The Life and Opinions of Maf the Dog, and of His Friend Marilyn Monroe by Andrew O’Hagan Read Free Book Online Page A

themselves watching you.
‘Hey, I was outta line, buddy,’ he said, stroking my ear and flicking it. ‘I should’ve said hello when I came in. Hey buddy. You’re going to be a present for Marilyn.’
‘She’s in New York?’ asked Natalie.
‘Yeah. She’s been blue.’
‘Finished with Miller?’
‘Done and done,’ said Frank. ‘She’s at half-mast.’
‘So many presents,’ said Mrs Gurdin. ‘I tell you for nothing, Mr Sinatra, you are a generous man. My husband agrees. Always a generous man. To our Natasha also.’
‘Muddah – enough. You are embarrassing Frank.’
‘You are,’ he said. ‘And I love it.’
The noise upstairs got louder. It was as if furniture was being dragged around. You could hear a door handle being pulled and suddenly Mr Gurdin was shouting over the banister. His wife was still weeping with gratitude and a sense of national loss when Nick started shouting, but the sound of his voice instantly mortified her, killing the sentiment, turn ing off the tears. ‘Crackpots!’ Nick shouted. ‘Goddamn crack pots and communists, I tell you. All Reds. Reds in my own goddamn house.’ *
Sinatra smiled and I saw a sting of cruelty moisten his eyes. ‘It’s Nicky Boy!’
‘Oh, pipe down!’ said Natalie, giddily, over her shoulder. She mock-shouted back at him. ‘Pipe down, Fahd.’
‘It makes me sorry,’ said Mrs Gurdin. I went out to the hall and could see Nick hanging over the banister, his face all grey and furious, and a bottle dangling.
‘We pledge ourselves to fight, with every means at our organised command, any effort of any group or individual, to divert the loyalty of the screen from the free America that gave it birth.’
‘Holy smoke,’ said Sinatra. ‘He’s giving us the “Statement of Principles”.’
‘Stop it, Nikolai!’
‘Don’t sweat it, Mud. He’s drunk.’
‘Straight up,’ said Sinatra. ‘It’s the old ragtime: The Motion Picture Alliance for the Preservation of American Ideals.’
‘Oh, heavens. He must stop. It is terrible,’ said Mud.
‘Shout it out, Nicky Boy!’ said Sinatra.
‘We dedicate our work . . .’ shouted Mr Gurdin.
Natalie rolled her eyes and knocked back her Gibson. ‘Work, ha! That’s cute,’ she said. ‘He hasn’t worked since he left Vladivostok.’
‘ . . . in the fullest possible measure . . .’
‘That’s not fair, Natasha,’ said Mrs Gurdin. ‘He has tried to work, like any man.’
‘Dream on, Muddah. He’s a waste of oxygen.’
‘Wise guy, huh?’ said Sinatra.
‘. . . the presentation to the American scene, its standards and its freedoms, its beliefs and its ideals, as we know them and believe in them .’
‘Shout it out, you two-bit hustler,’ yelled Sinatra. ‘I have a good mind to come up there and break your legs.’
There were threats and curses. One of the other dogs ran into the kitchen howling. I don’t think I had ever witnessed such chaos, whether in Scotland, England, on Pan-Am, or in quarantine, and it ended when Mrs Gurdin threatened to pray to one of her icons or Romanovs or whoever she thought might bring this nightmare to an end. There was a moment of silence when Nicky Boy upstairs ended the hostile fire and slammed the door shut before Natalie started one of her theatrical cackles, looking at Muddah’s lips, which were still moving in silence. ‘You think my mother’s interested in stardom,’ she said to Frank. ‘But what she really cares about is tsardom.’
Mrs Gurdin wrapped me in a blanket along with a rubber bone.
‘Take it easy, funny girl,’ Frank said to Natalie. ‘Your mother’s a widow. I wouldn’t give a dime for that lemon popsicle upstairs. Not a dime. He’s a total nut.’
‘You actually like my mother?’
‘Why, sure,’ said Frank.
‘She was a ballet dancer once,’ said Natalie, biting her lip and showing some wish she had to be proud of her mother. Mr Sinatra touched her chin and lifted a pickled onion from his glass, tossing