‘It’s terribly kind of you. We’re managing, just about. But Bron’s already lost his job and he’s got to get another quickly or –’ I had been about to mention Rupert but suddenly I thought he might not care to have tidings of his philanthropy broadcast. ‘Pa’s never been very good with money and Ma’s even more hopeless.’
‘Well, promise you’ll let me know. There’s nothing I wouldn’t do for Waldo. I had my first part in one of his plays. Twelfth Night. He was Orsino and I was Valentine. I had something like a dozen lines. When it came to the opening night I was so frightened I could hardly walk. My knees were literally knocking together and my face was twitching, like this.’ Max blinked and grimaced, making me laugh. The woman on the next table looked absolutely fascinated. ‘Your father held out his hand to show me that he was trembling too. “This,” he said, “is the capacity to feel, made visible. Without it we cannot make magic. We’ll weave the spell together.” Do you know, whenever I’ve had stage fright I’ve always thought of Waldo and it’s helped no end.’
I was accustomed to people idolising my father. I could not remember a time when he had not been the centre of attention, almost an object of worship. But these days, hearing praise of him was like a drug of which I could never have enough. Max seemed very willing to feed my addiction. This, combined with the relief of knowing Mark Antony to be safe, made me happier than I had been for weeks. At any time, in fact, since my father’s arrest. The sole arrived, glistening with speckles of brown butter, and was delicious. Max described his early career with much wit and, for an actor, a most unusual modesty.
‘How’s Caroline?’ I asked while we were eating the most heavenly cold, crunchy meringue glacées. I had been putting off mentioning her, for no good reason that I could think of.
‘She flew to Auckland this afternoon to stay with her sister. I think the change’ll do her good.’ There was a pause. ‘Things have been a bit – tough, recently. I expect it’s my fault. Of course, acting’s never going to pay as well as a department store. What a nuisance money is!’
‘Oh, isn’t it!’ I agreed fervently.
Max had picked me up that evening in a racy sports car. I don’t know anything about cars but something about the leather seats and the feeling of being punched in the spine when he accelerated, suggested this was a luxury model. Max had expensive tastes and Caroline must be tired of paying for them. I envisaged sordid rows about bills across the breakfast table. My exhilaration dwindled a little.
‘The trouble is, we like quite different things. I’m not boring you?’
I shook my head.
‘Caroline can’t understand that I’d rather do without something than have my wife pay for it. She’s incredibly generous, gives me clothes, cars, paintings, books, anything I could possibly want. But I’m a simple man, really. Before I married her I used to live in jeans and ancient jerseys and drive a clapped-out Morris Minor. Perhaps it’s disloyal of me to say so but I really don’t like so much emphasis on consumption. I don’t mind if our furniture’s scruffy, I’d just as soon eat boiled eggs as caviar and I don’t want to fly about the world to lie on the private beaches of smart hotels. I’d rather sit under a tree in a field reading poetry.’
‘Oh, so would I!’
‘What sort of poetry do you like?’
This was the beginning of a most satisfactory conversation. Max turned out to like all the same poets. He quoted his favourite bit of Keats, from Endymion, and the woman on the next table gave up any pretence of not listening. Max’s voice was beautiful and full of expression. He said the lines as though he really felt them. I could have listened for hours. After that we talked about anything and everything as though we had known each other for years and I was astonished to find, when I looked at my watch, that it was half-past ten.
‘I must go. I promised Cordelia I wouldn’t be late.’ She had disapproved of my desertion of Mark Antony so soon after his return and I had pacified her by swearing to cut the evening short. I had not realised then how much I was going to enjoy it.
‘That’s the youngest one? Is she always so tyrannical?’
‘It’s because of our cat.’
I explained about Mark Antony’s abduction and restoration. Max was sympathetic and agreed it was particularly important not to break one’s word to children. He summoned a waiter for the bill. When he stood with his hand on the back of my chair so he could pull it out for me, the woman on the next table practically bit the bowl off her spoon with longing. He took my elbow as we walked to the door and I was conscious of female attention from every side. I expect they thought I was his kid sister and he was being kind to me.
‘To tell the truth,’ Max said as we purred through the traffic on our way back to Blackheath, ‘things have been very bad lately between Caroline and me. I suppose this sounds like a variation on “my wife doesn’t understand me”.’
‘Not at all,’ I said politely, watching the first spots of rain begin to trickle down the windscreen. They sparkled colourfully, changing from red to yellow and to green with the traffic lights.
‘There isn’t anyone I can talk to about it.’ Max changed up as he sped across the junction. ‘All my friends are more or less Caroline’s friends too. You know what gossips actors are. And they’re mostly so insecure that they’re delighted to have something to bitch about. I’d trust Waldo, of course, but at the moment it would be unfair to burden him with my own problems. The fact is,’ he slowed to let an old woman and a dog over a zebra crossing, ‘Caroline tried to kill herself a few days ago.’
‘Oh! Oh, I’m so sorry!’ I looked at him with concern. His expression was blurred by rolling shadows but I saw that his eyes were bright.
‘She’d taken barbiturates and she’d been drinking. She knocks back a bottle of whisky a day now, has done for several months. Luckily I got home unexpectedly early. I found Caroline unconscious in the bathroom. I called an ambulance and they pumped out her stomach and – well, I needn’t go into details. She was pretty groggy for twenty-four hours but she’s all right now.’
‘Poor Caroline!’ I said. ‘Could it have been an accident?’
‘She’d written me a note. Saying she was sorry and that she loved me but she felt she was a drag on my life.’ He was silent for a moment while negotiating a right-hand turn. A beam of light fell on his hands as they turned the wheel and I experienced something that was so unfamiliar and, in the circumstances, so entirely inappropriate that I felt a sense of shock. It was desire. When I had made love with Dodge I had wanted to please him. I enjoyed the feeling that he wanted me, that for a while I was his equal. I had felt no physical sensations but a vague periodic flutter of excitement. But just then, when I had looked at Max’s hands, I thought I had something of a clue to what all the fuss was about.
‘I didn’t want her to go to Auckland on her own but she said she was homesick.’ I jerked my mind back to what he was saying. He drew up outside our house and we sat for a while, the engine running, the windscreen wipers making streaky fan shapes in the flowing water. ‘Of course I feel as guilty as hell. When she asks me if I love her I always say yes. And I try to make it sound convincing. But I suppose there’s a part of her that doesn’t want to be convinced. Someone who’s depressed seeks a rational explanation for their state of mind, don’t they?’
Did he mean, then, that he did not love Caroline? I watched the fan shapes dissolving between each wipe and tried to think of something comforting to say. ‘It’s torture watching someone you love suffer and not be able to help them, isn’t it?’
‘You’re thinking of Waldo, aren’t you?’ Of course I had been. ‘What’s happening now? Are the police any nearer the truth?’
I told him what the inspector had said the last time we had spoken.
‘It’s an unhappy time for both of us,’ said Max, taking out his handkerchief to wipe condensation from the inside of the windscreen. ‘But tonight’s been a wonderful respite. I hope I haven’t spoiled the evening by
burdening you with confidences.’
‘Oh no! I’ve enjoyed myself so much. It was very kind of you to take me somewhere so elegant and glamorous.’
‘And you’d have much preferred somewhere less pretentious and more interesting. It was a mistake but I hope to put it right. I’ve honestly never known a woman who didn’t feel that her value ought to be measured in pound notes. The truth is I haven’t known that many women. I’m rather shy though I try to put on a good front.’
He smiled. I saw the lamplight tremble in his eyes. It is extraordinary how one can get the wrong idea about people. Before that evening I had believed Max to be something of a lady-killer.
‘Honestly, I loved it.’
‘You’re an adorable liar.’ He leaned towards me and put his hand on my arm. ‘If I promise not to bore you with my problems will you let me take you somewhere we’ll both like much better?’
‘That would be lovely. I mean – of course, you haven’t been.’ There was a silence filled with anticipation of an indecipherable kind. His face was very close to mine, his eyes half-closed. I looked away and felt for the door-handle. ‘I’d better go in now.’ He made a movement to open his door. ‘Oh, don’t get out, please! You’ll get so wet. It’s coming down in torrents. I can just run in.’
‘Let me escort you under an umbrella.’
‘No, really, I like rain.’
‘All right.’ He put out his hand to open my door from the inside and his arm brushed against my breasts. ‘Run in then, my beautiful amphibian.’
I was glad it was dark and raining and he could not possibly see the expression of idiotic gratification on my face.
‘What are you looking so starry-eyed about?’ Ophelia’s reflection appeared behind mine in the hall mirror.
‘Nothing.’ I was embarrassed to be caught staring at myself.
‘Where’ve you been?’
‘I’ve been out to dinner with Max Frensham.’
‘Really?’ I could see that Ophelia thought I might be joking. ‘Whatever for?’
‘Not for anything particularly. Just to talk.’
‘Where did you go?’
‘The Cinq Tours.’ I was conscious of a certain satisfaction. I rarely had the chance to impress Ophelia.
‘Harriet! Not dressed like that! A cross between a refusenik and a Sunday school teacher. Poor Max!’
‘Sometimes I envy people who don’t have sisters.’
‘I know just what you mean.’ Ophelia and I looked angrily at each and then curiosity got the better of her annoyance. ‘So what did you talk about?’
‘Nothing important. My job, how he started in acting, poetry, that sort of thing.’
‘How riveting!’ Ophelia allowed her eyelids to droop and gave a pretend yawn.
‘And we talked a bit about Caroline.’
‘She’s a sot.’
‘She’s very unhappy.’
‘I expect I’d be unhappy if my husband took girls half his age to the Cinq Tours the minute my back was turned. Particularly if I looked like Caroline.’
‘She’s generally considered good-looking. And I’m not half his age. He’s thirty-four and I’m twenty-two.’
‘You’re not, are you? I must have missed your birthday again. You don’t look twenty-two, anyway. Caroline Frensham has a nose a champion pig would be proud of. It’s obvious that Max married her for her money. But what can he want with you?’
This was just what I had been wondering when I looked at myself in the mirror. ‘I don’t believe it was anything to do with money. You always think the worst of everyone.’
‘Oh, don’t lecture me, for God’s sake! Your precious inspector has only just left. I believe he’s trying to break the record for the longest sermon ever preached.’
‘Inspector Foy was here, this evening?’
‘Rupert told him about his adventures in Wapping with the cat-napper. The inspector waxed wroth that he hadn’t been let in on it from the beginning. I think he wanted to give you a nice cosy ticking-off. He looked annoyed when I said you’d gone out. I explained that I was entirely ignorant of any of the circumstances but he was determined to have an audience for his display of temper. Ma and Ronnie were in the coal-hole, watching one of Ronnie’s old films. They made me promise to say they were out.’
‘You didn’t make him cross?’
‘I?’ Ophelia opened wide her wonderful blue eyes. ‘I listened to the first few sentences to make sure that there was nothing worth attending to. Then I interrupted very briefly to ask if he’d mind if I stretched out on the sofa and closed my eyes while he talked, as I’d had a long and very tiring day. What there was in that to make him so ratty, I’ve no idea.’ Ophelia smiled slowly as though the memory of his anger was pleasant.
‘Hat? Are you awake?’
It was Portia’s voice. I dragged my eyelids apart and saw the familiar dark shapes of my bedroom. I lifted myself on to my elbow. ‘What time is it?
‘Six, near enough.’
‘In the morning?’
‘Yes, you clot. If it were six at night you’d hardly be in bed, would you?’
I shut my eyes for a few blissful seconds and then opened them again. ‘What’s the matter?’
‘Nothing. But I’ve only just got back and I couldn’t possibly sleep. And you know you’re always worried about your alarm clock not going off at six thirty so I thought I’d pop up and make sure.’
Back? Back from where? Then I remembered that Portia had been to a party with Suke. I thought for a while longer. ‘It’s Saturday.’
‘Oh, damn, so it is. I’d forgotten. Sorry.’ Then, when I said nothing because I was thinking longingly of being allowed to go back to sleep, Portia said in her special repentant voice, which we both knew was entirely put-on but somehow it always worked, ‘Can I talk to you anyway?’
‘OK. Keep your voice down, though. And don’t put the light on. Mark Antony’s asleep in the crook of my arm. He sicked up his supper but he did actually give two little purrs before going to sleep. Careful!’
Dirk gave a yelp as Portia trod on him.
‘God! Sorry. I can’t see a thing. And it’s perishing in here. How do you stand it?’
‘See if you can get the heater going.’
‘What do I do?’
I explained the idiosyncrasies of the stove and soon we had a cheerful glow that outweighed the disadvantage of a penetrating oily smell.
‘What’s this? I’ll sling it round my shoulders.’
It was my writing robe. Before getting into bed I had tried to write a poem about the evening and what I felt about Max. In vain. It sounded like an entry in the In Memoriam column of the Brixton Mercury. ‘Dear Mum we miss you very much We miss your voice and kindly touch We miss your face and other things, Now you’ve got a pair of wings.’ Honestly, that was one of the better ones.
‘I’ve had an extraordinary evening.’ I heard the excitement in Portia’s voice. ‘The party was terrific. It was held in this marvellous house in a sort of park. I’ve no idea where because Suke drove and we were stopped by a policeman because one of her headlights had gone. He was very sarcastic at first, the way they always are, and asked us if we normally drove about in our underwear in midwinter. Did I tell you it was fancy dress? We went as Orpheus and Euridice. Suke made me a dress out of an old sheet, with one bare shoulder and a silver girdle and a chaplet of roses. She was wearing the tiniest tunic and a curly black wig, with thick black lines round her eyes to make them doe-like, as on Greek vases. Her nose has a very straight bridge so it couldn’t be more perfect …’
I must have dozed off for a few minutes. Portia was still talking when I came to. ‘… and grapevines trained right across this vast trellis ceiling with real grapes – I ate a few to see – and they’d made a sort of lagoon in the conservatory and there was a man dressed up as Neptune serving drinks …’
I was swimming in water that was wonderfully warm and people were cheering. I was swimming for the glory of St Fri
deswide’s and suddenly I was able to do a miraculous crawl, lifting my head above the water at every fourth stroke which I had never been able to do before without nearly drowning. Sister Imelda was running up and down the edge of the school swimming baths, trying to scoop me out of the water with a giant hook …
‘… so when we’d had enough to dancing we explored the house and on the landing, by a window that looked down to a lake with the moon floating on it, Suke put her hands on my shoulders and kissed me.’
I was suddenly much more awake. ‘What was it like, being kissed by a woman?’
Portia sighed. ‘Luckily I’d had a lot to drink or I’d probably have panicked. Her mouth was very light and soft and at first it just felt friendly and nice. As though we were chums. And of course not scratchy. But then she put her hand on one of my breasts and I had several seconds of absolute panic when I felt like a fly must feel on the end of a chameleon’s tongue – trapped and going down for the last time. Then Suke whispered, “Oh, Portia, I’ve fallen in love with you.” Hearing her voice, a woman’s voice, made me feel safe again. I mean, you trust a woman in a way you’d never trust a man. In an extraordinary way it was as though I was kissing another self, a part of me, so I felt sort of safe. She went on talking to me, reassuring me, and everything she did was so delicate, so gentle – not pushy and urgent, like a man. It was quite different. A man only pretends he cares about you. And you have to pretend to believe him because otherwise it feels so – bleak. Suke made me feel loved for the very first time. And then, because there wasn’t any forcing or grabbing, I felt it too – love, I mean. And gratitude, really, for making the past seem much less important. We danced for hours in each other’s arms up and down the landing, and I stopped even thinking about …’ Portia shuddered. ‘It was such a relief. I only thought about her and I felt if someone so beautiful and good loved me then perhaps I wasn’t so –’
Portia stopped talking suddenly and I guessed she was close to tears. She clasped her forearms and put back her head as though to recapture the ecstasy of the moment, and the sequins and lozenges on my writing robe winked in the light from the stove. She let out another sigh as though from a full heart. ‘Well. Now I know. I’m a lesbian.’
Clouds among the Stars Page 24
