And was grateful. She wouldn’t have believed it possible that she could be distracted from her anxiety about Max, that she could have passed the long afternoon as she had, and she felt a surprising lift of gratitude to Molly for giving her the script to read.
There was a rattle outside the flat as the lift gates clanged, and she jumped to her feet to hurry to open the front door to see if it was Max, but it was only her next-door neighbour coming home and she nodded at him, embarrassed, and went back into her own flat, straight to the kitchen. Whenever he got back, he’d need supper. This would be no night to go out to eat. And there was Molly, too. She raised her head to listen, but all was silent as Molly slept on.
She strung out her supper-making as long as she could, but washing a salad and preparing eggs for a herb omelette couldn’t be stretched all that much, and by the time he did at last arrive, at half past eight, she was sitting on the edge of her chair in the living room with her hands tightly clenched on her lap, unable to think clearly at all. She was so absorbed in her own tension that even when he did unlock the front door and come in, dropping his overnight bag beside the table in the hall, she still sat there, unable to run to him.
‘Did Bill call you?’ he said. Then she did move, hurrying to help him off with his jacket, needing to touch him, to fuss over him as she undid his tie and loosened his collar.
‘He called,’ she said. ‘What is it, Max? You’re never ill — what happened?’
‘Panic you not,’ he said, trying to sound flippant, but she heard the fatigue in him and, tucking her hand in his elbow, she led him to the living room sofa and made him sit down with the cushions in the small of his back with his feet up. ‘It’s no more than some stupid bug. I must have eaten something. Upset stomach — I flatly refuse to give you all the horrid details. Too distasteful. It couldn’t have been worse if I’d eaten a bad oyster — which I hadn’t, by the way.’
‘Did you see a doctor?’
‘A doctor? Because of a bad go of bellyache? Don’t be ridiculous, darling! Anyway, you know what French doctors are. He’d have given me something very undignified to use, and the way I feel I could never have managed it!’ And he laughed, inviting her to join in, but she couldn’t.
That he’d been ill was very clear. His skin had a parchment tone to it, his temples looked sunken and his eyes dull. She put her hand out to touch his face and it was hot. At once she was on her feet.
‘I’m calling a doctor,’ she said. ‘You’re feverish —’
‘Please, no —’ He reached out and caught her skirt. ‘Honestly, darling, it’s just a bug. If I’m still upchucking and the rest in the morning, fair enough. Right now I need a little peace and quiet, a bath and some sleep. That’s all. Any messages from Bill? Did he say anything about Chesterfields?’
She gave him the message, and he nodded, pleased, and got to his feet and went to the phone. ‘I’ll call Donald. He should be home by now — he can deal with it and then I can take the rest of the week off. It went very well, thank God. This Suez business is going to be all right, you know. There’ll be no war. I’d bet on it —’ He grinned at her as he dialled and she smiled back, but uncertainly. He did look a little better now, she thought, or was it just that she was getting used to his pallor? She stood there, as he talked to his assistant, trying to decide what to do; to call the doctor in spite of his refusal would annoy him, but what did that matter if he needed treatment? On the other hand, to wait till morning might be wiser, let him have some sleep —
Across the hallway she heard the door click open and turned to see Molly. She was wearing a wide-skirted housecoat in a deep blue and her hair was rumpled and her eyes sleepy. She looked very young and Lexie’s spirits lifted at the sight of her. But Molly didn’t return her smile. She stood in the doorway looking at Max’s back as he stood at the phone.
‘That’s all right then!’ he said with great satisfaction as he cradled the phone at last. ‘Donald’ll get that sorted out, and everyone will rest better this weekend. A very satisfactory end to a mess — good God! Molly! Where on earth — how — my dear one, how marvellous to see you! I had no idea — why didn’t you say you were — oh, this is too much!’ He held his arms wide and she walked into them to cling to him as tightly as he hugged her.
Lexie didn’t mean it to happen, had schooled herself for this moment, but it made no difference. There it was, the great hot rush of sensation, the anger, the resentment, the whole horrid brew, and she laughed and said brightly, too brightly, ‘Darling, I hadn’t a chance to tell you — a cable yesterday, here today — all too sudden for words!’
But they were paying her no attention at all, quite absorbed in each other, and after a moment she went out to the kitchen, needing to be busy, not trusting herself to say the right thing, very much afraid she would say the wrong one. And truly not wanting to.
She could hear their voices all the time she made French dressing for the salad and began to cook the omelettes, heard them chattering and laughing, and she felt bleak and alone and suddenly very tired. The day had been an exhausting one and the tides of emotion that had filled it now ebbed leaving her drained. She didn’t care about anything much any more. Only about getting the omelettes right.
She was just about to turn the first one out on to its plate when they came into the kitchen. She looked up to see Max grinning at her. His pallor had been replaced by high spots of colour and his eyes were glittering a little.
‘Lexie, darling, what are you doing? We ought to celebrate — Molly’s first night in London after all these years, and you’re cooking? That won’t do — come on, best bibs and tuckers, somewhere special —’
‘You’re not well, Max,’ she said flatly, and slid the omelette on to its plate. ‘Molly, I hope you like yours baveuse because that’s how I always do them. Max likes them that way. The table’s set in the dining room. Take this in, and I’ll bring ours as soon as it’s done. We’ll share one as usual, Max, all right?’ And she knew she was being absurd to parade their closeness in this way — as if it made a bit of difference to Molly that usually she and Max shared one omelette!
‘Lovely,’ Molly said and took the plate and smiled at Max, her eyes as bright as his. ‘Much nicer to stay here, Max darling. We can be cosy, talk all night —’
‘He’s tired,’ Lexie heard herself saying. ‘I don’t think he should —’
‘Marvellous,’ Max said, not seeming to hear her. ‘I’ll open some wine, then. Lexie, is that bottle of Frascati still in the fridge? Glory, glory, it is. I’d better not have any, not with the way that damned Paris bug’s hit me, but watching you enjoy it’ll do me a power of good. Come on, Lexie. Scramble ’em for speed, darling. I’ll enjoy that — real nursery food, hmm?’ He kissed the top of her head as she poured more eggs into the pan, but she knew he was distracted, too filled with delight at seeing Molly to realize how tense she was.
They sat at the table long after their small meal was finished, as Molly chattered with more excitement and glitter than Lexie had ever seen in her, larding her talk of Hollywood doings with household names, making it abundantly clear that, though her own name might not figure as large as she’d like on cinema posters, she was well acquainted with people whose names did, and they sat silently listening and watching her. For her own part, the silence was watchful, but she knew that Max’s was full of sheer pleasure. He watched and listened and smiled and his face was so full of delight in her company that Lexie couldn’t bear to look at it.
‘And then, would you believe, the wretched man went off to that God awful stupid Justice of the Peace and married her! It was asking for trouble — after all, we’d been to the same wretched man — but they’d forgotten and didn’t ask us and —’
Max lifted his chin and his expression changed, became concerned. ‘What was that?’ he said quietly and Molly stopped in mid-flow and looked sideways at him.
‘Wow, but you’re a noticing kind of a fella, Max,’ she said after a moment. �
�Really fast on your feet. You lawyers!’ She reached into her housecoat pocket, pulled out a pack of cigarettes and lit one. ‘Not much I can put over on you, huh?’
‘Not a great deal. What did you mean, you’d been to the same wretched man?’
She shrugged. ‘I did what they did. Got a bitty happier than I should have done at a party — it was one of the English colony affairs, and to tell the truth, darling, godawful boring — and Laurence had been trying to get me to do it for ever, though God above knows why, so —’ Again she shrugged. ‘So I just went and did it. And it was the same man, and what we didn’t know was he gets paid for every paper he calls with his stories. But no one was as interested in me as they were in Marilyn and her chap of course, so they didn’t use the story when it was Laurence and me —’
‘It’s an appalling system,’ Max said with a sudden note of violence in his voice. ‘Appalling that people can just marry like that without —’
Lexie’s head snapped up. ‘What did you say?’ She hadn’t really been listening, had been trying to push down her resentment of Max’s absorption in Molly, but now she was brought back by Max’s sharp change of mood.
‘She’s telling us she’s married, Lexie,’ he said. ‘Just went and got married —’
‘Well, maybe it wasn’t quite like that,’ Molly said and for the first time there was an uneasiness in her. ‘I mean, we’d talked about it, done all the preliminary things you know, licences and all that and blood tests. It was just — well, anyway, I married him last fall. Laurence Searle. He’s a designer. Very big time —’
‘What sort of designer?’ Max said. ‘And why isn’t he here with you, and —’
She shook her head at him and reached for the wine bottle to refill her glass. ‘Don’t want to talk about it, Max. Don’t want to talk, so I won’t. You know better than to push, too. You promised me, remember? When you first came to Hollywood, found me? Promised. No questions, only answers when I feel like it. So I don’t feel like it.’ She emptied her glass at a single draught and Max frowned a little and leaned back in his chair.
But he said no more and Lexie, after opening her mouth to speak, glanced at him and then followed his example. There seemed nothing she could do, because Molly, she now realized, wasn’t as controlled as she had been. She glanced at the wine bottle. Max had had none, and she herself had taken only one glass which still stood almost untouched in front of her, yet the bottle was almost empty and she looked again at Molly’s slightly sweaty forehead and bit her tongue.
‘Talk about the script instead,’ Molly said to Lexie, and Lexie realized that this was the first time she’d addressed her directly since Max had come home. ‘Did you read it, Lexie?’
‘I read it,’ Lexie said. ‘Very interesting.’
‘It’s a great part, isn’t it? Alice? It’s mine. Alice is mine.’
‘It should be a very good film,’ Lexie said guardedly. ‘And yes, it’s a very good part, I imagine. I can’t really know, of course. I’m not that much of an actress — but with a good director it could do very well.’
‘Oh, the director is great.’ Molly laughed suddenly. It sounded shrill in the quiet room. ‘The best, Laurence says. Absolutely the best. And he should know. He’s his friend, after all, isn’t he? His special friend. His darling Toby. That’s why he’s using me for the part. He had to.’ Again she laughed, and it was a sharp discordant little sound. ‘I told him he’d have to. If he wants Laurence to go on the way he does, and me to be a good little wife who doesn’t tell tales out of bed, then he’s got to.’ She looked sideways at Lexie and laughed again.
There was a brief silence then Lexie said, ‘Why did you want me to read it, Molly? If you’ve got the part, and he’s a good director — I imagine he knows what he’s doing.’
‘Georgina,’ Molly said impatiently. ‘Didn’t you read it properly? Georgina’s supposed to be English, and you still talk that way, even after all that time on Broadway. There’s really no one else they know who could do it, not with a name. None of the big names will, it’s such a — well, she’s not exactly a sympathetic character, is she? And the big-time ladies don’t like playing nasties. So I thought — you’re a marquee name in New York, and they know you here, too — maybe if you do it — and it’s a great publicity angle, isn’t it? Could be time to tell the world, momma and daughter, new film — it’s a good angle, eh, Lexie?’ She stared at Lexie, who stared back and thought — is she as drunk as she seems? Or is it an act? Am I really hearing this? Is she saying what I think she’s saying? About the man she’s married, about the reason she’s doing this film, about — and suddenly, totally unbidden, an image rose in her mind.
She saw herself in an alleyway outside a stage door and Ambrose standing there, her lips hot and bruised with the kiss she had just given him, looking at her as she stared at him. She saw him pulling his cravat into place and heard him saying to a shadowy young man somewhere in the background, ‘My dear, women! Like bitches in heat, some of ’em — for pity’s sake get me out of here.’
And she looked at Molly’s tight little face and the glitter in her eyes and wanted to reach out and hold her warm and close and tell her it didn’t matter, it would be all right one day. That there were tender, loving men as well as men like Ambrose and this Laurence, that she had found Max, and that Molly too could find what she needed.
But she didn’t. She just shook her head and said, ‘I don’t think so, Molly. It’s not my sort of —’
‘Oh, of course you can!’ Molly said loudly. ‘Of course you can! You could do it, with Toby to direct you. You could do anything. He could make a horse play Hamlet so’s you’d believe it. I may hate the goddammed fag, but he’s the best director there is. The script’s fantastic — you know it is — and that could be the one that really makes it for me, at last. All those years with that rotten contract and now at last I’m free. I can do what I want and there’s this film. And I want you for it. I’ve got to have you. I could make it work with you. I could get the feeling right — all the bad feeling and the hate and the —’
She stopped suddenly and the silence between them became so heavy it was almost like an actual weight pushing down on her, and then Max said quietly, ‘Molly. That was —’
‘No,’ Lexie said loudly and got to her feet. ‘I don’t want you to say anything, Max. Do you understand? Not anything. Molly, I’m sorry you feel — I’m sorry if there’s bad feelings and hate in you for me. I made some dreadful mistakes with you, but none of them were meant to — well, I made mistakes. But I’m not paying for them in public, you understand me? I’m a performer, I always have been and I’ll do a lot for my work. But I don’t strip. Do you hear me. I don’t strip. That’s what it would be if I did this with you, and so I won’t. Good night, Molly. I’m going to bed. Max?’
He said nothing, looking only at Molly, and the expression on his face made Lexie want to weep. He looked as stricken as if he’d been physically hit. His pallor had returned and he looked ill again. She moved round the table and touched his arm gently.
‘Come on, darling,’ she said. ‘You really must get some rest. You’re exhausted.’ To her surprise he nodded, and got to his feet and let her tuck her hand into his elbow and lead him towards their bedroom.
He stopped when he got to the door and looked back at Molly who was still sitting at the table, her head bent, so that her hair swung forward to hide her face.
‘I hope we can make it better in the morning, Molly,’ he said. ‘I do love you both so much, you see. We must make it better in the morning.’ But she said nothing, and was still sitting there when they went into the bedroom and Lexie closed the door behind them.
47
But next morning there were other things to think about, and it wasn’t until late the following day that Lexie remembered what had been said, and when she did it was like remembering another life.
It had started at around four in the morning, as the night sky began to thin out beyond their
bedroom window, promising dawn. She woke suddenly, to lie staring at the greyish square of uncurtained glass, her heart beating so hard she could feel it thumping on her ribs. It had taken her a long time to doze off and now she felt that she had been sleeping only a few minutes, yet she had woken, and didn’t know why.
Then she heard it again, and sat up. Max wasn’t beside her. She strained her ears and once more it came, the dreadful choked sound, and she almost tumbled out of bed and out to the bathroom to find him clinging to the wall and retching desperately, almost unable to catch his breath as each wave of nausea hit him. His face was putty-coloured now, his eyes seemed to bulge in his head, and when she touched him he was clammy with cold sweat.
Quite how she understood what to do, she didn’t know, but she moved automatically, not thinking. She held him close until at last the retching eased, as it did, slowly, then wrapped him in a blanket from their bed and sat him in the armchair in the living room while she rushed to dress, pulling on a pair of trousers and shirt and pushing her bare feet into sandals. Then she went back to the living room and helped him put on slippers and dressing gown, murmuring encouragement all the time, and, wrapping him again in the blanket, took him to the front door and down in the lift to the car. Getting him in wasn’t easy, for he was shaking in the coolness of the early morning air, but at last he was there in the passenger seat and she was beside him and starting the engine, telling him how they’d get him to hospital fast, see a doctor, better than calling the local one out, he needed specialist care, it wouldn’t be long now.
Family Chorus Page 48