To Hear a Nightingale

by Charlotte Bingham

  ‘Jesus – you remember Cassie McGann!’ Leonora continued with a wicked grin. ‘The little bitch who beat me at tennis, and then came and stayed on Long Island!’

  Mrs Von Wagner nodded.

  ‘Sure,’ she replied evenly. ‘I remember all too well.’

  ‘What are you doing in New York, Cassie?’ Leonora asked, all the time leading her back into the store. ‘Better still, don’t tell me now. Let’s go have a coffee, or even better a drink, and bring ourselves up to date.’

  Cassie looked at Mrs Von Wagner who was looking back at her.

  ‘It’s all right,’ Leonora’s mother said. ‘I don’t bite.’

  ‘Mamma couldn’t stand Grandfather,’ Leonora told Cassie. ‘Anyway, he’s dead.’

  Mrs Von Wagner smiled at both the girls, rather automatically and without the slightest trace of emotion.

  ‘Why don’t you two girls go off and enjoy yourselves?’ she suggested. ‘I just have to return these items to Lingerie, and then I’m going on to lunch with someone anyway.’

  She held up the string-tied Bergdorf Goodman parcel.

  ‘OK,’ said Leonora. ‘I’ll see you back at the apartment.’

  Then she hailed another cab as her mother disappeared inside the store, and bundled Cassie into the back for all the world as if she was kidnapping her.

  They sat in the Plaza and drank champagne cocktails. The drinks revived Cassie sufficiently long enough to listen without any great interest to the recent story of Leonora’s life.

  ‘I’ve only just come back from the continent,’ she told Cassie. ‘Switzerland, where I was at this fabulous finishing school. By fabulous I mean fabulous for sex. We spent the whole time climbing in and out, and no one gave a goddam.’

  She tossed back her blonde hair, which was longer and silkier than ever, and shouted at a waiter to bring two more champagne cocktails and quick.

  Then she turned her attentions back to Cassie.

  ‘I got laid so many times,’ she said far too loudly for Cassie’s comfort, ‘I lost count. My last lover was a prince. He was dreadful. I reckon he was a fag.’

  The waiter brought the drinks over and set them down. As he did so, Leonora lit a cigarette and blew smoke in his face.

  ‘How about you, Cassie?’ she grinned. ‘You lost it yet?’

  The waiter left, and Cassie went red, not with embarrassment, but with anger.

  ‘That’s none of your business, Leonora,’ she retorted.

  Leonora threw back her head and hooted with laughter.

  ‘Jesus you’re great! It’s a wonder you haven’t become a nun!’

  Leonora took another pull at her cigarette then stubbed it out impatiently, lighting another one almost immediately as she yawned and looked round the room.

  ‘You still haven’t told me what you’re doing in New York,’ she said, her curiously cold eyes falling back on Cassie.

  Cassie wondered whether or not to tell Leonora the truth, that she was working as shop girl in the store where they had re-met, and run the risk of more of Leonora’s scorn, or whether this was an occasion for one of Sister Joseph’s ‘quite understandable and immediately forgivable white lies’.

  She decided upon the latter.

  ‘I’m a singer,’ she said.

  Leonora looked up from her cocktail.

  ‘You’re not?’ she replied. ‘No kidding. What sort of singer? You know, I mean nightclubs? Or what?’

  ‘Opera,’ Cassie corrected her. ‘I’m at the Met.’

  Leonora frowned, suddenly filled with a sneaking admiration for a girl she had always considered a dead-ender.

  ‘Right,’ she grinned. ‘Back row of the chorus, right? In one of those fearful peasant costumes.’

  ‘No,’ Cassie replied calmly, the champagne cocktail giving her the necessary Dutch courage. ‘Name roles. I studied for two years with Doctor Rosser, the famous Austrian coach.’

  ‘Oh Christ,’ Leonora sighed. ‘Even I have heard of Dr Rosser. You in anything right now?’

  ‘Sure,’ said Cassie. ‘We’re doing Tristan und Isolde, and I’m singing Gertrude.’

  Leonora grabbed a copy of the New York Times which was lying nearby and turned to the Theater Guide. Cassie had to bite her lip for the second time that day to stop laughing as she watched Leonora running her finger down the list of entertainments. Cassie always knew what was on at the Met, because one of Gina’s beaux, a rich stockbroker, was an opera buff, and poor Gina, who hated opera, was always being dragged off to see interminable productions of Wagner. Her latest torture had been Tristan und Isolde, only last week. Cassie wasn’t at all sure about the part of Gertrude, but she could bet her bottom dollar that Leonora, who knew about as much about opera as Cassie knew about motor racing, was even less au fait.

  Leonora looked up, almost for once in awe of Cassie.

  ‘Christ!’ she hissed, having found the listing. ‘Can you get tickets?’

  ‘Sure,’ Cassie replied. ‘Except I never knew you liked opera.’

  ‘No chance for tonight, I suppose?’ Leonora asked, without much hope. ‘I’m only in town until tomorrow.’

  Cassie sipped her cocktail, and took all the time in the world to answer. She knew from Gina how hot the tickets were for this production.

  ‘As a matter of fact, you’re not going to believe this,’ she replied finally, ‘but I had two friends from Newport coming tonight. But they’ve both gone down with food poisoning.

  ‘That’s tough,’ said Leonora, barely able to contain her smile. ‘So I could have their tickets?’

  ‘OK,’ said Cassie. ‘But only because I don’t want to let them go to waste.’

  Leonora looked at Cassie, unsure how to take this. But Cassie was smiling so sweetly at her, Leonora thought she obviously intended no slight.

  ‘I’ll owe you for this, Cassie,’ she said. ‘There’s this guy I really want to lay, and his wife’s out of town. And he’s a total opera freak. Jesus, I’ll really owe you for this.’

  ‘No,’ said Cassie, ‘I really owe you. I’ll leave the tickets at the box office, in your name.’

  Then she got up and walked out of the Plaza grinning like a Cheshire cat, already imagining and enjoying Leonora’s forthcoming embarrassment.

  Back in the apartment, still propped up by the champagne Cassie lay on her bed and thought about Tyrone. In her head she wanted to say no so badly to him, but in her heart she knew she felt quite differently. So which should she be ruled by? She so loved her life in New York, with all her friends. She loved going to hear jazz, or walking through Central Park with Arnie and their crowd, or late-night shopping with Gina, or just lying in her bed early in the morning hearing the sounds of the city waking up. She was free, and without any emotional ties. At least she had been, until that fateful day in the lingerie department of Bergdorf Goodman.

  And yet here she was seriously contemplating accepting the marriage proposal of a man she barely knew, a man with whom she’d been out precisely once; who had sorely embarrassed her at her place of work, and then when she had asked for more time to consider his proposal, had given her until the end of the week! Cassie suddenly started to get angry, and punching her pillow into shape, turned on her side.

  You’ve got until Friday indeed, she fumed. He had to be mad. And so did she, even to give such a notion a moment’s serious thought. She knew nothing about him, nothing at all. She knew he lived in Ireland, in a large house called Claremore, but she didn’t know what he did, or even what he had done. Who had he been buying all that expensive underwear for, for instance? A friend, he had said. Not his wife, not his daughter, but a friend. He had been buying the most intimate gift a man could buy for a woman, he had made Cassie model them for him, yet here she was, seriously thinking about whether or not she should marry him!

  She was drunk. That’s what the answer was. The champagne cocktails she’d had with Leonora at lunch had gone straight to her head, and she was drunk. Only a drunk would be lying there cont
emplating giving up everything she had worked and dreamed for over the last two years for a marriage to a complete stranger.

  Cassie turned over on to her other side, then back again, as she realised with dread that she hadn’t even considered the biggest obstacle to a marriage between them, even if she were to agree. Her birthright. If she really did love this man, for some peculiar reason, then she couldn’t tell him in advance of their marriage and she couldn’t tell him afterwards. And Cassie also knew there was no way she could keep it forever hidden from him. Someone would come into their lives, a Doctor Fossett, or somebody from Westboro Falls, or an acquaintance of the Harris family, and they would tell Tyrone with mock astonishment that he didn’t know already, and she would be disgraced, and kicked out of Claremore. Cassie imagined the picture, like an illustration out of an old book, with Tyrone at the top of the steps, pointing the way for the forlorn Cassie to go off into her exile.

  The telephone woke her up. Cassie sat up in the pitch darkness and for a moment wondered where she was, as the telephone rang and rang. Then she remembered, and realised that she must have slept all afternoon.

  ‘Hello?’ she said into the receiver. ‘This is Cassie McGann speaking.’

  ‘Well?’ said the familiar voice.

  Cassie sighed and stayed silent for a moment before answering.

  ‘You said I had until the end of the week.’

  ‘As your doctor, I have the right of an interim report.’

  ‘There’s no change in my condition,’ Cassie said. ‘None whatsoever.’

  ‘Then I would say,’ the voice replied, ‘that you are in need of further and immediate attention.’

  The phone went dead. Cassie lay back and stared at the shadows on the ceiling, when the telephone rang again. Cassie picked it up and spoke into it at once.

  ‘If you want me to say yes to your proposal, Mr Rosse,’ she said somewhat curtly, ‘you’ll stand a much better chance if you’ll only leave me alone!’

  ‘Who in hell is Mr Rosse?’ asked Arnie. ‘And where in hell are you? The concert starts in ten minutes!’

  In the interval Cassie tried to explain to Arnie what had happened, but couldn’t come up with another perfectly understandable and immediately forgivable white lie. If only Arnie had called for her, as he usually did. But this was the one night he couldn’t, because on Tuesdays he had to work late and hadn’t time to go home, change and come and pick Cassie up. She’d never have had to tell him about Tyrone otherwise. They could have just enjoyed the concert, eaten at Harry’s, gone on and listened to a little jazz, kissed each other good night – end of story. But now here they were, with Arnie staring at the ground while Cassie tried to explain about this lunatic Irishman who’d burst into her life, and how it was all too crazy for words because even if she wanted to, she couldn’t marry him anyway.

  ‘Why not?’ Arnie asked, without looking up. ‘This guy married already or something?’

  ‘I don’t know!’ Cassie answered helplessly.

  ‘You don’t know?’ Arnie said, suddenly raising his voice. ‘Some guy asks you to marry him, and you think about it, and you don’t even know if he’s married already?’

  Some of the other Count Basie fans were beginning to take a great interest in the developing quarrel. Cassie tried to turn Arnie away, but he shook her arm off.

  ‘That’s not the reason I couldn’t marry him,’ she hissed, ‘even if I wanted to.’

  ‘You don’t say!’ Arnie retorted, as loud as before. ‘Why? Are you married?’

  ‘No!’ said Cassie, still trying to drag Arnie away from their fast-growing audience.

  ‘Then why?’ Arnie shouted. ‘If you wanted to marry this guy why the hell can’t you?’

  Cassie wanted to shout at the very top of her voice, because I’m a bastard! Because I’m a bastard! Because I’m a bastard! But she settled instead for something much less dramatic but unintentionally far more infuriating.

  ‘Because I can’t,’ she replied.

  Arnie stared at her, his eyes nearly popping out of his head.

  ‘Because you can’t?’ he shouted in disbelief. ‘Because you can’t? The only reason you can’t marry somebody you only met yesterday goddamit is because you can’t? Listen, I tell you, I’ve heard some pretty whacky reasons in my time, Cassie McGann! But that has to be the all-time screwiest!’

  Arnie shook his head at her disbelievingly as the bell sounded for the end of the interval.

  ‘Come on,’ said Cassie, taking his hand, ‘we can talk about it afterwards.’

  ‘The hell we can!’ Arnie yelled, snatching his hand away, ‘I’m going to get fried!’

  He pushed his way out through the crowds going back in, and disappeared into the winter’s night. By the time Cassie had fought her way through after him, he was gone.

  When she came back from lunch on Wednesday and walked back on to the floor of the lingerie department to take up her post, Cassie failed to see the man who had been sitting next to the glass showcase – the very same showcase where Cassie had laid out on display the undergarments for Tyrone – get off his chair and drop to his knees.

  What she did become aware of was some of her juniors, who were watching her and trying to contain their laughter. She was about to enquire what exactly was the source of their amusement, when she noticed the top of a man’s head, the other side of the counter. Tyrone. She stood rooted to the spot, unable to think of either appropriate words or actions.

  Tyrone knelt more upright, the better for Cassie to see him, and she observed through her mortification that he was holding a small bunch of violets. He offered them to her, but Cassie stood stock still, her hands by her sides. Tyrone laid them on the counter and nodded at her.

  ‘Well?’ he asked.

  ‘Get up off your knees,’ she hissed back at him, ‘and then get out of here.’

  ‘Not until you say yes.’

  ‘You told me I had until Friday.’

  ‘That was before I realised how stubborn you were.’

  ‘Will you please – get up off your knees!’

  ‘Will you please – say that you’ll marry me?’

  Cassie glared at him, then round at the juniors, who were all in various stages of hysteria. When they saw the look on Cassie’s face, they at once regained their composure.

  ‘Go into Mrs Wellman’s office, Cherry,’ Cassie requested her most responsible assistant, ‘and ask her to send for the house detective.’

  Cherry hurried across to Mrs Wellman’s room, which didn’t bother Tyrone one bit. He just watched her go, with that slow smile of his.

  Then he looked back and up at Cassie, across the top of the glass divide.

  ‘Are proposals of marriage against the house rules as well?’ he enquired.

  ‘Persistent worrying of the employees is,’ Cassie replied.

  ‘My dear child, you haven’t an idea of how persistent I can be,’ said Tyrone.

  Cassie leaned across the counter, giving it one last go.

  ‘Please,’ she begged, ‘get up off your knees.’

  ‘You know the conditions,’ Tyrone reminded her. ‘One little word of three letters, beginning with “Y”.’

  ‘Not here,’ Cassie said. ‘Not in front of everyone.’

  Tyrone looked round him and saw not only the girls, but some newly arrived customers all curiously watching the pantomime.

  He got to his feet and Cassie closed her eyes in relief. Off guard, she was powerless to stop his next move. In a flash Tyrone had come round to her side of the counter and lifted her up easily into his arms. Cassie tried to struggle, but of course Tyrone was far too strong for her. With a broad grin on his face, he started to amble to the exit.

  Mrs Wellman watched helplessly from her office and prayed that the store detective would arrive in time.

  He didn’t.

  As Tyrone sauntered past Mrs Wellman’s office, she thought that perhaps she’d best say something.

  ‘Excuse me,’ she ve
ntured. ‘But what exactly do you think you’re doing, sir?’

  ‘It’s perfectly all right, madam,’ Tyrone replied.

  ‘It is not perfectly all right!’ Cassie protested, trying to struggle free.

  ‘I’m her physician, Doctor Rosse,’ Tyrone continued regardless. ‘And I’m afraid my patient here, Miss McGann, has been wilfully neglecting my instructions.’

  He nodded pleasantly at Mrs Wellman and continued on his way. Mrs Wellman considered it best not to pursue the matter further if Miss McGann was indeed under the doctor’s supervision. Besides, the man had a rather peculiar look in his eyes. She clapped her hands together for the juniors to return to their posts and went back into the safety of her office.

  With Cassie still firmly held in his arms, Tyrone looked for a cab. He stood in the middle of the street, while the traffic hooted at him and slewed around him, but he didn’t move until he saw a free cab. The driver, anxious to get home and out of the increasingly heavy snow, tried to ignore the tall man standing there with some dame in his arms, in the middle of the road and right in his path. He leaned on his horn, but the man didn’t move. So he stood on his brakes instead.

  Tyrone opened the back door of the cab and deposited the snow-soaked Cassie on the seat. Then he went round to the driver’s door and opened it.

  ‘Get out,’ Tyrone demanded.

  The traffic piled up behind the cab, and started to hoot angrily and monotonously, as the cab driver, who was a small man, got out and tried to measure up to the man towering over him.

  ‘What’s the matter, Mac?’ he pleaded.

  ‘The matter,’ Tyrone informed him, ‘is that it is bloody cold and wet out here! That’s what the matter is! So next time you see a lady in distress, you damn well stop for her!’

  Tyrone gave the driver Cassie’s address and then got into the cab. So did the driver. Tyrone apologised for the incident as if the driver’s incivility was his own fault, and stripped off his jacket, draping it round Cassie. Cassie, who was cold, accepted it, but tried not to show her gratitude, staring out of the window instead at the blizzard which was beginning to rage.