The Age of Discretion

by Virginia Duigan

  Emils touches her hand. ‘Julia, you do see how the entire story revolves around the Countess? How she is the real star of the show? With your voice, and your presence, you will be mesmerising.’ He surveys the room as if to a listening audience.

  And Julia thinks: you have all the drive and self-belief in the world, and a fair bit more besides. You have the world at your feet, as I did once, and as I continued to have for a great many years. Because you are young and talented and you know it. Just as I did. And you are charming and charismatic, and you know that too, and use it as the priceless asset it is. You know you can rely on it. As I did. And as – I must admit – I still do. To a lesser extent.

  But in her mind this is not a done deal. The Countess is written for a low soprano, a mezzo. Julia has never seen herself as a mezzo. Her signature roles were all in the lyric soprano repertoire.

  The older of the two men is far too experienced to believe the engagement is in the bag. Not yet. Not quite. Ray knows where his star is coming from, and where her insecurities lie. The professional ones, at least. For this betrothal to be signed and sealed, a trinity must be mobilised: negotiation, persuasion and reassurance. But the greatest of these is reassurance.

  ‘It’s too low for me,’ Julia says quietly. Almost too quietly, but judged with precision. Julia’s vocal skills, her refined diction, can cut through pretty much any level of ambient noise.

  The reflexes of both men are in excellent repair. They leave the blocks and nearly collide. The younger man defers to Ray. This is his province.

  ‘You are a soprano, Jules, that’s true. But you have always had a rich middle range.’ No change of expression, but a slight inclination of her head. ‘And now your voice is lower than it was. If anything, it’s even richer.’

  Emils backs this with supporting evidence she cannot deny. ‘You’ve just sung Dido – brilliantly, with no difficulty at all. And Dido is a mezzo role.’

  Ray continues, with a delicacy finely calibrated, for this is a difficult balancing act. ‘The Countess is not too taxing, vocally. Your middle register has always been strong; now it will be perfect for her. You have the skills of a lifetime at your disposal. Where singers fail in the role, it’s almost always because their acting is not up to it.’

  Jules knows these are telling points well made, by a man she esteems. When Ray says it’s not too taxing vocally, he is spot on. The Countess only has three scenes. In fact, perhaps she should be more concerned that the role is too small…

  ‘And the other cause for failure,’ Emils now, ‘can be that they are not magnetic or glamorous enough to be believable. We don’t have that problem.’

  ‘That will never be Julia’s problem,’ Ray agrees firmly. And then, in a voice to brook no argument, ‘You’ll lay ’em in the aisles, Jules.’

  ‘You’re the only one who can do it,’ the younger man says, with a fervour verging on the messianic. The air around her thrums with masculine energy. Julia feels her resistance to this late alliance, this ménage á trois ebbing away.

  And the key to reassurance is repetition. ‘You are a great singing actress,’ Ray repeats, ‘one of the greatest. As you have proved so many times.’

  Emils has been dealt the trump card. He remarks casually, ‘Isn’t the Met doing The Queen of Spades in a couple of years, Ray? They’ll be checking on us. They’ll be on the lookout for their Countess.’

  This is a thought. A most enticing one. It’s been some years since Julia Jefferies last sang at the Met. Her hands go up to smooth down her hair, but in the nick of time she remembers she is wearing a new confection, a little cap in olive velvet with net and feather. Her milliner called it a riff on Maid Marian, and Julia teamed it for this meeting with her flowing olive-green opera cloak, one of her favourites.

  Her fingertips meet behind her ears and she raises her hair, fanning it out before letting it fall, gradually and softly. The men’s eyes meet again for a second. They relax, imperceptibly.

  She wavers. ‘But I’ve already said my farewells …’

  As a last hurrah, this is unconvincing. Her suitors are united in treating it with the contempt it deserves and, they suspect, she is most likely hoping for. Retirement, they scoff, Julia Jefferies? At this stage? Absurd. Don’t even think of it.

  ‘We’re going to do great things together, Julia,’ says Emils with a wink. He raises one unkempt eyebrow under an equally disorderly thatch of hair. ‘Thrilling, intoxicating and very, very Russian.’

  He is flirting with me, Julia thinks. It’s always an advantage when there is chemistry with her director. Chemical attraction, she has found, is completely independent of age. It’s not even related to looks, necessarily, although Emils has a rumpled, Slavic cast to his person and features she has always found appealing. Even if, or perhaps especially if, he has no interest in fashion and an evident disdain for the services of hair salons.

  It’s a special thing, chemistry between an opera star and director, and hard to pin down. It either exists or it does not. When it does not, she has found that there is nothing to be done by either party to bring it into being. When it does, the spark lights up a performance and influences the whole production.

  Because this relationship is a love affair of sorts. A very public affair conducted on the stage, in the spotlight, with a rapt audience following every word, every note, and every gesture. It is unique and of itself, a special relationship that others, the outsiders, cannot fully understand. Over the years Julia has concluded that they would never understand it. Not even if it could be fully explained.

  10

  A BRIEF ENCOUNTER

  Among the multi-national, multi-coloured early-afternoon crowds milling on the concourse of Liverpool Street Station this weekday is Vivien Quarry, a white European woman of a certain age. She’s either past her sexual prime, or well past it, or conceivably at it, depending on which magazine article you read.

  Today Viv has made an effort. She’s wearing a navy jacket and matching trousers, black ankle boots with Cuban heels, a red trilby, leather gloves and a striped scarf. Hoisted over one shoulder is a straw tote with leather straps. Tucked on top and partially visible to the passer-by is a rolled-up trench coat, a small scarlet umbrella minus its sheath, a newspaper and a book. Not Cultural Amnesia this time, but one from this year’s Man Booker shortlist, the writer’s breakthrough book. Viv edited the author’s first novel and took part in early discussions about this one. She is mentioned warmly in the acknowledgements.

  Inside the tote, and concealed from prying eyes, is a roomy cosmetics bag that has seen better days. It contains a number of items, several of them new or travel-sized: mouthwash, toothbrush and toothpaste, hairbrush, spray perfume, pocket magnifying mirror, lip gloss, cleansing wipes, lubricant, and in a separate pouch more make-up than she generally carries in her handbag.

  There’s also a packet of condoms (unscented, unribbed), perhaps Viv’s sole concession to sensible, grown-up behaviour. They were not bought at her local Boots, where she and Geoff are regulars and the purchase might have attracted covert interest, but at another branch.

  While the contents of the bag might invite conclusions surprising to many, it’s fair to say that no one in the crowd gives this woman a second glance. She appears, not nondescript exactly – she’s more imaginatively dressed than most and has livelier hair – but otherwise unremarkable. There is nothing in her behaviour to suggest she is anticipating anything other than a pleasant afternoon’s outing. But someone who has known her since student days and to whom she is not unremarkable in any way, someone like Julia Jefferies, or even Viv’s own husband Geoff, might identify tell-tale signs of inner turmoil.

  It had not escaped Geoff’s notice that she’d made an effort when she passed his study nook on the way out. Where was she off to, all dolled up like that? Oh, just an upmarket tea, she’d answered vaguely, mentioning the name of a well-to-do friend she knew he couldn’t stand. The lie surprised her with its ease and fluency. Geoff had r
aised his eyebrows and returned to the new issue of the fanzine he has printed out: Cosmic Dust, a digital monthly produced by his sci-fi circle.

  It needn’t concern you, Geoff, Viv had thought as she opened the front door, but what I’m really doing is this: I am about to take a train from Liverpool Street Station to Chelmsford, to meet someone I scarcely know, a darkly handsome man who is a whole lot younger than you, and with any sort of an even break I’m going to have sex with him.

  In addition to a lurch in the stomach these thoughts prompted an array of mental pictures, a sequence that kept her occupied all the way to Liverpool Street where she may now be seen scanning the noticeboard for the next train to Chelmsford, Essex. This is not something she has done before. Viv has never been to Chelmsford, or indeed known anyone who lived there. Moreover, no one else knows about her imminent visit. No one, that is, except Dev.

  Over the past forty-eight hours Dev has been on Viv’s mind, a disruptive, unsettling presence. And because what she knows about him might be written on a postage stamp, he is an enigma.

  She assumes he lives in Chelmsford, although when she dissects (yet again) their meeting she doesn’t think he said this in so many words. It was more that he intimated it, she reflects, as she moves (having arrived a good ten minutes early) through the stationary train to a forward-facing window seat. Dev seemed disinclined to talk about himself, and she hadn’t felt inclined to press him. She too had been reluctant to say anything personal, to give out any information about her husband, her family or her circumstances. Other than her name.

  She doesn’t even know Dev’s surname, although she assumes the Discretion Agency has it on file. Or has on file the name he has given them. She experiences a fleeting tremor. Jules, if she knew what she was doing, would take a dim view. For a moment Viv toys with the idea of telling Joy where she is headed. But Joy turns her phone off when she is writing. Not that I know where I’m headed, Viv thinks, which is very much to the point. Apart from a house in the general vicinity of Chelmsford.

  Dev had been quite forthright in other ways. They should strike while the iron was hot. Viv thought this metaphor, while inducing a mild panic attack, was rather well chosen. He suggested the day after tomorrow. Would she opt for the am, or the pm? The pm, I think, she’d responded without thinking, I’ve never been much of an am person. Later she regretted this; opting for the pm had meant enduring a morning that seemed interminable.

  He had given her the time of his preferred train and told her to check the number of the platform because it was subject to change. It would take twenty-five minutes, he said, and she should text him immediately if she missed it. He would assume she was on this train unless informed to the contrary. He would meet her on arrival.

  ‘I won’t miss it,’ Viv had assured him. ‘I tend to be a very punctual person.’ Detecting a doubt, she added, ‘As a rule.’ In the immediate aftermath of the encounter with Dev, Viv had stopped short of full disclosure to her friends. She limited herself to a (fulsome) sketch of Dev’s appearance. On hearing this, Joy urged her to strike while the iron was hot (Dev’s very phrase, Viv marvelled). ‘Grasp the nettle, honey,’ she said.

  The conversation with Jules was a rushed affair in the ladies loo of the Almeida, in the interval of Ghosts. Was I like this when I first met Geoff, Viv wondered. Jules, applying her lipstick, made an impatient move necessitating a repair.

  What did Geoff have to do with this? ‘You’re not proposing to leave him, are you? On the basis of one meeting in a naff caf? This is just a little fling—’ She was going to say, just an unwise little fling you’re proposing to have, and more than a bit suspect as well. She reined herself in and powdered her nose.

  But was it so different back then, Viv persisted. When they were on cloud nine? Young and foolish, and in love?

  ‘You were young and foolish and the same age as each other,’ Jules reminded her sharply. ‘And now you’re much older and even more foolish and gullible to boot. You’re not in love, for fuck’s sake. You haven’t had a fuck for far too long, that’s the long and the short of it.’ Forget cloud nine. Viv was in cloud cuckoo land.

  Julia had spent the next day on the phone, email, Facebook and Twitter, attending to her worldwide fan and friendship base, which had been somewhat neglected of late. She’d also been incubating a niggle of guilt over the manner in which she had greeted Viv’s news.

  Which explains why, just out of Liverpool Street, Viv’s mobile rings. She sees the name of the caller and debates for a second, but she hasn’t the intestinal fortitude for an argument at this point in time. Especially about doing something she has no intention of being talked out of doing. Moments later she listens to Julia’s energetic voice message.

  ‘Viv? Are you by any chance with your shiny new friend? You tend to be sentimental and trusting, remember? These are admirable characteristics, but they’re not advantageous here. Protect thyself. Know what I mean?’

  Viv reflects that Jules is capable of being both selfish and unselfish in rather larger measure than most people. In this respect, although not in many others, she resembles her goddaughter Daisy. But while Jules may be self-centred she is also self-aware, and strong on irony. Self-awareness is not one of Daisy’s strong points. Not in any guise. Perhaps this will alter as she grows older. Particularly if she were to have a child.

  Since their lunch in the Lebanese restaurant Daisy has gone quiet. She hasn’t come over to dump her stuff, and Viv’s studiedly casual emails and texts have been answered in the most cursory fashion. This is not unusual. Where communication with her parents is concerned, Daisy has always had a tendency to blow hot and cold.

  Viv has scrupulously avoided the touchy subjects of Daisy’s forward plans and her state of mind, but she can’t help feeling the present situation is an especially worrying one, even given Daisy’s bulging dossier of personal crises. Her unpredictable daughter may well find anything her mother says at this time irritating and intrusive. Might implicit questions have wormed their way into those carefully worded messages?

  Viv is doing everything in her power to prevent herself from thinking about what she is doing. The reason for this train journey, and its possible (probable?) outcome. If a tree fell on the line, or if the train should suddenly be derailed, would her dominant feeling be relief? There might be a moment of deliverance, but she suspects it would be brief. What would replace it? Disappointment? You can say that again. A definite sense, she might tell Joy, of anti-climax.

  As the outskirts of Chelmsford loom, Viv springs to her feet. She is at the doors before the train slows to a stop – train doors, she has heard, do sometimes jam. A surprising number of people are getting off at Chelmsford. She doubts if anyone is planning on doing the same thing as her. They might be planning on doing something comparable, but not in a similar configuration. Nor, she is quite sure, would they suspect her (this inoffensive woman in late middle age) of being about to do anything of the kind.

  Is she the only one whose knees are knocking? Suppose Dev is not here; how long should she wait? People are heading purpose-fully towards the exit, down a flight of steps. She goes with the flow, and emerges into a foyer. Glass roof over Victorian brickwork.

  And lo, there is Dev standing by the doors. Instead of a suit he’s wearing a puffer jacket over tracksuit pants and trainers. If it weren’t for those movie-star looks he’d be indistinguishable from the crowd. He hasn’t seen her yet, and she hangs back to observe him: yes, every bit the eyeful she remembers. This is something of a relief. She had wondered if her perception of Dev was too heavily influenced by deprivation.

  He is extending his hand again and Viv, with a jolt of déjà vu, realises she is expected to shake it. She had been fixated on his smooth skin. The thick, lustrous hair, the aquiline nose, those beaux yeux…

  ‘Welcome to Chelmsford, Vivien,’ his deep voice is saying, with a meaningful emphasis that prompts a small tingle to traverse her spine. ‘You are looking very smart today, I see. Y
ou are wearing a hat. I think you have upstaged me. I was wrong not to dress up for this occasion. But you were quite right to do so, I am thinking.’

  Does this sound reproachful? Upstaged. Dress up. This occasion. Is he feeling inadequate? Might that lead to a difficulty? Some men being, you hear, easily thrown off message. And in any case, given the unorthodox nature of this occasion, Dev probably doesn’t need much of a reason to be thrown off message.

  I should concentrate on keeping things unthreatening and everyday. That is, as far as possible under the circumstances, which are not at all everyday.

  ‘Silly of me.’ A friendly, self-deprecating smile. ‘You see, I somehow always imagined Chelmsford might be a hat-and-gloves type of destination. I’ve never had any reason to come here before.’ Does this strike the right note? Or is it a bit of a put-down? ‘But I’m very glad to have such a good reason now.’

  This sounds like something the Queen might have said had she journeyed here on a comparable mission. Which she wouldn’t, or not in any realistic scenario. Perhaps in a satirical sketch …

  Dev takes this seriously. ‘You have never paid a visit to this part of the world before? Contrary to your mental picture, I think it is more casual. Informality is the keynote.’ His view seems to be confirmed by the locals scurrying past them. Moreover, just as no men gave her a second glance at Liverpool Street, Dev doesn’t appear to be on the receiving end of any obvious double-takes from the women Viv has been furtively monitoring as they pass.

  Their libidos must be freakishly unresponsive to a display of male perfection. Unless it’s just me. She sneaks another assessing look. No. No way is it just me. Of course, most of the women are striding along with their heads down, as if to avoid dog poo on the pavement, which is probably why they don’t look twice at this mind-blowing figure of a man at my side. Who is actually quite short in real life, she registers.

  ‘Is something the matter, Vivien?’ They are still standing, marooned in the station.