This did not, however, appear to carry any practical obligation, as Viv discovered when she became a teenager. She was shocked to the marrow when her mother told her she was having an affair with a post-grad – but not, Judith hastened to reassure her daughter (who was not at all reassured) one of her own students.
‘I hope you don’t mind, but I thought I should tell you,’ Judith said. The thirteen-year-old Viv found her mother’s choice of words here somewhat ironic. And she did mind. ‘Well, shouldn’t you tell Dad too?’ she’d asked. She loved both her parents.
Definitely not, was the response.
‘Why not?’
Because I need something he can’t give me, her clever and sensual mother had replied. Viv’s teenage instinct, and her preference, told her not to ask further questions.
Many years later, when she was in her twenties, Viv found she had much more of an idea what was meant when she met Stefan for the first time. She witnessed telling changes in her mother’s behaviour. It was as if Judith had emerged from an emotional hibernation.
When Judith first revealed her affair with Stefan Kasproviak, Viv had again asked questions. What about Dad, aren’t you going to tell him? Shouldn’t you? This time the answer was different. Not yet, said Judith, but I will when the time is right. The right time had arrived a year later, precipitating the divorce of Viv’s parents.
Whether or not I should feel guilty, Viv thinks, the fact is I don’t. She suspects her mother would not be averse to discussing the subject even now, at ninety-one. Not averse at all. She might even consider bringing it up next time she goes to Oxford, before her mother’s memory really starts to deteriorate. But she will not tell Daisy. Jules and Joy were quite right to advise against it. The knowledge of Judith Quarry’s secret life had been a burden Viv would not wish to impose on her own daughter.
While she is drifting in this way between the past and the present, she falls deeply asleep. She dreams about Jules having a baby. It is a dream she has had before. Julia’s age in the dream is unclear, and her reaction is equivocal.
Last time the dream just faded away. This time Viv thinks about offering to adopt the baby herself, but the dream drifts into another story before she can get round to it.
7
A REPRIEVE
Julia’s long-term agent is Malcolm Foster. Of course, he’s older than me, she tells people, but then – just between ourselves – Mal was always this age. When I first met him, she confides, he was only in his mid-twenties and he already had a face like a ploughed paddock full of wombat holes. Yes! Just like Auden.
What she neglects to say is that when they first met, Mal was two years younger than her. He became older only after she put her age back, an adjustment prompted by the imminence of her fortieth birthday. Malcolm had given this action his tick of approval. Back then, celebrities’ ages were not noted with such alacrity. Julia Jefferies’ age hadn’t lodged in the public mind and she was able to get away with it.
So Malcolm is sixty-seven, and considered all the more distinguished for being stooped, lined and grizzled. Years of managing the careers of driven, talented people, some of whom were (still are) volatile, some needy, some delusional, and some (perhaps most) passionate and emotional, have left a succession of calling cards on his face. Not that he would have had it any differently.
Malcolm Foster’s knowledge of the opera world is second to none, and his clients know it. Most of them, like Julia Jefferies, have stayed with him for their entire careers and like him they are getting on. He’s been heard to refer to them as his problem children. They may be grown up now (they certainly look that way) but they seldom make a major decision – and not only in their careers – without first canvassing his views.
Very few ever grow out of the need for Malcolm’s astute and holistic perspective, his light guiding hand at the elbow. Rarely has one chosen to defect to a rival. They would be unlikely to find anyone else with such an intense, with such an inclusive interest in their lives. And that includes their partners, if any, in life.
Two or three times a week Malcolm can been seen lunching at Da Paolo, the small Italian restaurant close to his office in Fitzrovia and just a short stroll from Julia’s apartment. With a client, or with a book, he sits at the far end. His table is never released to anyone else before one o’clock.
He’s in place today, and rises to greet Jules as she arrives in a swinging royal blue coat and jaunty pillbox hat, causing a little stir. The proprietor and staff know her. She is overdressed for this casual restaurant, but no one is complaining. Julia can be relied on to meet any tone, and raise it. You look wonderful, darling, Malcolm murmurs, both youthful and regal. An equipoise few in that family can carry off.
Today Malcolm has a proposition to put to Julia. He’s well aware that it is a tricky one, potentially, and may not be welcomed. It’s likely to meet with an initial resistance he will need to wear down with all the wiles in his armoury.
No one understands better than him what Jules is going through at this late stage of her career, or the precarious state of her equanimity. She may talk carelessly of being happy to grab at any straw, but he knows better. And he is convinced that what he is about to put on the table is, to put it baldly (as he’d never dream of putting it to her) the best his client can reasonably expect at this juncture.
The Royal Opera House Covent Garden, Julia’s old home, her alma mater as they call it, has been in touch. They’ve had a singer pull out of a small role in The Queen of Spades. The role is that of the Old (as she is usually known) Countess. Julia would be playing someone whose glory days are long gone and who expires on stage.
The offer is a hard sell and will need to be prudently stage-managed. To prepare the ground, Malcolm entertains her with a little divertissement, some sharp and sassy anecdotes about the hierarchy as well as the odd colleague and rival. He’s not, however, into full-on scandal-mongering. Where shop talk is concerned Mal is adept at maintaining a few delicate balances of his own: between gentle and outrageous indiscretions, and flattering confidences that are not full-on betrayals.
Malcolm Foster is respected throughout the business for his precision in these areas. His clients know he can be trusted where necessary, and trusted absolutely. While he’s not averse to telling stories out of school, the protagonists of his more colourful tales belong to other schools and other agencies. This is understood and highly valued. Certain secrets have been in the possession of Malcolm Foster since the early days of Julia Jefferies’ career.
Julia has been away on the underside of the world for a while and is more than happy to indulge in some in-house gossip. But her interest can only last so long. She has guessed, as she told Viv, that Mal has something up his sleeve, but just in case he doesn’t she won’t demean herself by asking.
She will order with impunity, she declares, since she no longer has to worry about her figure. It can go to pot, Mal! Spaghetti carbonara it is, and don’t hold the horses. Cream if they have it, and lashings of cheese. There have to be some compensations, don’t there?
Malcolm puts out a cautionary hand. He has been waiting for this. She may want to rethink the carbonara. He has some news. They have been on the blower, he says, with a significant little pucker of the lips.
‘The Garden?’ Jules does not hide her incredulity.
‘They are in a bit of a pickle for December. They’ve got less than two months. To cut to the chase – it’s The Queen of Spades. New production. The Countess. The one who predicts the winning cards.’
Jules, energised, cuts to the chase in her turn. She can summon up enough of the plot to seize on several salient points. ‘The Old Countess? The one who’s lingered too long, whose career is finished? The faded beauty who croaks on stage?’ She claps a hand to her heart. ‘It’s come to this, has it? Who left them in the lurch?’
Malcolm names a big American name. A (formerly) very big name. ‘I hear cancer. I’m afraid it’s throat.’
Julia’s ha
nd, inadvertently, travels from her heart to her neck. She has gone white with empathy.
‘Yes. Terrible.’ Malcolm is carefully assembling his arsenal. ‘She is – well, what a blazing talent, I don’t have to tell you. And a wonderful actress, which is why they wanted her in the first place, of course.’ He pauses, to enable them both to reflect on this. And to allow his opening volley to settle, and sink in.
After an interval Julia’s colour begins to return and he resumes. ‘She sang it in Paris a few years ago and made quite an impact. So much so,’ another staged pause, ‘that since then, she’s been doing it around the world.’
But this is not something Julia would ever have imagined singing. It’s such an insignificant role, Mal. ‘I wouldn’t want to be accused of,’ she drops her voice, ‘reigniting the embers of a dying career.’ She knows that Mal will have read and noted this phrase in a newspaper review this very morning, in relation to a singer who, they both know, is younger than she.
‘Not one of my clients,’ Malcolm says firmly, ‘and I’d have dissuaded her. This offer is in a different category altogether. Yes, the role may be small, but insignificant it most emphatically is not. When did you last see the opera?’
He knows she is unlikely to have seen it for years. ‘The role packs a punch that is in inverse proportion to its size. The Countess is the pivot. The drama unfolds around her.’ His client is looking unconvinced. He fixes his eyes on her. ‘If you remember, she has the gift of second sight. She can foretell how the cards will fall. She is threatened with a pistol, dies of fright, and then in Act Three returns as a ghost to predict the winning cards.’
‘How very Russian.’
‘Isn’t it? Pushkin, of course, with some dramatic licence. To make it work, you require a singer who is also a powerful actress. She must have both charisma and presence, controlling her scenes with a very strong stage personality. Which is why they thought of you, Julia.’
He usually calls her by the nickname used by her closest friends. Only when he has something he really wants her to do does he revert to Julia. This does not go unnoticed.
‘They’re rather desperate to get you. That’s not putting it too strongly. They’d like you to go in tomorrow, so they can state their case.’
‘Put the screws on, you mean.’ Jules is wrestling with her demons, the ones telling her that this role is unworthy of Julia Jefferies. It would be a backward step. On the other hand, where would it be a backward step from? Realistically, is there any such thing as a forward step, in her position?
Reading her mind, Malcolm says gently, ‘Think about it, darling, will you? New production, one of Tchaikovsky’s greatest pieces. You could make a real mark, do something marvellous with it. Attract a lot of notice where it counts. And it could be the start of something—’
‘Don’t say something big, Mal, or I’ll bite your head off.’
But he can see she’s wavering. When she goes away and thinks it over, the odds are she will be persuaded. Which will be for the best; Mal has no doubts about that. When a great soprano gets to Julia’s official age the available options – well, even a great agent is hard pressed to find many.
‘On another potentially life-enhancing note, my dear,’ he says, ‘what are the prospects for Max’s divorce? Should one go so far as to be cautiously optimistic?’
Julia’s face relaxes. ‘I think one could go that far. I think it’s going ahead. At least Pat’s not opposing, and they’ve got a chance to keep the lawyers’ snouts out of it.’
Ever shrewd, Malcolm proffers another titbit. Might Max come over in December? In time to see her gracing the stage of the Royal Opera House once more. Something he is quite sure she will have convinced her brother he will never see again.
Malcolm has a sweet tooth, and Julia knows he will only have dessert if she agrees to share it. He lives alone, and lunch is a highlight. He has never put on weight; she suspects that if he has no evening engagement, this may be his only proper meal of the day. He orders panna cotta and she eats two dutiful teaspoons.
She leaves the restaurant humming an aria from Traviata. Full of good food, and full of food for thought. Before she has walked fifty yards she has decided to go to the meeting at Covent Garden tomorrow. When you’re in the last-chance saloon …
Across town, Viv too has plenty on her plate as she strides towards West Hampstead Tube. She has heard nothing new from Daisy, but this doesn’t surprise her. Daisy was always an erratic communicator, and her mother knows better than to bug her on this issue or any other. But Viv has received two thought-provoking text messages during the morning.
The first came from the Discretion Agency: Please call Martin at your convenience. He has someone who would like to meet her. When she calls, Martin says his client is a gentleman named Dev. He is a younger man, in his forties, Indian born, very dark-skinned, very presentable, in fact very handsome in Martin’s opinion, and—
‘In his forties?’ Viv is dumbstruck. ‘Doesn’t he know how old I am?’
‘In his mid to lateish forties,’ replies Martin, unfazed. ‘Yes, he knows how old you are. I gave him the age you and I agreed on. Don’t worry, he expressed interest in meeting someone older; he was quite specific about it.’
‘But I’m not sure I want to meet him,’ Viv says, brow furrowed.
‘Maybe this is not something you ought to make up your mind about in advance though, Vivien.’ Martin’s voice is soothing and sensible. ‘Why not give it a whirl? What have you got to lose, after all? You’re not signing up for a life of penal servitude. If it doesn’t work for either of you, then it doesn’t work. Which is always going to be the case, isn’t it, whoever you meet?’
‘Yes, but—’
‘Think about it this way. At worst, you’ll have a one-off encounter with someone you need never see again. Perhaps it’s best not to prejudge the issue? As you yourself did say.’
That’s true, she did. What he says is reasonable enough, Viv supposes. And feels herself being coaxed into agreement, rather smoothly and expertly. She gives a mental shrug. May as well give it a whirl, as he put it. In any case, the unknown Dev may have second thoughts himself. That would seem very likely.
But Dev appears to have no such qualms. Within the hour she has received a text proposing they meet in a coffee shop near Liverpool Street Station at two o’clock on Sunday afternoon, if she should be so free, exclamation mark. She is not free, however. This is her regular date with Joy’s quilting circle and she is not prepared to miss it. Especially not in order to meet someone she is dubious about meeting in the first place.
She texts a casual reply. Sorry, Sunday not possible. Raincheck? Maybe early next week? Within minutes another text flies in. Since it is the lady’s prerogative to choose the day and time (?!) he is open to any suggestion! She avoids suggesting a venue, but offers three alternative times on Monday and Wednesday. Then remembers that Dev is considerably less than retirement age. Perhaps he’ll be at work, and perhaps this will be for the best.
Even without an assignation, her own week is not short of action. Quilting is a flexible day job, if a day job can also be an affair of the heart. There’s Joy’s group, and the gym. On Tuesdays she teaches literacy to disadvantaged young people and refugees in Tower Hamlets. There are fortnightly visits to her mother in Oxford. There are family and friends.
On top of which, there is a husband. Geoff is an important part of your life: discuss. Easy enough, she thinks: affection and resentment in roughly equal parts, spliced with anger and regret. Where does he now reside on my list of priorities? Once a major player, he has been relegated. To the sidelines? Not quite, more to the second eleven. We still sleep in the same bed and see each other for most meals. We still spend most evenings together. But Geoff, as a concept, is swathed in a newly negative aura.
There is, though, the fact that we have lived together for close to forty years. Doesn’t that assume a fair bit of harmony? Or is it merely that we have a combined history, a ben
ign mutual tolerance? That tolerance has become less benign. Could it be in the process of unravelling altogether?
Geoff and Viv have always given each other space. This, she supposes, may be a singular advantage in a long-term relationship. It has never been a problem for them. Which is just as well, as another text wings in from Dev.
He suggests the earliest of her three proposed times. The same cafe at eleven on Monday morning. What kind of hairstyle does she have? And what will she be wearing? Can’t risk making shome mishtake, right?!
Viv reads the text and its predecessors over again, several times. She finds these questions vaguely irritating. Aside from the clumsy attempt at humour. And the spelling and punctuation. Instead of replying immediately she decides to run the message past Joy on Sunday afternoon.
Viv’s friendship with Joy is a by-product of a professional relationship. They first met five years ago when Joy sauntered off the street into Viv’s publishing house with a bunch of pages in a Tesco bag. The receptionist happened to be in the loo; Joy had no appointment, and this was not how things were done. But Viv’s office was opposite and her door was open.
The typescript was about a feisty trio of outliers, a badger, fox and squirrel who conducted daring raids on nearby kitchens from their base in a London square. The storyline needed tightening but it was fresh and funny, and accompanied by appealing watercolour illustrations by Joy’s tenant Yasmin. Viv worked on it pro bono at first, as a sideline from her adult fiction, and the book became the first of a successful series.
Joy’s quilting circle spills over from the double sitting room of her Brixton house. The participants are something of a revolving door, with sundry ring-ins who come and go. The permanent residents – Joy and her three tenants (none has left since Viv’s first visit a year ago) – are all single mothers.
Joy strikes Viv as a benevolent landlady, with minor despotic tendencies. More than one member of the circle has confided that she allows her tenants to pay rent in accordance with their means. These are also revolving, but very often slender and occasionally non-existent, at which times Joy has allowed them to stay for free.
The Age of Discretion Page 8
