The Blue Note

by Charlotte Bingham

  Everywhere the advertisement is featured crowds gather to stare up at the billboards above them. It seems that the Holy Bible Company of all companies have a hit on their hands to rival Oklahoma. They are to be congratulated.’

  When he had finished reading this press cutting out loud, and after a short reverential pause, during which he himself shook his head from side to side in silent amazement at the turn of events, Mr Singh looked across at Mrs O’Brien.

  ‘I keep thinking, Mrs O’Brien – just imagine if we had not taken the Easter photograph of the office luncheon? And then again, just imagine if I had not taken it home to Mrs Singh? Miss Murray might have languished in terrible obscurity, her beauty for ever hidden beneath some kind of blackout. As it is, she is now famous. The advertisement is to be taken up by ten different countries, did I tell you? Ten different Bible-reading countries, and it is rumoured that the Bible belt itself is rioting over editions of the papers that carry the photograph. How can this be? How can this be? It is too heartwarming to be understood fully by me. My heart is full to bursting, I am quite sure.’

  Mrs O’Brien nodded in silent agreement, smiling at her knitting as she always did, but not taking her eyes from it, not wanting to drop a precious stitch.

  ‘Imagine that,’ said the newly returned and now quite healthy Mrs Yates, and from behind her usual tea table she shook her head at the other two. ‘Imagine, as you say, if you had not taken that snap, Mrs O’Brien. Or just imagine if I had not had me appendix out so bad.’

  ‘God moves in mysterious ways, and none more mysterious than this last one, surely?’

  ‘No, indeed, perhaps not, Mr Singh. Most mysterious.’

  ‘And now Miss Murray is to become a fashion model, and the photographer turned out to be her brother, and her sister is found too, alive and well. It is like a story from the Bible itself, is it not?’

  The two ladies nodded across at him from their tables. It was true, it was just like a story from the Bible.

  ‘But then,’ Mrs Yates went on, the expression on her good-natured, round face more than usually solemn, ‘I suppose many of the Bible stories were based on true life stories, weren’t they? So it stands to reason, doesn’t it?’

  ‘Not reason, no, Mrs Yates.’ Mr Singh’s head was still shaking in amazement. ‘It has to be said that there is nothing reasonable about the success of this advertising campaign. All over the world people are staring up at our advertisement. The Holy Bible Company is set to become more famous than the Holy Bible, it seems. It is indeed a miracle to end all miracles. And Miss Murray is famous overnight.’

  Bobbie did not feel famous. She felt infamous, which was just a trifle clammy, really. She had not wanted to pose for the photograph, but Mr Singh had been so sure that she would be perfect for his advertisement, he had insisted, and of course, as it had turned out, from his point of view he had been right. For the terrible truth was that not only was Bobbie now out of a job – Mrs Yates having returned post-haste as soon as she saw the photographs pasted on billboards all over London – but she had become instantly recognizable the moment she walked into a shop, or hailed a taxi. The frequency of recognition from complete strangers had become so monotonous and so slowing that Bobbie had started to wear dark glasses, and was careful to keep her eyes down whenever she hurried past anyone in the street. But it was no good, they always knew her.

  She had to face it, while the posters were still up, albeit soon to be doubtless peeling around the edges, she was temporarily famous and the subject of so much press interest that the Saxbys had cause to change their Sloane telephone number not once but twice and that was not all.

  ‘I think he’s gone away now, Bobbie dear,’ Mrs Saxby remarked, peering out of her window, her clean, white net curtain slightly held back so that she could see down into the street below, or rather across the road to the so-called pedestrian standing staring up at them from the opposite pavement. ‘What I keep wondering is why these photographers do it? I mean surely, dear, they’ll only end up with a photograph of you walking along with your head down, and what is the use of that? What is the use? I asked the Major yesterday the self-same question and he said it’s prestige. That they can go back to their bosses and show them how diligent they’ve been in making our lives a positive misery. Isn’t that a thing? And I mean to say. What a strange world we are all growing older in, to be sure. Why, the Major and I were at dinner the other day and no-one left the table. The ladies stayed. The Major was astonished. He kept asking me if I could imagine such a thing before the war.’

  Mrs Saxby stared at Bobbie, momentarily, and then the former Miss Moncrieff laughed, delightedly, as if the new, shocking trend of things, while not being condoned, could not either be wholly condemned, certainly not by a lady like herself who, upon marrying very late, had embraced such new and outlandish ways most heartily.

  ‘Major Saxby and myself, we had such a laugh afterwards, but the Major, you can imagine, was quite put out, and his cigarettes – well, they very nearly burnt a hole in his pocket, so much was he dying for a puff, but of course he never would have a cigarette in the dining room with ladies present, that would be beyond the beyonds. Dear me, how life gallops on, does it not, leaving us all behind by at least what the Major calls two horses’ lengths. It does, doesn’t it? Just gallops on ahead of us, wouldn’t you say?’

  But Bobbie was not saying because she was not really listening. She was wondering how on earth she could get past the photographer in the street, and how or when she could get her life back to normal again. It just did not seem possible that simply saying yes to Mr Singh and his invitation to pose with the Holy Bible for what had seemed such an innocuous advertisement could have so changed her existence.

  Everywhere she went now, no matter how she dressed or looked, she seemed to be recognized. It should be most enjoyable and she was doubtless being stuffy, but at that particular moment she would, as it happened, have given anything to be back sitting quietly behind the Edwardian typewriter at the Holy Bible Company typing very, very slowly. As it was, she was not only a little bit famous at that moment. She was something much worse and perhaps even more alarming – she was discovered.

  She had come to realize this at last, because even after some weeks the telephone never stopped ringing, and it was nearly always Teddy with another offer for a photo session. Everyone wanted to know the name of the waif with the Bible in the long ball skirt and the white Puritan blouse. Everyone, up to and including, worst of all worsts, Beatrice Harper.

  And that was finally the real reason why Bobbie was not enjoying her new and wholly strange fame. For Beatrice, recognizing her ward on billboards all over London, the airport, everywhere, had rung Teddy’s office at once, and warned him, and the advertising company, that she might be taking proceedings against them. She told Teddy that Bobbie was under age, and that they needed her permission to photograph her ward, and that they had done something illegal, and actionable.

  It was all too terrible. In short, Beatrice had started to make trouble of a kind that Bobbie knew only too well that her rich and powerful guardian could and would make, trouble of a kind that might have unending repercussions. Beatrice knew everyone. She could, with her money, literally move mountains.

  Worst of all worsts, she had left a message at the advertising company commanding Bobbie to appear at her London house the following week, on the dot, naturally. Ever since, Bobbie had felt, and on occasions been, quite sick. She would not be able to sleep or eat, drink or think until the interview – for she knew that was what it would be, not a meeting but an interview, such as you would have with someone you employed – was over. And after that, it was quite likely that, being under age, Bobbie would find that her life in London was over too, because that was how powerful Beatrice was, or could be, if she felt like it.

  At night, when she turned her light off, all Bobbie could see was Teddy’s career ruined and herself back in some sort of sanatorium, or at the Sheds with the seas po
unding and only Mrs Duddy coming to find out whether she was alive or dead, or somewhere between the two.

  The truth was that she did not really mind if she herself was to have her life ruined, but she minded terribly for Teddy. He had only just started. And he really loved his photography.

  Only Miranda remained sanguine. She was, as always, to be found in the kitchen cooking, but also full of the kind of sound common sense that often results from having been there and back, at least as far as scandalous behaviour is concerned.

  She said to Bobbie, looking up briefly from arranging some delicious-looking plats du jour, ‘Best thing when someone’s gunning for you, old Allegra always said to me, was to gun for them. And without any delay. If they are suing you, for instance, you find something to sue them for, and so on. I bet if you ask that old secretary bird that you lodge with – what’s her name …’

  ‘Miss Moncrieff. Well, she’s Mrs Saxby now.’

  ‘Yes, her. I bet if you ask her she’ll have something on this fearful Harper woman. Bet you anything. Secretaries, they’re like nannies, Allegra always said. They know everything, and sometimes it doesn’t take much squeezing to make the pips pop out,’ she added, squeezing a lemon and making its pips do just that. ‘Old Miss M, she’ll have something on her boss, you wait and see.’

  The sun was shining so brightly that Bobbie would have normally felt as happy as the proverbial clam. Instead she felt as if she was going for trial, as if a Black Maria was about to come for her, instead of Beatrice’s car, which she could see from the first floor window at which she was standing was even now arriving. It was black, and it was gleaming, and it was arriving very slowly, nosing its way down Ebury Street as if it could hardly believe where it had found itself, as if finding themselves in such a place was a nightmare for both car and chauffeur.

  ‘Miss Roberta—’

  Davis held open the door, and Bobbie climbed into the back. She was wearing a new, sophisticated outfit, which she hoped might make her feel braver once she reached Grosvenor Square and Beatrice’s palatial apartment. Teddy had gone to great lengths to borrow the outfit for her from one of his currently favourite models, a stunning creature by the name of Mary-Louise Brown-Finchley – known affectionately in the fashion world as the Double Hyphen or by Teddy as Ma-Loo-Boo-Fincher.

  It was without doubt the most beautiful coat and skirt that Bobbie had yet tried on, and just lately she had tried on quite a few. It was not just fashionable, it was beautiful, but best of all it made Bobbie look a great deal older. Cut from grey flannel with a waisted jacket, a long pencil slim skirt and worn with a matching hat, more like a cap than a hat, tilted forward over her eyes, it was more than stylish, it was stunning. And to add to the whole air of sophistication there was a matching stole which draped gracefully across her back and down her arms, so that its very formality was emphasized, as if it was asking the wearer to be even more languid than she might wish.

  Bobbie had not wanted to wear the stole as well, but Teddy had insisted on it, even going to Ebury Street and draping it around her himself, so that it looked quite perfect.

  ‘If this woman, your guardian, is as frightening as you tell me, Sis dear, then you must look much older, and utterly different from the ‘Bobbie’ that all of London is seeing in my brilliant photograph. You must wrong-foot her, so that you are in the catbird seat when you go in. It is important. And anyway, it’s fun. You will look so different, she will hardly recognize you.’

  As Bobbie stepped into the back of the Rolls-Royce that had been sent for her, she could not help smiling to herself at how right Teddy was. Never mind Beatrice – it seemed that not even Davis now knew her.

  ‘Miss Roberta?’ he said again, peering at her from under his cap, but this time he said her name with a question mark in his voice, and he hesitated before he closed the door of the Rolls-Royce – a discreet black affair with the famed winged lady on the front, but no picnic baskets or flasks set about in the interior as they would be if they were on the way to the country.

  ‘Hallo, Davis,’ Bobbie said, and she shot him a brief glance from under her grey hat before indicating with an equally brief nod of her head that he could shut the door. ‘I know what you are thinking – is this really me – and yes it is.’

  ‘I never would have known you, Miss Roberta.’

  ‘No, I know,’ Bobbie agreed, and she leaned back against the leather upholstery and readjusted the grey stole around her jacket, and once again waved one gloved finger to indicate that he could shut the door, and his mouth.

  As the chauffeur drove her slowly through the traffic towards Grosvenor Square, Bobbie determined that she would start to enjoy herself. Whatever Beatrice had to say to her, whatever reprimand she was about to administer, the fact was, as Miranda kept saying, There’s no need to worry. She can’t cut off your head, Bobbie, really she can’t. She just can’t.

  But then Miranda had never met Beatrice, and if she had, it occurred to Bobbie as she watched London floating slowly and almost dutifully past the windows of the luxurious motor car, she might not have been so sure about her ability to punish those who she had decided were her enemies. What people like Miranda did not understand was that Beatrice was not just wealthy, she was insuperably rich. And she knew everyone from prime ministers to heads of foreign governments and members of European royalty.

  As Bobbie viewed London from the Rolls’ window she remembered that Beatrice had a way of saying to her friends, ‘I know just the person who will do that for you, leave it to me. He will do just as I ask. I know just the person to help us.’

  And not only did she indeed know just the person, but she had a habit of making sure that he jumped to and did as he was told, and when he was told too.

  ‘I told that flunkey he had better do as he was told, or else.’

  No-one had ever, as far as Bobbie knew, found out what the or else might entail, but the implications were such that it had always seemed to Bobbie that it might mean anything.

  But worst of all possible worsts, Beatrice was always, always right in her own eyes, and occasionally in other people’s too. That, it seemed to Bobbie, was what was so frightening about her, her self-belief. As far as self-belief went Beatrice possibly came second only to Hitler. And if a silly little man with a Charlie Chaplin moustache and a parting on the wrong side of his head could bring most of the world to its knees, having Bobbie’s head cut off would mean nothing to Beatrice, surely?

  ‘Roberta?’

  For the first time in her life it seemed to Bobbie that she had wrong-footed her self-appointed guardian. In Beatrice’s eyes she saw a mixture of total incredulity and a strange kind of affront. Incredulity because she simply could not believe that this tall young woman in her pencil-slim grey flannel coat and skirt, with its matching hat and stole, was actually Roberta, whom she had last seen crouching over the fire at the Sheds, long woollen socks up to her knees, a long woollen pullover stretching down to meet the socks, and only her head and the tips of her fingers peeping out from her mittens to bear witness to the fact that there was a human being nestling between all the layers of wool.

  ‘How nice to see you again, Beatrice.’

  Bobbie removed her elegant glove expertly from her right hand, and determinedly reached forward and shook her guardian’s limp, ringed hand before either of them had time to realize that they should really be kissing each other. Instead they were shaking hands as if they were strangers, only just meeting each other.

  As Bobbie saw the effect this had on the astonished Beatrice she could only give silent thanks to Teddy for not just his expert costuming of her, but his help rehearsing her in her every move. The removing of the glove, finger by finger, the looking around the room to make sure of a chair that was higher than, or as high as, that which her guardian now chose to sit upon. The careful stretching out of her long, stockinged legs, feet together, ankles the same (never crossed) – it had all been carefully rehearsed by Teddy, and Bobbie had remembered hi
s every instruction.

  Most of all she had remembered his last warning, that whatever happened she must not become aggravated or defensive. If she did, Teddy had warned, if she betrayed any impatience, she would be lost.

  ‘So this is how you have repaid me, Roberta Murray. This is how you have repaid all my kindness to you over the years, by running away to London, and becoming some sort of cheap billboard model!’

  Bobbie was silent at this. Not feeling in the least ‘cheap’ she did not feel goaded by this salvo, nor indeed could she quarrel with the adjective ‘billboard’. Beatrice began again.

  ‘You do realize that you have made yourself the laughing stock of London? That this advertisement, this posing with a Bible of all things, has become a talking point of every dinner party in Society? And, what is worse, that you have now been identified as being connected with my family, with the Harper family, and so the press are now determined to make more of it, if possible, than they have already done? You do realize this, don’t you, Roberta?’

  As a matter of fact Bobbie did not, but she was not going to tell Beatrice so. She had tried to carry on her life as normal, in that she had tried to keep working just for Teddy and his friends, like Dick, all of whom seemed, for no reason she could think of, more than eager to use a model so much in the news – the model who had become, according to the papers, the New Quaker Girl. According to Dick – whom Bobbie never quite knew whether to believe or not because the expression on his face was always so awfully wry – it was now being rumoured that Bobbie was to be as famous as Bubbles, the little boy in the Pears soap advertisements.

  But Beatrice was continuing, inexorably. ‘You have let down your whole background with the vulgarity of your ghastly, ghastly – we shall not dignify it with the word fame – with your ghastly notoriety. You have let down your poor dead parents. You have let down myself and my staff. You have let down the people who nursed you through your wretched disease. There is no-one I can think of, now I do come to think of it, whom you have not let down.’