The Facts of Life (21 page)

The première of
Job
in Tompion College chapel, their only previous excursion, had been an unmitigated disaster. Encouraged by Thomas’s enthusiasm for the little he had heard and by an offer from the university’s operatic society to stage Edward’s next work, he had pressed on to finish the piece. Working was not easy. When Miriam cried, the sound could not be escaped anywhere in the house and Sally’s efforts to silence her only added to the distraction. Sometimes, guiltily, he was driven to lie to her. He would ring from the studio, saying he and the orchestra had to work too late to make it worth his while coming home, then he would work alone through much of the night, piecing together his cantata in the relative bliss of a soundproofed rehearsal room. Once he found he had broken the back of the task he laboured on like a man possessed, dodging out of his less urgent film responsibilities. Often, if he were at home, he would obligingly take Miriam a bottle when her cries woke him in the night. If she refused to go back to sleep after a feed, he would sit up with her, working on the score at the table where Sally changed the baby’s nappies.

From the day
Job
was finished to the evening of its performance was a brief idyll which Edward now looked back to as a lurid false dawn. He remembered penning the last chords and hurrying out past the terrace, where Miriam lay gurgling in her pram. He remembered Sally calling up to him from where she was gardening on the other side of the stream.

‘Down here!’

He remembered triumphantly waving the manuscript and her waving smilingly back, hands black with peaty earth. He had paddled across, heedless of soaked shoes and trousers and her half-angry shout, to seize her and seal his deliverance with a stolen kiss. He remembered the scene with the unsparing exactitude of a man reliving a mountaineering accident or car crash.

‘If I had placed my feet here instead of there … If I had turned the wheel thus instead of so … If I had stayed, wise-cowardly, at home …’

For those days of celebration and hectic preparation had indeed seemed a deliverance, not only from the task he and Thomas had set themselves, or from the lingering fear that his prostituting himself at the studios represented an irreversible downward step, but also from dread.

He had begun living as one under a curse, his dead sister’s hand heavy on his shoulder, her condemning shadow thick across the empty page before him. He was haunted by her image, fancying time and again that he saw her amid the familiar faces around him, sitting in the third row of violas, quietly spooning soup into her fat face in a corner of the commissariat, watching him, soberly dressed amid a flurry of suggestively spangled chorines. And now it was as if the curse had lifted; he had served out a terrible penance and, with the careful wording of a dedicatory page in her loving memory, consigned her to oblivious rest.

Job
was not what the university singers had expected. Used to Sullivan and Donizetti, they had planned to be adventurous, but not
this
adventurous. They were game in their attempt, polite as missionaries facing the nightmarishly inedible. The counter-tenor was excellent as Lucifer, as was the baritone singing Job – even though he was much too young and had a controlled perfection of tone that smacked more of English church polyphony than Old Testament rage. Job’s daughters, however, were tall and hearty as county tennis champions. They sang flat whenever Edward persuaded them to drop their winsome smiles and, in lieu of the decadent luxury he had envisaged, the society’s costume mistress decked them out in matching outfits of a drab curtain material which could never have been attractive, even when new. The orchestral players were hopelessly lax about turning up for rehearsals, thinking rowing practice or an essay crisis sufficient excuse. Occasionally they seemed to understand Edward’s meaning and produced an approximation of the sound he had sought, but in the performance they were hopelessly ragged, and Lucifer’s triumphant bergamask was no more threatening than an amateur marching band.

On the evening of the performance, the chill in the chapel affected the audience’s concentration as badly as it did the singers’ tuning and the applause was more grateful than heartfelt. Edward and Thomas were not summoned for a last curtain call, since the first one was barely over before audience members had started re-tying scarves and stamping life back into numbed feet. Fulsome praise from the chaplain stung like the harshest criticism since he alone saw fit to offer it, and the celebratory dinner laid on at Thomas’s house soon degenerated into a bibulous, self-pitying wake. Sally knew better than to enthuse.

‘It deserved better,’ she pronounced carefully. ‘Nothing could succeed in that cold, and those stupid rugger players shouting outside in that quiet bit didn’t help much.’

‘Ghastly,’ Thomas had said. ‘The most humiliating experience of my life. Never again. Never.’

His words fell on Edward’s ears like an unanswerable accusation. They did not speak for days afterwards and when he eventually wrote to Edward, enclosing a belated, not unkind review of the piece from the
Rexbridge Chronicle
, it was without apology. The cantata’s corpse lay unburied between them, unregarded, undiscussed. The strain of this estrangement told on Edward’s nerves for, after weeks of respite, he found the memory of his sister returning to haunt the periphery of his conscious and sleeping thoughts, like a resurgent stain on a newly whitewashed wall. He had the ill-fated score bound and placed it on a high shelf before throwing himself into the overdue task of composing music for a new spy thriller, set on board a transcontinental express.

His cantata’s failure was all the more galling for his continuing success as a screen composer. Jerry Liebermann – who naturally had not found time to attend the performance, but had sent a telegram and asked keenly after the work’s reception – felt that his protégé had learnt a painful lesson and had now rid his system of any ambition to become a ‘proper’ composer. He commiserated indignantly, but his relief was plain.

Myra Toye made overt the depressing truth that Jerry had left unspoken.

‘Heard about your lousy première, Teddy,’ she said wryly. ‘I suppose this means you’re stuck with us after all.’

This jibe hurt him in a way she had never intended. More than anyone, more than Thomas, more, he guiltily accepted, than Sally, she had always seemed to be the one who understood the dreadful artistic compromise he was making. He had felt she had faith in him. Now he saw that he had laid too deep an interpretation on their sketchy exchanges, that she had been remembering to mention
Job
as she remembered to mention a cameraman’s prize roses. Even had it not been mere politeness, a show of interest, she too had now given him up for lost.

Eventually, relations with Thomas approached their former, comfortable level. Edward had been sure that his gift of these tickets to see a revival of
Peter Grimes
was meant only in generosity.

‘Sally hasn’t been getting out nearly enough and I think it’s frustrating her hugely,’ Thomas had said. ‘A night on the town will do her good. Do you think you could find a babysitter who can stay the night?’

Now that his nose was being so thoroughly rubbed in another young man’s genius, however, Edward was not so confident of Thomas’s kindness.

‘
Home
?’ yelled the chorus, as Grimes dragged his new apprentice out into the storm with him, ‘
Do you call that home
?’ The orchestral tempest brought the first act to a sudden blaring close and the audience to a frenzy of applause and cheering. Edward’s hands remained on his knees. He stared at them. They might have been made of lead. As the chatter swelled around him, he stood, badly in need of an interval drink.

‘Say what you like,’ a skinny redhead behind him protested to his companion. ‘I had goosebumps. My hair was on end. Thrilling. Say what you like.’

Sally remained in her seat, studying the cast list. Realising he was waiting for her, she shut the programme and slipped it into her handbag. Her eyes were shining. Tactful though she might try to be later, she couldn’t hide the music’s immediate effect on her.

‘Well?’ she asked, playing for time. ‘What did you think?’

To his astonishment, Edward found himself on the brink of tears. There was a pricking in his eyes and his lips felt full and heavy. He shrugged, hardly daring to open, his mouth.

‘I –’ he began. ‘What about you?’

‘Wonderful. You know what a coward I am. I mean, coming up to London and going out to dinner and everything’s lovely but, well, frankly, I was dreading the opera and –’ She broke off, laughing at herself. ‘It’s such a surprise. It’s like some incredible
film
!’ She squeezed his arm tenderly. ‘Thank you.’

‘Why thank me?’ he heard his tone freeze over. It seemed to be beyond his control.

‘Well, I …’ She faltered. Surprised at him. Embarrassed. ‘I suppose it’s dear old Thomas we should thank but it’s made nicer having you here to share it with.’

‘You don’t think I’d have bought us tickets for
this
?’

‘Well wouldn’t you?’

‘I’d have taken you to Mozart.
Così
or
Figaro
. Something – something purer for you to start with.’

‘Don’t be so bloody patronising,’ she laughed. ‘I told you. I’m loving it. What’s
wrong
with you suddenly?’

‘Nothing.’

‘Honestly, Edward, there’s no point making comparisons with
Job
. Even an ignoramus like me can see the aims are totally different.’

‘Who said anything about making comparisons. I’m not comparing. Are you?’

‘I do believe you’re jealous!’ she said. ‘Poor darling. I hadn’t thought. How
awful
!’ And then she made the mistake of laughing at him.

He did not slap her particularly hard, but there were some steps ahead of them and he caught her off balance so that she tumbled backwards. A woman in a red dress darted forward to catch Sally’s shoulders and her male companion seized Edward firmly by the arm, holding him back and exclaiming something indignantly chivalrous. Edward stopped struggling and, feeling him relax, the man let him go. The crowd which had gathered briefly around the ugly little scene passed on, murmuring disapproval, but Edward only had eyes for Sally.

‘Christ! I’m sorry,’ he said.

She stared at him for a moment then gave a little snort and stood, saying, ‘So am I. Let’s get out of here. People are staring.’

She let them skip the last two acts so that he could buy her dinner early. She thawed with the second glass of wine and chatted lovingly about Miriam, the things she would like to do to The Roundel once they had the money and what Dr Pertwee had said in her latest letter. He admired the brightness of her eyes in the candlelight and drank in the warmth of her forgiveness, but as she slept in the car beside him on the way home, he kept remembering the look of horrified surprise she had thrown him in the second before his slapping hand had made contact with her cheek. It was a look in which he could read just how fast he was falling. And how far.

Edward had warned Sally that the party to celebrate the completion of
Desire
would be nothing very glamorous – drinks, canapés, a few speeches, a few famous names – but she had seemed quite excited on receiving Jerry Liebermann’s personal invitation, immobile as she had become in the social mire of young motherhood. On the evening however, she suddenly cried off. Their usual babysitter, a sensible girl from a neighbouring farm, had already arrived but Miriam was found to have developed a temperature and Sally was scared of leaving her.

As he drove to the studios alone, Edward worked himself up into a rage. Miriam was forever having slight temperatures. In his opinion babies’ colds and minor fevers were necessary to the development of their immune systems, and he saw no reason to make such a fuss. He had bought Sally a new dress for the party, picked out the previous week and, when he said it seemed a shame to have gone to so much expense, her brisk dismissal of his present wounded him.

‘It’s just a dress,’ she said. ‘I can dress up for you
any
time. We don’t need to go out for me to do that.’

He knew he was being unreasonable, that of course the baby must come first, but he could not help feeling that Miriam had been coming first for rather too long now and was in danger of assuming a permanent supremacy.

Sally had, it struck him, made no great effort to lose the weight pregnancy had forced her to gain and, now that she was no longer working, she spent less and less effort on her appearance. At pains to see that Miriam never left the house looking anything less than a diminutive princess, she sometimes neglected to brush her own hair or teeth in the morning. She slouched about the house in her gardening slacks and seemd to have developed an objection to putting anything on her face but soap and water, so that she often looked drawn and tired. His view of her appearance was not helped by the inevitable comparisons he drew with the women about the studio – even
Gowns By Sylvia
, who was built like a shot-putter, was always turned out to her best advantage.

Sally had already put on the new dress when she slipped across the landing to take a last look at Miriam. Her whole manner seemed to rebel against its understated elegance, and remembering this as he drove, Edward reflected vindictively that it was sometimes a pity she was not more her mother’s daughter.

Once at the party, his anger was initially overlaid with excitement at the praise Jerry Liebermann and his colleagues lavished on the
Desire
score, topped up with more anger that she was not there to hear it. He drank several strong drinks in quick succession, then stood glowering from the sidelines as dancing began. Still sufficiently sensitive to know that his mood could be doing nothing to enhance the gathering, he took another drink and pushed out through the commissariat doors and on to the terrace. Cooler air sobered him slightly and he was wondering whether he should telephone Sally to apologise for having left with so perfunctory and bad-tempered a farewell, when the star of
Desire
came out too. Looking like a vestal virgin, with complicated hair and tasteful white and silver drapery, Myra Toye slipped a cigarette between her lips then swore with deadly clarity as her lighter failed to produce a flame. She saw him and walked over.