Now that I had suggested she might be tired she seemed hardly able to keep on her feet. She was swaying and her lids were drooping. Gently I uncurled her unresisting fingers and extracted my button. ‘Can you get a taxi all right?’
‘I’ve got a car and a driver waiting. I’ll be OK. Thanks, Harriet. You’re a pal.’
I watched her staggering along the corridor, with feelings of sorrow and dread on her behalf. I would speak to my father at once and make him see that he must, as gently and kindly as possible, tell her that the affair was all over. But when I fought through the crowd and at last got near enough to press my lips to his sooty cheek, Pa gripped my arm. ‘Harriet, thank God! Get them out of here, will you?’ Sweat was making rivulets through his makeup and his eyes were terror-stricken. ‘I think I’m going mad!’ he whimpered. ‘I want to go home!’
Bron, who was standing nearby, overheard. ‘Don’t blame you. It’s a deplorable crush. Somebody’s trodden on my new crocodile shoes. It’ll be a miracle if they haven’t ruined them.’
Living with Letizia seemed to have made a new man of Bron. While I was trying to think how to dispel the fawning crowd without hurting anyone’s feelings, my brother, with uncharacteristic purpose, extinguished his cigarette in his neighbour’s glass of champagne and clapped his hands.
‘All right, everyone. Din-dins is on me at Crillons. Presto pronto. Last one there’s a sissy!’
FORTY-ONE
The reviews of Othello were uniformly ecstatic. Pa’s performance was ‘profound’, ‘elegiac’, ‘intense’ and ‘percipient’. He had given ‘a transcendent interpretation of good and evil rarely seen on the English stage’. He was ‘magnetic and puissant’. He had ‘redefined Shakespeare’s dramatic purposes for a whole generation.’ He was even ‘the greatest Shakespearean actor of the twentieth century’. He was inundated with offers of parts. There were rumours of a knighthood in the next honours list.
Suddenly my father could do no wrong. Newspapers reported his separation from my mother with unusual discretion and pleased Ma by mentioning that she had been ‘an unforgettable Rosalind’ and publishing a photograph of her that was at least ten years old. She and Ronnie had hurried back to Cornwall the day after the first night to oversee the plasterers. Portia and Jonno returned to their cottage, which currently had an infestation of squirrels and flooded after every rainstorm, but they swore that having ducks swimming round the kitchen table was indescribably romantic. Bron had overdone the Moët et Chandon at Crillons and had been carried off by two charming Italians and flown back to Milan.
Ophelia and Charles resumed their satisfactory careers and sizzling love-life. Cordelia went back to school and had her own first night before the end of term, when she took the house by storm as Viola in Twelfth Night. I was so proud of her. Watching the skill with which she beguiled the audience into believing her to be by turns an enigmatic boy-servant and a girl on the verge of womanhood, I was inclined to believe in Cordelia’s prophesy that she had a brilliant future before her. Even Rupert was moved to comment, saying that she had the rare power to absorb the eye. Naturally Cordelia was thrilled by her own success. Every member of my family seemed deliriously happy.
Except me.
During former turbulent times I had often thought that if my parents and siblings were happy I should have nothing more to wish for. But of course I was much more selfish than that. I was not so miserable that I drenched my pillow with tears at night and dreaded to face each day. No one living with Rupert and Archie in that charming house, with every sense deliciously catered for, could have been anything other than entertained and gratified, superficially at least. No, the cause of my gnawing unhappiness lay deep, and every time I started to examine it I was so appalled by what I discovered that I gave it up at once. But one thing bothered me so repeatedly and insistently that I decided to do something about it.
The nearer we got to the first night of Un Ballo in Maschera the more distracted Rupert became. Sometimes we had to repeat things two or three times before he heard them. He wandered about, muttering to himself and almost gave up eating and sleeping. He looked pale and large-eyed, and after one particularly long telephone call from a member of stage management he shut himself into his work-room for several hours and not even Archie could get a monosyllable from him.
‘It’s because he’s so buttoned-up,’ complained Archie as we sat by ourselves in the arbour. Cordelia was in the kitchen, making herself a kimono. ‘If only he’d throw a tantrum he’d release some nervous tension. Or take some woman to bed.’
‘That might create more problems,’ I said. ‘Remember Leah.’
‘Certainly. And Celia, Beatrice and Pascale. Not to mention Anna, Esther and Hildebrand.’
‘You just did.’
‘What?’
‘Mention them. Anyway, who are they?’
‘The most recent of Rupert’s women.’
I was aware of a sick feeling. It is not pleasant to have one’s gods dethroned. I knew Rupert sometimes drank too much, that he was bad-tempered in the mornings, that he could be hard and unsympathetic, and yet … I pulled myself together. If he chose to behave like a sottish Lothario that was entirely his business. It was nothing to me.
‘Hildebrand. What an awful name.’
‘It’s Teutonic for war sword. He met her when she was a Valkyrie in a production he reviewed at Bayreuth so it’s quite apt. Thick blonde hair and a chest that required specially forged outsize armour.’
I suspected Archie of teasing but anyway it seemed more dignified to be indifferent. ‘I’m delighted Rupert has so many women he can call on for consolation.’
Archie paused in the act of pouring himself another glass of wine. ‘Oho!’
‘Oho what?’ I said, perhaps snappishly.
‘Oh – nothing.’ Archie’s eyes wandered to the mossy statue of a woman, who stood ankle-deep in some pretty dark purple flowers with a scent of plums, at the end of an avenue of pleached hornbeams. ‘That’s Clytie,’ he said. ‘She was a sea-nymph in love with Helios, the sun-god. He deserted her for another woman. So she went into a huff. According to Ovid, she lay naked on the ground for nine nights and days, quenching her thirst only with her own tears. Then her limbs took root in the soil, a mortal pallor spread over her and her body became a colourless stalk. Her head turned bright violet. Now, though she’s fastened to the ground she turns her face always in the direction of the sun, which she never ceases to worship. That flower you see there is the heliotrope, named after her. A sweet tale but a reminder that we must be careful where we lay our loves for clumsy feet to trample on.’
I waited for him to tell me what had brought this story to mind but he changed the subject. ‘We must be very careful not to make demands on Rupert until the first night is over. You might have a word with Cordelia to that effect.’
This chimed in so neatly with what had been depressing my spirits that I went indoors almost at once and began to write the article I had been brooding over for the last week. It was a review of Pa’s Othello. I wrote the first draft straight off with hardly a pause. Because I was discussing abstractions – love, honour, courage, jealousy, and so on – I found the words came more easily than when I was trying to describe supernatural happenings and make them live in the reader’s mind. When I read the piece through, it seemed not entirely hopeless. I polished it carefully over the next couple of evenings, typed it out during one lunch hour and that evening posted copies of it, along with my ‘Spook Hall’ articles, to the three provincial newspapers I had heard of.
The truth was, the burden of indebtedness had become too much to bear. Though I gave Rupert my mite – three-quarters of my earnings at the Brixton Mercury. – I knew it was a fraction of what Cordelia, Dirk, Mark Antony and I must be costing him. My clothes alone came to a terrifying total. I tried to be economical but money had never been something I had much idea of. When Archie found me standing at the kitchen sink trying to stuff a tin with soap, as Maggie did at
Pye Place, using scraps of Camay I had saved from the loos at work, he had been indignant.
‘In Dante’s Inferno there’s a special place in the fourth circle of Purgatory reserved for skinflints. They’re forced to roll weights up and down a hill in company with the profligate, each group hurling insults at each other as they pass. You will not like it.’
‘I know, but I’m so conscious of how much Rupert spends on us. I feel horribly guilty.’
‘Ah. So that’s why you’ve been nibbling cheese rinds, eating apple cores and refusing second helpings. At first I feared your peculiar behaviour might be because you were enceinte with a tiny Frensham.’
‘Thank God, no! That’s one thing to be grateful for.’
Archie looked at me consideringly. ‘Why the tone of despondency? I should have thought there were plenty of things in your young life to make you skip for joy. Anyway, if you want to save money I suggest you discourage Dirk from chewing. He’s just destroyed my chamois moccasins embroidered by a now-extinct Indian tribe, of which I was extremely fond.’
‘Oh, no! Has he? He’s such a bad dog. I’m dreadfully sorry. Is there any chance I could get them repaired for you?’
‘Not the slightest. They’re in at least twenty pieces, not counting the morsels in Dirk’s stomach.’
‘Oh, dear. And yesterday he ate the belt of Rupert’s mac. He didn’t say anything when I apologised but I could see he was very annoyed when Dirk threw up the buckle on the Savonnerie rug. I still haven’t got the stain out.’ I paused, my fingers a sticky mess of slivers of soap that refused to adhere. ‘Rupert’s the sort of person everybody runs to for help. I don’t know why they do. I can’t work it out because it’s not as though he’s exactly friendly – unless he’s in the mood. And he’s got such a strong sense of duty that he always does help. When he was a boy we were always interrupting him and asking him to do things, though I could see sometimes that he wanted to be alone. But he invariably did them. None of my family has any sense of duty, so I was always very aware of that. Now I feel as though I’m taking advantage of him.’
‘You mustn’t be earnest, Harriet. You’ll get terrible frown-lines and look a hundred and forty when you’re only twenty-three,’ was all Archie would say.
The provincial newspapers were maddeningly slow to respond but eventually after nearly three weeks had gone by I received a letter from the Manchester Sentinel inviting me for an interview. I took a day off work and caught the train to Manchester without telling anyone where I was going. I was very nervous but the three people I spoke to at the Sentinel were genial and extremely keen to talk about Pa. It was immediately obvious that being the daughter of the most popular actor in England was my best card and I played it for all I was worth. After another week of waiting, I got a letter appointing me assistant deputy arts sub-editor at a salary that was double what I was earning at the Mercury. I was enormously pleased. Well, pretty pleased, anyway. Any cowardly reluctance I might have felt about leaving London and beginning a new life I did my best to suppress the minute it threatened to surface.
Besides, I would not be alone. I intended to take Cordelia with me. It was hard on her having to change schools again just when she had settled at the Arthur Brocklebuck Comp but I thought this would be better than living with Pussyfoot, who very definitely did not want her, or with Ophelia, who might not make a very good job of pretending she did. Pussyfoot complained constantly about the expense of doing up the new house in Hampstead in an attempt to forestall demands from us children but I was prepared to do battle on Cordelia’s behalf. Pa must make her an allowance until her education was finished.
Of course, I would not ask for anything for myself. I would be twenty-three in September and should have been earning my living years ago. Now I could not understand how I had existed for so long in a fantasy world without purpose or responsibility. With my new salary I could probably afford to rent a double room, not too distant from the premises of the Sentinel. With care I could make my beautiful clothes last several years. In time, if I worked hard, we might progress to a small flat. To one so thoroughly spoilt as I had been, there was something melancholy in this prospect but it was a challenge and I knew I enjoyed working. Also we would be near Portia and Jonno. Naturally they would be very much bound up in each other but we could meet often. Occasionally, anyway. And I would know she was not far away, which would make the whole thing seem much less lonely. And Dirk and Mark Antony would make the most dreary lodgings seem like home.
Cordelia, when I told her the plan, took a less sanguine view. ‘Manchester! You must be barmy! We’re doing North and South at school. It’s all smoky and Mrs Hale dies of lung cancer and there are strikes and everything’s covered with soot! I’m not going!’
But when I discussed the alternatives she was equally firm. ‘I won’t go and live with Ophelia and Charles. I’d be left out all the time. Beside Charles’s flat’s only got one bedroom. Where would I sleep? I’d hear them having sex, night and day. I’d be as mad as the Lady of Shallots in a week.’
When I suggested Pa and Pussyfoot in Hampstead Cordelia became scathing. ‘It’d take about a week of Pussyfoot grumbling about me wearing out the chairs and breathing up her oxygen before I chucked myself under a train like Anna What’shername and if you remember how much you cried when Greta Garbo did it; think how much worse it’ll be when it’s your own sister, much younger and even more beautiful.’
‘Very well, then Manchester it must be.’
‘But why can’t we stay here?’
This was Archie’s question when I told him of the projected move while we were in the kitchen, making supper.
‘Because I can’t go on being a parasite. I must learn to be independent. You and Rupert have been so good to have us. But you must be allowed to have your house to yourselves again.’
‘Right.’ Archie carefully unmoulded a tomato and anchovy mousse. It looked very pretty on its bed of orange and chicory. I felt disappointed that he had not attempted to argue me out of my decision to leave, though I had spent the day marshalling reasons why I must. ‘There! I think a little cold soup to begin, perhaps pea and lettuce, and I’ve made pêches au Château-Lafite for pudding.’
‘That sounds wonderful.’
‘It does, doesn’t it?’ Archie smiled with satisfaction.
‘I shall miss your marvellous suppers. And all the fun we’ve had. And you.’ I was close to tears.
Archie frowned, his widow’s peak prominent above his white face. ‘What are you talking about? Oh that. Rupert’ll deal with that little flight of insanity. Only you mustn’t push him too far, remember. He’s under great pressure. On the other hand perhaps it’ll do him good to think about something else.’
‘No, but I mean it. I really must go –’
‘Ssh!’ Archie held up a hand with silvered nails and a ring of yellow sapphires. ‘I must concentrate on the soup. Unless you’ve anything sensible to say?’
I went upstairs to change. When Rupert came home he was mute with exhaustion. We had supper in the garden and the warmth of the evening, the scent of the flowers and the sweetness of the birdsong seemed to revive him. Colour returned to his face and he began to talk about the production. They had had their first fully staged, fully costumed rehearsal that afternoon when it was discovered that the woman playing Ulrica, the fortune-teller, was too fat to get through the door of her fortune-telling hut. Ulrica had wept tears of humiliation and locked herself in her dressing room. Rupert had had to plead with her through the door to return to the rehearsal. Finally she had allowed him to come in and then thrown off her dressing gown to convince Rupert that she was not in the least fat but merely big-boned.
‘Good heavens, the woman was a sea of billowing flesh! Whole tribes of cannibals could have dined off her for weeks!’ Rupert shuddered. ‘It’s a sight I can’t get out of my mind. But I persuaded her that the set designer had made a mistake in the measurements of the hut door. In our absence the carpenter had man
aged to pare away an inch or two from the lintels and Ulrica was just able to force her way in.’
‘Supposing she has a fish-and-chip supper just before the performance,’ I said. ‘It’s going to be rather embarrassing if she gets stuck. Can’t she have her crystal ball in a shady grotto instead?’
‘Unfortunately, the hut’s an essential part of the plot. Amelia, the soprano, is also enormous and it was touch and go whether she could get inside to have her future foretold. To my great relief she did but then, unfortunately, with both of them inside, the door couldn’t be opened wide enough to let either of them out. The rehearsal had to be stopped again while the door was taken off its hinges. By this time the rest of the cast was scarcely able to stand up for giggling, let alone sing. The whole ridiculous episode wasted nearly an hour and both Amelia and Ulrica were moody as hell afterwards. We’re going to have a curtain over the door instead.’
‘It’s hardly high art, is it?’ said Archie.
‘No, but it’s just what putting on an opera entails. The art bit – the singing and playing – you don’t have really to worry about. The singers take their careers very seriously and spend far more time nurturing and training their voices than one could reasonably ask. They know their stuff. You can hold forth as much as you like about motivation and message but hardly any of them can act anyway. And the orchestra is so competent that mostly the musicians play with the same degree of emotional intensity as if they were turning out the garden shed. Sometimes the conductor can make them catch fire, sometimes something magical happens which sets it all alight, but you have to leave that to chance. The best you can do in try to build a seamless performance which looks good and makes sense.’
Rupert, I was certain, was deliberately understating his own importance. He had worked so hard on this production that he had scarcely been aware of anything else. Nations might have gone to war, thrones might have toppled and the entire population of England have been converted to Confucianism without him knowing. But tonight he seemed happy and expansive. He leaned back in his chair, breathing in the dropping honey from the jasmine that covered the arbour, a glass of Château-Lafite in one hand, a cigar in the other, content with the world.
Clouds among the Stars Page 63
