"JILL DOESN'T COUNT"

Wairarapa Times-Age, 19 November 1940, Page 10

"JILL DOESN'T COUNT"

By

Phyllis Hambledon.

(Author of “Youth Takes the Helm.”)

CHAPTER I. (Continued i. Tonight they were celebrating the second anniversary of the youngest and, some people said, the most talented of English film companies. The place was a fairyland of lights. Cars were sweeping into the parking place. Theirs did the same, they made their way to the largest set, at present arranged for a Stuart film they were going to shoot—“ Old Whitehall,” they called it.

The dancing had already begun when the three of them entered. It was certainly going to be a daisy of a party, thought Oliver. There were about four hundred people, and many had faces well-known to him. Known, because Viva’s and Jill’s house was always cluttered up with film papers, not because he often went to the cinema himself. He didn’t like it. Only when Viva was. featured, did he occupy a velvet fauteuil in the circle, and when her picture was* over, he went away without waiting for the rest of the programme.

Many of the actors and actresses

from the neighbouring studios had been invited. The scene itself was a striking one. Against a background of panelling ending abruptly twenty feet above their heads, moved the dancers, and the very artificiality of their setting gave the keynote. Here were lovely girls—too lovely. Here were “character” faces, too unusual and striking. Here was the dashing young hero, the athlete, the thug, the aristocrat, and even tonight when they were acting

no part, they still featured the roles assigned to them. Now they were dancing. Viva was in his arms. These things, he thought, work up to a crescendo. Not until after supper do we say anything. Until after supper I’ll hold her so—impersonally. But his eyes were not impersonal, nor were hers. They met his, flickered a little. He is the nicest man here, Viva thought. Not a bit like the actor kind. I like the way that bit of hair sticks up. I like him! But I mustn’t like him. I mustn’t! When that dance was over, somebody else claimed her. Then Oliver danced with Jill, who knew almost as few people as he did. But he hardly spoke and when the music ended, he released her with a polite “thank you,” and tried to get Viva again. But she was with a tall rather fleshy man whose face Oliver knew that he ought to recognise. He decided that he was probably one of the many Screen’s Greatest Lovers, and tried to dismiss aim contemptutously.

Viva obviously wasn’t dismissing hin' contemptuously however. Oliver knew that look of hers. It was one anj man would find irresistible. He couldn’t stick the sight of it, went to the bar and ordered a drink. One of the comedians joined him there. He knew the fellow, had met him once on the set. After all, he’d hung round the studic a good deal one way and another. This one’s name was Marchant—probably something like Mason really. He began talking about his last picture, about the bit where he had knocked over a table into a bathing pool. ‘I wanted to put a bowl of goldfish on the table, let ’em drop in. Get a laugh trying to save the little devils from drowning. You get the idea? Well, they wouldn’t have it. They haven’t any initiative, these fellows. Thought it might steal the picture from the star. I tell you m’boy, that’s what wrong with films today. Too many stars, never want to be out of the picture a minute. Now to my mind a picture’s a picture, not a series of close-ups of some brat’s face and legs.” He ordered Oliver another drink on the strength of his sympathy. Stars! What life! ‘And which of ’em is really straight? Well—l ask you!’ ' Oliver said he didn’t think it was as bad as that somehow. Marchant asserted that it was just as bad as that, worse. The stage had gone respectable. ‘Can’t throw a party Saturday night for fear of missing church on Sunday morning. But the- films—my hat!’ Now it was the supper dance, and Viva was once more Oliver's. The Screen's Greatest Lover had relinquished her rather reluctantly. But Oliver knew by the way she snuggled into his arms that she was glad to come to him. Her body was very soft against his own hard body. “Who’s that fellow?” he asked. “Gerald Greer,” she told him. He'd heard of Gerald Greer, of course, benightedly ignorant though he was. He was an actor less than anything. He was also playwright, composer, producer. He was one of the world’s bright young men, giving Louis Fifteenthish parties in his bedroom every morning, when he wore black silk pyjamas and a smoking cap. "Like him?" Oliver asked Viva furiously. “No, but ” "But what?” "But I think he likes me quite a lot more than I like him," said Viva. “Neck of him!" exploded Oliver. Viva did not answer, but pressed, one single second, her cheek against his coat. She was just as high as his heart. Her eyes were very bright, and he felt a pulse beating madly in his temple. The next time they came round he saw that Greer was not dancing. He stood against the wall and watched them most as if it felt the spotlight upon it. He was conspicuous. These fellows cio everything in inverted commas, thought Oliver.

Viva was thinking. Greer liked me! What luck to meet him. I may be able to wheedle something from him some day. But—first—l’m going to marry Oliver. Yes, I may be mad, but I’ll have to marry him or I’ll never be sane again. I think I'll have to do that quickly. I can t spoil my career even for marriage, but I’ve got to have Oliver, and I daren’t suggesUany other way. Why has he gone to my head like this? Its —it's just crazy! He's ordinary really—just an ordinary doctor prescribing dope for old women—-

(To be Continued).

COPYRIGHT. PUBLISHED BY SPECIAL ARRANGEMENT.

doing, baby cases and so forth. There ought to be some sort of physic or treatment to give you a distaste for unsuitable young men. But there wasn’t. And she too felt that the evening was a crescendo, that it was working up to' a finale of some unimaginable glory. They had a table for four for supper—like the Andante movement before the shattering chords of the climax Jill had a beardless youth as partner, brother of a well-known film star. He was talking of her, of her - latest picture, an accident she had had with a frock, an offer from Germany. Jill listened kindly. They can’t talk of anything else, thought Oliver again. He would have to get used to it, if he married Viva. They spoke little themselves. They drank champagne. Oliver was always abstemious, but he was beginning to feel curiously light-headed, not so much with champagne, as with a lack of sleep, with Viva herself, and the lights and the music. Then dancing began again, and Oliver rose. Without a word, Viva was once more in his arms. Nothing andante any more about anything. They were not two bodies, but one. The music engulfed them, not only the music, their awareness of each other. “Let’s get away!” muttered Oliver. “Isn’t there anywhere we can go?” “There’s one of the dressing rooms, ’ whispered Viva. “I’ve got the key of it. I took it on purpose.” He knew then that it was going to be

all right. They escaped across the grounds. The dressing rooms were sheds in a line. They were numbered. Viva unlocked 27. They entered. There was a long table against a wall, ten stools in front of it. Pitiless lights and mirrors reflected everything, as mercilessly exposing as the films themselves. “Put them out,” said Oliver.

He was master now, as a man at such a moment is always master. Viva obeyed. Now they were almost in darkness, lit only by a light streaming from outside through a smoked glass window. Now he had got Viva in his arms. Now he was kissing her more violently than even in his thoughts he had imagined himself kissing her. Nor had he imagined what it would mean to have her kissing him back again. “Oh, Viva, Viva, darling—you'll marry me, won’t you?”

“I’ll have to. Oh, Oliver, you’ve got me!” sighed Viva. He had. He knew it. It was the ultimate sigh of surrender. That she could feel like this about him! “Let it be soon—soon, Viva!” he implored her.

. “As soon as you like —sooner,” she whispered. “I haven’t to rehearse for a fortnight. How soon could we get a licence, Noll? Where shall we go?”

“I don't think it’ll much matter — where we go,” said Oliver. It was quiet here. The music was dim in the distance. They talked as lovers talk the first time their hearts are bared to each other. Then a car with blazing headlights passed the window. They came back to earth again, people were going. Viva turned on the lights, tidied her disordered hair. They looked at each other shyly, and laughed a little. Oliver watched her outlining her lips again. Women recovered themselves so quickly. He still felt strange and emotional. They left No. 27, locking it behind them. They went back to the others. People were departing, offering and accepting lifts. Flambuoyant cars, most of them, but some, austerely plain, as if their owners said: “though we are film folk, we can look like the County.” There would still be the drive back, thought Oliver, and the rain which had fallen earlier had stopped. The stars were shining like mad. Couldn t we foist Jill on to somebody somehow?” he said to Viva. But she was speaking to somebody else and did not hear him. Jill heard however. She had been watching all the evening. She had seen Oliver's look of bemused adoration. She had seen the softening of Viva’s face. She had known just how long they had been absent from the party. And now, couldn t we foist Jill on to somebody somehow?

If she could have died then, she would have done it willingly; if she could have tramped the way home she would have started now. She would have asked anybody, any strangei, for a lift if there had been anybody, but there wasn’t. Everybody lived quite near. They would have thought her crazy. And so a few minutes later, very pale, she was in the rear of Oliver's car, trying to eliminate herself, to make herself as unnoticed as possible. It was when the fresh air met his face that Oliver realised how deadly sleepy he was. He tried to rouse himself as he put his hands on the steering wheel. But after all this was the third night he had not slept. And the lights on the roads were the very dickens. They kept reflecting themselves on the wet ground, stars and street lights, and coloured lanterns, and the rear lights of cars. They made him dizzy. Piesently the cars thinned themselves out, and they were on a wide straight road. But Oliver felt dazed. He held the wheel automatically The car leapt to fifty. Viva lay, eyes half-closed. She was wrapped in a sensuous ecstacy. She would lie in bed tonight, imagining Oliver, recapturing the essence of every moment he had had with him. She even wanted to be alone in order to store these sensations together, before they were overlaid with others.