Perry is also transformed as the fogs of winter lift. He is less prone to the mood swings and erratic behavior that have blighted his life since the war and he is writing with more passion and enthusiasm than I’ve seen for a long time. His muse is certainly living up to her billing. Miss Lane makes him laugh, while he encourages her to believe in herself. They are good for each other. It is a comfortable partnership, punctuated occasionally with a hesitation, a flush to the cheek, a sense of something other than companionship that I observe between them, but such moments are fleeting and neither of them acts on whatever it is they might feel. I’m not entirely sure they should. They are happy enough without the messy complications of love, so I do nothing to encourage them. Besides, darling Bea is still waiting in the wings and she and Perry seem to be getting on rather well recently, much to my delight. I can’t help but worry that everyone will become horribly unstuck if a romance were to blossom between Perry and Miss Lane, despite his claims to have fallen in love with her from the moment he first saw her. My hope is that the first flush of attraction has calmed into something less dramatic, something more akin to the love between a brother and sister than the passion between lovers.
Invigorated by Miss Lane’s wry sense of humor and wonderfully down-to-earth outlook on life, Perry already has a score of delightful numbers for Charlot. He insists that I visit his apartment to hear him play each number when he is happy with it and I no longer have the energy to refuse. I drag myself up the stairs, lie on his battered old sofa, close my eyes, and listen, imagining how the numbers will sound in a theater. I can only delight in what he has produced. One number in particular that he has called “The Girl from The Savoy” is certain to be a big hit when it finally gets onto the stage.
“It’s wonderful, darling. Truly, it is. When will the revue play?”
“Charlot wants to put it on at the Shaftesbury as soon as possible. Jack Buchanan and Binnie Hale are already signed up. Gertie Lawrence is a possibility. He’s planning a short run in London, and if the notices are kind and the audiences enthusiastic, he’ll take the entire company to Broadway. Lee Shubert has heard most of the score and loves it. He thinks it will especially appeal to American audiences. Archie Selwyn’s name was mentioned too. This is going to be big, Etta. Very big. And the perfect opportunity for Miss Lane to find her feet in the chorus. Some of the numbers are based on her story, after all. When will she audition?”
“Charlot wants to see her next week.”
“Next week? Is she ready?”
“She’s been ready for weeks, darling.”
“Then why haven’t you arranged for him to see her sooner?”
“Because she needed to be ready. Only she could truly know.”
He looks at me with so much hope in his eyes it is almost painful to see. “I hope she impresses him, Etta. I hope she shines.”
“She will do more than shine, darling. I have taught Miss Lane to dazzle.”
But among all that is so new and wonderful with the onset of spring, my fears have also been realized and the routine of afternoon tea at Claridge’s has begun to drift away from Perry and me. With each week that passes, one or the other of us has somewhere to go or someone to see. For him, it is usually Miss Lane, or a theatrical producer. For me, it is appointments with doctors. They are increasingly concerned. Their medication is stronger, their insistence that I must tell close family and friends more and more urgent. I have fought it well, but my illness is a truth that I cannot hide much longer. I have to regularly pull out of performances, the pain too much to drag myself from my bed. I feign a dose of laryngitis or a migraine. I claim exhaustion and nerves. The press are onto me like an owl to a mouse. They sense something stirring; a story building.
LORETTA MAY INDISPOSED AGAIN
FANS DISTRAUGHT AS UNDERSTUDY STEPS
IN DURING INTERVAL
CONCERNS RAISED FOR THE DARLING
OF THE WEST END
I’ll give them a headline soon enough. For now, I must put on my best clothes and my bravest smile and meet Perry as agreed.
I keep my head down as my car pulls up outside Claridge’s. I walk quickly to my usual table in the Winter Garden. I no longer dally and preen. I rush and hide, reluctant for people to see the dark shadows beneath my eyes and the sunken hollows of my once rounded cheeks, the telltale signs of a woman on the edge, a woman who seeks solace from her invisible pain in morphine and gin and any number of other drugs to get through the next hour, day, and week.
Perry is late, as usual. He finds me tired and irritable. I find him perky and annoying. We talk around in circles, about anything and everything, but not about the fact that he might have fallen in love with Miss Lane, or that he still has feelings for Bea, and never about the fact that I am dying.
I watch him push a sandwich around his plate until I cannot bear it anymore. “When are you going to tell her, Perry?”
“Tell who what?”
“You know perfectly well who and what. Don’t be coy. It isn’t becoming in a man.”
He picks at a sprig of tarragon and fusses with a slice of cucumber as waiters dance around us like partners in a quadrille. “We’ve been here before, haven’t we, Etta? We’re getting along so well I’m afraid it might spoil things if I broach the subject of love. What if she doesn’t feel the same?”
“And what if she does?” What if you were dying, Perry? What would you do then? I narrow my eyes and peer at him. “We are talking about the same person, aren’t we? We are talking about Bea?”
He falters and takes a long sip of coffee. “Yes. Yes, of course we’re talking about Bea.”
I lean back in my chair and close my eyes, listening to the pianist, to the sound of people laughing and chatting. I adore this place. I drink it into my soul.
“What are you doing?”
“I’m listening, Perry. Feeling the life of this place.” I open my eyes. “Isn’t it marvelous? If there is a heaven I hope it is exactly like the Winter Garden at Claridge’s.”
He laughs. “Have you been at the gin again?”
I lean forward and grab his hand, squeezing it tight. “Look around, Perry. Look and listen. We’re always rushing to be somewhere, thinking of what’s next without ever noticing what’s now. Life doesn’t happen to us, darling, we must make it happen. Don’t sit there wondering what if. Tell Bea how you feel. Tell her you love her. Ask her to marry you, if that’s what you truly want. And if you’re fibbing, and you really want to tell Miss Lane all those things, then do. Be brave, darling. Be reckless. There’s no duller quality than caution.”
I take a long drag of my cigarette. My hands tremble. I know I’m going to tell him.
“But how can I be sure?” he asks. “How can I know I’m making the right decision?”
“You can’t. Nobody can ever be sure. We take risks. We close our eyes and jump. Nobody would ever fail if they didn’t try. The only things we ever value in life inevitably lead us to failure. Parents fail. Actresses fail. Productions fail. How do I know that my performance was good? Because somebody else’s was terrible. That’s how I know.” I look at him across the table. “I think you’re afraid of being happy, Perry. I think you’ve become so used to dragging guilt and misery around that you’re afraid of what life might be like if you let them go.”
He stirs his coffee, first one way, then the other. His indecision apparent in everything. “I have these blissful moments when I’m writing music and I almost forget the war. It all gets lost in the melody. But then I remember.” He looks at me. Those gray eyes of his forever haunted by his memories. “The men I shot will never hear music again. They’ll never fall in love. Or dance. I can’t help feeling that I don’t deserve to be happy, Etta.”
“Nobody will ever know what it was like for you to pull the trigger. Cowards. Deserters. Whatever they called them, we know they were brothers and fathers, sons and lovers. You were playing a part, my darling, following a script. None of us wanted to be involved in a war,
but it happened. Roles were cast, direction given by those in command. You did only what was asked of you.” I want to shake him; shake all this remorse from him. “You are not Officer Clements anymore. Not part of this battalion or that battalion. You’re Peregrine Clements. That’s all. A young man trying to find his way in life. It is perfectly all right to allow yourself to be happy.”
He smiles and squeezes my hand. “Thank you. You really can be incredibly wise at times, Etta. Just when I think I know you, I see a side to your personality that takes me by surprise. It’s like a different person has taken over for a while.”
“That’s the beauty of a life on the stage, one can be whomever one chooses to be. A different role each season, a new life to inhabit for a while. I’ve learned a lot from the women I’ve become on the stage. They’ve taught me how to love, how to laugh, how to survive . . . some have even taught me how to die.”
The word hangs in the air.
Now. Now is the time.
I take my letter from my purse and place it on the table between us. I hold both his hands in mine. “I’m so sorry, Perry. I’m so sorry to have to tell you.”
“Tell me what?”
I push the page toward him. “This explains everything.”
He opens the folded page and starts to read the words I have agonized over for months. His face turns to stone as I lift my cigarette holder to my lips and draw in a deep lingering breath of nicotine. I hold it for a while, savoring the rush to my head before I exhale and watch the smoke dissipate around us. I read silently along with him, remembering every carefully chosen terrible word.
My darling Perry,
There is no easy way to tell you this, so I will simply set out the facts.
The doctors tell me that I have a cancer and that I am dying. It is incurable—too established for them to treat. It is this that has been the cause of my episodes and increasing withdrawal from performing over the past months.
Like a fool I thought I could beat it, but there are some battles one can never hope to win, no matter how determined one might be to fight.
Don’t pity me, Perry. For God’s sake, don’t pity me. Let me live my life to the very end. Let me be Loretta May, not a dying actress.
I am so sorry to have to tell you this. I wish, with all my heart that it wasn’t so. But it is, and we must somehow try to bear it.
Your sister, always.
Virginia
XX
He looks up at me, the color drained from his cheeks. “It can’t be true.”
“It is. I am dying, Perry. I’m so very sorry.”
The words drift about in the space between us, not yet real, not yet understood. The pianist plays a waltz. The sun streams through the skylights, casting rainbows at my feet.
Perry holds tight to my hands. “How long have you known?”
I feel strangely calm as I find the words that have eluded me for so long. “Six months. Longer. I can’t remember. I have a cancer in my lung, darling. There is nothing they can do for me. I’ve kept up the performance for as long as I could, but I’m tired now.”
His hands shake in mine. His face as pale as milk. “Why didn’t you tell me? I could have helped.”
“I’ve tried, Perry. I’ve tried to tell you so many times, but I could never find the right moment, the right words.”
“But there must be something they can do. Surely. Can we get a second opinion?”
“I’ve been through all that. Doctors, consultants, specialists. They all tell me the same thing. The prognosis isn’t good.” I take a sip of tea and let out a long sigh as the burden of my secret lifts from my shoulders. I feel as though I can breathe properly for the first time in months. “I didn’t know for a long while. I put it down to exhaustion, late nights, winter fogs, the usual ailments. But it worsened. It worsened quickly.”
“But . . . when?” He hesitates to ask the question. “How long?”
“How long have I got?” He nods. “Not very. A couple of months, perhaps. I’ve told Cockie that tonight will be my last performance. Tomorrow, I’m going to Nine Elms.”
“Nine Elms?”
“The doctors say the sea air will help to ease the pain in my chest. Rest and care is what I need now. From there I’ll go to Cousin Freddie’s place in Devon.”
He grips my hands as the tears begin to fall. “Have you told Mother and Father? Aubrey?”
“Not yet. I’ve sent a telegram to inform Mother I’ll be there tomorrow. I want to tell them in person—although I’m not expecting too much sympathy from her. The less time she has to fuss, the better. And it’s the spring ball next week, so I have the perfect excuse to visit. She won’t suspect anything and she’ll be too distracted by canapés and sleeping arrangements to worry about her daughter dying.”
“Loretta! That’s a dreadful thing to say.”
I smile. “Oh, come on, Perry. Let me have a little fun. This is why I’ve waited so long to tell anyone. I can’t stand the thought of being pitied and fussed over. I want to carry on as normal for as long as possible. Go out with a bang rather than fade away. Perhaps Ada will invent a new cocktail in my honor at the American Bar at The Savoy. Although her Corpse Reviver would probably be appropriate.”
Perry looks at his hands. “Please, Loretta. Don’t.”
I lean back in my chair. “I’m sorry, darling. One has to poke a little fun at such a ludicrous situation.”
“So you’ll go to the ball as if nothing is wrong?”
“Absolutely. I’ll tell Mother and Father afterward—and everyone else. I’ll dress to the nines and drink and dance and be merry, the same as I am every year. In fact, I was thinking that you should bring Miss Lane. It will be the perfect social outing for her. Her very own debut. It’s exactly what she needs. What you need. What I need.”
“But she’ll never be able to take time away from the hotel.”
“Of course she will. Leave that to me. Even chambermaids deserve a little holiday every now and again. I’ll have a discreet word with Reeves-Smith. Invent a sick aunt, or something.”
The waiter stops at our table to refill the water jug and asks if we’d like more tea.
Perry looks at me and then at the waiter. “Yes please. More tea. More cakes. More of those ridiculous little sandwiches, and a bottle of your best champagne.” The waiter looks surprised. “We are extremely thirsty and desperately hungry. Hurry along now. There’s a good chap.”
I whisper a thank you.
“Actually,” he says, “I never told you, but I really quite enjoy this whole afternoon tea business. Once a week is hardly enough. I think we should do it more often.”
I laugh and squeeze his hand. “I’m glad to have told you, Perry.”
“And I’m glad you have told me. I just wish you’d done so sooner. And I wish there was something I could do to help.”
I look at him. “Actually, there is. There is something you can do that would give a dying lady immense joy.”
I talk and he listens, and by the time we’ve enjoyed the entire bottle of champagne, I have finally made him see sense on the matter of his future happiness.
And that is how one announces that one is dying, over strawberry tartlets and salmon sandwiches, accompanied by the background music of a Viennese waltz, surrounded by strangers. No histrionics. No weeping and wailing and clinging to people like limpets. No stark interior of a doctor’s room or a hospital corridor. Here, in my favorite place in the whole of London, with the brother I am lucky to call my friend.
My final performance is one of my very best. Cockie is utterly devastated when I tell him, but he promises not to tell anybody until I’ve had some time with my family. As far as the cast and the audience and the gossip columnists are concerned, it is just another splendid performance of HOLD TIGHT! I drink in the atmosphere, the adulation, the adoring cries from the gallery, so that I am full to the brim of love and life, a champagne glass overflowing. As I deliver my final line and sink to my knees and weep
with joy for the happy conclusion of my turbulent onstage love life, the lights go out and the curtain drops, plunging me into the dark silence of a dead blackout for the final time.
I don’t rush from the stage. I don’t move. I stay where I am and listen to the rapturous applause and the cries for “more, more,” and the stamping of appreciative feet.
I am humbled and grateful. I am the little girl who dreamed of this very moment. I am Virginia Clements, the woman who fell in love with a soldier and nursed so many others back to health. I am everybody’s darling, Loretta May, and all the roles she has ever played. And here, on my knees in the pitch dark, as I finally accept the fact that I am dying, I have never felt more alive.
37
DOLLY
The words I have dreamed of.
The words I have imagined in my darkest moments.
The one constant since my life took such a curious turn is Clover. Dear Clover. As dependable as sunrise. We meet as often as we can at the Palais, but I’m often too exhausted or distracted to give her my full attention. She tells me bits of news from Grosvenor Square—how she took a tumble down the stairs, some trouble with the kitchen maid, a marriage proposal for Madam’s daughter—but her words drift over me like passing clouds.