In My Father's Shadow (20 page)

Phoebe was a relaxed person, who laughed effortlessly and went with the flow—a great asset when working in any capacity for Orson Welles. She put herself out to be nice to me. Although I liked her well enough and didn’t mind spending time with her, she was not the one I had flown to London to see. The morning my father told me he could not take me to the British Museum and Phoebe would take me instead, I was barely able to swallow my tears. On another outing it was Phoebe who accompanied me to the National Gallery, marveling that I was “so keen on art.” She couldn’t get over how many paintings I recognized from the art books I had been studying in the school library. Yet how sad and empty it felt to be impressing my father’s secretary when it was my father I wanted beside me, wandering from room to room, his deep, expressive voice in my ear. I knew that if he were with me, I wouldn’t be showing off. I would be standing in awe before the great works of art hanging on the walls, trying out the new pair of eyes he had given me. And later, hand in hand, we would walk along the Thames and talk and talk, and I would feel again the wonder of being treated as though I were his equal. He had lit a thousand fires in my mind that would burn as long as I lived.

“I’
VE GOT A
surprise for you,” my father announced dramatically while we were having breakfast one morning in the living room area of our luxurious two-bedroom suite. I can’t remember what hotel we were staying in, only that it was very grand. Breakfast was rolled in on a trolley by waiters
who uncovered the platters of eggs and kippers, ham and sausages as though they were presenting us with the crown jewels. “Guess what? We’re going to spend Christmas and New Year’s in Saint Moritz.” My father beamed at me with a boyish enthusiasm that made me beam back at him, even though I had no idea where Saint Moritz was or what made it so special. Over several slices of toast spread thick with marmalade, he enlightened me. We were headed for the most famous and glamorous resort town in the Swiss Alps, patronized by movie and opera stars, kings and princesses, heads of state, and everybody who was anybody. We would be staying in a hotel so magnificent that it would make our elegant London “digs” look like a shack. We would be basking in Alpine sunshine, breathing in crisp mountain air, and feasting our eyes on panoramas of frozen lakes and snow-covered peaks. “We’re going to have a spectacular Christmas,” he concluded, polishing off the last sausage with evident satisfaction.

“Is Phoebe coming with us, Daddy?”

“Of course. We can’t possibly get along without her. Besides, I may have to go to Paris at some point, and I don’t know if I’ll be able to take you with me.”

“Oh.”

“But you’ll be having such a marvelous time, you won’t even know I’m gone.” He laughed at my solemn face. “I can see you already, darling girl, twirling around on your ice skates and tearing down the slopes on your skis …”

“I’m not very good at sports, Daddy—”

“Nonsense! Who told you that?”

“—and I don’t know how to ski.”

“Then you’ll be in the ideal place to learn. We’ll find the best ski instructor in Saint Moritz. Phoebe will arrange everything.” And to make sure she did, he sent her to Saint Moritz a day ahead of our arrival.

So I had my father all to myself when we flew to Zurich, then traveled by train to the city of Chur, and from there took another train guided by overhead cables that crawled up the sharp inclines like a giant caterpillar, carrying us higher and higher into the Alps. I was overwhelmed by my first sight of mountains jagged with snow whose peaks cut through the clouds. We rattled over ravines so steep I had to close my eyes until the train, shuddering and swaying on its cables, was safely across. Absorbed by the view, I was content to sit quietly by the window, leaving my father to his book and his cigar.

It was early evening when we finally arrived in Saint Moritz. To my delight, we took a horse-drawn sleigh from the station to the hotel. I felt like a
Russian princess, snug under our fur blanket as we whooshed and glided along on streets thickly packed with snow. I could see the vast frozen lake at our feet and the village gently rising above it in layers of lighted windows, but my eyes were drawn up and up to meet the huge mountains that ringed the horizon. Meanwhile, the tinkling bells on the horse’s harness inspired my father to burst into a lusty chorus of “Jingle Bells” in which I happily joined. Thus we arrived at our glitzy, mock-Gothic hotel in the center of town, singing and laughing our heads off. At such moments I was convinced that, in his heart, my father was younger than I was and always would be.

With Daddy in Saint Moritz, Switzerland, Christmas 1951.

We were staying at the Palace Hotel, the first one in Europe to be called a “palace,” as my father would later inform me, and the only one according to him to deserve such a name. It had opened in 1896 and attracted hordes of the rich and famous ever since. The Grand Hall—the main lounge where we would have hot chocolate and pastries in the late afternoons—soared above two black marble fireplaces and priceless antique furniture.

One of the reasons Phoebe had been sent on ahead of us was to ensure that my father got a suite of rooms overlooking the lake. He had heard the shah of Iran and his retinue were also going to be staying at the Palace. “They’ll give the shah all the suites with a lake view and put us in the back, overlooking the kitchen,” he had warned Phoebe in London, but he needn’t have worried. Our suite was lovely. Not only could we have breakfast in full, dazzling view of the lake, but there was a gaily decorated Christmas tree in one corner of our sitting room.

Seeing the festive tree reminded me that I had not yet bought my father a Christmas present. “What do you think Daddy would like for Christmas?” I asked Phoebe during our first moment alone together.

“A windup toy,” she replied, and when she saw my look of astonishment, continued, “You’ve seen them, I’m sure, the toy soldiers that beat their drums or the animals that dance when you wind them up. Orson adores them, especially the ones they make here in Switzerland. We’ll go to a toy store in town, and on Christmas morning, he’ll be thrilled.”

“Are you sure, Phoebe?” I still couldn’t believe that my father, a grown man after all, wanted a windup toy more than a box of hand-rolled linen handkerchiefs or a bottle of aftershave lotion that smelled like evergreens in a snowfall. I had even thought of giving him a tie so that we would no longer be stopped every time we were about to enter the Palace’s dining room. “I am very sorry, Mr. Welles, but we cannot seat you without a tie,” the maître d’hôtel would say, then snap his fingers to summon a lackey who somehow always managed to produce a tie for such nonchalant diners as Orson Welles. “God, how I hate these things,” my father would say, as he wound it around his neck. No, opening a gift box with a tie inside would not make a hit with him on Christmas morning. Better to follow Phoebe’s suggestion and buy him a fuzzy little bear banging a pair of cymbals together or a pair of mice doing a tap dance.

The toys I actually chose have faded from memory, but not my father’s delight when he opened his gifts from me on Christmas Day. What a charming little boy he suddenly became as he wound up his new toys again and again, making them perform on the table and the rug, while the whole room shook with his delighted laughter. Yet it was strange to feel that, at thirteen, I had outgrown such pleasures—that my life in recent years had taken me too far away from the child who would have laughed as loudly as her daddy.

Soon after Christmas, my father left for Paris. When he hugged me goodbye, he said he would fly back to Saint Moritz as soon as he could. I hung onto this thought as one day melted into the next and there was still no sign of him. Phoebe found me a private ski instructor and we made several forays on the beginners’ slopes, but I was too scared of falling down and injuring myself to enjoy it. On the other hand, I became passionate about figure skating and spent many fearless hours practicing on the hotel’s private rink. The resident skating instructor, a balding, thin-lipped man who spoke English with a heavy German accent, took me in hand. I worked hard to impress him. After executing what I hoped was a perfect figure eight, I waited for the instructor to say something, then blurted out, “Wasn’t that good?”

“Average, Miss Welles. Only average.”

“Do you think if I practice hard every day, I’ll become really good?”

“If you mean, do I think you have a natural talent, the answer is no. There are little children who skate much better than you do, Miss Welles.” I was crushed but continued to skate anyway for my own enjoyment. If nothing else, it gave me something to do in my father’s continuing absence.

In the late afternoon, I would finally leave the ice rink and meet Phoebe in the Grand Hall. There we would sit by one of the picture windows, Phoebe ordering tea for herself and hot chocolate for me, and I’d anticipate the delights of the pastry tray advancing in our direction. While seated there we would talk about the importance of my father’s work and how nothing, not even a visit with his daughter, should be allowed to stand in his way.

“You see, Christopher, one can’t expect a man like Orson, who’s a genius, to behave like an ordinary father.”

“Yes, Phoebe, I know.” I did not tell her I had heard the same argument all my life and it didn’t make me feel any less lonely or abandoned.

Daddy never did return to Saint Moritz, and finally Phoebe accompanied me to London, where I spent a few more days with my father before I had to fly back to Johannesburg. During this time I was careful to conceal how much I had missed him in Saint Moritz. That I succeeded is evident in the letter he wrote my mother shortly after I left. He told her that I

was a huge success in Saint Moritz and was, I think, very happy there. I flatter myself it was a lucky choice for her Christmas. For the last eight or nine days I had to be away in Paris and had hoped to bring her with me but the ice skating and a constantly widening and thickening circle of contemporary friends up in the Alps made it clear that much as I would have adored being with her, the museums and theatres of a big city would have been a definite let-down. I kept hoping to get back to Switzerland but simply couldn’t.

It would be nearly two years before I saw my father again.

W
HEN
I
WAS FIFTEEN,
my mother and stepfather decided to send me to Pensionnat Florissant, a finishing school for young ladies in Lausanne, Switzerland. I protested that I did not want to go to a finishing school; I wanted to go to college. “Out of the question!” Jackie said. “I can’t afford it, and even if I could, your grades aren’t good enough.” When my grandparents in Chicago and the Hills in Woodstock raised objections to Jackie’s plan, he told them, “Chrissie is not college material.” My grandparents, impressed by a son-in-law who counted barons and earls among his friends, went along with Jackie’s assessment of me, but the Hills were shocked.

“What was wrong with Jackie? Didn’t he know you’d skipped two grades in elementary school?” Granny asked me years later during one of our visits. Believing at the time that money was the issue, the Hills had generously offered to pay for my college education, but Jackie had turned down their offer. “Do you know what he wrote us? The nerve of that man! ‘Dear Hortense and Skipper, It’s extremely kind of you, but I’m afraid you’d be wasting your money. Chrissie is a very poor student, but Virginia and I think that with her flair for languages, she could learn shorthand and typing and become a bilingual secretary.’ Our Chris not to have a college education? I was never so outraged in all my life!”

“So was Orson when he heard about it,” Skipper recalled. “He’d called me from Rome or London or some damned place, and when I told him Pringle was sending our Chris to some phony Swiss school to learn French, shorthand, and typing, Orson was beside himself. ‘How can you let this happen?’ he yelled at me. ‘You’ve got to talk to Virginia. She won’t listen to me, but she’ll listen to you.’ “ Skipper broke off with a rueful laugh, scratched his head, then drawled, “Well, you were in South Africa, we were in Woodstock, Orson was
in Europe. Wasn’t much we could do to help you, kiddo, after Pringle turned down our offer.”

Years later, while I was having lunch with my father during one of his trips to New York, we were reminiscing about the school vacations I had spent with him in Europe while I was going to Pensionnat Florissant. Suddenly I blurted out, “You know, Father, I bet what it cost to send me to Florissant for two years, plus flying me back and forth from Lausanne to Johannesburg, would have paid for four years of college. Easily!”

My father eyed me carefully over his green salad. “You sound much too angry, Christopher, after all these years.”

“I have every right to be angry at that bastard Jack Pringle, who screwed me out of a college education!”

“You may have every right, darling girl, but being angry won’t change anything that’s happened to you, you know. It will only make you miserable.”

“But Daddy … I mean Father … oh, I never know what to call you!”