Princess Daisy (61 page)

“Well, there you are, Valensky!” Joe Polkingthorne thrust out his hand and Ram shook it as he rose from his chair. “Not going to finish your drink? Well, there’s always wine … make up for it at lunch, eh?” As Ram found himself feeling
grateful
for the journalist’s hearty, easy manner he first realized the full measure of his destruction. When the headwaiter led him to his usual table and informed him, deferentially, of the various specials of the day, when the wine steward waited attentively as he made his choice, when he looked around and realized with relief that the men at the next table were strangers, the great, yawning wound in his middle opened wider. Each attention by a paid servant, each new face cautiously observed, was another door shutting behind him as he walked into the jail in which he would spend the rest of his life.

He listened intently as Polkingthorne discussed South Africa and the impossibility of depending on the gold miners; he launched himself with more vivacity than he had ever displayed into a long account of the most recent doings at Lion Management, he ate avidly and drank more than his share, as he tried to do something to stem the
seepage he felt in his center, but it was steady and relentless.

“Well, shit, what’s the point of arguing about it ourselves? Let’s call up and make sure that Shannon didn’t really mean only castles—he was probably thinking of great houses and palaces, too,” said Kirbo Henry.

“I wouldn’t do that if I were you,” Luke answered warningly.

“Damn it, Luke, a real castle, by definition, has to be defensible by a fucking army … most of them are in ruins, for Christ’s sake—they haven’t been built since feudal times, unless you’re going for the fake ones the Victorians built which, in my opinion, look like backlotsville. Take Culzean Castle in Ayrshire—it even has palm tree in the foreground! I mean look at these pictures, will you—Hedingham Castle in Essex and Rochester Castle in Kent—they simply don’t look lived in!” he said, handing Luke pictures of the ruins of great square twelfth-century towers, menacing Norman keeps, massive and square.

While Luke shook his head at them, Kirbo produced pictures of Stourhead, that meltingly lovely, enormous Palladian villa which was built during a period which lasted from 1727 to 1840. “I’m sure that’s what he had in mind—it’s where Kubrick filmed
Barry Lyndon
—it’s absolutely gorgeous! Can’t we check it out, at least?”

“Shannon said a castle and he meant a castle. Don’t show me anything without a tower, a keep, a moat, a drawbridge, battlements, ramparts—some place where you can pour boiling oil down on the enemy, Kirbo. Just stop complaining and get back to the research. There have got to be castles in England that people still live in, or that look that way, because
that’s the concept.
” Luke dismissed his grumpy art director, who was pissed off, in his opinion, because he hadn’t thought up the castle idea himself.

“Gelatinous!” Daisy said rebelliously to Theseus. He looked at her questioningly. She had always talked to him, but this was not within the range of his understanding. “The way the time goes,” she continued, “the hurry up and wait … it’s driving me crazy.” Daisy continued to complain to Theseus as she walked around the apartment looking without success for something to put in order, something that might be blessedly in need of mending or straightening or fixing. The months since she had signed
the Elstree contract had passed in the most unexpectedly slow manner. Somehow, having made her decision, she had imagined that she would be caught up at once in a whirl of work, but she found out that instead she was a prisoner of Supracorp.

Although they didn’t need her on a full-time basis until July when commercials would be shot, they wouldn’t let her leave town either, because she was sporadically needed for public-relations opportunities. “I’m sorry,” Candice Bloom had said firmly, “but you really
cannot
go to England, not even for just a few days. Leo Lerman’s giving me a call about lunch and I’m not sure what day he’ll be free, Trudy Owett at the
Journal
wants to see you for a possible fashion layout and I’m waiting to hear from her any minute … no, Daisy, I want you where I can get my hands on you in five minutes.”

During the long, tedious spring and early summer Daisy’s days were broken up, from time to time, by consultations and fittings with Bill Blass, who was doing a capsule Princess Daisy wardrobe both for her personal wear in public appearances and for use in store promotions. There were also occasional interviews, most of which had not yet appeared, as well as photographic sessions for the Elstree ads.

She huddled, disconsolate and wistful, in one of the wicker armchairs in the living room and wished that Kiki were there. Although Kiki still nominally shared the apartment with Daisy, in reality she spent most of her time at home, in Grosse Pointe, doing complicated, ritualistic things connected with her wedding. Whenever she was in New York, she stayed at Luke’s, flying in and out of the apartment like a demented bee. Daisy felt as abandoned as a dog who had been left alone locked in a car, unexpectedly, with no reason given. She had not been fully aware of her need for Kiki’s volatile, insouciant, brazen and consistently confused presence until her friend had disappeared into the busy world of premarital goings-on.

Kiki with monogrammed towels indeed, Daisy thought sadly, as she realized that the towels were only a tiny sign of the difference Kiki’s marriage was going to make in her life. “I am suffering from separation anxiety,” she announced to Theseus. It started as a joke, but as she said it she heard the catch in her voice. “Fool, silly fool—no, Theseus, not you,
me
,” Daisy assured the dog, realizing that behind her feeling of impending loss at the thought of
Kiki’s getting married were other losses, ancient losses she could not afford to dwell on, lest she start to weep. She got up briskly and started to get dressed. In a mood like this, the only answer was to take to the streets with Theseus, avoiding butcher shops and other temptations, but, at all costs, getting out of the empty apartment.

As she dressed, Daisy admitted to herself that in spite of her impatience to finally get down to work, healthy consuming work, in spite of her feeling that once the whole Elstree business started, her boredom and restlessness would be cured, she was terrified of that future moment. I’m going to be such a big target, she thought, confusedly, not knowing precisely what she meant. All she was sure of was that she had kept a low profile for all of her adult life in the nebulous hope that it would prevent her from losing any more than she already had. Now, with her face and name soon to be exposed many hundreds of thousands of times in the most public way possible, she felt an almost superstitious fear of the future. Fool, she thought again, but didn’t say out loud, to spare the feelings of her dog.

As Daisy roamed SoHo with Theseus, trying to keep busy, Luke found time to telephone North.

“All packed and ready to go?” he asked heartily.

“Fuck off, Luke.”

“Thanks, North, but you haven’t answered my question.”

“I’ve decided that I decline to be any part of this absurd production. Get yourself another commercial maker.”

“No way. Arnie bid on the job, we accepted the bid, and we’re counting on you.”

“It’s not the same job—the conditions have all changed.”

“However much money Arnie wants to tack on because we’re shooting in England, is going to be all right with the agency—I can guarantee that. But we want a Frederick Gordon North commercial, my boy, we want your verve, your sense of design, your perception of volume and contrast, the nuances of your unique lighting, your inspiration and audacity, your inimitable taste and your technical integrity—or, to put it more bluntly, we won’t let you off the hook because Shannon stole Daisy from you.”

“That has absolutely
nothing
to do with
it
!” North shouted.

“Splendid! I’m relieved to hear it, because I admit that I
certainly could have understood it if you were unable to do these commercials because you can’t function without Daisy. Since that’s not the case, as you’ve just assured me, you have a commitment to us, and, as one of your old and faithful friends, and occasional major customer, we certainly expect you to honor it Gee—I’m sure glad to hear there are no hard feelings.”

“Shitweasel!”

“Temper, temper.” North was still his good pal, Luke thought, but he needed him, or rather Daisy would need North’s skill to direct her. Of course, he had no legal hold on North, but sometimes a little arm twisting was in order, especially if you know how to use a man’s failings against him—and North’s was pride. Or rather, pride was
one
of his failings.

“We’re waiting to get permission from the National Trust—they own the castles we’re going to use,” Luke told North. “I hope your new producer has settled on Daisy’s wardrobe and decided who you’re bringing to England and who you’re going to hire over there and all the other little, petty, niggling details Daisy used to handle with such dispatch.”

“You really
are
a first-class prick.”

“How many times have I told you that compliments don’t affect me? Oh, and by the way, North, will you be my best man? We’re having the wedding after the shoot so you can’t use that as an excuse. And I think you’ll enjoy the ambiance of Grosse Pointe. It’s shaping up into a fairly decent little wedding; unpretentious, impudent, almost, but not quite, petulant, and of a promising year.”

“I’m not the best-man type,” North snapped.

“I quite agree … but it happens to be one of the burdens of friendship. Why should you escape? I had to do it twice for you.”

“Go shit in your hat, Luke.”

“I take it that means you accept? Knew you would.”

Now, late in June, Daisy looked forward-with a feeling of urgency to the next month when they would all leave for England, where a ten-day shoot was scheduled. Meanwhile, from her position of outsider, she watched in concealed anxiety as Mary-Lou Duke, North’s new producer, coped with the job of getting the shoot organized. Daisy had, as a courtesy, offered to show her the ropes at the studio, but her offer had been coldly declined by the
woman North had hired away from his closest competitor by dint of paying her one and a half times as much as Daisy had been getting.

Mary-Lou was a woman in her thirties, handsome, almost imposing and placid. Placidity, constant, indestructible, relentless, was her secret weapon. She was as sparkling as lead, as much fun as an empty beer barrel, as humorous as a plain pipe rack—but you could depend on her. While Luke’s people were finishing their own preproduction work, she took Daisy on a tour of Seventh Avenue, selecting clothes for the shoot. Mary-Lou hailed the cabs, she held the elevator door open for Daisy, and led the way into the showrooms with Daisy, captive, at her side. Daisy, so used to being the fusser rather than the one fussed over, felt like a cop, accustomed to absolute charge of passing traffic, now reduced to watching a ten-car collision without raising a hand. But she resisted all her impulses to jump in and try to make decisions. She knew damn well, even as Mary-Lou was informing designers of just what she was looking for, that most, if not all, of the clothes they brought back to the studio for North’s final approval would be rejected. She kept silent as North, increasingly impatient, sent them back for different clothes on three occasions. After the third time Daisy had to go through a wardrobe parade, and after North had again turned down the clothes, Daisy felt she had to say something. They had only seven days of preproduction time left. She took the new producer aside.

“Mary-Lou—may I make a suggestion?”

“If you feel it’s that important,” she said reluctantly.

“The reason North doesn’t like the riding jackets and the shirts we’ve been bringing back is that I shouldn’t be in a tailored jacket and shirt—I have to be in proper riding clothes from the waist down, but above the waist I should be wearing something dashing and unusual.”

“But that wouldn’t be
proper
,” Mary-Lou said severely.

“No, not at all, but it’d work, for what they want.”

“But if people don’t ride dressed like that …”

“The number of people who’ll know the difference will be tiny. It’s the general effect that counts—don’t you think?”

“If you don’t mind breaking the rules …” Mary-Lou shrugged. Even her shrug was inexpressive, not an easy thing.

“And for the picnic on the lawn, the trouble is nobody is
doing the right clothes for that this year … but I know a place, a special place I’ve never been able to afford, where we might find just the thing,” Daisy said eagerly.

“Daisy, perhaps you’d better just run along and look for clothes without me,” Mary-Lou decided. It went against her principles to delegate any authority but she had so many more important things to do.

Mary-Lou didn’t care when people insisted on trying to contribute ideas, just as long as they didn’t get in the way of her logistics. Ideas were like balloons children play with—let them have their fun being “creative”—logistics were serious business. Her mind was almost entirely occupied with the mechanical details of getting North and company to England, picking up the English technicians, conveying everyone to their locations, housing them, feeding them, and making sure that they had every last piece of equipment they needed. The only thing that bothered her was that the first-class section on British Airways seemed to be heavily booked on the day they were leaving. Now
that
was something she couldn’t wait to get her teeth into.

Daisy, released, dashed out to costume herself, not forgetting that she had an appointment with the Elstree make-up people that afternoon. They were taking no chances on untested English make-up artists. A top commercial make-up expert would be part of the troupe that went to England, as would one of the highest paid hairdressers in commercial work. They were each getting fifteen hundred dollars a day plus all expenses for each day they’d be away from New York. “Hardship pay” they called it, although it was difficult to see where the hardship lay in England. However, they would have charged no more to go to the Sahara. Once out of Manhattan, it was “hardship,” and let no producer forget it.