Famous Last Words (39 page)

west no matter how close it might be, since the town itself stood up in the way. But what could not be seen could still be heard—a distant storm; an approaching ship (if it blew its whistles loud enough and sounded all its bells) or the Pan American Clipper flying in from Miami.

Now, in his dressing-room, the Duke of Windsor caught

the sound of something deep inside his ear and could not tell if what he heard was real or not.

“Henny,” he said to his man, whose name was Albert

Henderson, “Is something there?”

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“Where, sir?”

“There.” And the Duke made a stab at pointing in the

right direction, more or less describing a circle.

“No, sir,” said Henny.

“But wait…“said the Duke and he whispered as he spoke.

“Are you absolutely certain?”

Henderson looked. The Duke was standing, centre of the

room, transfixed. Nothing else was visible. “I’m sorry, sir, but I don’t see a thing.”

“Did I say there was anything to see?” said the Duke. “My question was: is something there? Do you hear anything?”

Henderson was greatly relieved. “No sir,” he said quite brightly. “I can’t hear a thing—excepting, of course, the crowds outside and the music.”

“No,” said the Duke. “Not the crowds and not the music.

A sort of buzzing sound…”

Henderson held his breath and considered what he should say. “Is it possible Your Highness might be referring to the sound of flies…or bees, perhaps?” He waited for inspiration.

“Or even birds? There are birds that buzz, you know.”

“You think I’m mad, of course,” said the Duke. “But I’m not. I tell you, Henny—there is something there!”

And he pointed due west. And even though his valet still maintained there was nothing to be heard, the Duke of Windsor was quite correct. Something indeed was there, casting

its shadow over the island of Andros and making “a sort of buzzing sound” as it headed due east towards the town of Nassau.

Little Nell forayed further onto the lawn.

Bosom high to most of the women, Little Nell made a

shopping tour through a kind of heavenly store where all the best that could be had was on display. And the dresses were cut so low…the heat, of course, being the cause…and the fact it was a garden party. Yes. These debutantes were much too well brought up to want to show themselves in

any crass or decadent display of—oh my goodness!—flesh.

Little Nell snatched a glass of pink champagne and guzzled

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it to slake the thirst so suddenly brought on by all this heat and the press of all these bodies. There. And he left his empty glass on a passing tray and snatched another.

Mopping his chin, he turned in a new direction. Over in one of the marquees he spotted zebra stripes and what appeared to be an orchid-bearing tree. This was the Duchess

of Windsor’s tribute to the El Morocco, one of New York’s finest watering holes and a second home to many of her rich American guests that day. Inside, he could see a tropic pool and palms and, wading in the pool, flamingoes. Everything was pink and black and white, a kind of living waxworks: not quite real, but the next best thing. The light was wrong and all the flamingoes must have been extremely tired—or their works run down—since every step they took was a

slow-motion parody of walking in their sleep. But the drink at the bar was very real and the band was real and the blonde who stood up to sing was real. And the crowd inside with all their glasses raised.

…Without your love,

It’s a honky-tonk parade,

Without your iove,

It’s a melody played

In a penny arcade… .

Little Nell turned to wander past a Punch and Judy Show and a large display of the Duke of Windsor’s various Coats of Arms set out in lilies, daisies, iris, roses:

…It’s a Barnum and Bailey world,

Just as phony as it can be,

But it wouldn’t be make believe, If you believed in me.

And then—all at once—Little Nell could see her.

LANA TURNER—KISSES FOR SALE!

This stopped him dead in his tracks. Dear, sweet

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Jesus…Breasts. Lord, bless thy servant. Grant me one kiss andlivil] give away my secrets /ree. If onlylcould touch…and he nearly squeezed his champagne glass into a mess of shards.

But, no. It was impossible. It would never do. Little Nell stepped back and watched Miss Turner through the haze of his dreams; it well may be there is much in this world so real, so terribly real we dare not unveil and touch it since its reality would only overwhelm us, no matter how lovely, sensuous and gratifying it was. Could any man truly bear the weight of all that Lana Turner flesh in his hands if it were real? Was it not best—in the interest of public sanity—

to consign such flesh to magazines and films and to balance it there in the mind; palms up) Strawberry nipples dipped in pink champagne and eaten raw in dreams. How could

such dreams be exposed to the sweat and callouses of real hands smudged with ink, fumbling with real buttons? Little Nell would never know. The knowing, alas, was left to Tyrone Power and Jimmy Stewart, Lana Turner’s movie-star

lovers. And they say, he thought, she is only sixteen years old. Sixteen. Fifteen. Fourteen. God! If I had a soul to sell!

Nell turned away and reached inside his inner pocket.

Just one kiss, he thought as he fingered the envelope. But no. They had refused already. And besides. , .he turned and looked again at his dream, where she stood dispensing kisses for cash…she’s innocent. She’d never understand. And he decided, then and there, that if the awful moment came

predicted in his pocket—he would rescue Lana Turner. All the rest could fry in hell.

The Duke of Windsor finally came down the stairs, where he passed the Judiciary lined up in the hall together with the members of the Executive Council. This was a mere—

and dread—formality. Everyone bowed a little and scraped a little and the Duke, in his turn, made a show of being able to converse like an ordinary human being. In the past, this had been his greatest talent; now he could barely look these people in the eye or hear their names without a gun going off that was loaded with accusations aimed at himself. They

ťi.afc:

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all think I’ve let them down, he thought; and I don’t even know who they are… .MarsdenFawcett had to guide him through the tour of hands.

There was Lord Chief Justice Sir William Wilmott, puckering his lips, sucking his gums; always looking and sounding as if there was something stuck between his teeth. There was Lieutenant-Colonel Frederick Wanklyn, Commanding

Officer of the Volunteer Defence Force. And there was Noel Bingham (“Thingummy”) Ross, whose grandmother Lally

Bingham-Ross had been among the mistresses of Edward

VII, the Duke of Windsor’s grandfather. But the Duke was thoroughly distracted all the time they stood there, with his eye on the outer doors and the crowds beyond in the blazing sunshine. And even though he vaguely heard them speak

of the latest polo matches at Clifford Park and the racing season at Hobby Horse Hall, he only heard them through the buzzing in his ears, growing by the moment increasingly louder. At last he cut their formal greetings short and he said to all of them; “can you hear that sound?” And they all said; “no.”

He made his excuses and wandered away, still pursued

by MarsdenFawcett; and when the Duchess turned and saw her husband enter the salon, she was instantly alarmed. His face was pinched with confusion and pain and she thought he must be ill. “Keep MarsdenF-F-F- away,” she said to Aunt Bessie, urging her to join the aide-de-camp on the farthest side of the room.

“What is the matter with you, David?” she said, somewhat testy by the time she got him into a corner. She could smell the wine and she thought; i/he’s drunk for this o/all events, I will ki]) him. “What is the matter?”

“Something is going to happen,” he said, with a curious look of anguish in his eye. “Something dreadful is going to happen, Dolly. You think we can make it stop?”

“What is it? Aren’t you well? Something ‘dreadful’—what do you mean? A heart attack?”

“No. Have you got any cotton wool?”

“Of course not. Cotton wool?”

“My ears…” He looked around the room. “Even some

Kleenex would do. I could wad it up and stick it in… .”

“David.” The Duchess used her sharpest edge to cut him

off. “There’s nothing wrong. And nothing ‘dreadful’ is going to happen. Nothing. In a moment, you and I are going out there” (he was staring at her; suspicious) “to show those people who we are. That’s all. We will simply show them who we are. And I only ask one thing…”

“Yes, Dolly.”

“All I have in this place is you. And all you have is me.

So it’s us against them. Do you understand?”

“Yes, Dolly. Us against them.”

She looked at him and knew he did not comprehend the

magnitude of what they were about to do. But then, the

magnitude of admitting he was alive was enough to put him off, these days.

“Here comes MarsdenFawcett,” she said, “to take you

away. I’ll be with you in a moment. Get him to pull your jacket down at the back. It’s riding up….”

MarsdenFawcett came and, with him, Aunt Bessie Merryman.

MarsdenFawcett took the Duke away and the Duchess

set her mouth and narrowed her eyes. She crossed to the nearest mirror. Aunt Bessie tried to follow, but the Duchess cut her off. “I need a moment,” she said. “If you don’t mind.

Please.”

Aunt Bessie Merryman understood. It was her belief—and one she had instilled in Wallis Warfield—that the only calm that counted in a high-tension world was the calm that came from being able to retreat entirely into the centre of one’s self in moments of stress. And the Duchess of Windsor’s way of achieving this calm was through the meticulous

guardianship of her own appearance. Whenever tensions

became unbearable—as now—she always turned to the looking-glass.

She

set every hair in its place. Every hair was a nerve and they must all be tightly flattened to the mould of serenity in which she meant to walk out through the doors and onto the lawns: us against them. And when she was ready, she paused just long enough to see her husband through the

glass—far, far off in that other world where everything was

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reversed. His reflection distressed her even more than the man himself, whose weight she had supported with her

hands. The mirror-man had no weight at all: no weight—

and all white; white in his uniform; white in his powdered face; white in his aureole of refracted light. He was like a doll that had been left unwound.

But the clocks had not been stopped.

In the mirror, it was nine. And at nine o’clock all this that was about to happen would be over. If only she could stay right there, and by-pass the hour that was about to strike.

Three p.m.—and the moment had arrived.

Outside, the Five Hundred had begun to turn expectantly towards the Mansion at about ten minutes to three. The

police had closed off the top of the driveway by blocking it with—of all things—an ambulance. There was an air of rippling excitement that exuded from the crowd, almost

visible like heatwaves shimmering over their heads. And the singer went on singing in the El Morocco:

Jeepers creepers’

Where’d ya get those peepers?

Jeepers creepers’

Where’d ya get those eyes?

An aeroplane was approaching from out beyond the harbour.

The sound of it was like a droning bee swelling^hrough

the music and the chatter.

Little Nell had wandered off and returned three times with pink champagne to the vicinity of the Kissing Concession, where Lana Turner was still ensconced like a glorious cow in a pen. She was doing a roaring trade. But Little Nell was nervous. Three o’clock was the appointed hour and the undelivered message still remained unsold in his pocket.

Overhead, the aeroplane was making a close, then closer, circle—climbing upward. Probably getting a view and maybe even taking a picture for Life Magazine of the whole Bazaar.

Nell saw a man make a gesture with his cane towards the

sky. Everyone looked at the plane. It was levelling out.

Meanwhile, the doors of the Governor’s Mansion were

opened and the Duke of Windsor heard the aeroplane.

“That’s it,” he said—delighted—to his wife and MarsdenFawcett.

“That’s been the buzzing in my ears.”

The Duchess had to admit it was really quite loud. But

she was very pleased. It meant there was one less facet of her husband’s condition she had to worry about. One less hallucination. One less stroke of paranoia. “Now,” she said, “we can go.” And she gave his elbow a little squeeze of encouragement. Out they went.

Everyone—all the Five Hundred—took an involuntary step across the grass. The Duke and Duchess of Windsor had

finally appeared. White. Tiny. Smiling.

They waved—and a noise like a toppled hive of bees ensued.

The Official Party was engulfed in a tidal wave of

human backs and extended arms, swallowed whole from

the view of the likes of Little Nell and Lana Turner.

Then—all at once—“oh look!” someone shouted. “Look

at the sky!”

The aeroplane was making a lazy turn and rolling onto

its back. From its tail, a long thin stream of exhaust appeared: blue—and then red.

“Red!” someone cried. “Look! Look! Red!”

The Duke and the Duchess of Windsor were completely

forgotten in the centre of the lawns, hemmed in on every side by the crush of people—all of the people looking skyward.

The trail of red exhaust had begun to make a loop and

the loop began to take on a form that could not be incidental.

“M!” someone shouted. “M! Look! It’s writing!”

And indeed it was…M and then E very clearly emerged in the flow of inky smoke and the audience below began to sway and twist in a slow, hypnotic circle as the letters fol—