The Foreigner

by P. G. Glynn

  “You seem very pensive,” said Marie as the sisters walked together from Beulah to High Trees. It was a perfect June evening, with a slight breeze stirring the leaves and sheep bleating from behind the old stone wall that ran right round the Brynusk lands. Through overhanging branches of trees fluffy clouds could be seen clustering round the mountains. “Are you thinking about anything in particular?”

  Lucy smiled as she said: “At that precise moment I was thinking about death.”

  “Good heavens! In what respect?”

  “I suppose I was wondering whether, on death, souls return to where they came from on birth. Does that make any sense?”

  “Yes!” Marie responded. “Your wonderings sound just like mine. It’s Suzy’s arrival, isn’t it, causing us to think like this?”

  “I expect it is. She’s so new … and yet so old. We speak, don’t we, of old souls without really reflecting on what we’re saying? Yet when I look at Suzy I get the distinct impression that she isn’t seeing with those glorious eyes for the first time. I’ve never had that feeling before. I certainly didn’t have it when Hugo was born.”

  “Nor did I,” Marie breathed, standing still and facing her sister. “Oh, Lucy, dearest – do you see what this might mean? You’re suggesting something I already half-believed – that Carla has come back to me!”

  Startled, Lucy said: “I wasn’t suggesting … I just … ”

  “Yes. I accept that I’m jumping ahead. But, in the light of your beliefs, do you agree that it’s a possibility?”

  “It could be. Those eyes … ”

  “Precisely! They’re Carla’s eyes, aren’t they?”

  “Oh Marie … we can’t go thinking that way! Suzy is Helena’s and Hugo’s baby.”

  “I know she is, and I don’t intend saying anything to them. It’s so reassuring, though, to suspect that the soul can be reborn after death … and that Carla might now be living in Suzy’s skin.”

  “Cripes!” said Lucy. “It’s just as well Mam can’t hear us talking like this. Our suspicions aren’t very Baptist!”

  They both laughed at that and the spell was broken. Talk turned to other matters and touched upon Alice. Marie asked: “Do you think she’s happy with Stan? I’ve never seen her look happy, with or without him.”

  “That might be because they don’t … indulge.”

  “Don’t they? Who told you they don’t?”

  Lucy blushed crimson. “He did, soon after their wedding.”

  “Giddy godfathers! How have you managed to keep that secret?”

  “Because I was too embarrassed to tell anyone, even you. I don’t know quite how I come to be telling you now.”

  “It’s that kind of evening,” Marie said. “So come on, Lucy – spill the beans!”

  Still blushing, Lucy confided: “Stan turned up at Beulah one afternoon when Mam had gone on the bus to Abergavenny. I couldn’t decide quite why he was there until suddenly he grabbed hold of me and … and tried to kiss me. When I pushed him away he said I was as frigid as my sister. Then he said that Alice told him straight after their wedding that she didn’t want anything ‘unpleasant’ to take place. She has ensured since, according to him, that it never did. Marie, do you think I’m frigid?”

  “Not for one minute – although I believe Stan that Alice is! No wonder he always looks as mournful as an undertaker, poor thing! And poor Alice, if she truly thinks that making love is an unpleasant activity: I feel sad for her, thinking that, and blame Mam for putting such ideas into her head.”

  “Is it pleasant, then?”

  “Very,” Marie said, remembering that she’d soon be back in Charles’s bed. “There’s nothing better, just as long as you’re making love with the right someone. But one day you’ll find that out for yourself.”

  “I doubt it, somehow. I’m too timid … too used to living within limits. I reckon I was destined for spinsterhood!”

  “I don’t. You’ve too much to offer, darling Lucy. Once this awful war is over and the men are back, I bet the right one will come and find you.”

  “Do you truly?”

  “I truly do.”

  “But what would happen to Mam?”

  “Let her go and live with Alice!”

  +++++

  Hugo had insisted on walking his aunt home, so Marie and Helena were alone. With Suzy nestling serenely in her arms, Marie was trying hard to remind herself that she was not holding Carla. She said: “It won’t be easy, leaving her.”

  “Stay on a bit, then. I’d be glad of your help.”

  “I think I’m more of a hindrance, especially now that you’re out of bed. I was never much use around a house. Domesticity doesn’t sit well on me.”

  “That’s only because you haven’t had to do chores as a matter of course. Hugo says that in Bohemia you had maids galore.” They were sitting in the back parlour, with its polished wood floor and a table cluttered with baby things. An old Welsh dresser stood to the left of the latticed window, through which there was a view across sweeping lawns to the big house where the Brynusks lived. Gazing in its direction as the last of the daylight faded, Helena said: “I often look over there and wonder what it would be like to live somewhere still bigger … somewhere with maids that’s far away. Even wondering about it makes me feel homesick. But I suppose you took to life in Czechoslovakia like a duck to water.”

  “Well, I didn’t!” Marie said indignantly. “Herrlichbach was the last place I ever expected to live and for ages I hated it. Being stuck out there, so far from the theatre, was purgatory for me. I didn’t think I’d ever forgive Otto for what he did.”

  Surprised by this outburst and by its content, Helena said: “What did he do?”

  “Initially,” Marie began, her focus on Suzy, “he took me to the castle pretending that we were going for a visit when all along his intention was for us to live there. Then, after Hugo was born, we went back on his pretext that because I was so upset after my Uncle John’s death it would do me good to be away from London for a bit. The true facts, I found out later – quite by accident – were very different. Having promised me that we would live in London, Otto had also promised his mother that we would return permanently to Bohemia. You’ll gather that Mama Berger meant more to him than I did.”

  “Gracious!” Helena was shocked. “It was wrong of him to break his promise. Does Hugo know about this?”

  “Probably not – and I probably shouldn’t have mentioned it. I’m in enough trouble with him as it is.”

  “He told me about … Carla’s father.”

  “I’m glad he did. Secrets are bad in a family. I’ve always been too secretive by half, perhaps because my life has been … complex. In trying to protect Hugo I’ve seemed to exclude him, which is a bad thing.”

  “If you were doing it for his sake, it isn’t so bad. Did you forgive his father in the end?”

  Marie considered, then said: “It was easier to forgive than to forget that had he not tricked me into returning to Bohemia Carla would almost certainly not be dead.” She added after a bit: “But please don’t think, because of what I’ve said, that Otto is a bad man. He isn’t. He’d been spoiled as a boy and brought up to believe he could have his own way in everything. That belief was instilled in him from birth, so he can’t be blamed for it. Just be thankful that I didn’t spoil Hugo and that as well as being Bohemian he has Welsh blood in him!”

  “I am … and can see that if I have to go and live in the castle I’ll at least have the advantage of knowing in advance.”

  “That’ll be a big advantage,” said Marie, smiling tenderly at Suzy, who – secure in her grandma’s arms – had fallen asleep.

  +++++

  She slept and dreamed of the place she had so recently left. She had been in no hurry to leave, for it was a place where love was everywhere and the scent of flowers filled the air. But Raphael decreed that it was time to return to the physical world. Every soul had its season for being in spirit and for being clothed
in flesh and she now had an earthly purpose. Replenished from her rest, she was ready to go back and fulfil the destiny that had been mapped out for her … and that had been ended prematurely earlier, causing her to hurry home to the Father. She had seen the grief marking her departure … seen the tears shed by Mama. She had been all-seeing of the past, present and future. So she had known her path … and known that except in dreams she would forget where she had been between her life spans. The angels watching over her would fade into oblivion and she would not remember being taught to sing like one of them. Now, though, in her dream she recalled as if through a mist Raphael enclosing her with his wings and whispering: “Go back, sweet earthling, and sing!”

  +++++

  Hugo asked Marie as he drove her in the farm boneshaker to Abergavenny station next morning: “Is it true that Papa tricked you into living in Bohemia?”

  “Yes, it is.”

  “That was wrong of him, despite what you did.”

  “We were both wrong in many things. Making mistakes is part of living and of gaining wisdom. I hope I’m wiser now than when I was your age. If I had my time over again there’s much I’d do differently.”

  “Such as?”

  “Neglecting you less in your early years. Had I been myself, I’d have been a better mother. Still, you had plenty of love and attention from your Papa and Omama, which has stood you in good stead – and although I know you hated being sent away to boarding school, that moulded you too. I remember your Omama saying that she wished she had done the same for her children. She was so proud of you, Hugo, and saw in you the Berger future.”

  He was feeling bad for having judged Mama without knowing enough about her life with Papa. He also still felt very muddled about Carla – not least in the respect that Mama was rushing off from Gilchrist and him in order to return to Charles. But how could he express all this in the short time left to him? He drove for some while in silence. There was a mist over the Sugar Loaf and Blorenge and it seemed, illogically, that if the mist would clear the fog in his head would too.

  “I miss her,” he said. “Does the missing ever end?”

  “Yes and no. Now that you have Helena and … and Suzy … and responsibilities your new life will take precedence, leaving just happy memories from the past and a warm glow – plus perhaps a tug at your heart - whenever you think of Omama.”

  “Do you have any happy memories of your time with Papa?”

  “Plenty.”

  “So you did forgive him for his … trick?”

  “Of course I did! Finding ways – some of them devious, even he would admit – to get what he wanted was part and parcel of him. At times the trait could be seen as endearing.”

  “And at other times?”

  “Maddening!”

  Hugo smiled. “I saw some examples of that.” He cleared his throat before risking asking: “Did … did Papa know Charles?”

  “Yes, they met on several occasions.”

  Her tone had given nothing away. He heard himself saying: “It’s difficult, dealing with all this.”

  “I know it is.”

  “What if … if Papa comes back, as I so hope he will, and you have to choose between them again?”

  “That’s something I’d need to discuss with your father before discussing it with you. Since at present it’s a hypothetical question, I think it’s best left, Hugo. Let’s both try to live in the moment. With this war on, the future’s no place to dwell.”

  “I wish you’d stay in Gilchrist. I worry about you up there in London, what with bombs dropping and … ”

  “ … Charles Brodie waiting for me? I’m sure you do, Hugo, but remember that we each have our destinies. You are well blessed, having found Helena when you did and now having Suzy too to love and bring up. I shall miss all three of you once I’m in London, but I have to go back – and not just because of Charles. I must also start earning a living. I could only bring limited funds from Bohemia with me and I’ve now sold most of my jewellery. So, as my only known talents are as an actress, it’s soon going to be a question of having to act to eat.”

  “I had no idea things were as bad as that.”

  “Well, they are – and next week I have an appointment to keep with Matthew King of United Casting. I’ll be meeting him at Denham Studios, which is where Noel Coward and John Mills made IN WHICH WE SERVE not long ago. Did it come to Abergavenny?”

  “Yes, it did. I took Helena to see it.”

  “That’s the beauty of films. They can be seen simultaneously right across the country and the U.S.A – unlike a play. I shan’t be restricted to one theatre any longer. I can be playing in London at the same time as in Monmouthshire.”

  “Tell me if I’m hearing things, but I seemed to hear that you’d actually prefer to be restricted to a particular theatre.”

  “Only if it were the Tavistock,” Marie said softly. Then she said: “You’ve suddenly become very knowing!”

  “And look, the mist has cleared,” he told her with a wry grin, pointing toward the mountains.

  52

  Filming, Marie had soon found, consisted of waiting and then more waiting. That was one of the hazards of just being an ‘extra’ and occasional bit-part-player, so far. First she needed to wait for Mr King at United Casting to offer her work and then, whether at Denham Studios or Gaumont British at Shepherd’s Bush, there was often a lengthy wait in the canteen before being called for make-up and costuming. On set she and her fellow crowd-players were herded together as they waited for shooting to begin, although this wait was sometimes interesting. Marie enjoyed watching the special effects men creating a snow-scene or turning a tub of water into a stormy sea. She didn’t especially enjoy being one of a herd, nor the lack of continuity. Filming was as different from the theatre as it was possible to be.

  ‘Takes’ were filmed out of sequence – with clapperboards bearing the scene number facilitating the matching of soundtrack and image later – and then put together as an entity. It was during editing that the few words Marie had spoken for THIS HAPPY BREED had ended up on the cutting room floor instead of on the screen! How demoralising that had been, but she had to accept that such things were integral to the film industry. So was the lack of atmosphere on a film-set, compared with in the theatre, which was not surprising since studios consisted of a series of huge, soulless buildings akin to aircraft hangars. There was no possibility of the Tavistock’s intimacy and acting for a camera was very different from acting for an audience. Come to think of it, Marie couldn’t describe what she did as acting. Having been labelled crowd-cum-bit-part-player she seemed to be stuck in a rut from which there was no escape. Hard to remember that she was once a leading lady!

  The hours were long too. She needed to leave home by five if she was to catch her train from Marylebone Station and be in Denham Village by seven and she was seldom back before six, although often after this. It had begun to come almost as a relief to ring United Casting and be told there was no work for her the following week.

  When ‘resting’ she was torn between Charles and Suzy. She had been drawn to Monmouthshire more and more since the baby was born – which caused comment from Hugo, of course. He thought she came just to see Suzy, which wasn’t altogether true. Since her initial visit after the birth Marie had felt a closer bond with her son too. Then there was Charles to consider. Much as he understood them, he didn’t care for her frequent absences and equally she hated being away from him, especially since the opening of the Second Front and advent of doodle-bugs – one of the first of which had scored a hit on Denham Studios. She dared not think about Charles’s life being at risk while she was safely in Gilchrist. Marie only wished she could take Charles with her or be in two places at once!

  Since fifth June it had been like the Blitz all over again, with Germany at first catching Londoners unprepared. As the buzzing began, nobody knew what was happening – flying bombs being a new phenomenon. These V1s, powered by a pulse jet and rather resembling
small aircraft, were launched from France and buzzed loudly prior to their engine cutting out, whereupon they dropped to the ground and exploded, destroying everything in their vicinity. Hearing the buzz was one thing. Experiencing the silence preceding an explosion must be terrifying.

  “That was a big sigh,” Charles observed.

  “Did it come from me?” asked Marie, who was lying on the sofa, her head on his knee. “I wasn’t conscious of sighing.” IT’S THAT MAN AGAIN had just finished and they had been laughing at the antics of the incompetent German spy, Funf, and Colonel Chin-Strap, who was forever in search of alcoholic refreshment, accepting this from all and sundry with an ‘I don’t mind if I do’. Dorothy Summers, as Mrs Mopp, had helped writer Ted Kavanagh create the catch phrase ‘Can I do you now, sir?’ which had contributed to making ITMA the national institution that brought Britain virtually to a standstill each Thursday evening. “But my mind, I must admit, wasn’t on the Mayor of Foaming-at-the-Mouth tonight.”

  “Nor was mine. I’ve been thinking about how urgent it’s becoming to make you my legal wife.”

  “Urgent in what respect?”

  “That of this war’s uncertainties – and, I suppose, of accompanying you to Gilchrist.”

  “I’d just been thinking along similar lines – not of marriage especially, since I couldn’t feel more married to you than I already do, but of going to Gilchrist together in a manner acceptable to Mam and Hugo. We could always go as we are and bluff it out, I suppose.”

  Charles smiled wistfully. “That would be a way of my meeting Suzy but, given the bridges you’re currently building with your son, I hardly think it would be the right one. As for your mother … ”