The Foreigner

by P. G. Glynn

  +++++

  Marie stood outside Charles’s door on the ground floor and could barely credit that she had passed it by, twice, not knowing he was inside. An hour had elapsed since Nell’s bombshell – an hour during which Marie had wavered between wanting to see Charles and wanting to run from him and from London. The dream wherein Nancy was embraced again by Bill was one thing. It was quite another to face the reality of Marie Howard, almost a quarter-century on from the Tavistock, reuniting with Charles Brodie – a very different Charles, apparently, from the one Marie had known long ago.

  And yet, standing with just a door between her and him, there was something achingly familiar in how she was feeling. Logic told her that the two doors were not even similar, while her heart was beating to another tune altogether. Her heart had her back at the Tavistock Theatre, standing outside Charles’s office before entering and offering herself to him. She had offered herself both professionally and personally and as a consequence had briefly experienced rapture unmatched since. Thanks to him she had existed for a while in a state of total bliss … before descending into the hell of having to live without him. So, mindful of both the heaven and the hell, she could face whatever lay ahead. She could knock on the door of the present and then …

  “Come!”

  Marie heard the rich timbre of his voice and entered. The big room was as dark as if the blackout blinds were down, though they weren’t. She observed that the window was heavily curtained. She also saw, as her eyes adjusted to the dim light, a number of portraits on the wall. She had seen these before, on another wall in another era, although there was one – facing her from above the fireplace – that was new to her. Larger than the others, and framed more ornately, the oil painting depicted the face of a girl. Marie might not know the portrait but she knew the face, for it was hers before the intervention of so many years.

  “Marie?”

  She turned. He had risen from his armchair and was facing her with a look of concern. Slightly stooped, he wore a cravat at the neck of a dark shirt and his grey hair curled as before over his collar. He was older, obviously, just as she was but at the sight of him her heart lurched to an unsettling degree. What was his heart doing … how did he feel? “Yes, Charles,” she answered. “It’s me.”

  He was not Bill. She saw clearly that he was Dombey. And in that moment she was Florence more than she was Nancy. She was Florence who after trial and tribulation had come home to him. His “Ah!” was a sigh that echoed over to her, giving her feet wings. There was no awareness of the space between them vanishing. Suddenly, though, there was no space and she could feel as well as hear his breathing. She could also feel the touch of his hand as, in wonder, it brushed her neck and then the contours of her face. Both hands now were cupping her chin, lifting it in readiness for him to find her lips. As his mouth found them, meeting in the gentlest kiss, his arms wrapped themselves around her and hers around him. And so they stood, there in the moment, the past of no more consequence than the future since there was only now … only this.

  +++++

  Charles marvelled at the knowledge that Marie still loved him. It made no sense that she did, after the way he had behaved, but he had gone beyond believing that her chief feelings were of pity. Before her arrival from Monmouthshire he had feared they would be. He had also feared their first meeting and doubted whether he would be able to contain his feelings. These had almost overwhelmed him after Nell mentioned that Marie was coming on a visit.

  Over the years he had suffered such guilt over her, and such anguish over robbing West End audiences of the talent that had lit his stage for those heady months in 1919, that the prospect of being near her again had sent him into a ferment. Added to that had been the fact that until her first letter reached Nell he had thought her still to be in Czechoslovakia, where absolutely anything could have happened to her under Nazi occupation. She might have died, for all he knew, or been sent to one of those terrible camps one heard about. But, as ever, she had done the unexpected and been somewhere other than where Nell or he had imagined her being.

  Charles smiled to himself. In dealings with Marie it was still best to expect the unexpected. Since her return to his heart and arms, he had encouraged her to tell him about her long exile … and about Carla. Not that she had needed too much encouraging! Marie was a born storyteller and he – when she was speaking – an avid listener.

  So he now felt almost as if he had known their little daughter. He had known already from Nell of Carla’s untimely death, but not the manner of it. Had divine retribution been at work on their precious girl? Whether it had or it hadn’t, Marie had borne the brunt of Carla’s loss and Charles had once again been absent when most needed. He couldn’t think how he was able to live with the degree of his absenteeism … the degree of his weakness in facing up to things and dealing with them responsibly.

  He bore the burden of guilt, which was at times inexpressibly heavy, but other than this – compared to Marie – he had escaped scot-free. He sighed.

  “Why are you sighing?” she asked. They were walking arm-in-arm in Richmond Park where, he was ashamed to admit, he had never walked before. “Am I not describing the scenery adequately?”

  Realising that he had been too preoccupied with his thoughts to listen as he usually did, Charles admitted: “Apologies. I was thinking more than listening. But I’ve never yet faulted your descriptive powers. When I’m with you, hearing is every bit as good as seeing, except … ”

  “Yes?”

  He turned towards her, his eyes trying to penetrate the fog across his vision, and said: “I just sometimes wish I could see – actually see – you again. Even once would be enough.”

  “Thanks very much!” she responded, as if in a huff.

  “I meant … ”

  “I know,” Marie said. “I do know. We haven’t discussed it, have we – your blindness, I mean? We’ve skirted around it as if wasn’t an issue … and it isn’t, at least for me. In fact, from a purely selfish standpoint, it’s a blessing.” She felt him stiffen and added quickly: “You see, on my train to Paddington I suddenly panicked. Uncertain, then, as to the identity of the old friend Nell had mentioned in her letter – although I hoped against hope it was you … ”

  “Did you?” he butted in. “Did you truly?”

  “Truly and hugely! It’s astonishing, isn’t it, how despite all the years and all the water under all the bridges, the feelings are still there?”

  “‘Astonishing’ is one word,” he responded. “I can think of others.”

  “Such as?”

  They had stood still and now were walking again, clasping hands instead of arms. “The best one, for me, is miraculous. It seems nothing short of a miracle, my Marie, that you are as you are despite the life you’ve lived … despite the way I failed you back in the beginning. I’ve regretted my behaviour from that day to this and time after time agonised over whether I could ever hope for your forgiveness. I didn’t dare hope that you might be more than forgiving. To discover that you still feel … love … is … almost too much.”

  Marie saw tears spill onto his cheeks and these moved her immeasurably. Cupping his beloved face with her hands she drew him to her, kissing his eyelids and the dampness beneath. She whispered: “I’d started to tell you of my panic on the train. That happened because I wanted you to remember me forever as I was in 1919. The present is more precious than the past because we’re together again, but when I realised that you couldn’t see how I’d aged I felt … relieved. Is that terrible of me?”

  “Not in terms of how it makes me feel, my darling Marie. Having feared your pity, it comes as a profound relief to know of your true feelings ... even,” he smiled, “if these are rooted in vanity!”

  They were passing a reassuringly formidable array of anti-aircraft guns manned by attendant soldiers in sandbag-lined enclosures. Glad to see his smile, Marie told him: “Too many home-truths and I’ll get them to turn the ack-acks on you! They’re virtual
ly surrounding us now and do nothing for the Park’s ambiance. Shall we head into town and hunt down a cup of tea?”

  +++++

  Seated opposite each other in Lyons, where they had just queued for two cups of tea and a bread roll each, Charles tentatively broached a subject he had been trying not to dwell on: “Dare I ask … how long we have? I mean, do you have … future plans?”

  Marie grimaced. “There’s a saying, isn’t there, along the lines of ‘When man makes plans, God laughs?’ I know that whenever I’ve made any I’ve almost heard His laughter. So … I’ve nothing planned.” She reached across the table for his hand, adding: “That is, except to spend as long as possible together – assuming you want that too?”

  “Oh, my Marie,” he groaned, “you know I do! I can never have enough of you. We can’t have back the time we’ve lost. That has gone. But we can make the most of having found each other again. I just wish I had more to offer in a material sense. It’s all wrong that I can’t offer you financial security, along with … ”

  She put a finger to his lips. “I’ve had that,” she told him. “With Otto I had everything I ever wanted materially, as well as plenty that I didn’t especially want.” She paused awhile before saying softly: “He wasn’t you, though, so … something vital was missing, despite his having done his best to be a good husband in many respects.”

  “What if the war ends tomorrow and Otto comes to claim you?”

  “I’m not a piece of lost property! And I’m not interested in ‘what ifs’. All that interests me, currently, is living in the present and forgetting there’s anything else.”

  “There’s one thing that we shouldn’t forget,” he said, “indeed that I can’t forget.”

  His expression and tone were so intense that Marie was alarmed. “What’s that?” she asked.

  “Your talent as an actress,” he answered. “Foremost among my regrets is the fact that through my irresponsible actions I robbed audiences of the rapture of seeing Marie Howard perform. I can forgive myself even less for that than for … other matters. But I could rectify the wrong to some extent, if I could help you … make a comeback.”

  She was startled. “Professionally, you mean?”

  “Certainly!” His hand tightened its clasp on hers. “It isn’t too late, my Marie. It can never be too late for an actress of your calibre to reclaim her rightful place on the stage. Just look at how you were received recently in Wales!”

  She had told him, in passing, about the Clydach concert. Now she said pensively: “It’s rather a leap from a Welsh Welfare Hall to the West End. I don’t think … ”

  “You did it before,” he butted in.

  “That was then. I had more energy in 1919 – more joie de vivre. And let’s face it, Charles, I was young!”

  “You’re still young enough,” he insisted. “My darling, you could do it – I know you could, especially with a little input from Judith.”

  “Who?”

  “Guy’s wife. In his absence she’s running their drama school and … and, with all her contacts, she’s just the person to help you.”

  48

  Marie and Charles were the talk of 28 Dalmeny Avenue just as they were once the talk of the Tavistock. And, as they had been in 1919, they were oblivious to all the gossip.

  Nell was happy for them, but wished she could stop worrying about her friend. It seemed as if her destiny was always to worry about Marie. She supposed that some people were just worriers, while others got on with things heedless of possible consequences. Perhaps she should simply accept that she belonged in the first category and Marie very definitely in the second …

  Nell marvelled that last night after an air-raid siren Marie and Charles, emerging from his room together in a state of undress to join her and the other residents in her Anderson Shelter, showed no embarrassment whatsoever. They were quite unconcerned with the nudges and knowing winks directed at them from Nell’s old-timers. Well, they would be, wouldn’t they, with their love as fresh as if they had never been separated? That love was a pleasure to see – or would be, but for the wagging tongues and the fact that Marie had a husband who also loved her.

  It might be, as Marie often said, that Otto was dead but it might equally be that he was alive and looking to the day when he could be reunited with his wife. Nell could not imagine what would happen when and if that day arrived. Nor could she bear to think about how Otto might feel on finding that Marie and Charles were back where they were when OLIVER TWIST was at the height of its acclaim. For them the years had simply rolled away. It was as if there had been no time in between - no life, other than their current one.

  Nell was awed at Marie’s ability to live in the present and to forget anything – or anyone - she felt was best forgotten. She wished that she, too, could forget Otto.

  “Are you peeved with me?” Marie asked. “And if you are, is it because I’m outstaying my welcome?”

  “Of course not!” Nell answered. They were up in the den, where she had come at her friend’s invitation. Time alone with Marie was especially precious these days. “How could you outstay a welcome that’s never-ending?”

  “Bless you for that! Thank you too for not seeming to mind that so much of my time is spent with Charles. Or,” she frowned, “is that what’s bothering you?”

  “No … and yes, but not in the sense you’re suggesting. I’m glad to see you so happy. It’s just that … ”

  “ … Charles and I are turning your home into a house of disrepute?”

  Marie had asked her question with a smile and Nell could not stop herself smiling too. “You’ve certainly sent tongues into over-drive again, but I’d expect nothing less of you!”

  “So … ?”

  “I worry about Otto.”

  “There’s no need.”

  “How do you mean?”

  “Knowing you as I do, I imagine that within your worries is a picture of a loving husband leading a celibate life and dreaming of the day when he’ll be reunited with his wife.” Seeing from Nell’s expression that she was right, Marie smiled. “At the risk of disillusioning you, I’d better mention that you are not in tune with the true Otto – the one who almost certainly slept with his sister-in-law while I was expecting Carla and who currently, if still alive, will very definitely be unfaithful to me. Does that help to lessen your worries?”

  Shocked beyond speech, Nell nodded. When able, she said: “He couldn’t have slept with Lenka … could he?”

  “You’re right to select her instead of Anna … and yes, he could have. With hindsight, I’ve often felt that that’s what helped to tip her over the edge. She loved him, you see, and wanted his baby. Lenka was insanely jealous of me and of the fact I was pregnant, little knowing that Charles was the father. One day they went skiing together and afterwards their behaviour was … revealing, to say the least.”

  “But people … can’t make love on skis, can they?”

  “Perhaps they can, perhaps they can’t,” Marie shrugged. “Personally, I never tried it. I did discover, though, without trying, that the friends they were meant to be visiting that day were away … and that Lenka had a key to their cabin. She told me so in an attempt to stir things between Otto and me – an attempt that didn’t succeed as I didn’t love him enough to feel jealousy.”

  “Crikey!” Nell reflected for a moment. “That puts a different complexion on things. I suppose that, compared to you, I’ve lived a very sheltered life – one which doesn’t equip me to comprehend the kind of lives lived elsewhere. I must stop judging, mustn’t I, and worrying about a situation that will probably never arise?”

  “Worry’s a waste of time,” Marie said crisply. “So now tell me, Nell, how this sounds to you: what would you say if I told you I was considering a return, at my age, to the professional stage?”

  Nell gaped. “I’d say: since when, in your thinking, has age had anything to do with anything?”

  “So you wouldn’t think I’d gone potty?”
>
  “Would it make any difference if I did?”

  “Not a bit!”

  +++++

  Meeting Judith came as quite a surprise, showing Marie she must have had a number of preconceptions about Guy’s wife. She wryly supposed that as he had once proposed to her she had imagined he might now be married to someone similar. Instead, Judith was big-boned and wore a tweed suit with brogues. Her nondescript brown hair was cropped short and her handclasp, as Charles introduced Marie to her in Nell’s spacious drawing room, was astonishingly robust.

  “Why are we standing on ceremony?” Judith asked once the greetings were over. “Let’s sit, shall we?”

  They sat in comfortable, if shabby, chairs grouped around the fireplace where hungry flames devoured the logs Maggie had just fed to them. Marie was seated beside Charles on the big chintzy settee, with Judith opposite in front of the grand piano that Nell often played to entertain her residents. Conscious of Judith’s close scrutiny and fairly sure that this went further than a professional appraisal of her potential as an actress, Marie said: “It’s still sinking in that little Guy is now a man with a wife and family! How is he? Have you heard from him recently?”

  “Not since he was last home on leave. All I know is that he’s somewhere out there on the sea, doing his bit for Britain.” She looked from Marie to Charles, then back to Marie. “How about you? Is your husband doing his bit too?”

  “I expect so.”

  “You don’t know?”

  “No, I don’t. Otto and I have had no contact for years.”

  “Is that because he’s foreign,” Judith frowned, “and possibly fighting for the other side?”

  “He wouldn’t fight willingly for Hitler,” Marie answered with a deprecating smile, “which might mean he isn’t even alive.”