Jill said Miles would cope, and then went obediently to tidy herself. ‘And the odd thing is,’ she thought, ‘that I don’t feel irritated by them. I just feel grateful.’
She was even more grateful a couple of hours later, for she realized that, without the sisters, the party would have been a dead failure. There was nothing wrong with the food or the drink, nothing she could blame herself for. The fault lay with the guests, who were quiet to the verge of gloominess and who resolutely refused to circulate. The senior members of the company clung together, preferably around Miles. The stage management remained with the small parts and understudies. Frank Ashton and the author sat together looking both shy and worried. Peter Hesper huddled with the Tom Albions, discussing a prospective job. And Cyril, his understudy and his understudy’s Mum sat together but barely talked to each other, let alone to anyone else – until they were joined by Geoffrey Thornton who, presumably, thought this was the best way he could pull his weight. Jill went from group to group but did not feel she was proving stimulating. Only Robin and Kit – Robin in her gleaming satin sheath and Kit now in scarlet chiffon – infused some little gaiety. They offered food, replenished glasses, paid compliments and cracked jokes, somehow giving the impression the party was ‘going’. Jill, in the kitchen making coffee, was asked by Robin, ‘Truly, are we over-doing it?’
‘Truly, you’re not,’ said Jill fervently.
‘Then back to the good work. Perhaps coffee will wake them up a bit. Shout when it’s ready.’
‘Most of them are dead tired, poor loves. I hope they don’t stay on and on just out of courtesy.’
It was the understudy’s Mum who made the first move. On being conventionally begged not to break the party up she became – at last – voluble about the complications of her journey home. A few other guests drifted away at the same time. Jill, returning from seeing them off, noticed that Cyril was collecting empty plates and no-longer-needed glasses. Instructed by the Thornton sisters? She went into the kitchen and found they were already washing up.
‘No, no,’ she protested. ‘There’ll be someone to do that in the morning.’
‘But not before breakfast, surely,’ said Robin. ‘And you couldn’t face getting up, with all this about. Thank you, Cyril, but be careful not to sneak glasses from people who are still here. We’ll do all the glasses afterwards, Kit, with fresh water. You can wash, then, because I polish glasses better than you do.’
Jill murmured ‘Angels’ and went back to the party, where she talked to Geoffrey Thornton until the next batch of guests had to be seen off. Cyril pounced on their glasses the instant they moved towards the door.
By two A.M. there was no one left but Peter Hesper, the Albions, the Thorntons – the girls still busy washing glasses – and Cyril, whom the Thorntons had undertaken to drive home. Miles said to Tom Albion, ‘Come on, now. What’s your verdict on the play’s chances?’
Tom Albion looked round the room. ‘Author gone, management gone, cast gone? Where’s that boy?’
‘In the kitchen, out of earshot,’ said Jill. ‘Come on, Tom.’
‘Well, if you ask me, the damn thing’s going to be my absolute bête noire of plays, a teeterer.’
No one looked puzzled but Geoffrey Thornton, who said blankly, ‘A what?’
‘A play that teeters between success and failure,’ said Peter Hesper. ‘Frank Ashton will probably feel he has to tide it over and wait for it to build.’
‘And he’s liable to lose a lot of money,’ said Tom Albion. ‘And I’m liable to lose a first-rate film contract for Miles. Yet I couldn’t, with my hand on my heart, advise Ashton to cut his losses now. There’s a chance of success.’
‘Of course there is,’ said Mrs Albion. ‘You wait till you see the notices. Shall we go out and get the early editions?’
‘Not for me,’ said Miles. ‘I don’t want to sit up all night discussing them. The morning will be time enough.’
‘Anyway, the notices will teeter, too,’ said Tom. ‘And I doubt if Frank Ashton is over-burdened with courage.’ He turned to Jill. ‘On the whole, I still say what I said originally: three weeks.’
‘Pay no heed to him,’ said Mrs Albion, rising to go.
Peter went with the Albions. The girls stayed until the last ashtray was washed, and then Kit announced that she was going to do what she had longed to, all evening – ‘go out on the balcony and look at the view.’
She took Cyril with her. Even Jill could not feel nervous for them, as the parapet, in their case, came chest high.
‘Marvellous,’ said Kit. ‘I should like to sleep out here. Well, there’s Big Ben calling us home.’
‘And quite time, for shrimps like you,’ said Robin. ‘You’d better go to bed at seven tomorrow and try to grow.’
Between Today and Tomorrow
The notices in the morning papers undoubtedly teetered; none were really bad, none fully complimentary – except to Miles and even his were not the kind of ‘raves’ that can sometimes enable an actor to carry a play to success single-handed.
‘But at least no one’s feelings are going to be lacerated,’ he said with relief. ‘The author can cherish “promising”, “an ear for dialogue” and “a sense of situation”; and Cyril can chalk up “Doug Digby is a likeable youngster”, “sincere if inaudible” and less painful than the average boy actor.’
‘And the Sunday papers and the weeklies may help,’ said Jill. ‘And of course the word of mouth.’
‘From my own point of view I hope the thing doesn’t run. Oh, I’m not ill-wishing it but that’s how I really feel.’
‘Because you want to do the film?’
‘You know I loathe filming. But somehow the play seems to have gone sour on me. Well, I must churn up some enthusiasm.’
They had arranged to lunch with Peter Hesper. After commenting on the notices he talked mainly about the next job Tom Albion had lined up for him. Jill had often thought that, for directors, a play in rehearsal could occupy every waking hour, and then be shovelled out of mind immediately after the London production. Not that Peter was uninterested in the play’s fortunes, as he was paid a royalty on the box-office takings; but he was no longer creatively concerned. He would have disliked holding another rehearsal.
She put in an afternoon and evening on typing thank-you letters for Miles’s first-night telegrams, then called for him at the theatre. He reported that business and booking were, ‘Just what one would expect with a teeterer. Anyway, optimism is the order of the day.’ They then went out to supper. The normal, pleasant pattern of their life was taking over … except that it did not seem quite as pleasant as was normal.
She only fully realized this on the Sunday morning. The notices, again, were neither good nor bad, though bad in as much as they were brief and would do little to advertise the play. She had discussed them, read anything else in the papers that interested her, and then started to weed out the flowers which had died since the night of the party. Becoming conscious that Miles had stopped reading and was following her about with his eyes, she looked at him questioningly.
He said, ‘Let’s face it. Neither of us is happy in this flat.’
No doubt it was best to face it. She nodded acceptance. ‘What shall we do, then? Get rid of the flat and find a house?’
‘Running a house would be hell for you, without Mrs Topham. The flat’s easier and I’ll even admit this room has a certain beauty. But I don’t feel I’m living in a home, just a pied-à-terre. Suppose we kept it as that, and got ourselves some little place in the country? I’ve been reading property advertisements. One or two cottages sound attractive. I mean for weekends and when I’m between jobs.’
‘You’re never between jobs for long. As for weekends … I doubt if there’d be late enough trains on Saturday nights.’
‘Suppose we got a car and I took up driving again?’
‘Oh, Miles, would you? Could you?’
It was some seconds before he answered. ‘I think
so. It wasn’t a question of losing my nerve.’
‘I’ve always thought it was more that you were punishing yourself – for something that wasn’t your fault.’
‘No use thinking about that now. What matters is that I’m willing to drive again. And I daresay you’d like to learn.’
‘I’d have suggested that long ago if you hadn’t said you didn’t even want to have a car.’
‘I know. You may be right about my punishing myself. I was extremely fond of cars and of driving. Well, then, how do we start?’
‘I suppose we consider cars and enquire about cottages.’
‘Just one thing. Will this be of real interest to you? You won’t be doing it simply to please me?’
He was looking at her searchingly. And there was something about his expression that reminded her of that moonlight night a couple of weeks past when he had needed reassurance. Now, as then, she gave it.
‘I shall love it, Miles.’ But she felt vaguely uneasy. He seemed to have something on his mind. And was he perhaps thinking more of her than himself, in planning car and cottage? She had no desire for either. If he really wanted them of course he must have them, but she would take no steps towards them until he raised the matter again.
The next morning she received a letter from Robin Thornton who had already sent a punctilious letter of thanks for the party. The second letter read:
Dear Mrs Quentin,
I am writing this invitation, instead of just ringing you up, so that it will be easier for you and Mr Quentin to refuse if you want to. This is how it is. Our brother Julian is back from Scotland and mad with jealousy because we’ve met you and Mr Quentin and he hasn’t. You see, he wants to go on the stage – oh, not yet, he’ll be up at Oxford for a couple more years, so there’s no chance of his asking for help in getting a job. But he would terribly like just to meet Mr Quentin and sort of ask his advice generally. So we’re wondering if you could both bear to come to supper after the theatre on Friday – just us, no need to dress. And perhaps you would come a bit early so that Kit and I can have you to ourselves for a while.
We hope Mr Quentin will count it in our favour that we haven’t sprung a stage-struck brother on him without warning. Still, we shall quite understand if we get a refusal.
Yours, with love
ROBIN
There was a postscript from Kit saying: ‘Robin seems almost resigned to getting a refusal but I’m hopeful because Mr Quentin is so very kind. And we absolutely promise that Julian won’t recite.’ This was signed with a clever little drawing of Kit looking like a cat or a cat looking like Kit; Jill couldn’t decide which.
Miles, after reading the letter, said, ‘Of course we must go – if only to repay the girls for the way they worked at our party. And it’ll be interesting to see the brother. I don’t mind stage-struck youths.’
‘Then I’ll ring up and accept.’
After doing so, while her ears still buzzed with Kit’s excited thanks, she remembered that she had never told Miles about the late Mrs Thornton’s dipsomania. He’d better know now as they were getting on such friendly terms with the Thorntons. He listened with interest, then asked if she thought the girls could have been exaggerating.
She said, ‘Somehow I’m sure they weren’t. And they were perfectly cheerful, kept stressing that it was over for them, and for their father, too. They said he’d started a new life.’
‘My God, he’d need to. I wonder why they upped and told you? Anyway, do anything you can for them – you’ll have more chance than I shall. Though I could ask them to tea at the theatre and let them explore the stage. That usually interests the young.’
Getting into a taxi on Friday night (she had promised Kit, on the telephone, to arrive an hour before Miles did), she felt inexplicably excited, though a hint of an explanation came to her as the taxi drove past the Houses of Parliament – ‘It’s just that one’s entering a new world’ – she and Miles had no friends unconnected with the theatre. She wondered if Geoffrey Thornton would be inside the House of Commons. No, not in August, surely – though she was as vague about this as about everything else connected with politics.
The taxi was now driving through small, quiet streets of old houses. She felt a pang of loss for the Islington house – these houses were a little like it; but they were smaller, and even older, she thought, and most beautifully taken care of. Impossible to imagine a peeling front door or a broken window here, or any of the encroaching decay amidst which she and Miles had lived for the last years of his lease.
After she had paid the taxi off, she stood outside the Thorntons’ house for a moment before ringing the bell, taking in the quiet street. At one end of it was a blitzed church, looking all the more romantic, against the still faintly luminous sky, by contrast with its well-kept surroundings. She now found that she was nervous, as well as excited. How absurd! She rang the bell firmly – and it was answered so quickly by both Robin and Kit that it seemed likely they had been at hand waiting for her.
‘Darling Mrs Quentin,’ said Kit, embracing her.
‘You should never kiss grown-ups until they show that they want you to,’ said Robin. ‘Mrs Quentin may not like kissing.’
Jill said that in the theatrical profession most people kissed most people – ‘And I’ll admit that I don’t always care for it. But I’m happy to kiss you two.’ She now kissed Robin and then added, ‘And I’d like it if you’d start calling me Jill.’
Kit said triumphantly, ‘I told you, Robin. She really meant it when she said she’d be our friend.’
Robin said, ‘We want you to come up to our room, if you don’t mind a lot of stairs. This house is so small that we have to make do with the attics. Not that we mind.’
‘No, indeed. We adore the attics.’
They proceeded upwards, not without difficulty as Kit kept her arm through Jill’s and the staircase was barely wide enough for two to walk abreast. On the first floor a door stood open onto a doll’s size drawing room. ‘And that’s Father’s room at the back,’ Kit explained, ‘and up above there’s our spare room and Mary Simmonds’s room – I suppose you could call her our help – and then we’re at the top. Do you need a rest’? No? Then on we go. We share a bedroom so that we can have the front attic as a sitting room. It’s really nicer in the winter when we can have a fire. Of course we carry the coals up ourselves.’
‘It’s nice enough now,’ said Jill, looking round. ‘What a lot of books.’
‘They’re mostly Kit’s,’ said Robin. ‘Not that I don’t like reading some authors, such as Jane Austen, Charlotte Bronte and Dickens. But most of Kit’s modern authors are too much for me.’
‘That’s odd, really, seeing that in some ways you’re so much more modern than I am. That’s Robin’s special wall.’
Over the fireplace was a large, canvas-covered board to which were drawing-pinned cuttings from magazines – reproductions of abstract painting, pop art, op art, recipes, extreme fashions in clothes and hair styles.
‘I change the collection every month,’ said Robin. ‘Oh, could you bear to tell me frankly if this dress is too awful? I’m not sure me and me dressmaker didn’t get carried away.’
It was a very short shift of felt, divided into quarters of black, white, grey and blue. Jill could, with sincerity, admire it.
‘I tell her it looks like the flag of some new country,’ said Kit.
‘Father thinks it looks more like linoleum – but then linoleum quite often looks like Mondrian, so it was a sort of compliment.’ She sighed. ‘Of course what it really needs is the authority of a great couturier. But me and me dressmaker do our best. What do you think of Kit’s dress? It isn’t usual for girls of fifteen to wear black but then she’s not a usual girl of fifteen.’
The dress was long-fleeced black wool, trimmed with narrow strips of black rabbit. Jill said, ‘If there was a black cat here I wouldn’t know you from it, Kit.’
‘Oh, lovely! I did want to have a little fur tail.??
?
‘Me and me dressmaker thought that would be sheer whimsy,’ said Robin, then suddenly swept her long, fair hair up onto the top of her head. ‘I’m considering getting rid of my blinkers.’
‘Do persuade her to, Jill, before she gets run over.’
Jill, realizing for the first time the beautiful breadth of Robin’s brow and her admirable jawline, said enthusiastically, ‘Oh, I like it up.’
‘But I feel so much more frail and mysterious, just peeping out,’ said Robin, dropping her veils of hair. ‘And I can always watch the traffic lights. Now I’m talking too much about myself. Do tell us how the play’s doing.’
Jill responded perfunctorily that the business was ‘building’, and proceeded to look round the room. ‘You’ve got so many interesting things.’
‘This is a kaleidoscope,’ said Robin, offering it. ‘You hold it up to the light and you can see fascinating patterns, a bit like kinetic art. It was our great-grandmother’s when she was a child. So was the musical box. Shall I play it?’
‘No, Robin,’ said Kit. ‘It’s nice but it kills conversation.’
Jill was looking through the kaleidoscope, turning it to vary the patterns made by the tiny, brilliant pieces of glass.
Kit said, ‘When I was young it used to sadden me that patterns went for ever each time you changed them. It seemed like painting a picture and then destroying it. But in a way that’s the beauty of it.’
‘Like the way fashions change and never quite come back,’ said Robin. ‘Oh, I do love clothes. I think I have almost a religious feeling about them.’
Kit was now offering a glass paper-weight for inspection. ‘Look, it’s got an old print of Queen’s Crescent on it. That was our great-grandmother’s house. We loved it – but I think we love this one more, because it’s so much older. But perhaps you don’t like old houses.’