Chapter One

Each morning I woke to the sound of cupboards banging, and the clash of plates. Aunt Ida was in the kitchen, boiling milk in a pan. Lester and I slept in bunks, but sometimes I'd share my bed with another kid we were fostering. Then I'd never sleep, but spend all night whispering to the girl or boy beside me, hiding under the sheets when the adults stirred.

I was always the first kid out of my room. Uncle Wayne's door was left ajar as he sat on his double bed, his green postman's uniform laid out beside him.

‘Howdy, Norma Jeane!’ he'd call as I passed. I liked to stand in the hall and watch as he shaved in front of a small, round mirror.

‘Why doesn't my mama live with us?’ I asked him one day.

‘Well you can see how we're fixed here, Normie – packed fit to bursting.’ He smiled awkwardly. ‘Your mama is working hard and saving her money. One day she'll take you to live with her, you'll see.’

‘Get over here!’ Aunt Ida hollered, as eggs crackled in a frying pan.

Wayne buttoned his shirt.

‘Where shall we live?’ I followed him across the hall.

‘In Los Angeles,’ he said, eyeing his plate. ‘It's a mighty fine place – the big city. We'll go and visit her real soon.’ I wanted to ask if it was far away. Uncle Wayne stuffed a slice of ham in his mouth, and gulped down his coffee. Ida stood stock still by the basin. Her eyes told me no more questions, though she didn't speak a word.

Every kid at school was poor; mostly their fathers were out of work. I saw these men every day as I walked through the neighborhood, sitting on their porches. They were still there when I returned.

How lucky I was, Ida told me, to live with a family chosen by the Lord. We would never know the shame of poverty. Uncle Wayne kept us safe from that – he had an insurance plan.

When I wasn't at school I played at home with Lester, while Aunt Ida went to church. Lester was in the grade below, and it was my job to take care of him. Lester was special, Ida said. She and Uncle Wayne had adopted him. We drew pictures of God. Mine looked a little like Wayne.

That Easter, we went to the Hollywood Bowl for a sunrise service. Lester wore a white gown and I wore a black one, and we raised our arms to the sky in praise of the resurrection.

Our church was a new one, founded in Los Angeles. I wasn't concentrating on my performance; the main attraction was our priestess, whose name was Sister Aimee.

An old lady came on to the round stage after we had sung Jesus Loves Me, This I Know.

‘God gave me a daughter,’ she breathed into a loudspeaker, echoing several times across the auditorium. ‘And her goodness has brought us together. From this day on we shall be forever immune from sin. Children of Christ, she has come to save us all!’

The crowd began to cheer and stamp their feet, some shook tambourines. The noise frightened me. Then they stopped as organ music began to play. The stage was bathed in a blue light.

She appeared in a gown that trailed past her ankles, an apron and a bonnet completing the disguise. Doll‑like, all alone on the plinth, she brandished a scroll that read “GOD IS LAW”.

‘We are all prisoners, my friends,’ she was saying, her voice a high‑pitched screech. ‘Here, in Hollywood, we are constantly plagued by temptation and vice. It is our duty to cleanse this city of dark forces. I command you to protect your children. Instruct them properly in the ways of the righteous, and they will be blessed.’

To Aunt Ida's mind that meant no movies, no trips to the fair or the traveling circus. Everything I needed was back at home.

‘Wasn't she wonderful?’ Ida babbled as we rode out of the city in a cable‑car. ‘I never saw anyone so pretty in my whole life.’ I thought briefly of mother, who was more beautiful even than Sister Aimee, and yet she also frightened me.

On Saturdays I went to the Angelus Temple with Ida and Lester. After the mile's walk home, we'd sit on the red rug in the living room, reading aloud from the bible while Uncle Wayne rocked in his chair, smoking a pipe. Then Mother arrived.

Her name was Gladys, and everything about her was small, from her hands to her feet. She was always dressed in pastel pink or turquoise, her gloves were long and lacy. The clothes she wore had been fashionable a few years ago, before the crash. She washed and pressed them after each wearing, changing three or four times a day.

Mother stood in her coat, herringbone with a ragged fur trim, declining Ida's offer of rock cakes. She stared at her patent shoes and never spoke unless somebody asked her a question.

We caught a streetcar from the corner of Washington Street and El Segundo Boulevard, right by my school. If not for mother, I might never have learned about the city or the sea.

One weekend, soon after I started the first grade, she took me to Venice Beach.

The streetcar stopped at St. Mark's Plaza. Mother got up and I followed. Young families and couples milled outside swanky boutiques, playing on dime machines in arcades. Mother bought tickets for the miniature railway, handing one to me before finding a carriage to ourselves at the back. Her wool beret flew off her head but I grabbed it in time.

‘You have pretty hair – so red,’ I told her, touching her flyaway locks as they blew in the warm, gentle breeze. She smiled at me.

‘How did it get so red?’ I asked.

‘It's cherry red, just like Clara Bow's used to be. I have it done once a month in a salon, but my hair used to be mousy like yours.’

Her eyes were blue, like mine only paler.

At Windward the train terminated and we walked along the inland lagoons. Mother went quiet again and suddenly raced up some steps, onto the prom. We got on another trolley, riding along to the other beaches, from Redondo and Hermosa to Malibu.

‘I'm hungry,’ I said, and we got off the bus.

Mother bought ice‑cream from one of a row of parlors. She bit the chocolate fudge off the top of her vanilla cone before passing it to me. We sat on deckchairs and she smoked one cigarette after another, rolled by me.

When we got back to Hawthorne, it was past six and Ida was testy. ‘Dinner's cold. Won't you stay for leftovers? I'm sure Norma Jeane would love you to.’

Mother shook her head.

‘I have to rest. I'm back at work tomorrow – double shifts all next week.’ She left without saying goodbye.

A skinny black and white dog followed me home from school each day. Sometimes Ida gave me scraps for him. I played with him in the back yard and on the street, throwing sticks for him to chase until it got dark and Ida called me in. Uncle Wayne built him a kennel and I covered him with blankets.

Lester and I had grown apart when he started the first grade. At school he played only with other boys, then he studied the bible with Ida at home. So “Tippy” became my best friend.

Weekends dragged. My mother turned up later and later. We'd ride all day on the Pacific Electric tram, round and round Los Angeles or out into the San Fernando Valley. But we never stopped, just got on another bus.

Then one Saturday, I came home from church to find Mother out front with Tippy.

‘How lucky you are to have a dog, Norma Jeane! I wish I could keep one, but there's barely room for Grace and me. You've never seen where I live, until now – I'll take you there today.’

The trolley rattled into the city. Mother was jumpy, leaping up and pointing out the many sights. Hollywood was right in the middle, surrounded by green hills. Palm trees were planted in a row along Santa Monica and Sunset Boulevard, but the noise of traffic stopped all conversation. Roadworks were everywhere, and buildings were under construction.

‘That's where movies are shown,’ mother hissed in my ear as we chugged down the Strip. ‘That's where all the stars go.’

But I knew nothing of those people or places, and I was sure Aunt Ida would have my hide if ever I ventured inside a theater.

Mother hauled me out of my seat and we hurried onto the sidewalk.

‘Look.’ She pointed to a large gray block across the thoroughfare. ‘It's a studio – I work there, with Grace.’

The letters “CON-SO-LI-DATED” ran the length of the building in a giant, unlit neon banner. I wondered what it meant, and what mother did there.

I followed her, darting through a web of backstreets, until we finally reached another gray tenement identical to the one where she worked.

We pushed through swing doors and climbed four or five flights of stairs. Mother led me down a long corridor packed with doors left ajar, beaded curtains swinging, and smells of cooking.

Copyright © ukapress.com All Rights Reserved.