by Judy Nunn
They filed up the steep wooden steps and emerged onto a small landing. ‘Up here was the loft,’ Mrs M said. Light flooded through the large windows with their small glass panes, and a bedroom and study looked out over the courtyard. At the rear of the upper floor were a large store-room and a small bathroom. ‘No bath, I’m afraid, only a shower, but when you feel the need for a good soak in a hot tub, you just come up to the house.’
There were oil heaters throughout the flat and, downstairs, Mrs M showed Sam how to operate the central system. ‘It’s very cosy in winter,’ she assured her, ‘and I’ve laid in a few things for you.’ She proceeded to open various cupboards stacked with coffee and tea, cereal packets and tinned fruit. ‘I think you’ll find yourself quite comfortable.’
‘I know that I will. Thank you so much, Mrs M.’ Overwhelmed by the woman’s thoughtfulness, Sam felt herself once again perilously close to tears.
Mrs M sensed it. ‘Well, I’ll leave you alone to have a bit of a snooze,’ she said patting Sam’s arm. ‘Here are the keys.’ She put them on the island bench. ‘One’s to the front door of the house, although it’s always unlocked during the day, and the other’s to the flat. Now you put yourself to bed, there’s a good girl.’
When she’d gone, Sam sat in an armchair and cried. Flight fatigue or self-pity or whatever, she decided to allow herself a momentary wallow. It was strange to be sitting all alone in converted stables in an English mid-winter when, under normal circumstances, she would probably be with the gang sunning herself at Bondi Beach.
Feeling much better after her cry, she blew her nose and looked about. God almighty, how lucky could she get? She loved the stables, she loved Chisolm House, and she loved Mrs M. She’d be happy in Fareham, she knew it and, fighting off the fatigue, she decided to go for a long walk.
Rugged up against the cold, she turned left into Osborn Road and walked up the street to where Pete Harris had pointed out the theatre on the opposite side. There it was. Ferneham Hall, a squat, redbrick building surrounded by a sea of concrete parking space. Towering to its left was the stark white square of the Civic Centre, to its right a multi-storey car park and behind, according to Pete, was a huge shopping complex. Seventies architecture and modern convenience sat unattractively in the heart of the pretty little market town.
Sam decided not to explore the theatre; Pete’s hasty departure and his ‘see you in two days’ hadn’t been particularly welcoming. Besides, she was now rather enjoying being on her own. She walked up the road to the parish church of St Peter and St Paul and wandered about its many paths, examining the old tombstones and startling two grey squirrels that scampered up a yew tree. Then down the broad residential boulevard of High Street, with its splendid Georgian houses, and a right turn into West Street, the hub of the town. It was market day and the pedestrian mall of West Street was a colourful hive of activity, barrows and stalls offering every conceivable item of produce and hardware. Spruikers were pitching their wares and the conflicting aromas of roasted chestnuts, fried onions and hot doughnuts assailed the senses.
Sam walked and walked until, two hours later, having circled the entire town, she returned to Chisolm House happily exhausted. She’d explored the dockyards and parkland beside the Quay, Fareham’s small, thriving port, and she’d walked to the railway station at the far end of West Street. She’d covered the breadth of the town in order to get ‘the lay of the land’, having decided that tomorrow she would investigate the shopping complex and buy supplies for the flat. At least that had been her initial plan, until the railway station had inspired an alternative which left her breathless with anticipation. Trains left for London on an hourly basis, she’d discovered. She could see a show in the West End.
She was now in a quandary, though. The fine print in her contract said actors were not permitted to travel more than twenty miles from the venue during the run of the season. But she hadn’t started work yet, had she? Sam knew that it wasn’t the contract’s fine print she found daunting, it was the prospect of landing on her own in the middle of London. She’d have to stay the night if she went to the theatre. Did she dare? Yes, she bloody well did, she thought as she unlocked the door to the stables.
She slept like a baby that night, images of yesteryear flickering through her mind. Fareham had enthralled her. ‘A town with a history reaching beyond mediaeval times’, the brochure she’d collected from the local museum had stated. But it had an innocence which Sydney lacked, Sam thought as she drifted off in her loft bed above the stables.
The following morning, she considered it common courtesy to mention her plans to Mrs M – she didn’t want the poor woman worrying about her overnight disappearance – so she dropped into the kitchen via the back door.
‘I thought I might catch the train up to London,’ she said casually, ‘and go to a West End show.’
‘Oh that’ll be nice, dear.’ Mrs M smiled. ‘Would you like some breakfast before you leave?’
So it was that simple, Sam thought, people obviously popped up to London all the time, it was no big deal. ‘No thanks, Mrs M, I’ve had some fruit and cereal.’
An hour later, Sam set off, her heart thumping, her toothbrush and a spare set of undies in her shoulder bag.
When she finally emerged from the tube station to stand in Piccadilly Circus she had never felt such excitement. It was a bleak winter’s day, mid-afternoon, and it had taken her hours to get there. She’d had to change trains twice – ‘You should have caught the express,’ a porter pointed out well after the event – and she’d got lost in the underground. But she’d made it. Here she was, in the very heart of London. She stood on the steps in the centre of Piccadilly Circus, beside Eros’s column, and drank in the chaos of double-decker buses and taxis and tourists. Then she reminded herself that accommodation was the prime concern, it would be dusk soon, so she asked a newspaper vendor where the nearest cheap pub was.
‘Cheap pub?’ The little Cockney man looked confused.
‘Or a bed and breakfast, somewhere to stay.’
‘You an Aussie, love?’
‘Yes.’
‘Thought so. “Pub” don’ mean the same thing over ’ere. You want the Regent Palace ’otel.’ He pointed across the busy roundabout. ‘Over there.’
‘Thanks very much.’
She booked herself into a poky little room on the fourth floor, ‘bathroom down the hall’, and then sought out the concierge for advice. He was a theatre buff and extraordinarily helpful.
‘The new Tom Stoppard at the Haymarket,’ he said, ‘Arcadia. Wonderful play, but then all of his are. I could book a ticket for you, if you like, but it’ll be cheaper if you go to the box office.’
She did. And that was the night that changed her life. After the performance, she stood in the chilling wind that swept up the Haymarket and stared at the stately columns of the Theatre Royal, heedless of the crowds brushing past her. One day I’ll work here, she told herself. She didn’t really believe it for one minute, but it was something to aspire to.
The season of Cinderella at Ferneham Hall, Fareham, proved to be the hardest work Sam had ever experienced. Ten days’ rehearsal, then two performances daily, seven days a week for five weeks. There were just two days off in the entire run. Christmas Day and New Year’s Day.
She surprised them all from the outset. ‘Crikey,’ Pete Harris openly commented, ‘an Aussie soap star who can sing and dance, you’re a godsend, Sam.’
She herself was surprised by his reaction. ‘What would have happened if I couldn’t?’ she asked.
‘We’d have changed all the choreography and had you miming the songs. Oh believe me, love, we’ve done it before.’
Pete became her greatest ally and Sam found that she liked him. He was intimidating, certainly, as he barked his orders and people leapt to obey. And, amidst the bedlam of rehearsals, he would accept no excuses. ‘Don’t give me that bullshit,’ he’d say when the costumes didn’t arrive on time or there was trouble with t
he set, ‘just fix it.’ His authority was essential, however, with so much to accomplish in only ten days, and Sam very much admired his professionalism.
Sam was ‘top of the bill’, her photo blazoned above the title on posters all over town. ‘Samantha Lindsay from “Families and Friends”’ it said, which embarrassed her because the rest of the company, both dancers and actors, were all seasoned performers.
‘We’re not telly stars, sweetheart,’ Garry and Vic, the stand-up comics playing the ugly sisters, explained, ‘you’re the bums-on-seats.’ There was no malice intended, they were just stating the case. Like Pete, Garry and Vic were only too delighted that Sam lacked pretension and was a talented ‘pro’. Sam didn’t dare admit to any of them that she had never before worked in the theatre.
They were a comradely crowd and, despite the gruelling schedule, or perhaps because of it, they dined together between shows and partied regularly. Usually on a Friday and Saturday night, and usually at the Red Lion in West Street. It was one of the most popular of Fareham’s many drinking houses, atmospheric and noisy, and Sam loved it. Just as she loved each and every performance at Ferneham Hall. The theatre became her home and the company her family; she had little time to be lonely.
And then Christmas Day approached. It would be the first Christmas she’d ever spent away from her family; she’d returned to Perth the previous year during the ‘Families and Friends’ production break. Even Sydney would have felt odd on Christmas Day, she thought, and now here she was on the other side of the world. She hoped she wasn’t going to get maudlin, but she wondered how she’d fill in the day. It would be strange not dashing across the street to the theatre and working and playing with the gang.
‘So what are you doing Christmas Day, Sam?’ Flora asked as they applied their makeup for the evening show, the day before Christmas Eve.
Flora Robbie played the fairy godmother. Twenty years previously she’d co-hosted a top-rating television game show and these days earned a living, more or less, singing Scottish ballads and being fairy godmothers in pantos all over England. She was very popular with the older theatregoers, all of whom vividly remembered ‘In for a Penny’ on ITV. She was a nice woman, still pretty in her mid-forties with an attractive Highlands accent, and she and Sam shared a dressing room most compatibly.
‘I’m having lunch with some friends,’ Sam lied. She wasn’t sure why, but she didn’t want people’s sympathy.
‘Oh really? Where?’ Flora wasn’t being nosy. She’d felt sorry for the girl so far from her family at Christmas.
‘Somewhere in Brighton,’ Sam said vaguely, then hastily added, ‘they’re coming to pick me up,’ in case Flora asked how she was getting there. Sam had actually contemplated catching a train to Brighton until she’d discovered that no services operated out of Fareham on Christmas Day.
‘Oh that’s grand. I didn’t know you had friends in Brighton.’
‘Well, they’re friends of the family really, I don’t know them that well.’
‘You’ll have a lovely time,’ Flora said, pleased, and relieved that Sam was being looked after. ‘Brighton’s frightfully chic these days.’
‘So I believe.’
‘I was going to ask you out with Dougie and me and the kids.’
‘That’s really sweet of you, Flora,’ Sam said, glad that she’d lied, ‘but I’m on a promise.’ The woman hadn’t seen her husband and two sons, who’d just arrived from Scotland, for over three weeks. The last thing they’d need would be the little Aussie tagging along.
On Christmas Eve there was a morning and afternoon matinee but no night performance, and the other members of the gang had planned to return to their various homes for the break. Mostly to London, although Vic and Garry were heading all the way to Manchester.
‘Don’t suppose you fancy a drive do you, sweetheart?’ Garry asked. ‘You’re more than welcome to join us.’
‘No thanks, Garry, I’m meeting up with friends in Brighton.’ The lie came out glibly now, and she was thankful she’d thought of it.
‘Good-oh.’
Following the afternoon matinee, everyone was in a hurry to leave and Sam took her time in the dressing room.
‘Enjoy Brighton, happy Christmas.’ Flora gave her a hug before tearing off to join her waiting husband and children, and Sam listened to the others yelling ‘happy Christmas’ to each other as they departed.
When she thought the coast was clear, she donned her coat and scarf and left, only to discover Pete waiting outside the stage door in the freezing cold.
‘Pete!’ She was surprised. ‘I thought you’d gone to London.’ She knew he’d been staying at his sister’s house in nearby Portchester during the run, but Flora had said that he and his wife lived in London. Sam had presumed he’d gone home for Christmas.
‘Not this year,’ he said, and there was something in the weary way he said it which didn’t invite a query as to why. ‘Susan asked me to invite you over for Christmas dinner.’ Sam had met Pete’s sister and her young family, they’d come to the first matinee of the season. ‘I could pick you up, if you like.’
‘Oh that’s very sweet of her.’ Samantha parroted her standard reply and followed up with the lie. ‘But I’m going to Brighton with some friends of mine.’
He looked at her closely for a second or so, then said, not harshly and with the shadow of a smile, ‘Don’t give me that bullshit, Sam.’ She was nonplussed. ‘I heard you saying that to Garry and I didn’t believe it for a minute. I take it you’re planning to wallow in loneliness this Christmas.’ Despite the touch of cynicism, she had the feeling he wasn’t being unkind, so she opted for honesty.
‘Yep,’ she admitted, ‘something like that.’
‘Not an unwise decision,’ he said. ‘Other people’s Christmases are pretty trying, and Susan’s’ll be the full family catastrophe. I’m not looking forward to it myself. So I’ll tell her you’re going to Brighton, shall I?’
She laughed. ‘Thanks, Pete.’
He kissed her on the cheek. ‘Happy Christmas, Sam.’
‘You too.’ He looked rather unhappy, she thought, as he wandered off to his car. She wondered why he wasn’t spending Christmas with his wife.
As she walked down the driveway of Chisolm House there was a tapping at the kitchen windows and she could see Mrs M waving at her to come inside. Only seconds later the front door opened.
‘Do you have a moment, dear?’ Then without waiting for an answer Mrs M bustled her inside. ‘I have a little something for you, come along out of the cold.’ She led the way into the front drawing room which Sam had glimpsed on the day she’d arrived.
‘What a fantastic room.’ The crystal chandelier was reflected in each of the four gold-leaf framed mirrors that adorned the walls, and on either side of the mirrors, in ornate wall brackets, were gas lamps, now converted to electricity. A handsome Edwardian escritoire stood in one corner, a table and a set of Chippendale chairs sat in pride of place at the bay windows, and armchairs and sofas were gathered around the open fireplace with its carved wooden mantelpiece.
‘Yes it is, isn’t it. It was Miss Chisolm’s favourite, she spent most of her time here in her last few years.’ Martha Montgomery watched as Sam wandered over to the bay windows to look out at the garden. ‘She’d sit right there in her armchair for hours. She loved the garden, particularly in autumn. Or when it snowed. She always said the garden reflected life, with its change of seasons.’
As Sam turned back she noticed the portrait hanging over the wooden mantelpiece. ‘Is this her?’ she asked.
‘Yes,’ Mrs M said, ‘that’s Phoebe Chisolm, she was twenty when it was painted. Lovely looking thing, wasn’t she?’
Sam crossed to the painting and gazed into eyes which, for one startling moment, she could swear were alive. Phoebe Chisolm was more than lovely, she radiated life. The artist had captured her as if she’d just turned her head, her thick auburn hair bounced with movement, the tendons of her slim white neck we
re visible, but it was the eyes which captured Sam’s attention. They sparkled with humour and yet they held a challenge, perhaps even a touch of rebellion. Phoebe Chisolm had obviously been a feisty young woman. ‘It’s a magnificent painting,’ she said.
‘Yes, he was a local lad who went on to become quite a famous portrait artist. James Hampton, I don’t know if you’ve heard of him.’ Sam hadn’t. ‘There are several of his paintings at the Tate Gallery, I’m told.’
‘Is this the family?’ On the mantelpiece was a framed photograph of a handsome young couple in a formal pose. The man was standing, a proprietorial hand resting upon the shoulder of his wife who was seated in a hard-backed chair. The wife was very beautiful, with dark hair, and she was holding a baby dressed in a christening gown.
‘Yes, that’s Arthur Chisolm, he was a doctor, and his wife Alice, and of course that’s Phoebe as a baby. Miss Chisolm wanted to leave the painting and the photograph here where they belonged, and I keep them on display to give guests a sense of the history of the house, which I think is only right. I serve afternoon tea here for those who wish it and at night it serves as a television room.’
Sam noticed, for the first time, the large television set, complete with video and sound system, which seemed so out of place in its surrounds, even tucked tastefully as it was in the far corner of the room.
‘You said she had a tragic life.’ Sam’s eyes were drawn back to the portrait. ‘In what way?’ She hoped Mrs M wouldn’t be offended, but she felt a need to know what had happened to Phoebe Chisolm.
Far from being offended, Martha Montgomery was delighted by Sam’s interest. Both Chisolm House and her former mistress were subjects very dear to her heart.
‘She married in 1945.’ Having constantly referred to Phoebe Chisolm in her single status, Mrs M was aware of Sam’s surprise. ‘Yes, an American naval officer she met right here in the borough. Fareham’s always had a strong navy history, but in the weeks before D-Day there were hundreds of American servicemen stationed around these parts. After the war he took her back to America and they lived in New York. They had a daughter, but tragically she died of leukemia, the poor little thing. Just fifteen years old, she’d been fighting the disease for two years. Phoebe Chisolm was never the same after that, I believe she had a nervous breakdown of some sort. Anyway, the marriage broke up and she came back to Fareham. She resumed her maiden name and continued to live in Chisolm House after the death of her parents. She never married again.’
