Valid distortions
Christopher Hawtree
There were also young men who Walked in the streets and these she admired greatly. She liked them so much better than Mexican boys. These men were tall and slim: many of them fair with blue eyes and delicate features. They walked with such an unconscious arrogance, not like the Mexicans, who walked with too much pride, tended to strut, and who could never be as unselfconscious as these beautiful young men.' In the literature of the South the name of Katherine Everard does not, it need hardly be said, figure Prominently. None the less, A Star's Prog- ress, which was published by Dutton in Lew York at the beginning of 1950 and by the modestly named Quality Press in Lon- don three years later, deserves to be better "own. The Library of Congress catalogue records that the real name of this Pseudonymous author cannot be found; have surname, it has been suggested, might nave been more familiar at the time as the Punning name of some New York steam- uaths. Quite why the author should now be reluctant to acknowledge the work is a ntystery, for it is surely a small masterpiece °I Comedy so skilfully put together that one cannot believe Miss Everard ventured nothing else. ,r2t opens in Mexico after the Great War. L'ie family of a lion-tamer, Serrano, has hit "ard times. Life is a far cry from the days when his wife had watched him every day with 'his black curly hair tossed back from "ls forehead, his chin held very high more arrogant, more virile, and, to her, more exciting than any matador could ever look'. They have five children — Rosita, (9raziella, Jose and two others — and Serrano is urged to follow up the idea of i°tning a famous lion-tamer in America.
de shame of becoming a mere assistant makes him dither; the discovery, however, that Rosita has become pregnant spurs them to hide their embarrassment in New Orleans.
Here, as the sky darkens and the glitter- ing lights are switched on against a back- ground of the Depression, Graziella's ama- tory stirrings are first aroused. Her father's Influence is now no more than an occasion- al Postcard from his touring act; her f,, -either has fallen prey to a host of ail- ments; Jose is off as a truck-driver; the two youngest children have died; and Rosita will presently marry. In such circumstances the temptation would have been too much for anyone. One day, at the edge of the French Quarter, Graziella, 'aware of the flesh and its need', is eyed up by two sailors; thus provoked and 'murmuring a prayer to herself, like a good Catholic girl, she stepped into the beer-smelling dark- ness' of a sleazy bar. 'What can I do for you? You lost, little girl?' asks a thickset barman known as George. 'You're a very nice-looking young lady,' he continues, moving closer. 'He patted her hand in what she knew was meant to be a fatherly fashion; yet already she was on guard; she knew what this meant; she'd been warned and yet, since she rather liked the atten- tion, she smiled, narrowing her eyes at him in a way which she'd practised many times in front of the mirror and which, she often felt, would be irresistible.' He introduces her to the proprietor, Sophie, 'large- bosomed and wide-hipped, somewhere be- tween thirty-five and fifty-five'. Lying that she is 18, Graziella is offered the chance of auditioning for the night-club. Sophie sits at the piano and, fashionably enough, thumps out Ravel's Bolero 'slowly and inaccurately'. In delightfully excruciating prose Miss Everard describes Graziella's triumphant movements. By missing school and returning home before dawn, Grace, as she becomes known, is able to lead a double life. (Her father, meanwhile, is surrendering to tuberculosis.) Dressed in the skimpiest of outfits, she dazzles the leering audience. At the celebratory party afterwards, she drinks a great deal of champagne, the electric light is exchanged for candles and the behaviour of one girl encourages the others to pull off their clothes. It is with a certain inevitability that Grace falls into George's bed. 'She'd never been so tired or felt so sick in all her life.'
As the months Igo by her dislike of him grows but, to keep the job, 'she submitted to everything he wished for'. Her act becomes increasingly popular but the man of her dreams has yet to appear. Instead she is discovered there by Jose, her tender age is revealed and she is threatened with a convent. All seems lost. But just in time she is spirited away by a rich older man, Jason Carter, who had earlier watched her from afar and later confessed his love at dawn.
The years have now gone by and she wakes up to her 18th birthday. They are living in Santa Monica. She has nothing to do but idle, take dancing-lessons and think of the 'fair-haired, blue-eyed young man, her dream lover who would, one day, succeed these unattractive men within the cool embrace of her arms'. On the beach her gaze follows a young boxer always to be found in the company of a writer. One day they are joined by Joe Isaacs, whose 'bathing suit bulged alarmingly in the most unexpected places'; he is a famous direc- tor. Step by step, the patient Jason agreeing, she passes a screen test with 'that great star of yesteryear' Ronald Drake, finds herself in Isaac's bed and becomes a star in a film with Eric Davis who, miracle of miracles, possesses both blond curly hair and vivid blue eyes. (Miss Everard's touch is perhaps at its surest in providing these• glimpses of Hollywood at work; she dis- plays a knowledge that would put Myra Breckinridge herself to shame.) The saintly Jason agrees to a divorce. Outside Reno Grace retreats to a ranch; bored, she telephones Davis and while out riding they find themselves beside a spring. 'His eyes were the same colour blue as the sky now . . . He wore a red-checked open shirt and tight-fitting blue jeans which showed the contours of his thick calves and muscu- lar thighs.' An hour and a paragraph later 'it was accomplished with such violence that she was almost sick in her ecstasy'. Despite this practised ease, he tells her 'this is my first time'; after dinner he elaborates: 'I've played the field an awful lot. But this is my first time at this sort of thing.' Poor Grace is driven into a terrible state by this confession. No number of other men can compensate. A desperate scene presently ensues as she interrupts him and a young man on a rowing- machine. 'She turned blindly and rushed to the door. Bill let her out.'
This trick is definitely lost, but her career keeps up for many years. Eventual- ly, after a reunion in New Orleans and an incognito trip to New York where 'she had a wonderful time and she danced with many Negroes', she allows herself a month's European holiday in which she meets a Crown Prince. Although dark, he does have the blue eyes. Outside Antibes all is 'blissful and warm and brilliant, not only with the colour of the sea but also with the colour of their loving'. Needless to say, when royalty and Hollywood swim naked together the gentlemen of the press are never far away. 'It was all over the world within twenty-four hours.' It is not scandal, though, that drives him from her bed but a telephone call from the King to say that Germany is planning to invade Poland. 'The world had intruded at last in a way more violent and more cunning than either of them had anticipated.' After that it is downhill all the way. Religious groups ban her films across the country. She takes to the bottle. Eric reappears, so does Jason, but to no avail. Like a small child wanting to be comforted, she returns to Mother.
'There are so many ways in which the world breaks us. Your case is a familiar one.' No hope there. The last pages chroni- cle an anonymous tour of the bars (Sophie has married the drummer and gone to run a chicken-farm), the swallowing of five pills and a final slug of whisky. 'She would watch the blades of the fan whirling until at last she slept.' In a happier bed she had told Jason that her mother was in fact from Duluth. 'The name Duluth had always intrigued her.' Had she been brought up there herself, she might, you never know, have met a proper young man with sky- blue eyes and wavy blond hair.
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