed and struggled to break free, and the soreness in my throat from screaming and screaming and begging them to let me go. When people break you with their strength a piece of you remains broken, I think.

I was all alone, you see. I wanted someone to come so badly and no one came.

Now I’m not alone. Rose is back with me. It’s strange but it makes sense, that’s why it’s strange. I’ll explain another time.

Take care, dear Don.

Rose

April 8th, 1971

Dear Rose,

I don’t know what to say except I’m sorry. You poor darling girl. I wish I could have helped you. I’m angry I couldn’t. I have let you down, partly through circumstance, partly through my own fault. I’m sorry about the baby. And how you were treated. Dear Rose, what an awful time.

I’m coming to London in the summer, to meet with a few people, and we’re going to stay on and have a holiday. May I come visit you? I could bring my wife, Hannah, I know she’d love to meet you. Or she can stay behind, whatever you feel comfortable with. She’s an actress on the show, and always asks me about you. We’ve been married four years – guess I should have mentioned that, but you know us guys, we ain’t so good at giving out information.

I don’t know who the other Rose you mention is. Have you seen a doctor, someone to talk to about the effects of the ECT? I guess you don’t want to. I just wonder if there’s something that can be done. Anyway, it’s not my business. But while we’re on the subject of what’s absolutely not my business, I think your life sounds too solitary. You were always good at being alone, Rose, you didn’t need those acolytes who make a living out of leeching – you liked your own company, a good book, a beautiful view. But it sounds like you’ve become too good at it, or is that hokum? Would you ever consider stepping out of that life, coming back into the real world at all? There are so many people who miss you, who ask me what happened to you. People really did love Eve Noel.

Thank you for telling me what happened. I am so sorry.

I send you my love, dear Rose. Let me know about the visit. And think about getting some help.

Your friend Don

1st May 1971

Dear Mr Matthews,

I have been asked by my client Miss Noel to request that you cease and desist from writing to her. She asks me to tell you that she has no need of your friendship and no longer wishes to hear from you.

With my best wishes,

Yours sincerely,

Andrea Neaglewood

4th April 1974

Dear Don,

It’s been a while, hasn’t it? I don’t even know if you’re at this address any more.

I just wanted to write and say hello. I don’t want to see anyone or talk to anyone about what happened, but that doesn’t mean we can’t be long-distance friends. So what I am trying rather ineptly to say is, I’m sorry if I seemed rude.

Can we be long-distance friends? I’d like that.

I’m very glad to hear you’re married again. Hannah is a lovely name. She is a lucky girl. How did you meet?

Yours,

Eve – I think you should call me Eve now.

June 10th, 1974

Dear Eve,

Well, well, long time no hear. Great to hear from you now. I’m really pleased you’re OK. I was going to write, I was worried about you, but that Andrea Neaglewood broad has a tone of rebuke even in a letter; I didn’t want to risk it.

I’m sorry, Rose. I’m sorry I pried. It’s not my business what your life’s like.

Hannah is an actress on
The Janet Berry Show
; I think I mentioned I was a writer on that show. As it happens I’m not anymore, but she’s still working there, and doing a fine job. We met because I tipped a drink over her dress. Do you remember how I drenched your gloves in liquor, up at Big Sur? Anyway, the dress was houndstooth tweed, and she was not at all happy about it. The summer of love passed Hannah by, I always think. She’s like a girl from the ’50s – I guess that’s why I fell for her. We have been married now for coming up to five years. She has black hair and a beautiful smile. She’s from Long Island.