Not Without You (51 page)

‘Love – oh, Sophie, love—’ It’s Mum. She bursts into the room, carrying a fistful of shopping bags, dumps them on the floor and stares at me, holding both her hands to her face in shock. ‘Look at you,’ she says. ‘Oh, my dear girl. Sophie …’

She rushes over and hugs me, and I scream out in pain because she’s grabbed my shoulder. I lean back, shaking my head, and my eyes fill with tears. ‘No,’ I say to her. ‘No, no.’

Poor Mum, she doesn’t know what to do. She flushes red, then stands back and turns impatiently to Patrick, who’s by the bed. She looks at him angrily.

‘Hello?’ she says almost rudely. ‘I’m Sophie’s mother. Who—’

‘I’m Patrick, ma’am, I’m a friend of hers,’ Patrick says, holding out his hand, and my mother stiffens for a moment, then melts.

‘Of course you are! How lovely to see you,’ she says in her best Sybil Fawlty voice, clasping his hand in both of hers. ‘Well, well! Patrick! How nice of you to come and see her. Are you in town for a film?’

‘Yes, we had a premiere last night and I’m staying here too. Lucky coincidence.’ He’s so polite. He glances round. ‘I’ll leave you guys—’

‘Oh, don’t go because of me!’ Mum cries. ‘Please stay!’

‘I’m going to try and make my flight. I would stay otherwise but I think Sophie’s probably pretty tired.’ He nods at me briefly. ‘Take care of yourself, OK, Sophie? You hear?’ and with a hand raised at my mother he’s gone.

I watch the door close and smile at her, though I want to cry. She comes and sits on the bed next to me. ‘You poor thing. Oh, my goodness, you poor thing,’ she says, patting the coverlet.

I stare at her. The vision in my right eye is cloudy – it comes and goes. I blink in annoyance. ‘Tell me what happened,’ she says, brushing out the creases in her linen trousers with one plump hand. Her rings cut into her tanned, freckly skin. I try to tell her, but she doesn’t understand me. I write it down and she shakes her head as she reads the scrawling script, frowning at me, then glancing away. She can’t really bear to look at me and she doesn’t know what to do. There’s nothing we can do to help each other. Eventually she stands up, and goes over to the pile of plastic bags she’s dropped on the floor.

‘Well, you look better than you did on Saturday, love. Last time I saw you I wouldn’t have known you. I’ve been up since Saturday, you know. Staying with Julie. She’s in Teddington. I would have come up again on Sunday but you were just coming out of it and there didn’t seem any point.’

‘Course not.’

We’re both silent.

‘Well, I did a bit of shopping on the way. Here you are,’ she says, thumbing through the layers of plastic and handing me a Gap bag. I wedge it between my legs and open the drawstring top. There’s a pink vest with a ribbon around it, and matching pink checked pyjama trousers with the same ribbon. ‘For you, darling, in case you run out of nighties and … other things.’

‘Thanks, Mum,’ I say, holding them to me. My eyes fill with tears and I remember again that it hurts when I move the muscles in my face to cry, and I try not to, but it doesn’t work. She watches me.

‘Are you crying? Oh, you poor thing,’ she says, coming close to hug me again, but she stops in front of me, then pats my good shoulder and moves away. ‘Now,’ she says. ‘What do you want me to do? Do you want a bath? Shall I wash your hair? It’s a bit dirty.’

I can’t help giving a snort of laughter out of one side of my mouth. ‘No, Mum. It’s fine. Not supposed to get it wet.’

‘Oh.’ Her restless hands flutter back into her lap. She looks at her watch.

‘You don’t have to rush back to Teddington. We’ll get you a room,’ I say.

She doesn’t understand, so I write it down, and she smiles and says, ‘Oh, I’d love to, dear. I won’t stay tonight though – I’m off to see
Jersey Boys
with Julie a bit later. She got a two-for-one deal in the
Mail
last week. Great seats.’

I write down,
So glad I nearly got murdered so you could catch up with shows in the West End!

She reads this and looks upset, for a fleeting second. ‘Oh, Soph dear, don’t be like that. Anyway, Patrick said you needed to rest, didn’t he? You know I was never any good with you when you were ill. I’ll come back tomorrow.’ She pats the silky coverlet again.

We’re quiet together in the room. I don’t have anything to say to her. I remember the silence in her spotless kitchen, how I couldn’t get away fast enough.

It’s not that I want her to stay, because honestly, I don’t. I remember back to when I was about ten, and I’d been in bed for two days with the flu. Drinking Lucozade and listening to fairy stories on my shiny silver tape-cassette player, curled up in bed feeling very sorry for myself. The third day though, there was an audition for an ITV children’s series, down in Bristol. Mum got me up, bundled me in the back of the car, wrapped in a duvet, and outside the studios she slapped some blusher on me, wriggled me into my new shoes and cute pinafore dress and sent me in there to audition, raging temperature, sweats, wobbly legs from not eating for two days, and all. I didn’t get the part, of course. The producers must have thought I was a weird little girl.

I look at her now, her freckled face with the coral lipstick smile, her perfectly highlighted ash-blonde hair. Her clothes so neat, her handbag shiny and new. She’d always have tissues in her bag, always have lipstick and a compact to hand. She taught me so much about being on time, not complaining, getting on with it and working hard. She taught me not to need anyone. She was trying to give me what she couldn’t have. She did try, I know that.

She says suddenly, ‘I heard from Deena the other day.’

I look up. Nod. ‘Yes?’

‘She said to say hello. She told me that George director fellow you were seeing turned out to be a nasty piece of work. You never mentioned. I hope he wasn’t nasty to you.’

George. Another lifetime. I shake my head and mumble, ‘Maybe it all worked out for the best.’ She looks pleased.

‘So do you think you might work with Patrick Drew again? Or do something … do something different after this film?’

I shrug. ‘Don’t know,’ I say. ‘Don’t know if they can sort this out yet.’ I point to my face.

Mum looks aghast. ‘Really?’

I nod again and write,
My cheek/collarbone/jaw fractures might not heal. Cheek and jaw need ops. Will have scars on face for a while.

She stands back and looks at me. ‘But what will you do?’ she says.

I shrug again. ‘No idea,’ I say, and it doesn’t feel that bad. When she’s gone, I run my hands over the Gap pyjama set, stroking the comforting fleece. Somehow that makes me feel much worse. I cry then, trying not to move my swollen mouth so it’s just fat tears, dropping onto the soft cotton.

I am strong

AFTER I LEFT the hospital, I said goodbye to Patrick. What a nice young man – when you’re my age, you can resort to clichés. He reminds me of Rose. He really doesn’t care what people think of him. I don’t believe he should be a film star at all, though it’s probably why he’s so successful – he can cope with it.

‘May I walk with you a while?’ he asked. He pointed to his feet. ‘I got my sneakers.’

I laughed, put my hand on his arm. ‘You lovely boy. Thank you, but I’ll be all right. I want to go by myself.’ Having been brave once I rather wanted to try carrying on being brave. ‘And I’d like to clear my head.’

‘She’ll be OK, you know,’ he said, though I rather thought he was talking to himself. And I don’t know yet that she will be.

We bid farewell and I walked. I walked and walked for what seemed like a long time, through Mayfair, towards Soho. You see, I hadn’t been to London since I came back home for the
Helen of Troy
premiere. As I waited for the traffic lights to change I stood still and counted it on my fingers. Fifty-four years. Almost unbelievable and yet, with my life, everything seems to have taken place in the past, a long time ago through a glass darkly, or whatever the saying is. I was nineteen when they came to Central School of Speech and Drama, Mr and Mrs Featherstone, and sat in on our Shakespeare class, and talked afterwards, very seriously, to Hermia Gauntly, my vocal teacher. I remember watching her, the disdain for them writ so large over her expressive face; she couldn’t hide it.
Film people
.
Vulgar, Hollywood types
. In the mezzanine above, we stood and watched her.

‘They’re casting for a film, someone said,’ Clarissa, my flatmate, had whispered, pushing her black ballet pumps over her slender feet: ballerina fashion was all the rage that winter. ‘They’re looking for a new star. Someone fresh. Someone who can act.’

‘Someone who can act, in Hollywood?’ I laughed.

It’s funny, I remember that so clearly. I remember Clarissa’s big satchel, borrowed from her brother, a rugby player called Mike. I remember her shoes and the windows and the smell of beeswax polish. All these little details. My disdain matching Miss Gauntly’s. And then they called me over, and Clarissa said she’d wait, but by the time they’d finished with me she’d given up waiting and gone home and I emerged alone, head throbbing with promises, into the evening gloom.

My legs are awfully tired, and my brain is gently humming; though the quiet streets of Marylebone are surprisingly empty, when I cross Regent Street and head into Soho I’m terrified again, until I find a quieter route, one that takes me through Georgian townhouses and deserted, dirty back streets that I start to recognise. It’s funny how the city feels the same, underneath it all, but yet it looks so different. Bright awnings and signs everywhere. Black tarmacked roads covered in yellow and white markings, information screaming at you wherever you look: it is overwhelming. Of course, I’ve seen it on the news, on television dramas. I watched the Royal Wedding looking for signs of old London, not the first sight of the bride. But to be here is very different. I’m pleased to see Bar Italia is still standing. It looks exactly the same. The nights we spent there, arguing about the stage, Olivier versus Gielgud, whether the National Theatre was a Good or Bad thing, what Art meant and how it tied into Commerce. Goodness, how repulsive we must have been! I wonder what happened to Clarissa Mackintosh, whom I last saw in the Hampstead flat off Flask Walk, as I hugged her goodbye and promised to be back by Christmas. And Richard, my Central boyfriend, who was big and gentle and fumbling, and with whom I think I would have been perfectly happy. Richard acted for a while; I used to hear his voice on the radio, afternoon plays and all that. But I’ve no idea where he or Clarissa are now. Perhaps I could find out. Perhaps, now I’ve broken out of my own prison, there are many things I could do.

I wish Rose was here. I determine to myself that I’ll bring her back here, soon. I’m not afraid any more. In this huge sea of humanity I see something important – I don’t matter very much.

This morning at about eleven, Melanie had picked me up from Paddington station – Andrea retired years ago now and Melanie is my agent, a curious woman, very keen and excitable, eager to please but oh, my! so young. In my day, agents were fat old men who ate and drank a lot, not eager young girls who wave mobile phones around and wear high heels and carry coffee in paper cups. In the taxi – they’re the same, that’s good to know – trundling the short distance to the Dorchester, she asked me why I was here, why I had to come down and help Sophie. I couldn’t tell her, didn’t feel it was her business yet.

I remember her curious dark eyes, looking to check I hadn’t noticed anything about her. Desperately uncertain, yet her voice was strong and clear. I had shivered as grey buildings scrolled past us, cars moved in thick ribbons alongside us. I jumped at little things, not quite able to believe I was in London again, after all these years. I was beginning to think how awkward this was, maybe a mistake.

‘You know,’ Melanie said nervously, as we approached the hotel. ‘If you ever wanted to work again – I could put the word out. People would fall over themselves.
My Second-Best Bed
– they still haven’t found anyone to play old Anne. I should say, the senior Anne. The film’s on hiatus till they know what’s happening with Sophie. They’d love to have you. And there’s a Miss Marple just starting, they need a—’

‘Me? No, dear girl,’ I said gently. ‘I don’t act any more.’

‘I know you don’t but I thought I should ask you anyway,’ she said boldly. ‘You see, I might never meet you again, Miss Noel. Don’t you miss it?’

She sounded genuinely curious and so I said, ‘I’ve never really thought about it. I left Hollywood a long time ago. I didn’t ever want to go back.’

‘Just because you’re not there doesn’t mean you can’t act anywhere else.’ Melanie sounded suddenly embarrassed. ‘Forgive me. But you’re – you’re seventy-five. That’s not old.’

‘It is old.’ I can’t help laughing.

‘It’s not, not to an eighty-year-old. Oh, don’t worry. I was told by my boss that I mustn’t pressurise you. Just remember the door’s open if you want it.
Upstairs Downstairs
, that sort of thing. Lady Bracknell—’ She waved her hands vaguely and I watched her. ‘There’s lots you could do, you know. People remember you.
A Girl Named Rose
is my mum’s favourite film ever. If she knew you were appearing in something on the Beeb, well, she’d cancel all her plans for the next six months just to make sure she didn’t miss you. Here we are.’

I walked north out of Soho towards Bloomsbury, tiring a little. I recalled my farewell to Sophie.

‘
You should come back to your old house some day,
’ she had said.
‘Come and see me.’

And I had said, ‘
Maybe. Maybe I will.
’

At Goodge Street I got onto the Tube. That was terrifying, after all these years. Some kind girl gave me her seat, and I sat clutching my handbag on my knees as we swayed in time through the dark tunnels and the near-soporific commuters hung onto handles, scanning their
Evening Standard
s. I looked down at my hands, peered at my face in the glass opposite, as the seats cleared.

I didn’t know what I was doing, or whether I should be doing it, but I knew I had to try.