Page 28 of The Lavender Bride

27

While we eat, Jack tells me about growing up on a farm in Oregon. His dad was a big reader and as a family, they read plays together in an evening. Everything from Shakespeare to Chekhov. Whenever he got the chance, which wasn’t often in rural Oregon, he went to the theatre. He talks about the Federal Theatre Project coming to town and how seeing plays performed brought the words alive.

He shrugs as he talks about making things and how he didn’t realise it was a talent. It was only when he was at college on the GI Bill and got involved with student theatre that he realised it could be useful. Soon he was making props and sets for all of the college productions. He talks about his first job at the Pasadena Playhouse and it’s obvious theatre is his first love.

I tell him about Muffin and the funny things she does. I mention Rita, Ginny and the camera club. I don’t talk about Rex. If Jack notices the omission, he’s too polite to mention it.

Anya brings tinned peaches and fruit cake for pudding. She’s left the cheese so I add a thin slice and lay it on the cake.

‘This is how we eat it in Yorkshire,’ I say as I take a bite. The sharpness of the cheese is delicious against the richness of the dried fruit.

‘You don’t talk about it much.’ Jack raises an eyebrow as his steady gaze meets mine.

Usually, I’d make a joke, say, There’s not much to tell , and turn the conversation in a different direction. Instinctively, I clamp my arms together to make a barrier. He must see the movement as he pulls back slightly, my barrier making his own go up. I make myself stop, take a breath. I want Jack to know me. That means I have to tell him about the past.

‘Home wasn’t very happy.’ I return the cake to my plate. I can’t eat and talk about this. ‘Father’s a Methodist minister. He preaches Christian charity and forgiveness but there was none of that at home. He has a ghastly temper. We’d tiptoe around him, not knowing when he’d flare up next.’ This is what I’ve done with Rex too but I don’t want to think about him now. This evening is a gift and I don’t want to spoil it by worrying.

‘Father has very strict views on how girls should behave,’ I continue. ‘He wanted me docile and dutiful, ready for my future of marriage and motherhood.’ I can’t meet Jack’s gaze. Instead, I trace the pattern of the gingham cloth with my index finger. ‘He hated my interest in photography. Wholly unladylike in his view. I told you he sent me to secretarial college as soon as I’d got my school certificate.’ I laugh briefly. ‘If he’d had any idea that would lead me to marry a movie star, he might have acted differently.’

‘I’m guessing he doesn’t approve of movies either?’

‘He thinks Hollywood is a den of iniquity and hopes God will smite it like Sodom and Gomorrah.’

Jack nods slowly as if he’s considering and then, when his gaze meets mine, there’s a twinkle of amusement in it. ‘Sounds like he’s met Dirk Stone and Harry King.’

The words are so unexpected that I laugh. ‘Dirk’s not that bad!’

‘He is.’ There’s an emphasis to the words that I don’t understand. I’m about to ask when he adds, ‘You’re not defending Harry?’

‘Oh, Harry King’s as black as they come! You need to count your fingers after shaking hands with him.’

‘I’ll remember that next time I’m summoned to see Mr King.’ Jack grins fleetingly. ‘What happened with your dad?’

‘Esther joined the Land Girls when she turned seventeen. Once she left, Father and I rowed all the time. I had a friend, Freddie, I told you about him. Father didn’t want me to see Freddie. The worst rows were always about that.’ My hands curl into fists as the memories return. The smell of pipe smoke, the cold grip of fear, the sting of Father’s hand as he hit me. My heart rate kicks up and I press my hand against my chest.

‘Are you all right?’ Jack asks softly. ‘You don’t have to talk about it if it upsets you.’

‘It takes me back, that’s all.’ I attempt a smile but it’s pretty weak.

‘What about your mom? You’ve not mentioned her.’

‘Mum was always in the background. For a long time, I was angry with her for never standing up for me but,’ tears prickle behind my eyes as a lump forms in my throat, ‘I understand that better now. Marriage can put a woman in a terrible position. Mum did her best.

‘When I was seventeen, I left home.’ I pick at the cake that’s still on my plate. ‘I didn’t plan to. It was all down to Freddie.’

I tell him about the house in Camden, about what Freddie said to me. ‘I felt such an idiot. I’d run after Freddie believing we’d be together and then he didn’t want anything to do with me.’

‘It sounds to me as if he’d already made his decision,’ Jack says. ‘He should have told you how he felt about Michael.’

‘But he couldn’t tell me the truth.’ My hands jerk outwards. ‘Homosexuality isn’t talked about to girls. I knew next to nothing about it growing up.’

‘Which is wrong in itself but we can’t put the whole world to rights.’ Jack looks me straight in the eye. ‘But Freddie didn’t have to let you believe you’d get married. He certainly could have been kinder when you landed on his doorstep. You’d stood up to your dad and walked out of home because you cared about him and then Freddie kicked you out because he didn’t need you any more. What kind of friend is that?’

I stare at him. Because I wouldn’t break Freddie’s secret, I’ve not even told Esther the truth of what happened between us. My silence has weighed on me and then I added the weight of Rex’s secrets too. There’s no wonder I’ve felt choked by all I cannot say. But with Jack, that burden is lifted.

‘He said some terrible things to me that day.’ My voice comes out as barely a whisper. ‘Things that have haunted me.’

Jack leans an elbow on the table and rests his hand on it. ‘No friend does that,’ he says firmly. ‘Freddie was older than you. He led you on and that’s not fair. Maybe he got his comeuppance by being left with a bunch of old Commies. Either way, you deserve better than that, Audrey.’

There’s sincerity in his words and in his beautiful, grey eyes. He keeps saying that about me: I deserve better.

Do I? I’ve believed Father and Freddie’s words for so long. Of course, I did everything I could to prove them wrong, right down to marrying Rex. Yet nothing stopped those words from echoing within me.

My gaze rises to meet Jack’s. ‘Why do you keep saying that?’

He stares at me for a painfully long moment, his head tilted to one side. It takes everything I’ve got not to look away, to allow myself to be seen by that searching case. ‘You asked me something like that at the Biltmore.’

The overheated room comes back to me, the buzz of conversation, the too-sweet fruit punch. ‘You told me you liked me and asked me why that was hard to understand,’ I say slowly.

‘That stands.’ Jack smiles briefly and then raises his eyebrows. ‘So why is it hard to understand?’

I close my eyes for a second. I have to find the strength to tell him the truth. Anything else ends this connection between us as if a blade has cut through it.

I have never put any of this into words. I don’t know if I can now but I have to try. I take a deep breath, lay my hands flat on the table and say without looking at Jack, ‘Father used to hit me when I didn’t do as he said. There were other punishments too. Bible study, being sent to my room without tea, not being allowed a fire.’ There’s a sharp intake of breath from Jack but he doesn’t interrupt. ‘Somewhere along the line, I absorbed all the things he said about me. Including that I’m a hopeless dreamer who’d never make anything of her life. That’s why I stayed in London in ’47. Because I couldn’t go home and admit I’d failed.’ I look up and see Jack’s eyes are shining with understanding. ‘Freddie told me I was too na?ve to survive in London and my dreams of Hollywood were childish. Those dreams were the only thing that kept me going living at home. Freddie knew that and I was so angry with him that I told him I would come to Hollywood and be a success and,’ my voice goes very quiet as I say the final words, ‘marry a movie star.’

Hot tears of shame prickle behind my eyes as it suddenly sounds really stupid. Proving your father and lost best friend wrong is a terrible reason for getting married. But there’s more to it than that. The worries about the INS and my visa. The urge to help Rex to make up for failing Freddie.

But deep down, I had to show Father and Freddie that they were wrong. And I did but it all turned to dust. My marriage was always a sham but now it’s utterly hollow. Even the reason why we got married doesn’t exist any more if Rex is going to be open about his relationship with Tony.

I wrap my arms across my chest. Talking about the past makes me feel wretchedly vulnerable. Instinctively, I know I can trust Jack with what I’ve just told him but it doesn’t make me feel any less like I’ve just turned myself inside out and all of my secrets are now written across my skin.

‘Do you know what I see?’ Jack says softly. ‘I see a woman who was strong enough to get herself out of a lousy situation at home, brave enough to follow her dreams and once she’d got here, had enough determination to make a new life for herself.’

I look down at my hands. ‘I didn’t do anything special.’

‘Yes, you did,’ Jack says, taking my hand. ‘There’s nothing wrong with dreaming of a better life. Millions of people in this country are here because they did just that.’

‘The American Dream,’ I say softly.

‘Exactly. That’s what brought my grandparents here too. But you did it entirely on your own, Audrey. You came over here, you’ve made a new life for yourself and that takes guts.’

His skin is a little cold, the callouses rough against my palm. Jack wouldn’t lie to me. He’s not a silver-tongued charmer as so many in the movie business are.

‘Is that really what you think?’ I ask.

He shrugs as if to say ‘of course’ and that makes me smile because with Jack, it is that straightforward. He wouldn’t say it unless he believed it.

‘It seems to me,’ he says, looking at our linked hands, ‘that some folks, like me, are lucky enough to be born into a family that is there for them, who love ’em as they need to be loved. But other folks, like you, for whatever reason don’t get that and you have to find the place and the people where you fit. That can be quite a journey and sometimes, there are mistakes along the way because no one gets a roadmap of how to find the place and the people that are home to them.’ He raises his head and when his gaze meets mine, there’s an intensity to it that I’ve never seen before. ‘I guess what I’m saying is I’m never going to be thrilled you married a movie star but I understand why you did it.’

The vulnerability is still swooshing about, making my insides feel queasy, but there’s something else now. A thrill of recognition, of being seen and accepted that is making my heart lift in a way that’s completely new to me.

‘I love Los Angeles,’ I say, squeezing his hand. ‘I have friends who are as close as family. But I don’t have a home. Rex’s house isn’t that. It never has been.’

Sadness passes over Jack’s face. ‘It sounds to me that you’ve never really had a place to call home. Not if home is the place where you can truly be yourself.’

My eyes feel hot with tears. He’s right. He’s absolutely right and how unutterably sad is that? Only when I lived alone in my little flat in Fairfax Avenue could I truly be myself when I shut the front door behind me. Back home in Sheffield and living with Rex, I’ve had to pretend to be someone else, making myself smaller to try to please them.

No wonder I struggle to value myself when I spend far too much time shrinking to fit the role I’ve been given. If only I’d known that movie star’s wife isn’t all that different to minister’s daughter. I am still expected to be seen and not heard, to quash my own thoughts and feelings for those of the man in my life.

I can’t go back to living like that. I won’t go on sweeping all of these messy, unsettling emotions back under the proverbial carpet. That’s what my parents brought me up to do. To maintain appearances, to never let anyone see my emotions. I ran all the way to Hollywood and I’ve ended up doing exactly what I was brought up to do. I’ve stood by my husband as he’s been reckless, thoughtless and selfish, exactly as Mum always stood by Father regardless of what he did. I always promised myself I wouldn’t end up like Mum, yet I have.

There has to be a better way. There has to be a life where women can speak up when they’re unhappy. Where maintaining appearances doesn’t result in men’s bad behaviour going unpunished. Where marriages can end if they’re hurting the people in them.

If I want a home that’s really a home then I have to divorce Rex.

I feel a roil of emotions as I make the decision. Fear, trepidation, anxiety are all swirling around but above that is glowing sense that I’m doing the right thing. Father views divorce as sinful but I believe it’s a worse sin for two people who no longer get on to be locked together in lonely matrimony.

‘What are you thinking?’ Jack raises an eyebrow.

‘I’ve made a decision.’ There’s a lifting in my chest as if the worries are releasing. ‘I’m leaving Rex.’

‘Well, hallelujah for that!’ He grins widely before chinking his almost empty glass against mine. ‘I’ll drink to that.’