Sister stardust, p.2
Sister Stardust, page 2
Truman Capote’s In Cold Blood. The Valley of the Dolls by Jacqueline Susann, and The Adventurers by Harold Robbins. I remember buying Valley of the Dolls at Better Books. I’d taken the bus to Charing Cross Road, desperate to visit this bookstore, knowing that Allen Ginsberg had given readings there, wanting to be part of something exciting, something bigger than my sleepy Dorset past. I bought Reality Sandwiches by Ginsberg, but never got through it, although I pretended. I would go to parties and tell everyone how fantastic it was, although I only read “Love Poem on Theme by Whitman,” which was the most erotic thing I had ever read. I could see how I grew in people’s eyes as I casually explained the poem to them, as if I were the kind of bohemian hip chick I was so desperate to be.
Being able to quote lines from Ginsberg made me feel intelligent and worldly. I did not confess that I’d also grabbed Valley of the Dolls on the way home, which was much more my speed. I tucked myself in bed in our little room at the youth hostel and gasped at Neely O’Hara’s behavior, mesmerized by the glamor of the world within those pages, hoping that my boring old life—being a shopgirl, sharing a tiny room with a bunch of other girls—would somehow transform into a life filled with glamour, excitement and handsome men. I wanted my world to be bigger than my job in a department store in the West End, bigger than my room in the hostel for unmarried women in Gower Street.
I wanted more.
“What’s in there?” Tally comes over and looks at the book. “Ugh.” The shudders. “I’m not sure a charity shop would even take those. They’re all yellow.” She flinches as I drop the book back on the pile.
I feel the boxes before I see them, pulling me as if by some invisible thread. They are at the very back of the attic, and although I have spent my entire life trying not to think about them, surely it is no coincidence that I heard Madama Butterfly this morning. This is a sign from the universe, I think, although I have not thought about signs from the universe in decades. Not since, I realize, leaving Morocco.
I see it, a box double wrapped in tape. I ask Tally for a key and saw it back and forth. Together we tug the box open.
My treasures from Morocco.
I shake my head as I pull out a clay ashtray and turn it over, the words Hotel Mamounia, Marrakech painted around its edges.
Ashtrays, I think. They used to be everywhere. We had crystal ones and china ones, ashtrays on every table. How funny, that everyone smoked back then. On planes, trains and automobiles. On television shows. In offices. In the bath. In bed. From the minute we awoke to the minute we went to sleep or, as happened far more often, passed out in a haze, the cigarette slowly burning in our fingers. Many was the time we would wake up with a shout, our fingers burned.
I remember the night I got this ashtray. Our whole gang was at La Mamounia for drinks. Bill Willis was there, rangy and so handsome with dark hair and sparkling green eyes, a true dandy in his flocked velvet jacket, a silk scarf around his neck, his large square Saint Laurent sunglasses—a gift from Yves, of course—never leaving his face, even though it was so dark inside the bar you could hardly see anyone.
He liked me, Bill, thank God. He could be vicious to those he didn’t. I was beautiful then, and Bill liked beautiful things. Our whole little gang was at the bar at La Mamounia for drinks. He was already three sheets to the wind, high on life, or more likely the cocaine he had just snorted in the bathroom. He noticed me admiring the ashtray.
“Chérie?” His Memphis accent was unchanged, even when he spoke French. “If you want the ashtray, you shall have the ashtray.” And he immediately pocketed it. The bartender was watching, but who would stand up to Bill Willis, one of the greatest decorators of all time?
“What even is that?” Tally’s voice brings me back to the present as she takes the brown clay object from me and turns it over in her hands. “Is that an ashtray? You smoked?” She is horrified, as I laugh. Oh, if only she knew.
Tally helps me pull out the contents of the box, all those items I shipped back to London when I first arrived, drunk on the beauty and glamor, wanting, intending, to recreate the magic when and if I ever got back home, thinking I could transform wherever I ended up into a slice of Morocco.
I never unpacked those boxes.
All those items I spent fortunes on to send home—punched brass lanterns that lit up the stalls in Djemaa El Fna at night, the candles inside casting dotted patterns over the canvas fabric draped across the stall.
The memories come flooding back as we keep pulling things out of boxes, Tally exclaiming over the beauty of it all. I say nothing, too busy remembering where I was when I bought each item, remembering what it all meant.
The rug Tally is now unfolding? I remember being swept into a tiny stall in the souk, a small glass of mint tea in my hand as I tried to explain I didn’t want to buy a rug. By the time I had finished my tea, two young boys emerged from the back room. They grinned at me, carrying the rug I had admired when I first came in, not because I wanted to buy it, but because I was polite, did not know what else to say when the owner pointed it out and asked what I thought. Unbeknownst to me, as I was sipping tea and marveling at the warmth and welcome this lovely shopkeeper was giving to a young English girl, that rug was then wrapped in brown paper and tied with string, as the owner cheerfully informed me they would carry it back to my riad for me to make my life easier. Being the well brought-up girl I was, I had no choice but to buy it. I didn’t know then that I overpaid enormously. I had no idea that haggling was what everyone did. The idea of offering less than asking price filled me with a shudder of mortification.
Tally keeps pulling things out.
“These are stunning, Mum! So much color! It’s so unlike you!” There are pillows covered in rich embroidered antique fabrics, floor-length velvet kaftans with embroidered bibs and deep sleeves, slippers in the softest of leather, together with some of the clothes I had brought over from London. Tally gasps as she goes through the clothes.
“Mum! I had no idea you had all this hiding up here. Oh, my God! Look at this! This is Biba! And Ossie Clark! This is probably worth a fortune. I would wear these kaftans now.” She shakes one out and we both stare at the tiny item wordlessly, both of us knowing it would never fit my beautiful Tally. I was sixties skinny thanks to a yogurt diet when I moved to London and realized I would have to get rid of my country podge if I had any shot at all of being discovered, which is why any of us moved to London back then, hoping to be rich and famous, hoping a modeling agent would screech his Rolls-Royce to a halt on the King’s Road and jump out, telling us we were the next Twiggy, another Jean Shrimpton, the new Celia Hammond.
“Mum?” Tally is standing there with a satinwood box in one hand, a sheaf of letters in the other, a frown on her face. “Mum? Who on earth is T?”
She hands me the letter as my cheeks flame up and my heart pounds. This is what I didn’t want to revisit. This is why those boxes have stayed in the attic, untouched. My heart does a flutter as I remember her sparkling eyes, her tiny hands and feet. I remember the way she made me feel, and I am aware that every fiber of my body is trembling.
I miss you every second of every minute of every day. I long to be back in London so I can see you again. I love you. T.
“Oh, my darling.” I look down to my shaking right hand, to the gold serpent snake with the ruby eyes that I have not removed in over fifty years, the ring my daughters loved rubbing when they were small, the ring that hides a story I have never told. My eyes take on a faraway look as I wonder if now is the time to revisit the past, if now is the time to forgive myself, to get over the guilt and pain that I have carried with me all these years.
“Oh, Tally. There is so much you do not know.”
ONE
Dorset, 1966
I knew where Linda hid the biscuit tins. My stepmother thought she had gotten clever, putting the Tunnock’s caramel wafers somewhere else, thinking I wouldn’t know. She liked to hoard things, just in case someone came for tea, she would say. No one ever came for tea. I’d seen that red-and-gold foil packaging at the bottom of the shopping bag. I knew she would keep them for herself.
I felt around in the cupboard over the oven. Nothing. The biscuit tins contained dried Garibaldi biscuits and Rich Tea. She had stopped buying Lemon Puff Creams and Bourbons, because she knew I liked them. She’d started buying biscuits I wouldn’t eat, but she couldn’t resist the Tunnock’s for herself.
I moved around the kitchen, wondering where I would hide them if I was my stepmother. I found them, eventually, in the tin box by the back door that held my father’s shoe cleaning kit. I pried open the lid to see the wrappers glinting, and felt a swell of satisfaction that I had outsmarted Linda.
I didn’t care about her finding out. I stood there in the kitchen and ate four Tunnock’s at once. The first bite was delicious, the rest, I didn’t taste. It was only later, much later, that I realized I wasn’t eating because I was hungry; I was eating to fill an emptiness, to numb myself to my dull, pointless life.
As soon as I had finished, I felt sick. And guilty. And filled with shame. I took the wrappers and rolled them into tiny balls, folded them in tinfoil and stuffed them in the bin, all the way at the bottom, underneath the damp tea bags and chicken bones. I wondered, as I made my way up to my bedroom, how long it would take her to discover they were gone.
The woman people so often presumed was my mum was not actually my mother. I didn’t think of her as Mum, I never did. I had always thought of her as Linda, my mum’s best friend, and have never forgiven her for stepping in “to take care of” Dad, right after Mum died.
I was five and my brother, Robbie, was seven. It was a car accident. Mum was riding a bike from our house in Evershot to Holywell, and was run over by a bus. No one was drinking, no one was doing anything wrong, but the bus driver didn’t see my delicate mother on her delicate bicycle until it was too late.
I was so young I didn’t fully understand what had happened. I remember Linda collecting me from the village school, sobbing as she picked me up and hugged me. I remember thinking it was all so strange, that Linda was crying, that she was hugging me so tightly. Linda hadn’t ever been married and I remember my mother once saying that Linda didn’t like children very much, so perhaps try to leave the two of them alone when she came over.
I didn’t remember my mother nearly as well as I would like. The few memories I did have were unclear. I had a memory of her holding me in the garden, swinging me round and laughing. Of her tucking me up in bed and covering me with kisses. I always felt safe with her, and we knew we were loved. She was beautiful, my mum, young, fun loving.
When she died, something died in my dad, as well. The fun, said my brother and I, when we were older, when we would huddle together in the garden, sneaking cigarettes and discussing my dad’s marriage to Linda and why it felt so very wrong.
After my mother’s death, my dad seemed to age instantly. He was bewildered in those early days, with absolutely no idea how to take care of two young children, which of course gave Linda ample opportunity to move in. Suddenly, she was picking us up from school, or we would come home and find her in the kitchen making tea. When my dad got home from work, she’d have a drink waiting for him, a whiskey in a crystal glass. She’d serve it on a tray along with a small bowl of nuts, the paper neatly folded next to it, his slippers drawn up to his chair.
“Why are you doing that?” Robbie had asked Linda, never having seen a setup like this before.
“Every man deserves to have comfy slippers and a nice drink waiting for him when he gets home from work.”
“Mum never did that.”
Linda sniffed. I didn’t know what that meant, but it didn’t feel good, that sniff filled with unsaid words, judgments about our mum. “Yes, well. Your mother and I didn’t always agree on how to treat a man.”
Later, much later, when Robbie reminded me of this, I felt a wave of fury. What did Linda know, I thought. Linda, who had never been married, who didn’t have a boyfriend, who didn’t like children. Linda who always seemed to have a sour expression on her face, unless Dad was around, when suddenly she was all smiles. Linda, who was not a patch on our mum, but who somehow managed to insinuate her way into our family.
Then one night our dad called us into the living room, announcing that he had some wonderful news to share. He was sitting in his chair, Linda standing next to him, a hand on his shoulder, looking—for once—like the cat that got the cream.
“Linda and I have decided to get married,” he said. I noticed that he wasn’t able to look Robbie or me in the eyes. “Obviously, no one can ever replace your mum, but I think Linda is a welcome addition to the family, and I’d like to think your mother is looking down on us all and is happy. This is what she would have wanted.”
No she wouldn’t, I thought, noting that I had never seen Linda smile in the way she was smiling that day. This was indeed the pinnacle of everything she had ever wanted in life.
“I think as well, now that Linda is going to be my wife, you ought to call her mum.”
“But we already have a mum,” said Robbie. I didn’t say anything, and swallowed hard to try and get rid of the lump in my throat.
My father cleared his throat as Linda’s smile faltered. “Yes, your mum will always be your mum, but now you have another mum. This is a mark of respect to Linda as my wife and as your new mother.”
I held back the tears until later, alone in bed, crying into my pillow.
By the time I was eighteen, it felt like nothing good had ever happened to me. My brother had moved away, and now I was on my own, standing at the bus stop every day to catch the bus to my job at Denners, the department store in Yeovil, trying to stay in Yeovil as late as possible so I didn’t have to see my stepmother.
* * *
I had made a friend, Dorothy, known to all as Dottie, who lived in Yeovil with her parents and worked in the underwear department at Denners. I was in ladies’ clothing, but we tried to coordinate our breaks so we could sit together in the canteen and share a cup of tea and a cigarette.
I sometimes spent the night at Dottie’s, loving the fact that her parents always made me feel welcomed. If we were lying on Dottie’s bed, gossiping, her mother would bring us a pot of tea and a plate filled with cakes. There was no judgment there, no frowning if we asked for more or denying us seconds. It helped that Dottie’s parents were as round as she was. Sunday lunch was the best. Enormous piles of mashed potatoes and roast beef, boiled cabbage and Yorkshire pudding swimming in gravy. I’d polish off at least two helpings, and somehow always found room for the steamed pudding and custard.
Dottie’s house was fun, completely different to mine. Sometimes, on a Friday night, we’d come downstairs to watch Ready Steady Go!, her parents letting us take over the sitting room so we could turn the music up and dance around, doing our best to emulate the dancers on the telly as we bumped around the room.
Our dream was to go to London, but we weren’t quite sure how to turn that dream into a reality, so we spent hours planning what we would do, where we would live, how we would decorate our London rooms. Naturally, our plans involved boyfriends, in my case not just any old boyfriend, but Dave Boland, lead singer of the Wide-Eyed Boys. Why Dave Boland would be the slightest bit interested in a chubby, round-faced, wavy-haired eighteen-year-old from Dorset was beside the point. In my fantasies, I had miraculously morphed into Twiggy, my hair turning into a silken sheath. My calves, which couldn’t fit into any of the suede knee-high boots I longed for, were suddenly as slim as a reed, encased in the perfect Biba boots.
I sat on the floor of my bedroom, leaning back against the bed, overcome with guilt at the food I had just eaten. It will be okay, I told myself, staring at a poster of Twiggy on the wall. Tomorrow I’ll only eat lettuce. I’ll never eat chocolate again. One day I will look just like Twiggy, and I’m going to have an amazing life.
TWO
It was Saturday afternoon, and I was over at Dottie’s house. I propped a magazine up on the dressing table and tried to copy the makeup, ringing both our eyes with dark kohl, making a big mess of the fake eyelashes we’d bought at Boots. There was glue everywhere, which I covered up with black eye shadow until we were suitably smoky.
Robbie had said he’d be late. He was bringing his best mate Benji to see a band at the Assembly Rooms in Yeovil, and we were going to meet them there. This gave us the whole day to prepare, including much daydreaming by me of how Benji was finally going to realize I was the woman of his dreams. Benji was growing into a fine-looking man, a freckled redhead with broad shoulders and an easy way about him, although I felt anything but easy around him. Still, he always made time for me, teasing me, but gently, in a way that made me feel important, made me feel seen.
That Saturday, Dottie and I both finished work at Denners around lunchtime, then came home to get ready for the evening. I was determined to finally iron my hair flat, which both Mr. and Mrs. Connell found hilarious. They stood in the doorway of the kitchen, laughing at me as I lay my head on the ironing board and Dottie carefully ironed it until my hair was pin straight.
When we were finally ready, Dottie’s dad dropped us off in town. With a few hours to kill before the Assembly Rooms opened at eight, we wandered around the record shop, asking the assistant to play 45s of Petula Clark’s “Downtown,” “Stop! In the Name of Love” by the Supremes and “What’s New, Pussycat” by Tom Jones. Dottie and I squeezed into a booth, sharing the headphones, bopping our heads, impressing each other with how well we already knew all the words, including synchronized hand movements for the Supremes.
