The Town in Bloom (21 page)

I was surprised at the roundabout way she was putting it – she who could be almost crudely blunt. Then it dawned on me she was still treating me as an innocent because she so wished me still to be one. She wanted to get me off her conscience and, in her own mind, off his too. So I let her believe what she wanted to. It needed some embarrassing inventions and I had to endure much relieved laughter from Lilian, who promised to buy me a book on sex. I thanked her, feeling deeply apologetic to my dear aunt who had, on my fifteenth birthday, presented me with valuable works by Dr Marie Stopes.

Before we dropped the subject Lilian swore she would never mention it to Rex. Then she said she was cold and we ought to go in but there was something else she needed to say – ‘It’s about Zelle. We must all of us be very kind to her. You see, I had to tell Rex what she is. I loathed doing it, because I’m really fond of her, but it was only fair to let him warn Adrian.’

So Lilian knew about Zelle. Still, I wasn’t going to admit that I did, not yet. I just said: ‘What about?’

Lilian, in her hardest voice, said: ‘I’m going to stop treating you as an innocent. Bill isn’t really Zelle’s guardian. He keeps her. Molly and I guessed almost from the beginning but we didn’t want to disillusion you.’

It seemed pointless to pretend I hadn’t known, and I was quite pleased to say Zelle had told me. I also said I couldn’t see why Adrian Crossway had to be warned, as he had his wits about him and anyway was only helping Zelle to do something worth while.

‘Rubbish,’ said Lilian. ‘He was very much attracted – he admitted it when Rex telephoned him. And he was more than grateful to be told the facts.’

‘Does that mean he’s going to drop her?’

Instead of answering, Lilian quickly looked towards the entrance to the roof. There was someone standing there, but whoever it was instantly turned and went down the stairs.

I said, horrified, ‘Was it Zelle? She does sometimes come up here at night.’

‘Anyway, she couldn’t have heard, surely? Not right across the roof, when we were talking so quietly.’

I said it was more likely she thought we were having a private conversation and didn’t want to butt in – ‘If it
was
Zelle.’

‘Molly and I must have it out with her and make her realise we like her as much as ever. You must have had a shock when she told you the truth. What about your
princesse lointaine
?’

‘In a way, I still see her as that. And she’s given Bill up now she’s interested in good works.’

‘You mean now she’s interested in Adrian,’ said Lilian. ‘But, oh God, has she? Then she really must be in love. That’s damped my spirits. Poor Zelle! Come on, we must be mad, staying up here in this wind.’

The next day I had to be at the theatre in the morning,
so that Eve could go to her hairdresser. But when I got to the office I found she had cancelled her appointment and was there, waiting to break the news; she said she hadn’t felt she could face telling me the night before. She was relieved when she heard I knew already and even more relieved when I said (trying to sell the idea to myself as well as to her), ‘I’ve no right to mind and I don’t intend to. If it hadn’t been Lilian it would have been somebody else.’

‘Quite true,’ said Eve, ‘once Mrs Crossway was determined to find grounds for divorce. Still, it’s worrying on his account. What kind of a wife will Lilian make him?’

‘Admirable, I should say. She’ll run his house well and put up with his affairs – which is what he asks of a wife, isn’t it?’

Eve gave me a surprised look. ‘That sounds ugly, coming from you. But there’s no denying it.’

I said I hadn’t meant it to sound ugly. ‘I wasn’t condemning. He is as he is and I was just accepting it.’

‘Which is what I’ve done for twenty years,’ said Eve.

She told me to take the afternoon off but did not argue when I said I’d prefer not to. I think she was as glad of my company as I was of hers.

Shortly before the curtain fell she mentioned that Mr Crossway would be coming up to see her after the matinée; so I cleared off to the Throne Room and worked on the play I was typing. I felt sure he would leave without seeing me. But he came in and closed the door. I was so at a loss that I just went on typing. He sat on the table and, after a few seconds, said: ‘Could I, at a convenient moment, have your attention?’

I looked up, met his eyes, and in the same instant felt
both agonised and completely at ease with him. The ease, the sense of intimacy, somehow increased the agony, but I managed to say quite lightly: ‘We
have
played our farewell scene.’

He smiled. ‘No, we haven’t. And as far as I’m concerned we never shall play it. We only said farewell to … to an interlude that should never have happened. And I want to say now, as I said then, that I’m deeply fond of you.’

I said: ‘You didn’t mention “deeply” before.’

‘Then perhaps absence has made the heart grow fonder. Anyway, the “deeply” was sincere. And we’re going to meet very often, I hope. Lilian is devoted to you. She doesn’t, I take it, er – know about us?’

I shook my head. ‘And never will, from me.’ I didn’t explain just what she didn’t know; it seemed better not to, as she had promised never to admit she knew anything at all.

‘Thank you. By the way, I’m considering a play which has a number of very small parts, little better than walk-ons, I’m afraid, but if it would amuse you to play one—’

I laughed, quite genuinely. ‘Would that be a consolation prize or a booby prize?’

He laughed too, then said: ‘Oh, my dear, absurd child, I’m not sure I ought not to send you away for your own good, but I should so hate to lose you. You have a genius for making impossible situations delightful. See you again very soon – that is, if you’re willing?’

I said: ‘Lilian permitting.’

‘Lilian encouraging, I assure you. She’s going to arrange a lunch party.’

He gave me one last most intimate, affectionate smile and went.

Was he again – I had never forgotten that overheard phrase of Eve’s – being kind to be cruel? I only knew I had been given back enough to live on. And dimly, dimly, I began to see a new Last Act to crown my play.

When I got back to the Club that Saturday night I went straight up to Zelle’s room wondering what had happened at her meeting with Adrian Crossway. Getting no answer to my knock, I thought she must have gone up on the roof or to have a bath; it was most unlikely she would be out as late as this. So I opened the door intending to go in and wait for her.

I switched on the light and then thought I must have come to the wrong room. This one was obviously unoccupied; not a personal possession was to be seen. I stepped back to look at the number on the door. But I had made no mistake and, when I looked again, I saw one trace of Zelle: the nail she had, against Club rules, knocked into the wall so that she could hang up her furry-eared baby faun.

I stood staring, remembering the room on the previous night with the girls strewn around, the gas fire glowing and the warm air filled with the smell of Veda toast. Now the room not only felt cold; it even smelt cold and as if a thorough cleaning had ousted all association with previous occupancy.

I went down to the village and found it in darkness.
Molly, I knew, had gone with Hal to visit some of his relations. Lilian would be with my dear; I imagined her entering some restaurant, triumphantly radiant. Was there anyone I could ask about Zelle’s sudden departure? The other three occupants of the village – now probably asleep – hardly knew her.

Then, as I switched on my cubicle light, I saw a letter from her on my dressing-table. It said she had heard Lilian talking to me on the roof, so had not been surprised to get a telegram from Adrian Crossway saying he was ‘unavoidably detained’ in the country. He had added ‘writing’ but she doubted if he would. ‘Still, if any letter does come, please hang on to it for me, in case I send you an address. But I probably won’t. In a way, I’d rather not know if he writes or not. As long as I don’t know, I can pretend he has and that he’s said something nice. He might, as he’s such a marvellous man. Love to you all. I will always remember this summer. Don’t worry about me. I can always go back to being a char. Zelle.’

I felt terribly sorry for her. And I was sorry for Lilian, too, because I knew she would be harrowed. I didn’t blame her for making sure Adrian Crossway was warned, I even admired her for it; though I couldn’t have done it myself.

When I woke in the morning Lilian still hadn’t returned. I wondered if she had already installed herself at the Regent’s Park house. No, it was more likely she was at the flat. Darling Charlotte the Harlot brought my breakfast and advised me to have a long Sunday sleep; but I had other plans ahead of me and was thankful to have them.

For the first time, I was going to the office on a Sunday. I had told Eve I wanted to finish work on the young
author’s play; the typing was done but I still had to sort and bind the copies. She had demurred until I said I wanted a job to occupy my mind. Then she handed over the keys. I did want a job and I did want to finish the play; but even more I wanted a place where I could put in some uninterrupted thinking, and I wanted that place to be the Throne Room.

It was a sunless day, cold and windy for September; suddenly it seemed out of the question to wear a summer dress. I put on my grey woollen dress and black cloak, and remembered I had worn them together for my very first visit to the Crossway.

The bus was nearly empty, as were the streets with their closed shops. And when I let myself into the foyer, the closed theatre felt most unlike its usual self. It had felt much the same during the period when it was ‘dark’, but I had never been alone in it then. Today, even after I was up in the office, the atmosphere seemed almost uncanny.

Binding the scripts took me over an hour. Then, having stacked them neatly and tidied up the Throne Room table (a sort of clearing the decks for action) I settled down to think.

First I considered my re-constructed Last Act. It was now out of the question that Rex would ever marry me – because, however unfaithful he was, Lilian would never divorce him; she had made that clear during our first conversation on the roof. So the best I could now hope for was that some of his unfaith fulness would be with me. If so, should I feel guilty to Lilian? I doubted it – and anyway, had she not almost indicated a willingness to share him with me? I felt sure she had not expected to be taken up on
that; but if she was prepared to put up with infidelity she could at least include me in the general amnesty.

I then wondered if I was fooling myself by believing he would ever feel more than a kindly affection for me. And I was sure that, even now, there was something more than that. Here in the Throne Room yesterday I had been conscious of it. And that night in the moonlit barn Samson hadn’t argued with Delilah. Anyway, not for long.

No, provided I willed it, he would – now and then – succumb. But could one build a life on that? Undoubtedly one ought not to. And undoubtedly one was – almost – determined to.

I thought how much my aunt would have disapproved of such abjectness. I was sure no Shakespearian heroine (except, perhaps, the spineless Mariana) would have put up with such a life. I felt guilty to George Bernard Shaw, whose works had so much conditioned my upbringing. I ruefully remembered myself, so splendidly independent, when I prepared for the conquest of London. But again and again I came back to the fact that I now wanted what I wanted. And it seemed one could combine abjectness with an iron determination to have one’s own way. (Perhaps Mariana wasn’t so spineless, after all.)

Still, I did try to interest myself in a nobler course of action. Suppose I arose, fearless and free, and left the Crossway? Well, apart from facing the emotional wrench, I wasn’t keen on facing being jobless and incomeless. I had already spent this year’s tiny income from my aunt’s estate. And just as the security of my childhood had left me with a terror of ‘the law’, it had also left me with a terror of being penniless. And I had lost faith in myself as an actress;
anyway, lost faith in convincing other people I was one. As for continuing as a secretary, in any job but my present one, the idea appalled me.

It then struck me that if I got what I wanted I might then lose my job. My love would have slung me out had Mrs Crossway wished him to; no doubt he would do the same if Lilian demanded it, as well she might. Tolerance towards him would hardly extend to his partners in crime, even me; I could not really count on that ‘all girls together’ attitude towards sharing her husband. And I was fond of Lilian. I no more wanted to lose her as a friend than I wanted to lose my job; and both losses seemed likely if I borrowed her husband.

Was there no way out I could face? Suddenly I saw a glimmer of one. Suppose I stayed – but renounced any further claim on him? I could still go on loving him – even my aunt would not have disapproved of that. Couldn’t I find happiness in working for him and being his undemanding little friend? I doubt if I then knew the word ‘sublimation’ but it was something near the meaning of that word which I offered to myself as an ideal.

I could – just – imagine building a life round that kind of love. And I had a good model in Eve Lester. She wasn’t in love but her devotion did amount to love, selfless love; and she probably had more lasting value to him than any other woman. Could I, in time, be so valuable? And if so, could I be satisfied?

I then offered myself compensations. There was the part he had mentioned; he would never trust me with much more than a walk-on, but even walking on would be a pleasure. And while typing the play I had just finished
binding, it had occurred to me that
I
might write a play. Suppose I left the Club and took an attic bed-sitting room and wrote in my spare time? Perhaps one day my dear would produce a play of mine and I should sit with him in the stalls as an author, not a secretary. And if his admiration for me got out of hand would I backslide from nobility? No! I would make him see we must not spoil our partnership as playwright and producer.

I had sold myself the idea: I would stay, love
undemandingly
, perhaps act, certainly write a play. I would build a life my aunt would have been proud of. (As for G.B.S., my play would be very Shavian.)
This
was the Last Act that would crown the play of my life – and go on crowning it.

I looked up at the paintings of the Crossway family. I had come to take them for granted but now – was I not going to serve their theatre as well as Rex Crossway? I gazed at his portrait, trying to see warm approval in the painted eyes. I couldn’t; they were too badly painted to do anything but stare blankly. The eyes of the barnstormer, King Crossway, were even worse painted and suggested that his interpretation of Hamlet had included a squint. But the Sargent portrait of Sir Roy was a very different matter. Here the eyes were alive; the whole face was. I had always thought Sir Roy handsome, if satanic – or did ‘sardonic’ describe him better? I felt he took a cynical view of my resolutions. I said aloud: ‘You wait and see!’ Then exaltation made me feel hungry and I decided to go out to an early lunch. Would the pub be open for meals on Sunday?

As I went into the hall of the office I faced a narrow door
which led to the roof. I had seen it dozens of times without taking any interest in it. Today, perhaps because I had recently liked the roof of the Club, I felt inclined to explore the roof of the theatre. I unbolted the door and stepped out.

This roof, unlike the used roof of the Club, gave me the sensation of being in a place where it was abnormal to be. At the front, the solid stone balustrade was too high for me to see over. At both sides, the balustrade was pillared and raised up on a plinth. By standing on the plinth I could see over and down to one of the narrow old streets below which was quite deserted.

I then decided to walk to the far end of the roof, which was very long – covering, as it did, the front of the house, the auditorium, the deep stage and the dressing-rooms. I strolled as far as I could go and then climbed up on the plinth and sat on the balustrade. There was not, as at the Club, any jutting-out floor below but I was unworried by the sheer drop to the street and proud of being so. I sat there in the grey, windy morning deliberately exulting in the mood I had worked myself up into.

Perhaps the wind chilled me. Perhaps the Sunday emptiness all around was depressing. Perhaps my high mood was a fake. I only know that it was succeeded, with shattering suddenness, by intense dejection. I saw myself as an undersized, talentless little oddity who had made a fool of herself over a middle-aged philanderer who found her nothing but an embarrassment. The fact that I thought of him as a philanderer (I considered ‘rake’, which I thought a more attractive word, but I wouldn’t let him have it) did not prevent my believing I should love him for ever; but it
made my plan to serve him selflessly far less worth while.
Nothing
was worth while. I quite simply wished I were dead.

I then told myself I wished no such thing. ‘If you did, you would jump off the roof.’ But I still went on hankering for death. Suppose one did jump, how long would it be before one was dead? I took a penny out of my handbag and dropped it, counting while it fell. It reached the pavement at the count of six. I then imagined myself jumping, counted, imagined hitting the pavement, looked down and imagined seeing my dead body. Of course, I might not die instantly: an uncomfortable thought. Still, I probably should; it was a long way down. Just six seconds and everything would be over.

I have never known if I seriously thought of jumping. All I am sure of is that I became both giddy and utterly horrified of falling. I longed to make the small jump necessary to get from the balustrade to the roof, but I felt incapable of it. All I could do was to close my eyes and grip the balustrade. And once my eyes were closed I felt even giddier.

It was then that I heard someone calling me from below. Surprise vanquished giddiness and I was able to get down onto the roof. The voice called again. I stepped onto the plinth and looked over the balustrade. At an open window of the top floor of one of the little houses on the opposite side of the street, Brice Marton was standing. (I knew he had rooms close to the theatre but I had never known exactly where.) He called loudly: ‘I want to see you – it’s some thing important. Come down to the foyer and let me in.’

I called back, ‘All right,’ and went down, wondering what he could have to tell me. When I opened the door to
him I saw he was very pale. I said, ‘Did you think I was going to jump?’

He looked at me searchingly. ‘Were you?’

‘I was considering it – but only considering what it would be like. And then I thought I was going to fall.’

‘I know. You swayed. It was terrifying.’

‘I’m so sorry. It was really quite a useful experience because I’m now sure I never shall kill myself. I knew in that awful giddy moment how furious I should be afterwards. What did you want to tell me?’

‘It can wait a bit. Just at present I want a drink.’

We went up to the office. Eve kept quite a lot of drink to offer people. Brice helped himself to whisky and suggested I should have some. As a near suicide, I felt entitled to; but it tasted filthy so I never finished it. After Brice had gulped down some of his, he said:

‘I’m not going to beat about the bush. I know why you’re unhappy. And I know where you spent the night after Adrian Crossway’s blasted garden party.’

I thought of saying I didn’t know what he was talking about but I felt sure it would be useless; so I just asked
how
he knew.

‘Lilian let it out at her first rehearsal. Oh,
she
didn’t know. But she chaffed me about being stranded with you and having to go to a hotel – you’d told her that. I guessed in time so I didn’t give you away.’

‘That was kind. Well, I suppose you were suitably shocked?’

‘Not morally shocked. But so appalled
for
you. And I could have prevented it if I’d asked you to come back with me.’

‘Only for the moment, Brice. Sooner or later I should have got what I wanted.’

‘No, you wouldn’t,’ said Brice. ‘Not once Lilian was around. You happened to catch Rex between affairs.’