Blue Heart Afternoon

Nigel Gearing

• Publisher: Oberon Books
• Year: 2012
• Print ISBN: 9781849431392
• eBook ISBN: 9781849432665
• Edition: 1
• Topic: Literature
• Subtopic: British Drama
• Index: Literature

1951. Hollywood. Songwriter Ernie Case has an Oscar on the shelf, an aspiring actress in his bed, and a screenplay getting the green-light from Studio. Life, it seems, is looking up. Only two hurdles lie ahead: he needs the mysterious Diva as his leading lady and he needs to keep well clear of Senator McCarthy's anti-communist witch hunt. But, as his relationship with Diva deepens, he realises that some things are more important than hit songs sung by Sinatra.

Los Angeles, 1951.

In the darkness the sound of distant surf and wind-blown palm trees.

Static from a radio modulates into a few bars from ‘Blues In The Night’ and back into static before cutting out abruptly.

Backlit against a doorway, an elderly man in coat and hat carrying a suitcase.

‘JANITOR’: Consider this… A man goes away from his home, lies in strange beds in the dark. He crosses seas and continents, builds cabins and cities. Finally, on this last coast of all – here where the world ends amid temperate air, fragrant with orange-blossom – he builds houses big with gables he remembers from Vienna, shady Spanish courtyards like a dream of Old Seville, castles worthy of any Scottish laird.

And the real him? The culture he’s carried with him on railways from station-locker to station-locker and hidden in empty hotel wardrobes and broken and patched together like a Ming vase? What d’you know. Here, of a sudden, it’s irrelevant. It don’t mean a thing. All he can do is throw it away and start over.

‘America. Eat me up’…

Light dims to darkness.

Lights up on a woman (20-ish) at present wearing only underwear and heels. She puts on the monogrammed cap of a restaurant waitress, posing as if to someone offstage.

INGENUE: How d’you like me, Mr Case?

No response.

Mr Case? Are you all right in there?

Still no response. She frowns slightly, and begins to put on other pieces of clothing which have been scattered on the chesterfield behind her.

The room in which she is standing is the comfortable but unadorned living room of a ground-floor apartment on or near Pacific Palisades (the latter just visible perhaps through a window upstage right).

Polished wood floors; a white baby grand; a white bear-rug; a cocktail trolley and on it a telephone, pad and silver pen; a winged armchair and, beside it, a small side-table with carafe and ice-bucket and a gold (Oscar) statuette.

As she finishes dressing – she is wearing the colour-coded skirt, monogrammed blouse and cap of a restaurant waitress – SONGWRITER comes on. He is dressed in white flannels, a white short-sleeved shirt and a white sweater across his shoulders. In his hand he holds a tennis-racquet and as he talks practises the odd stroke.

INGENUE: Well, good morning!

SW: Good morning to you too, Jennifer!

INGENUE: Gee, you’re all kitted out.

SW: Look who’s talking. (Smiles. Shrugs.) ‘The Country Club’. They expect no less. My tennis-partner expects no less.

INGENUE: Is that right?

SW: And a guy needs to look his best if he’s hoping to (gestures with racquet.) – pirouette – sashay – twin-step his way to victory!

INGENUE: This is tennis?

SW: I am playing with Fred Astaire…

INGENUE: Gee. So I guess you must know ‘Miss Rogers’ too?

SW: Uh-huh.

INGENUE: And Mr Gable?

SW: ‘Clark Gable’?

She nods enthusiastically.

SW: Mm. Let me see. Ain’t he the wine-waiter over at the Cocoanut Grove?

INGENUE: Hey. Now you’re joshing me. I might be new to Hollywood, but I ain’t that dumb!

SW: Now who’d ever imagine you were?

INGENUE: I’m from Texas, ain’t I? I’ve heard the jokes.

SW: Tell me a joke about Texas, Jennifer. (Another tennis-stroke.)
Something to put Mr Astaire off his stroke.

INGENUE: Ain’t that a bit ‘unethical’?

SW: You are new to Hollywood.

They both laugh amiably. But suddenly she registers the gold statuette behind the carafe.

INGENUE: Hey. That’s your Oscar, right?

SW: Right.

She picks it up admiringly.

INGENUE: ‘Academy Award . To “Blue Heart Afternoon”. Original song. Music and lyrics by Ernest Case. 1950’

You must be so proud. I guess by now half the world must have heard that song.

But, still smiling, SONGWRITER has looked pointedly at his watch.

SW: Now if you’re gonna make your shift…

INGENUE: Oh right. Listen, Mr Case –

SW: Please. ‘Ernie’.

INGENUE: It’s been real swell. ‘Ernie’. What say we do this again –

SW: Sure.

INGENUE: – Catch a movie? Grab a bite?

SW: I’ll call you.

INGENUE: You don’t have my number.

SW: Ah.

INGENUE: …But maybe that’s how you like it?

SW: Come now.

INGENUE: …And, Mr Case, I don’t want to seem pushy but… but you did talk about this new movie you’re composing the music for? With maybe – just maybe – a part for me? For that you’ll need my number, right?

SW: Right.

He takes the pen and notepad from next to the telephone, passes them to her. She begins to write her number, only to stop at the sight of a name already on the pad.

INGENUE: Gee. Mr Case. Ernie. You know Liese Felsing?

SW: Only by reputation.

INGENUE: You gonna work with her maybe?

SW: Maybe.

INGENUE: She’s the biggest star in all of Hollywood!

SW: Still? Her last movie, they say those that stayed till the end shared the same cab home.

INGENUE: Did you never see that very first picture she made? The dark end of the street with just the light from the gas-station behind her. She turns back toward the camera, she throws that last goodbye kiss…and then she’s gone with only the memory of her beret, that trench-coat, to tell you she was ever there at all. Now that was a great picture!

SW: Right…

INGENUE: Is it true what they say? They say Adolf Hitler or one of them guys went down on his knees and begged her to come back to Europe. But she said: ‘Mr Hitler, I refuse to come back as long as you and your kind are in power. Mr Hitler, I will continue to refuse just as long as…’

Still smiling politely, he has looked pointedly at his watch. A beat as he waits for her to remember to write her name and number on the pad. Finally doing so:

Well, I think you’re very lucky, Mr Case! I’d do anything to work with her… But, hey, I guess I’d better be going, right?

SW: Back to the Salad Bar?

INGENUE: And how! I got quite a day. Later I gotta work Cocktail Hour and First Dinner. But they were real nice: they said as long as I punch in early and lay them tables for First Luncheon then I could still make my meeting.

SW: [Your ‘meeting’]?

INGENUE: Right. (Suddenly a little shy.) This afternoon I got this audition. At the office of Mister Konig?

SW: ‘Harry Konig, Head of Studio’? Be careful, Jennifer. The way I heard it, the last actress he ‘auditioned’ he chased round his desk for an hour or more. Of course, you may be all right…

INGENUE: ?

SW: He’s so old that if he catches up with you he won’t remember why he was chasing you in the first place.

INGENUE: Mr Case? Are you being entirely fair? My understanding was, he’s a man of great culture.

SW: Oh yeh? Last thing I heard he was planning a movie about Adam and Eve. With a...

Table of contents

• Front Cover
• Half-title page
• Title Page
• Copyright
• Contents
• Dedication
• Characters
• Chapter 1