Family Chorus

by Claire Rayner

  Because I want to show them at home, she found herself whispering. I want to show them there that I’m the best performer they ever had. Me, Alexandra Asher, top of the heap. That’s what I want them to know. Who knows in London what I’m doing here? The managements do, I dare say, a few flitting travellers, the Noël Coward crowd, but I want more than that. I want everyone to know I’m the best. I want all of them to see me and marvel and know what they let go.

  And Max? whispered the little voice again. At once she stopped loitering and marched to the school doors to join the waiting women, smiling vaguely at them as at last the bell rang, the doors clashed open and children began to rush out. I don’t give a damn about Max, she told herself firmly, standing on tiptoe to scan the cluster of tumbling shrieking bouncing children who were pouring down the steps. I never think about him, so why think about him now?

  Because you think about him all the time, the little voice jeered at her. All the time. Every day he slides into your head, every damned day that ever comes. You want to go home to show him, that’s what it is. You need to find him again. All these years, having all the fun the gossip writers say you do, all those friends and still the untouched, the unsullied. You’re famous for it, there isn’t a performer within ten miles of Times Square who has your reputation for virtue. And all because every day you think of Max, one way or another, you think of Max. You idiot.

  And then at last she was there, her slender body standing out among her sturdier classmates the way a dove’s stands out among pigeons, her small head poised on her delicate neck the way a sweetpea flower is poised on its tough pale stalk. Lexie smiled widely and waved as Molly looked around, then saw her and stopped very still for a moment before running towards her.

  ‘Hi, Lexie.’ she said and tucked her inky hand, warm and sticky with the day’s busyness, into hers. ‘Is Barbie okay? She’s not sick?’

  ‘Of course not, darling,’ Lexie said, and made herself sound as she always did with Molly, cool and sensible and unfussed. ‘She’s making supper and she said she needed ice cream for dessert. So I thought we’d go together and get it, hmm?’

  At last Molly seemed pleased to see her and held on to her hand tightly as she began to jump up and down. ‘The drugstore, the drugstore,’ she carolled. ‘Can I have a soda, Lexie, please can I have a soda, huh, can I? A mint, or maybe a chocolate — or maybe strawberry? Or shall I have a pineapple and will they have fudge malted maybe or —’

  Lexie laughed, and together they turned and went back towards the drugstore and home. Whatever I decide, whatever happens, she told herself as the child chattered and jumped along beside her, I have her now, just for this little while. Just for a soda’s time. After that I’ll decide what to do. After that.

  30

  The ship slid into Southampton on a day so misty that the air felt wet to the touch and the sirens cried mournfully to each other across the heaving greasy water, but she was glad of the grey dampness because it matched her mood. All the way across she had worked hard at being glittering and gay, the sophisticated star returning to take the lead in a glossy new show. It was what the other passengers expected, and she had delivered a performance as good as any she had ever given on stage. But all the same, she was miserable. Even before the ship had left she had known she was wrong to leave them. She had stood there at the rail, staring down at the pier below at Molly, in her blue tweed coat and hat and leather gaiters, clutching a streamer in one hand and Barbara in the other, and had wanted to push her way through the crowds back to the gangplank and run down to pick her up and hug her.

  But of course she hadn’t. She had just held on to the other end of Molly’s streamer and gone on holding it long after the ship had made its stately departure from the pier and the streamer had torn, and lay tangled with the myriad other streamers that hung down the ship’s great flanks. She was leaving the person she loved most in the world with someone else, leaving security and comfort and success, and for what? Uncertainty, loneliness and probable war, and all because of this crazy hunger to jump on a stage and scream at them all, ‘Look at me! Pay attention to me! I’m Alexandra Asher and you’ve got to love me!’

  She had not told the Cochran management when she was arriving. She wanted no flurry of reporters to greet her at Southampton, no publicity at all until she was ready for it. There was Bessie to be seen and — there was Bessie to be seen first, she told herself firmly. And I have to get myself settled and organized before I get involved with the show; that’s why I don’t want any fuss at Southampton. But she knew she lied to herself She needed to know where Max was and what he was doing, to be ready to cope if he chose to make contact with her again — or allowed her to do so. But she wouldn’t think about that. She dared not.

  London felt odd; standing in the echoing expanse of Victoria Station as the crowds eddied and scurried past her, her chin up as she let the sounds and smells and sights of the place come back to her, she thought — it’s changed. It still smells of soot and horses and bus exhausts and apples from the fruit stalls and damp newspaper and sweating people, yet it’s changed. It’s edgier and noisier and there’s fear in the air. Suddenly tears pricked her eyelids and filled her nose. She was amazed at herself as a wave of homesickness far greater than any she had ever known while she was in New York rose in her belly and threatened to engulf her entirely. She was actually trembling with it as she followed the porter with her luggage to the taxi rank and told the driver to take her to the Savoy. She wouldn’t stay there for long — much too costly, even at her level of income (Cochran had agreed to pay her handsomely for rehearsal time as well as for the run of the show), but it was a good starting point.

  The sense of nostalgia lingered all day; she seemed to be walking in a sort of a dream as she booked into the hotel, and then afterwards as she walked along the Strand to look at the Adelphi Theatre where the show was to run. Everything seemed particularly poignant in its familiarity, yet frightening in its strangeness. She almost panicked for a moment, fearing she was ill, that she was losing control of herself, for she felt like another person, as though she weren’t inside her own skin at all, but was a separate ethereal entity that hovered over the slim woman in the suede coat with the fur collar pulled up to her ears, watching her with a beady critical eye. But then she reached the theatre and it was as though everything clicked into place, as though that ethereal otherness slipped back inside her skin where it belonged, for the posters outside were huge and garish and shouted at her: ‘The New Cochran Revue, Opening Here Shortly! Happy Returns, starring that dancing sensation of Broadway, Alexandra Asher with Flanagan and Allen, Beatrice Lillie and —’

  She stood with her hands thrust deep into her pockets and laughed aloud. Happy Returns. What a perfect title. She was home now, well and truly home and she felt the familiar excitement and that hot, hungry feeling rise in her, the feeling that meant she was ready to work, to create new routines, to learn new songs, to rehearse till every muscle shrieked and every joint complained. A lovely feeling, a joyous feeling, and slowly the memory of Molly on the pier at New York staring up at her from under the brim of her blue tweed hat receded at last.

  Once she had been to the Cochran office and the formalities were settled, contracts signed and rehearsal schedules arranged, she was free to deal with more personal affairs: finding somewhere to live and — she had to deal with it now — contacting Bessie. All the time she had been telling herself how much she wanted to see Bessie, but now she was free to do so she was curiously reluctant, and had to make herself pick up the telephone immediately after breakfast next morning to call her number. But she did it and then sat on the edge of her bed listening to the distant tinny double ring, feeling faintly sick with apprehension, not knowing why. After all, there was no need to fear Bessie, not good old Bessie — was there?

  There was no answer and she put down the telephone, her brows slightly creased. She had called early to make sure she caught her before she left for work, and she look
ed at her bedside clock and frowned even more. Surely Bessie hadn’t gone already, at just after eight? But then, remembering how punctilious she had always been in matters to do with her job, Lexie knew she could have done, and called the number of Alex Lazar’s office behind the tea shop in Tottenham Court Road.

  The voice that answered wasn’t Bessie’s but a harassed waitress’s which said firmly that no, there was no Miss Ascher there, and no, there never had been in all the time she worked there and that was nigh on six months, and why don’t she call ’ead office down in the City? Lexie raised her brows — a City office! Lazar had come on in the world, clearly. She called the number she was given and at last reached Alex Lazar himself.

  ‘Who?’ the voice clacked in her ear. She could hear the muffled note as he spoke round his cigar, and grinned suddenly at the image of him that rose in her mind.

  ‘Lexie, Alex. It’s Lexie. I’m trying to get in touch with Bessie.’

  ‘Well, I’ll go to — you’re in London?’

  ‘The Savoy. Got here yesterday. I’m opening in Cochran’s new revue at the Adelphi — the posters are all over the place.’

  ‘So I don’t go reading posters! Is it my fault I don’t know you’re here? You should have written, sent a cable or somethin’ — why didn’t you?’

  ‘I like to surprise people,’ she said. ‘But I’m the one who’s surprised. I didn’t know you had a City office, and I didn’t know Bessie didn’t work at Tottenham Court Road any more. Where is she? I can’t get an answer from the flat.’

  There was a short silence at the other end of the phone and she said sharply, ‘Alex? What is it? Where is she?’

  ‘In hospital, dolly. No, don’t go gettin’ yourself in a state! It’s all right, now —’

  ‘How do you mean, all right now? What happened?’

  ‘It wasn’t all right — she had somethin’ a bit nasty there — women’s things, you know how it is —’

  ‘Not unless I’m told,’ she snapped. ‘For heaven’s sake, Alex, you don’t have to be coy with me. What happened to her? Where is she? How is she now? And —’

  ‘So let me get a word in sideways already! Okay, I won’t be coy, though she’ll kill me for talkin’, I dare say. She got cancer of the womb, all right? She was lucky, she got very anaemic, passed out here at the office one day, so I took her to a doctor. If I hadn’t, God knows how long she’d have gone on as she was. The doctor said another few months he wouldn’t ha’ been able to do nothin’ for her. It was lucky she bled a lot, got so weak, or I’d have never known. As it is, she’s had a big operation — a big operation, you shouldn’t know of such things, they took half her insides out, poor girl — and radium and now she’s on the mend. Been ill for months —’

  ‘Oh, God.’ Lexie said it in a whisper. ‘And I was angry with her for not writing —’

  ‘Ah, you know Bessie. She can’t say somethin’ good, she won’t say nothin’. Probably didn’t want to worry you —’

  ‘Yes. I suppose — listen, where is she? I want to see her.’

  ‘Of course you do,’ he said heartily. ‘I got her in a nice little convalescent hospital down at Bournemouth. She’s got another three weeks there, then she’s back in London at home and soon back at work —’

  ‘Oh, yes, of course,’ Lexie said, and couldn’t keep the sardonic note out of her voice. ‘She must get back to work, mustn’t she? It would never do to upset the office, would it?’

  ‘Lexie, you’re a fool.’ He said it easily, with no hint of anger in his voice. ‘You don’t know from nothing, you know that? If you want to kill your sister for good and all, you take her job away. She’s good for my business, sure she is. I been missing her something chronic. But I’m good for her and my business is good for her. Without us she ain’t got much, has she? You in America these ten years and all —’

  Lexie was silent for a moment. Then she said abruptly, ‘Yes, I’m sorry —’

  ‘No harm done,’ he said equably. ‘So tell me, already, how are you? Doing well over there, hey? I come over a few times, always your name everywhere, wanted to get to see one of your shows, but you know how it is, when you’re travelling on business — you can’t do all you’d like to —’

  ‘I know how it is,’ she said. ‘Yes, I’m doing very well. And you?’

  ‘Me? I’m thriving, dolly, thriving. Got more tea shops now than you can count if you take your shoes off as well as your gloves! And three theatres — and shows on the road. Thriving, that’s me. And my niece, you remember my niece Hannah? She’s a lady now. What do you think of that, hey? Lady Lammeck, that’s who she is! Her husband, lovely fella, lovely, he’s Sir Marcus and —’

  ‘Yes,’ she said abstractedly, not listening any more as he launched into one of his usual panegyrics about his beloved niece. Bessie, ill — it was hard to imagine. She had never been ill; always frail, of course, with that twisted back of hers and her fragile bones and her pale face. But ill enough to be unable to work — Lexie couldn’t imagine it. She managed to stop Alex’s chatter about Hannah long enough to get the address of the Bournemouth nursing home from him, then hung up the phone and sat staring blankly at the wall. She had always seen Bessie as someone to lean on, someone who was always there in the background to be used and relied on, but now she was someone who needed care. It was an odd idea.

  Lexie decided not to let the nursing home know she was coming. It would be easier to face Bessie and assess her situation if she didn’t expect her. Bessie had always put on a show for her, she knew that, and she wanted no show. Just the reality.

  They told her Miss Asher was outside, and she walked through the hallway, her heels clacking on the polished parquet, past the low tables with their bowls of crimson dahlias and chrysanthemums and out to a stone terrace that overlooked a garden running down to the edge of the pine-filled chine. She stood uncertainly, staring down the lawn at the basket chair and its blanketed occupant, then took a deep breath before walking across the grass towards her. The turf sprang under her heels, making her unsteady, and when Bessie turned her head to look at her Lexie swayed for a moment, almost losing her balance. Bessie tried to stand, to reach towards her, and Lexie, hurrying forwards to stop her, finally did lose her balance and landed at her feet. Staring up at Bessie’s astonished face, she laughed shakily.

  ‘Well!’ she said breathlessly. ‘How’s that for an entrance! Throwing myself at your feet, no less. How are you, Bessie? Why didn’t you write me you were sick?’

  ‘You’re home.’ Bessie’s voice was thin and yet husky. ‘You’re home. Are you? Really?’

  ‘Really,’ she said. ‘Really home. A new Cochran revue —’

  ‘Someone told me they’d seen a poster with your name on, in London, but I didn’t believe it. I didn’t dare. I said it was a mistake —’

  ‘No mistake.’ Lexie laid her hand on Bessie’s and felt a jolt of shock at how thin it was. Her face had always been thin and looked much the same now as Lexie remembered it, and her body was hidden in blankets, but that hand told all the story for it was shell-like in its delicacy. For a moment Lexie’s grip tightened and she leaned forwards and hugged Bessie to her. Under the blanket she seemed to be as a fallen leaf at the end of the autumn, a tracery of its former self, a translucent shadow of the robustness that had once been there, a fragment that could blow away to dust unless it were watched over and protected.

  ‘It’s all right, Bessie,’ she said, her voice slightly muffled by the blankets. ‘It’s all right. I’m home. I’ll look after you and you’ll be well again —’

  ‘Yes.’ Suddenly Bessie’s voice sounded like its old familiar self. ‘Now I’ll be really well. Oh, Lexie, I’ve missed you so! It’s been the same every day since you went, it never got no easier. Tell me everything — I want to know what you’ve been doing, what the shows have been like and — oh, everything —’

  Lexie sat back on her heels and smiled at her. ‘There’s time, plenty of time. I’ll get round to it.
When you’re well and we’re settled in a nice flat somewhere.’

  ‘A flat? But —’

  ‘You’ll live with me, won’t you, Bessie? With me and Barbara and —’ She stopped suddenly and the smile disappeared. She took a breath and said awkwardly, ‘You know I lived with Barbara in New York —’

  ‘She’s coming here? To live?’

  ‘Yes. I haven’t arranged it all yet, but I’m going to. I — Molly, too.’

  Bessie looked blank. ‘Molly?’

  ‘I never told you —’ Lexie wanted to tell her the truth, needed to. She opened her mouth to say it and was amazed at the words that came out.

  ‘Barbara has a child. Her name’s Molly. She was named after Momma, but it sort of got changed. She’s Molly. You’ll love her, Bessie. She’s — she’s a beautiful child and you’ll love her.’

  Bessie shook her head, opened her mouth to speak and couldn’t, then shook her head again and was suddenly crying, the tears rolling down her cheeks. But she gasped and wiped her eyes with the backs of both hands and said, ‘I’m sorry. This happens sometimes. I’m still a bit on the wobbly side, you see. But it’s getting better all the time. I’m fine, really — Molly! Barbara with a child! What happened? I mean, she’s a widow, or what?’

  ‘A widow,’ Lexie said after a moment, then bent her head as she searched in her bag for a handkerchief for Bessie. ‘A widow. She doesn’t like to talk about it. The past or anything. When she comes, don’t ask her. It — it upsets her. And Molly too. Better not to ask —’

  ‘No — I — Barbara, a child! I can’t imagine. She was just a baby herself last time I saw her — when are they coming? Where will you live? Will you come to Hackney, to me? Mrs Bernstein, rest her soul, died last year, so I got the downstairs as well now. Not that I use it, you understand, but it’s so nice to have the place to myself. Neighbours can be good, but no neighbours can be better.’