Distant Music

by Charlotte Bingham

  ‘Because I would never be seen on a bus or the Underground without them, dahling. Why do you think?’ She looked around at the rest of the chattering students with a suddenly bored expression. ‘You know this is all going to be a complete and mammoth waste of time, don’t you?’

  ‘Oh, I don’t know.’

  ‘Well, you wouldn’t, really, because you are, as we both know, fairly pathetic, Ollie, but then you always were.’

  She looked at him with sudden and familiar fondness, as his brothers never did, but knowing that Oliver would not let her off some sort of explanation she quickly decided that now was the time to produce the real and valid reason for her sudden, and quite inexplicable, enrolment at the Academy.

  ‘You see, I had to get in somewhere, Ollie, or else I couldn’t stay in London. I had no excuse to stay in London. Comprenez? Had to. The guardians have moved to Norfolk, for ever, and, poor old ducks, they didn’t want to take me, and I didn’t want to go – can you imagine, me – in Norfolk? Ha. Not bloody likely! They haven’t even a phone there, figure-toi? So after I was chucked out of art school for too much facility, I came here for an audition, mostly for a lark actually, didn’t think I had a chance, but then bloody hell, I only got in. Me voilà, my deah!’

  There was a small silence as they both stared at yet another shoal of their fellow students, both of them helplessly and hopelessly wondering where the competition would lie.

  Would it lie with the tall girl with the plaits on top of her head? With the boy with the dark hair and the glasses? With the large, fat girl – character parts only probably, but never mind. Who was going to prove to be the best, the fairest, the starriest of them all?

  ‘Yes, but what good will it do, I mean what good will acting be to you, if you really want to design, Coco?’

  ‘Well, I can design at night and in the hols and all that,’ Coco said, suddenly serious. ‘But apart from not just wanting to leave London, I thought it would be good to be in plays, to find out what’s needed, you know? And also, where the old hat ideas are still hanging around gathering dust needing new modes, new brilliance, and et cetera. And to find out how the costumes feel when they are on. That will be useful, I thought. You know, find out how the clothes move and what an actress or actor wants from them. And then of course there is getting the feel of the plays, that is important. Don’t worry; it will not be a waste of time. Far from it. I shall probably louse up all the plays I am in, or get chucked out or something, but on the way I shall learn. Most of all I will be soaking up the atmosphere, staying in London, meeting people, learning all the time. That’s what it is all about, Ollie, learning. I don’t want to design costumes like Leonard Bakst or someone, you see. I want to design them like me – Coco Hampton. That’s what it is all about. It. I. Me. My face for the world to see. All that. And it is all, Ollie dear, about to begin.’ Coco dropped her voice and rolled her eyes before saying in sepulchral tones, ‘Act One, Scene One: the Acting Academy.’

  Oliver looked at her, but he did not laugh, being too deep in thought.

  In some ways he was sorry that Coco was going to be with him at the Academy, because she was so impossibly, impishly irreverent, and in other ways – so many, many others – he was quite thrilled. They could be a kind of team; that is, if Coco was not, as she had just said, chucked out. They could be an unholy alliance the way they always had been when they were growing up together, talking, talking, talking, theatre, theatre, theatre.

  ‘Come on, love,’ Oliver told her, suddenly exaggerating his Yorkshire accent to make her laugh. ‘Time to roll up t’sleeves.’

  Instead of her sleeves Coco rolled her eyes, all mischief, as she always was, and probably always would be. ‘Curtain oop?’ she asked mockingly.

  ‘I am not actually playing it as definite as that, actually. I am playing it like Cliffie. Just a light smattering of Yorkshire. I will only let myself down if I try too much.’

  ‘If you haven’t already – dahling!’

  Oliver stared at her. ‘How do you mean?’

  ‘Those shoes!’

  Coco attempted to suppress a laugh, and failed, as they followed the rest of the students forward and Oliver stared down at his feet. Coco had an obsession with clothes, always had. Not surprising really, since she wanted to be a designer.

  ‘What? What is wrong with them? What is wrong with my shoes, Coco?’ Oliver stared in despair from his feet, moving towards enrolment, to Coco, now bursting with ill-suppressed mirth.

  ‘Pure cavalry officer, dahling! I mean, do tell me – were you in the Eleventh Hussars or the Household Cavalry?’

  Oliver closed his eyes momentarily. He hated Coco so, so much – quite as much as he loved her, which was so, so much – but no good would come of contemplating either emotion at that moment, because now there were not one but two people laughing far too uncontrollably, tears pouring down their faces, and in danger of holding up the moving body of students.

  Coco was so right.

  Oliver’s feet, now that he bothered to look at them, did not belong to him at all, in fact they looked ludicrous, especially when teamed with his horribly new duffel coat. His feet still belonged to his elder brother, Richard. They were pure army, and nothing to do with him, nothing to do with Oliver, the thespian younger brother.

  ‘Oh Gahd! Teach me to pinch shoes from Richard and Newell!’

  Chapter Three

  It was no surprise to anyone, let alone Elsie Lancaster, that Cinderella was a sell-out. After all, despite the growth of television audiences, despite the success of commercial television, despite the weather and the government, families still wanted to take themselves and their children to that all-British institution, the Christmas pantomime. The pity was that to hear Dottie talking about it, you would have thought that the production had been an all-time failure, not a huge success.

  The ghastliness of the costumes, the vulgarity of the producer, the inefficiency of the scene changes, the awfulness of Elsie’s shared dresser, they were all aired as news-making items, not weekly, but nightly, when Elsie returned home in the unheard-of luxury of a station taxi.

  And all this despite the fact that Dottie had not been to anything except the first dress rehearsal.

  ‘I’m not coming back for the first night, not to see that tat, never. They should be ashamed of themselves, in this day and age, coming up with a standard of production like that. Anyone would think that the war was still on, really they would.’

  And nor did she attend the first night, and nor would she any night, Dottie maintained, loudly and long, every morning, every afternoon, and presumably, although Elsie was never there to hear, every evening too.

  It seemed that on principle Dottie refused to be a witness to such a disgrace, would not be party to the kind of unprofessionalism that gave theatre a bad name, and as a consequence made people admire anything and everything that was on television. According to Dottie the pantomime was filled with dancers who were overweight, played for by an orchestra that was half asleep. Like everything that Dottie had witnessed in the theatre since the war, it was professed to be appalling.

  ‘Please tell me where standards have gone?’ she would ask their lodgers, who were usually unable to supply an answer. ‘Do not ask me, not ever, not at all. But gone they have, down the tubes, down the drain. And today’s managements! Well, when they’re not doing the artists, they’re doing the public. Pulling the wool over their eyes, making believe that just about anything will do. They think the public doesn’t notice, but they do! And that is all before we get on to that wretch John Eastbourne, and what he and his like have done to thee-ay-ter! What have they done to our darling thee-ay-ter? Where the great plays, where the great actors? What since the war – besides Oklahoma! and The Deep Blue Sea – have we to admire? The verse play? Do not even speak to me of the empty seats engendered by the verse play! And now we have these others, these Palace Court scribblers, chest scratchers, dustbin men as heroes, and the like! Please. Just tell
me, what is there to admire any more? Where Congreve? Where Wilde? Where anyone of worth? Even Coward, would be better than these … dustbin dwellers.’

  ‘Don’t, Dottie dear heart. Don’t ask me. I don’t understand what’s going on any more, really I don’t.’

  This was the standard reply of any permanent or temporary lodger, always known collectively, despite their age, as ‘Dottie’s boys’. But whoever among them happened to be present, they knew that this was the only possible, the only acceptable and standard response to Dottie’s passionate diatribe of nightly disgust against the ghastly changes in the theatre.

  No such reply came from her granddaughter.

  It was Elsie’s sensible practice to keep quite quiet during her grandmother’s tirades. Quite apart from anything else, she was usually too tired to do anything else, but then there was also the generally accepted fact that no one, ever, interrupted Dottie and lived to tell the tale. When she entered into one of her long diatribes against the fashionable theatre, as Elsie well knew, no one was required to speak, and all the regulars of Dottie’s lodging house knew this. What they were required to do was to sit in admiring silence as she launched her personal rockets at the critics, at the new style of theatre, at television, and now, also – despite the success of the pantomime – at Portly Cosgrove.

  Portly Cosgrove had become one of Dottie’s newer targets.

  It was quite clear to everyone who saw Dottie from day to day, and knew her, that Portly Cosgrove had mortally offended her. How exactly he had caused such offence, Elsie had not yet quite managed to ascertain. Generally speaking, since he had employed Elsie and what was more paid her every week and on time, it was puzzling. Eventually, Elsie, who puzzled over this manifestation as much as anyone, was forced to come to the conclusion that having gained his agreement, in every respect, to every one of her demands for her granddaughter, Dottie had finally settled on hating Portly for not arguing with her, for robbing her of a unique opportunity to best him.

  Portly Cosgrove had taken the ground from under Dottie’s feet. He had denied her the opportunity to win points against him, to score triumphs, to walk up and down the hall saying things like Now then, Mr Cosgrove, get out of that Mr Portly Cosgrove once she had replaced the telephone receiver.

  It seemed unreasonable, but it was the only possible conclusion that Elsie could reach as to why Dottie had her knife in Portly Cosgrove.

  Mr Cosgrove would never, ever be able to do anything right because he had bored Dottie. He had acceded to her outrageous demands, immediately, at once, giving in to everything that she had demanded for Elsie, however seemingly unreasonable. From then on his production was bound to fail, bound to appear shoddy, ill managed, ill conceived, and in bad taste.

  As far as Dottie was concerned he was like a tennis player who had come on court, taken one look at the opposition, laid down his racket and conceded victory. Dottie only liked and understood conflict. It did not matter where the conflict lay: with the government, in the house, with the ironing; she had to have conflict the way the old people of the town had to have sea air. She had to have it in order to be able to feel that she was the only person on the planet who saw things in the right way. Without conflict Dottie would have to give in to other ideas not just about the world, but also about herself. If Portly Cosgrove was a nice reasonable man, the notion that Dottie was an ambitious woman making unreasonable demands might have to be entertained. Therefore Portly Cosgrove, having denied her the right to indignation and conflict, must now be proved to be second rate. It had to be. There could be no other explanation.

  And so it was with the success of Cinderella.

  Never mind that the local critics had boomed it to the skies, begging everyone to book to see the production, lauding Elsie to the rafters, and congratulating Donald Bourton on his exquisite production, full of shading, and with the newest and best of everything on show.

  To Dottie it was not a patch on, could never come even near to, Stuart Blaine’s 1928 production in the old Hambra Theatre at Beckhampton, using the 1924 Bakst-type costumes from Sleeping Beauty, and Max Little’s sets from Ophelia. Now that was the definitive Cinderella, and of course Laura Piper was discovered in it, too. She was the definitive Cinders, No one sang or danced with more grace than Loo Piper, really they didn’t!

  Still, despite everything, Elsie was determined that she would not allow Dottie’s attitude to her own first real success to influence her optimism. Apart from anything else, there was no real reason to. After all, if she had been about to be cast down by Dottie she would have given up years ago, of that there was no doubt. Instead she continued as she had always done, to go to the theatre, to do her job, to learn the lines and try not to bump into the furniture, as the very tired, very over-used theatrical saying went.

  But most of all, she made sure to keep as quiet as possible in front of just about everyone. More than anything that was what her childhood in the theatre had taught her, and that was what she had learned to do over the years, perhaps better, she often thought, than she could either sing or dance, or act.

  Keeping quiet meant that Elsie could get into character, and stay there, for even though some might consider Cinderella a stupid part she was determined to make Cinders real, determined to put depth into her characterisation, make Cinderella the sort of person that Elsie understood – someone who had endured all sorts of domestic humiliations, but had come through with her head held high.

  Long before being cast in the star part in the pantomime, Elsie had never been tempted to stand around gossiping with the rest of the cast, or passing on scandal, or becoming the least bit interesting to anyone else. Time, and listening to Dottie, had taught Elsie that was for the birds. Quite apart from anything else, it used up all your energy. Elsie always made sure to keep all her acting energy bottled up, waiting to fizz, only uncorking it once she left the wings and walked on stage. Then her dynamic energy was allowed full rein, only to be promptly recorked once she returned to the wings.

  Although she had never had one before, even her inexperience in this field did not mean that Elsie would be tempted to gossip with her dresser. Always known backstage as the Dame, for reasons that Elsie had never found out, Tinker Butterworth could say what she liked, when she liked – which she did, and all the time – but could expect to receive no replies from Elsie.

  Of course Elsie listened to her. After all, she could not exactly block her ears in front of this old hand from both Variety and the legitimate theatre, but she was more than careful never to add anything, more than aware that, as with Dottie, the lightest remark would be seized upon, exaggerated, told again slightly differently, and finally, without any seeming effort on anyone’s part, turned into one of those apocryphal stories that make the theatrical rounds for years and years.

  Sometimes, indeed, they made the rounds for ever, being printed in one of the many, and often interminable, theatrical memoirs that graced Dottie’s bookshelves.

  So, just as someone living in a country peopled by secret police will make sure not to see or hear anything, backstage, Elsie smiled, and said nothing. So much so that they were not long into the run before Tinker Butterworth put it about that Elsie Lancaster might be a sweet young thing, but she was also characterless and boring, with nothing at all to say for herself.

  Of course Elsie knew this, as she knew everything that was said about her or anyone else, not because she actually heard the Dame saying it but because, growing up on the fringes of provincial theatre, she knew everything that was said about people who did not play the game. They were always ‘boring’. Or ‘terribly sweet, darling, but nothing up there, if you know what I mean?’

  As it happened Elsie was quite happy with being thought dull and accepting. Along with so much else she was determined to keep her thoughts on the matter in the privacy of her head. She had never grumbled when she was growing up, partly because she was not allowed to, but also because there was no point. Neither was she, at this stage in h
er career, prepared to give any indication to her rivals that she was anything except a tall, quite talented girl, with her eyes firmly set on the future. Any more would be to show her hand, a hand that she was intent on keeping close to her chest.

  And so it was that, as the run of the pantomime drew inevitably to its end, and she contemplated a jobless future, and a list of presents that, as the star, she knew that she would have to present to the rest of the cast, not to mention the Dame herself, Elsie was surprised in her dressing room by Portly Cosgrove.

  Of course he knocked on the door, as courteously as he had knocked on it many times before, allowing Elsie time to slip into a robe especially chosen for receiving callers, but this time there was a difference. This time, he asked the Dame to leave them alone.

  ‘You sure?’ Tinker’s androgynous face peered down into Elsie’s now unmade-up one.

  ‘Yes, Tinker, please. It’s all right. You can leave us alone. Although …’

  Tinker turned expectantly. She was after all, according to her old friend Dottie, also meant to be chaperoning Dottie’s granddaughter, whatever ‘chaperoning’ might mean, when it was at home.

  ‘You could take some of those parcels over there and wrap them in that pretty wrapping paper, if you don’t mind, Tinker.’

  ‘Oh, very well. But remember, the station taxi will be here any minute, and tonight is not the last night. There are no favours from anyone to anyone tonight, love. Still another performance to go before liberty, dear.’

  Exit Tinker with a disapproving look to both Elsie and Portly.

  ‘Wonderful old character, isn’t she?’ Portly asked in a raised voice, and with an accompanying laugh, knowing that the old dresser would be sure to have paused as long as she dared, to listen outside the dressing room door.

  ‘Yes, Tinker is wonderful.’ Elsie too had raised her voice and for exactly the same reason. ‘She is an old friend of my grandmother’s.’

  ‘Known the family for years, has she? A grand old character, salt of the earth, that sort of thing, is she?’