In a new scene, Bart gazed down at Lillian, hungrily. He gripped her arms and pulled her close. He remembered a time five years ago when he and Étienne had looked at each other like this – they’d been locked inside the bathroom, at a party. Swaying with the drink, they stared at each other murderously, their erections meeting through the cloth of their trousers. They’d stayed like that for ages – genuinely, it’d been close to two minutes, and then, the tension so palpable, so bloody knife-tight, they’d both pounced, kissing messily. Bart spun Étienne around, tore down his trousers and started to lick his arsehole. Something he’d never done, nor had the urge to do, before. It was pure filth.
‘And that’s a cut!’ yelled the director. ‘Beautiful, Bart, real authentic.’
‘Darling, when it comes to uglification, you haven’t a leg to stand on, I’m afraid.’
‘Uglification?’ said Lillian through her perpetual shield of smoke. ‘That even a word?’
Bart shrugged. ‘Well, it is now.’
They were in Lillian’s trailer – that’s what they called them here, trailers – drinking vodka and listening to Lee Wiley on the gramophone. Shooting was to start late the following morning and Bart was taking the opportunity to get drunk. Étienne was lying down in Bart’s trailer with a migraine, a damp cloth over his face and the blinds drawn. He was hoping to take a two-day trip to Las Vegas with one of the set painters the following morning, and feared the headache wouldn’t budge (Bart hoped this would be the case – the set painter, a man, was stunning, and they were getting rather tight). It was raining outside – the first time Bart had witnessed rain in LA. It was a phenomenal downpour, plinking like pennies against the trailer roof, gushing down the windowpanes and covering the lot grounds in a shallow ford.
‘If Roger had his way,’ said Lillian, ‘I’d end up with hair coming outta my chin. And warts. A fucking broomstick, ya know?’
Angry with the studio for ‘de-queering the script’ and wanting to express this as passive-aggressively as possible, Roger had renamed Lillian’s character Beadie – B.D. as in bull-dagger – and had her wearing slacks and less make-up.
‘Stop bloody moaning and drink,’ said Bart.
‘I will not stop bloody moaning. It’s OK for you – you’re married already. How am I supposed to find a husband looking like a clam climber?’
‘Clam climber?’
She laughed hard, snapping her head back. That full-throated roar. ‘I made that up. You like it?’
‘Climber? Why?’
‘Alliteration. And I guess you – ya know – I guess you sort of climb up to it.’ She mimed climbing a ladder with her hands.
‘One might climb down.’
‘Might one?’ she said, imitating his accent. ‘Here, let me top you up.’ He held out his glass and she glugged out two inches of vodka. ‘I’m real glad we got to do this,’ she said, adding a spray of club soda. ‘I can’t call someone a pal if I haven’t gotten trashed with them.’
‘Hear hear!’ said Bart, raising his glass.
‘This is my favourite song. Keep it buttoned till it’s finished.’ She closed her eyes, shoulders rolling along to the lazy string section and then, seemingly bored, turned to Bart and said, ‘You ever done a screen kiss?’
‘This is the first time I’ve done a screen anything. As you know.’
‘What about the stage?’
‘Yes. Many times.’
‘We should practise it,’ she said, taking her silk scarf off and bunching it up with one hand, ‘ready for the shoot.’
‘Oh, I don’t know…’
‘Hey. Don’t get like that.’ She threw her scarf at him – it became unbundled as it flew and drifted down feather-slow onto his thigh. ‘I’m a professional. You think I just walk onto a set and wrap lips with a guy I’ve never wrapped lips with before? I want it to look good.’
He picked up the scarf with two fingers. Lillian’s perfume rose up – a sweet, overpowering musk.
‘I don’t want to sit on your wiener, Mr Big Theatre Man. We’re friends here.’
He downed the rest of his drink. ‘Fine. Do you know your lines?’
She raised her pencil-thin eyebrows. ‘Did I not just say I was a professional?’
He stood up. ‘“Beadie. I don’t know if I can go on any more.”’
‘“You must. Oh, you must.”’
He shook his head. ‘“I thought I could create something perfect – why, Beadie? Why aim for perfection in this imperfect world?”’
She took a step closer to him, wringing her hands. ‘“Because the world is imperfect! You just want to fix what was broken. Oh, Eddie – you have something broken inside of you, we all do.”’ She pressed a hand to his chest. ‘“Won’t you let me try to fix it?”’
He grabbed her by the arms and pulled her in. Gazed down at her. Hungrily. He lurched his head to hers and kissed her lips, swooning his head to the side. She parted her mouth and slipped her tongue in, reaching up to grab his head with both hands. And he couldn’t help it – he kissed back. It was instinctual. It would be rude not to. She pushed him up against the dressing table, his buttocks knocking over perfume bottles and make-up. She slipped her hands under his shirt and ran them up his stomach, to his chest, combing her fingers through his chest hair.
He leapt away, giggling wildly. ‘That wasn’t in the script!’ he shrilled, the skin on his face heating up. ‘You naughty woman!’
She was leaning against her dressing table, palms down, shoulders slumped, breathing heavily. In the position of someone who wished to be fucked from behind… or someone dreadfully embarrassed, gathering themselves.
He poured vodka into his glass and tossed it back. Laughed again. You naughty woman. God.
She turned around finally. Sulkily. Her hair lay in messy damp strands around her face. She parted it with her fingers, nudging it back into place. ‘You don’t like me?’
Bart poured another drink. ‘I thought you knew what I was.’
‘You mean the Frenchie?’
‘Well. Yes.’ He fumbled a cigarette out of his packet.
‘I just figured you went both ways. Your wife’s got a bun in the oven, don’t she?’
He tried to light the cigarette but it dropped out of his fingers, falling into his drink. He took out a fresh one and tried again. ‘I think you’re beautiful, Lilly. But I’m afraid I just don’t feel anything for women. Physically.’
She nodded, processing this. And then she seemed to entirely compose herself, to suck all vulnerability and human feeling back inside herself, and it was as if someone had just yelled, ‘Action!’ Tiger-like, she ambled to her chair. She sat down, crossing one long leg over the other, and looked at him, eyes full of lazy menace. ‘I think you should leave.’
‘Lilly. I do so hope we can still be friends—’
‘I want you out of here.’ Her hands lay perfectly still on the armchair rests. ‘This is a fag-free zone, this place. Beat it.’
‘Oh, come on! You sucked Tallulah Bankhead’s tit!’
‘I said beat it. Before I call security on you.’
He waited for her hard face to melt into a wicked grin – the punchline. But it never came. He snatched up his cigarettes and jacket and left. The rain soaked him through to the skin within seconds.
Chapter 22
The fourth thing he hated: Lillian White.
She blanked him – refused even to look at him. She peered at Étienne with nasty slits for eyes. Her new bosom buddy was Tilly Warhol, who played the part of bereaved wife to Corpse No. 2. They went around together, whispering – they had that prim air of schoolgirls who’ve been insulted by a group of boys and huddle together outside classrooms, talking in aghast voices about how insufferable and disgusting boys are, and honestly, Tilly, I’m going to tell my daddy about this and then those rotters will be in for it, oh, yes they will!