Distant Music Page 28

  And like the Cowardly Lion and the Tin Man in The Wizard of Oz, the out of work actors and the resting thespians would now be hiding in terror at the mere mention of Elsie Lancaster until the Wicked Witch of the West retired once more to her kitchen, to the trails of water running down the windows, to the ironing board which would be smacked with the iron every few seconds, to the ironing itself which would be sprayed with water and then, in its turn, smacked with the iron, the iron zip-zapping its way across the material with surprising speed and dexterity, the whole growing into a pile of bitterness, because nothing made Dottie more bitter than ironing. It was as if the ironing was some hideous unending task, a labour set by the devil and imposed by God on innocent women who would never, ever be released from its remorseless hold.

  Back in the present Portly was saying, ‘Just think, PLL might well become internationally famous, making huge deals—’

  ‘Managing the stars—’

  ‘Me—’

  ‘Yes, you, Ollie – and Elsie.’

  ‘Me first—’

  ‘Alphabetical order, Ollie. Lowell comes after Lancaster, remember?’

  ‘Both first, darlings,’ Portly murmured. ‘Now let’s go back to the pub and have ourselves a really rewarding beer.’

  They sat down once more at the pub table, and there was a long silence as they all drank, and Elsie lit another cigarette.

  ‘These are the good days, aren’t they?’ Elsie nodded at Portly, her long legs spread out in front of her, her eyes half closed against the smoke of her cigarette.

  ‘Before the real things begin, you mean?’

  ‘Just so. Before reality sets in.’

  They all nodded once more in agreement as their eyes strayed across the short strip of pavement and the small side road to their proud new office. As yet there was no letter box, but even so it was already looking smart.

  An old tramp wandered past, and perhaps encouraged by the sight of the hole in the freshly painted black front door where they were planning to put their brass letter box he stopped, and within a very few seconds he had managed to relieve himself before wandering on.

  The proud owners of PLL stared after him for a few seconds, unable to quite believe what they had just seen. Naturally Elsie was the first to her feet.

  ‘Oi, oi! Here! You!’

  She started to cross the road, but Portly pulled her back, laughing. ‘Leave him alone, leave him alone—’

  ‘Did you see what he did? My God, I will have his guts for garters—’

  Portly nodded, still laughing. ‘Elsie, love – wait, wait! NO. Wait. Really.’ Elsie stared up at Portly, who had caught hold of her arms in his strong grip. ‘Don’t you know what that is? Good luck, Elsie. That is good luck, darling.’

  ‘Good luck, my foot—’

  ‘No, really. That is one of the oldest superstitions there is. PLL will now grow and prosper, nay, you watch, PLL will flourish like the green bay tree, see if it doesn’t. Really, that is good luck. What just happened brings luck, I know it does. It’s one of the oldest superstitions in the world, like coal on New Year’s Eve and passing a funeral on the way to the races, all that, but more. A tramp’s tinkle is worth a million, that is what they say. Perhaps we should rename the agency? TT?’

  Elsie scowled at the now fast retreating tramp, but nevertheless she went back to sit at the pub table with Portly.

  ‘It had better be good luck, Portly Cosgrove, or I shall personally throw a bottle of Dettol all over you, and that’s just for starters.’

  As he stood up and stretched his long legs, preparing to go to the bar for yet more beer, Portly paused and smiled down at the two young stars, one of whom was now on his books.

  He had a chance to start again, and this time he was going to make sure that no one ruined it. He was determined to make Elsie into a big West End draw. Just the sight of her name on a theatre bill, if he had anything to do with it, was going to put, as the somewhat crude theatrical saying went, ‘bums on seats’. Portly was determined on it. In his hands she would become a big draw. Whether her love affair would also stay the course was another matter. For the moment all that mattered was that they were all on the threshold of a bright future. And at long, long last, Portly knew that he himself had grown up.

  ‘Oh, by the way, you two – now we have settled on a name, just as well if I sign you up, Elsie, before you change your mind, wouldn’t you say? And Oliver for his plays, if he is going to stay with Tad Protheroe, which is probably a good idea.’

  But Oliver and Elsie did not seem to hear what Portly had said. They were too busy thinking about their billing, Oliver kicking himself that he had allowed himself to be persuaded to use his mother’s family name. If he had chosen a name beginning with A, or even K, he would have had it over Elsie. Damn, damn, damn! He needed to be billed over Elsie if only to give his ego a small boost, and now he never would be billed above her.

  Unless?

  He persuaded Tad, when negotiating for Oliver, not to agree to alphabetical order? If he could persuade Tad Protheroe, that would be something.

  ‘I say, Portly, before Elsie signs with you, I’d better remember to tell Tad Protheroe that I shall be with you for plays, hadn’t I? Or do you think I should leave him? Do you? Do you think I should leave Tad, after all? Come to you with my acting as well?’

  ‘No, I don’t really, better to stay with him. He after all has a reputation, whereas I haven’t, as yet.’

  ‘Oh, OK, if you think so.’

  ‘Anyway, I don’t want you in the agency,’ Elsie teased Oliver. ‘I want Portly all to myself, finding me jobs, not you.’

  Following this small exchange, Portly found his heart actually sinking. After all, if Oliver could leave Tad Protheroe with so little thought, then Oliver could leave Portly with equally little.

  At first Coco could not make out, between the loud sobs that were shaking Gladys, what exactly had happened, why she was crying. It was all so terrifying. First of all the sight of Gladys, of all people, rocking to and fro, to and fro, tears coursing through her mascara and making a sooty mess on her face, and then the sight of the empty pram in the corner of the room.

  The pram with no baby in it, the pram in which Coco had left Holly safely fast asleep, fearing that the smell of paint in her nursery might disagree with her.

  ‘What? What? Gladys? What has happened?’

  Coco did a three hundred and sixty degree turn, spinning round in the middle of the room, while Gladys just rocked to and fro. Finally, ignoring Gladys’s moaning sobs, Coco ran frantically through the flat, finally bursting into the little, brightly painted nursery that she had only just finished decorating for Holly.

  There Holly was, totally against Coco’s orders, asleep in her bassinet, quite fast asleep, appropriately dressed, her breathing just as it should be, eyes shut, colour perfect.

  Coco leant against the nursery wall, recovering her breath, and resisting the impulse to pick Holly up and hug her thankfully to her. Instead she stepped back into the outside corridor, her whole body shaking with relief.

  Standing for a second by the door she looked back once more at Holly, her knees still weak. What would she have done if her baby had not been as she undoubtedly was, beautifully well, and sleeping peacefully? It was unimaginable, but at last it came to Coco what love was really about. It was about you yourself not mattering in the least, only the other person, in this case a very small person, having any reality.

  She went back to Gladys, whom she thought she could still hear sniffling and snivelling in the sitting room, but this time Coco went in with a drink in each hand, one for her, and one for Gladys.

  Now, thank goodness, Gladys was mopping herself up, and the sobs that had racked her body were subsiding.

  Coco lit a cigarette and waited. Her own mind was quite clear of panic. Nothing bad had happened to Holly, that was all that mattered, nothing else mattered. For some reason that she was doubtless about to hear about, Gladys had suffered a m
ost uncharacteristic crying jag, and that was that. Coco looked at her guardian with some compassion, making up her mind that, whatever happened, she would never let Gladys near Holly again. She could not risk it. Even when her guardian was in London, she would have to get someone else to babysit for her. Besides, Gladys always wanted money from her. Never wanted anything but money, so all in all, now that Coco had a baby, she simply could not afford Gladys too, it was just a fact. Gladys would prove more expensive than any baby, if you let her.

  ‘Thank you, darling.’

  Gladys popped the inevitable cheque into her handbag, and smiled through her freshly remadeup face, now all pale powder and dark lipstick.

  ‘I am sorry if I gave way just then, darling. But you see, coming here, being with you, made me realise just how much I miss London, and the shops, and all the other things that made my life such a happy one. I hate Norfolk, all the people so stuffy. All those we’ve been here for a thousand years types, and really, I don’t fit in, not anywhere. And here you are, so lucky, just a nip from Selfridges, and a tuck from Harvey Nichols and Woollands, and Harrods, and Peter Jones. I mean, I used to be so well known in Peter Jones they would quarrel amongst themselves to serve me, really they would.’

  Coco nodded, and turned away. Just for a tiny moment she had actually thought that Gladys was going to say how lucky Coco was to have a healthy baby, how beautiful Holly was, and how much she, who had never been able to have babies, envied Coco. But no, good for Gladys, she remained as determinedly shallow as she had always been, and doubtless always would be.

  As if she had guessed something of what Coco had been thinking, Gladys, drawing carefully on one of Coco’s cigarettes, now said, ‘I never wanted babies, you know. I could never have gone through a pregnancy the way you have just done. So brave of you, really, darling, so brave, but not very practical, wouldn’t you say?’

  ‘I don’t think that anything worthwhile is ever very – practical, Gladys.’

  ‘You always were a bit of a romantic, weren’t you, Coco?’

  ‘Not really, no.’

  ‘Yes, you were. Even the way you dress, that’s romantic, all amber beads and so on. Always had your own style, even when you were a small thing. Never could get you to wear conventional clothes, always liked to dress like something from an old painting, Harold always said.’

  ‘Well, never mind that. Now I have to earn my living, so you had better go, Gladys. I have to start drawing some costumes.’

  ‘I thought you were still acting, Coco? All those films you were doing? Surely—’

  ‘No. Acting’s not me, Glad, not at all. I’m too egotistical, really. I don’t want to become someone else. No, I want to design, and design I shall. As a matter of fact,’ she took out a letter from her handbag, ‘yesterday I had my first commission, right out of the blue. A company I wrote to and sent some drawings that I did when I was in the nursing home, have commissioned me to design their opening production of The Merry Wives of Windsor just based on what I sent them, which is rather flattering, I must say. So I am afraid, you are now going to have to toddle, because, as always in the theatre, they want them yesterday, you know?’

  Gladys nodded sadly. ‘I suppose I must go back. Back to Norfolk.’

  Coco kissed her. ‘And Gladys, no more cheques to be had from me, not now I have Holly, I am afraid.’

  ‘But – what about telling your parents? You don’t want me to tell your parents, do you, about Holly? Who, by the way, was really very good when I put her back in her nursery because I wanted a fag. Contrary to what you said, she hardly murmured. But where was I? Oh yes, your parents. You don’t want me to tell them, do you? About Holly?’

  ‘Oh – do.’

  Coco picked up Gladys’s coat and handed it to her, and with a gentle guiding movement started to walk her to the front door, because she could never quite believe, not since she was quite small, just what an overt blackmailer Gladys always had been, never seeming to mind Coco’s knowing that she was extorting money from her.

  ‘No, really, tell them. Tell anyone you like. I don’t really care any more, Gladys, really I don’t. It doesn’t matter who knows. All I care about now is Holly. You see when I came back just now, and saw you crying, for an awful moment I thought you were crying because of something having happened to Holly—’

  ‘I was feeling depressed. So would you, if you had to go back to Norfolk. I feel as if I have been exiled from civilisation, for ever.’

  ‘Very possibly you do, and it is quite understandable, but as I was saying, Gladys, the point is that when I thought that something had happened to Holly, and it hadn’t, I realised that no one matters much to me now, apart from her. That is how much she means to me.’

  ‘How strange, and Harold and I were so awfully sure that once you found out how much work a baby was, we were quite sure, positive, that you would have her adopted straight away. That is what we both thought, that the work that a baby brings would drive you nuts.’

  ‘Well, that is how wrong we all can be. And, to finish—’ Coco opened the front door. ‘As I just said, I don’t mind at all if either or both of my parents know about her, or about anything to do with me, or my life really, because she is what matters, not them, but her. She matters to me now more even than you and Harold, which I am sure you don’t mind. And if my parents do decide to dock my allowance because of Holly, then I shall be only too happy to do without it, the allowance. After all, Gladys, it’s only money. Money does matter, but not as much as Holly. Holly is what matters most to me now.’ Coco leaned forward and kissed her guardian affectionately, but it was very much a farewell kiss and they both knew it. ‘Do come again, and as soon as you like, Gladys. I always enjoy seeing you, you know that. You’ve always been so kind to me, in the past, you and Harold, and I owe you a great deal, all my childhood happiness really, and I will pay you back some day, I promise, by making you proud of me, and Holly. We will both make you proud of us, you wait and see.’

  Gladys walked away from Coco, frowning, and inwardly starting to seethe. She knew very well what Coco was getting at, and really it was insolence personified. As a matter of fact, she doubted very much that she would come again to see Coco and her silly little baby.

  Really! What a way to behave towards her of all people, and after all she had done for Coco. Serve her right that she had given birth to a girl and not a boy. Girls brought trouble home.

  But, having vented her feelings at the walls of the lift, at her own reflection in the lift mirror, at the street outside, a lump came back into Gladys’s throat, and reality struck. No more cheques from Coco meant no more London. Gladys stared ahead of her. It had started to rain, which meant there would be no taxis to take her to the station. More than that, with the prospect of no more little cheques from Coco, she could not, really, in all honesty, afford to take a taxi. She would have to walk or she would never be able to afford new nylons, and her weekly visit to the hairdresser, albeit to the ghastly, ghastly village barber who only knew how to sheer a horse, or a man, with clippers, and whose idea of a stylish hairstyle was the Windsor Bob. Tears rolled down Gladys’s cheeks as she started to battle her way through the light rain towards the bus stop. Gone were the glory days, gone for ever. She could see all too clearly that she was going to end up wearing a Windsor Bob and clumpy shoes with much mended lisle stockings. Oh dear, there was no doubt about it, she did feel so awfully sorry for herself. Why Harold had been such an idiot with their investments heaven alone knew.

  Coco had closed the door quietly but firmly behind Gladys as she disappeared into the lift, despite its being only one stop before the ground floor.

  ‘No more cheques to Gladys,’ Coco told the now oddly silent flat. ‘From now on I am on my own, for ever, and the devil take the hindmost, and all that.’

  She stood for a second contemplating her future. She had no idea what ‘the devil take the hindmost’ actually meant, really, but she was quite sure that it had a one door closing and
another door opening kind of meaning, and that being so, she was glad.

  Chapter Twelve

  Elsie had been quite right in thinking that Dottie would not have just closed the door on her, put her out of her mind, covered all the furniture with black cloth, and sworn never to let her granddaughter cross the threshold of the house. That would not be Dottie’s way. Dottie’s way was such that she would brood, and brood, and save up her revenge, and then, when it was least expected, she would strike.

  Elsie was constantly expecting this, but never knowing where Dottie might strike she tried to imagine how she would bring about her revenge. It would not be as difficult as someone outside the theatre might imagine. Everyone in the theatre, if they did not know each other, at least knew of each other, and everyone gossiped. Time spent in pubs and clubs, in the Salisbury, in drinking bars and theatrical clubs, time on tour or hanging about film sets, all these times were open season for gossip and speculation. And everyone and anyone was game to play. Not to be game would put someone well beyond the pale.

  And how distorted the stories became, how the names of the protagonists changed to produce pieces of scandal surrounding the most unlikely people, was the very stuff of the theatre and film world. No story concerning a star ever stayed the same. It was just a fact.

  No star who was ever the centre of a story remained at the centre either, so that it was perfectly possible for an actor or actress to be found recounting some mildly amusing or vaguely scandalous story which had originally been about themselves, but due to distortion as it went the rounds, had become about someone quite other.

  Not only that but it took only a very little – and Elsie having grown up in the theatre knew only too well just how little – to destroy someone’s reputation.

  Someone had only to murmur ‘can’t learn the lines any more, love’ to the friend of a friend of a producer who was casting and that was it – you would not be used again.

  And the worst of it was that you would never, ever know why.