In the quaint Australian country town of Warbol, a faded B-grade actress, Faith Farmer, dares to dream again. With a heart full of passion and a pocketful of savings, she revives the local cinema, The Rex, and invites the community to fall in love with the Golden Age of Hollywood.
Chapter One
FOR SALE BY AUCTION—
SATURDAY 15 OCTOBER 1993
The Rex House
Grand old home with private 100-seat theater
Renovator’s delight. Original features.
Massive entry foyer, three reception rooms
Six bedrooms, one
bathroom, kitchen with two pantries
A the
wrong end of Mullabong Street, the bleak and
crumbling mansion towered above its neighbors,
shimmering in the summer heat. Faith Farmer pushed her way
to the front of the gathered spectators, pulling a reluctant,
tutting Gerald by the hand. The last time she’d been so excited
and nervous was waiting to learn if she’d been nominated for an
Oscar, and frankly, that didn’t bear remembering. Today, she
had no intention of being overlooked or losing out to a second tier
player.
Sandwiched between Mick’s Meats and DIY Handyman, the
Rex House bore down on Warbol’s main street with a sad air of
grimy decay. Chipped mustard stucco revealed gaping
brickwork. Billposters plastered the massive doors. Shuttered
windows spoke of cobwebs and wood rot within.
Oblivious to the building’s deficiencies, Faith Farmer kept
her eyes locked on the auctioneer, who was standing in the
brass-studded oak doorway, thrusting his hand back and forth
with alarming rapidity.
“One
hundred and fifty.” She threw her voice with an
actress’s command. Channeling her stage performance as the
formidable warrior, Boadicea, she’d scare the enemy into
retreat with her determination to win at all costs, no matter the
carnage she’d wreak.
Outside
the partially boarded up building, a crowd of
curious onlookers gasped and shuffled.
“One
hundred and sixty.” The next bid came from a man in
a smart suit, taking instructions via one of those wireless
telephones.
Faith
peered over her rhinestone spectacles and lifted her
arm again. Gerald tried to prevent her, but she shook him off.
“One hundred and seventy.”
“Stop,
Faith, you’re over your limit.” Gerald’s chins
wobbled.
She
ignored her dear friend and his willful prudence. This
was her life’s dream come true … she was in love, and love
would find a way. A theater … it had a private theater.
She
stared up at the derelict Victorian monstrosity’s gloomy facade
and pictured it aglow with lights, restored to its early
magnificence, a glittering reminder of post-Great War decadent
splendor. The Rex Cinema—no, The Rex Movie House—would
be a gem in a regional oasis devoid of cultural charm. A place for
tourists to flock and proud locals to proclaim as their own. After
all these years, she’d once again achieve fame and fortune. But
this time, on her terms.
“I have
one hundred and seventy thousand,” boomed the
auctioneer. “Any advance?” He swung his gaze across the
crowd.
Faith
clutched Gerald’s arm, crossed her fingers, and closed
her eyes. It would be a goldmine. People would come in droves,
if for no other reason than to meet her. People loved a brush
with fame. Her delusions about her on-screen success in the
fifties—after that unfortunate false start in the forties—had
inflated in proportion with her advancing years. In truth, she’d
featured in overblown tragedies with bad scripts.
“Two
hundred,” from telephone man.
Faith’s eyes snapped open, and
without stopping to think,
she shouted, “Two ten.”
“Two
twenty.”
“Two
twenty-one.” Faith’s pulse jack-knifed at her daring.
Gerald
muttered under his breath. “You can’t afford it.”
“I
shall sell my diamonds.” They’d only ever brought her bad
luck, she was sure of it. At times like these, diamonds truly were
a girl’s best friend. Her dream was tantalizingly close to coming
true, and she had no intention of foregoing this prospect of a
happier future. Not one spent moldering in a rented bungalow
with little entertainment other than memories. She clasped her
hands together and held her breath.
Telephone
man shook his head.
The
auctioneer slammed down his gavel. “Sold for two
hundred and twenty-one thousand dollars. Congratulations,
madam.”
Faith blinked twice in thrilled disbelief and pressed a hand
to her breast. Gerald eyed the rundown mansion’s crumbling
brickwork.
Faith
saw fame. Gerald saw debts. They both sighed in
unison.
Brief
Encounter, 1945
Starring
Celia Johnson, Trevor Howard.
Directed
by David Lean
Chapter Two
Six months later
Jock ran
all the way from his practice, panicking that he’d
miss the 5:17 train. He belted along Trimbool’s main street,
ignoring startled looks and wisecracks from jovial locals. “Giddy
up, Jock!” and “Where’s the fire?”
His heart rate accelerated at the
sound of clanking wheels
on the line, and he sped up, reaching the walkway as the lights
flashed and the alarm beeped. The barrier started to come
down, and he ducked underneath, leaping the tracks, and
reaching the other side just as the train rounded the bend.
Catching his breath, he glanced up and down the platform.
There was no friendly welcoming guard anymore, not now
brand-new trains with driver-operated doors had made his job
redundant. A few yards away stood a tall and rather skinny
woman, wearing a loose-fitting navy cotton shift, a canvas bag
slung over her shoulder. Further along, a young man in a
leather jacket was sitting on a bench, smoking a cigarette,
tapping his foot, and frowning into the distance. Neither looked
familiar, which was a relief. The trouble with small places was
everyone knew everyone, and he didn’t want to be quizzed on
his reason for going into Warbol. It would only invite questions
about why Nancy didn’t join him, and lead to unwarranted
gossip.
The train slowed, and the
automatic doors slid open. He
glanced to his right and saw the woman in the blue dress
stumble, heard the click of her heel as it snapped off her shoe,
and her small cry of pain.
Jock moved fast, caught her
elbow, and helped her onto the
train. “Are you alright?”
“Yes. No. I went over on my
ankle.” She hopped down from
the half-empty carriage. “Thank you. I’m sure I’ll be fine.” She
sat on an aisle seat with a relieved thump, a sheet of pale brown
hair flopping across her face. Jock hovered as she removed her
broken shoe and rubbed her foot with slender, bony fingers. A
smudge of yellow paint bruised the side of her thumb.
The train departed, and he took
the seat opposite. “Let me
look.” Swelling was starting to appear.
“No, really, you’re very kind,
but it’s nothing.” Her voice was
soft.
“You’ve sprained your ankle. It
needs strapping.” Jock
fumbled in his jacket pocket. Among dog treats and loose coins,
he found a partial roll of bandage.
The woman laughed. “You’re very
well prepared.”
“Aye. Tools of the trade,” Jock
said.
“Are you a doctor?”
“A vet.” In his rush to mend her,
he’d forgotten to introduce
himself. “I’m Jock, by the way, Jock Penderly.”
“Alice Flamingo.”
A smile lit his somber face.
“Rather appropriate I should
treat a bird. An exotic one, too.” God, he sounded like a dork.
Alice’s expression gave nothing
away. “Yes indeed.
Serendipity.”
Jock couldn’t tell if she was
amused or being sarcastic, and
before he made another foolish remark, glanced away from her
long regal neck, naked of any jewelry. “Can you put your foot
up?”
With a grimace, she lifted her
leg. He carefully placed his
hands under her calf and rested her heel on his knee. “Do you
live in Trimbool?” He wound the bandage in practiced figures of
eight around her ankle.
She paused. “Yes. Mostly.”
It was a curious answer, but he
pressed on. “Do you work
locally?” He couldn’t ever recall seeing her, and he knew he
wouldn’t have forgotten her.
“I’m a painter. An artist.”
“Ah. That explains it.” Jock
indicated her thumb.
Alice scratched at the paint.
“I’m experimenting with the
sun.” Her voice quickened as she spoke. “When it’s not raining,
I take my easel or sketchbook to the national park.”
He pictured her, perched on a
stool overlooking the
escarpment, lost in concentration, conjuring dramatic
landscapes.
“I envy you. How I’d love to have
a raw talent.”
“You have a vocation. Most people
only have a job.”
Aye, she was right. If only Nancy saw his work that
way, but
those days of shared respect were long gone.
He ripped the end of the bandage
into strips, tied a neat
knot, and eased her foot off his knee. “I’m not sure I can fix your
shoe. My bag of tricks doesn’t run to superglue.”
Alice smiled. Her nose crinkled,
small dimples appeared in
her cheeks, and her gray eyes shimmered. “Luckily, I’ve got
running shoes in my bag.”
“Very Girl Scouts of you.
Prepared for any emergency.”
Alice laughed again. “I was on my
way to an aerobics class.
But I won’t be going now. I’ll just wait for the next train back.”
“You’ll be waiting more than two
hours.” A cluster of
thoughts rained through him. She’d be bored, she might get
hungry. What if her ankle swelled? Wasn’t rain
forecast?
Would she be safe, alone in the dark on a railway
platform? He
picked through each snag methodically until he came to the
obvious solution. “It might not be your thing, but I’m going to
the opening of The Rex Movie House. An actress called Faith
Farmer has done up the private theater in a derelict old home
and plans to show classic films every Monday. Tonight, it’s Brief
Encounter. It would be better than sitting in the station
waiting
room.” He waited for a sharp rebuff.
“If I wouldn’t be a bother. I’m a
sucker for old movies.”
He grinned. “Me too.” Modern
films, for all their big
budgets, never captured his imagination in the same way. “We’ll
take a cab. Save you hobbling on that ankle.”
_
They arrived at The Rex just before six. Standing outside, they
took in the sorrowful building—decaying stucco, paint peeling
from the window frames, and broken shutters. Aside from
posters proclaiming Hollywood
comes to Warbol! there was
little indication of a recent makeover.
“What beautiful old doors.” Alice
stroked the weathered
oak, her delicate hand tracing the gnarled wood across its
whorls and crevices. A diamond glinted on her ring finger.
A sharp female voice cut between
them. “Excuse us.”
Jock stood back to let a tall
blonde woman and her scowling
male companion hurry through.
He checked his watch. “We better
get in.”
Stepping across the threshold,
the world retreated almost a
hundred years. Jock soaked in the not-so-glorious past—walls
yellowed from decades of tobacco smoke, lead-light windows
with duct tape to hold the cracks, and faux stone pillars that
added an air of grandeur to the expanse of stained marble
flooring. Perhaps to hide damp patches or chipped paintwork,
dated theatrical photographs featuring the same pretty young
starlet hung haphazardly—the only embellishment in an
otherwise stark, musty foyer.
A plump, middle-aged man greeted
them in a flamboyant
purple jacket and an oversized spotty bow tie. His twinkling
smile lit the atmosphere. “Good evening, good evening.
Welcome to our little soiree. Cash only, if you please.” He
tapped a cake tin on a rickety old card table. “And make your
way in. Two minutes until curtain up.” He waved his arms in the
direction of the maroon velvet drapes.
A head decorated in a feathered
concoction peeked through
the curtains, and an imperious voice boomed. “Close the doors,
Gerald.”
Gerald bowed and saluted. “Aye,
aye, Miss Farmer. Final
two on their way.”
Jock gave him two five-dollar
notes and, ignoring Alice’s
protests, steered her into the tiny theater.
“Amazing place, eh?” They paused
in the aisle to take in the
eclectic blend of art deco and Gothic styles. Oversized sconces
lit the walls and mingled with faded gilt cupids and goddesses.
Statues of shepherdesses wrapped in vines graced either side of
the stage. Black drapes hid the screen. He’d expected a plain
viewing room, stripped of any character, not this ornate
throwback to more glamorous days.
“I don’t even know who Faith
Farmer is,” Alice confided.
“She featured in a lot of
disasters back in the fifties.
Hollywood technicolor extravaganzas. Greek dramas, sweeping
family sagas with corny sets and ludicrous costumes. Once seen,
easily forgotten.”
“You seem to have remembered
her.”
“Don’t be fooled, I read up on
her,” Jock admitted.
The cinema was only a quarter filled, and they chose two
spots in the middle of the dozen or so rows. Their seats were
lumpy with horsehair stuffing, the velvet covers were patchy
and needing repair. The auditorium buzzed with a low murmur
of voices, except for the couple in front who bickered in raspy
whispers.
“I’ve told you Fred, Mitzi is mine.”
The woman patted her
blonde chignon with immaculate, manicured hands.
“Paid for with my money,
Petronella,” Fred snarled, his
neck swelling red with anger.
Jock raised his eyebrows at Alice
and was rewarded with a
smile.
A woman in her late sixties,
dressed as Nell Gwynn or
Napoleon’s Josephine—it was hard to tell—swayed up the aisle
with a battered wooden tray slung around her neck. “Ice cream?
Chocolates? Potato chippy things?” A cockatoo feather dangled
from her head at half-mast.
“Two vanilla cones, please.” Jock
paid as the lights dimmed,
the curtains creaked apart, and the opening Pathe newsreel
crackled onto the small screen—1945, You Were There When It
Happened.
Jock glanced to Alice, absorbed
in the film as she licked her
ice cream, and took in her perfect profile. The thought
ballooned before he could burst it. Today, on this very evening,
in 1994 … is something momentous happening?
Shaken, he ripped away his gaze
and stared ahead at the
slideshow of images, but the discombobulating sense that
change was afoot wouldn’t go away.
Chapter Three
Charlotte
had seen the poster for Retro Night at The Rex
Movie House in the supermarket where she bought cheap
groceries. There was no television at her digs, and her evenings
were long, with only books for company. Five dollars was a lot
of money, but if she was careful, her budget could manage it.
With a mix of trepidation and determination, she walked
through the town to the building that housed the cinema. It
oozed a dated charm, drawing her inside, and gathering all her
strength of mind, she entered the foyer. People swirled in cozy
circles, and to her relief, no one took much notice of her. She
read the posters on the walls, drinking in Faith Farmer’s
theatrical exploits, and then chose a seat in an empty row at the
back, where she could be anonymous and people-watch,
unseen.
Everyone had a companion, which
made her acutely
conscious of being on her own. The last couple to arrive paused
by the doors, heads almost touching, deep in conversation. He
was unkempt, with a button hanging off his jacket. She was tall
and wore gym shoes, presumably to accommodate the bandage
around her ankle. They moved in unison, smiling and chatting,
looking so in love, and Charlotte squashed down envy.
When the lights went down on Brief
Encounter, her body
relaxed as she was transported back sixty years to 1930s
England, a time when problems were no easier than today and
conscience overcame passion. She absorbed every heartwrenching
twist and turn, willing Laura to leave her husband
for the dashing doctor, but understanding that duty must come
first.
At the end of the movie,
Charlotte waited as everyone filed
out, and took deep breaths to calm her rising anxiety. She
wanted to creep out of a side exit to avoid meeting anyone, but
that would defeat the purpose. Being here was an important
step in her rehabilitation. You must face your fears. Those were
Mother’s parting words to her, wise words from a wise woman.
An arm swooped around her waist,
taking her by surprise.
“This way, dearie.” A plump woman in a too-tight bodice, with
a feather waving over one ear, clutched Charlotte in a firm grip
and led her toward the exit. The ice-cream seller. “No point
giving in to stage fright. I should know. Goodness, on the first
night of South Pacific, I threw up six times. Six times! It’s a
wonder I didn’t faint after the first number.”
Charlotte recognized Faith Farmer
from the soft-focus
photographs, taken during her younger, more glamorous days,
which wallpapered the foyer. Against Faith’s vibrancy,
Charlotte shrank, almost invisible in a gray skirt and black shirt.
She took another deep breath. “I’m not very good in crowds.”
Faith squeezed her. “That lot out
there is made up of people
just like you, keen to make new friends. Come along, my dear. A
glass of Chianti will set you straight.” She took Charlotte’s hand
and led her into the foyer, where Gerald offered her a glass of
wine. Charlotte took it, glad of something to do with her hands,
and stood, uncertain and too shy to approach anyone.
A dark-haired man at the bar
complained. “I thought the
booze was free.”
“Just the first glass. Or you
might get tiddly.” Gerald
chortled, showing off a set of perfect false teeth. “Top-ups are a
dollar.”
An immaculate woman in her mid to
late thirties, wearing a
skin-tight black wool dress, topped by perfect coiffured blonde
hair, butted in. “Money, money, money. It’s always money with
you, Fred.” She took a glass and turned to Charlotte, wincing as
she took a sip. “Dreadful drop, isn’t it?”
Balancing on pointy-toed, black
stilettos, she loomed
several inches above Charlotte. She thrust out a hand crafted
with scarlet red nails. “Petronella.” As an afterthought, she
nodded at her partner. “Fred.”
Petronella could only be a few
years older than Charlotte,
but her poise reduced Charlotte to a gawky teenager. With some
hesitation, she said, “I’m Charlotte Tran.” It still sounded odd.
Fred, a dark scowl on his handsome face, wandered away.
Charlotte knew she’d bored him already.
Petronella waved a dismissive
hand in his direction. “Oh,
don’t worry about Fred. It’s not you. It’s me. We’re getting a
divorce. At least, I hope we are. He’s proving very difficult to
shake off. It’s sexual jealousy. I’ve met someone new, and poor
Fred can’t imagine being outdone in that department.” Her
voice had a slightly nasal drawl. “I’m glad you rescued me from
him.” She looked Charlotte up and down. “On your own?”
“Yes. I’ve just moved here.”
“Where from?”
She gave the answer she’d
perfected. “I was a volunteer in
Africa.”
Petronella’s gaze meandered over
the top of Charlotte’s
head. “Interesting.”
Oh dear. She’d bored Petronella,
too, though at least she’d
stemmed more questions.
Over the chatter and clink of
glasses, Faith clapped her
hands and spread her arms wide. Silence fell, and the crowd
looked at her expectantly.
“What a delightful evening. What
a wonderful movie. Who
can fail to be enthralled by the magic and sheer heartbreak of
Celia Johnson? I myself hankered after the role in the later
stage production, but sadly, other commitments took
precedence.” Beside her, Gerald spluttered and coughed. “Do be
quiet, Gerald, and hand out the flyers.”
“Tell them about our
three-for-two offer,” he hissed.
Faith looked askance at him and
mouthed, “Our what?”
“It’s three sessions for the
price of—”
“The flyers, Gerald. Hand out the
flyers.” Faith reclaimed
her limelight and gave a deep curtsey. “Farewell ’til next
Monday.”
There was a flutter of applause.
People finished their drinks
and made their way out.
Charlotte took a leaflet. The
Nun’s Story. Any idea she had
of not coming back was swept away.
“See you next time, then?”
Petronella patted Charlotte’s
arm. “I’m dying to hear all about Africa.”
The devoted-looking young couple
brushed past. The man
said “Goodnight” to Charlotte in a heathery Scottish burr.
Gerald smacked a kiss on her cheek. Even surly Fred, loitering
by the exit, gave her a wave. Maybe it was the wine, or the
friendly group, but Charlotte’s nerves dissipated, and she raised
her eyes to the rococo ceiling in silent thanks to Mother.
She’d come next Monday, of course
she would—and
somehow, she’d find a way to duck Petronella’s probing
questions.
