Distant Music Page 8

  ‘Oh, yes, Mr Cosgrove. I could not do without her, and that is certain.’

  ‘May I sit down?’

  Portly had lowered his voice, and Elsie now nodded, and lowered hers too. ‘Yes, do,’ she said, sounding more normal, as they both listened for Tinker’s footsteps on the cold stone of the corridor outside the dressing room door to die away.

  Elsie handed Portly her chair and she sat down on the old ottoman, the statutory fitting of every post-war so-called star dressing room. ‘I have been having a talk with Donald Bourton, about you.’

  Elsie took care to look polite but disinterested, but then, sensing that they might not be alone, she sprang up suddenly, went to the dressing room door and quickly wrenched it open, stepping outside to make sure that there was no one within listening distance of its exterior. Which, she was happy to say, there was not, just the sound of another dressing room door quickly shutting as Tinker disappeared inside it, safe from discovery.

  Watching this action – or, as he had already learned to call it using stage terminology, this piece of business – Portly realised at once that he might be dealing with a quite young leading actress, but he was certainly not dealing with a quite inexperienced one. Elsie Lancaster was obviously no amateur.

  An inexperienced player might have been tempted to grumble about Tinker Butterworth, or be led into telling some anecdote about her – and if what Donald Bourton had told Portly was true there were enough of them goodness knows – but only a pro would go to the door and make quite sure that they were truly alone. But then, from what he had seen of her, everything about Elsie Lancaster was professional, from the way she checked her props to her choice of the more modern, less ridiculously heavy stage make-up that she took care to wear. She might look like a kid, but she had the strange air and ways of someone quite old in her ways.

  Portly smiled suddenly. ‘I will start again, Elsie, if you don’t mind.’

  Elsie said nothing in reply to this, only waiting, allowing nothing to betray her true feelings, not a fidget, not an easing of herself on the ottoman, not a shaking out of her luxuriant blond hair. She remained quite still.

  ‘As I said, Donald and I have been talking about our future, which we very much hope could, or might be, wrapped up in your future. You are, as you have no doubt gathered from the reviews, a very, very talented young actress, and we don’t want anything to spoil this. Not a thing. At the moment you are just on the cusp, we think, but we also think that your talent could go either way. Either it could go to drama school’ – at this he placed his hands together in front of them both, as if he was holding a parcel – ‘or, it could not.’ The hands moved to make another parcel. ‘In our opinion if you went to drama school at this point in your life, you could become completely ruined by second rate has-beens teaching you to speak properly and hold your knife and fork as you should – which you do anyway – in other words, putting you through, as Donald calls it, “the usual drama school rot”. Or you could sign yourself up with Cosgrove and Bourton Productions, on the understanding that we guarantee to find appropriate vehicles for you over the next two years.’

  Still Elsie was determinedly silent, and very, very still, and she took great care to be so for the very good reason that she did not want to betray her inner feelings of accelerated excitement.

  If Portly Cosgrove could see her heart racing, or hear how hard it seemed to her that it was beating, or look into her mind and guess how she was already seeing her name up in lights outside the theatre, any theatre, in Shaftesbury Avenue, he would take her to be what Dottie called a pushover, or worst of all an amateur, which was the very last thing that was needed at that moment.

  ‘I have thought about it, and the last thing I want is to go to drama school,’ Elsie told him, eventually, noting that if she did not show any willingness to plunge ahead verbally, neither did he. ‘I do not want to go to drama school, because,’ she continued, not realising that in her anxiety to remain outwardly cool her speech patterns were becoming over-emphatic. ‘I – will – not learn anything there, I do not think, that I do not already know.’

  ‘No, you won’t,’ Portly agreed, and he took a cigar case from his pocket. He was only twenty-five, but appeared to be much older possibly because he wore an older type of tailored suit and white shirts with dark ties. He lit the cigar, slowly and appreciatively, and smiled at her. ‘So we are in agreement about that, at least. But, now, if you are not to go on to drama school, what about signing a contract with Cosgrove and Bourton?’

  ‘That will be a lot more difficult,’ Elsie admitted. ‘My agent is very particular.’

  ‘So we have gathered.’

  ‘She will not want me tied to a contract for a great length of time. She will see it as wasting opportunities. She will not be kept hanging about while better offers have to be turned away.’

  ‘I perfectly see that,’ Portly agreed, puffing hard on the Havana and filling the small dressing room with the agreeable smell of a freshly smoked and very expensive cigar, ‘but I am sure, given the right terms, she might change her mind.’

  This meant, as they both knew, given enough money. There was a short silence during which Portly managed to get his cigar going even better, and Elsie stared at him, her face expressionless.

  ‘Let us face it, it is not going to harm you, not at this juncture of your career, is it? To be signed with Cosgrove and Bourton. It is not about to ruin your chances – not, that is, if we can come up with the right play for you.’

  ‘No,’ Elsie agreed, reluctantly, because she could already hear Dottie’s protests, her insistence on Elsie’s turning away any form of contractual commitment. ‘If you could come up with the right play for me, the most suitable, it would be all right, but my agent would have to approve of the vehicle before we signed. Yes, I would say that is the way that she would see it. She would need play approval, I think you will find.’

  A silence fell in the dressing room, and then Portly smiled his large, warm smile. It was the smile of a young man born to try to play at entertaining the world with confections of his own making, the smile of a young man who wanted to surprise and astonish audiences, to send them home with a little bit of magic tucked into the pages of their programmes, so that in years to come whenever they held those same programmes again just the feel and look of them would make them sigh and say, ‘That was a wonderful evening, unforgettable really, truly unforgettable.’

  Finally Portly said, knowing very well that at least his dazzling smile had won Elsie over, ‘Do you know, Elsie, I don’t know why you bother having an agent – you’re pretty good at representing yourself.’

  Elsie smiled, but it was only a small smile, and it was not accompanied by a laugh, which, Portly realised of a sudden, was not really very surprising, because he had never ever seen Elsie Lancaster laugh, at least not off stage. On stage she had a most accomplished laugh, something that he realised was very difficult to achieve, but off stage she hardly ever even smiled, let alone laughed; just as, he now realised, it was her habit to listen to people intently, although she herself rarely spoke. It was as if she heard what went on around her but it meant little to her; as if in some strange way real life meant nothing to her, and it was only once the stage lights found her that she came to life. And then, of a sudden, she was there, Elsie Lancaster, star of the future.

  ‘You’re hiding, aren’t you, Elsie?’

  ‘I beg your pardon?’

  ‘Please don’t. I was merely making an observation. You are hiding, aren’t you, from the rest of us? Just waiting, all the time, to start acting.’

  Elsie stared at him. It was true. That was exactly how she was. Always hiding, perhaps from Dottie, or others like her, just waiting to go on stage to become someone else, someone that not even Dottie could find.

  ‘Yes, I think that is true.’

  She stood up quickly as if Portly’s small observation about her was going quite far enough, and as if of a sudden she did not want him to st
ay any longer in case he came up with another more uncomfortable one.

  ‘Good night, Mr Cosgrove.’

  Portly smiled. It was always and ever Mr Cosgrove with her, just as it was always Elsie with him.

  ‘Good night, Elsie, and tell your agent that I will be in touch with her in the morning.’

  Elsie did not have to say ‘Good luck, you will have a fight on your hands’ because, after all, it was something that they both knew already.

  And so the agony started again, the whole awful drama of Dottie and her protestations, or her telephone calls, now taken in a sitting position, a new chair for the hall having been bought by Elsie and placed expressly by the telephone for her particular, argumentative use.

  ‘Who these people think they are I don’t know, really I don’t. They take us all for mugs, really they do. Just idiots. Tie you to a two-year contract, my foot. And without sight or sound of a play too! They take us for idiots.’

  ‘No, Dottie, you have that wrong. There is a play, and it is about to be posted.’

  Dottie looked up from yet another mound of ironing, but Dottie never listened to good news, it was not her way. She was not interested in good news, any more than she could think well of anyone or anything to do with managements. They were all, to a person, dastardly.

  ‘Managements, Elsie,’ she went on, using a falsely over-wearied voice, ‘have always got a play in the post. That is what they always say, and that is what we know they always say. Let us just see sight and sound of it, and if we do I promise you I will eat my hat.’

  At that moment the doorbell rang and Elsie promptly flew up the stairs to answer it. No one knew how eagerly she had been waiting for that sound, that great and glorious sound, the doorbell ringing to announce the postman and a parcel.

  Dear Miss Lancaster,

  On Mr Cosgrove’s instructions, I am sending you a copy of The Light in His Head translated from the French by Timiny Morel. Mr Cosgrove hopes that you will enjoy reading it and will get back to him as soon as possible to tell him what you think. It is proposed that you should consider the part of Francine.

  The letter was signed on behalf of Portly by his secretary, but even so Elsie knew at once that by sending the manuscript directly to her, by having the secretary write to her, rather than Dottie, Mr Cosgrove was silently signalling to Elsie that she should read the play herself, and make up her own mind, and never mind her agent. The secretary’s letter, the parcel, was all in theatrical code to her, and she appreciated this as much as she knew that Dottie would not appreciate it.

  ‘What was that, Elsie?’

  ‘Nothing, Dottie. Just a parcel for the first floor. A radio script for Bill Langley; you know, the one he was talking about last night.’

  ‘Tripe. He does so much tripe,’ Dottie called up, before retreating back to the kitchen. ‘I keep telling him he must hold back, wait for better quality, but does he listen to me? Never. You simply can’t help some people, because they just don’t listen.’

  Bill might not listen but Elsie did, intently, and as soon as she heard the dull thud of Dottie’s old iron slapping down on the ironing board she zipped off to her room, quietly closing the door, and locking it.

  She stared at the manuscript. It was not a promising title, but then very few plays or films translated from the French ever managed a good title. If however it was a comedy, which judging from the weight and look of it it might be – she quickly flicked through the pages – well, it might, just might, have a suitable part in it.

  As it turned out, it did, but – how to tell Dottie?

  Elsie took care to post the manuscript back by return to Cosgrove and Bourton in London, to get it out of the house as quickly as possible, before turning her thoughts to how to get her own way.

  As Elsie saw it that was what life was all about: how to get your own way. Everyone trying to get their own way, and sometimes achieving it, sometimes not. She simply could not understand anyone who did not see life in this way. More than that, she had no time for people who could not see that it was their struggle against her struggle. She even pitied them. Life was all about winning, no matter what, winning through so you did not have to have lodgers, or clean up after them, or press their clothes for them. It was about pushing on and on until finally there was no more of doing the things you loathed, and plenty more of what she saw other people in the newspapers and magazines enjoying – fine clothes and fine cars, fine food and fine friends.

  ‘Oh, Bill, there is a wireless play come for you from the BBC – Elsie took it up to your room earlier.’

  Happily Elsie overheard Dottie calling out to Bill Langley as he let himself back into the house. So, dashing out of her own room and making sure to bump into Bill in the upstairs hall by-mistake-on-purpose, Elsie quickly stretched out and lightly touched his sleeve with one elegantly manicured hand. She mouthed, ‘She made a mistake,’ nodding down the stairs to Dottie in the kitchen, all the while pointing a finger at her temple and twisting it round and round to indicate that Dottie was not as reliable as she would like the rest of the world to think she was.

  ‘I understand,’ Bill whispered. ‘It was just the same last time. Script arrived from the BBC, not for me, though, for Ralphie on the top floor. She will not wear her specs, will our Dottie.’ He paused, sighing. ‘It would have been too good to be true, anyway. I haven’t done a steam radio in months, love, not in months. But thanks for telling me anyway.’

  Feeling horribly guilty when she saw the look of patient resignation on the old actor’s face, Elsie at once, and in an instant, tried to think of some part in the play that she had just read for which Bill could be considered suitable. Realising that there was one – the character of an old man-servant – she quietly made up her mind that she would most definitely put him up for it. Then, leaving the house, and him, as quickly as she could, she went out for a walk.

  It would not be very long before Dottie found out about Elsie’s having read the play without Dottie’s approval, and then there would be trouble. And a great deal of it. Big trouble. Probably the worst trouble that Elsie had been in, ever, in her whole life. Even if she wanted to do the play, which she now did, quite desperately, she knew that, despite everyone and everything, Dottie would not let her.

  She sat down on the bench and stared out to the sea. It was a bitterly cold day and her thin tweed coat was not really very adequate, but somehow because she was so fired up with the idea of doing the play, because she had already seen herself in the role, she was not aware of the cold, or the wind, or indeed of anything, really. All she could see were those words on the page. She knew that she could make a hit in the part of Francine, just as she knew that she could sing and dance Cinderella better than anyone else. It was not a question of conceit – she was not a conceited person – it was just a fact, in the same way that the sea pounding up the pebbled beach in front of her was a fact. In the same way that the old man who was passing her with his small Scottie dog on the lead was also a fact. It was just getting by Dottie that was going to be the hardest fact of all.

  A few minutes later found her battling her way along the front to a telephone box.

  ‘Can I speak to Portly Cosgrove, please?’ It was the first time that she had called him this, and now there was to be another first. ‘Portly? It’s Elsie!’

  Portly sounded, as he always did, rounded and affable, and yet somehow excited too, full of a sort of suppressed excitement that transferred itself to Elsie. Of a sudden they were conspirators. He now knew, she realised immediately, that she had understood why he had sent the play and the letter to her, and not to Dottie, because they both knew that Dottie was the wardrobe blocking the door through which they both wanted to go, needed to go, but someone or something had to remove the wardrobe.

  ‘Hallo, Elsie Lancaster, and how are you?’

  ‘We must meet.’

  ‘Yes, I know, we must.’

  ‘But where? You are in London, are you not?’

  �
��In a few hours I could be driving out of London, and we could be meeting at Fullers for tea. And you could be telling me what you think about the play, and we could be eating some of their delicious sponge cake.’

  ‘Yes, we could, could we not?’

  Portly was no longer ‘Mr Cosgrove’ but some kind of older brother, or a younger uncle, someone whom, for the first time in her life, she could trust.

  ‘Four thirty, and don’t be late or I will have eaten all the cake, mine and yours, and everyone else’s.’

  ‘I, for one, do not mind.’

  There was a small sound. Portly stared at the wall opposite his desk. It was only a small sound, but it was unmistakable. It was the sound of Elsie laughing.

  Fullers tea shop, just like Dottie’s kitchen, was warm, and welcoming, and because it was a cold, blustery, rainy day the windows were all steamed up, like Dottie’s kitchen, and the customers’ happy and carefree expressions, their cups of tea, and their generous portions of cake all reflected the general feeling that they were lucky to be inside in the warm, lucky to be able to afford tea at a shop, lucky to have everything they wanted at that moment and, most of all, lucky that it was all they wanted.

  To Elsie, to eat tea in a shop was not just a treat, it was a solemn and special moment. Dottie never allowed treats of any kind, and never had, the inference always being that it was treat enough to be brought up by her. No tea in a shop, no lunch in a café, ever. It had never been known, not the whole time that Elsie was growing up. She had never, ever been in a hotel, except once when a foreign manager of a production company had invited all the cast to have ice creams after a first night which had gone particularly well, but since he was Italian, everyone had treated it as the particular and spectacular exception that it undoubtedly was.

  Now as Portly arrived, a little after Elsie, she could not help bubbling over with the excitement of the moment, all her reserve forgotten as he ordered tea and toast and cakes of all kinds in that particularly conspiratorial manner that belongs to people who know not just how to enjoy life, but how to appreciate it too.