The Town in Bloom

by Dodie Smith

  I jumped in and said, ‘Follow that bus!’ It sounded so melodramatic that I felt I’d better explain. ‘There’s someone on it I want to catch, a friend I’ve lost touch with.’

  The driver said the bus would probably get held up at the next traffic lights and so should we. ‘Do you want to get out then and jump on it?’

  Did I? No, I couldn’t talk to Zelle amidst other people. I said I wanted to follow the bus until my friend got off it. ‘And then we’ll follow her and I’ll make up my mind what to do. What I want most is to find out where she lives. I’m not really sure I ought to rush at her. You see, she was running away from me.’

  He was a kind man and quick on the uptake; I always seem to get nice taxi-drivers. He asked if my friend was the old girl he’d seen hop on the bus – ‘Looked as if she’d come down in the world, and that can make people touchy.’

  ‘Exactly. So it might be wiser to write to her rather than force her to talk to me now.’

  ‘Hope the bus doesn’t get through traffic lights where I get held up.’

  By good luck that never happened; and in not much more than five minutes Zelle got off the bus and turned into a street lined with expensive flats.

  ‘Now we’ve got to be clever,’ said the driver. ‘If she knows we’re following her she might give us the slip. Lucky there are no shops round here where she can go in at one door and out at another. That’s the way you lose them.’

  I asked if he often had to follow people and he said quite a lot of it had come his way. ‘Usually detectives following husbands or wives – though sometimes wives do their own sleuthing. Needs a bit of knack when you’re following someone who’s walking or they spot you. I don’t think your friend has yet, still we’d better pull up and let her get ahead.’

  He waited until she turned the next corner, then drove on quickly. When next we caught sight of Zelle she was crossing a well-kept old square. I said, ‘Surely she can’t be as poor as she looks if she lives near here? Not, of course, that I can be sure she’s going home.’ I’d only just thought of that.

  ‘Anyway, there’s a street of tenement flats behind this square,’ said the driver. ‘She might be making for that. Yes, I bet you she is.’ Zelle had left the square and turned a corner. ‘Not sure she didn’t catch sight of us then – see her look over her shoulder? We’ll have to hurry now or we may lose her.’

  When we followed her round the corner I saw that, as so often in London, a shabby district was embedded in the heart of an expensive one. The tenement flats occupied land which must by now be fabulously valuable. We were just in time to see Zelle go in at a doorway.

  ‘Now we’ll go past and you can get the number,’ said the driver. ‘And then I’ll take you into the next street and you can make up your mind what you want to do.’

  The block of flats Zelle had entered was of red brick with yellow facings, dark now with London soot. I looked at the windows, hoping to spot some touch of individuality which might indicate where Zelle lived but the curtains were of an almost uniform drabness. This was no slum but, to me, it was more depressing than one. There is often a touch of drama, even gaiety, in the life of a teeming slum; here there was only a grim, grubby respectability.

  I noted the doorway Zelle had entered, and saw that it served eight flats. If I wrote to her it might not matter that I did not know the number of her flat. But it now struck me that I did not even know her present name – most likely she had married. And even if my letter reached her she might ignore it. The only certain way of getting in touch with her was to enquire at each of the flats until I found her. Was I going to?

  The taxi-driver, having turned the next corner, had pulled up and sat patiently waiting. I tried to think things out. Zelle had not wanted to meet us. She had run away from me. But might she not feel differently after even a few minutes’ conversation? And surely we ought to help her? I still had a hope that she might be in disguise – that mangy-looking fur was a bit too fantastic – but she could hardly be well off if she lived in this dreary place. I could only do a little for her myself but Molly and Lilian could afford to do plenty. And Lilian desperately longed to see her. Yet somehow …

  One thing I was sure of: I must not let Lilian know where Zelle could be found without Zelle’s permission. But suppose she would not give it? Could I face telling that to Lilian – and withstand her demands? Or could I, having talked to Zelle, lie and say she had escaped me? My thoughts went on and on, considering possibilities. And always I was conscious that the girls were waiting at the hotel. ‘The girls’ – absurd phrase for us now but it still came naturally to me. And for an instant I saw us as we had been when we first lunched at that window table, with Zelle as hostess. So soon after that the break with her had come. Had she felt bitter? Perhaps she still did. But she had come to have a look at us.

  It was no use. I should never make up my mind while the driver sat waiting, tactfully silent though he was. Besides, the steadily ticking-up meter was unnerving. Just across the road was a café, a poor little place but it would do to think in, over a cup of coffee. I paid off my kind driver.

  ‘Bet you look her up in the end,’ he said. ‘After all, she can only show you the door. Still, if the old girl ran away from you….’ He shook his head. ‘Pride can mean a lot to people, all the more when they’re poor. Did you know her well?’

  ‘Very well, but not for long and it’s a long time ago.’

  And had I really known her well? I found myself wondering, while I waited for my coffee. Certainly not in the way I had known Molly and Lilian. Of course I had known them earlier, months before that July day when we all, so unexpectedly, met Zelle…. Retrospection beckoned but was rebuffed; no doubt my problem was rooted in the past but it would have to be decided in the present – and quickly. And anyway, I didn’t approve of retrospection; hadn’t for years. Why exactly? Because it led to nostalgia? Or was my disapproval really funk? Some day I must find out.

  BOOK TWO

  The Town in Bloom

  1

  On my first night at the Club I sat up in bed and wrote in my journal:

  I am here at last! I arrived this afternoon, at Marylebone Station so I only had a short taxi drive – I wished it could have been longer as it was thrilling to be driving through London all on my own. And it was such a lovely day. The trees here are further out than they are at home. Home! I haven’t one any more. That thought doesn’t make me feel sad. It makes me feel wonderfully free.

  This morning, because of my trunk, I had to take a taxi all the way to Manchester and we went past the house that was my home for fifteen years. I really think I should have been happier there these last months than at a dreary boarding house, but everyone said I must not stay on there alone. Already the new tenants are in, and someone was standing by the French window where Aunt Marion so often sat. There were still some late daffodils on the lawn. I always loved the garden – and the house, too. I used to think it an old, romantic house though it is really only Victorian. As we left it behind this morning I felt a pang for the past, but long before we got to the station I was again looking forward to the future.

  This Club – But before I describe it I want to pay a sort of goodbye tribute to Aunt Marion, to record my loving thanks for all she did. Looking after me ever since my parents died must have meant sacrifices, especially as she kept trying to save money out of her annuity so that she could leave me some. (Since I last wrote here I have heard I shall have about forty pounds a year.) I particularly want to thank her for taking me to so many theatres – in Manchester and on our wonderful trip to London when I was twelve – and for never discouraging me from going on the stage. Of course, she loved acting herself and only gave up her amateur work because of her heart, which was weak long before she let me know about it. I suppose I ought also to thank her for paying for the secretarial course she persuaded me to take as an insurance against failure. (I WILL NOT FAIL.) I hope she never knew how much I disliked the training – and I wish
she could know that I loyally stayed on for three whole months’ to finish it. Well, thank you and good night, dear Aunt Marion, and when I make a success it will be in your honour as well as for my own.

  Now about this Club. It is rather a handsome building with a lot of heavy stonework; large and square, at a corner – quite an old house, I think. I had booked a room but there was some muddle and I had to sit in the hall while the receptionist tried to telephone the housekeeper, who couldn’t be found. Two girls came downstairs and the taller – she must be quite six foot – looked at me through a lorgnette (I never saw a young girl use one before) and said, ‘Do I understand that this small creature is bedless? If so, there is an empty cubicle in our village.’ (I found that by ‘village’ she meant one of the groups of cubicles into which some of the big rooms are divided.) The receptionist, who was very busy because she had to cope with all the incoming telephone calls, asked if I would take the cubicle just for one night, so I said I would. But I think I shall stay on in it because I like it very much and it is cheaper than a room.

  It is almost private as the partitions are solid and go up to within a foot or so of the ceiling. And I have a good big cupboard, a washstand combined with a dressing-table which has long drawers, a folding table and a chair. There is a large window (some of the cubicles don’t have windows) and from my bed I can see tall trees in the quite large Club garden. You would hardly know you were in London except when you see the tops of buses above the high garden wall.

  I am alone in this ‘village’ at the moment as I have come to bed early. Molly Lorimer, the tall girl I met in the hall, told me that this is mainly a theatrical village and I must not mind if people come to bed late and talk into the small hours. I shall quite like that, if they talk about the theatre. Molly and the girl who was with her, Lilian Denison, are in musical comedy. Glorified chorus, Molly said, but Lilian said they had small parts. They were very fashionably dressed, in shapeless clothes that barely covered their knees. I think this is an ugly fashion. Anyway, Aunt Marion said I ought to have a style of my own and I shall always strive for one.

  Though Molly and Lilian were extremely kind – they gave me tea in the Club lounge and I had dinner with them – I doubt if they will become real friends of mine as they are not interested in serious acting. After they had gone to their theatre I met someone who will be more important to me. She spoke to me when I was sitting alone in the lounge. Her name is Evangeline Esmond and she has played leading parts – I can’t think why I have never heard of her. She was surprised that I wasn’t going to train at some school, and when I told her I couldn’t spare the time or the money, she offered to coach me and said she would only charge me half price as she was sure I had talent. I explained that my aunt had taught me voice production but Miss Esmond still thought I needed tuition – she said she could give me introductions but only if she had trained me. I told her about the introduction I had brought with me and she said, ‘Oh, my dear child, you’ll never get work at the Crossway Theatre without training. I happen to know Rex Crossway very well indeed.’ Perhaps I will afford myself a few lessons with her but I shall try on my own first.

  Now I am going to put the light out and think. Someday this journal entry will bring back how it felt to be me, at eighteen, on my first night alone in London.

  But does it? Yes, perhaps the scribbled words do make me feel a little nearer to the girl who wrote them. But as regards actual facts, the entry mentions only a fraction of what I remember. How could I have dealt so cursorily with that first entrance of Molly and Lilian?

  They stood on the stairs looking down on me, two streaks of beige from the crowns of their felt hats to the toes of their glacé kid shoes. The hats were cloches which came down so low that it was only later I learned that Lilian was dark, with a sleek shingle, and Molly a red-head, who wore her hair in a plaited coronet. (She thought, rightly, that a shingle would make her head seem too small for her height; and apart from that, few women would have cared to sacrifice such magnificent hair.) Both girls were strikingly pretty, Lilian with a gardenia-like sophistication and Molly with a milkmaid freshness.

  Why were they so kind to me? Later, I asked them and Molly said: ‘You looked so funny and pathetic – a sort of Little Black Riding Hood.’

  I wore a circular black cape and a black straw hat that resembled a coal-scuttle bonnet – placed well back on my head to show the thick brown fringe of my childish, straight, bobbed hair. My dress was pale grey, tight-bodiced and full-skirted. Not for me nude-looking stockings. Mine were grey and my black shoes had cut-steel buckles. I was, I believe, quite nice looking, though slightly too strongly featured for a girl of my tiny physique – not that this worried me. When I studied my face in a dressing-table glass I knew I could play Lady Macbeth; when I pranced in front of a long glass I felt I should make an ideal Puck. I was thankful for such versatility, both of talent and appearance.

  After it had been decided I should take the vacant cubicle Molly said: ‘Lilian, I think we should now give this little person tea. Come, child.’

  I never found Molly’s manner of speech patronising or affected. It seemed somehow suitable for her height and the superb way she carried herself. And I was, from the first, conscious of her kindness of heart.

  She put one finger on my shoulder and piloted me into the lounge. It was a long, cream-painted room with tall, window-seated windows looking onto the garden. The curtains were broadly striped in violet and magenta. Cream cane chairs were grouped around red lacquer tables. There was a grey carpet. I was used to old-fashioned furnishings, my aunt having made few changes in those she had inherited from her parents, and it was some little while before I realised what a beautiful room the Club lounge was.

  Tea was brought by a maid wearing a rose-pink uniform and mobcap. There were watercress sandwiches. ‘Watercress is stimulating,’ Molly pronounced, and I have felt well disposed to watercress ever since. Why do I only remember things that were said by Molly? I can’t believe that Lilian wasn’t holding her own in the conversation. Ah, now it comes back to me: Lilian asked questions. No doubt she was placing me, and also noting Molly’s reactions to me. Lilian was always something of a suit-follower; or rather, a suit-improver, clever at building up on other people’s ideas.

  I can see her clearly as she was that day in the lounge, with her eyes, too dark to be called blue, nickering backwards and forwards between Molly and me. Lilian’s eyes were astonishing. They were rather small but she habitually kept them so wide open that they seemed enormous. And they shone; they were the only eyes I ever saw that really deserved to be called starry. Her features were all charming but it was those shining, wide-open eyes that were Lilian.

  Molly’s grey-blue eyes really were large but she seldom troubled to open them fully. And her short-sightedness gave them a vague look. She used a lorgnette because spectacles both spoilt her appearance and hurt her babyish nose. Her whole face suggested that of a particularly beautiful baby – increased to a size suitable for a six-foot woman. I once told her I could imagine her being pushed along in a giant perambulator, benignly cooing at admiring passers-by. She said, ‘Oh, lovely – but I couldn’t be bothered to coo. I’d just drift into a lovely sleep.’

  Did we find out much about each other at the first meeting or only by degrees? Like myself, they were orphans. Molly’s mother had been a Gaiety Girl, her father an officer in the regular army whose family had always ignored Molly and her mother; though they did now give Molly a small allowance. Lilian’s father had been a bank manager in a London suburb. Molly had been on the stage for two years, Lilian for nearly four. They had always played in West End musical comedy.

  After tea we went to my cubicle and I unpacked my trunk, which was then taken to a box-room. Molly and Lilian left me on my own until they took me down for an early dinner. The dining-room, under the lounge, looked out onto a flagged area with the garden above it and only the tables near the windows were still in full daylight. We sat at the lo
ngest of these and at first had it to ourselves. Then an elderly woman joined us, looked at me, sniffed and said: ‘Foreign bodies around this evening.’ Lilian remarked coolly, ‘This is a friend of ours who will be sitting here.’ The elderly woman then gave me a cheerful grin and chatted pleasantly. Only when I had been at the Club some days did I fully realise how lucky I was to be sponsored in the dining-room. New members were usually scared away from favourite tables, to sit humbly at a draughty table near the door, known as the Lost Dogs’ Home.

  I doubt if dinner was really good; Club meals were apt to be a bit meagre. But it was pleasantly served on brightly decorated earthenware, and our nice, pink-uniformed waitress was said to get specially good helpings for her tables. I enjoyed everything and had become quite friendly with the elderly woman before we finished eating.

  Molly and Lilian then hurried off to their theatre. I had coffee in the lounge, studied the Stage, and was firmly talked to by Evangeline Esmond – who turned out to be one of the Club bores; her triumphs, when not fictitious, had all been in long ago No. 3 touring companies and she now eked out a small income by giving lessons. With me, first impressions have so often been wrong ones.

  I then went to bed, wrote in my journal, and slept until nearly midnight. I woke to see light above the partition between my cubicle and Molly’s and to hear her say: ‘Do you think that small mouse will be asleep?’ Then there was a thump, as if someone had dropped something heavy, and a voice I did not know said, ‘Blast!’ after which Lilian said: ‘Well, she’ll be awake now, all right.’ A moment later there was a tap on my door.

  ‘Pray, Mistress Mouse, are you within?’ said Molly, thus presenting me with my nickname – perhaps suggested by my smallness; no one could have thought me timid. I leaned from my bed and undid the catch of my door. Then Molly came in and switched the light on.