Their Finest Hour and a Half

by Lissa Evans

She squeezes his hand.

  ROSE

  Every single day.

  The whistle blows, the train starts to move. Rose walks along the platform, holding Johnnie’s hand.

  ‘Do you think,’ asked Catrin, tentatively, ‘that we might get Margaret Lockwood to play Rose?’

  Buckley laughed. ‘No actress who thinks she’s famous and distinctive is going to want to play one half of a pair of identical twins.’

  ‘Couldn’t she play both? They do that, don’t they, in—’

  ‘In films that cost five times as much, yes.’

  ‘Oh.’

  ‘You have to use over-shoulder doubles and so on. It all takes far longer to shoot.’ He folded his arms, and stared at the scene cards as if he could rearrange them through the sheer power of his eyeballs. ‘Of course,’ he said, ‘another vital point that hasn’t occurred to the assembled mandarins at the Ministry of Wanton Paper Shuffling is that all the American actors who were working in London before the war began suddenly found pressing engagements on the other side of the Atlantic once the bombs started dropping.’

  ‘Couldn’t they use an English actor – doing the accent, I mean?’

  ‘Not unless we want the USA to side with Germany.’

  ‘Oh.’

  ‘They’re allowed to inflict their lousy English accents on us, you see, but any Yanks who appear on screen have to be orthennic. So . . .’ He stared at the cards for a few seconds longer, and then rounded on his writing partner.

  ‘Parfitt, what’s your opinion?’

  Parfitt shrugged.

  ‘Well I think,’ said Buckley, as if Parfitt had advanced a closely-worded and passionate argument in favour of scrapping the entire plot and starting again, ‘that we have to slide this Yank into the gaps – we don’t want to tinker with the story too much, we’ve already got pretty girls and heroism and comedy and sacrifice and a dog.’

  ‘All exits covered,’ said Parfitt.

  ‘Exactly. And if we add anything to location, Shipton in accounts will whip off that milksop mask and turn into a knife-wielding madman. Catrin, what would an American be doing at Dunkirk?’

  ‘Er . . .’

  ‘No, scrub that, what wouldn’t an American be doing?’

  ‘Fighting.’

  ‘Good girl. So what would that make him?’

  She thought hard. ‘An observer.’

  ‘Good girl again. Well done, Mrs Taff. Gives us a start, doesn’t it – cynical, wise-cracking observer won over by the best of British pluck.’ He smiled his wolfish smile and smacked his hands together. ‘Gird your loins, Parfitt,’ he said. ‘Strap on your sword. There’s work to do.’

  *

  Sophie wore an opaque veil at the funeral, and when offered condolences, merely inclined her head without speaking. She was surrounded for much of the time by an honour guard of tiny old ladies, their coats emitting a choking cloud of naphthalene, their ancient shoes cracked across the bunions and polished to mirror-brightness. Yiddish whispers, like an epidemic of throat clearance, rustled the air. At the graveside, Ambrose stood behind them and found himself gazing down at a sea of hat-crowns, the undulating black nap broken only by the occasional rakish feather or the wink of a jet clasp. From his viewpoint, Sammy’s coffin was invisible. He was glad of that; it stopped him from having to think about how many people it might contain.

  Sammy’s other clients had congregated on the opposite side of the grave, beneath a charred yew tree. The half-melted canister of an incendiary lay wedged in a crook three yards from the ground, and above it the trunk had turned to charcoal. Every gust of wind filled the air with filthy specks, and the respectful stance of the group was interrupted by discreet brushings and little shakes.

  Philip Cadogan, chinless juvenile lead turned infantry lieutenant, was standing in the front row, as was Martin Brawley, all-purpose heavy, his wooden features bearing, in grief, much the same expression that they wore when called upon to portray joy, love or laughter. Next to him, weeping copiously, was Lalage Bunting (heading into her third decade as an ingénue), and beside her stood Christopher Allenby, the uniform of the Auxiliary Fire Service hanging from his matchstick physique like a banner from a pole.

  Sammy, of course, had been loyal to the proverbial fault. His list had creaked with dead wood: promising saplings that had withered to nothing, fruit trees that had long since ceased to bear. During visits to the office, Ambrose had overheard him on the telephone, trying to persuade casting directors that Lalage still retained her girlish spring, that Philip exuded manly authority, that Martin could act. His enthusiasm had been unquestionable; what was suspect was his judgement. There was no doubt in Ambrose’s mind that there had been occasions when a script entirely suitable for himself had been diverted to a client perceived by Sammy as being in greater need. ‘Poor Chrishtopher,’ Sammy might say, ‘he’s been having an awful time with his wife’s teeth.’ And then the next thing that one knew, Christopher would be paying his dentist’s bill courtesy of a role that required patrician authority, a full head of hair and a height significantly greater than that of his leading lady.

  ‘You see, I like to find my clients roles that will shtrech them,’ had been Sammy’s usual excuse, but the truth was that he had lacked the ruthlessness necessary for a good agent. His pruning hook had never left its sheath.

  There was a sudden stillness in the graveyard; the long, unhurried Hebrew prayer had ended. The rabbi stepped aside, the undertaker’s men moved forward and Lalage Bunting raised a lace-edged handkerchief to her eyes.

  Above her, behind the branches of the yew tree, there was a flicker of movement. Ambrose glanced up and saw something amorphous – something grey and jowled that shuddered and disappeared once more behind the trunk. He heard the patter of loose earth as the coffin containing most of Sammy was lowered, and then the grey shape appeared behind the tree again, higher this time and swinging slowly in the wind, and it was obvious now that it was a barrage balloon, half a mile away. A barrage balloon, straining against its wire as it lifted into the sky, but for all that, it was extraordinarily, unmistakably Sammy-like: the absent waistline, the bulbous nose, the sheer inertia of its bulk. Someone fanciful, someone prone to religious whimsy might have found the sight symbolic – Sammy’s soul floating into the ether, may flights of angels sing thee to thy rest and take thee onward to thy Saviour’s breast – or whatever the Jewish equivalent might be. Abraham’s bosom, perhaps. Moses’s knee. Christ, he needed a drink.

  There was no road to the cemetery gates, only a meandering path between the tombstones, wide enough for three to walk abreast. The groups on either side of the grave shuffled slowly into line, merging into a straggling crocodile with Sammy’s clients forming the tail.

  ‘Oh hell,’ said Lalage, attempting to tuck her handkerchief up her sleeve and making heavy weather of it. ‘I’m just a sodden mess.’

  She tripped on the edge of a grave and dropped her handbag. Ambrose retrieved it and she took it from him without a word and stumbled onward.

  ‘I need a drink,’ said Martin Brawley. ‘And we should raise a glass to Sammy, of course. Anyone know any decent pubs around here?’

  ‘There’s the Bull,’ said Ambrose. ‘It’s just behind the station.’

  ‘Wine,’ said Lalage, over her shoulder. ‘Sammy liked wine, we should toast him in wine, not bitter.’

  ‘You’re right, Lal,’ said Brawley. ‘We should try a restaurant.’

  ‘I’m always right.’ She dropped her handbag again and this time snatched it up before Ambrose could reach it. ‘I hope you don’t think you’re coming,’ she said, giving him a poisonous look. ‘Fancy sending poor old Sammy into his office in the middle of a raid. You should be prosecuted, you beast. Poor old Sammy, he’d do anything for anybody, even a cold fish like—’ She fell headlong, this time, into a hollow between two graves, and lay there snivelling until Brawley picked her up.

  ‘Black coffee, I think,’ said Ambrose. ‘Otherwise she’ll have
the most frightful hangover.’

  ‘Beast,’ said Lalage again. She wrenched her arm from Brawley and wavered after the others.

  Brawley glanced at Ambrose and shrugged. ‘A bad business,’ he muttered, ‘a very bad business.’

  ‘Indeed,’ said Ambrose.

  They walked a few yards in silence before Brawley cleared his throat. ‘May I ask – have you thought what you’ll be doing about future representation?’

  Ambrose shook his head.

  ‘Only I was wondering,’ continued Brawley, ‘what with Sammy having been something of a one-man-band . . .’

  ‘I must say,’ said Ambrose, stiffly, ‘that I think it’s a little early to be talking about such matters. The man’s only been dead two days.’

  ‘Of course. I didn’t mean . . . it’s just that our little troupe of players may present something of a drug on the market and in the current climate when things are so very . . .’ Brawley cleared his throat uncomfortably. ‘Of course you’re absolutely right – it’s much too early to start thinking about it. Dear old Sammy.’

  It wasn’t easy – offices had closed or moved, younger staff had been called up, phone lines were down, numbers had changed – nevertheless by the third day after the funeral, Ambrose had dispatched five letters and had managed to speak on the telephone or in person to seven different agents, or their assistants, and he was beginning to feel more than a touch of disquiet.

  ‘We do try to have a nice range of experience on our books, Mr Hilliard, and I’m afraid that we already have more than one client of your calibre and playing age.’

  ‘Is that two ‘l’s in Hilliard?’

  ‘Could you just remind me of the last time we saw you on the cinema screen, Mr Hilliard?’

  ‘Oh that’s an unusual first name, isn’t it, sir? Is that spelled the same way as the creamed rice?’

  ‘Would you be willing to perform in pantomime, Mr Hilliard?’

  He’d slammed the receiver down so hard after that one that he’d cracked the cradle, and now the damned thing buzzed all the time – another petty repair that wouldn’t be fixed until after the Luftwaffe stopped visiting. Every upstairs ceiling leaked now, and since a landmine had descended on the Euston Road, none of the doors would close without a good kick. Still no housekeeper to be found, of course, and the drain in the area was blocked so that the bloody kitchen smelled like Calcutta. He could barely remember a time when coming through his own front door had been a pleasure.

  After ten days he had received four postal replies. Two had misspelled his name and none were able to offer him representation. He threw them on to the fire. The fifth letter came back unopened, the address crossed out and the stark word ‘GONE’ written beneath it. Ambrose spent the next morning searching for his share certificates, and found them in a box at the back of the wardrobe. Felling’s Superior Buttons, Caley’s Chocolates, Dorita Iced Cream, Reissman & Moffatt, Gaiter and Whip Manufacturers to the Gentry, Corrie Fine Suet – duds the lot of them, the dividends minuscule. He should have shot his bloody broker, missing out on those Daily Express shares in 1931.

  Another week passed. He bumped into Martin Brawley on The Strand and they talked in a guarded fashion.

  ‘I’ve been dipping a toe in agency waters,’ Brawley said, ‘testing for nibbles. You?’

  ‘Too busy, old chap.’

  ‘Oh really? Anything meaty?’

  Ambrose gave an enigmatic shrug. ‘This and that,’ he said.

  Brawley was looking rather shabby, Ambrose thought, a stain on his hat-band, his coat frayed at the cuffs. Appearances were so very important.

  Back at the house, Ambrose pondered his next move – perhaps a direct approach to studio casting, something casual: hello there, just passing through, had a long-standing lunch appointment with a fellow from head office, thought I’d drop by, awful thing about Sammy Smith, wasn’t it? Yes, very sad. No, not busy at the moment, taking a bit of a break out of respect. Really? Well, if you think I’d be suitable . . .

  Ealing might be a decent start – not too much of a journey and plenty going on there, by all accounts. He dressed, the next morning, with particular care, and emptied a whole packet of Kensitas into his silver cigarette case, the one presented to him by the management of ABPC at Elstree after The Laird and the Lass had been announced as the third most profitable British film of 1927. The inside of the lid was inscribed: ‘May ye have a’ the luck o’the Glens.’ Outside, the wind was brisk and he wound a grey silk scarf around his neck before giving the front door its requisite heave.

  It wasn’t until he turned the corner into Portland Place, and saw the congregation exiting All Souls, that he realized that it was a Sunday.

  He felt shocked – almost literally shocked, as if he had changed a bulb with wet hands. Timing, awareness of time, punctuality; they were more than professional virtues, they were the essence of the actor. He had thought it was a Friday, so where had the days gone? He groped back through the week. He had picked up his groceries on Tuesday. Or perhaps it had been on Wednesday. He had opened the garage door on Thursday and given the motor car a dusting, the poor old bottle-green Alvis, squatting on its bricks in the dark – or was it possible that he’d done that on the Friday? In which case, how had he occupied himself on Thursday? There’d been a brief but noisy raid one night; perhaps he’d slept through part of the morning. He’d taken a walk in the park one afternoon. He’d spoken to a neighbour about a broken chimney pot. Or had that been the week before?

  He felt the days judder under his feet like a faulty escalator. Of course, he thought, reaching for a handhold – of course! The problem was that the one firm date had gone: Monday, lunch with Sammy. Over the years the venue had changed – Veeraswamy’s, La Venezia, Pacani’s, Josef, Maison Basque – but the day had remained constant, the arrangement only ever cancelled if Ambrose were filming, or Sammy taking his yearly holiday in Broadstairs. (‘Not a shpectacular place, I know, but highly comfortable.’ ) Monday had been a day for discussion; it had had a purpose and a shape, it had been the hook on which the rest of the week could be hung, and now that hook had been permanently unscrewed.

  Ambrose walked back to the house, took off his coat and scarf, and sat for a while in an armchair beside the window. When the phone rang, he was asleep.

  ‘Mr Hilliard?’

  ‘Yes.’

  ‘It’s Sophie Smith.’

  She left one of her frigid pauses.

  Ambrose struggled for an appropriate remark. ‘And how are you, Miss Smith?’

  ‘My health is quite good, thank you. I hope you don’t mind that I’m telephoning you on a Sunday.’

  ‘Not at all.’

  ‘I remember my brother saying that you had no religious feelings whatsoever.’

  ‘Well . . .’

  ‘And this is a business call.’

  ‘Business?’ he repeated, cautiously.

  ‘I have spent the last week reading through my brother’s papers from the agency. He kept a safe for his financial work, which was intact, and also his diary and several of his clients’ files survived the bombing.’

  ‘I see.’

  ‘Sammy always shared his thoughts with me and I think that I have a very good understanding of the way he worked. It’s true that I have no business experience, but I have a clear head and a great deal of common sense and nothing, now, with which to occupy myself. I’ve made the decision, therefore, to continue with the agency. It will still be called ‘Sammy Smith’s’ and until I can find an office I shall work from this flat.’

  ‘And you will be the . . . titular head?’

  ‘I shall run the business, Mr Hilliard.’

  ‘Oh, I see.’ He wasn’t quite sure what he thought about this; was any agent better than none? She might ‘do’ in the interim, he supposed – she might prove a useful stop-gap until he could find a real professional. ‘Well, that seems rather enterprising of you,’ he said.

  ‘I couldn’t, of course, run it in exactl
y the same way as Sammy.’

  ‘No, obviously not.’

  ‘My brother was a very kind man, and a very good man. He regarded his clients as friends, which I feel may sometimes have clouded his judgement.’

  ‘Do you know, I’ve often thought that myself.’

  ‘Have you really, Mr Hilliard?’

  There was another wintry pause, broken this time by Sophie.

  ‘My brother’s diary mentions a possible film for you.’

  ‘Really?’

  ‘A small character role.’

  ‘Oh. Is that the same role that Sammy mentioned when I called him on . . .’ Not a good area, he realized, backing away. ‘Is that the Baker’s feature?’ he amended.

  ‘Yes.’

  ‘How small is the role, exactly?’

  ‘There’s no completed script as yet. The story is based on a true incident at Dunkirk, in which two girls and their uncle piloted a boat across the channel.’

  ‘That’s the role? The uncle?’

  ‘Yes.’

  ‘He pilots the boat?’

  ‘No. He’s drunk and asleep for the early part of the story, and then I believe he wakes up and mends the engine and then dies before the end of the film.’

  ‘Not my bag,’ said Ambrose. ‘Sounds more of a music-hall part. Tell them to ask Tommy Trinder.’

  ‘You don’t want me to put your name forward?’

  ‘No.’

  ‘There’s currently nothing else for you.’

  ‘Nevertheless.’

  ‘I would strongly advise you to take it.’

  If he hadn’t been talking to a grief-stricken quasi-widow then he might have become irritated at this point. As it was, he reminded himself that she was completely out of her depth, poor woman. He thought of that narrow flat, of the dark corridor that ran the length of it. ‘This is not a role for me, Miss Smith,’ he said. ‘But thank you.’

  She sighed. ‘You see, Mr Hilliard, I’m not sure what to do now. Because my brother, after a conversation like this, would replace the receiver and say, “What Ambrose doesn’t understand is that the roles he is waiting for are simply never going to arrive. He’s behaving as if he’s thirty-five and not fifty-three.” And I’d say, “Well, why don’t you tell him?” I’d say, “What can you lose by being honest? Let him know that ageing, enormously conceited, moderately talented actors are ten a penny, and that he should be grateful for every part that you manage to find him.” But Sammy was too kind to do that. He would never have told you, for instance, that the reason you have a good chance of getting this role is because the makers don’t want star names. They’ve decided that, since this is a true story, they’ll use faces that the audience don’t immediately recognize. “Faces that look real”, was the phrase they used. Sammy wrote the casting notes in his diary, here . . .’ There was the dry scrape of pages. “Playing age late fifties, early sixties. Dissipated look” – and underneath he’s written “Try Ambrose.” He wouldn’t have told you that, but I can see no reason not to. The whole point, surely, is to find suitable work for my clients and I can assure you – I can absolutely assure you – that there is nothing else for you at the moment. Do you know how many feature films are currently in production in British studios?’