Waiting for Orders (23 page)

Leek and potato soup followed by a. chicken casserole with braised endives took care of it very well; and the fact that I can still remember after all these years exactly what was cooked should speak for the quality of Annette’s cooking. She was inventive but her dishes were mostly of the pot-au-feu kind, simple but tasty, soups and stews. Since she cooked for so many this was understandable. Her ‘kitchen’ was two stables knocked into one big room and it had four small tables in it. These could be placed together and she could seat ten if necessary. Usually there were no more than six or seven including her and her husband Jack. They had no children. The real kitchen, where the cooking was done, was in The Lodge next door; an arched doorway connected the two. A sideboard with spirit lamps and hotplates kept the food warm. Everyone, including guests, helped themselves.

I was the only guest that evening but all the residents were there. Tom McGowan, the engraver, and his daughter Jennifer sat at the next table; Rowe, the photographer, was by himself and the Hunters were at the end.

Over the years the portraits Blag did of Jenny have made her beauty as familiar a measure of that quality as Manet’s
Olympia
or a Rembrandt portrait of Saskia. At the time, I regret to say, all I saw was a pretty woman with a nice smile and a talent for illustrating children’s books.

‘What are you going to do with yourself down here?’ she asked. ‘In Clapham you could have gone to the pictures twice a day.’

‘I was hoping he was going to help me plant out the September lettuce,’ Jack said loudly. ‘Right, sir?’

‘It was discussed,’ Blag admitted.

‘I thought that I was to be allowed to help with the lettuce,’ said Rowe and sounded as if he really meant it.

‘When I reminded you, Mr Rowe, you said you had a bad back.’

‘I’m going to be busy with a sitter for the next two days,’ Blag said. ‘I’m sure Charlie won’t mind giving you a hand, Jack.’

‘Of course,’ I said. Everyone smiled. The formalities were over. A temporary assistant gardener had been engaged. Supplies of September lettuce could now be relied upon.

‘You’re trapped,’ said Jenny; ‘mornings from nine to twelve. We can go to the pictures in the afternoon, though, if you like. I can drive us into Rickmansworth.’

‘What’s on there?’ her father asked.

‘
Scaramouche
with Ramon Novarro.’

‘Face like a rue Blanche pimp,’ he said and then turned sideways on his chair to look directly at me. He had a fierce bristly moustache and very sad blue eyes. ‘I saw a Henry Blagden on the stage just before the war. He played Marchbanks in Shaw’s
Candida.
Was that your father?’

‘Yes, sir. Did you enjoy the play?’

‘The play, no. Tiresome, I thought. Your father seemed to make sense of it. Curious.’

‘He told me that he played the long speeches as if he were trying to correct a stammer. It took the literary curse off them.’

He grinned. ‘There speaks the actor.’ He turned back to his plate.

‘Charlie’s going to be a lawyer, Tom,’ Blag said; ‘his mother thinks he ought to have a trade.’

They all laughed a little, as if in disbelief. There was both wine and water on the table. I took a little of each. When I got up to my room that night there was an envelope on the dressing table. In it there was a note with two pound notes folded inside it. The note read: ‘Congratulations on a skilful performance before a difficult audience. I’ll bet you made up that bit about taking the curse off Candida – B.’

Several days went by before I saw Blag again. His sitter was a distinguished actor-manager who lived in Henley and drove over every day in a beautiful Rolls-Royce coupé de ville, the kind of car in which only the chauffeur and front-seat passenger get rained on. Annette sent lunches of smoked salmon sandwiches and chilled Chablis across to the studio. Blag was doing preliminary sketches. The process could go on for days. In the mornings I worked with Jack Hunter, mostly in the greenhouses. These were on the far side of Mrs Cole’s house by the vegetable garden where Jack’s battle with the farmer’s rabbits was fought out. They even got under the wire into the
strawberry patch. Jack had to have his shot-gun handy. There was a broom cupboard just inside the back door of the house where Auntie Alice cleaned her golf clubs, so he kept the gun there. The boxes of cartridges he kept in a bag hanging behind the door.

The mornings weren’t all gardening. Blag had given the Hunters a four-seater Morris-Cowley in which they used to go shopping for the things that couldn’t be delivered, like blocks of ice and boxes of kippers from a fishmonger in Pinner, and wine that had to be fetched from a warehouse near Watford. Jack taught me how to lift cases of wine, as he had taught me how to use a heavy shovel, without doing myself a mischief. The afternoons were restful. I read Aldous Huxley’s
Chrome Yellow
and browsed through a stack of old
London Mercury
s. To sustain my impersonation of a law student I had brought a copy of Maitland’s
Constitutional History
found secondhand at Foyle’s, and became quite fascinated by it. And, of course, I went to the pictures with Jenny. She would have gone every day if there had been enough changes of programme within reasonable driving distance. We went in Blag’s car, the old Crossley tourer that Auntie Alice also drove when she went to her golf club. Jenny was a good driver, but the moment we got inside a cinema she became an emotional mess. At least I thought so. She sympathized with the wrong characters. When we saw
Scaramouche
, for instance, she mooned over Lewis Stone who played the wicked marquis, wept for the wooden prettiness of Alice Terry as the heroine and thought nothing at all of Ramon Novarro as the lead. When she had dried her eyes and we were back outside again she seemed quite sensible. I found it disconcerting.

The threatened invitation to supper from Mrs Cole was conveyed by Jack. I was given a choice, Friday or Saturday, so I asked his advice. ‘I’d make it Saturday,’ he said; ‘on Friday it’s only high tea with fish cakes and you get the new curate as well. On Saturday it’s always a pie from Fortnum’s.’

At first it wasn’t as bad as I feared. Of course, the recital seemed endless. Raff’s ‘Cavatina’ was added to the usual programme for that week. With the Chaminade finale Auntie Alice poured us both another glass of sherry and brought forward her sister’s whisky and soda. Grand piano lids are
heavier than they look, but Mrs Cole closed hers with surprising ease. Then, picking up her drink, she sat down with a smile facing me.

‘Such a nice cosy woman your mother,’ she said; ‘has she ever thought of marrying again do you think?’

I was speechless but Auntie Alice filled in for me.

‘That’s enough, Em,’ she said sharply. ‘We’ll have none of that. You promised.’

It gave me time to become pompous. ‘My mother is a highly successful actress,’ I said; ‘and a highly respected one. She enjoys her work. She has no intention of marrying again. She has told me so.’

‘How lucky you are to be trusted with her secrets.’

‘No more now, Em. It’s time for supper.’

The pie was all right, but I had no appetite.

The following Saturday Mr Bristow arrived. Blag sent Jack with the Morris into Pinner to meet him at the station and take him to The Angler’s Rest. Annette and I were having tea when Jack returned. The errand had puzzled him. This Bristow had turned out to be a well-spoken north-country officer type. Why did he have to stay at the pub? There was a spare guest bedroom that he could have had. Of course, there was one thing that was odd; the man had two suitcases with him and one of them, the larger, was practically empty, as if it had no more than a well-wrapped picture in it. Could it be some work that Mr Blag had been asked to identify? Bristow could be an insurance investigator, a dealer or even some kind of policeman.

‘Or a lawyer?’ I suggested.

‘He could be. Naturally Mr Blag wouldn’t want anyone like that in the house.’

But Blag had surprises for everyone that day. Towards six o’clock he came out of his studio, banged on the ironwork of the staircase to bring me out and asked if I fancied a walk to the pub. Jenny was with him, clutching a handkerchief to her breast and looking like Alice Terry on her way to the duel. As I reached the bottom of the stairs she blew a kiss, cried a strangled ‘Good luck’ and ran back to her own studio. ‘Let’s go and have a drink with Mr Bristow,’ Blag said.

D.J. Bristow was indeed an officer type, but to my mind more navy than army. He had the smooth pink complexion, the
tight blue serge suit and the starched collar with the skinny black tie. He was sitting at a table in the rose garden with a glass of beer in front of him and he stood up when he saw us approaching. He and Blag shook hands as if they had met before. I was introduced as one of the London Blagdens. Bristow smiled and nodded. ‘Son of Henry? Yes, I thought so.’ He turned to Blag. ‘Is this young man your photographer?’

‘No, Charlie’s here to lend moral support. The photographer’s waiting inside, all ready to go to work making the copies.’

Bristow pursed his lips. ‘Well now. I hope you’re not going to be too disappointed, Blag. I was able to bring only one of the pictures. The Town Clerk was very helpful but it was one or none. You see, these photographs are, in a sense, part of the furniture of the council chamber. They are also of some historical significance. Our man held office as a councillor for eighteen years and there are five group photographs with him in them, the last one dated eighteen ninety-five. He was the architect of the Preston town hall annexe completed in that year. I chose that one to bring because it’s the sharpest and because he has more facial hair in the earlier ones.’

‘I’m sure you did your best.’

‘It wasn’t easy. I had to promise the Town Clerk that I would have it back in the Town Hall council chamber by Monday morning. And I had to promise that it would not be removed from its frame. It’s glazed of course.’

Blag sighed. ‘Well, let’s go inside and have a look at it.’

Rowe was waiting for us in the oak-panelled dining-room. Jack was in the Morris outside. Bristow went upstairs to get the picture.

‘It’s framed and glazed,’ said Blag, ‘and must stay that way. Mr Bristow will not let it out of his sight.’

‘I’ve got a polarizing filter that should take care of the glass,’ Rowe said; ‘and if the filter doesn’t work I’ll manage somehow. Is it really valuable?’

‘Only to me. You see …’ He broke off. Bristow had returned. The picture was wrapped in corrugated paper and tied up with tape from a lawyers’ office. The frame inside was about twenty inches by twelve made of ebonized hardwood with gilt beading. A yellowing white mount surrounded the photograph which showed the steps up to the portico of a town
hall. Lined up on the steps and standing in two ranks of nine were eighteen gentlemen all formally dressed for the occasion. Some of those in frock coats had mutton-chop whiskers. The rear rank stood two steps above the front so that all were clearly visible. Their names were inscribed in copperplate style in two ranks along the mount below.

‘Which is the one we are interested in?’ asked Rowe.

Blag reached out and pointed to the second figure from the right in the front row. ‘That’s the chap,’ he said; ‘Councillor T.C. Everard. I’d know that face anywhere, wouldn’t you? Now let’s see if you can blow the good man up. Shall we, Rowe? Eh?’

He was so excited that he could scarcely get the words out. Rowe and Bristow seemed infected too. They bundled the picture back into its wrapping and took it out to the car where Jack was waiting. As they piled into it Blag remembered me and looked back. ‘Have a strong drink, Charlie,’ he said. ‘We’ll see you back at the studio.’ They drove off.

I didn’t want a drink but I wanted badly to talk. It was six thirty on a Saturday, a matinee day then. My mother would be having a sandwich in her dressing-room at the theatre. The Angler’s Rest had a phone box in the hall. I had the stage door phone number written in my pocket diary, for emergency use.

When my mother discovered that there was no emergency she was cross but prepared to admit that what I had to report was of interest.

‘So, it wasn’t the piano tuner she had a romp with, but some sparky young architect from the town hall.’

‘It could be.’

‘Who did you expect it to be, the Prince of Wales? I say lucky old Blag. He’s found the father he always wanted, the one who wasn’t a carrier of Huntington’s disease. What do you say?’

‘I just hope so.’

‘What’s wrong, Charlie? Speak.’

‘I think the Lautrec poster of Bruant looks more like Blag than that man in the photograph, Councillor Everard.’

‘Well, let me tell you something, Charlie. Blag once asked his mother why his middle name was Everard. She told him that it had been a mistake, a clerical error by the parish clerk who had bad eyesight. She had wanted his middle name to be Erard after the French piano manufacturers from whom her
father had bought her first piano. What’s more, the late Mr Cole had served his apprenticeship at Erard’s London works. Everard is only an old north-country spelling of the name Edward. Of course she could have been covering up with the wrong spelling story. Are you listening, Charlie?’

‘Yes, mother. Mrs Cole would be capable of anything.’

‘Yes, but don’t you start getting mixed up in Blag’s or Jenny’s love lives or start taking sides. Come home if you like. We’ll manage. But don’t start thinking things over and dreaming up stories like your brother. Promise?’

‘All right. But Jack says Blag wants to do a portrait of me.’

‘I’m sure he’ll make you look exactly like your father. Be good, darling.’ She hung up.

I did not see Blag again for over a week. Jack said that after Bristow had left with his precious picture Blag and the McGowans had gone up to London, on business. They were staying at Brown’s Hotel, all three of them. I knew about Tom McGowan’s business. He had been elected a member of the Academy that year and a Bond Street gallery was giving him a show. The picture-framer favoured by the gallery was widely disliked by etchers and engravers for his conceit. The man believed, according to Tom, that a picture frame could have as much as or even more artistic importance than the work it adorned. He looked forward to a hard struggle with the bastard for the integrity of his work. Jenny? Jack thought she would be seeing that publisher of hers, and of course the new films.