by Anne Morice
“I’m dying for one,” I told her, “but I’ll be in trouble if I don’t say how do you do to Mrs. Bland first.”
“She’s not here. Vanished.”
“Really? Where to?”
“No one seems to know. It was a case of ‘now you see her, now you don’t’. Rumours are circulating, but nothing official. Perhaps she forgot to go before she came. Pauline’s doing the honours.”
This, as I now saw, was true. She was presiding at the lace-covered table, with a huge silver teapot wobbling about in her hand and looking as though she might lose her grip on it and everything else at any moment. However, there was nothing unusual about this and it did not betoken anything seriously amiss. I had never greatly cared for Pauline and furthermore I knew I should get no information from her because she was notoriously unobservant and no one, least of all her mother, ever told her anything.
So I held my ground and snatched a cup of tea from a passing tray. When I turned round again I found that the cucumber girl had moved on and that her place had been taken by another, although unfortunately she had not brought anything to eat. This one, in fact, was about the same age as myself and at first I thought that, like most of the other twenty or so guests, she was a stranger to me. However, as soon as I heard: “Hallo, Tessa!” in that deep, husky and somehow reproachful voice, it all came back. Her name was Tina Blundell and for almost a whole term she and I had been best friends. Soon afterwards she had been gathered into Madam’s small circle of favourite protégées, this coinciding with the time when I was pronounced to be the lowest of all the duds, and thereafter our paths had moved along parallel lines, only now seeming, when viewed from a distance, to have joined at any point.
She had been orphaned at birth, as I now recalled, and of unknown parentage, which worried her dreadfully, a state of affairs for which her adoptive parents had done little to compensate. They resented her, we were led to believe, not only for growing up to be shy and plain and for preferring dancing classes to the Pony Club, but for the still more illogical reason that she had survived, while their only natural child, a boy some years older, had been drowned in a boating accident soon after his eighteenth birthday.
She had changed considerably in appearance since then and her hair was now drawn severely back and parted down the middle, in traditional ballerina style. Also the years, or possibly skilful make-up, had helped to fill out the long, narrow face and enlarge her eyes; but she still possessed the same extraordinary legs, which seemed to start from just below her ribs, and she still looked as fragile as cigarette smoke, although I happened to know that she had the stamina of twenty camels.
“Teeny!” I chanted, much overjoyed. “How marvellous to see you! Does this mean you’re a judge too? Oh, I am glad!”
“Not on your life; and do you mind not calling me Teeny? Or, at any rate, not shrieking it aloud all over the room? I happen to be staff.”
“You are? Oh, I see,” I said, badly deflated.
“You needn’t sound so sorry for me. I always wanted to teach, you know.”
“Yes, I do remember your saying that, but I thought it was only because you had a slight crush on Madam and wanted to follow in those hallowed footsteps. And with all your terrific talent and dedication . . . well, I mean, it seems such a waste somehow. If anyone looked set for a blazing career it was you.”
“Yes, that’s what they all said, so I felt obliged to give it a try. I went straight into a ballet company in Milan when I left here. Stayed with them for nearly three years, in fact.”
“But it didn’t work out?”
“Oh, from a career point of view it was getting better all the time. And they were nice people too, some of them. But it simply didn’t suit me. I was absolutely rigid with fright whenever I had a solo part; literally sick with nerves for hours beforehand.”
“Well, I bet most people are.”
“Yes, I know, but most people also get that lovely glow when they’ve brought it off. That must make up for everything, I suppose, but it never came my way. I just haven’t got the temperament for the big time. I’d have been all right if I could have stayed in the corps, but where’s the future in that? I decided I’d be better off teaching.”
“Yes,” I admitted. “If I throw a great effort into it, I can appreciate that, but you didn’t have to come back to a potty little place like this, did you? Surely, with all your qualifications you could have got taken on by one of the really grand schools? I don’t see how you can bear to be shut up in old Waterside all over again.”
“It’s not a potty little place and I’m not shut up in it all over again. I have a very swanky flat in Gillsford. I teach here three days a week, for which I’m paid slightly more than the going rate, and the rest of the time I can give private classes, or do what I damn well please. Besides, every dancer has to start somewhere and you ought to know how important it is for them to have expert tuition in the early stages. We get a few brilliant ones, even here, from time to time. There’s one at the moment, as it happens, only unfortunately. . . .”
“Unfortunately what?”
“Oh, never mind. It’s a long story and not a particularly pleasant one. Besides, you’re not here to discuss the life and hard times of Tina Blundell. You’d better go and do your stuff with your fellow judges. They’ve got that radio announcer whose sister was at school here in the dark ages and the other one is . . .”
“Yes, all right, but just hang on for a moment because there are a couple of things I simply must ask you.”
“You haven’t changed much, have you, Tessa?”
“No, and neither have you; but for a start, who’s the stunning, feline creature in the pale blue suit?”
“Would you be referring to Madam?”
“No, I would certainly not be referring to Madam. This one is all of fifty years younger. Look, she’s gone into a huddle with Pauline now. She was talking to Billy Bland before that, but now he seems to have vanished too.” Tina looked across at the tea table, then broke into one of her deep throaty laughs:
“That just proves how long it is since you bothered to come to Old Girls’ Day, or even open one of the Waterside news letters. That’s Madam all right. The old one, who taught you and me, died three years ago.”
“Oh really? What of? I mean, I realise she was terribly ancient, but somehow I always expected her to live forever.”
“I never heard the details. I was abroad when it happened. Perhaps it was not having poor Annie Lawrie to fight with which finally undid her. I dare say she pined away from sheer frustration. What else did you want to know?”
“What’s become of our hostess? It’s unlike Connie to leave the stage halfway through the scene and I can’t really believe that she would forget to go before she came, so what’s the answer?”
“Right here,” Tina said. “She has just re-entered. In fact, they both have; Billy in attendance.”
At this point the girl with the cucumber sandwiches bounced up again, apologising for her desertion and for the fact that there were now only two left. I took them both and she said:
“Oh, goody! That lets me off the hook. I can now mingle unencumbered. All is revealed, by the way. Someone overheard Madam giving out the news to Pauline. Connie had a spasm of some kind and was forced to retire and send for her very own doctor.”
“What sort of a spasm, do you suppose?” I asked Tina, when our informant had tripped away on her mingling spree.
She gave another of her rather eerie laughs, which sounded a bit like the last of the bathwater gurgling down the plughole.
“I see you haven’t outgrown your passion for minding other people’s business, have you, Tessa? Do you remember how cross poor old Annie used to get because you would hold up the lesson with your endless questions?”
“Yes, and I still can’t understand why it made her so ratty. I thought the whole purpose of education was to foster the enquiring mind.”
“Except that so few of your questions had an
y relevance to the subject she was trying to cram into us. And, if you ask me, the only kind of spasm Connie would be likely to suffer from is a spasm of rage. It was probably just a ruse to get Billy out of the room, so that she could tick him off.”
This remark reminded me of another reason for my friendship with Tina coming to such an abrupt and painless end. Her brains, as Miss Lawrie had been apt to remark, might all be in her feet, but it was chastening to remember how often her feet had been right.
“And this is Theresa Crichton, one of our star pupils,” Connie announced, introducing me to the radio announcer. “She had her name up in lights in Shaftesbury Avenue three months after she left us.”
This, needless to say, was the wildest exaggeration, but all her pupils had quickly become accustomed to acting as pawns in the game of advancing the glory of Constance Bland and it would not have occurred to me to trim her statement down to something a little nearer the truth, even if I had not, for the first time in my life, found myself feeling a little sorry for her. She genuinely did look groggy and there was a misted, apprehensive look in her normally alert brown eyes. I looked forward to another encounter with Tina and the pleasure of telling her that this time she had got it wrong, for if further proof were needed that this particular spasm was not due to spleen, it was provided by the fact that only illness could have made her forget that I had met this broadcaster innumerable times before.
His name was Eddie Harper and he had been around for a good many years. Tall, upright and military in bearing, he was the very opposite of that in manners and personality, which were invariably humorous and easy-going, taking setbacks lightheartedly, and trivialities with pretended seriousness. In fact, I often thought he had modelled himself on a Wodehouse character, languid and slangy and appearing much more obtuse than was often the case. On the whole, I approved of this, for if you cannot have the real thing in Wodehouse characters, and life does seem to decree that you can’t, then a pale imitation may be the next best thing.
Unfortunately, however, he had departed from the original in one very important feature, which was in marrying each of the girls he had become engaged to. There had been three previous wives and the current one, whom I was now hauled over to meet, was called Vera and she was about half his age.
She had other attractions as well, including a massive supply of dark hair, liberally streaked with autumn tints, enormous dark eyes and a noble profile. Her figure was on the dumpy side, however, and she had also been cursed with a mournful expression and whiny voice, suggesting that deep down there was a sombre side to Eddie’s character, or else that he was inclined to marry women he felt sorry for.
Far and away the most enduring love of his life was Waterside School, possibly because of the number and variety of females under its roof. He visited it at least twice a year, either to judge a competition or to present prizes and, on more than one occasion, had stepped into the breach, when some other lecturer dropped out, to give us a talk or, rather, string of anecdotes entitled “Early Days of Broadcasting”, and consisting largely of jokes against himself. As a result, in my day at any rate, he had been held in great affection by the girls and we had passed many happy hours debating whether, assuming them both to be forty years younger, we should have chosen to marry him or Billy Bland.
Evidently, sentiments had not changed very much in half a generation. The party was now beginning to break up and I noticed while I was talking to him that the three pretty waitresses had bunched themselves into a group and were hovering with some impatience in the background. So I gave them the floor and instantly two of them grabbed him by the arms and invited him to take a turn outdoors, on the pretext of wishing to show him their hamsters, or something equally feeble.
Eddie responded with alacrity, pausing only to remind me that I had promised to take a jugful of dry martini with him and Vera at their hotel as soon as the sun went over the yardarm, before carefully placing his feet, right heel to left instep, in the number two position, in preparation for setting forth.
Vera, however, who, although within earshot, had not been included in the invitation, now intervened, saying plaintively:
“But you won’t be too long, please, Eddie? I find I have one of those wretched headaches coming on. I should go back to the hotel and lie down, if I am to be any use to you all tomorrow.”
Eddie smiled at each of the girls in turn, then withdrew his arms from theirs and turned round:
“Right away, old love. Hang it, why didn’t you murmur something before? Farewell, then, my proud beauties! I shall see you all in the morning.”
If Toby had been present, I should have opened a book with him. Two to one against that marriage lasting the course.
Tina trotted up again as I was getting into the car.
“You’re not playing truant, by any chance?” she asked.
“No, back tomorrow morning. Ten-thirty on the dot.”
“But I thought you’d been invited to stay?”
“I was, but I wriggled out. I was afraid a whole weekend with Connie would be too much for me. I’m staying with my cousin Toby who, as you’ll remember, lives at Roakes Common. It’s about twenty miles away, which is a bore, but better than commuting from London.”
Tina frowned, which is something she should never have done, her eyes being set quite close enough together as it was.
“If I’d known that, I could have invited you to stay with me. That’s only three miles away.”
“Has it got the telephone laid on?”
“Of course it has, you ass. It’s Gillsford, not the Sahara.”
“And is the invitation still open?”
“But you just told me. . . .”
“I know, but that’s no problem. I’ll ring Toby up and explain. I don’t expect he’ll cry himself to sleep over it.” She dug into her bag and produced a ring with two keys on it. Holding one of them up, she said:
“Okay, fine! This one is for the main door, which isn’t locked until after six o’clock. The other is for my flat and I’ve got a spare. Do you mind going ahead on your own? I’ve got to take a rehearsal in a minute. It may be a couple of hours before I’m through and I’m sure you won’t want to hang around. Top floor and your room is the one with the yellow chintz curtains. Help yourself to whatever you want.”
“Thanks awfully, Tina, you are an angel! But listen, what’s the address and how will I find it?”
She stared at me as though I was demented and then gave out the plughole laugh:
“Didn’t I explain? You won’t have any bother finding it. It’s the Blands’ old house. You know, where Billy carries on his surgery, among various other less medical practices.”
FOUR
(1)
Having confirmed that Toby was indeed in no danger of crying himself to sleep, I next put a call through to Robin to inform him of the change of plans. He was not in his office, so I left a message asking him to call me back on Tina’s number after eight p.m. All this took some time, mainly because I was reversing the charges, so during the intervals, as I waited for the operator to sort it out, I had the opportunity for a thorough inspection of my surroundings, and very impressive I found them.
As Tina had mentioned, the flat comprised the top storey of this elegant, early eighteenth-century house and had clearly been intended for attics. It had dormer windows let into the roof and those sloping ceilings which always lend charm and character to a room. All of which I had been prepared for, but the unexpected feature was the style in which it had been fitted out. The curtains, carpets and wallpaper all looked expensive and new, there was a great air of comfort throughout and every room contained at least one rare and beautiful object, none of this being in any way associated with my memories of Tina, who in childhood had always been indifferent to the creature comforts. It puzzled me until I realised that it must be all the work of Connie Bland. Probably the salary just about covered the rent and hence the need for private pupils.
Having conclude
d my business, I left a note in the hall, in case Tina should return before me, and set off on foot along the High Street to the Nag’s Head Hotel, where the Harpers were staying.
Eddie was on his own in the ferociously oak-beamed and dimly lit bar, slumped on a stool and staring moodily into an empty glass. This did not alarm me, however, because, like many people whose conversation was spattered with jokes and ribaldries, his face often looked melancholy in repose.
“Ah, there we are, my dear old adjudicator! I was beginning to fear you had stood me up. Two more of the same, please, barman!
“Let us wander over to a table,” he went on when this order had been dealt with, “so that we can converse in undertones and plan how to rig the judging tomorrow.”
“That reminds me, Eddie: I was told there were to be three of us. Who’s the third?”
“I am, of course.”
“No, you’re not. You’re the first and I’m the second. Who else?”
“When you put it like that, I am bound to say that the answer is Vera.”
I regretted that he felt bound to say this because, as well as finding Vera rather a drag, I suspected that her presence on the panel might seriously interfere with my own arrangements. Not that I had the slightest intention of rigging anything at all, but it had certainly been my hope that Orange would excel themselves and that Eddie and I would speak with one voice in declaring them the runaway winners. Something warned me that Vera was unlikely to be so co-operative and, furthermore, I could not imagine how she could qualify for the job anyway.
Fearful that some of these misgivings might have been betrayed by my wooden expression, I hastened to say:
“Oh, that’s nice! How’s the migraine, by the way?”
“Pursuing its deadly course, I’m afraid. Flat on her back, with the curtains drawn, poor girl. She sent you a thousand apologies, but she didn’t feel well enough to come down.”
“I’m so sorry. Does she often get these attacks?”
