Distant Music

by Charlotte Bingham

  Unfortunately this idea of possible revenge took considerable root in Elsie’s mind, and she began to spend too much time trying to imagine the kind of destruction upon which her grandmother and former agent might possibly be bent. She found herself waking up in the middle of the night, and staring out into the lit street beyond the cheap curtains of her Tadcaster flat, wondering over and over again how and when Dottie would strike. It was as if Elsie had committed a crime and was now only waiting for the person affected to catch up with her.

  One of the many comforting aspects of being the leading lady of the Stephens Theatre was that Elsie was, as well she should be, permanently employed. On the other hand one of the less comforting aspects was that West End managements, film producers, and talent scouts for television companies, never ever bothered to go to places like Tadcaster. It was a pity, but it was a truth. To be seen by a powerful and fashionable management or agency you had to be able to be seen near the West End. To be in Tadcaster, however brilliant your work, meant that you would, very likely, stay buried for ever and ever in Tadcaster.

  It was too far for anyone connected to the theatrical thrones of the West End to even wish to be bothered about. This meant that, despite having enjoyed there some of her happiest professional days so far, Elsie knew that she, and Oliver, if he knew what was good for him, had to leave Tadcaster, and the Stephens Theatre, not in a few years’ time, but in a few months’ time, indeed as soon as it was perfectly possible. Disloyal though it might seem, it was nevertheless a necessity.

  Yet they could not leave to go nowhere.

  As Portly insisted, it would be madness to leave a happy, secure set-up where you were doing good work, for months, perhaps years, of unemployment and uncertainty. Their only hope was for something other than a revival, or a musical written by Mr Stephens’s only and very beloved son, to somehow come their way.

  However, knowing that nothing happens in the theatre the way that you would wish, unless you make it happen, Elsie now proceeded to try to encourage Oliver to write a play for her. And him, of course, but mostly for her, because there was nothing much around for her age group.

  To which Portly had to sadly agree.

  ‘It cannot be said too often, I completely agree, darling. There are not enough women’s roles, and the reason for this is because there are not enough women playwrights to write women’s roles.’

  Yet, strangely, among all the famous British and American stars, all the theatrical knights and film stars who deigned to appear in West End theatre, Portly had told Oliver, neither Sir Laurence Olivier nor Sir Anyone Else could fill a theatre if the play was not appealing to the public. Only one actress was able to do that, and no actor. No matter what the vehicle, only Miss Vivien Leigh was known to be able to fill a theatre, on her name alone, no matter what the quality of the play.

  Naturally, being an actor himself, Oliver was not particularly impressed by the failure of the male sex to fill theatres on their names alone. Privately he hated to think that the success of his play might be dependent on Elsie Lancaster’s appearing in it, but he also knew that he would probably have to reconcile himself to this fact.

  Very well, he was still passionately in love with Elsie, and she was not just very beautiful – in his opinion now more than ever – but also immensely talented, but he wanted to show himself off to be as talented as she was, and up until now there had been no such opportunity.

  On the other hand if he wrote a play just for himself, he could not be certain of having even a local hit, such was the mesmerising effect that Elsie Lancaster had on local audiences. It was a galling but indisputable fact that Mr Stephens would only be interested in Oliver’s play, however brilliant, if there was a starring role for Elsie in it.

  After some struggle, and in an attempt to emulate Noel Coward, Oliver wrote a comedy for himself and Elsie, but not in five days flat, in fifteen nights. Although it was his first attempt at a play, when he finished Love To Popeye he could not help feeling that he had, in some way, achieved what he had set out to do, namely to pen a light-hearted piece about two utterly selfish human beings who were, at that moment, nuts about each other.

  Love To Popeye was therefore, necessarily, a character comedy, based entirely and endearingly on his own relationship with Elsie. Essentially really a vehicle for two, he nevertheless made sure that there were three additional minor character roles – a cast of five at that time being rumoured to be the only acceptable minimum for audience satisfaction. The two main characters, unsurprisingly, looked exactly like Elsie and Oliver, dressed exactly like Elsie and Oliver, and behaved exactly like them too. The only trouble was that while Oliver, as a writer, was able to happily accept that he was deeply flawed, such was not, it seemed, the case with Miss Elsie Lancaster.

  Having read the play, which showed all too clearly that the central characters were both self-involved egoists, Elsie threw it at Oliver, hitting him on the side of the head, just as the owner of their flat, who occupied the flat on the ground floor below, came through the door bringing with her, as was her wont of late, a tray of tea.

  Hearing Elsie’s language, which was quite obviously not of the kind normally heard in the genteel sitting rooms of Tadcaster, the owner of the flat merely smiled sadly as she placed the tray on the stool in front of the gas fire, at the same time shaking her head more in sorrow than in pity.

  ‘Oh, Miss Lancaster,’ she said, pulling at a small tendril of hair that was doing its best to escape from under the scarf that she still wore knotted on the top of her head in the manner of those who worked in the armaments factories during the war. ‘I see from the way that you and Mr Lowell are throwing things at each other that you must be rehearsing one of those newfangled kitchen-sink plays. We can only hope that it’s not too meaty for Tadcaster, dear, because you know, when all is said and done, Tadcaster is Tadcaster.’

  After which she exited their little sitting room, and was halfway down the small, narrow, squeaking oak staircase before both Oliver and Portly, not to mention Elsie, dissolved into laughter.

  But, despite time out for laughter, Elsie could not, or would not, leave the matter alone.

  ‘I am not a vain, self-obsessed person, am I, Portly? Come on, defend me! You wait till you read this – because that is exactly how Oliver sees me, as vain and egotistical, and – yes, hard, very hard.’

  ‘Also loving, kooky, and larger than life!’

  ‘No wriggling off the hook, Oliver Lowell, Now, come on, Portly, defend me. I mean you are my agent. I am not vain, am I?’

  Unfortunately for Elsie as she asked Portly this all too loaded question she happened to be staring at herself in the pink-tinged nineteen-thirties mirror that hung over the fireplace in the little sitting room of the flat. She was also, at the time, trying out a new lipstick, in a rather darker colour than she normally used.

  Having finished putting it on her rounded full-lipped mouth, and waiting for Portly to spring to her defence, Elsie turned her head from side to side in the manner of a woman intent on buying a hat in a department store, admiring both the colour of her lips and the new blond streaks in her hair that she had now been affecting for some time.

  Instead of answering her question, Portly started to laugh once more, but this time even louder. In fact he did not just laugh, he rocked from side to side, his ribs aching with the effort to stop. Finally he gave in completely to hysteria, becoming doubled up with mirth, and banging the cream-painted wall behind him over and over again as he laughed.

  Elsie turned from the contemplation of her new lipstick, and stared first at Portly and then at Oliver, who, on hearing Elsie’s indignant appeal for help, had also started to double up with laughter.

  ‘Well, really, I have no idea what you two can possibly find so funny, really I haven’t, but I suppose I will have to play Lareina or else you will both chuck me out of the flat. But, even so, I think it is a bit much, Ollie, to put me in a play like that, warts and all, even down to putting my pop ey
es into the title. Really, it is a bit much.’

  ‘Be fair, I have put myself too, Else, I mean, haven’t I? I mean to say. And I come off far worse, you must agree. Besides, there is no such thing as putting people into things. You can only ever put a little tiny fragment of someone into things, the tiniest tiny fragment. No one, no playwright, was ever able to put more. For one thing, most regrettably, there isn’t the time, at least not on stage, there really isn’t. There’s hardly time to put more than a hundredth of a whole, real live human being in a stage play of all things, Else.’

  ‘Hark at him, Mr Lecture Us All Playwright, and after penning only one play, and a comedy at that.’

  ‘As long as you haven’t put Mr Stephens in the play, we’ll be all right,’ Portly sighed and dried his eyes on his cotton handkerchief.

  ‘Oh but he has, Portly, he has put Mr Stephens in, and not just put him in, he is recognisable to the last T.’

  Portly stared at Elsie. ‘Don’t tell me that!’

  Elsie shoved a copy of the play into Portly’s now more than reluctant hands, while looking questioningly over her shoulder towards Oliver for confirmation.

  ‘No, it is true. I have put Mr Stephens in—’

  ‘You’re mad—’

  ‘No, I have. And I have made him the kindest nicest owner of a theatre ever created. Believe me, Portly, when Mr Stephens reads this he will not only put the play on, he will do everything he can to get it a number one tour. When he reads how wonderful he is in this comedy – the kindly humorous owner of a provincial theatre who loves everyone – when he reads this he will want to sit in the stalls, not just on Saturday night, but on every other night of the week.’

  ‘I only hope you are right, dear boy.’

  Oliver stared at Portly. ‘Now, that really is a first.’

  Portly stared back at Oliver, not getting it. ‘What is a first?’

  ‘You dear boying me. Typecasting. Suddenly it’s typecasting for an agent, and you’ve hardly been one for more than two seconds. Pretty soon you will be wearing very large pinstriped suits with very, very large legs, just like Tad Protheroe.’

  ‘If this play is any good,’ Portly smacked the play on its cover as if it was a baby and he was smacking its bottom, and so bringing life to it for the first time, ‘if this play is any good I might soon be able to even afford a suit – dear bo-o-y! And won’t that be just something?’

  ‘Read it before you order the suit, Portly, you may hate it. Meanwhile, come on, Popeye’ – he turned and jerked his head first at Elsie, and then towards the door – ‘time to leave for the theatre.’

  For a second after they had gone Portly just stared at the manuscript, not wanting to open it and be disappointed. So much depended on it – so, so much. Besides which he hated to think what would happen to his relationship with Oliver, at present so bright and full of promise, if he, Portly, did not like his play. It would not just be a hurdle, it would be a double oxer. He breathed in and then out. No point in putting off the awful moment. He opened the play. Touchingly Oliver had dedicated it to Portly. And it was very touching, but it would make it far worse if Portly did not, could not, like it. Because whatever happened Portly knew that he had to be honest. There was no point in being anything else. Quite apart from anything else, he was too fond of Oliver not to be quite frank with him. He just so, so hoped that the play would show talent.

  The play was funny, sweet, and mad, and written very much in the zany style of the American two-handed comedies that were, and had been for some time, creating success after success on Broadway. Naturally, since Oliver had written it not only about Elsie but for Elsie, Elsie’s role was perfectly tailored to her talents. She was also, Oliver quite rightly bowing to her local appeal, centre stage for most of the play. Oliver’s character had to be played off Elsie’s part. Lareina wore the trousers, as it were, throughout the play, yet everyone else was given more than a good chance, they were given a golden opportunity. From that point of view the play was completely even-handed, and, for those and many other reasons, surely could not fail?

  Portly also noted, with some satisfaction, how quickly Oliver had learned his stagecraft, for there was surely nothing like the experience of being on stage in other people’s plays to pull an actor/playwright into shape, and Oliver had been pulled into shape all right. Best of all, and apparent from page one onwards, was that the play was funny. It was light-hearted and young, and it could not have been written by anyone over the age of thirty, the piece having that particular lightness that comes before the arrival of the first grey hair, that unfathomable quality which like a youthful bloom can infuse so much early work, that never-to-be-again-recaptured gossamer touch. Nothing about it struck Portly as being worked over. It lay lightly on its pages, and above all, its love of life sparkled and glinted over every page.

  Finally, its authentic magic, its lightness of touch made Portly sigh. Having finished it, he sat back in his chair, and as the light from outside the little sitting room faded, and he reached out to turn on the electric light to take its place, he sat and stared ahead of him for some minutes, knowing that, after this, nothing could or would be the same. Oliver had written them a surefire hit. So why did Portly find himself sighing, all alone as he was, and out loud? Because, grown into maturity at long last as he had, he knew that, from now on, they would none of them remain the same to each other.

  There is a moment, just after it has been decided that a play is to be presented, when all the world seems to slide to a shuddering halt. For those acting in or directing the play, for all those involved, of a sudden there is no news to speak of. No matter what the outside world may think of its crises, of its wars, or of its peace, they do not touch those who have gone into rehearsal with a new play. For them there are no tragedies or comedies, there is only the one unalterable fact – the first night. For the playwright, for the producer, for the designer, there is only that one moment coming towards them, the only date that is of any interest, that is at all newsworthy, that one night – the first night of their production.

  That moment had just happened to Oliver, Elsie, and the rest of the cast and production at the Stephens Theatre in Tadcaster. Naturally Mr Stephens was beaming. It would be a world premiere. In Mr Stephens’s mind there would never be a premiere like it, not ever. There would never be a time when life was so exciting, not anywhere in the world, except in the Stephens Theatre at Tadcaster. No first presentation of a play could be more important than Love To Popeye.

  ‘Well now, I really must wish—’

  To her horror Elsie sensed that Mr Stephens was just about to wish them all good luck, which in the theatre is considered to be the most terrible bad luck, so she quickly interrupted with, ‘But first we must tell you, Mr Stephens, that we are all determined to work our legs off to prove ourselves worthy of your belief in us, Mr Stephens. And we want you to know that. In fact we want you to know that hand on heart, Mr Stephens.’

  Elsie found that she could not stop saying ‘Mr Stephens’ but it did not matter, because Mr Stephens did not mind, he just beamed. He had actually quite forgotten what he was about to say, and now there did not seem much point, because everyone was smiling at him and looking happy, so he thought he would not bother to remember.

  ‘I know, Miss Lancaster, seeing that you are the most beautiful young actress of our acquaintance, I know, and who should know better, that you will give this new play, this world premiere, everything that you have, and more.’

  At this everyone beamed at everyone else, and Portly crossed his fingers, and turned away. Now there truly was nothing to do but pray. You could never, ever tell with comedy, even less than you could tell with tragedy. You just could not tell, ever, how something was going to go, but most of all you could not tell with comedy.

  If the weather was too hot or too cold, if the news from abroad was all of atom bombs and the Cold War, if there was a political march on, or the Motor Show, if it was Crufts Dog Show, or the Queen was op
ening Parliament, and yet there was not a seat in the house for weeks, then everyone forgot all about nuclear war, royalty, a new Ford motor car, or the winning poodle at Crufts.

  But if the stalls and the dress circle were empty, and the word was out that the new comedy in town was a flop, then it would instantly become the fault of the Queen, Parliament, the Motor Show, and if possibly possible Crufts Dog Show too. It was just a fact. A hit meant that nothing could affect seat sales. A flop meant that everything affected them. But, at that particular moment, none of that mattered. They were all just waiting to make sure that they did their best by the piece.

  Bartlett Corrigan, who was directing as usual, had imported Frederick Darby and Mary Allen Finlay into the cast of Love To Popeye. They were cast to play the older couple, and the all-important part of the maid was taken by Jennifer Polesden, also imported especially for the play, Bartlett being determined to make sure that no stone remain unturned for this first public airing of the piece.

  Everyone had been more than happy with the new imports into the company, everyone, that is, except Elsie. For some reason that no one else could understand, Elsie had nearly had a twin fit when told about the casting of Jennifer Polesden.

  Oliver was furious with her. Jennifer Polesden was an excellent character actress, and they were very lucky to get her. He lectured Elsie at length on her bad theatrical manners, becoming quite boring on the subject, but Elsie would not be moved, although neither could she influence the decision. It had been taken by Bartlett, and he was producing, and that necessarily was that, and she knew it.

  But it did not stop her moaning. God how she moaned about Jennifer Polesden! She drove Oliver mad about the poor woman, until finally he was forced to confide his frustration to Portly.

  ‘It’s not as if Jennifer Polesden’s going to be any sort of threat, I mean, really. She is not going to be a threat to Elsie.’

  Portly nodded at Oliver, his expression at its most sage. Knowing how Elsie had gone on and on about Jennifer Polesden’s being cast, he had done a little bit of homework.