‘Do you mind if I sit down?’ she suddenly asked. ‘It was really quite hot in the theatre.’
‘Of course,’ Jerome said, very seriously, as he cleared a place on the old chaise-longue. ‘It is an exceptionally warm day. We noticed it on-stage. There.’
He sat Pippa in the space among his belongings and then stood back. He thought he was doing well so far. He hadn’t fluffed or bungled his lines, he had been dispassionate yet fond and polite, and he had not as yet rushed in where the angels fear to tread. Even though from the very moment she had rounded the corner and come back into his life, Jerome had wanted nothing more than to take her in his arms and kiss the breath out of her.
‘Tea?’ he said, walking over to where his dresser had laid the tea tray, which was set for two. ‘I can even offer you some Fuller’s cake. And some chocolate – biscuits.’
He flourished the plate of confections in front of Pippa, as if he were a butler or a waiter, and Pippa smiled, hoping the colour which she knew had vanished from her cheeks, was beginning to return. Jerome saw that it was, and wanted to touch the lightly reddening skin with his hand, to brush his fingers – or even better – his lips against her soft, smooth skin. She looked even sweeter and more innocent than before. In fact, he assured himself, he had forgotten how pure she was, how much without guile. She was the personification of kindness, of sweetness, of true simplicity, of all innocence, and he loved her so much he wanted to throw back his head and cry out and tell her now what he felt.
Instead, he asked her what she felt. But not about him, what she felt about the play.
‘Well?’ he said, pouring the tea. ‘You must tell me. Did you like it?’
‘Yes,’ Pippa answered.
‘Well?’
‘It’s very difficult to describe precisely what you feel about something. Particularly straight after.’
Pippa took the proffered tea cup, placing it beside her.
‘But you “liked” it?’ Jerome persisted.
‘Very much. It must be very difficult to write a play like that. And to perform it. It’s such a fine balance. Such a fine line between sentimentality and real feeling. But it comes off. Terribly well. All I can say is that I laughed, and I cried. We all did. The handkerchieves were out all round me at the end.’
‘Good.’
Jerome took a sip from his own tea, and then put the cup down on his dressing table, before turning and leaning nearer the mirror in order to check his make-up.
‘It is a very difficult piece to play,’ he said, removing the mascara from under his eyes. ‘You’re right. It requires a rather light touch.’
He glanced at her in the mirror, wondering if that would be sufficient enough cue for her to change the subject to the matter of his performance.
‘I should imagine it will do awfully well in London,’ she said instead. ‘I should think it will run for ages.’
Jerome said nothing more. He just continued to take off his make-up, plunging three fingers of one hand into a large tub of vanishing cream and then rubbing it into both hands, finally working it into and all over his face. Pippa watched with fascination.
‘Hand me that towel, Pippa Nicholls,’ Jerome requested from behind his mask of remover. ‘From beside you somewhere on the sofa.’
The towel was actually hanging on the wicker chair, wedged behind Jerome’s back. Pippa tugged it free and put it in his outstretched hand.
‘It’s such a wonderful smell, theatrical make-up,’ she said, picking up a stick of Leichner Number 5. ‘It’s so atmospheric.’
‘All part of the red and the gold thing,’ Jerome replied. ‘All part of what Cocteau called the Red and the Gold thing. What attracts you to the theatre – is either the Red – or the Gold. The smell of make-up’s a part of that.’
‘Is it red or gold though?’ Pippa wondered. ‘I think it’s probably gold, don’t you?’
‘Yes,’ Jerome nodded. ‘Definitely.’
Pippa held the stick closer to her face, to smell it better.
‘It takes me back to school,’ she said, inhaling the pungent aroma. ‘To when we did our toe-curling productions of Shakespeare. Mmmmm.’ She took another smell, closing her eyes. ‘Oh and it reminds me too, of Christmas. Of Cecil’s amazing pantomimes.’
‘Cecil puts on pantomimes?’ Jerome laughed, widening his eyes at Pippa above the edge of his make-up towel. ‘Don’t tell me – I’ll bet he plays the dame.’
‘It was one of the ugly sisters last year,’ Pippa replied, rifling through the rest of the sticks of Leichner. ‘What, a wonderful red!’ she exclaimed, picking one out, and then another. ‘But when on earth would you use this? And what for? What would you use green for?’
‘For jealousy,’ Jerome told her, poker-faced. ‘In case you thought Elizabeth Laurence was better than I was.’
‘You were both awfully good,’ Pippa replied, trying some of the green on her eyelids. ‘You don’t need me to tell you that.’
‘Of course I do!’ Jerome laughed once more, giving his face a final rub with a clean, dry towel. ‘I don’t know what you thought of me!’
‘Would it matter?’ Pippa half closed her eyes to try and see the effect of the green make-up. ‘You know you’re good. You told me so. You told me what a good actor you are. Anyway, you heard that applause. You heard how good everyone thought you were.’
Pippa sat down on the rickety chair next to Jerome and began carefully to apply the carmine to her unmade-up lips. While she did, Jerome went and washed his face in a small sink in the corner. Behind him, Pippa suddenly began to laugh infectiously.
‘Look,’ she said. ‘What would you think if I looked like this?’
Jerome bent down so that he could see Pippa fully in the mirror. She had given herself bright green eyelids and a large carmine-red butterfly mouth.
‘I wouldn’t think anything different,’ Jerome whispered in her ear, ‘to what I already think.’
‘I’ll bet you would,’ Pippa replied, smiling broadly at him now so that he could see she had also blacked out one of her front teeth.
‘I wouldn’t care,’ Jerome said, managing to keep his face straight, ‘if you had no teeth whatsoever – and every one of those wonderful freckles of yours was bright purple.’
‘Why wouldn’t you care?’ Pippa asked, before she could stop herself, before she saw the trap.
‘Because,’ Jerome said simply, ‘I would still love you, Pippa Nicholls, that’s why.’
Pippa fell silent and looked down, away from Jerome’s steady gaze. She reached for some tissues and wiped the black from her teeth, but before she could remove the rest of her make-up, Jerome took her hand and turned her to him, lifting her to her feet.
‘I meant what I said on the telephone,’ he told her, taking her other hand.
‘What?’ Pippa asked, as defiantly as she could. ‘When you said what on the telephone?’
‘You know what I said on the telephone, Pippa Nicholls,’ Jerome replied, putting an arm round her waist. ‘And when. And you know that I meant it. Otherwise you wouldn’t be here.’
He had both his arms round her waist now, and was holding her close to him. Pippa tilted her head back, trying to stop the unstoppable.
‘You mean—’ she began. ‘Just because ‘I came to see you in your play—’
‘Precisely,’ he interrupted her, and then kissed her.
His arms were both still round her waist, but he was only holding her lightly. Pippa could easily have broken free had she wanted to do so, but she didn’t. From the moment she felt his mouth on hers, she knew that was the place she wanted to be, in his arms, being kissed by him like he was kissing her, gently, softly, and again now, with a little more passion so that she no longer knew quite where or quite what she was. She could hear his breath, and feel it, warm now on her neck, and on her cheek, and then once more within her, as he kissed her again and then again.
‘Oh dear,’ said a voice behind her. ‘Sorry – I should have knock
ed.’
‘Yes,’ Jerome agreed, looking round at Elizabeth, but not letting go of Pippa. ‘You should have done really, darling.’
Elizabeth held his look, and then despite biting her lip, began to laugh.
‘What have you two been doing?’ she asked. ‘It looks as though someone’s punched you both in the mouth.’
Jerome bent down to look at himself in the mirror, while Pippa put a hand to her lips, remembering the carmine make-up.
‘By the way Elizabeth,’ Jerome said, still bent over in front of the mirror. ‘This is Pippa Nicholls, a friend of mine.’
‘Hello, Pippa Nicholls,’ Elizabeth said, gaily, extending a hand to be shaken. ‘How do?’
‘Hello,’ Pippa replied, shaking hands, and then reaching for a tissue to wipe her mouth.
‘We’ve been doing some Ay-matuer Dramaticals,’ Jerome said, over his shoulder.
‘So I see,’ Elizabeth replied, directing one of her sweetest smiles at Pippa. ‘Were you in this afternoon?’
‘I’m sorry?’ a still disconcerted Pippa asked. ‘What did you say?’
‘I asked if you were in this afternoon,’ Elizabeth repeated. ‘If you were out front.’
‘Was I in the audience,’ Pippa translated thoughtfully. ‘Yes. Yes I was. In. Out front.’
‘I’m so glad,’ Elizabeth said, graciously. ‘You were a wonderful house. Jerome—’ Elizabeth caught Jerome’s eyes in the mirror, ignoring the markedly dangerous gleam. ‘Are you coming out to eat, my darling?’ she asked. ‘Or – or what?’
‘No, I’m not coming out to eat, my darling,’ Jerome answered in measured tones, having also by now removed all traces of the carmine from his mouth. ‘I am going out to eat. With Miss Nicholls.’
‘Oh,’ Elizabeth said, with an inflexion of only slight surprise. ‘Righto.’
She didn’t give Pippa another look until she stopped in the open doorway to turn back as if she had forgotten something.
‘Tell me,’ she said, ‘I should have asked, but I forgot. Did you enjoy our little play?’
‘I’m sorry?’ Pippa ventured, oblivious of the question, stunned into silence as she realized that contrary to the law which governed all things fair, Elizabeth Laurence was even more stunningly beautiful off-stage than she was on. Pippa had never seen eyes so bright, nor a skin so perfect.
‘I asked you,’ the actress was repeating, ‘whether or not you enjoyed our little play.’
‘Yes,’ Pippa half stammered in reply. ‘Yes I did. Very much. I thought it was wonderful.’
‘Good,’ Elizabeth purred. ‘Goodee.’
One more smile, and one more look, and she was gone. The smile had been to cover the look, which had, Elizabeth hoped as she shut the dressing-room door behind her, been just long enough for the odd, freckled-faced girl with the unkempt hair and the unmade-up face to feel she was being inspected, and for her to feel that Elizabeth had noticed the small darn on the ankle of one of her stockings, the odd button on her cotton dress, and her cheap little piece of costume jewellery. What, Elizabeth wondered as she swept off to meet the rest of the cast across the road in the café, could someone as beautiful and as talented as Jerome possibly see in such an absurd little mouse?
Instead of eating, which neither of them wanted to do, Jerome and Pippa walked round Oxford. Pippa had never visited the city before, and was enchanted by it.
‘“Noon of my dreams, O noon!”’ Jerome quoted, taking Pippa by the other hand now, and leading her around New College Square.
‘“Proud and godly kings had built her, long ago,
With her towers and tombs and statues all arow,
With her fair and floral air and the love that lingers there,
And the streets where great men go.”’
‘Who was that?’ Pippa asked. ‘You seem to know every bit of verse ever written.’
‘That was somebody or other,’ Jerome replied, looking up at the stone buildings surrounding them. ‘Don’t ask me who. Except for Shakespeare, everything I know is Terry Vaughan. He was forever spouting verse, and getting me to do the same. But it’s rather good though, isn’t it? Whoever’s it is. “With her fair and floral air and the love that lingers there.” And I love you, Pippa Nicholls.’
‘I wish you wouldn’t say that.’
Pippa withdrew her hand and walked away towards the main gate.
‘Why not?’ Jerome called, enjoying the echo his voice made in the square as he hurried after her.
‘Why not?’ he whispered to her, once he had caught her up.
She told him as they sat on the banks of the Isis.
‘I don’t want you to fall in love with me,’ she said.
‘Too late, Miss Nicholls,’ Jerome sighed, turning to lie on one side, propped up by an elbow to stare at her. ‘It’s a little too late for that.’
‘All right,’ Pippa argued, tossing a stone into the river. ‘Let’s put it this way. I didn’t want you to fall in love with me. And I didn’t want to fall in love with you.’
‘Have you?’
‘I’ve all my life ahead of me. I hadn’t even thought about being in love. Don’t you understand?’
‘You haven’t answered my question, Pippa Nicholls. Have you fallen in love with me?’
‘Why do you all speak with such deliberate emphases?’ Pippa asked, getting up and walking away from Jerome, who at once got up and followed her. ‘Everything is always so frightfully emphatic. As if you lived all your lives in quote marks. Or italics.’
‘All of us?’ Jerome laughed.
‘There you go again!’ Pippa retorted.
‘How many actors have you known? You asked why do we all speak with such deliberate emphases!’ Jerome danced round in front of her, and held up his hands, like a traffic policeman. ‘Stop!’ he commanded. ‘I demand you tell me how many actors you have known!’
‘It really is frightfully tiring,’ Pippa muttered, sinking once more to the grass. ‘It’s like being in a play all the time.’
Jerome now knelt in front of her, and took both her hands in his.
‘Please answer my question,’ he begged, with puzzled eyes and a very deep frown. ‘Please, Pippa Nicholls. Please say that you love me.’
‘Until that day at Cecil’s,’ Pippa said after watching a young man about Jerome’s age row a girl about her age slowly past them, ‘I hadn’t even thought about being in love. At least I had, but I’d dismissed it from my mind, as being a state I didn’t want to be in. Not yet, anyway. Not until I’d found out what I wanted to do. I didn’t want to be distracted, not by anything, least of all by being in love.’
‘You can do the two things at once, you know, Pippa Nicholls,’ Jerome replied. ‘You can rub your tummy and pat the top of your head at the same time.’
‘I can’t,’ Pippa said, with a glum little smile. ‘I’ve never been able to do that sort of thing. I can only concentrate on one thing at a time. And I wanted to concentrate on my art, my sculpture that is, once I found that was what I wanted to do.’
‘I have my art, I have my acting,’ Jerome argued. ‘Yet I can still love you.’
‘Can you?’ Pippa asked, with an intensity that made Jerome look up at her, sharply. ‘Can you?’ she asked him again, and then once more got up to walk away further down the riverbank. Jerome watched her for a while before he got up, and when he did, this time he didn’t hurry after her, but allowed her to walk ahead of him, while he kept a good twenty or so yards behind her.
Finally she stopped, and stood right by the water’s edge. Jerome walked up to her, and put his arms round her, from behind.
‘I don’t think you understand,’ she said.
‘That used to drive Terry Vaughan mad,’ Jerome said. ‘He used to tell me every time he had a set-to with my mother, and she would go into one of her silences, and he would ask her what was wrong – she would tell him there was no point in explaining because he wouldn’t understand. It used to infuriate him so much he swore that if he’d
had two good legs instead of two tin ones, he’d have taken her out, every time that she did it, and thrown her in the sea.’
‘Will you throw me in the river?’ Pippa asked, ‘because I told you.’
‘Probably, Miss Nicholls,’ Jerome replied. ‘There is certainly a very good chance.’
Pippa did her best to explain as they turned and walked back, what her reasons were, but Jerome would accept none of them, telling her each day had to be dealt with as it dawned, and insisting she tell him what her true feelings were. His persistence bothered Pippa, because it bewildered her. She had never had anyone pay serious court to her before. There had been boys, local boys, who had come shyly to the house and asked her mother if they could take Pippa to the cinema, and occasionally she was allowed to go as long as she went in a party, and then as she matured, there had been young men, and plenty of them too, some like the boys before them local young men, and others from farther afield, young men who were staying down with their friends for a dance or a party, or just for the weekend. They too would come to call and seek permission to take Pippa out, and once again permission was granted provided there were others present. But no-one was allowed to call often enough lest they grew too serious.
‘You’re seeing too much of that young man,’ her mother would say. ‘And no good will come of it. You’ll end up rushing into some totally unsuitable marriage, and regretting it for the rest of your days. There are other things for girls, intelligent girls like you, you know, Pippa, besides marriage.’
With which Pippa would argue with no little passion that the very last thing she wanted to do was get married. She wanted to do something with her life, rather than let somebody else do something with it. Her mother would agree, wholeheartedly, often delightedly, before informing her daughter in which case there was no point in going on seeing whichever particular young man it was who was then taking her out, lest they got too serious over each other.
‘Yes, but even so,’ Pippa would wonder over dinner in the kitchen, ‘it’s not just that, is it? Don’t take this wrong, because it’s not a grumble. But you know I won’t leave you.’
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