by Nicola Upson
‘As modest as ever, I see.’ Bridget sat down on the arm of his chair. She had changed into a sleeveless white linen dress, and her skin shone deep brown in the lamplight. From where he sat, Archie could smell the subtle scent of jasmine.
‘What’s wrong with that? I said almost.’ Spence stubbed out his cigarette. ‘We’re all schoolboys at heart, I suppose. It’s just that most of us try to hide it and Hitch chooses to make it a feature.’
It was the same line of defence that Archie had used with Ronnie but, now that he had seen Hitchcock’s sense of humour in action, he couldn’t help feeling that she had been right after all: behaving like a schoolboy was a dangerous trait in someone who wielded that sort of power. He said nothing, though, and asked instead‚ ‘Are you part of the big move?’
Spence shook his head. ‘No. I have other plans.’
He didn’t elaborate on what they were‚ and Bridget stood up. ‘I’ll get us some drinks. What will you have?’
‘Not for me, thanks,’ Spence said, gently moving the dog from his lap. ‘I’d better be going. I’ll catch up with you over the weekend.’ He raised his hand to Archie and kissed Bridget’s cheek.
‘Let me know how you get on,’ she said, and Spence nodded. On his way out of the door, Archie was sure he saw him wink. ‘Ever the soul of discretion,’ Bridget added wryly when he was gone.
‘I’m sorry. I didn’t mean to interrupt your evening.’
‘You didn’t. We just bumped into each other in the woods. He was angry about something but that’s always his way: he’s got a terrible temper, but it blows itself out as soon as it arrives.’ She peered out of the window. ‘Let’s hope this storm will do the same when it finally gets here.’
‘Do you know him well?’ Archie asked casually.
‘Jack? As well as you can ever know someone like him, I suppose. We go back a long way. His family was part of the set that used to mix with Clough’s, here and in London, so we met each other as kids and then ended up at the Slade together. I often see him when I’m here.’ Archie felt someone nuzzle his hand, and he reached down to respond. ‘That’s Carrington, by the way,’ Bridget said, and he was touched that she should have named her dog after the painter; their friendship stretched back to art school, and Dora Carrington’s suicide in the early thirties must have devastated her. ‘And this is Lytton.’ She indicated the dog who had remained glued to her side. ‘Ironically, he’s a one-woman kind of chap. That would have made her laugh.’
‘You must miss her,’ he said, hoping that the tenderness in his voice would make up for the inadequacy of the words.
‘Yes, every day. It was such a shock, and so inevitable.’ She crouched down and scratched the dog’s head, and he looked adoringly up at her. ‘She was never going to carry on after Lytton died. It was a loneliness too far, and nothing had a point to it without him. Even painting was meaningless, because he wasn’t there to see it. I can understand that. We all need someone to impress, someone who matters.’
He wanted to ask who mattered for her, but didn’t trust himself to be gracious with the answer. In any case, he sensed she wanted to talk about something else, so he picked up their earlier conversation. ‘I thought Jack Spence was only here because of Hitchcock. Does he come back often?’
‘Whenever Clough adds a new building. They’re very close, those two. It took Jack a while to get back on his feet after the war, and Clough gave him some work to help him out. Architectural photography, mostly – nothing as glamorous as what he’s doing now, but easier on the eye than the things he had to cover abroad. No dead bodies in sight.’ Her voice took on the cynical, ironic tone that had become second nature to their generation as they struggled to find new ways to distance themselves from the horror of war. ‘He photographed this headland as it was when Clough bought it, and he’s recorded its transformation ever since. Not that he needs the work now, but I think he has a great affection for it.’ Archie nodded‚ and she laughed. ‘Don’t look so uncomfortable. I told him you were coming, but I didn’t expect you to leave your party so early.’ She kissed him and let her hand linger on the back of his neck. ‘I’m flattered. And wine, too.’ She rinsed a couple of glasses in the sink and looked for a corkscrew among the debris on the table.
‘I would have let it breathe but I wasn’t quite sure about your – uh – system,’ he said, amused.
Bridget ignored the comment, then found what she was looking for and made an expressive gesture with it. ‘You have to leave your systems at the door with me, Archie,’ she said. ‘Surely you remember that?’ He nodded and passed her the bottle. ‘Let’s take it outside,’ she suggested. ‘It’s hot in here, and we can keep an eye on the weather. I don’t want to start that damned mural from scratch.’ The back door of the cottage led to a private inlet with its own tiny rowing boat; there was a pretty walled area with a small table and chairs, lit by lanterns and well shielded from the public footpath. Bridget sat down and smiled at him. ‘So how did you get caught up in Hitchcock’s foreplay?’
He laughed. ‘That’s an interesting description.’
‘Jack’s term, not mine. He senses worse to come over the weekend. Did Josephine’s cocktails go well or badly?’
‘Well, but we were wrong-footed by the invitation after dinner. Hitchcock’s a hard man to refuse. Did Jack tell you about it?’ She nodded. ‘At least we weren’t expected to take part, but it was bad enough as a spectator sport.’
‘Jack said it was all about fear.’
‘That’s right. If it hadn’t felt quite so voyeuristic, it might have been interesting. I’d never realised that what you’re afraid of says so much about who you are.’
‘So what are you afraid of? If it’s not a professional sin for a policeman to admit to fear at all?’
‘Being wrong.’ She looked at him disbelievingly, and he tried to explain before she teased him for his arrogance. ‘That’s not as egotistical as it sounds. I mean being wrong professionally. There’s too much at stake.’
‘Accusing the wrong man, you mean?’
‘Or missing the right one. People are badly served either way, and it’s not a mistake you can put right.’
‘I would have thought knowing that was half the battle,’ Bridget said seriously. ‘And from what I remember, you’re not short of compassion or understanding. I doubt you’re often wrong.’ She grinned. ‘Professionally speaking, anyway. If I were in trouble, I’d want you on my side. But isn’t the law infallible?’
‘Oh yes. Just like we learnt our lesson from the war, and this government will be more effective than the last.’ His wryness matched hers. ‘You’ll be pleased to know that the older I get, the less faith I have in my systems.’
‘Now that can’t be a bad thing.’ She raised her glass. ‘To the wisdom of age. Shame we have to wait for it.’
‘I’m not so sure about that. Hitchcock talked about his greatest fear being a knowledge of the future. It was the most sensible thing he said all night, actually; knowing what’s in store for you and not being able to do a thing about it would be terrible.’ He drained his glass and watched as the first flicker of lightning split the sky across the water. ‘A bit like having another war waiting in the wings, I suppose. It’s hard to believe that it could have been worse, but the knowledge of what we were heading for would have made it so. This time, some of us won’t have the luxury of ignorance.’
Bridget was quiet. He knew she was thinking back to that time in the hospital, when – with kindness, patience and understanding – she had slowly talked him back to sanity. ‘You must have nightmares about going through it again.’
‘Yes, and about what we might put up with as a nation to avoid it. But even on a day-to-day level, there’d be no point in hoping or striving for anything if you knew the future, no sense of discovery. You’d know how every painting was going to turn out before you picked up your brush. And as far as people are concerned, you’d miss out on all the joy, all the excitement, all the love, becau
se you’d be obsessed with counting the days. You’d blunt your emotions to stop yourself getting hurt. Of course, some of us do that anyway.’ Bridget looked at him curiously‚ but he didn’t give her the chance to ask. ‘What about you? What are you frightened of?’
‘Losing my . . .’ She stopped and took longer to consider her response. ‘Not being able to express myself, I suppose,’ she said at last. ‘Having a vision that I can’t communicate, either because I’m not talented enough or because of some physical disability. You never quite get the painting you set out to create, but to have a sense of beauty and not be able to share it in some way, or a demon that you can’t exorcise somehow through your work – that would be a form of madness for me, I think.’ Her face had a childlike earnestness when she was trying to understand or explain something; with a smile, like the one she gave him now, it crinkled into life and was completely transformed. ‘Of course, some critics would say I’m there already.’
He couldn’t have explained it, even to himself, but Archie’s curiosity about Bridget’s life became suddenly more urgent. Impatient to chip away at the distance that twenty years had created, he asked‚ ‘What about the good things? Are you happy?’
The question sounded absurdly simplistic but she didn’t treat it that way. ‘Yes, Archie, I’m happy. Most of the time, anyway. There’s not a day goes by when I don’t want to work, and how many people can say that? It hasn’t always been easy being a . . . well, being a painter isn’t the most secure of jobs. Unlike some people, we don’t get promotion.’ He smiled, and listened as she talked about Cambridge and her friends, noticing that she spoke generally rather than about one specific person. All those years ago, that was how their feelings had begun – unconsciously, as friendship. They had got to know each other slowly, without the urgency of love, but the discoveries seemed richer for being leisurely. She had expected nothing from him, had made it clear that he was to do the same – and, because their time together was free of the pain of love, he realised now that he had carried it with him happily. He thought of Bridget without bitterness, regret or any of those other small betrayals that a more intense attachment can breed. And for that reason, she held a unique place in his life. He tried to put his thoughts into words, but she stopped him almost immediately. ‘You think I didn’t love you?’
Archie was taken aback by the question. Bridget looked at him, half teasing, half serious, and he remembered how he had always struggled to work out what those eyes were saying – but he had never minded. Something in her calm, relaxed ability to accept life as it was and at the same time grab all it offered was the antidote to his own need for precision and direction, and, for a while, it had made his life richer. ‘Of course I loved you, Archie,’ she said, taking his hand. ‘Just because I didn’t want to make a lifetime of it doesn’t mean it was less than that. People are so funny about love. It always has to lead somewhere, as if it’s only the beginning of something and never enough in itself.’
The storm, which seemed to have been prowling around the headland, looking for a way through Portmeirion’s defences, finally found its way in‚ and thunder cracked loudly above them. Bridget laughed as the first big drops of rain fell onto the table between them. ‘Wonderful timing,’ she said. ‘Now I’ve got to go and secure that mural. It’s not dry enough to withstand this yet.’ She stood up and pulled him to his feet. ‘You can come and help me while you think of something to say.’
4
‘You’re angry with me, aren’t you?’
‘No, Hitch. I’m just tired. Don’t worry about it.’ Alma smiled unconvincingly at her husband’s reflection in the dressing-table mirror and carried on removing her make-up. ‘It’s been a long day.’
‘And you’re angry.’
She sighed and turned to face him. ‘I just don’t understand why you do it.’ He sat on the end of the bed, his face flushed from the wine and the heat of the room, and she could see from his expression that he didn’t know either. She worried about his health more and more these days: his weight had always fluctuated but he was heavier now than he had ever been, and recently he had even begun to take short naps on set; it would only be a matter of time before someone mentioned this in an interview, and rumours would go round that his best was behind him. Alma recognised the streak of cruelty that entered her husband’s jokes whenever he was undergoing a personal crisis. She had seen it several times already in the course of their marriage: when The Lodger was shelved, for instance, or when Blackmail failed to win over American audiences. This time, the intensity of it frightened her‚ and she had to make him see that. ‘I think you went too far,’ she said.
‘Blame David. He invited them.’
‘Only because you told him to. And sending him after Turnbull with a bottle of single malt doesn’t suddenly make everything right.’
He looked defensive. ‘How was I to know they were going to behave like that?’
‘You couldn’t have known, and that’s exactly my point. It isn’t a film set, Hitch. You don’t get to decide what happens. People have emotions that didn’t start in your head. They have jealousies and attachments and grudges that you have no idea about. We all do.’
‘Oh yes?’ He winked at her and tried to soften her mood, a sure sign that he knew he was in the wrong. ‘And what might those be, Mrs Hitchcock?’
‘I was talking generally,’ Alma said firmly, remembering her brief exchange with Bella Hutton, out of character for both of them but symptomatic of the way in which petty jealousies could escalate. ‘And don’t try to joke your way out of this.’ She walked over to the bed and kissed the top of his head, then sat down next to him and took his hand. ‘There’s already enough in our life that’s unsettled, Hitch, things that are beyond our control. Why go out of your way to make trouble?’ It was his chance – one of several she had given him lately – to talk honestly about everything that was worrying him: the colleagues he was losing; the mounting financial crisis at Gaumont which threatened them all; his disappointment with the response to his last film and his doubts about the one that was scheduled for release at the end of the year. Even though she knew he was only doing it to protect her, it hurt her when he hid his anxieties from her, internalising his darkest fears just like the characters in his films. More than anything, she wished that he could shrug them off as easily as he pretended to.
‘Things will work out.’ It was no more convincing now than the last time he had said it. ‘And we can do something about America.’
Alma nodded, although she sometimes wondered if she had the energy to start all over again, when the pressure would be so much greater. If Hitch were to succeed in the States, he would need to command a salary which covered their taxes and enough respect to fight a system which placed power in the producer’s chair, not the director’s – and to do those things, he had to have another hit here as soon as possible. But that wasn’t why she wanted this particular project so badly‚ and, having met her, Alma guessed that she would have got Josephine Tey’s approval much faster if she had simply been honest. It was too personal, though – almost too personal to admit to herself. She saw in A Shilling for Candles the possibility of a different sort of film, one through which Hitch could rediscover a boyish delight in the simplest of things, a film of sunshine and innocence and tenderness – all the qualities that she loved about him but which had been lost somewhere along the way. For months now, Alma felt as though they had been fumbling about in the dark, playing a game of blind man’s buff with their lives and their careers, and she mourned a more carefree time. She wanted her husband back. For very different reasons, they both needed this film to work.
5
Branwen stood at the edge of the coastal path and watched as forked lightning ran down the sky. The flash lit up the great mass of cloud that had gathered ominously over the estuary during the course of the evening, a declaration that the rain was likely to continue for some time now that it had started, and she was glad that she had had the f
oresight to bring an umbrella. There was an old stone hut behind her, marking Portmeirion’s most southerly point, but she was reluctant to take shelter inside for fear of missing her rendezvous with Bella Hutton. As it was, she cursed the weather. This meeting was important to her and to her alone, and she doubted that anyone with less of an incentive would venture out at all. But still she waited, her hand clutching the note in her coat pocket as if her faith in it could bring her what she wished for. Her bond with her mother consisted of one fragile memory, an image of a young woman bending over her to say goodbye. Branwen had no idea if it was the final goodbye or simply an everyday parting, but she knew that her mother had been wearing bright red lipstick, that her clothes and hair had seemed somehow different. It was a fleeting impression, and she had played it through so often now that there was no way of knowing for certain how much of it was real and how much her own invention, but it had spread like a dye over the blankness of the years before and since, colouring her life without ever really giving shape to it.
‘Hello?’ At last, she thought she heard someone coming. She called out a second time, less tentatively now, but the rain was pounding down on the umbrella and she could barely hear her own voice. The lightning darted into the water again‚ and Branwen waited for the thunder to respond, counting the seconds to judge the storm’s distance just as she had when she was a child. She got to three before someone grabbed her from behind and she felt a man’s hand over her mouth, his arm around her waist. The umbrella clattered uselessly to the ground and rain stung her face like a thousand tiny needles. Too shocked to resist, she allowed herself to be dragged roughly backwards. By the time they reached the hut, the intensity of the downpour and her own growing panic had combined to bring her to her senses‚ and she clung to the sides of the doorway, dreading what might happen to her if she let her attacker pull her inside, away from any hope of rescue. The pain as he slammed his fist into her fingers was almost unbearable‚ and she let go instantly, but at least he had had to remove his hand from her mouth to do it‚ and from somewhere she found the strength to cry out. It was a pathetic, half-strangled sound, muffled even more by the enclosed space, and Branwen knew she was deluding herself if she thought anyone was nearby to hear her.