The Foreigner

by P. G. Glynn

  “Supposing Charles were the someone and he asked to take you there?”

  “That’s different.”

  “Why is it?”

  “Because, among other things, he’s British like me and would only be taking me away temporarily.”

  “If we went, it need only be temporary. You could return to the British theatre after meeting Mama and seeing Schloss Berger. What are the ‘other things’?”

  “Chiefly the fact that I love him,” Marie admitted, sighing. “I know you were only joking, just now, but I shan’t be anyone’s wife if I can’t be his.”

  “I wouldn’t joke about something as important as marriage. I’m aware that we haven’t known each other long, but I’m completely serious – and you can’t be, Marie, not about any man other than me. I’ve become convinced that you are my destiny.”

  “You’d have a hard task convincing me!”

  He never noticed obstacles normally. They were just there to be removed, but removing Marie’s resistance to him was not, Otto could see, going to be easy. It was certainly looking as if this would take longer than one evening. “I shall succeed,” he told her.

  Marie smiled pityingly.

  How would it feel to be loved by this enchanting creature with eyes as bright as Aurora’s? Whether Greek or Roman, there could be no disputing that she was a goddess and that he had somehow to claim her as his own. He could not rest until he had made her Frau Otto Berger and banished from her head forever any memories she cherished of Charles Brodie. Having never yet failed to convert a ‘no’ into a ‘yes’ he would not contemplate failure, only success.

  Their meal over, Marie was steadier on her feet than she had expected to be. She concluded that Otto’s proposal had had a sobering effect. Being foreign was obviously very different from being British, although he would probably do well in the Bloomsbury Group alongside the likes of Virginia Woolf and Lytton Strachey. They too were Bohemian in outlook and outrageous in their behaviour. Why, last year Mr Strachey had published EMINENT VICTORIANS, debunking the grandeur of Victorian society, and what a furore that had caused! As she headed reasonably steadily toward a somewhat mobile door, she thought of the storm there would be if Marie Howard were to announce tomorrow that she was leaving the Tavistock forthwith to marry Otto Berger and go off with him to his castle in Czechoslovakia. She could see how there could be some merit in such an announcement, not least in watching Charles react to it. But what on earth was she doing, surmising about something so utterly absurd?

  The mobility of the door having – thanks to Otto’s steadying hand on her elbow – failed to trick Marie into walking through the wall, they were soon in the foyer where he suggested: “We could, if you wish, go up to my suite for some more coffee.”

  “I don’t wish! I already have enough food and drink in me to sink a battleship.”

  He grinned, while wondering how it could be that she did not want him. He wanted her so acutely that she must want him, mustn’t she? Yes, she must, he concluded. She just didn’t know it yet. “The night’s still young,” he said. “It’s too soon for it to end.”

  “With your long journey ahead and my need to be fresh for tomorrow’s performance, it isn’t too soon at all. It’s time to go, Otto.”

  “If you say so.”

  As he saw them into their waiting car, Marie asked of the doorman: “Are you married, Herbert?”

  “I am, madam.”

  “And do you and your wife like going to the theatre?”

  “We certainly do, madam, my work permitting.”

  “Which evenings do you have free?”

  “Tuesdays and Sundays on alternate weeks, madam.”

  “As you’re on duty tonight it’ll be easy for me to work out which are your free Tuesdays. So don’t be surprised if in a month or so you receive two tickets for the Tavistock all out of the blue.”

  “I won’t, madam.” Herbert’s eyes registered his delight. For Marie Howard to talk to him as she did and to think of sending him tickets for OLIVER TWIST – well, in his longish life he must have done something right! “Thank you, madam.”

  As the car purred off into the night (the chauffeur having had instructions to take the longest possible route to Marylebone Lane) Otto found that he was even envious of the Claridge’s doorman. “It’s all wrong,” he commented.

  “What is?”

  “That you’re giving tickets to him and not to me.”

  “They wouldn’t be of much use to you, would they? Once you’re back in Bohemia I can’t see you using tickets to see my play.”

  “I shan’t be a fixture there.” Was it his imagination or did Marie flinch? “If I had tickets for OLIVER TWIST I’d make sure that I used them.”

  “It’s best, then, that they’re unobtainable for the time being,” Marie told him. “What time will you be leaving in the morning?”

  “Why? Are you thinking of changing your mind and coming with me?”

  “Don’t be ridiculous! I was just mildly curious.”

  “I’d prefer it if you were wildly curious.”

  “There’s a pity!”

  She didn’t care about his going. She wanted him to go – and the sooner the better, from her tone. Otto said heavily: “The boat-train leaves Liverpool Street station at half-past-eleven.”

  “Leaving the crow out of things, is it a very long journey?”

  “It can be long or short, depending on the route one chooses. Distance in any event is relative, isn’t it?”

  “I suppose so. Which route have you chosen for tomorrow?”

  “The shorter one, via Hamburg – whereas if you were accompanying me we’d travel via Vienna.”

  “Just as well, since I wouldn’t set foot in Germany! And there’s one of my many reasons.” She pointed out of the car window. “All that’s thanks to Kaiser Bill.” They were passing through Piccadilly Circus, where Wilhelm’s bombs had hit shops and restaurants but missed the north-east corner’s disfigurements: unsightly hoardings fixed to a row of miserable homes between Sherwood Street and Shaftesbury Avenue. “I hate him for the damage he did to my country and for killing so many of our men, not least Pa.”

  “Don’t forget,” Otto said gently, “that there were losses on both sides of the war. I shall soon be seeing the damage inflicted by British bombs and discovering how many friends I have left in my old regiment, as well as in general.”

  “But Kaiser Bill started it.”

  “Does that absolve Britain of all blame in the matter? As I see it, there’s no-one wholly to blame and no-one wholly blameless in war. We must both hope that there’ll never be another.”

  “There won’t be,” Marie said confidently. “We’d have to be mad, wouldn’t we, to go through all that again? Have you missed Bohemia?”

  Instead of answering her question he sang softly:

  “‘O mein liebes Riesengebirge

  Wo die Elbe so Heimlich rinnt

  Wo der Ruebezahl mit seinen Zwergen heut noch Sagen und Maerchen spinnt.

  Riesengebirge, deutsches Gebirge,

  Meine liebe Heimat du!’”

  “What were you singing?” asked Marie, feeling a distinct chill as he finished.

  “The song of my mountains,” he told her, knowing suddenly what he must do to win this glorious girl over. “My Giant Mountains.”

  13

  Sarah Hodgkiss thought she was hearing things. Her ears must be playing tricks. Yes, that was it! Nobody was actually singing. No-one would sing that song – not at the Tavistock.

  Everybody in this business knew that it brought bad luck. Why, it was even worse than wearing green or quoting from MACBETH! As for if the Guv’nor was to catch a body doing any of those things, and him in the mood he was in – well, that thought just didn’t bear the thinking.

  Sarah set down her flatiron on its stand and stood listening. She had left Miss Marie’s dressing room door open, the better to take in the big baskets of flowers that had been arriving ever since ear
ly morning. Saved old Ben having to knock when he brought ’em along, that did. There was now enough roses in here to start up a florist’s shop but no message letting on who Miss Marie’s admirer was. Got it bad, he must have, to be spending all this lolly. Sarah reckoned that the cost of just one basket would feed her whole family for several weeks.

  There it came again, the sound of singing – soft and far off but not so soft or far as to stop Sarah hearing: “‘Three blind mice, three blind mice, see how they run, see how they run; they all run after the farmer’s wife … ’”

  It was now Sarah doing the running. Goose pimply she had gone, knowing for sure there was nothing wrong with her ears but that there was a wrong-doer somewhere in this theatre. Much more of that rhyme and the Lord alone knew what terrible misfortune would strike the Tavistock. Where was the singing coming from?

  Sarah followed the sound until she was standing at the foot of the stone steps that led up into the wings. Now there was no doubt where the singer was. But how did she get past Ben and all the way on-stage without being seen? The dresser knew from the singing that the culprit was a ‘she’ … and had a fair idea as to her identity.

  “‘Did you ever see such a thing in your life as three blind mice?’”

  “No, I never did,” Sarah said, hurrying on from the wings with arms akimbo. “What’s all this, Miss Dolly? You’d best come wiv me.”

  “I’m not going anywhere with anybody. I’m staying here, where I should rightfully be. ‘Three blind mice … ’”

  “You lost your rights – threw ’em away, more like.” Sarah spoke sharply but was in fact shocked at the sight of Dolly Martin, who seemed half the size she had been and who she was seeing for the first time in her natural, unmade-up state. Sarah was no reader, but had read a book once that she had never forgotten. SHE, it was called and at its end the heroine went in seconds from the bloom of youth to a shrivelled old crone. She was reminded of this vividly as she looked at Dolly, who was sitting hunched on the bare boards of the stage and who had lost so much weight while gaining a crop of lines, along with grey hairs now that she wasn’t bothering with the dye-bottle. “But it’s no good goin’ over old ground. It’s new ground you should be goin’ for now.”

  “Like hell it is!” Dolly spat the words out with a hint of her old spirit. “You think you know everything, Sarah, and always did but you don’t know the half of it.”

  “P’raps I don’t, but I do know this: you ain’t goin’ nowhere, not wiv your breath stinkin’ of drink.”

  “It’s easy for you to talk. You’ve never been in my position.”

  “True enough, but I can still smell the stink and see what a turn-off it is. Booze is no answer to anythin’.”

  “Maybe it isn’t – but being back here and doing my darnedest to bring bad luck to Charles and his bitch is! I’m not letting them get away with it. They did the dirty on me and must pay – she must, especially, the scheming no-good little harpy.”

  “You’re just sinkin’ in self-pity, Miss Dolly. Where’s the sense in that when you could be out there gettin’ on wiv things?”

  “There’s nothing to get on with! Since those two gave me the heave-ho no management wants to know Dolly Martin. It’s as if I’m jinxed. And it’s all thanks to that … that strumpet old Charles Brodie is so obsessed with.”

  “It isn’t all Miss Marie’s doin’. You just feel better for pretending it is. You’d slacked off latterly and stopped bein’ the actress you once ’ad been, almost as if … your ’eart wasn’t in it, which sets me wonderin’.”

  “Wondering what, Sarah?” Dolly snapped at her.

  “There’s no need to be snappy with me, specially not when I’m thinkin’. And what I’m thinkin’ is … if actin’ isn’t where your ’eart is, then where is it?”

  “I’ve always been an actress,” a slightly mystified Dolly said. “That’s what I am.”

  “But it isn’t what you have to be – not if it’s no longer what you want. Certainly it isn’t where the big money is.”

  “Big money?” echoed Dolly, attentive suddenly.

  “Yes. You’ve a brain ’idden somewhere in that thick ’ead – or did ’ave, till it was addled by drink. Maybe it isn’t too late for some unaddlin’ and usin’ of it … in management.”

  “Management? And what are you suggesting that I manage, for God’s sake, when I can’t even remember what day it is?”

  “You’d ’ave to work on your memory a bit … and ease right off the gin. Drink mixed wiv self-pity is a mixture you can’t afford – not if you’re goin’ to move on, leavin’ the past where it belongs. First, o’course, you’ve got to want to move on and make a new start. We can complain as much as we like that the fates aren’t kind, but we make our own misfortune to my mind … and our own good fortune. Words are just words but it’s actions that change the world – and, to work, actions ’ave to ’ave want behind ’em. First will it, Miss Dolly, then act to make it ’appen.”

  “Make what happen?” Dolly demanded irritably. “Stop talking in riddles, Sarah, and say whatever it is you’re saying so long-windedly.”

  “I’m sayin’ that if you’re the woman I think you might be, then you should be doin’ the hirin’ … and firin’ … ’stead of bein’ on the receivin’ end of it. There’s a future for you, or could be, in theatrical management unless I’m off my ’ead. I can just see you managin’ things, if you’ve got what it takes to get off the road you’re on – which is the road to ruin, as you well know, deep down.”

  “Maybe it is … but it isn’t as easy as you think, to get off the drink.”

  “Did I say I thought it was easy? No, I didn’t. But what is easy, that’s worth anything? It’s the ’ard roads what get folk to where they’re goin’.”

  “I can’t get through a day without it.”

  “Can’t … or won’t?”

  “Perhaps a bit of both. I’ve reached rock-bottom, Sarah … and I’m deep in debt.”

  “’ow deep?”

  “Deeper than you can imagine.”

  “So you came back ’oping to spread your bad luck about a bit?”

  “I’ll do a sight more than hope.”

  “It was you, I suppose, what wrote to Mrs Brodie?”

  Dolly laughed humourlessly. “Yes, for all the good that did me! Charles must be besotted with his trollop to throw caution to the winds so uncharacteristically.”

  “It’s that what ’urts worst,” said Sarah, patting Dolly’s shoulder.

  “What is?”

  “The fact that you wanted ’im … and couldn’t ’ave ’im.”

  “Who says I did?”

  “It never needed sayin’. It was there in your face.”

  “It can’t have been!”

  “Nothin’ escapes me … and nothin’ surprises me, neither. But I’ll tell you this: you’re a whole lot better off as you are than ’ead over ’eels in love wiv a married man like Miss Marie is. That’ll all end in tears without you assistin’, you see if it doesn’t. The man ’as the pleasure, the woman the pain – that’s the way of these things. Your best bet, take it from old Sarah, is to leave ’em to it and think just of you for a bit. Start thinkin’ of ’ow to climb back out of the ’ole you’re in and to go on climbin’ till you’re on top again.”

  “How can you be so certain she’s going to get her just deserts?”

  “That isn’t ’ow I described ’em.”

  “Call it what you will. What makes you think … ?”

  “Never mind that.” Sarah interrupted brusquely. “It’s none of your business, added to which I’ve already said a mite too much. Take it from me, Miss Dolly, you’re doin’ yourself no favours fillin’ your ’ead wiv Miss Marie when you could be fillin’ it with ways and means of betterin’ yourself.”

  “I can’t seem to think of anything except getting even with her … and with him. Nobody crosses me and gets away with it.”

  “P’raps not, but at the minute it’s you, not the
m, gettin’ the thin end of things … and that’s ’ow it’ll be till the good Lord in His wisdom steps in to even things up a bit.”

  “You must be mad, at your age, still believing in Him!”

  “We’d all be in a pretty pickle but for Him, I’ll tell you that for nowt.”

  “I’m in a pretty enough pickle as it is.”

  “At least you can see a way out.”

  “Management, you mean?” Dolly shook her head. “No, Sarah, that isn’t for me.”

  “So I was wrong in thinkin’ you was tired of learnin’ lines and bein’ bossed about by managers?”

  “I am a bit tired of all that,” Dolly admitted, “and heartily sick of being treated like a nonentity. That’s how everybody’s been treating me since Miss Too-Clever-By-Half Marie Howard ousted me. She saw to it good and proper that after I went from here doors were closed on me faster than you could say ‘pigswill’.”

  “You’re at it again.”

  “At what?”

  “Wallowin’ in self-pity. That’s got to stop, along of the gin. Miss Marie hasn’t been seein’ to anything except playin’ her part and … ”

  “ … warming Charles’s bed. Whoever would have believed he could be fool enough to fall for such a little witch?”

  “I’m not listening to any more of this.”

  As Sarah turned on her heel Dolly pleaded: “Don’t go! You’re my only hope. Tell me how to put my foot on the management ladder.”

  “I’ve already told you. Once you’ve taken the first steps, you’ll work out the rest for yourself.”

  “If you mean stopping the drink and the brooding, I don’t know how to begin. They’re habits I can’t seem to shift.”

  “Along with not caring a fig ’ow you look?”

  “That too,” Dolly agreed ruefully.

  “My advice is to go straight home and put your armour on. The Dolly I once knew would never be seen wivout her face painted and her hair hennaed. Oh, and if you was to spend on food ’stead of drink, you’d soon put some flesh back on those bones! Soon as you look better you’ll feel better and then you’ll be surprised by the ideas pourin’ into your head.” Sarah saw from the clock at the back of the auditorium that it had gone one and not for the first time wondered how it was that she and Dolly still had the theatre to themselves. Gerald Atkins and Mr Carlysle were normally both here by now - unless they were here and hidin’ till she had dealt with Dolly. Men were such cowards when the chips were down. Then there was the fact that, today being Monday, the week could be off to a slow start as weeks often were. Whatever was going on, Dolly must be got out of here. “As to money – ’ow much d’you need altogether, to tide you over?”