Echoes of the Past

by Maggie Ford

  If only Edwin were here more often to see it all. But by the time he came home both were in bed. When she tried to tell him what they had been up to, she often found herself talked into silence by his own relating of incidents concerning the restaurant. This had happened, and that had happened, and so-and-so had come in, and a waiter had been rude and had to be dismissed, and there had been a problem with the staff or the ordering or the hiring of a band for the evening entertainment or extra waiters for some special occasion. There had been an argument with Chef or problems with a drunk customer or they had had trouble keeping out the Teddy boys who would inevitably cause disruption so that nowadays they had to have a doorkeeper on during the evenings who was built more like a bouncer to dissuade possibly unsavoury customers.

  On and on it would go, she giving up and listening to him, nodding her head in understanding on those odd occasions when he wasn’t too weary to sit in the lounge with her to enjoy a drink after sharing a rare dinner with her. But finally something had to snap.

  “Why can’t you stop and listen to me for once in a while?” she burst out one Sunday evening with the July sunshine still streaming directly into the room at eight o’clock. “I’m trying to tell you about the children, but you don’t seem to have any interest in them. You hardly see them.”

  He looked at her in amazement. “I’ve seen them nearly all day.”

  “Yes, today. Fortunately you’ve been home today. What about the rest of the week? You’re never home to see them.”

  “I always see them on Sunday. I’m always home on Sunday.”

  She got up from where she had been sitting beside him and began to move about the room, her gin and tonic still in her hand. “Oh, thank you very much, Edwin. How could I have overlooked that you’re always home on Sunday. How big of you!”

  He followed her with his eyes. “What’s got into you?” he asked calmly, and had her turn on him.

  “You’ve got into me! You live, eat and sleep that damned restaurant of yours. Up in your flat. We were happy when I lived there with you. But here…”

  “It’s too small for us all. You agreed it was.”

  “I didn’t.”

  “You came here,” he pointed out, still infuriatingly calm. “That was agreeing, wasn’t it? And the children wouldn’t have got on so well where we were – cramped, no garden, London full of fumes. You agreed it wasn’t the best of environments for them to grow up in.”

  Yes, she had to admit to having agreed to that. “But I thought you’d be here more often,” she fought on, feeling that she was now losing the battle against his logic. “What I’m saying is that since we came here you’ve not seen the children growing up, nor appeared to want to.”

  “I can’t help it if work keeps me away from here,” he defended, finally losing his calm. “Do you want me to give it all up, then? If I do, we couldn’t afford this place. You wouldn’t have all the things you have now.”

  “What things?” she railed back at him. “What have I got? I don’t go anywhere. I’m stuck out here in the sticks. You never take me up to a show, or out to dinner. So I can have all the clothes I want, but what’s the point if I don’t go anywhere to wear them?”

  They were getting off the point. But he brought it back for her by saying angrily, “You’ll hardly ever leave the children to go out.” And that was true. “I’ve suggested they have a nurse or a nanny, but you won’t have that. You say Angel wouldn’t be comfortable with a nanny with her trouble. Oh, you let Mrs Cotterell look after the girls occasionally. But you insist Angel can’t be left very often, almost never. You don’t even try, so how do you know?”

  “I know!” she flared, putting down her drink to come and stand in front of him. “Don’t you think I know how my daughter feels?”

  He was looking up at her, intensely. “You’ve two daughters, Helen. Remember that. Do you know how your younger daughter feels? Or don’t you care, so long as you have Angel?”

  Helen felt tears spring to her eyes. “That’s not fair, Edwin. I treat them both the same. I feel the same for both of them.”

  He said nothing, but remained looking up at her and, disconcerted by the implication of that stare, she swung away from him.

  “Sometimes I…”

  She was going to say, hate you, but that was too strong. He angered her. She felt neglected. She felt he didn’t care. There were times when she felt their marriage was in name only. Only rarely did they have sex these days. Did he imagine she was fulfilled in other ways, by the children, by her life here in this mansion of a house where he would throw parties and think that sustained her need to get out of herself? Where was the romance, the excitement of being taken places? She’d imagined once that that was how it would be, but it hadn’t gone that way, Edwin was so full of his restaurant.

  She felt herself caving in. “Oh, what’s the point,” she sighed. He would never understand. “It’s just that I wish the children could see more of you.”

  He got up and came over to her. Her back still turned, he put his arms about her waist and buried his face in her fair shoulder-length hair. “Don’t let’s fight,” he said, and so ended the argument for the time being.

  Even so, his ways did not change. In another argument he pointed out that they’d sometimes go up to London to see a film. Yes, she thought, and when had that been – last year, to see Ben Hur with Charlton Heston. Persuading their cook, Mrs Cotterell, to give an eye to the children, they’d stayed in London to have dinner afterwards – at Letts itself, the first time she’d been in for months.

  They had gone to London again in January, taking the girls to see a pantomime, and it had been good fun. But since then she’d been nowhere.

  “I don’t know why,” said Edwin when she’d pointed this out. “You’ve got a car. And you have no qualms about driving into London.”

  Having passed her test last year he’d bought her a car in which she quite competently took them to visit their grandfather. But it wasn’t the same as having Edwin beside her. And so the old dissension would rise up again and again, though she didn’t quite go to the lengths of that argument in July. The only release she had was to let it all out to her father, though there was nothing he could do and sometimes she felt she was burdening him unnecessarily.

  * * *

  William, celebrating his sixty-fourth birthday with just Helen and Edwin and the children round to tea, had insisted on not making too much of it. “Bad enough knowing I’ll be retiring next year. It’ll be 1961 by then. The 1950s behind us, now into a new era, I don’t know where the time goes. I tell you, the older you get the faster it goes.”

  She had given him an encouraging smile as she ate her slice of the birthday cake made especially for him – part of a nice spread that had been arranged – and had noted at the time how quickly he was getting older.

  Visiting him with the children today, it seemed to her that his ageing was speeding up, despite the warm weather.

  “I think you work far too long hours,” she scolded him, and had him smile tolerantly at her, as though he knew she had been going to say “for someone your age”, even though she hadn’t voiced the thought. He had an uncanny knack of getting there before her.

  “Well, I’m worried for you,” she blustered as he raised little Georgina on to his lap.

  The winter before this last one he had developed bronchitis and been unable to go into Letts, though that was more because it just wouldn’t do to have the maître d’ coughing and spluttering over customers, as he put it, than because of the illness itself.

  This winter he’d been well, got away with just a brief cold, but that bout of bronchitis as she saw it had been a sign of advancing years starting to take their toll on him.

  With little Georgina on his knee, William was well aware of his daughter’s scrutiny. While he was always pleased to see his grandchildren, he wished Helen wouldn’t fuss over him so.

  Ignoring her, he busied himself cuddling the child to him while he p
layed little teasing games with her older sister, which she enjoyed.

  “Can you read yet? Can you spell?”

  The large grey eyes anticipated this one, her head cocked to one side in that characteristic and charming way of hers. “Of course I can. Silly.”

  He smiled, knowing she was ready for him. “How do you spell cat?”

  “C – A – T.” She knew exactly what was coming but played into his hands. He grinned.

  “Wrong. It’s K – A – T.”

  “No it isn’t! It’s C – A – T. It’s you can’t spell, Granddad.”

  “Well, I always thought it was K – A – T,” he capitulated after the game had been repeated several times and was growing stale, with Angel getting impatient. “So you must be right.”

  “Of course I am.”

  For all her amiable manner, she could be persistent when she wanted. She took after her grandmother in that. She certainly didn’t take after him.

  The thought, even as he smiled at it, brought him up sharp. Of course she wouldn’t take after him anyway. How easy it was to forget that these two children were not of his blood. He shrugged the thought away. Did it matter any more? They were lovely girls and Angel’s slight hearing difficulty appeared to be receding, or she was adjusting to it better. A bit of heartening news during her frequent check-ups had been that when she was older the chances were that the problem could be rectified and she’d hear as perfectly as anyone.

  Even so, it was a relief to hear Helen say earlier this year that she’d decided two children were enough.

  Thirteen

  Edwin’s heart sank down to his boots as he saw Hugh descending the marble steps leading from Letts’ foyer.

  Edwin hadn’t set eyes on him since last November, Angel’s birthday – ten months ago. There came a flash of memory, a remark he had made to Helen afterwards: “We’ll see him when he wants something,” or words to that effect. How true those words were as Hugh, having spotted him, quickened his step, his expression thoroughly woebegone. Yes, he was after something all right – a handout, of course. He knew that expression by now.

  Sighing, Edwin went to meet him. If it was money Hugh had come for, he didn’t have to give him a bean, yet he knew he would end up writing out a cheque. So long as it wasn’t a vast sum, that was all.

  “Hugh!” He offered his hand as he came forward. “Long time no see. What brings you here after all this while?”

  “Just thought I’d look in, old man.” The woeful expression hadn’t altered.

  “So where’ve you been?” asked Edwin as his hand was taken briefly, no life at all in the grip – part of the act, thought Edwin a little uncharitably.

  “Been out of the country,” explained Hugh. “At least for a few months. Rome mostly, the Olympics.”

  So he couldn’t have been so badly off. Edwin wondered where he had got the money to go there. He’d probably begged off some other idiot. He’d obviously gone through it all or he wouldn’t be here with that look on his face. Well, he wouldn’t get much out of him – a few quid, maybe. Edwin could afford it. What annoyed him was feeling he should be helping him, feeling guilty if he didn’t, and the fact that he was expected to help, of it all being taken for granted. He should say, “No, go and earn it!” But he did have money and he couldn’t turn away his own cousin if he was penniless.

  “So you’ve had a good time then?” he asked. “Fancy a drink?”

  “Thanks, I would,” said Hugh, and as he was led towards the bar, answered the first question. “I suppose I had a decent enough time, old man. But I’m in a bit of a dilemma.”

  I knew it, thought Edwin, aloud asking what he wanted as they reached the bar, Hugh promptly requesting a large whisky and soda.

  “So what’s the problem?” asked Edwin as he sipped his own whisky and soda, this time a small one.

  Hugh gave a theatrical sigh. “It’s a girl.” After a pause, he continued. “I met her there and we were together the whole time. Had a good run of luck while I was there. Made a good bit of dough and it kept us going. I know I spent a lot of it on her, but she was worth it. Every penny.” He became confidential, leaning close to Edwin. “You know with the divorce still going through, I shouldn’t be seen with another woman or Glenda would claim against me for adultery.”

  “Would that be so bad?” asked Edwin. “You could divorce her yourself for adultery, come to that.”

  He watched Hugh grimace.

  “Bad enough her claiming cruelty. I don’t want to lose her. I still don’t. I can’t bear knowing she’s going on from one success to another without me. While the divorce is taking its time I can still have some hope that this bloke she’s got will get fed up with her and she’ll come back. But if I’m found with another woman and she hears about it, it’ll speed things up, and I don’t want that.”

  “So what about this woman you met in Rome?”

  “We had a good time and no one got hurt. Glenda was none the wiser. But this Delia, she wants to keep seeing me. I don’t feel anything for her. We just had a good time. Now she doesn’t want to let go, and if Glenda gets to hear…”

  Edwin slammed his glass down on the bar. “You’re a prize, Hugh, you really are. I bet you’ve spent your last penny on her, haven’t you? And now she thinks you’re the one for her, thinking you’re rolling in dough. What did you expect? And why tell me?”

  “Because I need to pay her off. Oh, it’s not blackmail. She knows nothing about Glenda. I wasn’t that silly. But apparently she thinks she’d clicked with me, and she’s not that well off herself. Giving her a decent bit of cash I can get her off my back – lessen the blow of telling her I don’t want to continue. I did hint about it on the way home when she started hearing wedding bells. She was upset but said I’d see things differently once we were home again. All I could think of was giving her a decent bit of money, enough to satisfy her, and then she can go her own way feeling a bit compensated for her disappointment. At the moment I can’t get into any relationship.”

  The way he was rambling on, it was obvious that he’d already been drinking. With another despondent sigh, he tossed back his drink and placed the empty tumbler reluctantly on the bar, staring at it with such regret that Edwin felt compelled to get him another.

  “Trouble is, I haven’t any money to give her. But there’s worse. I’ve had to get out of my flat so as to pay off a couple of hefty debts I ran up while I was away, what with the bank on my back as well. That run of good luck I had in Italy didn’t last. I’m living in a hotel at the moment and they’ll be wanting their bill settled before long.”

  “And you can’t pay that either,” finished Edwin.

  Hugh stared into his drink. “’Fraid not, old man. Rather in Queer Street at the moment. I’ll have to start thinking about getting back into the theatre again. Rather let it slide this year. It gets you down, old man, feeling you’re not getting anywhere while the woman you married is going from strength to strength. She doesn’t have to go auditioning for parts any more. Him, that scum she’s with, he’s finding scripts instead to suit her. She can’t lose. I’ve heard through the grapevine that they’re playing the provinces at the moment with a new play that’s getting great notices, so much so that it’ll be coming into London in the near future – the Theatre Royal, Haymarket, no less. And she’s been given the lead role! I can’t beat that. But I’ve got to do something. I’ve got to get money from somewhere. I have to land a decent part to bring in a bit of money at least. Otherwise…”

  The second whisky and soda going straight down his throat, he held the empty glass to his chest as though it were his baby and looked intently at Edwin. “Couldn’t have just one more, could I, old man?”

  Edwin steeled himself. “You’ve had enough, Hugh.” But he knew he wouldn’t be able to steel himself for long – with drink maybe, but not where money was concerned. He couldn’t throw his cousin out on the street.

  “We’ll go up to my office,” he said and saw Hugh’s f
ace grow hopeful.

  * * *

  “You did what, Edwin?”

  “I told him he could move in here – for the time being – until he gets himself straight again.”

  Helen paced the gleaming block-wood floor of the small library. “No. I don’t want him here. Not to live.”

  “It’ll only be for a short while.”

  “Not here.”

  “Why.”

  “I don’t like him.”

  Edwin looked bemused. “I thought you did. What’s he done that you don’t like him now?”

  She stopped pacing, gazing out of the library window at the garden beyond, to trees heavy in leaves waiting to take on autumn colours in a month’s time. “He’s all right in small doses, Edwin. But to have him here all the time…”

  “He won’t be any trouble. He can have the top floor, the two rooms we never use.”

  At one time Edwin had planned to use those two rooms as an office, to work from home, but his penthouse on the premises had proved too much of a draw. The rooms still lay empty under the extensive roof of the house, large and roomy and bright with dormer windows overlooking the beech woods around Ongar.

  Now she turned on Edwin, her face imploring, confusing him. “If you feel you need to help him out – I know you’ve given him the odd cheque now and again, which I think is an imposition, and him stooping to scrounge off you is in itself enough to turn me against him – can’t you perhaps sort him out with rent for a flat in London for a while until he’s on his feet? You said he’s been going on about going back into acting again. He won’t get back into it stuck out here in the sticks. He needs to be in London.”

  Edwin sucked at his lower lip. “I doubt he’ll ever make a go of acting. Too easily sidetracked – too much dreaming of fame, not enough dedication, that’s Hugh. And he drinks too much.”