Looking for Lotus

Dear Lotus,

It all began, for me, the day I visited the cousins you grew up with, my eccentric great aunts and uncle at Coogee Beach. I was about ten years old.

We were all sitting in the front room of Flat Number Two, the good flat. Uncle Trevor, a big man made his grand entrance through the back door, striding around territorially, never mind say hello to your guests…

Then he began pacing and glaring at me with his bushy nest of eyebrows above green eyes and goes for the kill: ‘Your grandmother killed your grandfather.’

My eyes grew wide as I turned towards my mother. She just smiled. Sometimes Mum would call them on the phone and if he picked up, he would say in a sing-song pretend-woman voice, cattily: ‘We’re not dead yet.’

Aunty Joyce and Aunty Beryl began tittering in synch, their shrill laughter piercing the room. ‘Oh, take no notice of him,’ they said. OK…

Aunty Beryl decided to crack the tension and had me sit beside her as she sang and played Edelweiss, badly. Firstly, she pronounced it ‘Eee-del-weese’, and the keys of the piano had the musical notes scrawled on them in thick black permanent marker. Who does that?

I sighed with relief when it was over. Sensing my disinterest, she confided in me – ‘we have an actress in the family’, she said. I perked up, actually interested.

Really?

She rose from the piano stool and made her way to the top of the internal stairs, disappearing into the darkness.

Was she going to get a picture, I wondered, and I waited downstairs, politely.

Slowly, theatrically, my feeble aunt makes her way into the spotlight and descends the staircase, her spotted hands crossed at the neck, weathered face towards the light, her hooded eyes, defiant.

Halfway down, she whispers: ‘She was dressed only in furs, she was very daring.’

I realise she is playing a part at some unknown point back in time, and I am cringing – but I can’t look away.

Aunty Beryl, in all her fragile, faded glory, juts out her chin, and her lips curl into a sly, knowing, seductive smile.

Then she makes eye contact with me and drops a bombshell:

‘Cousin Lotus went to Hollywood and poured acid on her legs.’

Did I hear that correctly? ‘What happened to her?’ I ask, shocked twice now.

Now at the bottom of the stairs, Aunty Beryl shrugs, suddenly distant.

The show was over. ‘We lost touch.’ That’s all she will divulge.

They boil the kettle for yet another cup of tea but my mind wanders as I stare out of the window into the overgrown backyard: tall, wild grasses, suddenly whipped into movement by the Eastern Sea Winds.

All I can think about is this daring girl and wonder what happened to her.

Others have attempted to tell this story but, frankly, they don’t have a clue. They say you are chiefly remembered for one shocking act, and if not for that spectacular stunt, a Hollywood career might never have happened, and that is true. But still, nobody gets it, you have to come from a family like ours.

After many years, I thought the story was finished.

But – no – to actually find you, find you on a shelf in a vault in a columbarium inside Chapel of the Pines in Los Angeles? Divine intervention and my deepest thanks go to Mr Arthur Dark of Youtube Hollywood Graveyard.

Sometimes, lost films are found – and there you are. The last one was Folly of Vanity, your first big studio film in Hollywood. It filled me with such joy to see you as you were: young, laughing, dancing, your entire life ahead of you.

I hope to release you from Vault 5, as some of the other actresses in there have been, and reunite you with family, once and for all.

You’re welcome.

Lastly, I hope that I have done you and your story justice, one hundred years later.

Love, your great-great niece from the future,