by Maggie Ford
“So it’s OK for me to take this offer?”
“If you feel you need to. You might as well. I don’t think I’m going to miss you, Hugh, what little asset you’ve proved to be to Letts.”
“But I’m still in, aren’t I?” Hugh had cheered up considerably. “The thing is, old man, it may all come to nothing. This play might not have a long ran. No one can tell. And if I can’t get another part… But I have to try. I can’t miss this opportunity. And I am still welcome in your home? I can still pop in to see you and Helen?”
Edwin gave a sigh. “Yes, I suppose so,” he said.
Fifteen
It was this virtually starting from scratch that was humiliating.
This time he didn’t have Rodney to prop him up with a lead role. This time he was on his own. Taking his turn among all the others auditioning for this new play that was being put on in Oxford, he finally stood alone in die large, bare, echoing room while the director, seated with a script on his lap, fired questions at him: “What do you do?” and, “What have you been in?” and the worst of all, “When did you last work?” He’d had to admit to some quite lengthy intervals between parts, adding that he’d been in business with his cousin managing a famous high-class London restaurant. His over-confident remark, “You must have heard of Letts,” reaped a blank stare and a probably well-deserved sarcastic comment: “So you really think you’d be in the running for this part, do you?”
Even so, he was tested, dragging up some talent from somewhere as he went through the part given him to read. He grew aware of the look of approval he received at the timbre of his voice and the way he held himself. Later that afternoon he was informed that the part was his – not the lead, but a substantial one – and was told where they’d be playing and when rehearsals would start.
Two weeks later he was back in the same echoing room, seated on a chair in a circle with the rest of the chosen cast, his script shaking slightly in his excited grip. He was determined now to get to the top this time. No looking back. No more would he toady to restaurant customers, having them look down their long noses as if they were better than him. He’d be a name and one day show Glenda that she wouldn’t be the only one to succeed.
His one worry was that time was running on. At thirty-six he was pushing his luck a bit. Fifteen years ago, when he’d first started – good God, was it that long ago? Still an undergraduate but well in with the Oxford University Dramatic Society, he’d dreamed of a bright and promising acting career as a Shakespearean actor. He had a good sense of drama, loved of his chosen career and was blessed with a resonant voice that could carry clear across any quad. His very first big part with the society as King Lear had found instant acclaim and, dazzled, he had vowed to reach the pinnacle of his calling, seeing himself eventually as another Olivier or a future Gielgud.
But things had changed. Life had happened. Where had it gone wrong? Meeting Glenda, perhaps, being upstaged by her in everything, including her preference in men. She’d finally made a complete fool of him, laughing in his face. Why? He’d been good to her, treated her decently, wasn’t half bad-looking – he’d seen other women look at him, though he’d had eyes only for her. Well, there was Helen, but he’d have forgotten her if Glenda hadn’t turned out a two-timer. Glenda’s excuse for wanting to be rid of him was that he drank too much, gambled too much, was more interested in himself than in her, and that her lover did more for her than he ever would. He reckoned sourly that had he enjoyed better luck gambling, had he been able to shower her with diamonds, she’d never have left him. No, he had crumpled too easily before adversity – should have been more determined, fought his comer better. But Glenda had undermined him so much that he’d lost the will to fight. Her fault, not his. She was still a thorn in his side. So was Helen, turning up her nose at him, yet she wanted it. She wanted it like mad. And once he’d made a name for himself, she’d be throwing herself at him. This time round, things would be different. He’d show them. He’d show them all.
* * *
“I’ve had a letter from Hugh.”
Helen laid the sheet of scrawled writing in front of Edwin during one of his rare Sunday lunches at home. His weekends at home were growing increasingly infrequent with the Christmas period approaching and more and more bookings beginning to flood in. It was to be expected but it didn’t mean she had to be pleased about it.
He hardly glanced at the letter as he babbled on about a party of diners they’d had in – name-dropping almost – revelling in the way Letts was being continually patronised by this and that American film star, this and that famous stage actor or actress until at times Helen felt she could have screamed at him that she would have liked to talk to him about herself now and again. He would talk on and on about the odd impromptu party to which he had been invited, never once realising that she was being left out.
“I would like to have been asked,” she had said in the past, but his reply was always, “These things happen on the spur of the moment. I can’t come rushing here to get you. By the time you’d got the children minded and got ready and we’d driven all the way into London, it’d be over. It’s silly to talk like that.” She didn’t even bother to ask any more.
“Aren’t you going to read Hugh’s letter?” she pressed, halfway through Edwin regaling her with an enquiry regarding a booking from no less than someone to do with Frank Sinatra.
Frustrated, he sighed, picked up the sheet of notepaper, scanned it briefly then put it down. “It says he’s doing very well, the play is doing well and set to run on well into 1963. Nice start to the new year for him.”
The faintly sarcastic remark revealed that Edwin still hadn’t got over the sting of his cousin’s disloyalty to Letts. The letter was returned to her while Edwin fell to eating the ham salad before him. He was so used to the fine cuisine supplied by Letts that plain food came as a welcome change.
Slowly Helen reread Hugh’s letter. None of it was personally addressed to her. There was no reference to how he felt about her. But of course, if there had been, she wouldn’t have shown it to Edwin.
Hugh seemed to be doing fabulously; the whole thing was fall of how well he was doing. “This play could go on and on by the look of it. We’re playing to packed houses and there’s been talk of it going into London, into the West End later in the year. Then I’ll be seeing more of you both.”
It was the nearest the letter came to being personal but, reading more into it than, perhaps, he’d intended, she felt her insides shiver deliciously. He’d been gone over three months and yes, she missed him dreadfully.
* * *
“So, everyone, next month, August, we’ll be playing the West End.” The voice was excited but now fell a little. “Of course there’ll be some changes. Some of you may be dropped; the new management always has the last word, as you probably know.” The tone lifted again. “But for the rest of you this is a really great opportunity.”
Hugh listened confidently. No one would drop him. He’d been playing the lead since the actor originally playing that part had fallen ill three weeks ago. It now seemed the role was his, the other man having had to drop out permanently. So far he had gone down well with the audiences and was certain in his mind that he’d be one of the company going on into the West End. His future was at last assured.
* * *
Over the past year, it had of course been a relief not having to deal with Hugh’s foolish hanky-panky, but she still missed that sudden and infectious laugh of his, the jaunty way he had of talking, unless he was quoting Shakespeare when his voice would strengthen, become resonant, almost seductive to listen to. This was when he wasn’t moping around offloading his bouts of despair on to her – but she chose not to dwell on those times. All she knew was that without him the house was silent.
Angela and Gina were at school all day; Edwin was hardly at home; life had become increasingly dull. Her only pleasures were ones she went out and found for herself. Last year, in frustration, she had joined
the local WI and, although she found it restricting and a little boring, she had made a friend through it. Carolyn Johnston was some five years younger than she but her husband came home every evening from his office in London, which made Helen faintly envious. She and Edwin seeming to be growing further and further apart.
“We’ve nothing in common any more,” she told her father on visiting him just after Angela’s birthday. “He’s never there. We never go anywhere together any more. He has his restaurant. I have my home and the girls. That’s the sum total of my life these days.”
Without them she would have been utterly lonely. There had been a letter from Hugh around the end of August, full of bitterness, saying that he had been dropped from the cast when it had gone into the West End – his role had been given to a well-known actor who could guarantee to pull in the crowds. “There’s no fairness out there!” he’d written.
Since then they’d heard nothing more from him. None of the family had any idea where he could be. It was nearly eighteen months since she had seen him and, the way her marriage was going, Helen often wondered why she hadn’t taken advantage of that offer to sleep with him. At least she’d have had something to remember him by.
“Just me and the girls,” she went on bemoaning to her father as she sipped her tea and nibbled a biscuit from the tin he’d produced. “That’s the sum total of my life these days – the girls, my friend Carolyn and the WI. I wish Hugh was still with us, nuisance though he was. At least he was some company for me.”
She’d told him of Hugh’s letter about having been dropped from the play. “We’ve heard nothing since. No word of where he is. Edwin just shrugs and says that at least it’s a weight off his back and that Hugh’s old enough to know what he’s doing. Edwin can talk! He’s thirty-five and should be able to see where our marriage is going but he’s too wrapped up in his blessed restaurant. I don’t think he even cares about me any more. We live separate lives these days. Hugh being home did help compensate for it, but now he’s gone too and I miss him an awful lot, Dad.”
Noting the glum way Helen was sipping her tea and nibbling at her biscuit, William had a sense of alarm bells ringing inside him. How close was she to the man she knew only as her husband’s cousin? The way she had said so plaintively “I miss him an awful lot, Dad” had too many connotations for his peace of mind.
Both of them were totally unaware of their blood ties. Hugh would see Helen as fair game were her marriage to fall apart. Please God it wouldn’t, for more reasons than just the pity of it. Perhaps it wouldn’t get that far. Married people always had their ups and downs. But what if it did and Hugh saw his feet fitting under her table? God forbid!
Something had to be done. But perhaps he was being somewhat over-imaginative. Helen would never be unfaithful. She still loved Edwin, it could be seen at a glance. What Edwin needed was a good talking-to. Although Will still hadn’t the courage to enlighten Helen on the unthinkable, he did have enough in him to alert his son-in-law to the risk any man ran by neglecting his wife, good and faithful though she was. He would put him straight this very week.
“So what do you do with yourself all day, then?” he asked, getting up to switch on the light.
Not yet lunchtime and the December day was as dingy as if it were already evening. Later they’d have lunch, then she would drive home in time to pick the girls up from school. Angela – he had never called her Angel as her parents did – was now eight years old, Gina six. Once they were in bed with school the next day, Helen would be alone. William felt for her and again vowed to sort Edwin out.
She had told him that two nights a week she took them to ballet and tap classes, so that helped he supposed. She had her friend Carolyn. She’d told him that she and Carolyn went to the local cinema once a week, went shopping on Tuesdays and had lunch out, and that she attended these WI meetings on Wednesday afternoons, or was it Thursday? She was filling her lonely weeks, but how deadly dull they seemed.
He thought of Mary, the life she’d had before Geoffrey Lett had left her for someone else. She’d enjoying her society life, meeting celebrities, sailing to New York, holidaying in the south of France – a dream come true for a girl who’d once been a waif and stray. He, William, had rescued her from that, as he’d rescued her from the shame of being an unmarried mother by marrying her, doing Henry Lett a favour. Henry had been grateful, but he could never know what mess would come out of it later. William could only hope that Helen’s interest for the man who was in fact her half-brother was merely of the affectionate kind.
He came back to the present to hear Helen saying that she and Carolyn had been to the pictures to see Alfred Hitchcock’s The Birds and that Carolyn had been scared stiff. But all he could find to say was, “I hope you enjoyed it,” his mind still hovering around her and Hugh.
Helen came away with concern nagging at her. She hoped her father wasn’t in the process of becoming ill again. He’d had a brief coughing fit just after lunch. He’d shrugged it off as something caught in his throat, but it had sounded a bit rumbly to her. She just hoped it wasn’t the start of his bronchitis again. December was the month for it, the weather dull and wet and pretty chilly. She hoped to have him at home for Christmas but if he fell ill again, they’d have to come here – awkward, but necessary.
Nor had she been all that happy about the way he had gone off into a reverie when she’d told him about the Alfred Hitchcock film. She had meant it to be funny, but he hadn’t laughed, his thoughts obviously elsewhere.
She’d felt it best not to go on to relate the tale of her and Carolyn’s other jaunt to see From Russia With Love. Not because it was prattle and he’d have lost interest in that too, but because although Carolyn had said it was for her a boring film, she herself had seen something of a resemblance between Sean Connery and Hugh which practically glued her eyes to the screen, wondering with a sudden longing where Hugh was at that moment. To have related that sort of feeling to her father would make her seem far too interested in Edwin’s cousin than in Edwin himself.
* * *
Falling midweek, Christmas saw Edwin at home for the two days. But the restaurant was too busy for him to be spared on Christmas Eve, and it fell to Helen to wrap up the girls’ presents and put them at the foot of their beds for them to find when they awoke the next morning.
To Edwin’s credit, he would drive through the early hours in order to be there in time for his daughters to open their parcels on Christmas morning. But often after entertaining into the night he was too tired to appreciate the joy on their faces as they tore open the coloured wrappings, or to laugh at their gasps of surprise and delight on discovering the contents. Still, Helen supposed she ought to be grateful for small mercies, and she tightened her lips against censure as she continued wrapping their gifts all on her own.
She was still up when Edwin got in at around four in the morning. He looked so worn out and so cold that any reproach melted as she took off his overcoat for him, hurried to pour him a brandy, got his slippers and made him comfortable in an armchair by the fire she had kept going against the fierce cold outside. Seeing him sitting there, supping his drink and gazing gratefully into the fire, the logs of which she had stirred up into cheery flames, love for him flowed out of her and she came to sit at his feet. At times like these how could she ever think of Hugh?
For a second she felt anger against herself that Hugh’s name could come into this cosy setting even in that negative manner, but as Edwin laid his hand on the crown of her head, his fingers fondling her hair, she cast Hugh’s name from her and smiled up at him.
Edwin was smiling back at her, tenderly, thoughtfully. “Do you want your present now, darling?”
Helen came to herself. “Shouldn’t it wait until we open all of them together, ours and the girls’? Yours is a bit too big to drag out now.”
“I’m not worried about mine,” he said quietly. “Though I shall be eager to see what it is. But I’d like to give you yours now, while it’s
quiet and there’s only us two here.”
Not waiting for any further protest, he put his brandy glass down and reached into his coat pocket to bring out a square, black velvet box which he handed to her.
“And this as well,” he added before she could open it, reaching again into his pocket to extract another box, this time much smaller. “Open the bigger one first,” he told her.
Helen felt her breath explode from her in delight as the opened lid revealed the creamy lustre of a three-string pearl necklace with matching teardrop earrings.
“Oh, Edwin! Oh, they’re wonderful – they’re absolutely gorgeous!” She had a pearl necklace but nothing like this. These had to be natural rather than cultured, they looked so expensive.
“And now the other box,” ordered Edwin.
As she opened this one, Helen forgot even to gasp. There, nestled at its centre, was a diamond eternity ring, sparkling and flashing its richness into her amazed eyes.
“I thought it was time I declared my love and gratitude to you,” he was saying in a low voice, “for all the times I have to leave you alone. You never complain, do you? I wish sometimes it wasn’t like this, but I want you to say you understand. I want—”
He was spoiling it. He was talking too much. She reached up a hand and laid it tenderly across his lips.
“Shush, darling,” she warned. “Just say you love me, that’s all.”
He gazed down at her. “I love you,” he said obediently.
“And I love you,” she returned. All the past hurt born of loneliness and imagined neglect were poured out into those words. Hugh was far away now, gone, banished, she thought, yet again she felt angry that even to this small degree his name should enter her head.
