Ilsa had never been Rick’s, having married the Czech resistance leader Victor Laszlo — but we were once lovers in Paris. While Sam the piano player plays ‘As Time Goes By’ we remember our bittersweet relationship:
‘Let’s see,’ Ilsa says. ‘The last time we met …’
‘It was “La Belle Aurore”.’
‘How nice,’ Ilsa smiles. ‘You remembered. But of course that was the day the Germans marched into Paris.’
‘Not an easy day to forget.’
‘No,’ Ilsa says.
‘I remember every detail,’ Rick goes on. ‘The Germans wore grey, you wore blue.’
‘Yes. I put that dress away. When the Germans march out, I’ll wear it again.’
Of course Rick realises that he still loves Ilsa, even though she’s married. In the famous last scene, as the German villain, Major Strasser, is closing in on Casablanca airport, Rick forces Ilsa to get on a plane which will carry her and Laszlo to freedom. ‘We’ll always have Paris,’ he says to her.
It’s one of the great farewell scenes in film, and to this day I can still remember every word of it.
SIX
I drove fast through the Waioeka Gorge.
I had purposely turned up the heating and, thank goodness, Aunt Lulu began to wilt and sag and, very soon, was snoring her head off. Pooch followed suit, whimpering and snuffling and shivering as if he was having a canine nightmare.
To be frank, I was getting worried. What had Aunt Lulu done to warrant her ejection from the home? What were her ‘medical issues’?
I tried to reach into the glove box to get out her medical file, but every time I did that the Bentley swerved dangerously. No, I’d just have to make the best of it. I drove more carefully but still as fast as I could, hoping to get as much mileage as possible behind us before Aunt Lulu woke up.
And after all, I owed Lamarr.
Sometimes I hadn’t been a very supportive cousin. In fact, growing up with Lamarr and being forced to be his best friend was pretty tough on us both, even if his father was an American and his mother was a Maori princess. Whenever he returned from boarding school — after Wellington he went to a more select school in Sydney — he was always worse rather than better. His brand of theatrical behaviour, as Aunt Lulu called it, didn’t go down in Gisborne and, once, when I saw him across the street, I snuck off in the other direction.
The trouble was that my defection had been witnessed.
The next time I was at Uncle Gardner’s, Aunt Lulu called me to her bedroom. She had on her dark glasses and was puffing furiously on a cigarette. She stubbed it out and folded her arms. ‘So when did you turn out to be pure arsehole, William?’
I blushed red and looked at the floor.
‘Don’t look away from me, you little shit,’ she continued. ‘Lamarr is your cousin. Just as Monty and I were close, you owe each other to be back to back against the world. Apart from which the world is too full of dull people who have no colour and who conform to the lowest common denominator. People like me and Lamarr are the only solution to making sure the world doesn’t become boring and conventional.’
She was really going for me.
‘I’m sorry, Aunt Lulu,’ I muttered.
‘Sorry?’ she screamed. ‘Sorry doesn’t cut it. After all I’ve done for you, what Lamarr has done for you, William? Get out of here, you little piece of pathetic trash, and go back to where you belong.’
Well, I learnt my lesson. From that moment on I started becoming a better cousin and friend to Lamarr. I often found myself having to protect him, beating up other boys who laughed at him.
Not that he always appreciated it.
‘You have to stop being my shadow,’ Lamarr sobbed after one such occasion.
‘If I don’t do it, who will?’
‘I’ll do it myself, damn it,’ Lamarr answered. ‘I may be helpless but I’m not entirely hopeless. I’ll get by.’ He tried to look like Vivien Leigh in A Streetcar Named Desire. ‘And if I don’t, I’ll rely on the kindness of strangers.’ Then he added, ‘And I know you only started to be friends with me because Dad paid you.’
Lamarr knew? That was the lowest ebb of our relationship, and I realised I didn’t want it to go any lower. I put my arm around his shoulders.
We were always trading lines from the movies. ‘Hey kid, you don’t have to say anything and you don’t have to do anything. Maybe just whistle, ’ I said, repeating lines from To Have and To Have Not. ‘You know how to whistle, don’t you?’
He looked at me, offended. ‘You’re asking me how to whistle? Honey, I’ve already had a lot of practice!’
He struck a pose. ‘You just put your lips together and blow!’
With an attitude like that, he survived.
SEVEN
We were approaching Opotiki when I went over a pothole and the sudden thump woke Aunt Lulu.
She peered at me. ‘Who are you?’ she asked.
She clutched Pooch in front of her for protection. There was fear in her eyes.
I stopped the car and put on my best smile. After all, the smile had worked when I’d had to pacify distraught passengers on various flights over the years so it should do the trick with Aunt Lulu. ‘I’m your nephew,’ I said kindly. ‘William.’
‘William? No, you’re not,’ she whimpered. ‘You’re too old for William.’
Then she really went to lala-land.
‘Oh my God, what have you done with William? What are you doing driving the Bentley? Have you murdered my nephew and put him in the boot?’
In desperation, I made a mistake. ‘All right, Aunt Lulu, I’m not William. I’m Brown. Remember?’
But Aunt Lulu’s memory had made a hyper space jump since then. She stared at me, said, ‘You’re not Brown either,’ and she struck a pose worthy of Joan Crawford in Whatever Happened to Baby Jane. ‘Have you murdered Brown too? Oh no! Are you after my pearls?’
She started to scream.
‘Please Aunt Lulu, don’t do that,’ I pleaded.
What could I go except try to drive with one hand on the steering wheel and reach over and pat her with the other hand? But that outreaching hand caused another reality shift. She pressed herself back against the seat and I could see her eyes blinking fast.
Was she going into cardiac arrest?
No. After a short while she drew herself up, glared at me and said, ‘Matron? Matron! I have to go weewees.’
As I discovered later, one of her medical conditions was that her bladder was shot to pieces. I should have counted myself lucky that she’d lasted this far. Ger-reat: why was there never a toilet in sight when there was an emergency? I looked for the nearest clump of trees.
‘Not them, you fool,’ said Aunt Lulu, noting my gaze. ‘They’re too far away and I’m wearing my best heels.’
I slowed the Bentley and stopped. When I opened the door Aunt Lulu cast a commanding eye over me. ‘You’ll have to carry me,’ she ordered, surveying the fence, paddock and trees beyond.
As for Pooch, he leapt out, trembled, took a few doddery steps and sprayed one of the rear tyres before collapsing with the effort.
Not only did I have to carry Aunt Lulu, but when we got to the safety of the bushes she refused to squat.
‘Don’t just stand there,’ she growled.
I held her off the ground as she gathered up her skirts and let fly.