Distant Music Read online

  Certainly, as he saw Elsie Lancaster eyeing Oliver Lowell from under her long eyelashes, the look in her slightly protruding eyes one of light scorn, and Oliver Lowell eyeing her right back with one of growing appreciation, Bartlett could see that sparks were going to fly all right, but whether they were the kind that would set a production alight, or the theatre on fire, Bartlett hoped he would not find out for some hours yet.

  As it happened, he was quite wrong. No sooner had they sat down at the read-through, with Elsie hardly looking at the text, so well did she already know it, than it was obvious that Oliver Lowell, of the quite brilliant smile, was going to have his hands full. But better than that, more than that, so it seemed, to her growing and quite apparent amusement, was Miss Elsie Lancaster.

  Chapter Ten

  In all his twenty-six years, Portly Cosgrove could honestly swear that he had never paid much attention to anyone but himself, which was probably, he realised, why he was already famous among his acquaintances for being so relaxed and even-tempered. Perhaps if you did not really listen to anyone but yourself, stayed in your own little world, you could quite easily go about with a serene outlook, because the real problems of earning your living, bringing home the bacon, did not have to be faced.

  Now, of course, that he was wishing, most heartily, that he had, it was too late.

  The reason why it was too late for him to listen to other people’s advice was that he was broke. Bourton had gone off with his money, and not just a little bit of it but all of it, every single penny. He had done this, most effectively, while Portly’s mental back, as it were, was turned – or in other words while Portly was in America trying to buy the rights to a play he had seen off Broadway.

  Donald Bourton, trustworthy gentleman that he had pretended to be, had decamped with everything, withdrawn the lot from their business accounts. He had even absconded with the stamp money. That had been quite something. To find that you could not even afford to stamp an envelope to send Donald Bourton a letter filled with invective was, Portly discovered, humiliating to a degree.

  It was only now he had his back to the wall that he was being forced into the recognition that, in this new reality he was occupying, he was not in the least bit self-sufficient.

  Having been brought up by an affable uncle who had died and left him a small fortune, he had never really thought much about where money was coming from. Money had always been there for him, like the weather, or the news on the radio; a fact, but not a worry.

  Staring out at the rain falling from a leaden, grey sky, Portly tried, for perhaps the hundredth time, to work out how he could best start his life again. At that moment his feelings exactly matched the sky, and at the same time he knew that to indulge in such feelings was a pathetic waste of time and energy, and he had very little left of either before he would be joining the tramps queuing for soup at various addresses around the poorer parts of town.

  The first thing he knew he had to do was get out of London. London was too expensive for him, and not only that, but in London he was always in danger of bumping into one or other of his friends or acquaintances, all of whom would have heard of his misfortunes, and all of whom would be less than sympathetic, knowing as they would that he had lost everything he had inherited by investing in his one great love – the love of his youth – the theatre.

  Once out of town, burying himself in the English countryside, putting up at a cheap pub here, staying in lodgings there, he set himself to try to think how best to redirect his life, and as he settled to this task he started, little by little, to raise himself from the deep depression that arises not just from failure, but from a failure brought about by yourself. Because, for Portly, there was no one except himself to blame. He knew, absolutely, that all his current woes had been brought about by himself. He was the sole architect of his own misfortune. Once he had put his hand into that particular fire, he started to feel better.

  And, too, once he was out of town there were many reasons for his spirits to begin lifting, not least being that his increasingly shabby clothes, his whole appearance, lined eyes, lank hair, noticed less, out of town, than it would undoubtedly have done in the West End. His shoes, now so down at heel, his old suits now worn and shiny, the newer coats and suits having been sold in the second-hand market, together with everything else of any possible value – his signet ring, his motor car, his Sheaffer pen, his bachelor uncle’s Sulka dressing gowns and Rolex watch. Everything had gone in a vain attempt to put together a small sum off which he felt he could not just live, but start again.

  However, if there is a silver lining to a crash in fortunes Portly soon discovered it is that, of a sudden, the very stuff of day-to-day existence becomes a great deal simpler, much less complicated; and with it also, of necessity, arrives a deep appreciation of the small joys of life.

  Portly had never before imagined, or even conceived of the notion that buying a cup of tea in a café could give him such intense pleasure. Nor that someone else leaving a newspaper behind on a seat on the bus could, as he sneaked into their seat and picked it up, produce the feeling that he had won the football pools.

  He was, at that moment, experiencing just such a feeling from the kind smile that the provincial landlady with a back room to let was giving him.

  ‘We pride ourselves here in Tadcaster on offering the best possible kind of hospitality. You will find no newspaper in lieu of Bronco in the toilets here, Mr Cosgrove. No, nor would we condescend to charge for such a small item as a cup of tea – by no means. And while we are on the subject, would you like to subject yourself to a cup of my very own brew? Part China, part Indian, with a small smattering of Lyons? I think you will find, as all my gentlemen do, that it is most refreshing.’

  Portly accepted and then gratefully drank the delicious tea proffered, and, such was his hunger, tried not to swallow whole the accompanying scone. His new landlady watched him with intense interest. Part of the fascination of being a landlady lay in the ability to sum up in a very few minutes, by the simple ruse of offering a free cup of tea, the precise circumstances of the new lodger.

  This young man, Mrs Graham would swear, was not just down on his luck, he was clean out of it. His shoes, worn down at the heels; his overcoat, a button missing; the state of his hair, unkempt; the state of his mind, doubtless, the same. It was for this reason that, having watched a little colour returning to his cheeks once he had finished not one cup of tea but two, Mrs Graham said, ‘We do like our week’s rental in advance, Mr Cosgrove, if that is not a trouble.’

  ‘No, not at all.’

  To Mrs Graham’s surprise, if not astonishment, Mr Cosgrove reached into his pocket and drew out a very expensive wallet – smooth black leather, small gold initials in the corner – and very promptly and without a murmur paid her in clean, crisp one pound notes.

  Mrs Graham placed the notes in the front pocket of her best pinafore, having surveyed them first for some seconds with a look of deep appreciation.

  ‘I do like a clean note, don’t you, Mr Cosgrove?’

  Portly nodded absent-mindedly. ‘What? Oh yes, yes of course, so do I. I always insist on them at the bank, as a matter of fact.’

  Mrs Graham looked down at the small white space on the smallest finger, or pinkie, of the left hand of her new lodger. It stood out pale against the rest of his hand. He must have once sported a gold signet ring, something expensive which he had been forced to sell for some reason or another. Now, she realised, getting there in one, she understood the man better. He must have just had a financial disaster, and was lodging with her until such time as his luck changed. A part of her immediately became wary as she realised this, and yet another part of her became sympathetic. Most of her customers, or lodgers, were only passing through, some staying for a few days to see the old town and its beauties, others recuperating from some sadness or disaster; yet others, like this young man, wandering from one town to another in search of either a new identity, or a new life.

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bsp; ‘If you’re in this evening I am cooking Kate and Sidney pie tonight.’ And as Portly looked blank she added, ‘Or, as you probably know it, steak and kidney pie, Mr Cosgrove. Would you like to join me?’

  ‘No, thank you.’ Portly shook his head. He could not afford a full blown meal. A bun at a café would be as much as he would let himself run to, nothing more, except perhaps a piece of fruit bought from some closing shop at half price. ‘No, I won’t, really. I, er—’

  He started to get up, but his stomach rumbled so loud that its insistence on both being heard and reminding its owner of its emptiness stopped him abruptly. As it happened he was not the only person to hear the hungry message being sent up from his lower regions. Mrs Graham too had heard it.

  The expression in her eyes was one of some warmth as she leaned forward and touched Portly on the arm.

  ‘It is free, dear, dinner is free, really it is, it comes with the room, really it does, that and breakfast and as much barley water as you want, not to mention cups of tea, it’s all thrown in.’

  Of course it was not normally thrown in, she had merely said this to try to reassure the young man. She could not possibly afford to give away dozens of cups of tea, not to mention barley water, to her lodgers, except in special circumstances, which, for some reason, she judged this occasion to be.

  Portly dropped his eyes. He would have loved to turn his back on such very obvious charity, but the truth was that he was far too hungry, in fact he was faint with hunger. The very idea of a steak and kidney dinner was too delicious for words.

  He felt a lump coming into his throat and as he did so, he stood up abruptly, at the same time murmuring, ‘Thank you very much, that would be nice,’ and left the room in a hurry, quietly closing the front door of the small, narrow, back street house behind him.

  Ambling through Tadcaster he wondered dazedly how on earth he had come to find himself there. He had somehow travelled in a zigzag fashion through England, sometimes, now he looked back on it, even seeming to be going in circles. Just keeping on moving, until such time as his money might run out, or his energy; after which he often wondered if he would not, like some luckless person in a Victorian story, head for the river, and an end to it all for ever.

  Money worries were, he had discovered, very, very hard to bear. They were most particularly hard to bear if you were not used to enduring them. They were like a yoke which seemed to be resting without ceasing, without any easing whatsoever, on your neck, so that even at night – most especially at night – you were aware of this heaviness, this burden, this unalterable fact: that you were penniless, and hungry, and cold, and wet, and putting newspaper in your shoes did nothing to take away the permanent chill that seemed, like damp in a house, to rise upwards, making your head ache constantly, ceaselessly, forming a duet with the hunger pains in your gut.

  Perhaps worse than the physical discomforts that Portly had endured, though, was the bitterness that he felt towards himself.

  Bitterness is most particularly hard to bear when it comes to being really down on your luck. The bitterness of knowing how foolhardy you have been, how stupid, how shallow, how trusting, how careless, in every way. The bitterness of knowing, without any doubt at all, that you have no one but yourself to blame for everything that has come about, for all your misfortunes.

  Of course Portly had known all these things, but only in a vague sort of way as he cleared up all Cosgrove and Bourton’s debts, as he made absolutely certain to pay back every single pound to every single person to whom he and Donald had owed money. Now that he was done for, skint, the vague unreality had cleared, and he had been forced to bring himself to face the truth of his own character flaws.

  He had prided himself on being easy-going when in fact he had been quite simply lazy. He had prided himself on being able to trust everyone, when in reality he could not be bothered to distrust them. He had prided himself on thinking that he had a relaxed personality, when in fact the only person he was truly relaxed with was himself. He had been very like the man at the back of the temple in the Bible, always thinking what a fine fellow he was in every way, trusting Bourton to take care of so much while he, good old Portly, had congratulated himself on being able to see the bigger picture, go in search of the future talent of the age, read the scripts, and steer clear of the boring office work.

  What a bighead he had been! Not Portly Cosgrove Esquire, but Portly Cosgrove Clever Dick, that was exactly who he had been. The man who could spot a star from five paces and negotiate with agents, while finding new plays and new backers, and leaving all the office work to his older partner, the well known producer, good old Donald Bourton! It had taken months to make good and pay back the small creditors, to deal with the ever-hungry bank, to sell his flat and everything else, but finally he had, and now he must – he had to – start again, forget about the past, or else he really would find himself ending it all.

  He stopped outside a downtown café, trying to peer at the price of egg and chips chalked up on a small board propped against the wall inside the window. He finally made it out to be two shillings and sixpence.

  Just the thought of eating a hot lunch was almost unimaginable. Normally he made do with just a cup of tea, but today, in view of Mrs Graham’s promise of a free dinner of steak and kidney, he thought he might go mad and spend his day’s allowance of half a crown on the egg and chips for lunch.

  ‘Egg and chips, please. No, no tea. Just a glass of water, thank you.’

  He stared out of the window towards the street. He had spent months castigating himself, but he wondered now, for the first time, and probably because the sun had just come out, whether the moment had not arrived to put a full stop to the treadmill of bitter feelings that he had been experiencing recently.

  But even as he reached down, right into himself, it seemed to Portly that the unalterable fact was still there for all to see: that he himself was now hardly more than an empty vessel. He was, to all intents and purposes, a place bereft of everything. He was an empty room, his personality merely a dustbowl of a landscape with nothing green growing anywhere, nothing worth noting. Portly Cosgrove, nondescript, a man of straw, a person of whom the old Portly would have said, ‘Bit of a silly ass, wouldn’t you say? Getting taken in by Donald Bourton like that?’ And there would have been no one, but no one, who would not have agreed with that other Portly.

  Elsie Lancaster on the other hand was on top of the world, as why should she not be? She had opened in the Coward revival, scored a personal triumph, and was now enjoying her first love affair with none other than Oliver Lowell, whom she had nicknamed right from the start, and quite openly, the lummox.

  Except now Oliver Lowell had become her ‘sweet lummox’, her angel, her best friend, her everything. He was tall, and handsome, working-class and from Yorkshire. He was everything she could wish for, and more than that he was funny. He was droll. He liked to dress up and wear odd clothes. He let her wear his shirts in bed, and his jumpers to rehearsal. He insisted on making-up her eyes every evening once the curtain fell, and before they went out to supper together, because, rightly or wrongly, he was convinced that he knew how they should look. He shared his every thought with her, and she shared hers with him.

  How it had all come about was quite simple.

  Simple because it is all too mesmerisingly easy to fall in love in the rehearsal room. Not because actors and actresses go into a play thinking about love, or making love – although a great many, it had always seemed to Elsie, did – but only really because of foolish nerves. Nerves, she had often thought, like war, brought people’s emotions very close to the surface, and once those feelings were up there, bubbling away, you only had to add good looks and the inevitable youthful longing for romance, and you were away.

  Elsie was thinking about all this just after she and Oliver had made love, and were lying in each other’s arms. She subsequently thought about it a great deal more as he left her to run a bath for both of them. Soon she would
climb into the hot soapy bathwater smelling of their favourite stephanotis, and he would wash her back, dampening her long thick curly hair so much in the process that she would have to spend far longer than she liked, once she was towelled dry, combing it out and drying it.

  But if Elsie’s nickname for Oliver was the sweet lummox, Oliver’s nickname for Elsie was ‘Popeye’ because early on in their relationship she had confessed to him how much she hated, was all too over-aware of, her protruding eyes.

  ‘Nonsense!’ Oliver would have none of it. ‘You don’t want eyes like everyone else, all flat and samey, do you? No, your eyes are large, and the fact that they stick out slightly gives you an intelligent air, as if you are constantly thinking new thoughts, which being so incurably lightweight of course you and I both know that you are not, but that is none the less, darling old Popeye, what you convey. A sort of sprightly intelligence, a sort of strange feeling that you are in control of a great deal more than the rest of us, which of course you are not, but that is why, I am dearly afraid, you are a far bigger star than myself, at the moment.’

  Stardom aside, Elsie was also, as they were both well aware, at that moment a far better actress than Oliver was an actor. This was because, they also both appreciated, Elsie had been in the profession since she was knee high to a grasshopper, and was in actual fact so well versed in her craft that nothing much could throw her. This, coupled with the fact that she had a photographic memory, meant that she could be on her feet and acting the socks off the rest of the cast while everyone else was bumbling about getting their lines in a twist.