Sylvia Sinclair
The Star
I’m feeling blue. Sometimes I’m so high on life and yes, on the white stuff, that I want to take a big bite out of everything and everyone, to just …
eat them all up. And then other times the little black moths come and you wouldn’t believe how heavy such tiny things can be if they settle in their thousands.
When that happens I can’t move, or get out of bed, for days and days.
And everything seems hopeless … me most of all.
They’ve visited less, recently, since I met my lover.
Less since I’ve had a plan. But this evening they’ve returned with a vengeance.
Best thing to do when I’m feeling like this is to hide from them, to get into character, become someone else. Celluloid and stardust: my medicine.
I’ll cover the bruises on my neck with some panstick and setting powder, though I’m half-tempted to leave them bare and make Tony sweat that I might expose him.
I hate the idea of being pitied, though, that’s the trouble.
I douse myself in Shalimar. The white satin.
Like a whore-bride. Yes, that’s the one for tonight.
It’s too tight, I’ve put on weight lately: all this mountain cheese and meat aren’t helping a broad but really, I’m lucky as it mainly all goes on the assets.
I have to lie on the bed to do it up. The girls are hoiked practically up to my chin and the skirt is so damn tight I can only take little mincing steps, but men like a bit of a totter, I’ve learned (or at least the fellas I’ve always gone in for).
A knock on the door.
‘I shouldn’t let you in,’ I tell him. ‘Not after last night.’ I point to my neck. ‘Come to admire your handiwork?’
‘Sylvia, I’m so sorry.’ To his credit, he looks it. It’s unusual for a man like Tony to be in this position. I quite enjoy the power of it for a few moments, making him grovel. It would be better if he were literally on his knees, but you can’t have everything.
‘I always choose the bad ones,’ I say. ‘I’ll never learn. And they all say they’re sorry, so sorry, like you, and I believe them, and fall for the same old schtick. Well, not this time, baby.’
‘Please, Sylvia,’ he sounds agonised. ‘Look I— I lost my head. But seeing you today on the mountain … and next to my wife—’
‘Where is that little wife?’
‘She’s been in the hydro – the spa I think they call it here. Look. The problem is, up until now I’ve been trapped. It’s all been her money. But from right now things are going to change. Once this comes off, I won’t be tied to her any longer. I want you. Do you understand?’
‘What happened to’ ? I put on a snooty English voice ? ‘the statesman and the showgirl?’
He waves a hand. ‘Doesn’t signify! We can leave all of that behind.
Westminster, all of it. We can go to the Bahamas, to Rio, spend our life on a luxury cruise liner, whatever takes our fancy.
We can join the café society, the idle rich.
You can stop prostituting yourself out to Hollywood, because let’s face it, it hasn’t been very kind to you of late. ’
‘And how are we supposed to do all this?’
‘It’s as I told you before. I’m about to come into an inheritance, of sorts.’
‘When?’
‘Very, very soon. I just need you to behave for me.’ He presses a forefinger to my nose. ‘Good things come to good little girls who wait.’
‘Baby, I’ll be good as gold,’ I say.
‘What?’ He looks thrown for a moment, then he recovers. ‘Oh. Glad to hear it.’
I pout at him. ‘Shall I tell you what colour culottes I’m going to wear down to dinner this evening, beneath my dress? I want to make sure you can’t think about anything else.’
A sleepy, stupefied look in his eyes. Yes, I’ve still got it.
I let the question hang in the air.
‘Tell me,’ he says, after a long moment has passed. Begs.
‘Nothing!’ I say. ‘Absolutely nothing. It ruins the line of the dress. And this particular dress’ – little shimmy – ‘is very, very snug.’
He throws his head back and groans. ‘I can’t wait to have you all to myself, all the time.’
‘You promise, baby? You’re not just telling me a pretty story? You really mean all of that?’
‘I mean it, my sweet.’
A moment later the door closes behind him with a click.
It’s all going to be smooth sailing from now on.
It’s like something from a film. One of the ones I’d have been cast in a decade (and a half …) ago, all big-eyed ingenue who gets her happy ever after.
It’s all going to be OK. Because my love is here and finally, against all the odds, in spite of all the obstacles standing in our way (marriage vows and money, mainly) we’re going to be together.
As a just-before-curtain-call wardrobe adjustment, I make a tiny rip in one of the shoulder straps where it attaches to the bodice, leaving only a few flimsy threads to hold it.
That thin strip of fabric will be no match for my proportions.
When it’s going to go, only the Lord knows, but go it will.
I’ve always known how to make an entrance.