Distant Music

by Charlotte Bingham

  ‘You should have a show of your own, that’s what. Get a show of your own.’

  ‘I haven’t had time to go up for anything yet. I haven’t even got an agent, let alone a show of my own.’

  ‘You should buck up, you should, young Oliver. No good poncing about the stage all day long when you could be selling toothpaste – that’s where the money is now ITV is here. You could be starring in your own show, or fronting one of those quizzes. That would suit you, that’s what you should be doing, fronting a quiz, like Hughie whatsisname, or whoever.’

  Of course Oliver knew what Newell was doing, and quite purposefully. He was reducing his younger brother’s future to a few crummy commercials or a quiz show, hating the idea that Oliver might be going to be famous, might be going to be someone, might actually succeed at his acting.

  ‘Oh, by the way, Newell, how did you enjoy being on stage at the Royal Opera House? Quite something, wasn’t it?’

  Newell reddened, having, it seemed, entirely forgotten about their encounter backstage at the Royal Opera House.

  ‘Just a lark,’ he quickly told John Plunkett. ‘We all go on in the chorus, for a lark. Walk on as slaves or whatever is needed at the time. It is the tradition that the Royal Opera House is supplied with extras from the Royal and the Household Cavalry. Rather different supply routes, what?’

  Plunkett Senior’s face remained unmoved, either by the idea of his two younger sons at the Royal Opera House, or by their meeting there unexpectedly. Perhaps the notion did not interest him, certainly it did not seem to elicit anything more than a wintry smile, the kind of smile that might be aroused by someone nearly spilling a glass of wine, but not quite.

  ‘What do you think of this burgundy, Newell?’

  ‘Splendid.’

  ‘Good. Just as well. I have laid down a great deal of it. Tell me, what do you think of the new anti-tank—’

  They started to talk about the army and Newell’s regiment in particular with rather less feigned interest than they had shown towards acting, and almost at once Oliver seemed to slip out of their line of fire in exactly the same way that he had slipped out of it when he was young, and growing up at the Hall.

  It was as if he did not exist, as if he did not matter, and more than that, as if they had rather that he did not. Once more his mind started to wander, back to Cliffie’s room, back to Cliffie looking moved by his audition pieces, and all that. It was the only way to keep the pain at bay, to detach himself, fly above everything like Peter Pan. Except he was more like one of the Lost Boys than Peter Pan, but unlike them he wanted to stay lost, had no wish to be rescued by a belief in fairies, or anything else for that matter.

  Nothing much changed at the Hall, Oliver thought sadly, staring at the plate in front of him, and nothing much would ever change, he supposed. Everyone just the same. Hardly worth coming home. Oliver and Cliffie polishing shoes and talking about theatre in the pantry, his father and Newell talking about guns in the dining room.

  He had looked forward so much to coming back, seeing them all after all this time. For so many months he had imagined how it would be, but now that he was home he found himself wishing that he was back in London. Anywhere in London, too, doing anything except sitting like a lummox with nothing to add to anything. He would rather be waiting at tables, walking in the Park, going off to his voice lessons – he wanted to be anywhere but where he was, sitting silently in the ancestral dining room surrounded by portraits of Plunketts, none of whom had been bitten by the acting bug. If he had known what it was going to be like he would probably never have saved up the fare to come back. Except for Cliffie, of course, it had been well worth coming back to see his favourite old boy.

  ‘Where are you going, Oliver, if you don’t mind my asking?’

  ‘He’s retiring with the ladies! Leaving us to our port. Must be all that wearing of the tights, eh, Ollie?’ Newell always laughed long and loud at his own jokes, and now even his father could not help.

  ‘Got a bit of a headache. Going to lie down—’

  ‘What did I tell you?’ Newell gave another guffaw of laughter. ‘A headache. Any excuse, we know!’

  ‘Very funny, Newell, I don’t think. Sorry, sir. If you don’t mind, have to attend to the migraine. Take some tablets. It’s a cracker, I’m afraid.’

  Oliver backed out of the room and straight into Cliffie who was, as always, listening at the door.

  ‘Come on, Master Oliver, come on down to the snug. I have a grand bottle of eighteen-year-old whisky sent by an old army friend from Scotland. We can really enjoy that, and have a long talk about your plans. You must have some ideas about the future, haven’t you? Myself, after what I saw earlier, I would say that you are in line for a Ramad gold or silver medal, I would really.’

  Humiliated, and set about by his usual feelings of total inferiority in the presence of the males of his family, Oliver followed Clifton downstairs, glad to be away from the other two, not caring what they thought of his leaving the dining room early, altogether not caring about very much really.

  ‘By the way, how’s Mrs Piglet, Cliffie?’

  ‘As well as can be expected, since she is feeding about seventeen offspring at the moment.’

  ‘It just shows you. I had forgotten to ask after her, after all this time.’

  ‘No, you hadn’t, you just didn’t dare to ask. I know you, Master Oliver. Saint and Francis are your middle names, aren’t they?’

  Clifton poured them both two socking great whiskies from his special bottle of eighteen-year-old, and smiled.

  ‘Here’s to you, Master Oliver. You’re going to show them. Just you wait and see, you will show them. All of them.’

  They both knew whom he meant by them.

  Those other two, his brothers. The two men in his life who did not understand how he felt, who did not want him to do well at what he wanted. They wanted him to be ground down, not raised up, by what he did. They thought that people like him were beyond the pale, just flotsam and jetsam.

  ‘Yes, you’re right, Cliffie, I will show them, and soon.’

  Coco was feeling more and more homesick, which was a paradox, really, if that was the right word.

  Really, the longer she was on location the more she should feel at ease, with herself, with her surroundings, with the cast and the crew, with everything, but the truth of the matter was that she did not. Worse, the further truth of the matter was that, despite the much appreciated funds for her long awaited Austin Healey piling up in her bank balance, she wanted nothing more than to fly home to London. Being on location on a film in circumstances which, however much you were being pampered, after only a few days revealed themselves to be completely devoid of the slightest interest was actually very disappointing, however much she tried to pretend that she had not expected more.

  In fact, it seemed to Coco that being on set over the last few days was just like being trapped in a lift. The film seemed to be going neither up nor down. At some moments she even found herself praying that the Central Bank of Pima – or whichever unfortunate institution it was that had backed the film – would blow the whole thing apart by refusing to fund it any longer.

  But no such luck. Despite seeing what surely must be the most wooden rushes known to man, the bank had, it seemed, happily continued to allow a fortune in money to stream out to Malaga. No amount of costly delays in shooting, or mounting crises with the two perfectly awful stars, who were now, needless to say, knocking each other off, seemed to put them off. The bank continued to sign the cheques with an equanimity bordering on lunacy.

  Victor and Coco had, therefore, necessarily, to become friends. Quite apart from anything else there was no one else remotely within their own age group with whom they could pal up, and boy, did everyone need a pal when stuck on a hot location, with temperatures and tempers rising to equally high levels.

  Victor had, it seemed, soon got the message that Coco was not in the least bit interested in him, and never would be. She ha
d explained to him, most patiently, that they could be friends, but that was all.

  ‘The famous Aeneas, I suppose?’

  He had asked this with a resigned look, and a voice dripping with regret.

  ‘No, no one. I am committed to my career.’

  ‘Ah, we want to be a great actress, do we?’

  ‘No, we want to own an Austin Healey, that is all. Nothing else will do.’

  He had laughed at that. ‘I like honest people.’

  But like so many people who said they liked honest people, Victor liked nothing of the sort. He liked to be complimented, to be told that he was a great friend, that he excelled in his scenes, to be commiserated with, and nothing much else.

  Coco went along with this new role of admiring sister/friend, simply and solely because she was on location, and for no other reason. She said things to Victor that she would never say to Oliver, and allowed him a line in flattery that Oliver would never be allowed to get away with – for a start they would both be laughing too much. But with handsome Victor Martin, it worked. And just when she had found that there was a small part going spare, for which Oliver would be all too suitable, and had telegraphed to tell him as much, Coco, from a combination of boredom, homesickness, and drinking too much wine, one hot summer night, gave in, and went to bed with Victor Martin.

  Waking up the next morning with a pounding head, and the feeling that she was actually in the Sahara desert and had not been given water for as long as she had been on location, Coco staggered towards the bathroom and drank her fill from a very nasty bottle of water. It was tepid and had obviously been bottled from some sluggish source somewhere that did not bear thinking about, but Coco had drunk it all before she realised that she must be still drunk to have drunk it at all.

  ‘What was I doing last night?’ she asked the revolting person mirrored in the glass above the basin. ‘Was I mad, or drunk, or what?’

  The answer was, as Coco well knew, all three. Please tell me that I did not just lose IT with Victor whatever he calls himself, for no better reason than that I am homesick, bored and lonely? she demanded of her conscience, but being Coco’s conscience, the answer came back loud and clear.

  You just did. You just lost it.

  After that it became a lengthy process of self-justification. As she cleaned up her face and prepared for the day, took aspirin and drank gallons of water, Coco told herself that she must be in love with Victor. It could not be that she had thrown herself away on Victor because she was feeling homesick. She must be in love with him. They got on so well. That must be what love was: you got on well, laughed and joked, and then went to bed together, and got married, or something. That must the logical process through which everyone went, the procession of normal emotions that eventually led to marriage and children.

  ‘Are you all right?’

  Victor stared at her. They had just finished in make-up and were waiting about, as always, for shooting to start.

  ‘If it is of any interest – no.’

  ‘Why aren’t you all right, Cokes?’

  ‘Because, again, if it is of any interest, I am more than horrified at what I got up to last night.’

  ‘What did you get up to last night, as you put it?’

  ‘The same as that writhing mass of extras on the hill, that’s what. And besides, I have a shattering hangover, and I swear I will never drink wine of such a low type, or sleep with such a – sleep with anyone ever again. Why oh why do they call it sleeping with someone? It is such a stupid expression, isn’t it? Sleeping with someone. You don’t sleep with someone, that is the whole point, you stay awake. You sleep when you have not slept, as it were. Pathetic way of describing it.’

  ‘Didn’t you enjoy it?’

  Coco stared at Victor Martin. ‘Not for a second.’

  ‘It gets better.’

  ‘I’d rather not try, actually, Victor. I am too sensitive for this world. Besides, I rather think that things should, as the song says, have been organised better.’

  ‘No one enjoys their first time.’

  ‘You don’t say.’

  ‘Oh, come on, Cokes, you’re a beautiful girl, I am a handsome man, we are on location. Why not enjoy ourselves a little?’

  ‘Look, Aeneas – I mean Victor—’

  He stared at her, and they both reddened with embarrassment at Coco’s slip, but for entirely different reasons.

  ‘That was not funny. You wished that it was him, last night, that is what you wished, isn’t it?’

  ‘No. As a matter of fact I can’t remember last night, so wishing for someone, or not, does not come into it. Now, come on, let’s try to get over the whole awful business and concentrate on the scene. Quick rehearsal, please!’

  Victor looked shattered, and serve him right, Coco thought to herself, almost smugly. Good God, taking a girl when she was as drunk as fourteen sailors was just not on, but it had happened, and now they just had to get on with it. She just wished that she had not been drunk. It seemed so awful to lose it when you were practically unconscious.

  ‘Oh well.’

  Coco walked ahead of Victor.

  ‘Oh well what?’

  She could hear his anxious footsteps behind her.

  ‘Oh well, I had to lose it some time, so I suppose it might as well be to you or with you, or whatever the expression is.’

  ‘Can’t you at least pretend that you’re in love with me?’ Victor complained from behind her as he tried to negotiate the grass they were traversing without ruining his costume.

  ‘What is the point, Victoire dear?’ Coco demanded, becoming deliberately camp. ‘It will only lead to complications.’

  But, although Coco did not know it, but was soon, unhappily, to discover, complications had already begun.

  Oliver stared at Coco.

  ‘But you were only out there five weeks,’ he protested.

  ‘Quite enough time to get pregnant, Oliver.’

  Oliver stared out at the people walking past the restaurant window. Fresh from coming back from being on film location Coco was treating him to lunch. He had got in first with all his news, long before Coco could embark on any location stories, not giving her time to say much about herself. The principle behind this tactic was, of course, as they were both well aware, to put Coco in her place, but more than that, to make sure that she knew that while she was fooling about on location Oliver had been bent on doing proper, good work, which was not what Coco would have been doing, for all that she would have been paid large sums of money for larking about on location, doing nothing more serious than remembering a line a day, and avoiding a tan, which was not in period for the film.

  He had hoped to have fascinated her with all his stories about playing various roles, about all the new gossip, about Bertrand sacking the now infamous Putt and for no better reason than that Putt had enjoyed an affair with one of the students. Finally, Oliver’s pièce de résistance was his story that Putt had been promptly snapped up by a rival establishment and had taken the girl in question with him to a rival drama school, upon which she too was snapped up – but this time by a film company.

  ‘So you’re not the only person to be whisked off to become a film star, Coco love. Putt’s bit on the side has been cast as the maidenly daughter of an Anglo-Saxon king. She too will now, doubtless, be saving for her Austin Healey.’

  Oliver had just finished spouting his deliberately patronising little speech, which was really meant to make Coco laugh, when she had burst into tears and started to tell him her awful news, as the waiter was putting a perfectly delicious plate of minute steak and chips down in front of each of them. Seconds later, instead of picking up his steak knife and fork, Oliver had found himself staring out of the window at the people outside, slowly passing by, because he was not used to women crying, least of all Coco crying. Coco did not cry. Coco was arrogant, mocking, and confident, Coco did not cry. It was just not Coco.

  ‘Don’t do that here, Coco, not here, not in front
of everyone, they’ll think I’m being cruel to you. I was only trying to make you laugh, really I was. You know, just pretending to be jealous, and all that. That’s all, really.’

  Oliver’s eyes moved restlessly from Coco’s distraught face to the minute steaks, and back again. He was starving, and at the same time desperately upset at Coco’s distress, not least because it meant that they might be forced to abandon their food and leave the restaurant. His stomach gurgled loudly as Coco dabbed hopelessly at her panda eyes with a paper napkin.

  ‘I am not a film star, as you call me, Oliver.’ Coco wiped her eyes with her paper napkin. ‘I am, as of this moment, a pregnant ex-actress. Oh God, Ollie, what shall I tell the guardians? They will have a twin fit. I will bring disgrace on them, and after all they have done for me, all they have been to me.’

  ‘You won’t. You will say nothing to anyone, least of all your guardians, that would be madness. Just keep yourself to yourself, stay in London, make all sorts of excuses, but whatever happens do not, repeat not, do not tell them. It will do no good. Particularly now they are down on their luck, and, from what you told me, eating dog food for Sunday lunch.’

  Coco nodded, sniffing. Oliver was right, of course. Besides, she could not bring herself to even imagine the scene. Her guardians so proper, always so kind to her, never blaming her for anything the way they probably should, living in Norfolk, making do on fresh air and brown bread, because of their shares collapsing and all that. What a way to repay them for all their kindness to her.

  ‘Go and see them quickly, before they get suspicious, and then stay in London while you have him, or her, or whoever the baby is going to be.’

  ‘I wish I could, but I am burgeoning already. I can’t go and see them, they will guess straight away.’

  Coco began to eat her steak and chips, sniffing bravely, and trying to halt the great shudders of emotion that were raging through her.

  ‘I am burgeoning and burgeoning, Ollie, straight off. None of my costumes fitted at the top, and everyone on the set was starting to talk. I tell you, it’s true. The costume department can never, ever keep its mouth shut, as you will pretty soon discover. They are always the fount of all knowledge, suppliers of corsetry to the truly enormous of both sexes, or the about to be heavily pregnant, or the merely pathetic. They notice everything from your skin tone to your toenails, judge you on it and then rush off and tell everyone.’