Rags to Riches

by Nancy Carson

  ‘I tried to telephone you today at work,’ Eleanor said when he arrived back home in Selwyn Road. She was sitting on a settee in the drawing room with her stockinged feet tucked under her bottom. ‘Percy told me you hadn’t been there at all. You didn’t tell me you weren’t going to work.’

  He grabbed the evening newspaper and sat down on the opposite settee. ‘I’ve been out,’ he said in a way that would normally inhibit further questioning, but with a twist of tone that made further questioning essential.

  She paused before she asked, for she sensed she was being led into a trap. Yet she could not resist.

  ‘Doing what?’

  He opened the newspaper, trying to remain casual. ‘Digging.’

  ‘Oh yes? Digging for what? Gold?’

  He found a wonderful irony in her comment. ‘Not gold…I did find it, though, as it happens.’ he said, thinking of Cassandra.

  ‘Bully for you, Stephen.’

  ‘Yes. Bully for me.’ He peered around the newspaper at her and looked her in the eye. ‘Not bully for you, though, I’m afraid…Olive.’

  At once she turned away. ‘Olive?’ she queried and emitted a derisory laugh.

  ‘Yes. I have to get used to thinking of you as Olive from now on…But not for long, fortunately.’

  ‘Who the hell is Olive, for God’s sake?’

  ‘You are.’

  ‘What on earth are you talking about, Stephen? Has the sun got to you and addled your brain?’

  ‘Very likely it has, but maybe not as much as it’s addled yours.’ He put down the newspaper. ‘Actually, I’ve been to Chipping Camden today…Lovely place, isn’t it? It’s amazing what people there remember of you, Olive, and your brother.’

  She looked at him anxiously and got up from the settee. He watched her as she went to the occasional table and fiddled with the arrangement of dried flowers she’d had delivered from Lewis’s two weeks earlier.

  ‘Okay,’ she responded at last. ‘So who told you?’

  ‘A couple of people actually. It doesn’t really matter who. It was just a question of putting two and two together…’

  ‘So now you know…’ She sighed, then shrugged, almost as if it was of no significance. ‘So what?’

  ‘So what?’ He could hardly believe her arrogance, her obvious lack of shame. It made him angry, but he did not want to get angry. With anger, you lose self-control and he wanted to retain his. He wanted to remain in charge of this discussion, this final discussion. He breathed in deeply and assumed control again of his emotions. ‘You have been having a revolting, disgusting, incestuous affair with your vile brother all these years, and you have the audacity to say, so what? God! You’re unbelievable, Olive.’ He almost said Eleanor, but corrected himself in time.

  ‘Yes. I say, so what? It’s over now. It doesn’t matter anymore.’

  ‘Is that what you really think? You really think it doesn’t matter?’

  ‘It’s over, Stephen. Finished. History. Anyway, since when have you been such a Puritan?’

  ‘Since I discovered that such immoral, perverted behaviour could actually exist. That’s when I suddenly became a Puritan.’

  She shrugged again.

  He shook his head in disbelief. ‘You feel no remorse, do you, Olive? You have no concept of contrition.’

  ‘Don’t look at me like that. Of course I feel remorse. Why do you think I wanted to keep my identity from you?’

  He sighed deeply and sat back in the settee, drained of emotion. He had faced her with the truth and he felt relieved for having got it off his chest. But he had more to do and he did not relish having to do it, since it was entirely contrary to his nature.

  ‘Olive…’ He still found it awkward trying to call her by her real name. ‘Olive, it’s all over between us. It has to be. I can’t go on as we have been and I suspect you wouldn’t want to. I can’t condone what you’ve done. Ever. You can’t imagine the distaste, the…the revulsion I feel. I want you to leave. I want you to go now. You could go back to the house you and he shared…There’s a bed there.’

  ‘There’s a bed here, Stephen. Our bed…’ Her voice changed to the kittenish tone that always elicited a positive response from him. ‘Oh, take me to bed, Stephen and let’s forget this nonsense. Come and make love to me. I’m all wet for you. I’ve been aching for you all day.’

  He gritted his teeth and thought of Cassandra. ‘Forget it, Olive. You don’t think I’d want to touch you now, do you? Pack your things and go. Tonight. Now…I want you to go now.’

  ‘Now? Why now, for God’s sake?’ She was indignant again.

  ‘Just collect your things together and go. I’ll take you there.’

  ‘Go? Just like that? How can I possibly? I haven’t got any money.’

  Of course, she wanted money and he despised her the more. Well, she could have money. She could have all the money he had in the house, which was a decent amount.

  ‘There’s about two hundred pounds upstairs. You can have it. I’ll get it for you, gladly. Take it. Then get out.’

  ‘Two hundred pounds?’ Her eyes signalled her approval. ‘Show me the money first.’

  Olive left that night. Stephen delivered her to the house in Handsworth, as he gallantly promised he would. The bed was still upstairs, and a table and chairs in the kitchen. She felt utterly humiliated that Stephen had discovered her identity and the scandalous secret that she and Brent had shared over the years. Of course, she knew it had been an unhealthy, perverted relationship, but obsession makes you overlook the morals of such an incestuous liaison that others might find offensive – and she had been obsessed. She loved Brent, not like a brother, but like a lover. She could never get enough of him.

  She still craved for those obsessive, lusty hours of deranged passion that she and Brent had shared, if she was honest with herself. There had been nothing like it since, and was unlikely to be anything like it again…Unless…Well, now she had two hundred pounds…

  The following week, Stephen received another of Pansy’s monthly letters.

  My dear beloved brother, (He knew she was being sarcastic.)

  In less than a week we fly – yes fly, can you believe it – to Hollywood to record two new songs and perform them in a film they’re making about Chicago gangsters called “The Loop Mob”. I must say, when we were in Chicago we saw no sign of any gangsters, but I know some of the clubs were run by them – a throwback from the Prohibition days and speakeasies, I guess.

  I’m a bit worried that people in the band don’t seem to be getting along as well as they used to. Maxine and me are fine together, and so is Toots and me, but Kenny’s gone all funny and seems sozzled most of the time. Dulcie, his American girlfriend, has finished with him as well. She’s ever such a nice person and she’s best off without him, that’s for certain. Just lately, Charlie, who plays the double bass, has been seeing her and that’s put jealousy between him and Kenny, just to make matters worse. So now Ginger Tolley has palled up with Kenny and Brent and nobody will have anything to do with them anymore socially. The only time we see them is when we play or rehearse, and at rehearsals there’s sometimes a terrible atmosphere and rows. Pity really. We have the chance to make all this money and they’re all jeopardising it by being stupid. The problem is, as I see it, the two drunks in the band don’t know how to cope with the success we’ve had and all the money we’ve made. Toots calls them coke blowers because they sniff cocaine and smoke something I can’t spell.

  Something else. It was supposed to be secret, but I’m going to tell you anyway, Stephen because I know you’ll be interested and I know you’ll keep it to yourself. Maxine and Brent got married in June. It was a civic ceremony and very hush-hush, but we had a lovely party afterwards in one of the posh hotels here in New York. The problem is, Maxine is very unhappy. It just hasn’t worked out. And so soon after they got married as well. She reckons Brent’s been trying to bleed her of all the money she’s accumulated since we got here. She’s made
a lot more than the rest of us because of royalties from her writing songs, not that I begrudge it her. She’s earned it. Anyway, at least she’s had the good sense to shift what’s left so he can’t get his hands on it anymore. Maxine says he’s drunk most of the time or doped on all those illegal narcotics and he’s in with a right crowd of wrong-uns, going off with other women and everything, Toots says. Some of the things they’ve been up to I couldn’t bring myself to write down. Maxine doesn’t know and I’ve been in two minds whether to tell her, but I decided against it. She’s got enough on her plate right now and she despises Brent anyway. I feel ever so sorry for her. All the time now she’s moping over that guy she used to court back home, Howard, the vicar. Do you remember him? He was a nice guy and they suited each other, I reckon. It was rotten of him not to write to her though when he moved to a different part of the country. She married Brent on the rebound and now she regrets it bitterly. Anyway, she’s stuck with him. More’s the pity I say. And him turning out to be such a swine as well. I’d kill him if he were mine.

  I hope Eleanor is OK and that you are treating her well. Don’t let her read this letter, though, as I’ve said such horrible things about Brent. Although, on second thoughts she might agree with me. After all, I suppose she knows Brent as well as anybody, and she left him, didn’t she.

  Well, I must close now, Stephen, as we are due to practise in a little while. Give my love to Mom and Dad if you see them, although I shall be writing to them as well in a day or two.

  Lots of love,

  Pansy.

  Stephen read the letter again; the relevant bit; just to be sure he’d read it right. Brent had married Maxine and the scoundrel, who patently did not deserve her, was making her life a misery.

  Maybe it was time he helped his erstwhile girlfriend. He could not bear to think of her being grossly unhappy with that out-and-out swine when she truly did not deserve it.

  Besides, he could help her.

  He felt obliged to help.

  In Hollywood, filming of The Owls and the Pussycats’ contribution to The Loop Mob went according to schedule and the director was happy that ‘it was in the can’. Maxine enjoyed the experience of working with movie people and appreciated the effort that went into the making of a film. Everything had to be perfect, else whatever it was they were working on had to be done over and over. She had seen the first prints of the speakeasy scenes where she performed the two songs and listened to Duke Ellington’s arrangement and her rendering of ‘Does He Ever Think of Me’.

  Maxine was happy with the song and with the arrangement. The realism of the set they had constructed also struck her, and the atmosphere they’d created reminded her of the Onyx Club in New York. She looked good too, and she sounded good; as did the rest of the band.

  So they returned to New York satisfied they had done a good job. None of them enjoyed the flights greatly. The novelty of flying soon wore off by virtue of the unexpected discomforts, although it was interesting to see America as it swept slowly beneath them for the long daylight hours they seemed to hang suspended in the air. They arrived back in New York on 12th September, a Sunday, with a few days off to recover before a week of appearances at the Open Door Club on Fifty-second Street.

  Brent and Maxine had occupied adjoining rooms in their Los Angeles hotel for the duration of the filming, although intimacy between them belonged to the past. Following Maxine’s stand on the hiring of Fletcher Henderson and Duke Ellington to do the arrangements for her songs, contact had remained cool but relatively civil. Brent, not unexpectedly, complained that the arrangements were weak, that the trombone line did not give him scope to show his capabilities, but everybody else seemed perfectly content. The film crew enthused over the songs and forecast sure-fire hits. In Los Angeles they went to parties, Brent and Maxine, entering as a happy smiling couple who were deemed to be in love. During those times, there did seem to be some accord, certainly enough to fool their hosts, other guests, and the gossip columnists too. But they were celebrities and it was a bluff. In private, the cold aloofness returned, and God knows what Brent got up to in Los Angeles when she was asleep in bed.

  The band too, was indeed divided into two camps by this time. Nobody was openly hostile but the atmosphere was strained. The camaraderie and banter they used to enjoy before their success, was gone. Maxine seemed to have a foot in both camps by virtue of her relationship with Brent, although it was less complicated than that in reality. As far as she was concerned, Brent and Kenny could go jump off a skyscraper if they wanted. Dulcie, diplomatically, kept away from the band and their performances, which limited the time she could be with Charlie. Charlie consequently had mentioned to Maxine that he was thinking of resigning so he could spend more time with Dulcie. It all seemed to be falling apart.

  Well, Maxine was sceptical about that. He and Dulcie had not been together long enough to consider giving up his career for her. So, next day, Monday, she telephoned Dulcie. She wanted somebody to talk to and this seemed a plausible excuse.

  ‘Maxine! How was Hollywood?’

  ‘Great.’

  ‘Oh, wonderful. How’s Brent?’

  ‘Absolutely irrelevant. Have you heard from Charlie yet?’

  ‘Yes, I’m seeing him tonight.’

  ‘Not till tonight? Good. Dulcie, I want to talk to you. Is there somewhere we can go? Maybe we can play tourists. Is there somewhere I haven’t been yet?’

  ‘The Statue of Liberty?’

  ‘That sounds good. And maybe we can have lunch somewhere afterwards.’

  ‘Sure. Shall I meet you in the Plaza lobby?’

  ‘In about an hour? It’ll take me till then to look decent.’

  So Maxine told Brent she would be out all day and, wearing a lightweight navy Chanel suit, went down to the opulent lobby to wait for Dulcie. She sat in a sumptuous settee and looked around at the classic pillars picked out in gold leaf. A huge glass chandelier hung sparkling from the elaborate Renaissance ceiling. Only six months ago she wouldn’t have dreamt she would ever stay in a place like this. Maxine heard the click of high-heels approaching her on the marble floor and turned to see Dulcie standing and smiling at her, wearing a bright yellow day dress that vied with her blonde hair but complimented her blue eyes. The two girls admired each other’s daywear and stepped outside, where a concierge hailed a cab that took them to Battery Park and the ferry terminal. They queued like tourists and it was while they were on the ferry to Bedloe’s Island and the huge bronze Liberty monument that Maxine steered the conversation to Dulcie and Charlie.

  ‘How’s it going with you two?’

  ‘Charlie and me? Oh, he’s sweet. He’s so different to Kenny. So reserved, so unassuming. Kenny’s so blustery - like a gale-force wind. Charlie’s like a gentle breeze.’

  ‘Are you in love with him, Dulcie?’

  ‘With Charlie? Heck, I don’t know about that, Maxine. I like him. He’s a real nice guy. He’d make somebody a decent husband, that’s for sure.’

  ‘Do you think you were ever in love with Kenny?’

  Seagulls screeched overhead, following the ferry, swooping for scraps of bread that the breeze caught, chucked up for them by enthusiastic children, fascinated that seagulls could be so clever as to catch them in mid air.

  ‘Looking back, I don’t think I ever was,’ Dulcie replied. ‘Something always held me back – his being married, I guess. And I was never confident of his ability or willingness to be faithful…Don’t get me wrong, Maxine, I enjoyed being with him. He made me laugh. He taught me a thing or two about sex, too, I can tell you, and I loved it. But was I in love with him? I’m not so sure. Then, when you told me he had a son…’

  ‘Dulcie, did you know Charlie’s considering giving up the band so’s he can spend more time with you?’

  ‘No,’ she answered simply. ‘And I hope he doesn’t. That would be crazy.’

  ‘Thank you. I just thought I should let you know. Perhaps you should have a word with him. Reassure him
. I reckon it’s jealousy over Kenny.’

  ‘He doesn’t have to be jealous over Kenny. Hell!’

  ‘Doesn’t he?’ Maxine chuckled. ‘After what you’ve just told me, I’m not so sure.’

  ‘Sex isn’t everything, Maxine,’ Dulcie replied in all seriousness.

  ‘No? Try telling that to somebody who’s not getting any.’

  ‘You mean you?’ Dulcie regarded her friend thoughtfully. She had learnt to read her well. ‘You’re still grieving over Howard, aren’t you?’

  Maxine nodded and Dulcie witnessed Maxine’s eyes fill with tears. ‘I could kick myself, Dulcie,’ she said, her voice breaking up. ‘I had the best man in the world and I let him slip through my fingers. I must have been mad…God! I must have been stark, staring mad…’

  ‘He sure as hell struck every note on your keyboard, huh? Why not just go back to him?’

  Maxine sighed. She looked down over the rail at the water as it surged along the side of the ferryboat’s prow and, reminded of being aboard the Queen Mary, enjoyed the wind in her hair.

  ‘I’m a married woman, Dulcie – or had it slipped your mind? And he’s a vicar in the Church of England. And ne’er the twain shall meet…’

  ‘But if you were divorced…’

  ‘Especially if I was divorced. Being divorced in England is regarded as worse than being a murderer – especially by the Church. The stigma! Just look what happened to Edward VIII over Mrs Simpson – and he was King. Besides, there’s the band to think of – I have responsibilities to the band.’

  ‘Pity some of the band don’t share your conscientiousness…’

  ‘In any case, Dulcie, it’s obvious Howard didn’t want me. He never wrote, remember.’

  ‘I know. That’s too bad. And I’m so sorry.’

  ‘Not half as sorry as me…’ She shielded her eyes as she turned and looked out towards Bedloe’s Island. ‘You know, that’s a hell of a statue, Dulcie.’

  ‘Do you want to go to the top? The whole thing is more than three hundred feet high and you’d have to climb more than three hundred and fifty steps.’