Vivien Leigh’s negligee
A caliginous enchantress from the start.
Beguiling vision. A flash.
Flutter of soot eyelashes,
eyes that looked violet, gray, blue, tan and nearly every other colour in the
spectrum.
Her cryptic smile, expressing an alchemy of emotions.
See her wearing this diaphanous garment
made of sheer white nylon chiffon, edged
with lace and floral embroidery, circa 1960s,
a gift to Vivien from her mother Gertrude,
measurements – height of 150cm.
Delicate demi-goddess, irrevocably poised.
Celluloid adored her but she loved the stage.
As a child, I first watched V. as Scarlett
with my mother on a TV screen in Birkenhead,
our perfect suburban house before
everything became unstable.
Innocent to Hollywood racism, the perniciousness
of Margaret Mitchell’s novel and the film.
But she – Scarlett – captivated us both – her incandescence –
bursting like a fiery comet on screen, a blaze –
telling us that there might be hope after destitution and struggle,
when everything has been lost, that Tomorrow is another day!
Did I, we – feel a connection to the hint of Asian ancestry
Vivien had from her maternal inheritance?
Irish, Anglo-Indian, Armenian. Born 5 November,
Darjeeling, 1913 – a time when India was under British rule.
Imagine V. in a cape-like negligee at home, its thin overshirt,
short sleeves which fall from the shoulders
as she holds a cigarette, unaware as the ash drops
and besmirches the left-hand side, just as love burns
a hole now in my life, leaving a sting, a kiss, in these post-
apocalyptic times when we have all felt the loneliness of isolation.
I think of V. in her multitude of roles – as the ballet dancer
turned streetwalker in ‘Waterloo Bridge’ telling us
that now everything is going to take a turn for the better
Juliet, Cleopatra, Anna Karenina, Lady Macbeth,
Blanche du Bois – ‘playing her tipped me into madness’ –
Nobody… was tender and trusting as she was…people… abused her, and forced her
to change.
Her bipolar disorder – the wild fury that lingered
beneath the surface. The depths that lie
within us all, bring it out, become real, show me
as I listen now to a melody called ‘When Almonds Blossomed’
by a Georgian composer – a quiet, intimate piece
that invites you on a quest, to dance.
Towards the end of his life, Laurence Olivier watched
a film with Vivien and weeping, said, This, this was love.
And I wonder at this moment, thinking about why tragedy exists,
because you are full of rage,
and why I am full of rage
because I am full of grief.
I want to waft around in a voluminous, floaty nightgown
in an Art Nouveau hotel, wearing this for my beloved,
to forget and live again. Rise above the personal,
yet historical, trauma of my maternal heritage,
transcend it like an angel, is that possible,
to realise that sometimes there’s God so quickly.
Originally commissioned by the Museum of Colour/Renaissance One in partnership with the Royal Albert Memorial Museum (RAMM) in Exeter.
Sources for italicised lines: David O. Selznick, ‘Gone With The Wind’ (1939), ‘Waterloo Bridge’ (1940); A Streetcar Named Desire (1947), Tennessee Williams; Grief Lessons: Four Plays by Euripides (2007), Anne Carson.
Music and madness
She stands by the window in her yellow wallpapered room.
She realises she is slowly going mad. He is making her mad.
The Blüthner stands in the corner of the room, brooding, brooding.
Only the magic and the dream are true – all the rest’s a lie. Let it go. Here is the secret. Here.1
The white flowers dropped off her bamboo orchid plant. Her Vietnamese friend tells her
that it will bloom again but it will take a year.
A year of nurturing. Of nourishment.
Take a banana skin, chop it into small pieces, submerge it in water,
then feed the orchid with this water.
I want my orchid to bloom again.
It will, in a year’s time. A year! How can I wait that long?
Her friend tells her to listen to Schubert.
That Schubert is a composer who teaches us the art of patience.
That he shows us beauty submerged in shades of the quotidian.
Yes – this is what she lives for.
Is beauty enough? I don’t want to beautify our collective trauma.2
Later, she remembers her friend’s words while she listens to a sonata.
She gazes at her purple tiger moth orchid on the window sill.
She thinks of how orchids always remind her of a former love.
She remembers his cerulean eyes, the steadiness of his gaze.
The power of his male gaze. The curve of his smile mocking her. Subtle cruelty.
She plays Liszt for him. The orchids stir. She is blooming again.
Beethoven scowls in the corner of the room. Dark and insurmountable.
The statue shakes on the glass shelf, threatening to shatter.
Chopin’s hand trembles on top of the piano.
He slams her keys.
Originally published in The Dark Horse (Autumn/Winter 2023)