Distant Music

by Charlotte Bingham

  ‘Arthur darling?’

  ‘Yes, Elsie darling?’

  ‘Don’t worry, just stand by me and if you go, I’ll just carry on as if you haven’t.’

  ‘I’ve got some of it written on my hand.’

  ‘So have I, darling.’ Elsie held up her hand.

  ‘Yours?’

  ‘No, yours, darling.’

  They both started to laugh.

  ‘It’ll be all right, darling.’

  ‘It’s not war, is it?’

  ‘No, it’s not war, but it could cause pestilence and death.’

  They both looked thoughtfully towards the cause of Arthur’s constant drying – the director. The untalented bully who had picked on the old actor constantly throughout rehearsal. So overt had been his harassment of the older man that in the end Elsie had been forced to pick on him, throwing her script at his head and causing the rest of the cast to shun her at every possible moment.

  ‘We stand shoulder to shoulder, Arthur.’ Elsie went on. ‘The two musketeers, nil thingy carborthingy and all that.’

  ‘No, we will not let the bastards grind us down,’ Arthur agreed, putting a trembling finger up to his stick-on moustache which he was terrified might be about to unstick itself during the performance, as it had done at rehearsal.

  Afterwards, long afterwards, the first episode of Golden Days would go down in the annals of British television history as being the most exciting event of the television decade. Naturally it did not feel like that to the participants, all of whom would really rather have been enjoying a bad bout of measles than being ground into the dust by the experience.

  ‘I don’t know why they have to do it live? Less and less drama is being done live.’

  Portly’s words ran round and round Elsie’s head as she dashed in and out of the Edwardian sets, as required by the script. In the event, to the relief of both of them, Arthur Mayne, playing the old night porter, did not need to use either his own or Elsie’s hand as a prompt, but sailed through his part with all the aplomb of an actor who is completely at home with live television.

  The euphoria at the end, when it was all over, almost made doing it live worth it. Almost, but not quite, for Portly, having been in close attendance on the performance, although now convinced that it might be a long-running hit, was equally convinced that the series should be pre-recorded. As he saw it, putting it out live was merely an unnecessary strain on the cast, and a completely capricious whim on the part of little Mr Hitler, the director, who clearly subscribed to the widely held belief that a terrified actor is a better actor.

  ‘Live drama on television is far, far too much strain, particularly on the older actors.’

  This was to say the least of it, for as the series, put out at the unlikely time of ten o’clock at night, met not just viewer approval, but viewer delirium, the actors concerned, none of whom except Elsie had been previously famous, now found themselves unable to snatch a cup of coffee in a café without being mobbed by ever growing armies of Golden Days fans.

  Realising that they had a hit on their hands of fantastic proportions, agents around London found themselves booking lucrative personal appearances for any client who had a part in it. The success of the series was such that fame came not just to the actors and actresses portraying the major characters, but spread its wings over every single member of the cast. And so it was, as happens following the successful recognition of a hit, that whether it was Arthur Mayne as the night porter, or dear old Howard Grey as the butler, everyone in the series had become a star overnight.

  However, despite the scale of the success of Golden Days, Portly, while happily booking his actors and actresses in and out of episodes, was feeling uneasy. It was a feeling that he now actively dreaded, the everything is too quiet feeling.

  He tried to put his feelings behind him, he tried to talk himself out of them, but they just would not go away. Something was going to happen, although what exactly it was he could not have even told himself. All he did know was that whenever these feelings occurred he never awoke in the morning without a presentiment of bad times just around the corner.

  Portly could not have known it, but Clifton was never going to make the first night of Master Oliver’s portrayal of William Shakespeare’s Hamlet, Prince of Denmark. The news was conveyed to Oliver by Clifton himself.

  Dear Master Oliver,

  As you know I have not been quite myself lately, and so it is with great regret that I realise I will not be able to attend the first night of your Hamlet. However, I will be there in spirit, and will come to see a subsequent performance, just as soon as I am up and about again.

  As always, Master Oliver, Cliffie

  Cliffie’s absence meant that, perhaps because of the nature of the tragedy of Hamlet, because it was all about the death of a father, and because he remembered how ill Clifton had looked the day they had met in London, Oliver found himself succumbing to a true state of pre-mourning for his childhood father figure. He did not become Hamlet, he was Hamlet. It was inevitable. Cliffie had taken so much of his own father’s place, had coached Oliver so endlessly in the part, that as rehearsals gathered pace the dividing line between the Prince of Denmark and Oliver Lowell became virtually invisible to everyone, including himself.

  In the ghost Oliver now saw only Clifton, the white, strained face not of the murdered king but of darling old Cliffie, the only man who he could honestly say had been able to show him that kind of unconditional love that is so reassuring to children. The kind that singles children out in their own eyes as being somehow more special than the stars that light the skies.

  All in all, as he stepped on to the stage that now famous night, Oliver Lowell was no longer himself. As a result he was nerveless, and not so moved by his own situation as an actor that he could not stand outside himself and move the audience. Because that, as he knew from Clifton himself, was the essential ingredient of a successful performance. If he himself was moved, he would never, ever move the audience.

  Even as, quite unknowingly, Oliver indeed became the Hamlet of his generation, it seemed to him that he was able to look down on himself from high above the stage and study his own characterisation. And here it was at last, the detachment that is so necessary to all artistic achievement, present and correct. He saw it himself, as his spirit seemed to move over his body, high above the apron stage, yet all the while he could feel that his body was truly leaden with grief. He mourned his father, he avenged his father, he threw Ophelia away from him, he grieved for his tragic friend – Alas! poor Yorick. Alas, poor Clifton. He wondered at the fleeting nature of life, he was torn apart, yet all the time there was Oliver Lowell, high above his own acting performance, watching so carefully, making sure that each cadence was given its full poetic value, that he never, for a second, lost the attention of that other animal, the one that made up the fourth wall: the audience.

  As the lights dimmed on the last dreadful seconds of Shakespeare’s greatest tragedy, there was that extraordinary stunned silence that so often follows a great acting performance, as if the audience has been holding its breath until at last it comes to and howls its approval.

  After taking his calls, Oliver staggered back to his dressing room. For a few seconds he stared at himself, as actors do, asking himself the one and only relevant question – Was I good enough tonight? Because, no matter what they said, it was tonight that mattered. He had barely enough time to answer his own question with nearly before his door was opened by his dresser, and the world and his wife crowded in to pay court to him, whilst, unbeknownst to Oliver, his own father, John Plunkett, correctly dressed in his evening jacket and bow tie, walked off, unaccompanied by anything except his thoughts, to buy himself a lone drink at the Savoy Hotel.

  As his familiar waiter placed the glass in front of him John Plunkett looked up and said, ‘Well, Laurie, tonight I saw a great actor.’

  ‘Did you, sir?’

  ‘Yes, I did, Laurie. In fact I saw a very great
actor.’

  ‘That is nice, sir.’

  ‘Yes, I saw a great, great actor. I saw Hamlet as Shakespeare must have written him.’

  All alone at his table once more John Plunkett raised his brandy glass.

  ‘To Oliver Lowell née Plunkett.’

  * * *

  Elsie had been at the first night, of course, although not with Portly, but escorted by Howard Grey from the cast of Golden Days. Howard had been lost in admiration for Oliver’s performance. Elsie had too, whilst also hating the interpretation of the actress playing Ophelia.

  It was only natural for her to see herself as being able to be better in the role. Not taking that speech so fast, not making that over-large gesture there. Even so, Elsie had to admit, the actress concerned had not been that bad. How could she be against Oliver giving the performance of his life?

  After the performance, since it was a fine evening, Elsie and Howard decided against taking a taxi and walked home instead, talking about the play. Howard told her all about previous Hamlets of his generation, and those before that, and then reminisced richly on the usual disasters that had happened to him as a young man acting in repertory theatres all over the country.

  ‘But of course television is going to change all that,’ he said, without a trace of sadness. ‘It will make the actors’ lives much, much more secure, much more comfortable, and yet at the same time it will not be the same. Just think, no more repertory theatres with notices saying Evening Performance at 7.30 Tonight – Tides Permitting. No more entrances through the fireplace, none of those kinds of larks, but none of that honing either. Touring and repertory theatre is such a very honing experience for an actor, I always think, don’t you?’

  Elsie hesitated before answering. She did not want to hurt Howard’s feelings but she felt that she could have done without Dottie’s honing – or could she? She laughed suddenly.

  ‘My grandmother always said that – “tides permitting”. Of course I had forgotten why – that the tides used to really come up into the dressing rooms.’

  ‘Oh they did, darling, they did. And we never minded because it was all back to the café for tea while you waited for it to go out. The tide I mean, and very nice too, this time I mean the tea. Nothing like that hot cup of tea and those sticky buns that kept you warm between matinée and evening performances.’

  ‘No, I suppose not. I used to have a twist of paper with sugar and lemonade powder in it. Dipping a finger in that kept me going all through rehearsals, until at last, it was time to go home.’

  Elsie’s tone was matter of fact rather than nostalgic. She did not have much time for theatrical nostalgia; when you had to bring home the bacon to help keep the home fires burning there was truly very little time for sentimentality, which, from what Howard now said, he seemed to appreciate.

  ‘I sense you regret a childhood in the theatre. I on the other hand only joined the profession in my teens, and have no regrets. It is the only life, the one and only life. The smell of the size, the excitement backstage, the costumes and the wigs, there’s nothing like it, darling, not to my mind. I have had such a happy life, and then to come to this, fame at my age in Golden Days. Imagine! And money too. It doesn’t seem possible to be paid this much to do so little, and at the same time become a face too. I am truly blessed.’

  Since they had reached the apartment block where Elsie now lived, Howard leaned forward and kissed her affectionately on both cheeks.

  ‘Good night, darling Elsie. Good night and thank you, a thousand, thousand times, for taking me tonight. I was all for a cup of cocoa and an early night with my lines, and just think, I would have missed the Hamlet of a lifetime, truly I would. I can’t thank you enough.’

  He waved a hand, first at Elsie and then at a taxi, and seconds later was gone, still waving from the back of the cab. Elsie waved back, feeling both happy and exultant, and at the same time infinitely sad, although she could not have said why.

  Chapter Seventeen

  Coco stared ahead of her at nothing much. Well, it was at something actually, it was at a picture she had painted years ago when Gladys had taken her to Cromer for a short seaside holiday. She remembered the day so clearly; sunlight on a bright sea, Gladys asleep beside her in a deckchair. That was the moment, more than any other, that had made Coco decide that she would never want to lead what was usually termed ‘a normal life’. She would always want to spend it in some way other than just being married to a stockbroker or a banker, like Gladys. It was as if she herself had become part of that same sea, part of that same sky, caught up in that carefree moment of nature at ease in its summer guise, and it was then, just past her tenth birthday, that Coco had made up her mind that she never, ever wanted to be ordinary. Now she was twice ten, and more, and only thinking about it to keep her mind off Oliver crying.

  Oliver’s crying did not embarrass her because Oliver, after all, was a boy, and boys always did cry more than girls, but more than that it did not embarrass her because she loved Oliver. She had always loved Oliver, but now she loved him as an actor and as a man, as well as a person. At last, seeing him not acting Hamlet, but being Hamlet, she had seen the purpose of Oliver, and it was to be a great actor.

  ‘Lover Lowell’ was just not Oliver, nor was working for the Kass Organisation in some toshy Biblical epic. The real Oliver was all about real acting. And now he was crying, but the tears were real, not just acting.

  ‘It’s just the strain of the last weeks. I’ll get you some tea.’

  She went to the kitchen, and by the time she came back Oliver had recovered himself.

  ‘It’s the strain,’ Coco said again, as she handed him the tea, and with a cool hand pushed his thick hair back from his forehead.

  ‘I’m sorry, I didn’t want to give way like that—’

  ‘Oh toshy tosh, it’s good to cry. In eighteenth-century England men cried all the time. Stood up in Parliament and blubbed like babies. It’s normal to cry, really it is. What are we given tear ducts for otherwise? It was having the empire that stopped all that. Couldn’t cry in front of foreigners and so on, so everyone had to stop up their tear ducts and put on the famous stiff upper lip. But now we have lost the empire, we can cry again. So that’s a relief, eh?’

  Oliver sipped the sugary tea and nodded, still not trusting himself to be able to speak.

  ‘I never thought he would write to me like that.’

  Coco nodded, understanding. She had just read the letter, and while to someone else it might not have appealed as particularly moving, Coco understood exactly and precisely why it had moved Ollie to tears. It was written on writing paper headed The Savoy Hotel.

  Dear Oliver,

  I write to tell you that I attended the first night performance of Hamlet, Prince of Denmark tonight. It was as moving a performance as I have ever witnessed. To say that I think you have the makings of a great actor would be to lie. You are a great actor.

  I remain, as always, your loving father, Pops.

  Oliver pointed at the letter again now.

  ‘He has never put that before – never.’

  ‘What, about being a great actor?’

  ‘No. You know, that.’ He pointed to the word Pops. ‘He has never put that before. It makes up for all that time disapproving of my acting, or what I thought of as disapproval. Having a mass said for my soul every month, and all that. As if I had gone to the devil, which I suppose in his mind I had.’

  Coco put a hand over Oliver’s hand, and smiled. ‘You have come of age with your performance, but so it seems has your father. Just think, he might even have forgiven you for marrying me.’

  ‘He thinks the world of you. You know that. What was it that he always called you? “Oh yes, sparky little thing, Coco, very sparky”.’

  ‘Guess what – I’m coming to see your performance again tonight.’

  ‘Really.’ Oliver was miles away.

  ‘Yes, bringing a friend and all that.’

  Oliver came to sudde
nly, sitting up. ‘Boyfriend? That new boyfriend of yours, are you bringing him?’

  ‘Perhaps. Soon. Maybe. I don’t know. Tonight I am bringing a friend, just a friend.’

  Oliver sat back. He did not know why, but as long as Coco was married to him he did not want her to have a boyfriend. It would muddle everything up, and besides, he would be sure not to like whoever it was. Bad enough that Coco had already had a baby by whoever it was she had met filming that time. Although the fact that she could not even remember his name was somehow reassuring.

  ‘Do you want us to come back and see you afterwards?’

  ‘Yes, and come out to dinner. If I like your friend. If not we’ll come back here and have scrambled eggs.’

  Oliver looked at his watch and then sank back among his pillows. Two o’clock in the afternoon and he still had some sleep to catch up with before he left for the evening’s performance. By four o’clock he would be unable to eat or drink anything, his whole nervous system geared only to leaving for the theatre, but until then he must sleep.

  ‘To be, or not to be: that is the question: Whether ’tis nobler in the mind to suffer The slings and arrows of outrageous fortune …’