The Blue Note

by Charlotte Bingham

  She replaced the telephone with that acute sense of disappointment that always comes about when, having been thwarted in showing off a new possession, the person concerned suddenly feels that they are wearing a damp vest.

  ‘Oh well,’ she said, looking round the studio and talking out loud to it as if it were a person, which, in a way, she felt that it was. ‘Oh well, if no-one wants to come and visit us, we will have to do the very next best thing and spring clean.’

  With her usual flair for dressing up, Miranda now pulled on a pair of bell-bottom naval trousers, found in one of the old trunks, and a mustard-coloured shirt, with full sleeves and deep, tight cuffs. She turned and stared at herself in the full length mirror in what she had now designated as her bedroom. She looked satisfyingly eccentric, most particularly since she had topped off the whole outfit with a pair of black satin ballet shoes, and tied her now, thank God, nearly blond hair into a silk scarf.

  ‘I just need a long cigarette holder, and a song, and I could appear in a review,’ she told her image, and smiled, before kissing herself tenderly in the mirror.

  She walked carefully down the stairs into the large studio room again. It did not really matter that neither Teddy nor Dick was coming round, not now she was dressed up, for the truth was that the studio was still so dusty that they would have been hard put to find anywhere to sit that was not touched with the grime of the past years.

  She took an enamel bucket from under the sink in the kitchen. It was so lacking in chips, so really new-looking, that she knew at once that Allegra and her sisters could never have used it. She filled it with hot water from the Ascot, topped it up with cold water from the single cold tap that dominated the centre of the old stone sink, and turning with it and a packet of flakes headed back into the studio room. There was only one way to play the cleaning up game, and that was to make a party of it. She knew this from living with Allegra.

  She put the bucket down on the wooden floor, and before starting to clean she hurried over to the old wind-up gramophone. Putting on one of the old 78s she started to sing along with Gertrude Lawrence: ‘He Never Said He Loved Me’.

  She must learn the words. And soon. She must learn all the words of all the songs that she had ever heard, and then she must sing them, over and over again, to drown out the memories of the bad days. Most of all she must drown out the memory of Macaskie. Of his sadism. Of his fascination. Of his having taken her, and then laughed at her constantly, mocked her, reduced her in her own eyes in a way that she would never have thought possible.

  The record came to a close, but just as soon as it had Miranda hurried over to the gramophone and inexorably the song started up again, each verse ending with Gertie’s husky voice filled with the sound of pre-war charm, singing, ‘But he never said he loved me!’

  No. He never said he loved her. Not once. What a fool she had been, an utter, utter fool.

  Bobbie had arrived in Ebury Street, and in the charge of the kindly cabbie had cruised slowly up and down it until they had at last spied a notice written in wobbly red capital letters: ROOMS TO LET. APPLY WITHIN. Bobbie knocked on the door.

  ‘What-you-want, love? A room, is it?’

  A kindly face beneath a scarf tied at the top of her head, a pair of specs, and a vivid pair of red lips in a white, white face peered at Bobbie.

  ‘It says rooms to let, here.’

  The face pulled another face, half comical, half tragical, and turned to stare at her window.

  ‘Oh, that’s what it says, do it? Imagine that, and all this while I kept wondering why people will come knocking at the door. Wanta hand, love?’

  ‘Well, I rather wanted a room, actually,’ Bobbie joked back.

  ‘Course you did, love,’ the woman agreed, as her slippered feet joined Bobbie beside the suitcase and the bags. ‘Well, you’ve only gone and found one, and in’t that the truth?’

  Bobbie smiled at the cabbie and gave a thumbs-up sign to him, before hurrying back to the taxi and helping him with her suitcases.

  ‘Thank you for all your help.’ She paid him off with a too-large tip, which he promptly gave back to her.

  ‘No need for that, miss. Really. You’re new to London, you’ll need every penny, believe me.’ He touched her lightly on the shoulder before moving off and smiling back at her. Bobbie too smiled, at the same time feeling strangely homesick for the taxi and its driver, wanting in some mad way to stay in the cab and just drive round and round, blocking out the sudden feeling of loneliness with which she had been left by his driving off and leaving her in Ebury Street.

  ‘You want a room, and I got one, so that’s satisfactory, if you like. The room’ll be clean, but it ain’t the Ritz and I don’t want nothin’ in advance, understand? No gentlemen callers after ten, but beyond that your life’s your own, and no questions asked. Cooked breakfast at eight, no lunches under any circumstances, not even if you was Royalty, but tea’s at six, and dinner if you’re a snob at seven, but don’t matter because the food will be just the same, whatever time you takes it.’

  Bobbie said nothing, too busy dragging her suitcase into the narrow hall to reply. The house smelt clean, of polish and carbolic, so that at least was reassuring.

  ‘Come into the parlour, love, and I’ll give you a nice cup of tea. You look as if you could do with one, dear, really you do. Long journey? Up from the country? First time you’ve left home, I expect. I know. I’ve seen it all before. Now sit down, and I’ll bring you a cup.’

  She hurried off leaving Bobbie in her sitting room, a brightly painted apartment filled with the usual pre-war respectable furniture, the beauty of the plain rust-coloured upholstery carefully covered with lace-edged antimacassars at the head and mats on the arms, but the real interest of the room lay neither in the furniture nor in the china arranged on the mantelpiece – plates with the familiar bright gold lettering of souvenirs declaring that they were presents from Margate or Brighton, cups and saucers that were faded and perfect, but obviously not for everyday use – but in the ceiling, from which hung every kind of bird cage filled with every kind of bird. Canaries, budgies, parakeets, cockatiels sang or danced about her head. Bobbie stared at them. Their colour was fantastic, their songs quite perfect. They were as beautiful as anything she had ever seen.

  ‘By the way, love, my name is Mrs Pond, but everyone calls me Dill. It’s short for Dill-is. But we don’t bother with the bottom bit. Too grand, I say. Dill does me. Like the herb, you know. Although I never did know what that looked like neither. Still. Here you are. The cup that cheers.’

  Bobbie raised her china teacup to her mouth. ‘You’re being awfully kind, er, Dill.’

  ‘Course I am, love.’ Dill smiled at Bobbie. ‘I know a stray lamb when I see one, and if you’re not a stray lamb what has lost its sheep, I wouldn’t care to say who is.’

  Because young men gossip as much as, if not more than, young women, Dick Fortescue was now talking about Miranda to Teddy.

  ‘I can hardly believe the story you are telling me, even though I’ve heard it before,’ he confessed. ‘You say that because you had matching blond hair Miranda said you were her brother, and brought you to the rectory, and the old ladies adopted you, and have left you with an old house in Mellaston as a result. Not to mention a stunningly beautiful sister with the longest legs I have ever seen.’

  Teddy nodded. ‘I know, it does seem just slightly too much, like some sort of Greek fable, I do agree. But the truth is she did adopt me, and the aunts did adopt me too, and although the rectory has tenants in it the truth is that it is all true. But the war is full of such stories, isn’t it? That sort of thing. A lot of us evacuees became more real to the families that took us in than their own, and of course the aunts had no-one else but themselves, so that explains why they were so keen to adopt. That and the fact that Aunt Sophie wanted someone to sing to her endless piano playing, and Miranda sings like a bird, I will say that for her.’

  Dick stared suddenly at Teddy, his eyes wide
ning. Teddy, although he was not Miranda’s real brother, was speaking of her in precisely the way that brothers usually do speak of their sisters, either lightly mocking or deeply disparaging.

  ‘Miranda, dear boy, is beautiful. Whether she can sing a note or nine don’t matter three damns, she is beautiful.’

  Teddy frowned. ‘Now you’re going too far, Dick. I know she’s tall and all that, and her figure’s quite good, but she’s no more beautiful than you or I.’

  ‘What is she, then?’

  Teddy thought for a minute. ‘Well, she’s Miranda. You know. Miranda. Nice enough and all that, but you know, hardly an egg, Dick. Now some of those women we saw in Paris, wow! You’ve got to see some of my pictures, I’ve just had them developed. They make Madame Yin and her Society beauties look as insipid as a glass of soda water.’

  Dick nodded. He had thought as much. It was obvious. Teddy simply could not see Miranda as being anything except his sister. Someone to walk either in front of him and take all the brickbats for him, or behind him to pick up all the pieces. He had always noticed at school that if boys with sisters were not busy taking them for granted, they were just as busy disparaging them.

  ‘We’ve got the Winter Ball at the art school coming up pretty soon. I shall ask Miranda to accompany me.’

  ‘Very kind of you. She’s lots better now she’s back in England, of course, but if there’s someone else you’d rather, I’m sure she’d understand. I mean, Dick, you know and I know, Miranda is such a mess. She says so herself. I mean, to keep paying that fellow Macaskie. What a mess! To sign that piece of paper, and then keep on paying him. She needed her poor old brains examined.’

  Dick downed the rest of his beer. ‘Give me the tangle that is Miranda Mowbray, Teddy old thing, give me Miranda Mowbray above all the perfect flowers that do adorn the restaurants and cafés of Chelsea, dear boy. Give me her wild ways and her trapped heart, give me her gypsy soul, any old day. Who wants a girl that is perfect? Who wants Miss Average un-cracked nail varnish, never a hair out of place? Not me. No, Miranda is the perfection of all that is imperfect, which is why – she is perfect.’

  After which he left the pub to go back to class, leaving Teddy staring after him. Dick had Miranda all wrong. Miranda was a mess.

  Bobbie had found that Ebury Street had housed everyone in the world, at some time or another. Dill was a source of fascination as far as the history of Ebury Street was concerned. She had even known Noel Coward’s father and mother when they ran a lodging house in Ebury Street before the war. This was immensely exciting news to Bobbie, because the idea that she was living in a slightly Bohemian street was strangely satisfying. Besides, she knew that Julian would approve.

  ‘Oh, there are lots of people like you, dear, really there are.’

  ‘Like me?’

  ‘Yes. Not ordinary, not like the rest of us. No, there are a lot of different kinds of people in this street, and of course there are actresses from the Royal Court Theatre in Sloane Square, and all sorts. Just along the way there is an old painter, newly moved in, I think. I see him quite a lot in the greengrocery, the one on the corner. He’s one of the posher lot from opposite. They’re a lot posher opposite. Although I will say next door has the aunt of a member of a ducal family, and three down has the old Countess of Ardingley. Never stands on her title, though, I will say that for her, calls herself “Mrs”, but the trouble is that since she sends for all her food from Harrods and Oakeshotts, it rather gives the game away. You know how shops do like titles more even than money, I always think.’

  Bobbie nodded, only really half listening. She knew that she had to get out and get herself some work, and she also knew that this was not going to be easy. There was not that much work for which she could apply, most especially since she had no reference, and was not likely to get one either. She could type, oh so slowly, and she could, thanks to her teacher from Baileys Green, take down shorthand at about the same rate. Borrowing Dill’s newspaper from her she set about looking for some sort of temporary work.

  After five minutes Dill looked over her shoulder and shook her head. ‘You don’t want to look there, dear. No, where you want to look for temporary work is here.’ She pointed to a small agency advertisement. ‘Always look for the one that can’t afford nothing, because they’ll be able to afford you, see? Their ad’s the worst, so stands to reason they’ll even take you on, see?’

  Bobbie smiled at her landlady. She was off.

  The letters on the door were sign-painted on the glass, but behind this particular door there was no sound of ancient typing machines being pounded, or indeed of any goodly industry, only the dreadful silence of failure.

  Bobbie sensed this as she pushed open the door. She smelt it as the dusty, smoky atmosphere assailed her nostrils, she saw it as her eyes took in Mr Dudley and his partner Mrs Griffin. They were careworn by too much time spent with each other and, doubtless, judging from their flushed faces, in the pub on the corner of the street; and the hands that shook Bobbie’s had index fingers that were stained yellow by nicotine, and shook a little when, to their evidently mutual astonishment, the telephone rang, and Mrs Griffin picked it up.

  Having seated herself on the one rickety chair provided by the company for interviewees, Bobbie proceeded to evade the truth in the same way that Mrs Griffin – she could not help overhearing – was now lying to the company who had evidently just telephoned the agency with a request for a temp.

  ‘We have just the person here for you, Mr Singh, a Miss …’ Mrs Griffin’s hand sought and found Bobbie’s name in the otherwise empty diary in front of her, ‘yes, Miss Roberta Murray. Very experienced, yes. Very suitable. Yes. And very reliable. Yes, she has worked for us before, and yes she is completely trustworthy.’

  Mrs Griffin replaced the telephone and, interrupting Mr Dudley’s desultory interview with Bobbie conducted between puffs of his untipped cigarette, she scribbled a name and an address on a piece of paper and handed it to her.

  ‘Here you are, Miss Murray. Hop along there, it’s not far. There’s a good three weeks’ worth of work waiting for you, I should say, and believe me, when I say work I do not mean it. They really only want someone to look after the office when they go out for their shopping or for lunch. Suit you down to the ground, my dear. But don’t forget, you have been working for this agency for months and months, never stop. Don’t let me down, now. Oh, and by the way, the money’s good – religious organizations don’t know any better, dear, really they don’t.’

  Bobbie smiled her thanks to Mrs Griffin, shook hands with both her and Mr Dudley, and flew back down the black lino stairs again and out into the street, and so to the King’s Road. Because she did not know London she was once more forced to take a taxi, on the sound assumption that, unlike herself, cabbies did know their London, but then had to suffer the acute embarrassment of discovering that the address Mrs Griffin had scribbled on the back of an agency card was only two streets away from the agency itself.

  This time Bobbie mounted a shorter flight of stairs, wider and much smarter. A good thick carpet covered these treads, and she did not pass other offices on the way up to the first floor, but arrived, quite soon, at a wide landing. This was a precursor to Mr Singh’s office, itself guarded by double doors with large brass handles. In the forlorn hope that she might recognize some figure from the Old Testament – for since most of the staff at the sanatorium had been French she had never so much as opened a Bible her whole time there – Bobbie walked slowly past the sacred pictures that decorated the cream-painted walls, but none of them reminded her of anything she might know about – such as Moses and the tablets – so she now pulled at one of the impressively large brass handles, and walked into the office of the current London Director of the Holy Bible Company.

  Mr Singh was small, bespectacled and smartly suited – almost over-correct in his dress, his suit an immaculate Prince of Wales check, his tie of woven silk polka dots, his shirt impeccably cut, his silk handkerchi
ef spilling, just so, from his top pocket.

  ‘Miss Murray, how do you do? I am Mr Singh. Do, please, sit down, and make your own choice of chair. There are several very comfortable chairs here, but you choose, you choose.’

  In contrast to her recent interview at the Tee Dee Agency, faced with Mr Singh’s meticulous presentation Bobbie now felt shabby to the point of shame. Her coat and skirt, the famous Christmas gift from Beatrice Harper, were still more than a little creased from the train journey and the lack of a travelling iron, or – as Beatrice would put it – looked badly in need of one’s maid, Roberta, my dear.

  ‘Miss Murray – we are in a hurry.’ Mr Singh paused. ‘I say, Miss Murray, I’m a poet, though I don’t know it!’ He began again. ‘Yes, as I was saying, Miss Murray, we are badly in need of a replacement for poor Mrs Yates, taken ill and had to have her appendix removed, a very tender operation when it comes down to it, I believe. We still have Mrs O’Brien, of course, but she is not conversant with shorthand and typing, only answering the telephone and greeting visitors. But, as I understand it, you are first class at typing and shorthand.’

  Bobbie was glad that the hat she was wearing partially hid her face. Before the shining goodness in Mr Singh’s eyes, the lies that she had heard Mrs Griffin tell on behalf of the Tee Dee Agency and herself now seemed more like serious crimes than lies.

  ‘Mr Singh, I must confess, I am not as, er, fast at shorthand and typing as you might perhaps wish. Certainly not as fast as Mrs Griffin made out, I am sure.’

  ‘Modesty is very, very acceptable at the Holy Bible Company, Miss Murray. Wholly acceptable!’ Mr Singh smiled. ‘Whatever your speeds, Miss Murray, comfort yourself, you will have to be faster than Mrs Yates. She took her typing at what I believe is called a Connemara clip – that is to say, like the rain in Connemara, very, very steady indeed.’