The Birdcage

by Marcia Willett

  ‘I expect someone has let them down,’ he answers casually, praying that Tom doesn’t make an ill-timed joke about the occasional foursome. ‘Perhaps Molly dashed out to buy the tickets this morning. Does it matter? Can’t we just enjoy it? It’s one of your favourites, isn’t it? Didn’t you tell me that you once played Rosalind in the school play?’

  Staring at him as he bends to look into the mirror, his head beside hers as he swiftly brushes his hair, Marina remembers that she has vowed not to spoil this time with him. She’s had a very pleasant day, exploring old Clifton before walking down to Whiteladies Road for lunch in Brights, followed by a stroll on Brandon Hill, and Felix is making every effort to spend as much time with her as possible.

  ‘I played Celia, actually,’ she says, trying for a lighter note, ‘and hated every moment of it. I wasn’t cut out for the stage but it was a poor year for artistic talent and I was the best of a bad bunch. I’m sure it will be great fun.’

  Grateful for this attempt, Felix bends to kiss her. ‘At least you would have looked beautiful, if nothing else,’ he murmurs.

  As usual she is embarrassed by his extravagance and turns her head aside, making a show of fastening her pretty garnet necklace, checking her hair. Felix straightens up, too relieved that the awkward moment has passed to feel the usual resignation, putting on his jacket. When the doorbell rings he hurries out to greet Molly and Tom, who arrive in good humour and over drinks explain that, after the show, a visit backstage has been arranged: Molly knows Angelica Blake, the actress who is playing the part of Rosalind. Felix sees at once that Marina is not too keen on this suggestion but she is too well-mannered to object in front of their hosts and there is no time to voice her feelings to Felix. He hopes that, when the time comes, she’ll simply allow herself to be carried along with the general fun.

  The atmosphere of the theatre works its magic: the air of expectation amongst the audience, who talk and laugh and peer about to see if they recognize friends, the shabby gilt of the tiers and ornate pillars, the soft, dusty plush of the seats and – at last – the sudden hush as the lights dim and the curtain rises.

  Marina is relaxed, her shoulder rests against his arm and, briefly, she is transported to this other world, to the Forest of Arden, her own fears and tension forgotten. Afterwards, as they pass through the swing door, she holds his arm and he squeezes it with his elbow against his side so as to reassure her.

  The small dressing-room seems full of people and noise so that Marina hesitates, pushing Felix ahead of her. Molly and Tom are already greeting one of the actors and Felix has time to take in the scene: the long dressing-bar with sticks of greasepaint and a bowl of flowers beside the mirror; a huge tin of grease with a mound of cotton wool; a screen with clothes flung over it; the sound of the departing audience relayed through the Tannoy.

  The girl who played the part of Celia is sitting before the glass, cleaning her face with cotton wool, but Angelica Blake stands beside the screen, tying the belt of a dark blue cotton wrapper round her slender waist, her ash-fair hair pulled back casually from a face that, already wiped bare of its make-up, is as fresh and clean as a child’s. She is listening intently to the tall, dark-haired man in jeans and green jersey who gesticulates, explaining something, until suddenly he gives a shout of laughter and leans forward to kiss her.

  ‘You were terrific, darling,’ he says, ‘but just don’t forget to take that line slowly. The timing is absolutely vital,’ and she smiles gratefully at him and they turn together as the stage-manager calls: ‘You’ve got visitors, Angel.’

  As her glance touches his, Felix feels a tiny galvanic shock, a thrill of something that could be described as a kind of recognition. It is so strong, so compelling, that he instinctively turns away from her to Marina, who is still just behind him in the doorway, as if the sight of his wife – cool, smart, emotions well under control – might restore him to his senses. She doesn’t respond as he smiles at her, standing to one side so that she can edge past and precede him into the dressing-room, but he keeps his eyes carefully away from the girl who is now making her way towards them. The tall, dark-haired man is the first to be introduced; he already knows Molly and Tom, and now he holds out his arm so as to draw Angel into the circle.

  Felix briefly grasps her warm hand, barely glancing at her again, talking instead to the tall man and one or two other people who have now squeezed into the overcrowded dressing-room. Presently, they go in a group to the Llandoger Trow for supper but, before very long, Angel and the girl who’s played Celia gather up their coats, preparing to leave, joking about beauty sleep. There is much kissing and noisy farewells, but when she comes face to face with Felix, Angel simply holds out her hand.

  ‘We haven’t talked properly.’ She speaks so quietly that he has to bend his head to hear her. ‘I wish we had.’

  ‘So do I,’ he mumbles inadequately, foolishly – and looks at her again.

  Her hand tightens around his and then she turns away; only a few seconds have passed, nobody has heard or noticed them. A moment later he’s finishing his pint, laughing at some amusing remark, and even Marina hasn’t noticed how forced his laughter sounds or how his hand shakes when he replaces the empty glass upon the bar.

  It is ironic, he thinks, that when, for the first time, Marina has reason to be jealous she suspects nothing. He knows why: it is as if, after the exchange of that very first glance, he’s been in shock, his usual friendliness and charm temporarily suspended.

  ‘You seemed a bit off,’ Marina tells him later, once they’re back at the flat alone. Her voice is a strange mix of brittle sarcasm and curiosity. ‘Not your usual self at all.’

  ‘I’ve had the most fearful headache,’ he answers. ‘I was hoping nobody noticed. I didn’t want to be a wet blanket.’

  He tries to take her in his arms but she wriggles away from him, saying that she is going to make some coffee, and for once he makes no effort to detain her. The next time he goes to Bristol he goes alone.

  CHAPTER FIVE

  ‘I’ve asked someone for a drink tomorrow evening,’ says Angel to Pidge one Sunday evening in January. She looks slightly self-conscious. ‘Before I go down to the theatre. Could you be around? I’d like you to meet him.’

  She speaks quite low, so as not to arouse Lizzie’s attention, and Pidge looks up from her book, quirking her eyebrows so that Angel becomes even more embarrassed. This is so unlike her that Pidge feels a qualm of anxiety.

  ‘Married, is he?’ she asks lightly, laying the book face down on the broad arm of the chair.

  Angel pulls a face and draws her cotton wrapper round her more tightly. She always sleeps in the afternoon and doesn’t dress again properly until it’s time to go down to the theatre.

  ‘Isn’t it typical, sweetie?’ she asks ruefully. ‘Why is it I only fall in love with married men?’

  ‘Oh dear.’ Pidge reaches for a cigarette and pushes the packet towards Angel. ‘Very married?’

  Angel purses her lips, pretending to consider, gives Pidge a sideways glance. ‘Well, perhaps not that married.’

  ‘Another Mike?’

  They both glance instinctively towards the table where Lizzie, humming to herself, is filling in a picture in her colouring book. She works busily, unaware of their conversation, and Angel kicks off her flat leather slippers and tucks her feet up on the seat.

  ‘He’s a bit like Mike to look at – dark hair and that very direct look – but he’s not as tough and forceful as Mike. He’s nice, Pidge.’

  There’s a wistful note in her voice and Pidge watches her sympathetically, tapping ash from her cigarette, remembering Mike: General Sir Hilary Carmichael whom the troops nicknamed ‘Mike’ just as he nicknamed her ‘Pidge’.

  ‘Then I’ll certainly be here.’ She grins. ‘Let’s hope we don’t repeat our performance.’

  ‘At least this time I shall get in first.’ Angel wriggles along the sofa so that she is leaning a little closer to Pidge. ‘His name’s
Felix Hamilton . . .’

  Kneeling on the chair, working carefully with her crayons, Lizzie is aware of their voices murmuring together but she is too busy telling herself a story that goes with the picture to take any of it in. The woman holding the baby is Angel and she is the baby: ‘There, there, sweetie,’ she mutters, ‘don’t cry. Look, here’s Daddy coming home; he’s bringing a rabbit skin to wrap poor Baby Bunting in.’ She sings the nursery rhyme just under her breath whilst she colours the tall sunflowers that frame the cottage door a satisfyingly brilliant orange. She sits back on her heels to study her efforts, flexing her fingers, which ache a little from clutching the crayon, listening to the voices. There is a quality in the conversation between Angel and Pidge that hints at something private – some secret knowledge that they share – which is how it has been from the beginning: from that first moment when she and Angel arrived on the doorstep. Lizzie remembers Angel’s excitement when she returned from that first meeting with Pidge after an evening performance; excitement and something else.

  As soon as Pidge opened the door and welcomed them in, Lizzie was aware of an undercurrent running beneath the polite introductions. The house had been carefully arranged and divided to accommodate lodgers: the ground floor kept as Pidge’s private quarters, the first floor and the attic room for the tenant. This little room beneath the eaves was to be Lizzie’s and, as they climbed the short steep flight of stairs, her heart thumped with hope. Angel and Pidge stood aside and allowed her to enter.

  As Lizzie looked about her in the high attic room, her first impression was that she was standing inside a tent. Rafters criss-crossed high above her head and the ceiling sloped sharply, nearly to the floor. There was a bed with a patchwork quilt, a white painted chest for her clothes and a wickerwork chair with a cushion that matched the quilt. She ran to the dormer window, kneeling so as to look down into the leafy square.

  ‘Will she be able to cope with the stairs?’ Pidge asked anxiously, still standing at the door. ‘They’re a bit steep.’

  ‘Oh, yes,’ Lizzie cried at once, lest Angel should take fright and deny her this magic place. ‘I can be very careful. Please, Angel. Anyway, it’s too small for you.’

  Angel chuckled; that warm, easy laugh that makes her so many friends.

  ‘It’s simply perfect,’ she answered – and Lizzie, washed through with relief and joy, perched on the edge of the bed, looking about her with delight, longing to bring her small suitcase containing all the treasures that would make the room truly hers. Later she went very carefully down the short steep flight of stairs to find Angel, who was being shown her own bedroom across the landing from the big room which was divided into a sitting-room and kitchen. A lavatory with a separate bathroom complete the first-floor accommodation.

  ‘It’s just right for us, isn’t it, Angel?’ Lizzie, always alert to mood and atmosphere, was anxious to make up for her mother’s unusual silence, sensing Pidge’s nervousness, puzzled by those undercurrents she could not understand.

  ‘It’s simply perfect,’ Angel repeated slowly. ‘But the rent seems very . . . modest for all this space . . .’

  It was almost as if she were testing Pidge – or even teasing her slightly – and Lizzie instinctively tensed as if for some kind of physical action.

  ‘It’s more important that I have the right people in my home, you see.’ Pidge broke in quickly. ‘It’s not just the money . . .’

  Her distress communicated itself to Angel who, apparently regretting her former feigned reluctance, slipped an arm about Pidge’s slim shoulders in a spontaneous gesture of comfort. ‘My dear, don’t think I’m complaining! I couldn’t be more thrilled. I’m just knocked sideways at our luck.’

  ‘That’s good, then. So it’s “yes”?’

  Angel looked from Pidge’s anxious face into Lizzie’s pleading one. ‘Oh, I think so,’ she said, chuckling again. ‘I’d say it’s definitely “yes”.’

  Whilst Angel and Pidge disappeared into the sitting-room to deal with the business side of the arrangement, Lizzie climbed back up to her eyrie, looking about her with joyful amazement, wondering how soon they could move in so that she might arrange her few belongings to her own satisfaction. After a few weeks it seemed as if they had lived here with Pidge for ever.

  Now, slipping from the chair, carrying the book, she goes across to the two women, who stop talking to look at her.

  ‘See what I’ve done,’ she says, and Angel takes the book, holding it at an angle so that Pidge can see it too.

  ‘That’s pretty good, Lizzie,’ says Pidge, blinking a little at the brightness of the sunflowers. ‘Very imaginative use of colour.’

  Lizzie too peers at the picture. ‘That’s Mummy and me,’ she explains, ‘when I was a baby. And that’s my daddy coming in at the gate. See? I wish Daddy could come home.’

  She imagines him at the front door with Angel standing at the top of the stairs looking down at him holding her, Lizzie’s, hand. She knows exactly how it would be: he would drop his case on the floor and hold out his arms to them and they would run down the stairs together. His coat would be rough to touch but he would swing her up in his arms and say: ‘I can’t believe that this is little Lizzie. How she’s grown . . .’

  ‘Oh, sweetie.’ Angel puts an arm about her. ‘I wish it too. But so many people were killed in the war.’

  Lizzie knows this, her very best friend at her new school is also fatherless, and she leans against Angel’s leg, pulling her heavy red-gold plait over her shoulder to rub it against her cheek for comfort.

  ‘He was very brave,’ says Pidge, attempting to console. ‘He was a King’s Messenger.’

  In the odd little silence that follows Angel glances warningly at Pidge but Lizzie is never surprised by those unexpected remarks that indicate that Pidge knew her father almost as intimately as Angel did. Instead, she frowns, remembering Through the Looking-Glass and the picture of the King’s Messenger in the chapter headed ‘The Lion and the Unicorn’. In her mind’s eye she sees an odd-looking rabbit with huge ears, one foot pointed, delving in a bag for a letter for the White King. The creased photograph of her father that Angel has shown her is rather blurred but it is at least that of a man in uniform. Nevertheless, she is confused.

  (‘Wouldn’t it be heaven,’ Angel says in the early days to Pidge, ‘if we could have a proper photograph of Mike framed for her? We could stand it on the piano.’

  ‘Completely crazy,’ answers Pidge forcefully. ‘We might as well put up a photo of Winston or Monty or Mountbatten. Everyone would recognize him at once. That photo of your brother will simply have to do. Thank God he was called Michael. We both promised . . .’)

  ‘Tell me about him,’ demands Lizzie, hitching herself into Angel’s lap. ‘Tell me again.’

  Angel settles them both comfortably. ‘His name was Michael Blake,’ she begins.

  She is describing her brother, who was killed in Korea, and Pidge knows that she is feeling, as she always does, guilty at this deception: ashamed that Lizzie can never know who her real father is, distressed at using the brother whom she loved as a kind of replacement.

  ‘Michael wouldn’t have cared,’ Angel often says defensively, after these uncomfortable times. ‘He was always kicking up a lark, he’d have understood, but it just feels . . . well, you know . . .’

  And Pidge can imagine how difficult it is and tries to do what she can. As she listens to Angel she thinks of Mike, whose driver she was in the last year of the war and the first months of peace.

  ‘I’ll want the car at three o’clock’ – a tiny pause – ‘but it’ll be a late one, Pidge,’ he’d say; this is their signal.

  She’ll never know how the rumours started but once Mike hears of them he is ruthless.

  ‘Nothing I can do, darling Pidge,’ he tells her on that last meeting. ‘I’ve told you how it is with my wife. She’s quite helpless physically and I could never leave her. We agreed, didn’t we?’

  But she still clings t
o him, unwilling to believe that she will never lie with him like this again, warm in his arms.

  Pidge looks about her and then back at the two curled together on the sofa: this is Mike’s house. He owns a great deal of property and when he found that she was taking up a job at the University Library in Bristol, he offered her the house on a very reasonable rent.

  ‘No strings,’ he said. ‘That’s all over, Pidge, but it might help out while you get settled.’

  It was nearly nine years before she heard from him again: a letter outlining another plan, this time an attempt to assist the mother of his child.

  ‘See what you can do, Pidge,’ he wrote. ‘No names, no pack-drill. You’ll like Angel and I’d like to think of you all together, looking after each other since I can’t – not directly, anyway.’

  It could so easily have been a disaster – they might have been jealous of each other – but it was a brilliant plan.

  Mike always was a great judge of character, thinks Pidge, listening to Angel describing Michael’s schooldays to Lizzie – and now there is a new man: Felix Hamilton, who will be coming for a drink tomorrow.

  In his nervousness he rings the wrong doorbell.

  ‘Hello,’ says Pidge, appearing as suddenly as a jack-in-the-box, and he looks at her almost in dismay. She raises an eyebrow, registering his confusion, liking the look of him. ‘Can I help?’

  ‘I’m so sorry, I must have muddled the address.’ Disconcerted, he bundles the bunch of flowers – yellow roses – into his left arm and feels anxiously in his pocket. ‘I could have sworn it was this number.’ He steps back to check the number on the door whilst Pidge watches with amused interest.