Distant Music Read online

  ‘Who is the father of your baby, Coco?’

  Oliver tried to look brotherly, his heart aching for her, despite the basic fact that at least his hunger was being assuaged by the steak and chips.

  ‘This, this actor – Victor – Victor Martin, no, Richards, not Martin, oh I don’t know, something like that. He’s very good-looking, but, you know, we didn’t know each other, don’t know each other at all, not really. It was just a drunken moment that we have both tried to forget.’

  They stared at each other. The very idea of not being able to quite remember the name of the father of her burgeoning burden suddenly appealed to both of them as being hilarious, and they promptly burst into hysterical and unstoppable laughter. Coco equally promptly developed hiccups, and so between the laughter and the hiccups they finally ploughed their way through their steak and chips, the food bringing welcome relief from the awfulness of Coco’s situation.

  Afterwards Oliver lit a cigarette and put on his most worldly expression. He had to be a true friend to Coco, had to think of the best way she could deal with her situation.

  ‘I know a convent where you can have the baby, Coco. I mean, it is actually a nursing home, full of kindly nuns and things. They do a great job for the mothers of unexpected babies, apparently. It’s a bit of a way out of town, in the suburbs. But once you’ve had your kitten, they find homes for the little mewlers, nice homes too, goodly couples who can’t have mewlers themselves, but will bring them up as if they were their own, and treasure and love them probably more than if they were their own kitties.’

  ‘But you seem to forget I’m not a left-footer like you, Ollie. I mean, I am not the stuff over which motherly nuns will purr in sympathy.’

  ‘Don’t matter, love.’ Oliver leaned over the table and squeezed Coco’s hand. ‘Don’t matter a single diddly damn, promise. You just have to be a nice person who won’t set fire to the place, and all that, that is all.’

  ‘Is it terribly expensive?’

  ‘No, I think you just pay what you can afford, or something. I don’t know why I know – oh yes, I do. One of the actresses in my elocution class at Ramad has a sister who found herself in your situation, and since so many actors are, one way or another, left-footers, she told me all about it. And one of my cousins—’

  ‘I have earned a few bob. I can pay. Oh dear.’ Tears welled up in Coco’s eyes. ‘Oh dear, oh dear. Bang goes the Austin Healey, doesn’t it, Ollie?’

  “Fraid so, Coco. But don’t worry. You will soon be back to rights, and able to get on with your life. You have no idea how quickly nine months can go. After all, even as we sit here, just think, you’ve only seven and a half left, even now, so that is something, isn’t it?’

  Coco wiped the tears, yet again, from her eyes with her paper napkin. She had been such a fool, but they both knew there was nothing left now for her to do, except pay for her error.

  ‘I suppose good will come out of bad, if we wait and see, that’s probably what will happen. I expect. I hope.’

  ‘Exactly. Now did I tell you, I’m probably going to be auditioning for the Royal Shakespeare?’

  ‘Oh, but Ollie, that is wonderful.’

  To her surprise, despite knowing that she was out of it now, however temporarily, Coco felt only delight at this news.

  ‘Yes, someone saw me, and said they would get me an audition. They’re not taking on anyone new at the moment, not this year or even next, so I will have time to finish the course at Ramad, and then perhaps go and do a spot of rep. And then bang, in we go, we hope, and on with the old spear carrying, if there is a gap in the ranks, which of course there may well not be, because you know people don’t leave the company nowadays. Like hen’s teeth when a job comes up there.’

  ‘Well, at least they’re interested, I mean, that is something, isn’t it? That they are interested in you, that someone has seen you and thinks you’re worth seeing again.’

  Coco put her hand over Oliver’s and sighed. Inside her, deep down, there was such a mixture of emotions, a veritable dolly mixture of emotions, that she hardly knew where to turn next. Oliver stubbed out the cigarette in his free hand and taking out a pen scribbled on a piece of paper.

  ‘Here’s the address of the nuns – give the maternity sister my love.’

  Coco looked up, surprised.

  ‘I was about to tell you, earlier. The sister in charge of the deliveries, she’s a Plunkett cousin. Brilliant horsewoman actually, but she gave it all up to dedicate her life to God. And babies. In fact I think two of our cousins are in there, both nuns, as it were. They will see you right, so don’t worry, eh?’

  This made Coco feel better. She had a healthy fear of nuns, but she knew that Oliver’s cousins were innumerable and the fact that a couple would be in evidence when she was having her baby was somehow reassuring.

  Her baby.

  As she left Oliver and wandered in a desultory fashion down the streets Coco said those two words over and over again, wondering all the time why they sounded so right. Her baby. Her baby. And then she realised why it was. And it was quite simple. It was her baby. Whatever was making her burgeon was her baby, and what was more it was only hers. The father, the Victor Martin or Richards, or whatever Victor’s stage name was – oh, God, that had been so funny, the moment when she could not remember his name – anyway the young dark-haired actor who had laid her on that hot night in Spain what now seemed like a hundred years ago was no more the father than Oliver. Victor whatever-his-name might be the instigator, the reason she was having to face this pregnancy, living off her savings, but he was not the real father. No, in her head, she knew who the father was really, and, it was certainly not Victor – thing.

  * * *

  Oliver’s thoughts at the same moment were quite different.

  The idea that Coco would be caught up in her own particular drama and not able to stir up maddened feelings of envy in him for the next seven and a half months should have made Oliver feel spring-heeled, elated, and full of the joys of midsummer, but it did not. In fact he felt oddly depressed.

  He loved Coco, and so, of a sudden, as he had kissed her on the cheek, and they had both turned to go their separate ways, the thought that she would have to go through this horrendous child-bearing experience on her own was almost more than he could bear.

  He stared morosely out of the bus window. He hated to think that he could be a father at his age, so what on earth must it feel like to be a mother? They both knew that Coco would have to go through pain and anguish, and then more of the same when she gave it away.

  And yet it had not occurred to either of them that she should do away with the little mite. It was not a religious thing, anyway not with him, but somehow, once there, it seemed that the baby did have some sort of right to carry on trying to make its way into this strange old world. Oliver did not care to think of its not being allowed that right, not once it had been formed and was waiting to become a human being. It was against normal feelings, somehow, not to give it that right, if you could. The worship of life, even just the tiny beginning of life, was part of the human psyche stretching back thousands of years, and the noble tradition of bastards, which stretched back equally far, had always been in existence. In fact the bar sinister, displayed in family coats of arms all over England, positively celebrated the bastard line. Whoever Coco’s child turned out to be, whatever it was like, of one thing Oliver was quite certain. He would make sure that it was proud of its entrance into this world, not ashamed. He would make that his duty.

  Ahead of him that afternoon was fencing, and then music and movement, all of which he enjoyed. Ahead of Coco was nothing but sickness and fatness, having to book herself into the nursing convent, be nice to strong-minded nuns, listen carefully to adoption arguments, and suffer heartbreak of one kind or another. All sorts of things that had nothing to do with being young and enjoying the world as she surely would never ever be able, now, to enjoy it again?

  Oliver sighed, of a sudde
n remembering practically every moment that he had ever spent with Coco. At the theatre, at the cinema, arguing in coffee bars, writing to each other, one minute heartily despising each other’s opinions, the next admiring them just as passionately. After all that, all that looking forward, all that hope, what was now in store for her would be sure to change that Coco completely. People always changed once they had done what Coco herself was fond of calling ‘grown-up type things’.

  And almost the worst of it was that Coco had never, ever wanted to be a grown-up anyway. She had always shuddered elaborately when marriage and children were mentioned. Oliver sighed yet again. There was nothing for it but to use the emotions he was currently feeling in his work. Tomorrow, in improvisation class, he would remember the pain he was feeling now, and he would reuse it. That was the only way to cope with it.

  He felt a little better after that, as if he now knew that it was possible to tidy up the world a little, to reduce its emotional litter, and so in some small way to make it a better place.

  Chapter Nine

  It did not take long for Elsie to resign herself to the vaguely amateur if charming ambience of the Stephens Theatre at Tadcaster. As a matter of fact, after a childhood dedicated to the harsh realities of the utterly professional theatre, to Dottie’s constant moaning about the conditions of work, or the lack of it, and the ineptitude of the unions to deal with any of the very real problems of the show business population, the gentle amateurism of Mr Stephens’s small, surprisingly modern theatre set on the river at Tadcaster was not only reassuring, it was positively life-enhancing.

  The show, for which they had been desperately searching for some sort of emergent young musical star, was not brilliant, but neither was it without talent. It was one of those gentle musicals that only the English can produce. Indeed it might, before the First or even the Second World War, have been an amateur production put together at some grand house party where even the servants, if remotely talented, were roped into performing and singing. Where the costumes for the participants were designed and made in the house by the governesses and the ladies’ maids, and where the fine musicianship and singing of the family was a long established house tradition, providing after-dinner entertainment for the more refined of the household and its guests, the rest taking refuge in the billiards room.

  Tadcaster was a small town with a very large abbey at its centre, where, the fine tradition of music had been carried on for centuries. Walking along the narrow streets of the town in the early morning to buy bread for her breakfast and a paper from the newsagent, Elsie experienced a feeling that she had never truly felt before. She felt content. The fires of intense ambition that had been stoked since she was a tiny child by Dottie’s plans for her life still burned and were not dampened – no listless smoke coming from damp wood – but, perhaps for the first time in her life, neither did they truly rage. They were, for the moment, content to burn merrily, and as they did so, for the first time since she had come into the world, Elsie found that she could walk along a street and notice how good the world could be. Tadcaster was very much part of that goodness.

  Of an early morning, walking along the narrow, winding main street, Elsie could take time to notice all the old buildings from a multitude of different centuries propping each other up, while from the bakery came the unmistakable smell of dough rising in bread ovens, eventually to be delivered into the eager hands of the townspeople by a red-faced baker who shinned up and down the narrow back stairs of his bakehouse with all the agility of a much younger man.

  Having bought her bread Elsie would then turn towards the dairy where smart ladies with silk scarves knotted at the throats of their cashmere jumpers sold their husbands’ farm butter and cream, and unusual breakfast cereals. Here there were tins of Grapenuts, and jars of home-made marmalade with carefully written labels detailing the name of the farm, or house, where it had been created from home-grown fruit. Life was delicious, and never more so than when Elsie was back in her digs brewing coffee and eating her cereal, cutting fresh bread and spreading it with butter and thick marmalade, with none of Dottie’s daily imprecations slicing through her head.

  While the quality of her life was being so immensely improved by the goodly citizens and shopkeepers of Tadcaster, Elsie was also experiencing an extraordinary success in the musical. The house was packed out nightly, and Mr Stephens, the widower who happened to own the theatre, had developed the habit of proposing marriage to her, also nightly.

  ‘You must marry me because you are my star. I will change the name of the theatre to yours,’ he promised Elsie after the first night, kissing her hand, again and again. ‘It will be the Elsie Lancaster Stephens Theatre’.

  Elsie thought Mr Stephens looked just like a piece of his own pork, but of course she let him worship her, as why should she not? She was only interested in her career, and she would never willingly marry anyone, she knew that, any more than Mr Stephens would ever do anything so stupid as to change the name of his theatre to hers. But the very fact that the short, bald-headed, wealthy butcher was so pleased with the success of his son’s musical was enough to give her a new, more settled confidence. That and the fact that, within a very few weeks of the musical’s proving to be a sell-out, he signed her up to a new contract, after which they both settled down to try to find a new play or musical, or to arrange some classical revival, that would suit Elsie’s talents.

  ‘How about attempting some Coward?’

  Bartlett Corrigan, artistic director of the Stephens Theatre, frowned and gazed past Elsie, adjusting his horn-rimmed spectacles. ‘Aren’t you a bit young for Mr Coward?’

  ‘I can age a bit.’

  ‘Noel Coward is very much out of favour at the moment.’

  ‘Surely then someone should put him on, in that case, defy the trend, make people realise what a fine comedy writer he is? Besides, so much of his work has music, it should keep young Jolion Stephens happy. He can play and score it, and all that. It could be good, n’est-ce pas?’

  Elsie frowned down at her figure, momentarily assessing it for herself. If she put on a bit of weight she reckoned she could convince their provincial audience that she was at least twenty-five. A bit of weight, more sophisticated clothes, a heavier make-up, particularly around the eyes, and – voilà – she would be on her way.

  ‘Well, you may be right, Elsie,’ Bartlett agreed suddenly, after a pause. ‘After all, if you remember the balcony scene in Private Lives, it really depends on an orchestra playing “Some Day I’ll Find You” just a little too slowly behind the dialogue. That will be something for young Jolion Stephens to do. I mean, I always think that is what makes the scene so poignant. If you don’t have that, you don’t have the balcony scene.’

  Bartlett fingered the neck of his polo-neck sweater, frowning. He did not want to seem old-fashioned, or out of touch, but at the same time he did have to think of pleasing his audience. Being a confirmed provincial, in his heart of hearts, he did not care much for the fashionable plays of the moment that the London critics so enjoyed. The tramps waiting for someone to arrive, or the ladies sitting in sand bemoaning their lot, in order to prove some existentialist philosophical point. These were the kind of plays that were all the rage in artistic circles, certainly, although rumour had it that they were not filling the theatres to quite the degree that the managements, and the press, would have everyone believe. Bartlett was certain that such plays, all too influenced by the Parisian intellectual élite of the post-war years, were certainly not suited to the tastes of English provincial audiences. Moreover he had always sworn that if he was in charge of running a theatre he would be guided by one firm and unalterable principle: to give good value for money to a loyal following. Making something as good, and therefore understandable, as it could be was his one and only aim.

  He therefore went on to tell Elsie that he did not care a whit if Noel Coward’s work was not being played any more. More than that, he did not mind a jot if boiling hot oil of a
rtistic hypocrisy was being poured over every single one of Coward’s quite brilliant talents. All Bartlett cared about was – could he produce and direct the play the way that it should be produced and directed?

  If he could, and with Elsie in the star part he thought that he could, he was sure that they would have another success, and two successes would lead to another, and another. Because once you got the tone of a theatre’s productions right, you were on a roll. He had seen it time and time again, the ongoing, successful, seemingly endless roll that was the natural consequence of getting it right.

  ‘OK, so let’s go against the trend, let’s do some Coward,’ he told Elsie, almost casually. ‘But who shall we get to play opposite you, do you think?’

  Just as his first year at drama school was coming to an end Oliver had found himself an agent. Sometimes he wished that he had not found himself Tad Protheroe, but, frankly, since Oliver was totally unknown and still at drama school, it was any port in a storm, and Tad was certainly any old port.

  Tall, middle-aged, and imposing to look at, he had a stable of well-known if equally middle-aged stars who, happily for him, were always and ever away filming. This meant that Tad could happily spend his time between the Betterton Club and the restaurants and small gaming clubs that, at that time, littered newly fashionable London.

  After Tad had signed up Oliver, Oliver found himself wishing, most heartily, that he had been spotted by someone a little less illustrious in his end of term Easter production at Ramad.

  Not that he was not flattered that the great Tad Protheroe wanted to sign him up so quickly, but the fact was that he had the feeling that he was too young for Protheroe’s agency, and that the reason Protheroe had signed him up so quickly was purely and simply that he wanted to add a few more actors under forty to his stable of stars. Oliver had, of course, been flirted with by a few of the other agencies, but he had also been turned away by just as many of the same.