The Fleeting Years

by Connie Monk

  ‘Play every day, just until it starts to hurt, but no longer. Perhaps two or three times a day, perhaps more, but always stop as soon as the pain comes. You might find that your muscles will get stronger and gradually without your realizing it you will be playing for longer before you feel the strain.’

  She nodded, but the look of hopelessness was still there.

  As the weeks passed she did as Peter had said, playing many times in each day, always stopping when the pain started. It made no difference. After not many minutes the pain was there coming between her and the music. She talked to the doctor, she wrestled with herself, finding the courage to do what had to be done and finally she told Derek he must find a permanent replacement for her in the quintet.

  Meantime Peter had found a one-bedroom flat in Central London and moved there when the play went into rehearsal, always driving home at every opportunity of a free day. About every fortnight a ‘Dear Dad and Mum, Everything is really exciting here’ letter arrived from Fiona and, from talking on the phone to Tom, Zina knew his were much the same. Peter’s rare laying down of the rules must have been taken to heart.

  ‘Come back to town with me for a few days,’ Peter suggested to Zina one Sunday afternoon. ‘Go out and spoil yourself with some new clothes. Daytime I’m tied up but we’d have evenings—’ then with a light kiss on the end of her nose – ‘and nights.’

  So a new regime was born. When opening night came for King Lear she watched his every move and heard his every syllable, felt the sting of tears, whether of love and pride in him or for the poor king, she didn’t ask as she felt herself falling in love with him all over again. Only she knew of his own fear, only she knew of how desperately he needed his stage debut to be a success. Sitting in the front row of the stalls she felt her own heart racing as he entered the stage and she prayed with all her heart that the audience would be carried with him.

  It was she who crept out before he was awake the next morning to bring home the newspapers.

  ‘Peter! You can’t lie there sleeping! Open your eyes – and ears – and listen to what the critics have written. I’ve checked them all, and you just hear what they say about you. “Peter Marchand, in a bold move from screen to stage, brought King Lear to life carrying the audience with him.” And just listen to this one: “I have seen King Lear well acted many times, but Peter Marchand’s performance lifted the sad and demented king to a higher plane. A night no member of the audience will easily forget.”’

  ‘Thank God,’ Peter whispered. ‘Not just for me, but for the play; it deserves nothing less.’

  When Tom came on holiday, to start with Peter stayed in the flat by himself coming home for weekends but after about three weeks when he returned to London, Tom went with him. In a one-bedroom flat there wasn’t room for all three of them so Zina stayed at home. As they said their farewells her mind turned to Fiona, always so dear to Peter. Of course it was good to see ‘the boys’ together but she knew as she watched the car disappear out of the drive that Peter’s thoughts must have strayed the same way as hers. How much are any of us masters of our own destiny?

  Fiona, little more that a child in years if not in experience and happily settled with Hermann’s family, had been offered a contract for five more films, probably films that would carry her almost through her teen years. Zina’s reaction had been that ‘the child can’t be out there on her own, she must come home’. Peter’s personal feeling had been more complicated: he hated his darling Fiona to be so far away, always he had been her guiding star and now that had been taken from him. He knew her well enough to be sure that they were missing her far more than she was missing them and all that home had meant to her. And, more than Zina, he realized that an opportunity like this was unlikely to come again and knowing how excited she was at the prospect of five more films, he signed the contract giving his consent. Also he was honest enough to know that if they insisted that she held to the bargain that she had been left behind so that she could make just the one film, it would put an insurmountable barrier between her and her family.

  Tom spent the week in London with Peter, going twice to watch King Lear and feeling it brought him closer to his father than he had ever been. When they came home the following Saturday night – or more accurately Sunday morning by the time the evening performance was over and they’d driven from London – they found Zina still up and waiting for them. Usually when she’d been at the flat during the week she would bring the car to the theatre to collect Peter and they would drive back together, having a supper of sandwiches and coffee as they came. She always got extra pleasure out of this routine journey when first she would drive while he ate and then, somewhere near Andover, always in the same lay-by, they changed places and Peter took over for the rest of the journey and she ate her share of the sandwiches. She enjoyed it especially because it seemed to symbolize just how unchanged he was with the years. By the time they reached home the night was usually half over, just as it was on the Saturday night/Sunday morning when she waited for him to drive back with Tom.

  ‘The lights are on downstairs, Dad. I wonder if Mum got us anything to eat before she went to bed.’

  ‘Better than that, she’s opening the door for us.’

  ‘Nearly half past three and she’s waited up for us. Gosh!’ Just for a moment Tom’s surprise and pleasure made Peter ashamed that he could take it for granted she would always be there waiting. But as she ran down the front steps to open the car door, shame was forgotten. Not for the first time Zina was glad they had no near neighbours to be woken by their excited voices and slamming of car doors before they went inside. Always when Peter had been working away, the highlight of her week, the moment she looked toward, had been his arrival home. And that night, with Tom there too, there was a feeling of celebration. That it was the middle of the night did nothing to detract from it.

  Tom’s week had been crammed. Two evenings with King Lear, one listening to a chamber music recital in a church, two with full orchestras in concert halls and, doing much for his fast-growing confidence, wherever he’d been he’d travelled on the underground and never once got on a train going the wrong way. He was ready for anything.

  ‘What about you, Mum? How’s the fiddle arm?’

  ‘I can play for ten minutes before it starts to hurt and fifteen before it really gives me gip. But I’ve been working at the piano. Except for accompanying you or playing carols at Christmas, that sort of thing, I hadn’t played for years. Like you, I’d given my heart to the violin and let the piano drop. So I’ve been getting to grips with it again. I know it will always be second best to me, but I’m so thankful I had the early training. It’s like riding a bike – you never forget.’

  ‘That’s good, Mum. We’ll still be a team, we can still play together.’

  Peter envied them their easy camaraderie.

  ‘Any letters from Fiona?’ he asked.

  ‘One for us and one for you, Tom. I put yours in your bedroom, Tom.’ There had been no news in the letter and she didn’t doubt that his would be pretty well the same. ‘Nothing momentous in ours, in fact at first glance I thought she was wasting her time out there. The word “party” keep jumping up at me out of the page. But I’d misjudged her. Page two was about filming and what she’s doing – but I don’t think she sees it as work, rather as having a good time.’

  ‘I wish she was filming here in England,’ Tom said, ‘but isn’t it great that she’s doing something she really enjoys. Can’t you just see her; she sort of bubbles with pleasure, doesn’t she?’

  Both his parents were watching him, Peter with a new understanding nourished by the shared week in London, Zina with pure love.

  Through the next few years Peter and Zina moved forward in a rut, a comfortable rut taking no note of the passing of time. The only reminder was the development of the one-time children, both of them so set on where they meant their lives to take them.

  Fiona had been in the States for almost a year and a half t
he first time Zina flew to California to see her. It wasn’t possible for Peter to come as he was still on the London stage in the guise of King Lear, but they agreed that she should go alone this time and when the run of the play ended he would do the same thing, that way Fiona would have two visits rather than a joint one to look forward to. Except for seeing Fiona and setting her mind at rest that she was happy and settled, the holiday did nothing for Zina more than confirm what in her heart she had always known – living as she did at Newton House in an isolated spot in South Devon was where she belonged. There was no doubting Fiona’s pleasure and pride in showing off her new surroundings, for her they fell little short of paradise. As a child she had been enchantingly pretty, but the girl who waited for her mother at the airport was no longer that same child. Less than two years older but Hollywood had put its stamp on her, a stamp she wore with pride. She might have been any age from fourteen to nineteen, discretely made-up, casually dressed in denim trousers and a plain white shirt, it was no wonder heads turned to look at her as she spied Zina in the crowd emerging from the arrivals gate. She waved and waited while the mass of people jostled for place as they hurried along.

  Putting down her heavy suitcase Zina took her in a bear-like hug.

  ‘Oh but it’s good to see you. But where’s the child who went off with her father?’ she said with a laugh.

  ‘I guess I’ve come a long way since then, Mum. You look just the same; that’s the nice thing about mums. I’ll take the case. I’ve got a cab waiting outside.’ Picking up the case she raised her eyebrows. ‘Gosh, whatever have you got in here? It weighs a ton.’ But, ton or not, before she’d walked half a dozen paces while Zina felt her first twinge of irritation knowing her actress daughter was making the most of the not-terribly heavy load, a middle-aged man appeared, his smile including them both.

  ‘That’s looks to be mighty heavy. May I be of assistance?’

  Both answering at once, Zina said, ‘That’s very kind, but we have a cab just outside so we can manage.’

  But overriding her, Fiona put the case down and gave her most radiant smile to the stranger as she answered, ‘That’ll be a real life-saver. My mother doesn’t know how to travel light.’

  Reaching the cab Zina knew she sounded buttoned-up and prim as she watched the stranger hand the bag over to the driver and held out her hand to him. ‘That was most kind of you.’

  ‘Surely my pleasure,’ he answered with his remark directed not at her but at Fiona.

  ‘My pleasure too,’ she chuckled. ‘I was more than glad to hand it over. Thanks a load.’

  Was it natural for a mother to resent being passed over for her daughter, Zina asked herself, not feeling proud of her behaviour? It was the first time she had ever felt herself to be anything but young. Thirty-six years old and pushed into the sidelines by a daughter who had forgotten that at just fifteen she was surely still a child. Had they been right in letting her take her golden opportunity? Or, if they’d brought her home where she belonged would she still have rushed to find the confidence of adulthood before her time? If only Peter had been with them there would have been no cloud on the scene.

  For Fiona the meeting had been all she had hoped. Her mother would understand that she was no longer just some kid, she knew about the world.

  The not-as-heavy-as-Fiona-liked-to-pretend suitcase contained more new clothes than Zina had bought for years and during the fortnight she was there she wore them all; and never had she felt so out of step with the people who now made up Fiona’s world. She was invited to dinner with famous Edwin Cummings and his wife, (Edwin was co-starring with Fiona, playing her father) and proudly dressed in her new dinner gown, a closely-fitting creation with sleeves and high neck, for she had always been led to believe that bare arms and low-cut bodices were not correct for dinner. But here, apparently, there were no such rules. The female guests seemed bent on outdoing each other in how much body they could expose: open side seams showing legs as high as legs go, low-cut bodices that left nothing to the imagination, some had low backs, all had bare arms. Zina had no wish to dress like it, but being in a group of people so different from herself made her feel ancient. She told herself that was ridiculous, she was only thirty-six and many of these people were far more, and yet she felt dowdy in her expensive and demure creation. If only Peter were here. The only ones she was at ease with were Hermann and Heila, but as Fiona had persuaded them that she wanted to rent an apartment for the fortnight of her mother’s stay (and Heila had made the necessary arrangements so that it was rented in her name because of Fiona’s age) she didn’t see as much of them as she had hoped.

  ‘How’s it going? It’s great to think of you two girls together,’ Peter said when he phoned at four in the afternoon California time.

  ‘I don’t think we need to worry about her; she’s fine. Full of confidence, and loving everything American. She’s at the studio most days, all day – and feeling very cock-a-hoop with herself.’

  He laughed tolerantly. ‘And you? How do you feel in the environment of glamour? Are you going to tell me you regret the choice we made?’ And she could tell from his tone that he knew what her answer would be.

  ‘You know my idea of heaven? But I can stand all the razzmatazz for a short time just to know she is in her element. I wish, wish so much, she hadn’t got this burning desire to be part of the scene here. Not for the first time it makes me think of Mrs C’s expression – you know, the one that something is all front and no back. Is that what you felt, Peter? It must have been.’

  ‘It certainly wouldn’t have suited us. But I’m glad the kid’s enjoying it all. Don’t worry, Zee. At her age excitement is an essential part of life. I just hope we have given her firm enough roots that she’ll not get too swept away. Does she look well?’

  ‘More than well, she looks radiant. And that’s not mother love; it’s fact. You should see the looks that are cast in her direction as soon as she puts her nose out of doors. And this is the home of beautiful women. I feel a complete “has been”.’

  She heard the affection in his laugh and assumed it was for Fiona until he said, ‘Has been, is now and will be forever more, that’s what you are my beloved Zee. If you were here this minute …’

  ‘At four o’clock in the afternoon?’ she laughed, feeling herself more desirable by the second.

  ‘Midnight rainy London town, but whatever time, night or day, you know what you do to me. This is the longest fortnight since I took the flat. I expect you wish you were staying with the kid for longer but I’m just waiting for the moment you walk through that arrivals gate.’

  ‘Me too. Oh Peter, I do miss you. It must be all in the mind. After all, more often than not you’ve been away and I’ve never felt cut off from you like I do here. I should land at a quarter to ten on Sunday morning, your time, so what shall we do? Go to the flat? Or go home just for what’s left of the weekend?’

  ‘If you aren’t too shattered for the drive, let’s go home. Back where we belong. There won’t be much weekend left so maybe you could come back with me for next week.’

  ‘Bliss. If I were a cat I’d be purring just thinking about it. Any news of Tom?’

  ‘No, the difficulty is that when he’s free I’m not. We’ll call him on Sunday. I did ring Mother-in-law this morning though and I was glad I had. She’d expected Derek home but he’d just phoned to say he’d had to put the car in, it had played up on the outbound trip to Penzance and when he went to collect it, it wasn’t ready, so he won’t be back until this evening. I think she was glad to chat – even to me.’

  ‘You are a good chap.’

  ‘I know I am. Aren’t you just a lucky girl!’ If Jenny had heard him, her more kindly than usual sentiments would have vanished.

  In the early hours of Sunday morning the cab took Fiona back to Hermann’s where she was dropped off before it carried on to the airport with Zina.

  ‘It’s been great showing you everything, Mum,’ Fiona said as they started
the short drive. ‘I bet you have second thoughts now you’ve seen how great everything is out here and poor old you has to go home to dull, sleepy Devon. Maybe I could drop a hint that Dad might be prepared to have another think.’

  ‘He refused on his own account, not just on mine. We belong in dull, sleepy Devon, as you call it. And it’s waiting to welcome you back when you have a holiday.’ Somehow even as she said it she was sure that if Fiona had time to kill she would choose somewhere other than where she had been a child. ‘Don’t grow up too quickly, will you. Stay young and carefree as long as you can.’

  ‘Oh Mum, you make me laugh. I know lots of grown ups, am friendly with them and they treat me like an ordinary person not some half-witted kid, but none of them are full of care, even though some have been through horrid times – unhappy marriages, all that sort of thing. But they’ve got over it and found plenty of fun still in life. Give my love to Dad and tell him I’m looking forward to him killing off that wretched old King Lear so that he can come over.’

  ‘And Tommy?’

  Fiona chuckled. ‘You called him Tommy, just like when we were little kids. Yes, give Tom my love and tell him there’s a lot more to life than that fiddle of his. I meant to ask you, Mum – are you playing back in the quintet again? You haven’t talked about it.’

  The question took Zina by surprise, for she knew she had told Fiona in letters about having to give up playing.

  ‘No point in talking about it, there’s nothing I can do about it. I can’t play any more. I had to give up.’

  ‘You mean Granderek didn’t wait for you? That was mean.’

  ‘He waited ages with a temporary replacement, but I had to face up to not being able to play any more and he took her on permanently.’

  ‘Why don’t you try to get taken on by someone else now that you’re better?’ Not for the first time Zina felt disappointed in her daughter. Did she never read what was written to her, or listen, really listen, to anything unless it concerned herself? She wished she’d not even been asked about her fiddle, especially when in a few minutes they would have said goodbye.