A Winter Love Song

by Rita Bradshaw

  Bonnie forced a smile. ‘I’m all right, Art. Truly I am.’ It didn’t sound convincing, even to her, but in truth she was grateful Art was putting her tenseness solely down to the most obvious cause. She was jittery about her grandmother and Franco, of course she was – their showing up had brought to the surface horrors she preferred to keep buried – but it was Art himself who was the major problem and she would rather die than let him know it. Her grandmother’s sudden appearance and all that had resulted from it, not least her telling Art her life story and his understanding and acceptance, had surprised her into admitting something to herself she had refused to recognize for months now. She was head over heels in love with perhaps the most unsuitable man on the planet; unsuitable for her, that was. She was sure there were many women who could cope with his womanizing and well-documented aversion to remaining faithful for more than five minutes, but she wasn’t one of them. Furthermore, and this was the most humiliating part, Art had never, by word or deed, indicated that he was the least bit interested in her in a romantic way.

  ‘If this is you when you’re all right, I’d hate to see you when you’re not.’ He sighed, shaking his head. ‘You’ve hardly touched your food.’

  ‘Oh, I’m sorry.’ Bonnie hastily took a bite of the fillet steak on her plate. ‘It’s lovely, honestly, but I suppose I’m too excited about tomorrow to have much of an appetite.’ Art had picked her up early that morning for a meeting with the rest of the band to discuss the final details concerning their trip to Holland, and then insisted he take her to lunch.

  ‘Bonnie, I wasn’t born yesterday.’

  ‘Yes, all right, I suppose I am a bit on edge about my grandmother and – and him.’ Try as she might, she couldn’t prevent hot colour staining her cheekbones. She bitterly regretted confiding in Art about the rape once she’d had time to think about it. She’d waited for years to unburden herself to someone and then it had had to be him – what had she been thinking of? But that was it, she hadn’t been thinking. Not really.

  ‘I know.’ Art let his hand rest briefly on hers for a moment, but only a moment. He knew she didn’t want to talk again about what had happened to her, and he respected that, but the urge to reassure her was strong. ‘I promise you they won’t get within six foot of you again, I mean that. And you know my word is my bond.’

  Bonnie smiled again, more naturally this time. ‘Yes, I know that.’ And she did. She had come to understand in the last years that show business was a sycophantic world where people gushed and enthused and said what others wanted to hear rather than the truth, but Art wasn’t like that.

  She ate another mouthful of food although it was an effort. He was a complex man, that was for sure. And a mass of contradictions. But she would trust him with her life. She gave a wry, silent ‘Huh!’ to herself at the thought. But it was true.

  ‘How about the lemon soufflé for dessert? You liked that the last time we came here.’

  She felt a frisson of pleasure that he had remembered, before she warned herself that that was part of his charm. He would be the same with any woman; it didn’t mean anything. Suddenly she had the desire to get back to Fairview and her little room. ‘Would you mind terribly if we skipped dessert? I’ve still got to finish my packing and I’ve promised Betty and Selina we’ll have a girls’ night tonight before I leave.’

  ‘Of course.’ He held up his hand for the waiter and immediately the man was at his side. It was always like that with Art. As the waiter went off to fetch the bill, Art said pleasantly, ‘How are the wedding arrangements coming along?’

  Selina’s Cyril had finally popped the question and the couple were getting married in the summer. Betty and Bonnie were going to be bridesmaids, something both of them had privately admitted they weren’t particularly looking forward to once they’d realized Selina had chosen salmon pink for their dresses, which Hilda was making on her Singer sewing machine. But it was Selina’s big day and both would have endured far worse to make her happy, especially because at first it had looked as though the wedding wouldn’t happen. When Cyril had proposed, Selina had finally told him about her father’s abuse and he had disappeared to goodness knows where for a few days, leaving Selina sure she had lost him for ever. On his return he had told Selina he had needed time to come to terms with it, and although Betty and Bonnie had wanted to strangle him for putting Selina through days of misery, she had welcomed him back with open arms.

  Such is the power of love, Bonnie thought, gazing at Art as he paid the bill the waiter had just brought to the table. And she supposed Cyril had been honest about his initial shock and confusion, but Art wouldn’t have acted like that in the same circumstances, not if he had loved the woman in question. He was made of sterner stuff. She knew she was just a colleague and friend to him, but look at how wonderful he had been the night she had told him about Franco. But then perhaps that was the point? Art didn’t love her and so his reaction hadn’t been as extreme because his heart wasn’t affected. Men had a thing about being the first with the woman they loved enough to marry; that’s what all the romance novels and magazines said, anyway.

  As the waiter disappeared, Art said, ‘Bonnie?’ and she realized he was still waiting for an answer to his question about the wedding, and this was what they talked about as they left the restaurant and walked to Art’s car parked a short distance away. Her car was already locked up in a garage she had rented for the next three months while she was away. When she had said the night before that she would catch the Tube to meet up today, Art wouldn’t hear of it. The IRA had bombed the Tottenham Court Road and Leicester Square stations a couple of days ago, and he had forbidden her to even think of using the underground.

  They chatted about the coming tour on the way back to Fairview; light, inconsequential talk. Bonnie knew that Art was trying to keep her mind off her grandmother and Franco. What he didn’t realize was that being so close to him in the luxurious confines of his car with the faint lemony smell of his aftershave teasing her senses was causing her more of a problem. And that was putting it mildly.

  Telling herself she was a grown woman and not a silly schoolgirl in the middle of her first crush on a boy enabled her to say goodbye fairly composedly once they reached Shouldham Street, and she even managed a cool smile as she climbed out of the car.

  ‘Get a good night’s sleep,’ Art warned her when they were standing on the pavement. He always insisted she remain in the car until he had opened her door for her and helped her out. She knew it was merely evidence of the good manners which were an integral part of him, but it was nevertheless very nice to be treated with such consideration. ‘It’ll be the last time you sleep in your own bed for a while and you know what some digs are like. Believe me, they’re no better abroad than they are here. Worse, in fact.’

  ‘I still can’t believe I’m going to sing in Holland. Sometimes I have to pinch myself to make sure this is all real.’

  Art smiled, but his voice was serious when he said, ‘Start valuing yourself a little more, Bonnie. There are lots of female vocalists out there but only one or two with the quality to their voices that you have. It’s something no amount of technique and practice can achieve, believe me. You open your mouth and start to sing and time stands still. You make a man forget his troubles, forget the world can be a dark place – hell, you make him forget his own name . . .’

  She stared at him, the husky timbre to his voice and his ebony eyes holding her transfixed as the moment went on and on.

  It was her name being called behind her that broke the spell, causing Art to swear under his breath before he raised his voice and said, ‘Good afternoon, Mrs Nichols. And what a fetching sight you make framed in the doorway like that.’ He had long since given up trying to win Hilda over, and now treated her with a mixture of amused irritation and indulgent sarcasm.

  Bonnie giggled. She couldn’t help it, even though she knew it would earn her a black mark in Hilda’s copybook. Turning, she said over her shoulder to
Art, ‘I’ll see you tomorrow,’ and then followed a bristling Hilda into the house. It was only then she noticed Hilda was holding an envelope.

  ‘This came for you shortly after you’d left this morning,’ Hilda said, trying – and failing – to hide her curiosity. It was rare for Bonnie to receive mail. Any letters or postcards from the band’s fans went to Art’s nightclub or the television and radio studios, and Bonnie had been zealous in guarding her privacy since her arrival in London. Very few people were aware of her address. Nelly was an exception, of course, but this wasn’t Nelly’s elegant, flowing script; it was a large, rather childish scrawl. ‘The postmark’s the north-east,’ Hilda added as Bonnie took the letter from her.

  ‘Thanks.’ Bonnie had no intention of opening the envelope in front of Hilda, fond of her as she was. Stuffing it in her pocket, she said, ‘I’m going to finish my packing before Selina comes home and Betty gets here.’ She had already paid Hilda the three months’ rent for her room while she was in Holland.

  Bonnie ran lightly up the stairs, but once in her room she stood with her back to the door and pulled the envelope out of her pocket. She stared at it for some moments, her hand trembling, before throwing it on her bed. Then she took off her hat and coat, stoked up the little fire she had left burning in the grate and added more coal to the flickering flames, before retrieving the letter and sitting down in the armchair. Kicking off her shoes, she rested her feet on the small fender which was faintly warm and again she stared at the envelope, turning it over in her fingers.

  How long she sat nerving herself to tear it open she wasn’t sure, but suddenly she was angry with herself. ‘Don’t be such a coward,’ she said out loud. ‘Open the flippin’ thing and be done with it.’

  The envelope contained one sheet of paper, and as she smoothed it out her eyes went to the signature at the bottom of the page. ‘Franco.’ For a moment she felt sick, letting it drop into her lap as though touching it contaminated her. Her heart was thudding at twice its normal rate now and she had to take a few deep breaths before she could bear to pick the letter up again. Even then she shut her eyes tightly for a good ten seconds before opening them and beginning to read:

  Dear Bonnie,

  I know I am the last person you want to hear from. I’m sorry, I’m heart sorry for what I did. Please believe me. I don’t know what came over me that night, and if I could go back in time and change things, I would willingly give my life to do so. The fault was mine and mine alone, and I betrayed the trust of the innocent girl you were then in the worst possible way. Perhaps it might make it easier to put the past behind you if you know that by the time you read this letter, I will have ended my life. I’m in constant pain after an accident and don’t want to go on any longer. But that is by the by. Your grandmother is dead, Bonnie.

  She dropped the letter again, gasping, as the blood thundered in her ears. And then obeying an inner voice that seemed to be working independently of her and was saying, ‘Pick it up, read it, read it to the end,’ her fingers closed over the sheet of paper once more. Telling herself she couldn’t cry yet, that she mustn’t fall apart, she read:

  She died the night we saw you. She drank too much, she was gloating over how she was going to bleed you dry, but fate had other ideas. The death certificate says heart attack, but it was her wickedness and cruelty and spite that did for her in the end. And I’m glad she’s dead because the world’s a better place without her in it. I wanted you to know that she had gone, Bonnie. That we’ve both gone by now. That’s all really, except to say that your da would be proud of you, lass. Forgive me.

  Franco.

  And then the tears came.

  It was half an hour later when Hilda came to see if Bonnie wanted a cup of tea and found her red-eyed and weeping and quite beside herself, the letter still clutched in her hand.

  Hilda led her down to the kitchen and made a strong brew, spooning in plenty of sugar and standing over her while she drank it, much as Art had stood over her the week before. And somehow Bonnie felt it seemed right to show her the letter and then tell her story again for the second time.

  Hilda said nothing until Bonnie came to the part about the rape, and then she used a word that shocked them both, before again becoming silent and letting Bonnie finish. Hilda’s eyes were wet when she put her arms round the girl she had come to think of as a daughter, saying, ‘I’m glad you’ve told me, lovey. I always knew there was something. And I must say, him, that Art Franklin, has gone up in my estimation a bit for how he handled that pair. Wicked so-an’-sos, both of them.’

  Bonnie took a deep breath. She felt better for telling Hilda, and she felt calmer now, as though she had come through a storm that had threatened to overwhelm her.

  ‘I agree with you about my grandmother being wicked,’ she said slowly. ‘There was nothing good in her, not a thing, but Franco wasn’t all bad. When I was a little girl, after my father had gone, he used to protect me from her at times and make sure I had enough to eat, things like that.’ She had forgotten that in the intervening years, it had only been that last terrible night she had remembered. ‘He could be kind.’

  ‘You’re not making excuses for him, are you? He wanted stringing up for what he did.’

  ‘No, I’m not making excuses.’ And she wasn’t, not really, but the letter had changed something although she wasn’t yet quite sure what.

  ‘Good. Cos in my book a man who uses brute strength to get what he wants from a woman, let alone a slip of a girl, is worse than an animal.’ And then Hilda’s tone changed, becoming soft as she said, ‘I’m glad you told me, lovey. And as much as you can, you want to put it behind you now. One day you’ll meet someone you can love, and when you do, don’t you let the past spoil the present and the future. I know that’s easy for me to say but it’s right, Bonnie. Some people get stuck in the past and it don’t do them no good.’

  ‘I know.’ For a moment Bonnie wondered whether to confess how she felt about Art, and then decided Hilda had had enough shocks for one day. Art would be a bridge too far. Besides, there was nothing to tell and never would be.

  She finished the last of her tea and stood up. ‘I’d better go and make myself presentable – Betty and Selina will be here soon.’

  ‘Yes, you do that. And have fun tonight, Bonnie. Let your hair down.’

  Bonnie stared at her landlady in amazement. Never in her wildest imaginings would she have dreamed of such words coming out of Hilda’s mouth. It was always, ‘You be careful and only one drink, mind’ or ‘You watch yourself and don’t go talking to strangers’, as though she was ten years old. Smiling, she said, ‘Who are you and what have you done with my landlady, Hilda Nichols?’

  ‘Oh, go on with you.’ Hilda smiled back and then they both laughed, and as Bonnie left the kitchen and walked upstairs she was conscious of thinking that she felt altogether different from an hour ago. Then she had felt as though the end of the world had come, and strangely – and it was strange, she emphasized to herself wryly, in view of the past – part of that had been because her grandma was dead. They had always hated each other and their last meeting had been as vitriolic as ever, but her grandma had been her mam’s mother, her own flesh and blood, family. For a while up there, knowing she had gone, she had felt more alone than she could bear.

  Stupid. As she reached the top of the stairs she nodded to the voice in her mind, and then said it out loud, ‘Stupid. You’re stupid, Bonnie Lindsay.’ And it was stupid to be so maudlin and illogical. She had Hilda and Selina and Betty, Enoch and his wife, Nelly and dear little Thomas and all her other friends besides. They were her family. And her career was going from strength to strength, she was healthy and young and enjoying life, and had a bank balance she could only have dreamed of when she had first come to London. What more could she want?

  And when her mind suggested the answer, she said sharply, ‘No more of that.’ She and Art had the next three months packed in a coach with the rest of the band as they travelled fr
om venue to venue, and of necessity a tour meant everyone lived in each other’s pockets. She had to get her thinking straight about him or else she’d never last the course without going stark staring mad.

  She walked into her room, stuffing the letter into her handbag and resolving to show it to Art the next day so his mind would be at rest about her grandmother and Franco. And then the whole embarrassing scenario could be put behind them and never mentioned again. With any luck he would forget all about it.

  She walked to the window and looked out at the view that never ceased to thrill her, the endless sky above hundreds of rooftops stretching on and on, while here was she, safe and secure in her tiny home. She knew Art couldn’t understand why she didn’t want a bigger place, a flat or even a little house of her own, and her feelings were too complex to explain, even to herself. But this room was the foundation of the new life she had built for herself and it was precious.

  She smiled wryly. The psychiatrists would have a field day with her, no doubt, especially if she admitted that most of the time she played a part, pretending to be the self-assured, successful singer and a modern miss to boot. She didn’t feel like that inside. Sometimes she felt like a little girl crying for her da, lost and alone and frightened and trying to make sense of a world in which there was no sense.

  She took a deep breath, shaking her head at herself. But she didn’t feel like that all the time, and with each year that passed she felt herself growing stronger, which was a blessing. Hilda was right, she had to look to the future. The past was the past and no amount of wishing could change it. She had muddled through this far, after all, and not made too bad a job of things, everything considered. It was seeing her grandmother and Franco again that had thrown her, and now this letter. If she believed Franco, and there was no reason not to, then they were both dead and gone and the threat of them was gone too. When she had time to take that in then perhaps she would feel differently, and this irrational sense of loss would fade away. She hoped so. Oh, she did so hope so.