Distant Music

by Charlotte Bingham

  ‘Just as well they are in foreign parts,’ Coco agreed. ‘Not that it matters, really, because they’re not interested in me, are they, Glad? So why would they mind, now we come to think of it?’

  ‘Oh, I think they would, darling, really I do. My heavens, that is a lovely cocktail dress, I do agree.’ Gladys moved closer to Coco and stared at the photograph in Vogue which had held Coco’s attention. ‘God, I dread to think how many pounds I have put on since I moved to the country.’

  ‘No, no, you look wonderful, so slender, Gladys, really you do.’

  ‘Nice word that – slender – so much better than thin, I always think.’

  Coco was still flicking desperately through Vogue as if any minute now she would find some photograph of something that would fit her, despite her pregnant state. Feeling Gladys staring over her shoulder, cricking her neck to see the pictures she was looking at, she stopped suddenly.

  ‘Sorry. I will give it to you in a minute, Gladys. It’s just that I haven’t seen a magazine like this for so long, being in here, and all. Just haven’t caught sight of so much as a jacket or skirt, let alone a ball gown.’

  ‘That’s what I thought. Now, that is not the only reason for my visit here this afternoon, and I would like Vogue back, if you don’t mind, darling, when you’ve quite finished devouring it. No, I do have another reason for my visit, I’m afraid.’

  Gladys leaned forward and lowered her voice. ‘You see, Coco, I am very much afraid that I am badly skint, done my money, come here on the scrounge to ask you for a bit of a loan, darling. Can’t ask you-know-who, can’t ask hubby, because he’s skint too, poor old soldier.’

  Coco nodded, without thinking. Ever since she was a child she had always bailed Gladys out, at one time or another, but most of all when her mother had sent the cheques which enabled both Coco and Gladys to dress quite beautifully, but hardly left anything at all over for the housekeeping and feeding poor old Harold, who had been forced to put up with a permanent egg and ham salad if Gladys had fallen for something particularly ravishing.

  ‘Of course, Glad. How much do you want?’

  ‘As much as you can give me, Coco. You know how it is, up and down from Norfolk to London whenever I can, seeing friends, living off dog food with Harold. Things are not what they were when you were growing up with us, you know, Coco. Those were the days when Harold was always out at a business lunch, and I had the flat to myself, not to mention going to the hairdresser twice a week, and ladies’ luncheons and cocktail parties every night. No, that is all finished, what with Harold’s shares gone down to minus pounds, in their thousands, and having to sell all our paintings, and I know not what.’

  Coco quickly wrote Gladys a cheque. Gladys looked at the figure with some satisfaction, as she always had, but said nothing before putting it away in her own handbag.

  ‘Thank you, darling. I’ll pay you back, of course.’

  They both knew that she never did, and never would, but even so they smiled and nodded and shortly afterwards kissed, both obviously relieved that everything they had to say to each other had been got over so quickly, and all over a nice copy of the newest Vogue.

  Shortly after their small negotiation, Gladys left, her high-heeled shoes stalking back down the ward, past the other more poorly dressed mothers and fathers perched on their own bentwood chairs, making her look like some chic navy blue bird of paradise. For a second each little cluster of relatives and the occupants of the beds that she passed ceased talking, looking up and after her. Of a sudden it was as if Gladys was a dummy in a shop window stepping out to walk among them and remind them of some other life, a life about which they might have only read, guessing at its exotic qualities, removing all its realities, seeing only the glamour.

  Coco lay back on her pillows and stared at the ceiling once more. She must be mad with guilt about having been foisted on her guardians because she had just signed over most of her baby money to Gladys to waste on trivial, passing fads such as hats or shoes, or having lunch with her girlfriends. That was how conscious she felt that Gladys and Harold had been so kind as to take her in as a small child and spare her from being brought up by her parents, that was how guilty, that she had willingly surrendered some of her much needed money to her guardian.

  ‘Would you like a cup of tea, Miss Hampton?’

  Coco smiled and nodded, and when the tea came she thought it had never tasted so good, for the simple reason that as she sipped at it, it came to her with terrifying force that Gladys was a very selfish woman. Only a very selfish woman could, after all, take money from an unmarried mother such as Coco. And she had been all too happy to do so, when she must have known that there was someone else who needed it more than either of them, someone very small who would soon be needing every penny that Coco had managed to put by. Yet, because she owed so much of the warmth and kindness of her childhood to Harold and Gladys, Coco had been helpless to do anything else, which was clearly why Gladys had been so happy to take it from her.

  The safe arrival of a baby is a bottle of champagne. It is a bouquet of flowers that lasts and lasts. It is a happy house filled with music, it is a beautiful day by the sea, it is a tree filled with blossoms, it is the smile of its mother when she sees it for the first time.

  So Coco had been able to write in her diary, even after the long, long, and often agonising delivery of Holly Healey Hampton into this world.

  The baby was small, as had been predicted, but perfectly formed, with a particularly pretty, bow-shaped mouth. Of course Coco thought Holly was beautiful. It was inevitable. She also knew that, whatever happened, she would always love her.

  She left the hospital on her own, unaccompanied, carrying the Moses basket in one hand and her suitcase in the other. Just after the birth the nuns had tried to make up to Coco for the fact that she had no visitors. Their efforts had been so sensitive and so touching that Coco had finally found that she did not want to leave the warmth of the nursing home and their tender but unsentimental care. Nevertheless it had to be done. She had to strike out on her own. She and Holly had to go home and face real life together. Happily the birth had been normal, even more happily the baby was perfect, and in the face of these glorious facts nothing much mattered at all.

  After such a long time in hospital Coco returned to a flat that was cold, damp and inches thick in dust, and until she could make a nursery of the spare room the baby’s only cot was the Moses basket that the nuns had sewn as a present.

  But nevertheless there was an instant comfort in familiar things, and cleaning the place and making it look good again took Coco’s mind off her loneliness, off the fact that no one she knew had cared to send her either flowers or cards. No one she had met either on a film set or at drama school had kept in touch.

  She had thought her isolation was due to the unwanted pregnancy, but now she had to face the fact that the truth was that she was simply unwanted. She was nothing but an embarrassment, an embarrassment that not even her own generation could, or would, bear to face. And yet, looking down at Holly cradled in the Moses basket, tucked up under the blankets that she herself had knitted, against all the odds, Coco felt herself to be the luckiest person in the world. And if Holly had been an embarrassment, so now was Coco. So be it, she resolved, as she began to clean the flat. They would be embarrassing together.

  ‘No need to ask why her second name is Healey, is there?’ asked Oliver, who had driven down the week after their arrival back at the flat, with the sole intention, or so it seemed to Coco, of swamping the nursery with presents and walking up and down with Holly in his arms singing to her, for all the world as if he was the father. ‘It was either Holly or the car, and Holly won.’

  ‘How’s it going, then?’

  They both knew what ‘it’ was, and it certainly was not just the play that he was currently starring in with Elsie Lancaster.

  Coco poured them both a beer and sat down opposite Oliver.

  ‘Should you be drinking that?’
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  ‘Beer is fine, very good for – you know.’ Coco’s hands flapped vaguely in the direction of her bosom.

  ‘Yes, yes, of course.’

  Oliver was trying not to notice how ungainly, frumpish, and distraught Coco was looking, trying even harder not to remember how she had been before, stylish, carefree, and devil may care.

  ‘Do you really think you should keep Holly, Coco? I mean, can you manage? On your own, here, in London, in this flat? Quite an expensive flat too, isn’t it?’

  ‘Oh yes, very expensive, but I shall go to work and make money, don’t you worry.’ Coco sipped at her beer without interest, pushing her hair back with one tired hand. ‘The guardians know all about Holly, by the way, and they’re not telling, you know, they’re not telling anyone. Apart from anything else, if they tell the parents, bang goes the allowance. So I know Holly and I are quite safe, because as long as I keep shelling out to Gladys every time she comes up from Norfolk, or is it down? I don’t know. Anyway, as I say, we should be all right, as long as I give her some of my allowance.’

  That was indeed one of the many reasons why Coco had given Gladys a sizeable slice of the allowance that her mother sent her, and they had both known it.

  Harold and Gladys, in darkest Norfolk, would not have cared if Coco had been delivered of twins. On the other hand, if Coco’s parents ever found out they would cut her off without a penny, and this despite having taken care never to have seen Coco for more than a day a year when she was a small child, and now that she was older never seeing her at all. They remembered her at Christmas, of course, and usually telephoned, although this year they forgot, her father having taken up travelling with his newest lady friend, and her mother and stepfather being involved in the international social round in such an energetic way that the presence of a daughter would prove to be not just a hindrance, but an embarrassment.

  Coco explained all this to Oliver in her laconic manner. Oliver shook his head in disbelief.

  ‘Isn’t it funny, when you come to think of it, Coco? Don’t matter who you live with, or what you do, so long as you never get found out having done it. I mean your and my parents, they have not exactly been angels, have they, Coco? I mean, getting through the pearly gates might prove to take a little longer than they hoped, I should have thought, but so long as they did not give birth to a baby outside holy deadlock, then no one cares a tiddly damn what they do within it, do they? I mean to say.’

  Oliver sighed and looked at the ceiling for a second as he thought about it. He had been dying to see Coco and the baby, had driven down from Tadcaster on a Sunday at a speed that seemed as if it was faster than sound in the particular car that he had taken care to hire.

  Not only that, but he had spent all that week’s pay packet on toys and clothes for the baby, and yet now that he was here he found himself not just wishing but longing to be anywhere rather than sitting with Coco and all the now quite awful complications of her life.

  It was no good pretending. He just wanted to run away, and forget that he had seen his beloved old pal Coco like this, flat shoes, no make-up, her hair caught up in rubber bands, no beautiful jewellery, no amber bracelets, no floating scarves. Seeing her like this was to realise that it was very, very possible that Coco had made a complete hash of things, to put it mildly.

  ‘Want a sandwich, Ollie?’

  Oliver thought of Elsie, so different from Coco, so beautifully slender and lithe, so full of life, always thinking of what she could do to make life more exotic. Of a sudden he wished with all his heart that he was back with her spending Sunday in their own special way, cooking, making love, with no hint of bottles or nappies, no pram in the hall, no baby crying to be fed, no distressed young mother looking at him a little hopelessly.

  ‘I should love a sandwich. Can I come and help you?’

  Coco shook her head, and laughed suddenly. ‘No, Ollie, it’s all right, really – they’re already made. Your favourites, ham with mayonnaise, and egg and cress.’

  ‘Then why ask me?’

  ‘Just to see your face fall at the idea of having to help make them. Why else?’

  They both laughed and for a second it was just like the old days, so long ago, nine long months ago, with no baby, no worries, nothing but the theatre, and Oliver feeling monstrously jealous of Coco’s always seeming to be about to film in faraway places with strange-sounding names. Now that jealousy appeared as being absurd, and while he had struggled not to feel envious before, he now struggled not to feel impatient. Coco had enjoyed everything she could want, her whole career before her, and now look at her! It was madness to keep the baby, but there it was, she had, and he could do nothing about it.

  Again, as Oliver made half-hearted conversation with Coco, he sensed an underlying tension, because they were unable now to find many subjects about which they could either agree or disagree, since Coco had not seen any recent films or plays which she could tear to shreds or praise to the skies in the way that had been so much a part of her attraction for Oliver before. His mind shot once again back to Tadcaster and, inevitably, Elsie.

  They had now done a play and musical together at the Stephens Theatre, and both play and musical had done extremely well at the box office, filling the theatre not just with locals but with people from out of town who appeared happy to travel to see what was fast becoming, by provincial standards, a famous young theatrical partnership.

  Acting with Elsie gave Oliver the thrill of his life, more even than living with her. Living with her was a thrill too, of course, although slightly less of one now that she had moved Portly Cosgrove into the flat.

  ‘So really,’ Coco was saying, when Oliver’s thoughts returned to her, and her situation, ‘I am very grateful to you for sending me to the nuns and the nursing home. Really, I am, Ollie. Very grateful.’

  Oliver put on the expression of a modest man who had no need to be thanked for what he assumed anyone would do for a childhood friend, and then waited for the rest of the visit, the sandwiches, the beer, the effort at conversation to creep by, which they did so slowly it was almost agonising. Finally he stood up, feeling horribly guilty because he knew that when he left Coco he would be leaving her completely alone.

  ‘Not going so soon?’

  ‘I have to, love, really. I have to get back. We are giving a supper party for the cast. You know, Sunday night, and all that.’

  Coco looked up at Oliver. He was already so much part of what she had, deep down, in her heart of hearts, wanted to be part of, the casual, free and easy world of the theatre. So much part of it that she knew he did not even realise it, did not even appreciate that he now looked like an actor, talked like an actor; so much that he was already taking it all for granted, the whole glorious, chaotic world of the theatre, that world without tedium, with its own exotic timetable, its own seasons, it own beginnings, middles and ends.

  She felt so envious of him it was like a bitter taste in her mouth. It did not take much for her to imagine just what kind of supper party to which Oliver would now be returning. Unfortunately she could see it all, quite vividly. The cast crowding into some small flat, talking non-stop, everyone on intimate terms, a casserole laid out with endless rice and salads, none of which anyone would take much notice of, but all of which would be eventually eaten, once the wine had been drunk, cigarettes lit and stubbed out, arguments begun and forgotten.

  At last Oliver felt it was all right to take his leave. He had always loved going to visit Coco in her eclectic, beautifully artistic two-bedroomed flat, with the roof garden high above that was open to all the tenants to use whenever they wished. Now, however, he could not wait to return to Tadcaster, to Elsie, who would by now be putting the finishing touches to the buffet for the party.

  “Bye, Ollie.’

  ‘Give the baby a kiss for me, won’t you?’

  ‘Sure.’

  Oliver kissed Coco, and then fled.

  For a minute Coco watched him from the upper window that gave on to
the street as he walked out of the block of flats towards his hired car, and then she turned away and picking Holly up started to walk the floor with her, despite the fact that there was no need to nurse the baby, since she was neither crying, nor hungry.

  Picking her up, unwrapping her from her homely pale blue knitted blankets, was obviously disturbing, but such was Coco’s need for some kind of human contact, that she cared less. In fact the baby never woke, but nevertheless moved against Coco’s shoulder making minute little infant sounds, her eyes still tight shut.

  As she walked up and down her living room Coco tried hard to grasp the reality of her baby, and failed, because the truth was that the only reality she could feel at that moment was Oliver, driving off, leaving her quite alone.

  Chapter Eleven

  It was not that Oliver did not like Portly, because he did. No one could, in all reality, not like Portly. He was too naturally affable. He had no desire to hurt anyone. He wanted only to help everyone. He helped Elsie all the time. He helped Oliver too. And of course Elsie was devoted to him, that much was clear, which was why, Oliver realised, he did not want Portly around. Nothing to do with Portly, of course, but everything to do with Oliver. The fact was that, for no precise reason that he could name, Oliver was furiously jealous of this tall, affable man with his gentle manners. Most of all, of course, he was jealous of his seeming hold over Elsie, their past together. It was as if they had grown up together in some other country, which in a way they had, a theatrical country, a place where they had become passport carrying citizens long before Oliver Lowell.

  Having finished reading his favourite cartoon in the Daily Mail, Oliver now stared across at Elsie with something approaching the kind of courage he did not feel.

  He did not want to get on the wrong side of Elsie, but nevertheless the question had to be asked. How long was Portly going to stay? And why was he with them, anyway? Following these thoughts, Oliver plucked up his courage and asked Popeye the question that was so much on his mind at that moment.