A Postillion Struck by Lightning

by Dirk Bogarde

  “I expect,” he said, clearing his throat (he had been thinking too), “they’ll send you to the Far East when the time comes. But that’s pretty safe really. I don’t think we’ll have much trouble there because the Americans are bound to come in with us sooner or later … usually later, like last time, but they’ll come in, of that I’m sure. And with them there and Singapore, you’ll have a pretty easy time. Gareth may get his coconut.”

  The Far East was light million years away to me sitting there in the falling dusk. I even felt that I would prefer Yorkshire. “Anyway,” said my father, starting to collect the cushions and empty glasses, “your war won’t be like mine. Mine was all defensive. Ten yards back and forth a year in the mud. This is an Attacking War. I don’t think you’ll have much time for boredom … once it starts again it’ll all be over before you can say Jack Robinson … unless I’m very much mistaken.” He started up the bank towards the house, calling to the dog.

  My mother rolled up her sewing, closed the workbasket and pulled the jacket tightly round her shoulders.

  “It suddenly gets awfully cold. It’s far too early to sit out yet. But so pretty. Bring up the other cushions and that ash-tray, it will look so sordid …”

  We walked slowly up to the house. The sky was velvet blue. A star was up. The air still. A moorhen, startled by our steps, hurried away on green legs to the water. When we got to the lawn my mother stopped and took a deep breath. “How lovely it is!” she said. “It’s going to be a fine day tomorrow, you see. Just as well: I’ve got six rows of Winter Greens to get in: should have done them last week … never mind.” She reached out suddenly, pulled me to her and kissed me hard. “Just you think of your poor old Ma tomorrow: I’m really past the age.” I knew that it was her way of saying goodbye. There was to be no fuss in the morning.

  There wasn’t. Elsie called me punctually at seven-thirty with tea and a biscuit and I lay comfortably for a moment watching the shadows of the rowan tree flicker across the ceiling. Then remembered. And fear flooded into me like a fast running tap.

  There was nothing at all to pack save my washing gear, one towel, a pair of pyjamas all in an empty suitcase for the return of my Civilian Clothes, according to the bit of grey paper which had come with something called the Movement Order. In the Morning Room everyone was very bright and cheerful. My mother brilliant in a cotton summer dress. No one spoke of War, of Army or Soldiers. Breakfast was a sort of Hell.

  At the car we stood about awkwardly. My father stuck the empty case into the boot: the light across the Common sharp and clear. Cobwebs dew-silvered. I said something about it going to be a perfect day for Winter Greens and climbed in. No lasses, no final embraces: my mother called out cheerfully, perhaps too loudly, “Bye darling!” and my sister, holding Rogan in her arms, waggled one of his forelegs into a wave. I didn’t look back.

  Nor did I try to speak until we had passed “The Anchor” on Scaynes Hill. Then I fumbled about and lit a cigarette.

  “I’m sorry …” I said. My father looked troubled.

  “What about?”

  “Well… The Times … you know …”

  “Oh that!” he sounded relieved. “You don’t have to worry about that now, my dear. Can’t force people, you know. It doesn’t matter.”

  “But you minded?”

  “Oh … just a bit…”

  “Well I’ll try and make up for it, in the Army …”

  “I know you will. I don’t mind what you do in life as long as you do your best. That’s all that matters.”

  “I promise.” We drove on through a spinney of greening larches.

  “You’re not worried about being killed, are you?” He sounded as if I wasn’t.

  “No! Goodness no—”

  “And you know about the VD thing, naturally … that’s as bad as any Jerry bullet…”

  “Yes I know about that. I’ll take care.”

  “And keep your writing going, letters, a diary that sort of thing. I did.”

  “And painting. I’ve slipped a tin of watercolours into my coat.”

  “Excellent. There is an awful lot of sitting about in the Army, you’ll find… fifty per cent boredom, someone said. It’ll be good to have something like that to do, you’ll see.”

  In the train he rifled through his briefcase to find his Times and brought out a small green sketch-book. He chucked it across to me. “Useful size. I had one. Just fits into your haversack or a pocket. You might find it handy.”

  We parted at Victoria with no words and a rough hug. I got a taxi to Wyndhams where I left the empty suitcase with Doris at the stage door and then met Vida outside Warners. She was wearing a hat with a white rose and a veil. It didn’t suit her, and she knew it. We took arms and walked down to Lyons on the corner and the “Olde Vienna Café” which we liked because it was full of red plush, gilt, and newspapers stuck on bamboo sticks. It was also cheap and you could have as much coffee as you liked if you bought a bit of gateau.

  “They’ll cut all your hair off, ducky, you know that of course. And to the bone because you’re an Actor and you do rather look like one.” She pushed back the spotted veil laughing: “But it’ll suit you.” She touched my hand to show that she thought I was nice enough anyway.

  “Given you my address, haven’t I?”

  “Catterick Camp, Yorks.”

  “I’ll know more after tomorrow. Have to change at Darlington.”

  “Ghastly place. Mills and doom.”

  “And then Richmond. There’s a castle …”

  She tried a bit of the gateau with a fork but it squashed and she pushed it aside.

  “A theatre too. Regency but they don’t use it.”

  “It’s not a Date or anything?”

  “No. No. They store things in it. Furniture, that sort of stuff.”

  “What a waste.”

  “It’s all a bloody waste …”

  We sat and looked at each other. The sub-Coward dialogue faded. I tried to rally.

  “How long do you think the Show will last?”

  She picked up the too hot coffee-pot, swore, and fumbled for her napkin to wrap round the handle. “Another couple of months. Depends on the Raids really. Peter’s in Kent, did you know? Infantry. I must say the new boy looks a bit silly in your kilts, they come down to his shins.” She stopped quickly. “When you come back, you know, I think you ought to have a try at the Cinema. Your kind of work is just right for their what-do-you-call-it… Technique. It’s very intimate. You might do awfully well. Do you fancy yourself as a Film Star?” She laughed as if she knew the answer.

  “You’ve got to look like Clark Gable or someone …” I said. She collected her gloves and handbag from the seat beside her. “Nonsense! Look at Wallace Beery! Or Lon Chaney! They’d snap you up. When you’re marching about up there doing your drill I think you ought to have a … well: think about it.” She made her mouth into a round O and carefully smoothed it with her finger. “I think you’d be spiffing on the Flicks, I really do… with those big sad eyes of yours, ducky, you couldn’t miss. I’d know it’s because you’ve forgotten something, but they’ll think it’s because you’ve lost something …”

  At King’s Cross we pushed through a sea of khaki and blue, crying children, anxious women, trundling tea-urns, trolleys, hissing steam, and hundreds, it seemed, of men carrying empty suitcases. My lot, I thought. The Conscript Special. At Platform 10 there were three men singing “Tipperary” and waving a bottle about and a woman passed us with a white face, weeping without expression, holding a bunch of bluebells.

  Vida said: “That’s your train, isn’t it?”

  “Yes…”

  “Well I’m not very good at this part. I’ll just go.” I kissed her on the cheek through the veil and saw that she was crying too. Quickly she waved a hand before my mouth. “Don’t speak … and write … remember to write to me … the poems… send them to me …” She turned swiftly and went away. Bumping into people, fumbling in her handbag.
Aunt Hester at Queen Street… the same wrench of sadness. All gone. I couldn’t run after her.

  The man at the gate looked at my bit of paper. “Change at Darlington, sonny,” he said.

  A full compartment. One elderly woman in the corner by the window, knitting something fluffy. I looked at the sketch-book which I had in my pocket. He had written on the inside cover. My initials, then “from” and his initials, U. v. d. B. At the bottom he had put, “With Love” and the date. A lump, large as a fist, rose unbidden to my throat. I stared out of the dirty window. Somewhere after Luton I lit a cigarette but the knitting woman said she’d vomit if I smoked and this was a Non Smoker.

  I stood in the corridor leaning against the door. On both sides other men were doing the same. Hands in pockets, bodies lurching with the train, staring out at the racing fields, woods, scattered houses, billows of white smoke ripping away from the engine. No one speaking, or singing, just leaning, bodies rolling with the motion, having a “jolly good think” as Lally used to say … Think. Think. Not of today, of tonight, of tomorrow, just Think. Of the good things. The partridges in the glass case at Twickenham, the Zeppelin from Potters Bar… Winter Greens; is she doing them now, bending between the rows … No. Not that. Well; Great Meadow then, the way it rises high up from the road to the gate by the privy … the feel of wet grasses against bare legs … you could write a poem about that. Vida’s poem. How do you write a Sonnet. “Shall I Compare Thee To A Summer’s Day …” How do you paint love? You can paint death and life but love? People in love, holding hands, lying with each other … but that’s not Love. How do you paint the intangible, how do you paint all the love which I have had and which this sodding train is taking me away from… No! Think! Constructively. What will it be like after? When you come back. The Haymarket? His Majesty’s? Maybe the Old Vic after all… a Star Character Actor like Edith Evans … there will be time, plenty of time then … this’ll be a dream in a year or a bit… perhaps I should try the Flicks … be a film actor. More money. Huge money. Sometimes a hundred pounds a day even … will there be beds or bunks … or just straw on the floor or something … Usually bunks in the Barrack Rooms, one on top of the other, like rabbits… Elizabeth said that we could have real palm trees in the garden in Hollywood … and swimming pools too I suppose … Florida Palms they are called … Swimming pools and a Mess Hall… like the ones at Larkhill, Amesbury… tike the Tuck Shop at School. But no Lavatory. Sweet God!… No lavatories … they wouldn’t dunk me at nineteen would they … everyone has a different accent in the Army … a Melting Pot … like Hollywood. They like English accents there. You won’t be dunked in the Lav. in Hollywood. Think of Ronald Colman, Leslie Howard, Dame May Whitty…. Soldiers are equal. I wonder how soon they will let me telephone? It has started to rain. Good for the Winter Greens…. Not that. Funny how the drops slide down the window so dreadfully slowly when the train is moving so fast. Centrifugal Force or something. See how they slip, slowly, slowly, drop by drop … and then stop quite still like this one … and as suddenly tear away and run down the window into oblivion in the sill. Like a life. My drawn reflection, behind me No Smoking: back to front it looks strange. . That’s how Nosmo King found his name … if I’m killed let it be quick … not a leg or an arm or a bit of my face…that would muck everything up for Afterwards. Just as long as it’s quick. Obliterate. Obliterate quickly … it’s raining heavily now … lambs in the fields like small sodden handkerchiefs … high chimneys of a brick works … six table legs in the dark sky … must be Bedford…. Afterwards wont be a Barrack Room. That’s Now. Think of Afterwards. A Dressing Room not a Barrack Room … a Star on the door would be quite nice…just imagine that. There you are, and you are just about to turn the handle and, very slowly, you go in….

  Chapter 16

  It was pitch dark and smelled of conditioned air and beer stains. Glitters of light slitted through the shutters. I felt my way across the room, hit a table, and pushed open the windows. Hot smoggy air came up from the Studio Yard. In front the yawning doors of A and C Stage. Six men pushing half a snowcapped mountain trundled up the yard. A woman came running down, a bundle of sequined dresses over her arm, a paper cup of coffee in her hand. To my far left, the carpenters’ shop. Planks and sawdust and gilded doors leaning against the concrete walls. To my right, high up, the misty smog-smudged ridge of the hills. The great wooden sign striding the skyline, one letter missing, long since fallen. Hol-ywood.

  I had arrived at last. I was there where it all started. The most oriental city on earth West of Calcutta. My heart fell with despair. Six months to go.

  Joe came barging in opening doors and drawers, switching on lights, trying taps and pulling the lavatory chain. He plumped up cushions and looked round the room carefully. Hands on hips, blue jeans bursting, a gold cross round his neck winking in the thin sunlight. He jangled his identity bracelet and shrugged.

  “This is a good room, you know. Masculine. All the Male Stars have rooms like this, very Butch. This one is reely nice, you know? They’re doing you good so far. Two ice boxes you got, television, radio and a shower and a bath … that’s a First Class Room. You get judged by that here, you know. If you get to have just the john and a shower and no ice box you don’t reely rate. Not at all. This is Star Stuff. You like it?” He seemed indifferent.

  It was pine panelled. Fake plaster pine panelled. Tweed carpet like old porridge. Chairs and settees covered in violent tartan. Hunting prints on the walls, a sword, a galleon in full sail, two ice boxes disguised as corn-chests, lamp shades with maps of the world on them. I found “England” squashed up beside “Norway”, a small table with a flat bowl of plastic sweet peas and dahlias. The bathroom off. Plain, white, Butch. All very Male.

  “Fine.”

  “Well it’s gotta be. This is what you are allocated. This is what you got. This is what you stay with. Get it? It’s reel nice. But I’ll just check something.” He was back in the bathroom turning on all the taps, pulling the plugs. He beckoned me to come in to him. In the roar of water he said, in normal tones: “Just check we ain’t got any bugging things here. If we have you gotta keep your trap closed unless you run water, get it? That blurs the tape.” He strode into the dressing room and yanked at the pictures. Henry Alkins were pushed about. No microphones. The air-conditioner above the door was pulled apart. Satisfied, he lifted the bowl of sweet peas and dahlias. They came up in his hands with a long black wire which ran down through the table-top. His face was triumphant. But the wire was unconnected. No plug at the end … thin twists of copper. He replaced the bowl and motioned me into the bathroom again.

  “You see that? Wired. And there is another air-conditioner just over the window. Even for a reely good room it don’t rate two air-conditioners.” Back he went, up on a chair and struggled with the second air-conditioner. The vented front came away in his hands revealing an empty metal box behind. There was dust and a dead moth. Worms of fabric dust… he scattered thoughtfully over the carpet. “I reckon it’s all been disconnected … when Levison was alive, every sodding room was connected to a Central Pool. So they could know if you was ‘happy’ or if you was ‘worried about the script’ or anything like that. Just so they could ‘help’ you if supposin’ you was too shy to ask out for something … but I reckon that’s over now. Things was different with McCarthy… but you seem unhooked. Just watch out, though. If you do have something reely important to say, just do it in the john. No use you taking any chances. Saul Gallows didn’t want you in the Movie, you know that, a Limey with a British Accent… so you just gotta be careful and keep your nose nice and clean? You ain’t Gay, are you?” I shook my head. He patted his crotch. “Just thought I’d ask, that’s all, most everyone is in this town … but we’ll get on fine. There’s a nice guy who tested all the girls for the part of the Countess… but he ain’t against you. You’ll like him, his name’s Rod Raper … that’s what the Studio call him … we just call him Al. You’ll meet him I reckon. Reel nice kid. He won
’t hold nothing against you.”

  I slumped into one of the tartan chairs and Joe jangled a bracelet, fixed the blind over the window and presently left me to my Masculine-Plaster-Panelled-Gloom.

  Beside one of the map-lamps lay a large piece of paper. Cautiously I took it up and read it: Production 9678. Pre-Production Day 1. 8.00 a.m. Arrive Studio. D.R. 2. Block A. 8.30 a.m. Music Conference. Room 2456. Block C. V. Aller. Dummy piano. Playbacks. Key Board. 10.00 a.m. Make Up. Room 2784. It went on until it simply said “Car. Main Gate. 6.30 p.m.” Trapped.

  Room 2456 was dim, painted brown with a brown carpet and three pianos. The blinds were down; electric light gleamed dully on the scratched wood of the Broadwood. On one wall a faded colour photograph of Myrna Loy, on the other a View Of Naples. A tall coat and hat rack. A gramophone. Two chairs and Victor Aller. We had met briefly before at what was called a “General Meeting To Get Acquainted”. He was to teach me the Piano and never leave my side night and day until the final Shot was in the Can. He was totally at my disposal. Small, benign. A Russian Jew with glittering rimless glasses and beautiful hands, he sat quietly at the Broadwood playing something sad. I didn’t interrupt him but sat quietly in the chair beside him. He switched music and went into something extremely fast, short and vaguely familiar. He placed his hands on his knees and smiled at me.

  “That’s Chopsticks.”

  “Oh.”

  “You know it?”

  “I think so … somewhere.”

  “Everyone knows it. It’s a child’s exercise. Play it.”

  “I have never played a piano in my life. I couldn’t.”

  A pause like a century.

  “You gotta be Liszt.”

  “I know that.”

  “Liszt played piano.”

  “Yes”.

  “You don’t dispute that?”