I Could Go on Singing (16 page)

“Can’t you say
anything?
”

She pulled away from him. “What could I possibly say? You made a fool of me. You got what you were after. Let’s leave it at that.”

“I can’t leave it at that.”

“I wouldn’t say you had much choice,” she said and walked away.

He looked at her erect walk, the severe shoulders, the shining head, the constrained sway of her skirt. He resisted the temptation to drive his fist into the wall beside him. He roamed into the backstage areas, the gloom smelling of dust and insulation. He found a place where he could look diagonally out. The stir and buzz of the throng seemed much louder there. The footlights were on and he could see nothing beyond them. He heard some furtive tweedles, a muted paradiddle on the snare and now the band was in place. In the center of the huge stage Jenny’s microphone stood alone, in a circle of light.

He went back to the dressing room, knocked once in George’s fashion and went in. Jenny was at her dressing table applying her makeup. Gabe was working on her hair. She smiled brilliantly at Jason in the mirror and said, “Am I gorgeous? Am I breathtaking?”

“Fabulous,” Jason said.

“You’re using my word,” George said.

The smile faded and she looked nervously at Jason. She got up and turned toward him like a child inviting inspection. Gabe moved behind her to continue on her hair. “All right really?” she asked anxiously.

He stepped to her and kissed her lightly on the forehead and said, “
Very
much all right, Jenny Bowman.” The anxiety faded.

(In the little suite in the Del Prado he had seen her stare at herself in helpless, unjustified disgust. “So little to go on,” she had said. “I’m a leggy, willowy, hollow-cheeked blonde at heart. Trapped here in this sort of dumpy little broad with a wide little-kid face.” He had tried to convince her she was lovely. And she was. But it was a basic insecurity with her, enmeshed with a lot of other little knots and webs of insecurity. He had begun then to tell her more often how much he loved the way she looked, and he saw it help her in the way he wanted to help her. It made no sense. But it was something she needed.)

“Jenny darling, should we start the overture?” George asked.

“How about those tickets?”

“I don’t know yet. They’re pretty jammed up out there. And traffic is pretty heavy. It’s ten minutes to. A lot of them will be making it at the last …”

“Call the box office again, George.”

Ida cleared her throat. “Like George says, it’s a madhouse out there.”

George opened the door, trying to entice Jenny out. “It’s the price of popularity, darling.”

She took a step and then stopped and looked at their tense faces.

“What is it?” she demanded.

“What is what, honey?” George asked, just a little too blankly.

“Something is going on and I want to know what it is!” she said, staring intently at each of them in turn.

“Jenny,” George said, “you know me. Whatever I know you know. Just don’t get upset.”

“I’m not upset, but I may get upset,
very
upset, unless you tell me
what’s going on!
” Her jaw was set, her eyes hard and blazing.

George hesitated, started to speak, and then shrugged and sighed and took the telegram out of his pocket and handed it to her. She read it swiftly and then turned away from them.

George said, “Jenny, I know this is a big disappointment …”

“But he
said
he was coming …” she said in a stifled voice.

“Darling, you were hoping to have twenty-five hundred out there tonight. But all you get is twenty-four hundred and ninety-eight. That’s still a lot of people. What do you say? Shall we start the overture?”

“But he
promised
,” she said with tears in her voice.

The commissionaire appeared in the doorway. He looked upset. “There is a Mr. Donne here, Miss Bowman, who insists that you …”

She whirled, her face alight, tears standing in her eyes. “Oh, show him in, please!”

A boy appeared in the doorway, a slender boy, not tall but with the look of tallness to come. He was hesitant, but poised, neat in his dark suit, tie perfectly knotted, dark hair brushed. Jason saw the trace of Jenny in his face, in the
shape of brow, directness of eye, stubborn delicacy of chin.

“Hello, Matthew,” Jenny said with a warm and wonderful smile, going to him.

He put his hand out and said, “Hello, Miss Bowman.”

“How nice you look! Come in, come in.” She kissed him and led him into the room. “Matthew, these are my good friends. Miss Ida Mulligan. Mr. Gabe. Mr. George Kogan. Mr. Jason Brown. This is Mr. Matthew Donne, of Canterbury School.”

The boy acknowledged the introductions very correctly, looking directly at each of them, repeating the names. He looked at the masses of flowers and looked with a slightly owlish humor at Jenny. “Not a bit like Canterbury opening night, is it?”

Jenny seemed distracted. She kept glancing at the empty doorway. “How did you get here, Matthew? Is your father here?”

“I expect you got the telegram? It was a call from Italy, Miss Bowman.”

“You promised to call me Jenny.”

The boy smiled. It was a good smile, direct and aware. “I expect I should, if I promised. But it does seem a bit pushy. Jenny, then. It was an emergency case, someone quite important I imagine. Do you know, they’ve sold off all the standing room too?”

Jenny straightened her shoulders. “George?”

“Yes, Jenny.”

“Start the overture.”

George grinned and hurried out. Ida and Gabe advanced on Jenny and began small, final, unnecessary adjustments. The boy gave Jason a rather uncertain smile and backed out of the way.

“Was it all right, my coming alone?” he asked.

Jenny gave him warm and immediate reassurance. “It was more than all right. I’m very much complimented. I’m delighted. I would have been terribly disappointed if you hadn’t. Now come along with me, dear.”

Ida and Gabe remained behind. Jason followed Jenny and her son to the backstage area. He heard the overture begin.

Jenny turned to Jason and said, “Brownie, would you please see that …”

“Miss Bowman. Jenny,” the boy said. “I guess I should tell you. Actually, I came up to town on my own. They don’t know I’m here.”

Jenny looked at the boy with an odd expression. “Your father doesn’t know?”

“I imagine he thinks I’m in Canterbury with Aunty Beth.”

Jason said, “Might be a good idea to let her know.”

“Yes, of course,” Jenny said with a distracted frown. Lois came up to them at that moment and was introduced. When she heard the boy’s name, she gave Jason a quick, questioning look.

With a sudden intensity, Jenny put her hand on the boy’s shoulder and said, “I know what we’ll do. Your father stood us both up tonight, dear, but we’re not going to let that get us down. After the show, you’re going to have supper with me, and then we’re going to bed you down at the hotel, and we’ll spend tomorrow together.”

The boy looked pleased but worried. “That would be very nice, but I’m afraid Aunty Beth would positively …”

“Lois will explain it very nicely to Aunty Beth, won’t you, Lois?”

“I’ll try. How do I get in touch with her, Matthew?” Lois said.

“It’s Miss Nevison,” the boy said and gave Lois the Canterbury phone number. “Thank you so much! I do hope they won’t be too cross about it.”

“They may be jealous,” Jenny said, “but I don’t think they’ll be angry. Lois, dear, would you turn this young man over to one of the ushers, please? You do have your ticket, Matthew?”

“I picked it up at the box office. I explained to them they might sell the other one, and they did so, very quickly.”

Jenny laughed. “You can be my assistant business manger, dear.”

The boy held his hand out. “I hope it goes very well, Jenny.”

She kissed him again, and the boy looked slightly uncomfortable. “Having you here is going to make it go well. And your father is going to be awfully sorry he missed it.”

Jason saw Jenny look at the boy as he went off with Lois. He saw the softness and the pride and the yearning in her eyes. Then she moved slowly to the corner of the stage. Jason waited, several feet behind her. George suddenly appeared beside him. Jason sensed another presence and turned and saw Ida.

Jenny stood, and Jason could sense the way she was letting the music take her. She was opening herself, letting the music move into her, letting it push everything else back into a
far corner of her mind, letting it take her and build her into the public Jenny Bowman, the performer, totally keyed to the music, to the audience. At the right cue, as the big band shifted smoothly into a faster and more insistent rhythm, Jenny seemed to grow, to take on more stature, to become more vivid and electric, her eyes shining, foot tapping, body moving in tempo. The audience anticipation was a tangible thing. The back of Jason’s neck and the backs of his hands tingled. George wore a broad maniacal grin and his face was flushed. The band went into her introductions. She reached a hand back without looking. George slapped the walk-around mike into it, and she walked swiftly out into the great crash of applause, smiling, vibrant, meeting the applause and then taking charge with the opening bars of her opening song,
“I Could Go on Singing.”

She took it from the back of the big stage first, all that music and that big voice filling the great theater like a huge earthen bowl filled to the brim with quicksilver. And as she built to the climax she went out onto the runway that took her out over the audience. She built it hard and true, pulling the band with her into a drive never achieved in rehearsals, and ended it with a punch that seemed to lift the whole audience out of their seats.

Amidst the shocking roar of applause, George hammered Jason on the back and jumped up and down and yelled, “She’s got it tonight! Oh, man, she’s got it all tonight!”

At ten thirty on Saturday morning, Jason tapped on the door of Lois Marney’s room. She opened the door, said a toneless, expressionless good morning and went back to her typing. He dropped his topcoat and hat on the chaise and went and stood looking out the window, hands in his hip pockets, unlit pipe clenched between his teeth.

The sound of typing stopped. “George is with the recording people,” she said.

“So Ida told me. Have any trouble with the aunt?”

“She’s an old lady. The boy told me she has a very strong will. She wasn’t exactly pleased. She wasn’t at all certain she’d ever heard of Jenny Bowman. And she doesn’t seem to think entertainers are reliable people. It took a long time to reassure her.”

“When does the boy go back?”

“On a train early this afternoon, I think”

“She got a room for him all right?”

“It connects with the suite. They moved somebody.” She frowned. The morning light slanted across her. She wore a dark blue wool dress with a plain neckline. She looked very lovely and withdrawn and unapproachable. “The aunt asked a very shrewd question, Jason. Why? It is a good question, isn’t it?”

“Embarrassingly good.”

She leaned back in her chair and looked at him. “And the boy is asking it too, I think. I
like
that boy. He has those wonderful manners and all that poise, but he isn’t a little prig. He’s very bright and aware. He knows Jenny is a friend and a patient of his father. But she’s also a celebrity. Why should she give so much time and attention to an English schoolboy?”

“Because she likes him.”

“That might be enough for the boy. The aunt isn’t quite satisfied. And I guess we can be glad Sam Dean left when he did.”

“There are other reporters.”

“She wore my raincoat and a scarf over her hair. I guess she senses it’s smart to be inconspicuous. And it gives her and the boy more privacy.”

“Did they leave early?”

“By nine, I think. Ida said the boy was talking about some sort of excursion boat that goes up and down the river, so she could see London. Can you imagine Jenny as a tourist?”

“If she’s with the boy, everything will please her.”

“She’s trying to charm him,” Lois said.

“Of course.”

“Is that entirely honest, Jason?”

“It’s entirely Jenny.”

He moved closer to the table, leaned against it and looked down at her. She looked away, blushing slightly.

“Lois. We have to talk.”

“Do we?”

“You can’t just wall it off, like everything else.”

The flush faded to pallor. She looked at him and her mouth was compressed. “There’s some mythology about these things, isn’t there? You caught me off guard, and you made me react. You certainly made me react, didn’t you? All the way. And according to male mythology, that’s supposed to turn me to putty in your hands, isn’t it? Some sort of a damned swooning conditioned reflex. But I’m not following the rules. Is that why you keep looking so baffled? I
resent
what happened, Jason. I resent the invasion of privacy. No pun intended. I resent what it does to my pride and my self-respect. You had no right. I’m not a thing. I’m a woman. I’m not something you can just walk up and use like that. You did, and I let you, and I shouldn’t have. And I won’t again. I’ve slammed all the doors, Jason.”

He looked at her in anger. “You have a very basic part of it wrong. It makes me out some kind of a damned goat. I don’t have hooves and smell of brimstone, for God’s sake! What seems to escape you, Lois, is any slight idea that it might have been something I thought very meaningful to both of …”

“Like you said in your little message? You do love me? Oh come now, Jason. Really! Isn’t that the next gambit? This is bigger than both of us? Isn’t that the way you rationalize it and hope I will, so you can convince me we should keep on with it? Aren’t we a little too grown up for that? It was a dreary little episode between a couple of relative strangers,
Jason. And nothing we can say can turn it into some sort of glowing emotional experience.”

He looked at her wonderingly. “You’re really as cold as a fish, aren’t you?”

“Challenging me? I already proved I’m not physically cold. I don’t have to prove it again, thank you.”