The Wildflowers

by Harriet Evans

  ‘Wonderful to get out at the top, darling,’ Tobias, her new agent, had told her. ‘It’s time for a change. It’s terrific news, really. Leave on a high.’

  But it didn’t feel like terrific news. You didn’t kill off your main character when everything was going well, did you? You killed off someone incidental and framed the main character for the murder. She knew why she was being bumped off. They wanted someone younger. A new leading lady around whom they could frame a whole story to try and breathe life into the creaky old Sunday-night TV warhorse which had lost its way several years ago. Other, better costume dramas had imitated it since, and done it better: Jane Eyre, for example, with Tony as Mr Rochester – the irony wasn’t lost on Althea there. To compete, Hartman Hall had started throwing any old plot at the wall to see if it’d stick and she wasn’t sure when it had finally lost any credibility it might once have had: possibly when Lady Isabella had started seeing ghosts, or the ludicrous plotline in the fourth series when she’d become a smuggler.

  She’d been ‘resting’ for so long before Hartman Hall that it wasn’t like she had any other recent experience to fall back on. The programme had made her; without it she was nothing. She’d be starting again, at forty-two, and things had changed whilst she’d been off being a huge TV star. She’d been turned down for two parts in the last week, one the lead in a Granada drama for Sunday evenings, the other the wife in a new sitcom. The first one she’d not been that surprised by: Tobias had been frank with her. ‘You’re too old, Althea darling. They’re looking for a fresh face. You know. Someone more . . . eighties.’

  But the second had been a real blow. It was for a wife and mother of two teenage children living in a leafy London suburb who gets a job working again after fifteen years . . . in the same office as her solicitor husband. She was the mother of two teenage children. She lived in a leafy London suburb, albeit in an eighteenth-century town house by the river. And yet still they’d said she wasn’t right for the part, and Tobias had as good as told her it was again because she was too old.

  ‘I was actually pretty young when I had my children,’ she’d told him. ‘Most mothers of teenage children are even older than me if you can imagine that, darling.’

  But Tobias had merely given a nervous laugh. Oh, she missed Bertie, with his rude honesty and his lack of bullshit, and the way they spoke the same language, but she’d got rid of him to appease Tony. She was starting to despair of finding another part, wondering whether she’d simply slide back into obscurity, her only role that of Lady Wilde, opening fetes and simpering on Tony’s arm, and the idea absolutely terrified her. Then the script for On the Edge had arrived.

  She looked down at it now in her curled hand. It would cement her reputation or ruin her career; it was daring, in places highly suggestive, nothing like it had been shown on TV. She was Janey, a divorcee, considering taking a much younger man as a lover. It opened with her buying bras and featured a postcoital scene in bed. Real conversation, not nonsense like Dynasty where the men wore as much make-up as the women and the bed sheets were blue silk. It was hilarious, too, that was the thing she liked about it. Janey was a real woman; it was written by a woman. She could see every one of her friends enjoying it and in her limited experience that was a recipe for a hit. But oh, the risk . . .

  It had been Simon’s suggestion they send it to her – darling, naughty Simon, doing it to annoy Tony probably but . . . how clever he was . . . how dreadful if it failed . . . Althea felt slightly sick again, only this time with nerves. She had to decide whether to take it, one way or the other.

  ‘Ah, sorrow! Ah, sorrow!’

  Cord’s voice, still faint, came through the open window; she was preparing an aria from Dido and Aeneas for her Royal Academy audition the following month. She practised for at least two hours a day, listening to tapes of celebrated recordings on the battered cassette player Uncle Bertie had given her all those years ago that she and Ben used to hunch over, listening to tapes.

  Shaking her head – she couldn’t think about Ben without beginning to cry – Althea pulled out the plastic hand mirror she kept in the little drawer of the porch side table and stared at herself, frankly. The pale milk skin, the blue veins, the lines that seemed hatched into her. The eyes, faintly disapproving of something. Had she always been this . . . this . . . disappointed-looking? There was a time when men used to stop and stare at me when I walked by. And it’s not as though I miss it, she told herself moodily, raising her knees up under her chin and tugging the rug around her, shivering, suddenly. I absolutely don’t, of course not. It’s pathetic, those women you see still chasing their youth. I had my time and it was wonderful, being that girl.

  She’d seen Ray Harrington, the Australian actor who’d played her husband and who’d been killed off at the end of the second series, for lunch. She’d never liked him – roaming hands, a nasty streak when drunk, and no subtlety as an actor: really, he’d only been hired because of his looks. Halfway through his salmon mousse he’d leaned forward, spittle flecking his chin, and said, in soft, venom-filled tones, ‘You’ll find it hard, getting old, harder than most. It’ll be a real come-down for a goddess like you.’

  He’d said it with such relish. She’d wanted to slap him right there in the middle of Langan’s. He, with his paunchy stomach and his veiny nose, boasting about character roles he was being offered, stuff with meat, real substance, not like all those washed-up actresses who only had looks to trade on . . . Since that lunch, Althea had become more obsessed with that idea.The notion that scores of well-known actresses just disappeared, after a certain time, when they got to whatever cut-off point was allowable dependent on their fame. Men went on, men could be desirable onscreen till their sixties or even seventies . . . It wasn’t fair, wasn’t bloody fair . . . Althea jumped, as the French windows banged open and Tony appeared on the porch.

  ‘Listen, darling, I’m sorry about being vile to you. I must have drunk a little too much last night. I’m feeling wretched this morning.’ Tony dropped a kiss on her head. ‘I’m an absolute pill. Don’t let’s fall out before breakfast is over.’

  She carried on staring ahead, not ready to forgive him yet.

  ‘What’s the new script? Is it a play? Do you want me to read it?’ He crouched down, and took one of her hands. ‘Althea? What’s up?’

  She wished she could tell him. Wished they were a team the way Olivia and Guy were, how they each knew what was best for the other, wanted the other’s success and happiness more than their own. Tears came into Althea’s eyes.

  ‘Are you feeling sad about Ben, my darling?’

  ‘No,’ she said, but it didn’t sound convincing.

  ‘He’ll come back to us. I promise.’

  ‘I . . .’ Althea shook her head, and uncurled her fists.

  Tony took her chin in his hand and turned her head very gently towards him. He was more tanned, his face had a healthier glow than of late and his eyes burned as they met hers. ‘Althea,’ he said quietly. ‘Darling, you’re as beautiful now as you were then. More, perhaps.’

  She looked at him through narrowed eyes, breathing hard. ‘Don’t tell fibs, Tony.’

  But he was staring at her with total sincerity. As though he could read her mind, knew what was in her heart. It was a trick he’d always had, damn him. ‘It’s true, darling. You have something you didn’t then.’

  ‘Crows’ feet? Tony, it’s not just – it’s not just looks, for God’s sake. I’m not some mannequin in a shop, I’m an actress, a bloody good actress, actually.’

  He laughed and kissed her, moving his hand to the back of her neck.

  ‘My beautiful girl, you’re the best I know,’ he said. ‘I’m sorry you’re upset. Is there anything I can do?’

  Althea cleared her throat.

  ‘It’s Hartman Hall,’ she said, frankly. ‘I’m being canned.’

  ‘Oh.’ He nodded. He didn’t offer fake sympathy but stood there thinking, eyes narrowed, for a minute. ‘It’s for
the best. Yes, absolutely. We’ll find you something else.’ He looked down at her, reappraising everything. ‘God, I’m sorry I’ve been such a heel lately, and you’ve been dealing with all of that.’

  She shrugged, wearily.

  ‘I used to care,’ she said, bleakly. ‘I used to tear myself to pieces, when we were first together. When I thought, oh, I can help him, after the promises we made each other . . .’

  ‘Althea – darling. Don’t say that.’ He looked quite stricken. ‘I’m sorry.’

  She could hear Isla inside, clattering about with plates, hear the wash of the morning tide on the sand below. All normal sounds. She felt quite calm.

  ‘It doesn’t matter any more,’ she said vaguely. She thought of On the Edge. He’d hate it. Tony stared at her, his hand closing around her wrist. ‘I’m not sad,’ she said. ‘I’m not angry – it’s fine.’

  ‘Don’t be sad about me. I love—’ He cleared his throat. ‘Dammit, Althea, I love you, you know I do, I always have.’

  ‘Gosh, all this Sturm und Drang right after breakfast,’ she said mildly, and he smiled.

  ‘Don’t be sad about Hartman Hall either. You’re better than them.’

  Althea looked up. She said, ‘I’m not, actually. I’m going to do a sitcom, they’ve offered me the part. It’s rather racy. It’ll upset a lot of people, Tony—’ She rooted around beside her. ‘Here, let me give you the script—’

  But as she turned to give it to him she saw he wasn’t listening. He was staring out to sea, thinking hard about something. Then he pulled a large handkerchief from his pocket and rubbed his face with it, and she smelled the perfume first, then saw the lipstick on the pale blue fabric. Just a smear. She knew it could have been any number of things – jam, pen, his own stage make-up – but she knew it wasn’t. It never was.

  ‘Everything’s a bit hard at the moment,’ he said blankly. ‘I’m sorry. Getting worse.’

  Althea said slowly, ‘How, darling?’

  ‘The nightmares. I keep having them. Awfully tedious.’

  ‘Does she come back?’

  ‘Every time.’

  Her heart swelled with sympathy for him, and yet – the chill came over her again. For the first time she could see a future without him, without the handkerchiefs or worse, the phone slammed down as she entered a room, the receipts for restaurants she’d never been to with him. Or the feeling, the indefinable but true conviction one had, that another woman had been in one’s bedroom, had preened herself in the mirror one used, lain in the bed one slept in . . .

  Althea lifted her head to him, and took his hand. She said softly, wearily, ‘You are a great actor, the greatest of your day. You had a terrible time as a child. Unimaginable. It’ll always be painful but remember, darling, it helped you become what you are.’

  ‘Do you really think that?’

  She nodded, wearily, forcing a kind smile. Tony kissed her forehead, excited as a boy that he had smoothed things over. ‘I have to go to the station, to collect Hamish. I’ll be back for lunch.’

  ‘Who?’

  ‘Hamish Lowther, precious. You remember. Prince Hal. I invited him to stay for the week. You were keen on the idea.’ Tony’s face assumed that slightly mulish expression that used to amuse her. ‘You were the one who said we should ask him, I seem to recall.’

  Now Althea sat up. ‘I didn’t think you’d invite him and then not tell me. What are we to do with him? A whole week? Oh, Tony, it’s too bad. It really is.’

  He got to his feet, impatient again. ‘Darling, you’re the one who draped yourself over him at Orso’s and insisted he accept. I had to ask him. Anyway, he’s just been ditched by his fiancée and he’s terribly down in the dumps. Needs cheering up. He’s a lovely boy, he can – Cord will like him, and there’s . . .’ Tony trailed off, the lack of Ben and Madeleine heavy in the air. ‘He can go for walks with Cord.’

  Suddenly Althea saw the funny side, that this handsome young man with whom she had, undoubtedly, flirted far too much on that night, partly because Tony was obviously screwing Hamish’s girlfriend, a cool young blonde named Emma playing Catherine de Valois, and partly because – well, he was a beautiful young man. He was droll and unhurried, with wide grey eyes, light brown hair and a soft Borders accent that reminded her of home, of sweet gentle boys who wanted to kiss her when she was a girl, of warm nights and the smell of pine and the call of the fishermen unloading their catch on the banks of the Dee in the mornings. The breeze fluttered the closed script, her hair, kissing her fondly.

  ‘Yes, he was rather lovely,’ she said, smiling at her husband, frankly for once, acknowledging their imperfections. ‘You’re right. He can go for walks with Cord.’

  Chapter Fourteen

  Hamish was as handsome as she remembered, and as shy. In marked contrast to Tony, who carried something of the charisma he wore on stage off with him every night, Hamish could not have been less like an actor.

  ‘In fact,’ said Isla, gazing at him with approval and not a little admiration, two days into his stay, ‘you’d never know he was there. He just seems to blend right in, doesn’t he, the sweet wee lad.’

  Althea couldn’t help but notice the flush on his cheeks when he spoke to her, or the studied, calm way he handled things: his cutlery, a stuck door, a lost child who wandered past the house in tears. One evening they went to the pub and she watched in awe as he carried four drinks back to the table in the garden, two each in the palms of his huge hands. He was unfailingly gentle, reserved, kind; only sometimes, when she looked at him, and found he was watching her, did she feel herself begin to blush, too.

  Of course, what no one had foreseen was that Cord would develop a painfully obvious crush on him: Cord who, at seventeen, had never really shown any interest in boys, beyond the usual lip service to John Travolta. But Hamish acted upon her like the proverbial thunderbolt, and much as Althea wished she could discuss this with her daughter, whose cheeks flared painfully red whenever she found herself in the same room as Hamish, she couldn’t. She and Cord had never been the kind of mother and daughter to girlishly whisper confidences in each other’s ears whilst shopping for make-up and it was too late to start now.

  By contrast, Hamish seemed to be a wholly restful holiday companion; she thought he must be rather bemused by her own coolness towards him, but she knew she must back away from any further entanglements if she were to maintain the moral high ground with Tony. Hamish took a while to say things, and it wasn’t until he’d been there a few days that Tony told her he’d had a stutter until he was a teenager, which acting had helped overcome. Now, he thought out everything he said, in contrast to the Wildes, like a murder of crows in a tree, chattering non-stop. It was only a couple of months after the loss of his fiancée – Emma had dumped him for her director whilst on a national tour of The Norman Conquests and Tony said he was still awfully cut up about it.

  It would be good for Cord to get her first crush out of the way and do so on this sweet-natured, gentle man, someone who didn’t yawn as Cord loudly, excitedly explained her thoughts on modern music and what singers she liked and why . . . It made Althea glaze over, but in this Hamish was a better actor than she was, and always listened attentively. Yes, she was glad Tony had asked him down.

  Cord was waving a crisp in the air. ‘Well, I think some modern music is wonderful but a lot of it just hurts my ears.’

  ‘That’s the point, I think,’ Hamish said, smiling. ‘To make as much noise as possible. That’s why I like it. The chaos of sound.’

  ‘Well, I don’t. What about that ridiculous piece that’s just turning three radios on and letting them play for five minutes. Or just sitting in silence for four and a half minutes. It’s lazy! I like music to have a point. Er – to sound nice.’

  Hamish just laughed. ‘How bourgeois, Cord,’ he said, smiling into her face. ‘I expected more of you.’

  Her father laughed. ‘He’s right. You have to have the new. People thought Mozart was horrifically gar
ish once.’

  ‘Well, but these days I just feel we need to preserve classical music,’ said Cord, a little too loudly, red in the face. ‘It’s really important. There’s too much on all this other music and I just think . . . I just think . . . anyway.’ But, running out of steam, she stopped and stared at the ground, biting her lip in adolescent awkwardness. Althea’s heart ached for her.

  Hamish nodded, smiling at her. ‘It’s cool to be passionate about something. I like it. It means you’re interested.’

  ‘Thank you,’ said Cord, formally, and she picked up the bowl on the table. ‘Would you like some more peanuts and raisins, Hamish?’

  ‘Yes, thank you, Cord.’

  ‘Er, not . . . not at all.’ A shy glance at him. ‘Anyway, as I was saying about coloratura . . . It’s very interesting because . . .’ She trailed off. ‘Oh. I’ve forgotten.’

  ‘Another Martini, Hamish?’

  ‘I’d love one, Tony, but I think not. You make them awfully strong, you know.’

  ‘My dear boy – this is nothing. School measures.’

  ‘Leave Hamish alone, Dad!’ Cord, flushed, hit her father playfully on the arm. ‘He doesn’t want another drink.’

  Hamish smiled slowly at Cord. His eye caught Althea’s. ‘I’ll save myself for later, I think,’ he said, slowly.

  Althea felt the shock of attraction, of sexual certainty, pulse through her, as it hadn’t for – oh, years, now. Was she imagining it? ‘Good idea, Hamish,’ she said, with a slow, cat-like grin, and he blushed, and his gaze returned to Cord once more.

  Oh, God. To think someone young found her attractive again! She felt a pang for Cord, but only a pang – she’d already made up her mind not to do anything about it and it was good to see her daughter falling in love. She saw that Isla was looking at her and wished her sister didn’t still, after all these years, know her so well.

  ‘I’ll check on the pie,’ said Isla, standing up. ‘I don’t want to eat too late, what with my early start and all of that.’