The Blue Note

by Charlotte Bingham

  At the inevitable clicking of her fingers, Miranda would have to give in and supply the word for which she knew her guardian was searching, experience having taught her that not to do so would mean that they would both be there all day – Allegra clicking her fingers, time and time again, and Miranda purposefully supplying every other word than the right one.

  ‘Shi––?’

  ‘That’s it. God, these politicians are so – such – so – such – what was that you said? What? These politicians are …’ Click, click went the fingers.

  ‘Idiots?’

  ‘No!’

  ‘Fools?’

  ‘No, no, you know …’

  ‘Asses?’

  ‘Arses! That’s right. They are arses! Horses’ arses! That is it, absolutely. You must admit. That is right! I mean to say! We have fought a war and we have won. But. What now? Things are worse than ever before. We never had any bread queues during the war. We never had such deprivations as we have now. But now. Now we have won the bloody war and what happens – no bread, nothing but rations, rations, rations. And no housing. Housing is left in charge of little Hitlers called councils, and spivs not fighter pilots are the heroes of the hour. It is not just preposterous, it is perfectly and absolutely bloody!’

  Following these outbursts Allegra would promptly fall asleep with the Passing Cloud ash nearly a foot long, and dangerously close to setting her chair alight. In fact, once she was home from boarding school, Miranda realized that it was most probably just as well, for Allegra seemed determined to put danger first, and when she was not smoking and drinking, swearing about the government or driving her pre-war Austin 7 into a ditch, she was busy nearly setting fire to herself and the Cottage.

  Even now, as Miranda turned round to see if she was all right, the ash of Allegra’s Passing Cloud, as was her inveterate habit, was growing longer and longer, and longer. As long as the fingers that were holding it. And its oval shape, so admirably suited to the shape of a woman’s mouth, was getting perilously diminished, so that very soon, it seemed to her ward, Allegra herself, or her deep red mouth, would become horribly burned.

  ‘Fire!’

  ‘Thank you, darling.’

  They had developed this code for public moments, but now, since they rarely saw anyone, its use had extended to private moments too. Possibly because it was such an emotive word, Miranda had found that Allegra responded to it almost at once. In the same way that her old retriever responded to ‘Hup!’ and ‘Fetch it!’ his owner responded to ‘Fire!’ and would promptly put out the remains of her cigarette in a small gold box that she always carried in her old, worn, crocodile handbag.

  ‘This is one of those moments.’ Allegra breathed in and out very slowly, and then finally, and inevitably, started to cough. ‘This is one of those moments when everything one has ever dreaded in life seems to have come to pass.’ For a brief second, as Miranda, despite the heat outside, shivered in the cold and the damp of Burfitt’s old kitchens, and heard the inevitable drip, drip of water leaking in a scullery somewhere, she thought she heard another sound too, that of Allegra’s voice trembling, a bat’s wing of a sound. But as quickly as the sound had escaped she had lit another cigarette, and they continued on. ‘What will it take to bring this place back to life? And who will be able to do it for me?’

  They had come to a standstill, unfortunately, because at these words Miranda’s feet could be seen to be shifting uncomfortably. Was she meant now to be not just a ‘Mowbray’, which she palpably was not, but – a Sulgrave too? She prayed that she was not.

  And yet, who else was there to help Allegra put the place to rights? Her brothers had both been killed in the First World War, and now, with the end of the Second, there was only Miranda left, for Allegra’s husband had been killed in North Africa – tanks, you know – and her two sisters too had died in the war. One had been blown up in an air raid by a doodlebug, and the other while driving a Polish general somewhere or other – although where Miranda never could make out. Having been a favourite of her eldest sister, Allegra never mentioned her name without turning away and having a coughing fit, to cover the moment, perhaps, or just because she found the idea of her not being still alive so unbearable that even her body turned away from the thought.

  ‘I can help you look after Burfers – if you would like?’

  There, the words were out, and having uttered them Miranda felt terribly brave. She would, she resolved, take on Burfitt Hall, and help Allegra to restore it to its former glory.

  ‘Don’t be silly, Randy darling.’

  Allegra gave her sudden and brilliant smile and turned away once more, shaking her head.

  Having been very brave, and, as it were, volunteered her services, nearly dedicated her life to Burfitt Hall, to be refused seemed suddenly insulting, and hurtful.

  ‘I am not being silly. I will do everything we can – I can – to help you get the old place back on its feet again.’

  ‘Miranda.’ Having walked thankfully back into the sunshine again, Allegra sat down suddenly on the bench outside. ‘Miranda, do you realize how big Burfitt is? No, of course you don’t. No, so I will tell you, and then we can talk.’

  She paused to light another cigarette, and as she began to talk again she puffed and puffed, talking between puffs, so that the general effect was of a steam engine at rest on a bench.

  ‘Burfitt Hall is eighty foot high to its turret tops. It has two towers, as you may have noticed, it has a gatehouse, a moat which surrounds it on all four sides, and ten acres of gardens, not counting the walled vegetable garden. It has three kitchens, and seven sculleries. It is acknowledged as being one of the jewels of fifteenth-century architecture, and yet – it is untenable. I will have to sell it. The council knows this. I know it. But to whom, Randy darling? To whom can I possibly sell my old family home?’

  ‘I will marry a millionaire and buy it for you.’

  ‘Bless you, but you could not possibly take this on. Not even a millionaire would want it, darling. No. It has to be faced. It is an impossible house, and by the time the building restrictions are lifted it will be quite, quite unliveable, unrestorable – undesirable for anyone to live in, or buy.’

  ‘I will marry a millionaire and come and live in it and you will too – live in it, I mean – and we will live happily ever after, as everyone must who lives at Burfitt.’

  Miranda had made her little speech standing on the other end of the bench and poised as if she was about to take off like Mustard Seed, a part she had played in the Christmas production at the village hall. Now she lifted her bright blond head towards the brilliant sun. She was just about to go on, but on hearing a terrible sound she looked down.

  Allegra, her head sunk in hands bereft of even a Passing Cloud, was crying not as if her heart would break, but as if it had long ago been broken and was quite beyond repair.

  Miranda knew better than to try to comfort her. Instead, she reached into her guardian’s crocodile handbag and taking one of Allegra’s cigarettes she lit it and went for a walk around the moat.

  Later, at drinks time, back at the Cottage, Allegra announced, ‘Bless you for trying to think of things, Randy darling, but really, you will have to leave Burfitt and go to London. Not at once, of course – no-one goes to London in August – but once September is upon us, you must go, for the truth of the matter is that there is nothing for you here now. And let’s face it, you are of an age to go to London. I am afraid doing the Season is out of the question, but I can have you lodged in a top floor flat, the lease of which we still own, near Cadogan Square. A nice enough area, although not Mayfair. I can, at least, do that for you. Now, we must, I am afraid, call in some silly arse and ask him to value Burfers for us, and then up for sale it must go, poor old thing. Nothing else to be done. Top up the gin in this, bless you. I can’t even taste it, darling.’

  For a moment, as the train crawled, creaking and swaying, into the station, Miranda realized that she could not remember London
. The last time she had seen it was from the window of the staff car that had been sent to fetch her and Pamela and the delightful American colonel, whose name she could not now remember, and take them all to Norfolk. Now, in the early evening light, Miranda began to remember. She remembered the sooty smell, and now dimly she recalled living somewhere very small, with her granny who had gone loony, and how she had then started to be left at different places, first by the sea with some people that she could not remember, and then in London again, and then with the darling aunts in Mellaston.

  She turned away from that thought as she climbed out of the Ladies Only carriage. She had long ago decided to forget Mellaston and the aunts, and her brother, and Bobbie. Neither Teddy nor Bobbie had bothered to write to her, and although she had tried to write to Teddy, he had never written back, and so that had been that. She thought of him as dead. Which, the war being the war, he very probably was, or might be. And Bobbie too, because Mrs Eglantine had kept saying Bobbie is a very sick little girl. She remembered that very well. Poor Bobbie. She must be dead, as so many people seemed to be.

  She peered at the address in her hand. Number twenty-four Aubrey Close, it read. Nothing to do with Cadogan Square, for of course Allegra had managed to get that wrong too. Mrs Sulgrave’s family had not owned any top flat, but in the event still had the freehold of this studio flat – or house or whatever it was – in Aubrey Close.

  ‘Kensington, I am afraid, darling. Not at all chic or modish, but it will be a roof over your head, anyway to start with. When you have found your feet, or a millionaire, you can take it over, but until then I will be sure to have the trustees keep up the upkeep for you, or whatever it is you have to do in these circumstances.’

  Allegra had no idea at all about money. It was just a fact. It was not something about which she ever talked, except in a quite roundabout way, and if she did it was always with a look in her eyes which said, ‘This is disgusting.’ Miranda had pretty soon realized that this was how she had to be too. It was sometimes confusing. If she came back from the village, for instance, and there had not been enough money to buy more gin from the black market man who supplied the whole countryside, if not the universe, Miranda quickly knew never to say, ‘We did not have enough money for it today.’ Instead she learned to say, ‘They have run out of gin, I am afraid.’ Although they both knew this could not possibly be true, it was an understanding, and the next time she was sent to the village Allegra would simply make sure to hand Miranda a purse with double the amount.

  Now she climbed out of the taxi and stood on the pavement as the driver climbed out too and started to heave her trunk out of his cab. A passerby, seeing how large and heavy the old leather portmanteau was, stopped, and took the worn handle of the other end before Miranda could do so.

  ‘Thank you so much! Thank you!’

  The passerby touched his hat and walked on.

  ‘That was very kind of him.’ Miranda stared after the stranger.

  ‘You’re in Kensington now, miss. Most folk are kind in Kensington, I think you will find. It’s the backwater, see – of London, that is. Not fashionable like Mayfair, nothing like that, but a nice place to live, I think you’ll find. Particularly the park, and of course round here, well, it’s really rural, isn’t it?’

  The driver looked round admiringly at the broad road and the trees that lined it, and then up again at the house outside which they were both standing.

  ‘I am quite sure you’re right, it is rural.’

  Miranda too looked round, but of course to her, after the endless skies of Norfolk, after the marvel of seeing for ever, and sometimes farther than that, after the pretty villages with their neatness and air of prosperous calm, after the feeling that the sea was not very far, and then again, when she was on the beach, that the countryside was just near, Kensington to her seemed tightly packed, crammed with lamp posts, and almost airless. Where would she run about as she had done on the beaches in Norfolk? How would she see birds migrating, as she had done, or returning, which was always such a joy once spring was upon them? Of a sudden she wanted the driver to come into number twenty-four Aubrey Close with her, to stand beside her and reassure her that she was actually going to enjoy Kensington.

  ‘Thank you so much.’

  The door opened with difficulty, as all doors that have not been opened regularly seem to, and all at once the driver had gone, and the sound of his taxi was fading as Miranda searched and found a light switch, and turned it on.

  What she saw around her made her gasp. It would have been a noisy, out loud kind of gasp, had she not been alone. Allegra in her usual fashion had said nothing of the kind of property to which Miranda was coming. She had said nothing about the rooms, or their disposition, but only, ‘It’s a family property, bless you. And you know, you will be quite safe there. There is nothing to worry about, and no-one to worry you either, because it’s in a backwater. One of the old artistic quarters of Kensington. Lots of painters lived around there, and loved around there too, darling, but, you know, it is only Kensington, it’s not Mayfair, I am afraid. Your friends will probably have to pack their hotties into their motor cars and bring picnics when they come to visit, but that is the best we can do. My family has never been rich, but we do come up with the occasional property, darling, and old Aubers Close is one of them.’

  ‘You are too kind to me, really you are.’

  ‘No, darling, just bless you for not minding it’s not Mayfair.’

  Not minding it’s not Mayfair! Miranda stared round. Not minding it’s not Mayfair, wherever that was! She not only did not mind that it was not Mayfair, she could not have cared less, for, she realized, as the stood in the great room into which the second locked door had finally opened – she was in paradise.

  Because it was entered from a narrow London pavement, with hardly a piece of railing or a strip of garden in front of it, because, at first, it seemed to have a façade only slightly different from any other façade in the street, the interior of number twenty-four Aubrey Close was all the more surprising. The windows that gave upon the road were not remarkable, for they were the windows of the upper bedrooms and the lower lobby. Where the windows became remarkable was where they gave upon the rounded, paved garden at the back, where they became decorative, colourful, and also, to an eye coming straight from the clear air of Norfolk, somehow claustrophobic in their vibrant colouring. Ambers, reds and deep blues coloured the feminine figures depicted in the glass of those great, tall windows. That they were without any doubt the work of some artistic genius was, to Miranda’s eyes, indubitable, but that they were the vision of someone who saw women in some assumed, angelic, but trance-like state was also true.

  As she stared up at them she realized that the women all had red-gold hair which they wore to well below their shoulders, and some of their heads were banded with gold; and their long dresses – they too were encircled with plaited gold belts that ended in tassels, and their feet were sandalled, showing toes that seemed, to Miranda anyway, to be more like the toes you saw on tombs than ones on real women. And when she turned from them she saw that the rest of the room was in keeping with the church-like windows. The fireplace was of dark oak, and a close look revealed it to be decorated with carvings of angels. The tiles beneath it were made up of dark colours, and obviously hand-painted so that few of them were the same. There too saints and angels predominated, their hands held together in a praying position, or holding thin gold trumpets ready to serenade the Lord should He appear to them.

  From the bare essentials of the room Miranda now turned her attention to the furniture: tall pews in a light wood, hand-carved ends of complications which at first seemed merely to be linking scrolls and initials, but on closer examination proved to be birds and leaves, and tiny figures of angels.

  Up one side of the great room ran a substantial staircase, and dark wooden bookcases, filled with books that glowed with the names of old authors and their works, telling of another age when there was
time to examine the old truths. Miranda picked one small volume out, the essays of Joseph Addison. It was inscribed to a ‘Maria’, and the cover was engraved in a dull gold the initial M and in and around the corners of the book and on the back around yet another M were clover leaves delicately engraved. After a few seconds Miranda replaced the small volume and as she did so she realized with a start what the grand difference was between these books and the books at Burfitt – these were not damp and their pages not stained.

  At the top of the substantial staircase was a wide landing. From it Miranda could gaze down onto the great room with its vast colourful windows below. In one corner were piled old trunks, which when she opened them she found to hold costumes of every kind smelling of lavender and mothballs, and wrapped in black tissue paper.

  Ever since the days of the wartime excitements at the Clothes Exchange in Mellaston, there was nothing that Miranda enjoyed more than the glorious pursuit of beautiful or stylish clothes from another era. She sometimes thought she might faint away from the pleasure of finding a silver-threaded scarf, as she had just done, and placing it around her neck, as she was now doing. It weighed heavy and the silver in it was dully beautiful, the ends sewn in such a way that they were rounded.

  Eventually she climbed down from her orgy of picking out and holding against herself the old clothes of beautiful young women from before both the awful twentieth-century wars, and feeling a little dizzy went in search of a glass of water.

  Entering the small kitchen she could see that every jug and every cup, every kind of utensil, was old-fashioned or carved with strange symbols. Silver knives and forks in the kitchen drawers were wrapped in special cloths, and the glass she chose to drink her water from was engraved with a peacock, its great tail feathers fanning out from the bird to reach right round the glass.