Rags to Riches

by Nancy Carson

  ‘Did I hear you right?’ Maxine replied, surprised and disappointed that he should offer marriage.

  ‘You did. I’m asking you to marry me.’ He flipped the indicator switch on the hub of the steering wheel and they turned right into Reservoir Road.

  ‘Oh, Stephen…’ She sighed, full of sympathy for him in his foolishness. ‘In God’s name, why? What on earth for?’ She turned to look at him. The meagre light falling from the street lamps as they drove past, momentarily brightened his face so serious, so intense, as if he already knew her answer.

  ‘Because I love you,’ he answered straightforwardly. ‘Why else?’

  Maxine felt sorry for him and his self-inflicted vulnerability, and was silent for a few seconds, stalling as she decided how best to answer him.

  ‘Oh, Stephen…’ she responded at last, not wishing to sound exasperated, although she imagined she did. She should, after all, be flattered. But whatever words she chose in refusing him they would hurt him. She did not want to hurt him. He was her friend; one of the most reliable friends she’d ever had. ‘I…I’ve just got this new job, Stephen…and…well, I really prefer things the way they are right now.’

  ‘I love you, Maxine, and it’s driving me mad the way things are.’ He slowed the car and turned left, then right into Daisy Road.

  ‘How do you mean, driving you mad?’

  ‘I would have thought it obvious.’ He looked at her but she didn’t answer. He pulled up under the gas lamp outside the house and switched off the engine and the headlights. ‘It drives me mad when I’m alone with you, when I can touch you like this…’ He stroked the silky smooth skin of her forearm under her sleeve. ‘But I’m never allowed to make love to you.’

  ‘But we sometimes kiss goodnight, Stephen.’

  ‘Occasionally you allow me a quick goodnight kiss, Maxine, but that’s all. That’s not making love. It’s never passionate, never lingering. I want more. I want to lie with you in bed, naked, and feel your warm, soft skin pressing against mine.’

  ‘Stephen! What a thing to say!’

  ‘Well it’s true. I want to kiss you all over your body, I want to caress every inch of you, and…oh, you know what I mean.’

  ‘Stephen! If you did that with Evelyn, you’re not doing it with me. Lord above!’ She shuffled in her seat, affecting righteous indignation. ‘They say men are only interested in one thing. Is that all you want to marry me for? So you can…so you can do that to me?’

  ‘No. Of course not. I want to look after you. I want to provide a home for you, give you security. I want us to have children.’

  ‘I’d want children too, Stephen. But the world’s not fit to bring children into if you ask me. Not the way things are. You only have to look at what’s happening in the world…Unemployment, poverty, the Depression, Hitler, Mussolini and all that. Why, every day in the papers you read about some lunatic thing somebody’s up to. Everybody says there’s going to be war sooner or later. Will reckons there’s going to be a war again.’

  ‘He’s got a child now,’ Stephen argued logically.

  ‘That doesn’t mean I should have one yet. I don’t want to bring children into a world riven with war.’

  ‘All the more reason to let me look after you, Maxine. Anyway, there might not be a war at all. It’s only speculation.’

  She shrugged. Of course, she could not be sure. Nobody could be sure.

  ‘Look, Maxine, I’m going to start my own business soon. I shall do well. I shall do very well. I know I shall.’

  ‘Well, I hope you do,’ she said sincerely. ‘I’m sure you will. But I don’t want to get married, Stephen. Really, I don’t. I don’t want to be tied down by marriage. Not yet at any rate. I’ve got my career to think about. It’s only just beginning. I want to exploit it. I want to get the most out of it. I’ve just been presented with a once in a lifetime opportunity. You don’t begrudge it me, do you, Stephen?’

  ‘I don’t begrudge it you at all, sweetheart,’ he replied earnestly. ‘You know I don’t.’

  ‘It sounds as if you do.’

  ‘Rubbish. You can still do all that even if we get married. Marriage wouldn’t stop you.’

  ‘Says you now. What if I found myself having a baby?’

  ‘You wouldn’t, Maxine…I wouldn’t…I mean, I wouldn’t let you get pregnant if you didn’t want to. I’d be careful. I’d be very careful. It wouldn’t interfere with your career. We’d only think of starting a family when you were ready.’

  Maxine sighed. What madness had suddenly seized him to make him think of marriage? Why did he have to spoil everything by wanting to tie her down?

  ‘Do you want to think about it?’ he asked.

  ‘Oh, Stephen…’ With the utmost sympathy she took his hand and gently stroked it. ‘I don’t deserve such consideration. I’m not ready yet for marriage. I’d be no good for you, my love, because I don’t feel the same way you do. I’ve got so many other things to do in my life I couldn’t give you even half the devotion you deserve. Ask me in another three or four years. Ask me when I’ve got all this out of my system.’

  He sighed heavily. ‘Oh, I think I could wait forever if I had to, Maxine. You’re worth waiting for…It’s just that I prefer not to wait, that’s all. In the meantime, we could get engaged,’ he suggested brightly. ‘What do you say to that?’

  She sighed again, but with exasperation. ‘What’s the point? If you’re engaged, you’re still promised to be married…You’re still spoken for.’

  He shrugged. ‘I know. That’s the idea. But, like I say, we needn’t be married till you’re ready. But at least you would be spoken for.’

  ‘Stephen, I don’t want to be spoken for. If I ever decide I want to get married, that’s when I’ll get engaged…You can’t be seriously engaged and not name the day, can you? It makes a mockery of engagement. It belittles it. Don’t you see?’

  ‘No, I don’t agree. I want to be engaged to you, Maxine. I want the world to know how I feel about you…And I had this smashing idea for a ring.’

  ‘Stephen, the whole world doesn’t need to know by virtue of a ring. It’s a promise between two people – no ring required really. If we’re still friends in a couple of years’ time, ask me again. Who knows, I might feel different then. I’m too young to think of marriage yet.’ She summoned a smile of sympathy. ‘What do you say? Agreed?’

  He shrugged, profound disappointment darkening his expression. She had won this round. She had wriggled out of it tonight. But next time she might not wriggle out of it quite so fast.

  ‘All right,’ he said. ‘But I’m not giving up, Maxine. You’ll be mine one day – one way or the other. You’ll see.’

  ‘One day, maybe,’ she said, happy to concede that point for now. ‘Are you going to come in for a night cap?’

  He peered at his wristwatch by the scant light of the street lamp. ‘Much as I’d like to, I’d better not. I’ve got to be up. When shall I see you?’

  She shrugged with indifference. ‘I don’t know. Come round Wednesday night, if you want.’

  ‘Not till Wednesday? What about before that? What will you be doing tomorrow night…and Tuesday night?’

  ‘Practising my cello, I expect. I have to practise, Stephen.’

  ‘I could listen. You know I love to hear you play.’

  She shrugged again, irked at his tedious inability to face reality. ‘Come round Tuesday night then.’

  ‘What about Monday night?’ he persisted.

  ‘Stephen, I can’t see you every night. And I don’t want to see you Monday night.’

  ‘Just Tuesday then.’

  ‘Just Tuesday.’

  ‘…A kiss?’

  She pursed her lips in the least romantic way she could and he pressed them with his own. At once breaking off, she opened the car door, wiped her mouth with the back of her hand and, before he had chance to open his and come round to her side, she was gone. As she thrust open the front door of the house she heard him
start the car and drive off.

  Inside, while she hung up her coat, she heard Henzey and Will talking in the sitting room. Henzey called, and Maxine answered.

  ‘The kettle’s just boiled if you want a drink,’ Will said. ‘Had a good night?’

  Maxine smiled enigmatically. ‘Yes, and no.’

  Henzey looked up from folding clean napkins on her lap, instantly curious. ‘Tell us, then.’

  ‘Well the concert was smashing. The orchestra was brilliant. And I met one or two of them afterwards…’

  ‘But?’

  ‘But…’ Maxine sighed dramatically and shook her head. ‘On the way home Stephen asked me to marry him – of all the stupid things.’

  ‘I take it you don’t want to marry him,’ Will said.

  She slumped down on the settee, disconcerted. ‘I’m too young, Will. This new job. I’m not ready for marriage. I don’t want to be tied down. There are too many other things in life I want to do first.’

  ‘You could do a lot worse, our Maxine,’ Henzey commented. ‘You could do a lot worse than marry Stephen Hemming.’

  ‘Oh, I know, Henzey. He’s as good as gold. But I’d be no good for him. He’s just a friend. It wouldn’t be fair.’

  ‘Then let’s hope he doesn’t get tired of waiting.’

  ‘If he wants to wait that’s up to him, but there are plenty of other fish in the sea for him. Maybe I ought to swim around in it a bit and meet a few more. Just think what I might be missing.’ She got to her feet again. ‘I think I’ll make myself a cup of cocoa. Anybody else?’

  ‘No thanks,’ Will said.

  ‘Not for me, either,’ Henzey said. ‘But, hey – I nearly forgot…’

  ‘What?’ Maxine stood poised at the door, ready to take off into the kitchen.

  ‘Will came up with the idea of all the family getting together and going along to see your maiden concert, as he called it, then all coming back here afterwards for a celebration. For your twenty-first. What do you think?’

  Maxine grinned happily. Her widest grin that night. ‘Oh, that would be smashing. Oh, isn’t that husband of yours kind, Henzey?’ She looked at Will. ‘It’s a lovely idea, Will. Thank you. Thank you ever so much.’

  ‘And tomorrow,’ Henzey added, ‘I’m going to buy the tickets for the concert.’

  Chapter 3

  It was with some nervousness that Maxine took her place by her beloved cello on the stage at Birmingham Town Hall that second Saturday in May 1936. She looked bewitching in a new black evening dress she’d treated herself to, and her eyes shone with expectation. Along with everybody else she checked her tuning, at the same time peering into the audience, trying to locate family and friends who had come to both support her and celebrate her twenty-first birthday afterwards. Gwen Berry, at her side, nodded her encouragement as she adjusted the music score on the stand in front of them that they were to share.

  Before Maxine knew it, they were into the first elegant phrases of Mozart’s Clarinet Concerto in A Major. John Ball, the soloist, whom she had met briefly, was the orchestra’s own clarinettist. At rehearsal Maxine had been impressed with his ability.

  It was a glorious feeling playing with other musicians. The music was like a magic carpet flying them all to exotic places. The tempo was the speed of flight, the melodies the delightful undulations in it, each trill the carpet’s frill rippling in an ethereal breeze. It all seemed unstoppable. Not that she wanted it to stop. It was addictive. Maxine likened it to riding in Stephen’s car; moving was infinitely more agreeable than not moving; stopping was inevitably a disappointment. But all too soon the music was at an end. All too soon the magic carpet had landed.

  After the applause they took off again on another ride: a fairly recent piece by Ravel, called Boléro. Leslie Heward controlled the emotion in the music skilfully, building the tension almost imperceptibly. At first it was coquettish, provocative like a frivolous woman tantalising an admirer. Halfway through, their mutual arousal was already obsessive, ascending steadily to an orgy of compelling passion till the last, loud, staccato chords brought it to a shuddering, juddering finish like sated lovers spent of their last drop of energy.

  Applause was immense and sustained and Maxine turned to Gwen, smiling with satisfaction, proud to be a part of this orchestra. So profound had been her concentration that, at the interval, she felt drained. Yet still to come was Beethoven’s Fifth Symphony. Backstage she joined the queue at the trestle table that supported a pile of cups and saucers and a huge urn containing enough tea to refresh the orchestra with at least two cups each.

  ‘How’s it going, Maxine?’

  She turned to see Brent Shackleton standing behind her and her heart skipped a beat. ‘Oh, hello.’ She smiled brightly as she would at an old friend and hoped he could not detect her nervous reaction. The opportunity to speak to him had not presented itself since after last Sunday’s concert, even at rehearsals, and she wondered if he had deliberately avoided her. Well, he was not avoiding her now.

  ‘So? How’s it going?’ he asked again. ‘Are you settling in all right?’

  ‘Oh, fine, yes, thank you.’

  ‘Good. I spotted you in Boléro. Kept you busy towards the end, didn’t it?’

  She laughed awkwardly. ‘You, too. I saw you had plenty to do as well.’

  ‘I’m still breathless.’ He wiped his brow with the back of his hand. ‘Good, though, wasn’t it?’

  ‘Great.’ They shuffled towards the head of the queue together.

  ‘You can hear the jazz influences in Boléro, can’t you? The sliding trombone and all that.’ He offered her a cigarette which she declined, and lit one himself. ‘It’s not so stuffy as some of the music we play.’

  ‘I suppose not. Still…’ She shrugged, hesitant, not sure in what vein to continue the conversation, anxious not to disagree with him. ‘To tell you the truth, I love it all.’

  ‘Mind you, some of these so-called modern classics are a bit pretentious. You know…Mahler, Scriabin…stuff like that.’ He deeply inhaled smoke and seemed to hold it in his lungs for ages. ‘In my opinion.’

  ‘I know what you mean,’ Maxine said inadequately. They had reached the trestle table, so she picked up a cup and saucer and held it under the tap of the urn.

  ‘Not like jazz,’ he remarked.

  She moved away from the table when her cup was full. ‘You like jazz, then?’ she asked when he’d rejoined her.

  ‘Oh, I love jazz.’

  ‘I like jazz as well,’ she replied truthfully and sipped her tea. ‘I used to listen to jazz records all the time. The people I used to lodge with – before I went to live with my sister – have a daughter who was a keen jazz fan. She used to get hold of some obscure records from America. She’s a musician as well and we used to play it together, mimicking it – just for a laugh, me on the piano usually, she on clarinet. I don’t get the chance to hear much now. Occasionally I hear a snatch on the wireless. Yes, I quite like jazz.’

  ‘You play piano as well?’ He sounded surprised.

  ‘I started out on piano.’

  He nodded his approval. ‘Oh, it’s great, jazz. It’s not so contrived as this stuff we play here, is it? You know where it comes from?’

  ‘America, I suppose.’

  ‘Africa.’ He drew on his cigarette and paused long enough for this gem of information to register. She saw his probing eyes, steady upon her, awaiting her response.

  ‘Africa?’

  ‘Missionaries.’ Now he took a gulp of tea.

  ‘Missionaries?’

  ‘Missionaries. Missionaries achieved Africanisation of their own hymnbooks, you know, when they were converting the natives to Christianity.’ He sounded pat, as if he’d held the same discussion many times before.

  ‘I’m not sure I understand.’

  ‘Well, African tribes interpreted our Christian hymns their own way, using the influences of their own music. That’s what I mean. You know…their own ritual music – chants, tri
bal songs – stuff like that.’

  ‘And that was jazz?’

  ‘Not yet. It was just the beginnings.’ He was laughing. She had not seen him laugh like this before; he always seemed so serious; a touch preoccupied maybe.

  Maxine lifted her cup and sipped her tea again, still drawn to his penetrating eyes like a beautiful moth drawn to a night-light.

  ‘You see,’ he went on, ‘African music developed in a way totally differently to our European music. It was less abstract, less aesthetic – do you know what I mean?’ Maxine nodded her increasing understanding. ‘It was more practical, more of a language – a way of communicating – and they could alter its meaning or emotion just by altering the pitch of a note, or changing the inflection in the voice.’

  ‘So it was more functional than music for mere art’s sake?’ She was glad that her interest in his explanations was genuine. ‘Is that what you’re saying?’

  ‘Yes, and more rhythmic. Much more rhythmic. They used what they could lay their hands on for percussion instruments. A stick to beat out a rhythm. On a hollowed out tree trunk, for instance.’

  ‘Yes, of course.’ Maxine had never seriously pondered the roots of jazz before. It was quite intriguing. Brent Shackleton was certainly intriguing.

  Brent puffed more smoke into the room, then drained his cup. ‘Then, when those poor Negroes became victims of the slave trade, these songs – these hymns if you like – evolved into work songs with lyrics to suit the situation. The slave owners encouraged them to sing such songs – apparently they improved the work rate. They weren’t daft, you know. When the slaves were freed, the more musically inclined of them that could afford it got hold of proper instruments. Some got to be brilliant and, because of their own Negro influences – you know, using complicated rhythms and altering notes and sounds by pitch and inflection – jazz evolved.’