Song of Songs

by Beverley Hughesdon

  He always stayed out very late, and some nights he did not come home at all. I was on my way down to breakfast one morning when I saw Cooper helping him out of a cab. He was panting for breath, his face was grey and he could hardly walk. As soon as he was in the hall he slumped down into a chair – and I noticed the dusting of cheap face powder on his shoulder. I stood at the foot of the stairs and said nothing – but when he reached into his pocket with shaking hands and took out his cigarette case I could not keep quiet any longer. ‘Robbie, no – it’ll make you worse.’

  He turned his bloodshot eyes on me and gasped, ‘Mind your own bloody business, Helena,’ and began to flick his lighter. I stood there, helpless, as he drew in the first lungful of smoke and burst out into a paroxysm of coughing. And I stayed where I was, not daring to go to him – to my own brother in his suffering. When at last he recovered himself he stared down at the floor and wheezed, ‘Nothing’ll make it any worse.’ I knew it was a kind of apology.

  It was Conan, when he came back from Ireland, who told me that Robbie’s girl was an actress of sorts, in the chorus of a musical comedy. Then he said, ‘Leave the poor sod alone, Hellie – he’s had four years of hell – let him catch up now.’ Conan was certainly catching up now. Letty said he had been unbelievably thin when he had first come back from Germany and he was still lean, but now he had the lithe strength of a coiled spring. His recklessness seemed to pervade the very air around him. He was sharing rooms with a fellow officer he had met in the prison camp; they had both resigned their commissions now, but my cousin was flying again. He had gone straight back to it and I knew he took risks, but it was the only thing that seemed to satisfy him. The rest of the time he danced and drank and smoked.

  I saw him twirling a slim ash-blonde around the floor at a dance I had gone to with Letty. Mother had given her consent to Letty going up to Cambridge if she spent one Season as a debutante first. My sister, who did nothing by halves, flung herself into it with gusto. She was not pretty – her jaw was too heavy for that – and she made no effort to flirt or entertain, yet she was always in demand. I stood watching her bounce around the room while I sipped at my glass of champagne.

  ‘Drink up, Hellie – drink up!’ Conan was beside me, summoning the waiter to fill my glass. I protested, but his blue eyes flashed at me, so I shrugged and drank again. As I drained my glass, the band struck up the opening bars of a tango; he seized the glass from me, thrust it into the hands of a startled dowager, caught me round the waist and propelled me on to the floor. The strong rhythm caught hold of me as we swung into the routine of the steps: the scissors, the heel-clicking, the sudden turns – he threw me round and under his arm and I twisted and turned at his bidding – giddy with champagne and excitement.

  He danced me down the length of the crowded room, dodging and feinting between the fast-moving couples, and then we were through one of the long windows and out on to the terrace. He danced me on, twisting and turning, until we reached the top of the steep flight of steps down to the lawn. He swung me down them, step by step, in time to the fading music from the ballroom. When we reached the bottom I collapsed against him, laughing – but he would not let me rest; seizing my hand, he tugged me half-running into the shadows of the garden. We stopped, panting, close by the dark wall – and his eyes glittered as he pulled me nearer. As I felt his hands hard on my bare arms I swayed towards him, and lay unresisting against his heaving chest as he began to tug urgently at the fastenings of my dress. ‘I want you, Hellie, I want you!’

  There was a soft laugh close by, and we both froze and watched another couple stroll past, arms decorously linked – and realized we were in an open garden, within sight of the blazing ballroom. Conan set me away from him and fumbled for his cigarette case. I watched his face, sharply etched for a second in the flare of the match – and knew that I wanted him too – I wanted his strong male body on mine, hard and determined.

  With an effort I kept my voice casual. ‘We could find a hotel.’

  He drew in a deep lungful of smoke, and exhaled it slowly before he replied. ‘We could, Helena – but I’d be paying for it with your mother’s money, and I’m not quite such a bastard as that.’ He pulled on his cigarette again and said, ‘My dear father said he wouldn’t allow me a penny unless I stayed in Ireland, but I can’t face that great barn of a house. So I blew my gratuity, and Aunt Ria guessed I was skint – she’s opened an account for me, letting me draw what I like and do what I like with it. She’s been bloody generous, Hellie – sometimes I think she’s the only person who understands. So now I’ve sobered up, the answer’s no, thanks all the same.’ He ground out his cigarette and ran back up the steps to the crowded ballroom. I called a cab and went home.

  Next day he dropped in at Cadogan Place at teatime. He sat chatting and smoking with Mother. I asked for a cigarette and he said casually, ‘It won’t do your voice any good, Helena.’ I held out my hand and he shrugged and gave me one. Mother went upstairs and we sat smoking beside the tea tray without speaking for a while, then he said, ‘Sorry about last night, Hellie, but you do see…’

  I could not think of any reply, so I smoked on in silence. Eventually he got up and reached for his hat and gloves, then he turned towards me, and his sardonic grin flashed out for a moment as he said, ‘Christ, Hellie, over the years you’ve cost me a fortune in whores!’ and he swung out of the room.

  I thought, not your fortune, my cousin – it’s my mother who pays now. There seemed a certain poetic justice in the idea.

  As I came out on to the landing I heard the front doorbell ring, and Cooper ushered in Mother’s latest admirer – a square-shouldered, grizzled general with a barking voice. ‘I’ll go straight up, Lady Pickering is expecting me.’

  I drew back into the drawing room as his heavy footsteps pounded past on his way to her sitting room. A silly picture began to form in my head: this evening, while Mother was dressing for dinner, I would go up to her room and nestle cosily at her feet and ask her advice. ‘Dear Mother, how can I get a man? Any man, I’m not fussy – just for the one night.’ And she would bend over me with a motherly smile on her still-beautiful face and tell me exactly how to do it.

  I pulled myself up suddenly and thought, quite rationally: Helena, you’re going mad. I lit another cigarette and went up to my room.

  Ralph Dutton invited me out to lunch the next day, and as I sat toying with my smoked salmon I realized that I was not listening to a word he was saying – instead I was steadily appraising the set of his shoulders, the strength of his hands – looking him over as if he were a stallion ready for stud. Suppose – but no, Ralph would not do. He was too respectable, he would be shocked – or if I persuaded him he would feel guilty afterwards, perhaps even want to marry me. I gave a small shiver. ‘Are you in a draught, Lady Helena? I’ll call the waiter.’

  ‘Thank you, Mr Dutton, that would be so kind.’

  I walked in the Park after I had left him, and wondered again if I were going mad. At least it would make a change.

  There was the jingle of harness and the rattle of spurs behind me – I glanced round automatically – it was a troop of Life Guards. The officer in charge was a young boy with a fair moustache. I swayed and ran to a seat and sat with my face in my hands while waves of shame and humiliation washed over me. Gerald – Gerald who had died when the war was young and heroic, Gerald who had stood in the moonlit garden at Hatton and told me, ‘There is not, and never has been, any woman but you. And there never will be.’ Gerald had loved me, and yet here was I now, behaving like a bitch on heat – besmirching his memory and soiling the girl he had honoured.

  I sat there for a long time, my mind in turmoil. Then I walked to the Stanhope Gate and took a cab to Signor Bianchi’s studio. He did not seem surprised to see me. ‘Ah, Lady Helena – you’re back. Good. Let’s hear some scales.’

  I sang very badly; my voice was rough and cracked on the high notes. He held out his hand, ‘Your cigarettes, please.’ I handed
them over and he threw the whole lot, silver case and all, into the empty grate. Then he said, ‘You have a lot of work to do. Come back at this time tomorrow.’

  As soon as I got in at Cadogan Place I went to the morning room and sat down in front of the piano.

  Chapter Two

  Life was a little easier now that I was singing and playing again; each day had a purpose and a structure which had been lacking over the past couple of months. Now I forced my fingers to re-learn their dexterity, and listened to myself carefully and critically as I sang – trying to coax my voice back to its former suppleness.

  But I still worried about Robbie. One evening he did not go out. I found him in the drawing room, hunched over the paper. ‘Not going out tonight, Robbie?’

  He did not look up; he just shook his head. Then he burst out, ‘What’s the point? I’m a bloody crock now – I’m no use – I can’t even act like a man any longer!’ And as he spoke I knew he was repeating someone else’s words – and I hated the girl who had said them to him. He shifted in his chair, to turn his back on me, so I left him.

  A few days later Ralph Dutton dropped in – he had decided to stay in the army as a regular and they sat talking about the war together; it seemed to cheer Robbie up. Ralph had gone back for the last months, and through into Germany with his men; they spoke about who had survived, so I asked after Lofty and Ginger and Ben Holden. Ralph thought Ginger had been wounded again – he was not quite sure – but he knew both Lofty and Ben Holden had gone on to the end and been demobilized. I was glad of that.

  For a while Robbie seemed more cheerful; then Ralph had to leave Town and my brother’s temper shortened again and he began to go out every evening on his own – and to stay out.

  My voice was improving; Signor Bianchi took it very slowly at first, saying that I had nearly destroyed it in the war – and I remembered the gas marquee and shivered. But it had not quite gone because Elsa Gehring had laid such strong foundations. Dear Elsa – I wondered how she was coping in Germany today: did people still learn to sing there? But Elsa was a survivor; she would not go under.

  I was playing and singing one day in the morning room when Conan came in. ‘Stop that racket and go and put your hat on, Hellie – I’m taking you out to lunch – I want to talk to you.’

  We sat in the small restaurant, chatting casually over our meal. Then, when he had finished his ice, he put his spoon down, leant forward and said, ‘I’m going to China.’

  I stared at him and repeated stupidly, ‘To China?’

  ‘That’s right – big place where they’re all yellow with eyes like this.’ He pulled his eyelids up into a grotesque slant and leered at me. ‘Haven’t you noticed I’ve been letting my hair grow long, ready for the pigtail?’ Then he was serious again. ‘A chap I met at Hendon – he’s going out, a flying job – so I thought I might as well go too. I asked around and it’s all fixed up. I can’t sponge off Aunt Ria for ever, and I feel like a change.’

  I was too stunned to speak. He picked up his wineglass, twirled it, and then said casually, ‘Do you fancy coming with me, Hellie?’

  ‘With you?’

  ‘We’ll do it legally, of course. Get a special licence, have a damned good honeymoon, then be off at the beginning of next month.’

  ‘You’re proposing – you’re suggesting we get married?’

  ‘That’s right.’ He added, ‘Look, Hellie – I can’t promise I’d be a faithful husband, you know me better than that – but, well – I wouldn’t ever let you down.’ My mind was in a whirl. At last I stammered tritely, ‘But – it’s so sudden!’

  He gave a great shout of laughter. ‘So sudden! Oh, come off it, Hellie’. He leant across the table until his lips were close to my ear and whispered, ‘I’ve had my hand up your skirts ever since I was seventeen!’

  ‘Conan!’

  ‘Well, not all the time, but you know what I mean – and I’m fond of you, Hellie – you know that.’

  I still sat silent, uncertain, so he lit a cigarette and said, ‘You needn’t make your mind up today – sleep on it, and I’ll come round and see you in the morning.’

  I reached out and touched his hand: it was very warm. I slid my fingers up under his cuff and began to caress the fine dark hairs on his wrist; my breathing quickened. But he pulled away. ‘None of that, Hellie – I know your tricks.’ He grinned. ‘If I give in to you now you’ll hustle me off to a room somewhere, have your way with me – and then abandon me – ruined!’

  He was laughing, and he looked so young and carefree that I could not resist retorting, ‘It was nearly me that was ruined – in the maze that evening.’

  ‘Ah, but I didn’t, did I? And I behaved myself afterwards. Aunt Ria appealed to my boyish sense of honour – then she came down to earth, pressed a ten-pound note in my hand and told me to go home to Ireland and seduce a housemaid.’ He smiled reminiscently.

  I could not help it, I had to ask. ‘And did you?’

  He looked at me with the devil in his blue eyes. ‘You bet I did, Hellie – you bet I did. She was a pert little thing and very free with her favours. I thought I was in paradise that autumn – I was drunk with it!’ I thought bitterly: While I, I was put under guard and exiled to Munich. ‘Then I had to go back to Eton, and Father turned up a couple of months later in a raging fury – he’d had to pay to marry her off to a groom. He really tore a strip off me, the old hypocrite. I can’t stand that harridan he’s got living with him now – that’s one reason why I’m not keen on going back. Come on, Hellie, I’ll take you home.’

  I was very restless that evening. I refused to go out with Mother and Letty, and sat playing the piano for hours before I went to bed. But I still could not sleep: the temptation to go with Conan was strong – there were too many memories in England now. Then I remembered Gerald, kneeling at my feet in the orangery, and Conan’s casual, careless proposal suddenly repelled me. I got out of bed and walked restlessly to the window and stared out over the dark gardens. A cab drew up further down the street and a man got out – he staggered to the railings and was violently sick through them; my lip curled, and then something about the way he was clinging to the iron uprights alerted me. It was Robbie.

  I threw on my wrap and dashed down the stairs. By the time I got the door open an ashen-faced Robbie was on the step, supported by a brawny taxi driver. ‘’Ere you are, lidy – bit worse fer wear fer ’is night aht – but I got ’im back ter you.’ He looked at me expectantly. I rummaged through my brother’s pockets and the man took the coins and said, ‘I’ll give you a lift inside wiv ’im. Come on, now, chum, upsadaisy.’ He heaved Robbie into the hallway and dropped him into a chair. ‘Cheerio, lidy – don’t be too ’ard on ’im – we all tikes a drop too much sometimes.’

  I closed the door behind him and ran back to Robbie; he stank of whisky and vomit. ‘Sh, I’sh – couldn’t find the key.’ He began to heave again and I held him steady while he was sick into the umbrella stand. Then he sagged back against me, his breath rasping in his chest – I couldn’t shift him alone, so I rang the bell. Cooper came so quickly I knew he must have been waiting up for my brother.

  Between us we managed to get him up the stairs and into the bathroom. He slid down on to the floor and Cooper helped me take off his soiled suit, then I washed his hands and face. His underwear reeked of cheap scent. We got him across to his bedroom and put him on the bed. The butler stood panting beside me; he was an elderly man now. ‘That’s all, thank you, Cooper. I can manage.’

  ‘Are you sure, my lady?’

  ‘Yes, quite sure.’ He slipped noiselessly out of the room.

  I looked down at my little brother, wheezing in a drunken stupor, and reached for his pyjamas. I saw the ragged scars on his chest and his arms as I took off his vest and covered them quickly with his pyjama jacket, then I turned to slip off his underpants and draw on the silk bottoms. While I was tying the cord he opened his bloodshot eyes and looked up at me – and as I saw the despair in them I kn
ew I would not go to China with Conan.

  Next morning I shook my head as soon as my cousin came into the drawing room. He looked suddenly absurdly disappointed, and for once he was speechless. I felt I owed him an explanation so I began to talk of Gerald – how I had loved him and how I always would. I found myself repeating Gerald’s vow to me – I had never told anyone else, and now there was a painful pleasure in telling it, even to Conan. But my cousin looked at me with a strange expression, as if he did not believe me. I spoke almost angrily, ‘He meant it, Conan – he meant it.’

  Then Conan said, ‘Yes, Hellie – I’m sure he did. I couldn’t make that declaration to you, and you know it – there’s no point pretending. But…’

  There was a discreet tap at the door and Cooper appeared. ‘My lady, Mr Robbie’s come round – I mean, woken up – and he’s asking for you.’

  I said quickly, ‘I’ll come – tell him I won’t be a minute.’

  Conan watched my face as the door closed, then he said, ‘It’s because of Robbie, isn’t it? That’s the real reason.’

  I hesitated for a moment – I did not want to give my brother away – then I told him of the state Robbie had been in last night. He picked up his hat. ‘Poor old Robbie. I’m not going to try and persuade you, Hellie – I would have done if it had just been… But I know you won’t leave Robbie now. Give me a kiss and say goodbye.’

  I clung to him and began to cry. ‘Come on, Hellie, old girl – I’m just going to China – it’s only the other side of the world, you know! Besides, I expect I’ll be back some time.’ He kissed me again and left, and I went upstairs to Robbie.

  My brother looked dreadful; as I came towards him he tried to apologize for the night before, but I put my finger to his lips and smiled at him. He managed a faint answering smile, then his eyelids dropped and I saw he had dozed off again. He stayed in bed all day. I went upstairs after dinner and he lay propped up on the pillows with his eyes closed while I read the newspaper to him. When I reached the foreign news he began to cough. I waited but his coughing became worse; he was gasping for breath with his handkerchief clutched to his mouth. As I ran to him my nostrils caught the foul odour of his breath and I saw his handkerchief was already soaking. I sprang to the washstand and seized the bowl and just managed to get back to him in time as with a great convulsive heave a stream of thick brown pus erupted into the bowl. I stood with my arm round his shoulders until he had emptied his lungs, then I put the bowl down with shaking hands and eased him back against the pillows, wiping his lips with my own handkerchief. ‘All right now, Robbie, all right. I’ll send for the doctor.’