The Foreigner

by P. G. Glynn

  Suzy smiled back, saying: “Today Lyons Corner House – tomorrow, The Ritz! That’s where I’ll be taking you once I’m famous and can afford it.” They were having lunch in the Salad Bowl at the Leicester Square Corner House where five shillings bought soup and a bread roll followed by as much salad as one could pile onto a plate plus a dessert accompanied by tea or coffee. She then said earnestly: “I want to start repaying you, somehow, for being the best grandmother in the world.”

  “Oh, my darling,” Marie said, tears threatening, “those are such wonderful words! But, if that’s what I am in your eyes, I need nothing further.”

  “You are that – and more. I’m so sorry, Nama, for ignoring your warnings about Aunt Lenka. I shouldn’t have ignored them. I was just … confused, back then.”

  “Life can be very confusing for us all at times,” Marie told her. “But as long as we remember to be true to ourselves, we inevitably find our way out of the confusion and become stronger in the process.”

  “There’s something else.”

  “There is?”

  “Yes – and I don’t know quite how to say it.”

  “Would it help if I mentioned that Nandad has written to me, touching on your dream and his belief that you might have been dreaming of something that happened in a previous existence?”

  “Oh, yes!” said Suzy. “You see, I don’t want to be disloyal to Mummy by thinking that she might not be my mother, really.”

  Marie told her emphatically: “Whatever the truth of your dream might be, Helena is your mother and nothing can alter that. She gave birth to you as Suzy and that’s the end of the matter.”

  “But it isn’t the end, is it, if … if people live more than once? I mean, if we do, there can never be any ending and … and someone like Hitler can be born again. He might even have been born already.”

  “That’s true.” Marie agreed. “So we just need to remember that if he has been, he’ll be wearing a different skin – perhaps that of a gnat we can swat!”

  Suzy laughed, commenting: “What an appropriate existence for him!” Then, serious again, she asked: “How do you view reincarnation, Nama?”

  “As a possibility that in many ways makes sense. I’d see it as a system of perfect justice, whereby if our misdeeds don’t catch up with us in this life they will in the next. It would also explain déjà vu – and your dream of Aunt Lenka. And there are many great minds, including Pythagoras and Schopenhauer as well as Conan Doyle and Masefield, who have testified to the transmigration of souls. But it seems to me that we each need to decide for ourselves what makes the most sense to us personally. God never meant for us to have conclusive proof about His existence, or about life after death, or indeed,” she smiled, “life after life. I think you’ll find that as time goes by you’ll develop your own beliefs – and if they’re right for you, then they’re right.”

  “That’s such a relief!” Suzy sighed. “I didn’t like thinking Aunt Lenka might have murdered me. If I was Carla … and if she did … I feel the need to grow up a bit more before coming to terms with it.”

  “You’re very wise,” Marie told her, “and such wisdom will stand you in excellent stead in the years ahead. Don’t forget to tell me your various conclusions on things when we’re dining at the Ritz.”

  “I won’t!” Suzy promised. “And now will you tell me something? It’s a question Nandad asked me to ask you, actually. Are you happy?”

  Taken aback, Marie hedged: “At this moment, sitting here with you newly restored to me from Lenka’s clutches, I’m as happy as it’s possible to be.”

  “Yes,” Suzy persisted, “but generally. Do you feel fulfilled – personally, as well as professionally?”

  Having grown more and more conscious recently of a deep yearning within her personal world, Marie felt herself blushing at Suzy’s close scrutiny. She shouldn’t still blush, should she, at the age of sixty-three? “Professionally,” she said, “I feel very fulfilled. I doubt there could be anything more fulfilling than believing that I have a hand in guiding you to a golden future.”

  “And personally?”

  “I’m not at all sure that a grandmother should have this conversation with her granddaughter!”

  “Even if her granddaughter might also be her daughter?”

  Marie couldn’t help herself smiling. “All right – I give in. On a personal level, I admit there might be something missing. I’d sooner you didn’t tell that to Nandad, though. No sense in him catching the next plane over.”

  “You know, then, that he still loves you as much as ever?”

  “Otto told you that, did he?”

  “He did, while we were dancing together on a paddle-steamer on the Danube. He also quoted some words of his mother’s, told to him apparently in the shadow of the Schneekoppe. Do you want to hear them?”

  Marie didn’t, especially. She said: “Whether I do or I don’t, you want me to, don’t you?”

  Nodding, Suzy relayed: “‘If life is indeed a play, the last acts for you and your loved ones have yet to be staged.’” She added: “That’s appropriate, isn’t it, for a family filled with actresses?”

  “Filled with?” Marie queried.

  “I know there are only two of us, so far, but who knows how many there’ll be by the time I’ve had children, grandchildren and great grandchildren? We could become a dynasty, like the Redgraves!”

  “We could indeed,” Marie agreed. “It’s early days yet, but have you any thoughts on who you might found this dynasty with?”

  “Yes,” said Suzy, “although not until I’m a fully fledged actress. I can’t imagine marrying anyone but Edward.”

  Marie smiled wistfully. “So the Brodie name will be perpetuated!”

  “In one way – not in another.”

  “How do you mean?”

  “Well … I’ve been thinking there’s another stage-name that needs perpetuating. And I’ve discussed it with Daddy as well as with Edward, who both agree with me. You’re only the last to know because I needed their agreement before going ahead. Of course I need yours too, but I wanted to offer this to you as a fait accompli, subject to your approval. Nama, how would you feel if instead of changing my name to Brodie later, I changed it now … to Howard?”

  Marie could not answer immediately. She was too busy dabbing with her hankie at the tears of happiness spilling onto her cheeks.

  +++++

  Guy felt that Marie was disappointed in him. He could not explain his feeling but it persisted. More than anything he wished that he could change the situation – that he knew how to change it.

  They had been working together now for years, during which they had made the Brodie School into the hugely successful institution it was today. He was proud of their progress – proud of the way they functioned as a partnership, her strengths offsetting his weaknesses and vice versa. Not that Marie was weak in many areas. He had thought Judith to be strong, but Marie was stronger. Was it because he was weak that he fell for strong women?

  Guy hoped not and didn’t actually believe it was. He believed that he was still in awe of Marie. Inwardly, at some deep level, he was still the boy of ten waiting for her in the wings and longing for her smile of approval. Papa and Mama had always seemed so distant and disapproving that Marie, with her ready affection, had seemed to him like a breath of heaven. She still did … but recently appeared to have been distancing him.

  He could be imagining things, though he somehow doubted it. Since Suzy’s return from Vienna he had even caught himself wondering whether Otto was back in favour. He and Marie were still married, after all, and had a whole history of shared experiences – which counted, when the chips were down. It wasn’t that the chips were down, exactly. They were just not as up as they might have been!

  With an effort of will, Guy turned his attention back to other matters. A decision must be made about this summer’s end-of-term production and ideally it should be made today. There had been enough input of possible pl
ays, enough discussion as to the merits of one against another. The time had arrived to decide whether his project was the right one – as he strongly felt it to be. But Marie felt differently …

  He found her in their shared study: a large airy room with a spectacular view over Hampstead Heath. She was seated at the desk that had once been Father’s, in his office at the Tavistock, and looked up as Guy entered. “I’m still opposed to the whole concept,” she said.

  Sitting opposite her, on the side of the desk where he used to sit opposite his father, he was conscious suddenly of being disadvantaged. So he stood up and moved his chair over to the window, through which he gazed for a few moments at the view. Then, from his new vantage point without a desk between them, he said: “You won’t need reminding that this is to be in effect Suzy’s professional debut. It will be her last performance here as a student – so for that reason, if for no other, can’t you find it in your heart to forgive Lionel Bart?”

  Guy’s phraseology made Marie smile. She supposed that she was a little unforgiving toward the man who had, as she saw it, desecrated OLIVER TWIST by setting it to music. “It isn’t as if there aren’t other musicals to reflect Suzy’s talents,” she told him. “What’s wrong with SALAD DAYS or THE BOYFRIEND?”

  “Nothing’s wrong with them – but OLIVER! is so current, with everyone humming Consider Yourself, or Reviewing the Situation – or, of course, As Long As He Needs Me at every opportunity. Coupled with which, Suzy is so perfect for the part of Nancy.”

  Marie could not deny that. Suzy could have been born to play the part, just as Marie felt she herself had been. And As Long As He Needs Me was a song that Suzy sang to perfection. Each time she heard it, the words tugged at Marie’s heartstrings. And she heard it often because songs from OLIVER! dominated the Light Programme. None of which altered the fact that OLIVER TWIST was a serious work of Dickens that should not have been trivialised by a little upstart who had no right to take a major dramatic work and turn it into a sort of circus. “We shouldn’t just be thinking of Suzy,” she asserted. “We should be considering what’s best for all our students.”

  “Tell me, then, of a vehicle that’s better for them.”

  Guy was not normally so stubborn. What had come over him? “I think SALAD DAYS would go down very well.”

  “I agree. If I hadn’t seen OLIVER! I’d probably go along with you entirely. But, having seen it and realised how well suited Hamish Atkins is to the part of Fagin, not to mention Alex Stoppard to … ” he saw her expression and said: “You still haven’t been to see it, have you?”

  “There’s no need to sound so accusing,” Marie responded, thinking how achingly like Charles he looked and wondering why he hadn’t invited her to accompany him when he went to the New Theatre. Did he no longer feel about her as he once did? “I wasn’t aware it was compulsory to witness Lionel Bart’s mangling of Dickens.”

  “His mangling?” Guy echoed, before adding: “I suppose I felt a little like that before James came up with two tickets and insisted I went with him to find out what all the fuss was about.” An idea hit him. Why hadn’t it hit him long before this? “Marie, the tickets are still like gold dust even though it’s been going since last June, but if I can obtain two will you come with me – keeping an open mind – and then judge from an informed viewpoint whether the production would be right for us?”

  “Yes, I will,” said Marie, feeling as if somewhere, somehow, a balance had been found.

  +++++

  Hugo and his family were travelling to Paddington accompanied by Aunt Lucy, who would soon be seeing London for the very first time. With Mama’s friend Nell they were about to watch Suzy Howard launched on to the professional stage. He felt ambivalent at the prospect. His little girl had matured into a beauty who, from tonight onwards, would in a sense be public property. That she had talent he didn’t doubt, for he had seen this himself right from when she sang at her first Sunday School concert.

  Even allowing for a father’s bias, he had known for a long time that Suzy had a spark setting her apart from the herd. The question was where that spark would take her. Hugo was questioning specifically how far it would take her from him.

  Since her birth he had had to learn many things – perhaps first the fact that she was not his property. Mama had helped in this lesson, though at the time he had not appreciated her help! It was because he had been unappreciative in many ways that he had yielded to Suzy’s wish. She had put it to him that by re-creating the stage-name Howard she could take it to places where Nama, through no fault of her own, couldn’t go. Hugo was resistant at first, but his daughter’s considerable persuasive powers had soon won him over. He felt that in agreeing he was somehow compensating for the harm he did after Suzy’s first trip to London, when he was so dismissive of Mama as a bad mother. His behaviour, he believed, had led Suzy to Lenka and to all the subsequent trauma.

  Thankfully that, too, was now in the past and the future was beckoning his beautiful girl. Edward Brodie was also beckoning her and, though he had tried, Hugo could not fault him since meeting Edward and seeing for himself that he was a decent young man who treated Suzy like a treasured princess.

  Hugo sighed, causing Helena to turn toward him and ask: “Are you all right?”

  Now he smiled, for he was well blessed in his wife. “Yes,” he said, “I’m fine. It’s just that … ”

  “ … Suzy has Edward now and is in London with him more than she’s in Gilchrist with us?” Daniel suggested.

  “Which is simply the way it is,” observed Robert.

  Hugo grinned at the twins, who had become adept at summing things up. “Not just the way it is,” he said, “but the way it should be. We all have to move on, don’t we? The wonder is that, while moving on, we also stay close as a loving family.”

  “Amen to that!” said Lucy, who was included so often in their plans that she felt at times more like an honorary grandparent than an aunt. “And I expect that thanks to the rising popularity of television we’ll soon be seeing Suzy in our homes as well as in cinemas and the theatre.”

  “Yes, she’ll be everywhere!” sighed Daniel, raising his eyes skyward.

  “I reckon,” said Robert, “it won’t be long before we’re wishing we didn’t have to see quite so flipping much of her.”

  +++++

  Otto, who had been installed in Claridge’s since his flight arrived late last night, felt the echo of old times. He also felt confident that Marie would be here with him by tonight. After all, the letters they had exchanged recently held more than a hint of a loving relationship.

  They had been writing to each other since just before Suzy’s visit to Vienna, when Marie wrote asking that he act as their granddaughter’s protector. Afterwards, they had of course exchanged views about his belief that Suzy might have lived before as Carla. Marie had, in fact, told him off for unsettling Suzy with his sentiments – before going on to agree with them! How typical this was of his beloved wife! How odd that, despite distance and all the time that had gone by, he was still as smitten as ever!

  Now a second generation of fledglings was preparing to leave the nest. And tonight the curtain would rise on a new star – one taking her grandmother’s name to fresh heights. When Suzy wrote, telling him of her decision, he felt its appropriateness to the roots of his being. He had wronged Marie and it was good that Suzy was in a sense righting that wrong. Her action had, Otto knew, pleased Marie immeasurably. He must think of ways to please her too and keep her happy in future. Why, he would even move to London if she insisted on retaining her job at the School!

  Yes, having learned the lessons of the past, he was ready to be the man Marie wanted him to be. At present, having urged Suzy to keep quiet about his arrival, he felt as if he were waiting in the wings for his cue. When it came, he would be there to claim his wife all over again …

  +++++

  Guy heard the knock and called: “Come!”

  In came Suzy, with Edward behind he
r. They both looked troubled. She said: “We waited until you were on your own, so that we could ask you something.”

  “I see,” he said. “Would you like to sit down?” Once they were seated in front of him, he prompted: “Well? What is it?”

  “It’s a bit awkward,” Edward told him.

  “The reason being that it’s supposed to be a secret,” said Suzy. “But we can’t quite decide whether this is a secret we should keep. So, as we can’t ask Nama, we thought it wise to ask your advice.”

  “Why can’t you ask her?”

  “Because it involves her,” responded Suzy, flashing her eyes dramatically. “You see, my grandfather is coming over from Vienna for tonight’s performance and … and wants to surprise her by … just arriving. What we can’t decide is whether Nama would want to be surprised – or whether she’d like advance warning. What do you think, Guy?”

  He was thinking that things had been going better with Marie on a personal level since he took her to see OLIVER! He was thinking that he didn’t want Otto to turn up tonight and spoil everything. He began thinking he was destined to be forever the boy waiting in the wings. Guy said, his shoulders hunching: “I’m the wrong person to consult on this one. You must just do whatever you think best.”

  +++++

  Marie was busy in the largest classroom seeing to last-minute arrangements for the VIP reception. The Very Important People of her profession were the impresarios she could tempt on to School premises, the casting directors, the TV producers now that television had caught on, the agents, the talent scouts, the newspaper critics – in short, anybody who could be instrumental in the successful launching of new actors and actresses.

  A fair bit of insincerity tended to accompany these guests to the reception held after the show and promises were often made and seldom kept. But that was an accepted hazard of the acting profession, for which allowances needed to be made if one was to stay sane.