She put down the cucumber knife and stood looking miserably at Lexie. ‘Oh, it’s such a shame!’ she blurted out. ‘Such a shame! I don’t deny you had your problems, you two, but she doesn’t have to be that way! She could have called, written even, said she was coming —’
‘Molly?’ Lexie stood up straight. ‘She’s called?’
Bessie shook her head. ‘That’s the trouble. If she’d called, I’d be so happy, but as it is — she was on this news programme. They did an interview at Heathrow. She’s in this daring new film, they said, and there’s going to be a special premiere here. They were talking to her on the news. On my television.’ And she shook her head at the enormity of it.
‘Where’s she staying?’ Lexie said and Bessie stared at her, puzzled.
‘You don’t seem surprised,’ she said. ‘I thought you’d be surprised, upset maybe and —’
‘I knew she was coming. I just didn’t know when. No, don’t look at me like that. I’d have told you if there’d been any point in it. They just said some time in August. And now she’s here —’ She lifted her chin exultantly. ‘She’s here!’
‘And you didn’t tell me.’ Bessie shook her head at her, not sure whether to be hurt by the silence or not, and certainly mystified by Lexie’s sudden exhilaration. ‘You could have told me — this way I was so upset when I saw her on the television, and —’
‘I’m sorry, Bessie darling.’ Lexie hugged her. ‘I’m truly sorry. But I was in such a state of — well, never mind. Look, we’ve got to find her. I have to find out where she’s staying, talk to her —’
‘But you said you knew she was coming. Didn’t she tell you? Didn’t she say where she’d be?’
Lexie had hurried from the kitchen to the hallway to collect the telephone books from the small table beside the front door. ‘No,’ she called. ‘It was some public relations setup who wrote from America — look, I’ll call all the hotels. All the big ones, Claridge’s, the Ritz — I’ll find her, one way or another —’
She was sitting on the floor, rifling through the yellow pages, looking for the hotels listing when Bessie came hobbling out to the hallway.
‘Don’t,’ she said gently. ‘Lexie, dolly, let her come to you. Don’t go running after her this way. It’s not —’ She stopped. ‘It’s not right.’
Lexie looked up at her. ‘Why not?’
‘Because it isn’t. I don’t know why exactly. I just know if you two are going to get things right she has to come to see you. Like you did when you and I — I expect you’ve forgotten.’
‘Forgotten what?’
‘You came to me, wanted me to come on tour with you. When Poppy, God rest her soul, got ill, all those years ago. And I couldn’t because of Fanny being so ill and the business and all — I just couldn’t. And you were so angry and we —’ She shook her head, her voice suddenly lost in tears, and Lexie stared at her and then scrambled to her feet and went and put her arms about her, feeling her thin bones tremble under her hands.
‘Bessie, please, don’t! Don’t upset yourself — I was young and stupid and — I was just thinking of the way things were then, not about — it was all so — please, don’t upset yourself.’
Bessie shook her head. ‘I’m not, believe me, I’m all right.’ She took her handkerchief from her sleeve and blew her nose loudly and peered up at Lexie from beneath slightly puffy eyelids. ‘It’s just that it’s the same now with you and Molly as it was for us then. It had to be you who made it right, and Max helped you to, do you remember? Now it has to be Molly who makes it right, and —’ She lifted her chin then, and for a moment she looked as she had when Lexie was a small child, sharp and eager and ready to deal with anything that came her way. ‘— and me! I’ll deal with it, make it easy for you, the way Max made it easy for us. I remember, if you don’t. I’ll do what Max did —’
‘Bessie, I —’
‘No.’ Bessie said and her voice now was strong again, no longer the voice of a tired old woman, but a fighter’s voice, and her eyes glittered a little. ‘I’ve made up my mind. I’ll do what Max would do. He’d want me to. So no arguing. Go finish the salad. Cut bread, put out the cheese, make yourself busy. Me, I’ve got phone calls to make.’ She pushed past Lexie and, bending a little stiffly, picked up the telephone book from the floor where Lexie had left it and went to sit on the bottom stair with it.
Lexie stood there for a moment, uncertain and startled, and Bessie grinned at her. ‘How often do I have to tell you?’ she said. ‘Do as you’re bid!’ And Lexie, hearing the voice of her long ago childhood, blinked and after a moment nodded and went obediently back to the kitchen.
50
She actually managed to eat some of the supper they’d prepared, but she tasted none of it, chewing mechanically and watching Bessie, trying to work out what was going on in her mind. But it wasn’t possible. Bessie just sat there eating her own meal impassively.
She hadn’t been like that when she’d first come back to the kitchen. She had taken herself upstairs to her bedroom to use the extension telephone beside her bed, leaving Lexie to set the table and finish making supper, while counting each ting of the bell that told her Bessie had made another call. But clearly she had found where Molly was staying, because at last she had come downstairs, moving more easily than she usually did, apparently unaware of her arthritic knees and hips in her excitement, to look at Lexie with her face alight with triumph.
‘I found her,’ she said. ‘She’s staying at the Savoy. I spoke to her —’
‘You spoke — is she well? Is she —’
‘She’s very well, she said. She sounded well enough. She’s coming here.’
‘Here?’ Lexie put down the teapot with a little clatter. ‘When?’
‘Tonight. I don’t know when exactly, but tonight. As soon as she can get away, she said. She’d got to do an interview and then, as soon as she can get rid of them, she’ll come. She said she was glad I called. She’s decided not to come, she said, wasn’t going to call or anything, but then talking to me — I told you it was right it should be me, didn’t I? I told you —’
She was full of suppressed excitement. Lexie could feel it coming from her as though it were actual physical heat, and she was standing more erect than she had for a long time. Over the last year or so Bessie had let her age creep into her, had grumbled over her occasionally painful hips and knees, had begun to stoop and to hobble when she walked. But not now; now she had her head up and seemed unaware of her creaking joints, moving round the kitchen easily as she fetched milk from the refrigerator, then pulled her chair to the table and sat down, and Lexie looked at her and felt a great wave of affection, and leaned over the table and took her hand and squeezed it. Bessie peered up at her almost shyly, went a little pink and ducked her head.
They dragged out supper as long as they could, both sitting with their heads half cocked listening for a car outside, for footsteps on the front path, then washed up with great meticulousness and went to sit in the living room again. It was a measure of Bessie’s state of mind that she didn’t switch on hex television set, and they sat there in the quiet evening trying to read newspapers and magazines and both listening, listening, listening.
At eleven Lexie decided that Molly wasn’t coming after all. She contemplated that thought, trying to drum up anger at Molly’s cruelty, not so much for herself as for Bessie, but all she could feel was a deep weariness, and she opened her mouth to say that it was late, they might as well go to bed, but Bessie raised her chin and said simply, ‘She’s here.’
Lexie stared at her and listened too, and then was aware of it. A car had pulled up outside, had switched off its engine and a door had slammed.
‘It mightn’t be —’ she said uncertainly, but Bessie was on her feet, going out to the hallway. ‘It’s her,’ she said confidently and opened the front door, not waiting for a ring. Lexie followed her and then stood very still in the middle of the hallway. She could see her silhouetted against t
he darkness of the night outside, and was for the first time for many years very aware of the crookedness of her shoulder. She looked like a caricature of herself, a drawing of the Bessie of Lexie’s childhood, and she rubbed her face suddenly with both hands, needing to pull herself Out of the almost trancelike state into which she had fallen.
When she looked again Molly was there bending over Bessie, hugging her, and then looking at Lexie over Bessie’s shoulder. She nodded back, trying to smile but feeling her face stiff and tight.
‘Hello, Molly,’ she said. ‘I — hello.’
‘Hello, Lexie. You’re looking well.’
‘Thank you. You too.’
‘I’m fine — fine —’ She came into the living room and stood in the middle of it, looking round. She was thinner, and it suited her. Her face had sharper planes now than it had had when she’d been younger, and her body had a boniness about it that made her look eager and intense, as though she was poised for action and would at any moment be up and away, running.
‘You’ve sure changed this place. Didn’t this use to be your bedroom, Lexie? When you had the flat down here and Bessie lived upstairs?’
‘We’ve made it into one house again,’ Bessie said and bustled about, pulling chairs forward, offering cushions, urging Molly to sit down. ‘Lexie put in central heating — no more coal to be carried everywhere, no more soot — and you should see the kitchen — and the bathroom! A real picture, both of them could have come out of magazines. It’s lovely — lovely. There! Are you comfortable there? And — what about —’ She jerked her head towards the window and Molly looked at her almost warningly and then smiled.
‘The driver’ll wait there for me,’ she said easily. ‘They’ve hired him for me for the whole week I’m here — he knows he has to wait. He’s okay —’
‘If you’re sure,’ Bessie said and then, a little uneasily. ‘Let me go out, see he’s all right, give him a cup of tea, maybe —’
‘No,’ Molly said sharply and then more gently, ‘It’s all right, Bessie, it’s all right —’ After a moment Bessie nodded, sat down on the edge of her chair, and folded her gnarled hands on her lap to sit and gaze at Molly, her face bright with pleasure. Lexie looked from one to the other of them, feeling herself filling with a queasy mixture of puzzlement arid anger. It was as though they were having a private conversation, deliberately excluding her.
‘What’s the matter?’ she said and knew her suspicion was in her voice and didn’t care. ‘Is there something that —’
‘It’s nothing, Bessie fussing, is all. So, Lexie. You’ve been busy here. Not as fancy as that apartment in Hanover Gate, though. That was a really great place. Big and cool and the park so near and all — you should have stayed there, you two —’
‘We’ve got a park near here too,’ Bessie said loyally, and then laughed. ‘Though Regent’s Park it isn’t. Not so fancy, but still, it’s nice. I didn’t want to move, you know how I am. I get used to places, like to stay put, so Lexie, bless her, she came to live with me again. She’s wonderful, my Lexie. Looks after me like —’
‘Yes,’ Molly said. She leaned back in her chair and closed her eyes for a moment and they sat and looked at her and said nothing. Lexie couldn’t. She had wanted this meeting so much, had pinned so much of her own need to it, but now Molly was here she felt it all coming back again: the doubts and the resentment and the — and she had to face it. The jealousy.
Molly looked marvellous, poised and beautiful, at the height of her perfection. She’s gone thirty, Lexie thought. Thirty years old and in all these years I’ve never been able to get it right with her. Will I ever? Will she ever forgive me for bearing her? Can I ever forgive myself for her life? If only I could start with her again, be back in New York again, having her, keeping her, not letting Barbara love her, not letting her be kept from me — why does she fill me with so much pain when I love her so much? As though she had heard the question Molly opened her eyes and looked directly at her.
‘We have to talk, Lexie. I’d made a plan to talk, you know that? I asked my agents to write, tell you I was coming —’
‘They wrote.’
‘And then decided I wouldn’t do it. That I’d manage things my own way, without — and then when Bessie called, it all changed again. It was kind of meant, I guess. Though maybe — anyway we have to talk.’
‘Yes,’ Lexie said, and then with an enormous effort dredged the words out of herself. ‘Molly, I’m sorry. I didn’t know he was so ill. If I’d realized what would happen, I’d have told you where we were, you could have seen him —’
Molly closed her eyes again, sharply, as though they were on a spring, and when she spoke her voice was high and thin, not the low agreeable sound it had been. ‘That, I don’t want to talk about. Not ever. The only thing you can do about that is forget it. I won’t talk about it. You hear me?’ And now she opened her eyes again to stare at Lexie. ‘D’you hear me? I never want you to talk about that again.’
‘Oh, God,’ Lexie said and took a deep breath and then said it again. ‘Oh, God. Are you going to leave me with that for the rest of my life? Can’t you forgive me for —’
‘Forgiveness doesn’t come into it. It’s nothing to do with it. I just don’t want to talk about it. What happened to Max has nothing to do with how — with the way we were, he and I. Can’t you see that? We had a special thing going, and that’s what I want to remember. I don’t want to think about how it was afterwards. It’s like the time before when I didn’t know him. He’s just gone back there, that’s all. I don’t have to think about him any other way — just the time he was with me and the time he wasn’t. That’s all. So don’t talk about anything else. There’s nothing to forgive because there was nothing that happened.’
Again there was silence and Lexie sat and looked at her, trying to see into her mind. To deny that Max was dead — how could that help her? Yet it was what she was trying to do, and suddenly she was filled with a vast pity for her daughter. To deny that Max had died was almost to deny that he had lived; she had made him into a child’s fantasy, a figure who came from nowhere, went back to nowhere, and in between existed only as a phantom, a dream image, and that was infinitely sad. She opened her mouth to say so, to try to tell Molly that she understood, that it was all right, that she would never again ask for forgiveness, would never again invade her dreams with truth, when Molly sat up sharply and began to speak again.
‘Listen, Lexie, there are things I have to say and I haven’t a lot of time. I have to leave London tonight to — well, never mind. That isn’t important. Just listen. I’m on my own. You understand? I’m on my own.’
She held out her hands to show the backs of them to Lexie. ‘See? No more wedding ring. I threw it at him —’ She stared down at her hands for a long moment and then shoved them deep into her pockets.
‘I’m on my own because Laurence has gone. He’s gone to his god-dammed Toby and as far as I’m concerned they can both rot. I did all I could to make it right, you know that? I really did. If he said jump, I jumped. If he said crawl, I crawled. I started it to please him, because he said it would keep us together, and I went through with it to please him, not to please me — I knew it’d be impossible, but he insisted. Said I’d have to go through with it, so I went through with it, and they rewrote the script to make it fit into the film and then — after all that, he told me it was no good. That he was going to Toby after all, and that was the end of it. He wants no part of her, none at all. I have to manage on my own, he said. He doesn’t give a damn what I do. So I have to — I’ve nothing left but work, now —’
Lexie was staring at her, shaking her head, totally bewildered by the cascade of words, and she put her hands up and almost shouted, ‘Molly, for God’s sake stop — I can’t keep up with you. What is it you’re talking about? Your husband? He’s left you?’
‘He’s left me. Of course he’s left me. That’s what I’ve been saying. He made me go through all that and now he sa
ys it sickens him. He wants nothing more to —’
‘Go through what, for God’s sake?’ Lexie cried. ‘You’re not explaining properly. I can’t —’
‘Molly.’ Bessie’s voice was quiet and clear and Lexie looked at her, grateful for the calmness in her, and Bessie smiled at her briefly, reassuringly, then looked at Molly again. ‘Shall I go out to the car?’ she said gently and after a moment Molly nodded.
‘Yes. It’s — yes, I suppose so,’ she said and now she sounded tired, not angry or confused or anything else but deeply weary.
Bessie got to her feet and went out of the room. Lexie stood up to follow her, but Bessie shook her head and went out, down the dark path to the darker bulk of the car that was parked at the kerbside.
Lexie watched her go and then after a moment returned to Molly, to stand beside her chair and look down at her.
‘Have you married again? Is that it? Is that who’s in the car?’ she said, and when Molly seemed not to hear her reached down and touched her shoulder.
At once Molly shrank back and Lexie felt her face fill with a tide of colour. She went back to her chair, feeling as though she’d been slapped, and Molly seemed to feel her distress as well as some compunction, for she leaned forward and said, ‘No, I’m not marrying again. Not ever. It’s not something that — there’s work, you see. That’s all there is. From now on I’m going to work, and it’s going to be the best work anyone ever saw. You just wait and see, Lexie. You were a star of a sort, but you can’t imagine the huge star I’m going to be. That’s all I want, now or ever. Nothing but that. I’m going to be the biggest goddammed star there ever was and I know I can do it. As long as I don’t waste my energy on people, on getting married and — who needs it? You didn’t either, did you? Not for most of the time. All those years in America and then afterwards — you were on your own, weren’t you? And wasn’t it the best time, the time you did most in? Wasn’t it? That was when you were a star, when you made it happen for you — but once you got all hooked up into people, you ruined it. Well, I’m not going to. That’s why I’ve come, you see. You’re going to have to do it for me. It doesn’t matter for you any more.’
Family Chorus Page 51
