The Wildflowers

by Harriet Evans

  Tony blinked now himself, pushing the image of her away – more and more he found when he closed his eyes he saw Dinah, leaning over him . . .

  Did you come back? Was it really you?

  He touched the bump again, gingerly. Now the glow of sex was wearing off his head felt as though it were in a vice. The previous night, at home, he’d jumped at the sound of something – a mouse? Someone crying out in the park behind the house, or on the river? He’d slipped, and banged his head on the back of the door, knocking himself clean out. Been unconscious for God only knew how long, he wasn’t sure, and now he had a lump the size of a duck egg there and felt pretty strange.

  As the laughter from the next room rose to a crescendo Tony looked at his watch. Time to get a move on, if he was to make dinner with Simon and Guy. He’d be all right after a stiff drink and a decent meal. On the way out, Tony paused; then, despite himself, he knocked on the neighbouring dressing room.

  ‘Night, Helen,’ he called, opening the door a fraction. ‘See you Tuesday.’

  One of the acolytes lounging in a chair next to the door jumped up. ‘Good night, sir,’ he said eagerly.

  Tony waved a gracious hand. ‘Tony, please.’ He nodded at Helen, who did not turn from the mirror. ‘I say, have a wonderful weekend, won’t you, darling.’

  ‘I will,’ she said. ‘Thank you, Tony.’

  He stared at her coolly. She was taking off the heavy fake gold collar that he, onstage, had fastened around her neck earlier that evening. Her intoxicating scent, cloves and jasmine, reached his nostrils: early in the run he’d utterly believed she was Cleopatra, come to life. ‘Other women cloy the appetites they feed, but she makes hungry where most she satisfies.’

  But she’d been so angered when he’d given her his usual little speech that she’d barely spoken to him since and the run had been somewhat strained. She knew about Rosie – Iras. She must soon work out about Rosalie . . . he thought of Rosalie again, her cheeks flushing as he touched her, her youth and beauty . . . the hopeful glance she’d given him as she’d left . . . if he’d been on better form it would have been a great fuck, really just what he needed. She’d definitely liked it. Hadn’t she? That was the rule, the rule that let him live with himself, ridiculous as it might seem, that they had to enjoy themselves, all of them. Helen didn’t seem to, any more . . . oh, what a mess it was.

  It was the boy next to her who broke the silence.

  ‘Sunday and Monday off, eh? Positive holiday in the theatre, isn’t it? Why no show on Monday?’

  ‘There’s a charity revue, it was booked in long before the run was confirmed,’ said Tony. ‘So we have two nights without a performance, which is marvellous.’

  ‘In that case,’ said the younger man, ‘I say, Helen, would you like to catch a train up to Oxford tomorrow? Or Monday? I’ll take you punting.’

  Briefly, Helen’s eyes met Tony’s. She gave a small, measured smile. ‘No thanks, honey. My plans are not yet confirmed, but I think I’m busy.’ She said softly, ‘Tony? How about you?’

  Tony tried to ignore the rushing, reeling feeling that coursed through him. He clenched his fists, just once, and looked away, then heard himself say, ‘Actually, I’m driving to Dorset tonight.’

  ‘To your cute little place by the sea?’ she said, coolly. The vein on her forehead pulsed, just a little. ‘What fun.’

  ‘Yes,’ he said, warming to the idea. ‘Yes, I’m – I’m surprising the family.’

  ‘How wonderful.’ Her eyes met his and the look of disdain in them was so powerful he wondered why the others didn’t see it. ‘Well,’ she said. ‘We must let you go to them. It’s a long drive for you – ah, thank you, Rosie.’

  Tony jumped, taking a sidestep, as Rosie appeared behind him and handed Helen some cosmetic product. ‘H-hello, Rosie darling,’ he said, as she brushed past him.

  Rosie merely nodded, and Tony shrank against the wall to let her pass. ‘Right,’ he said, ‘I’ll be off then.’

  One of Helen’s admirers nodded, but Helen ignored him. Alone in the dank corridor, Tony wiped his brow with something like relief and ran up the stairs. He waved to Cyril the doorman, who opened the stage door as he approached.

  ‘Anyone waiting?’ Tony said, warily.

  ‘There were a few. Couple of keen older ladies but I think they’ve all gone, Mr Wilde.’

  ‘I say, lucky me. Thanks, Cyril.’

  ‘Off somewhere nice for the break, sir?’ called Cyril, as Tony shook Cyril’s hand and climbed into the shiny red car parked on the narrow back street.

  ‘The seaside, Cyril. Off to surprise my darlings. Oh,’ he added carelessly, ‘could you telephone Sheekey’s? Explain I’ve had to dash off for the weekend and won’t be able to meet my companions for dinner. It’s – Guy de Quetteville, Simon Chalmers or Kenneth Strong. Can’t remember who made the booking. Do say how sorry I am. Domestic crisis or something. Tell them – ah, tell them my wife needs me.’ He smiled ruefully, climbing into the car. ‘The truth is, I damn well miss them so much I rather need to go down tonight while I can.’

  ‘Well, isn’t that nice to hear. I’ll just pop round there now, when you’ve gone, don’t you worry about a thing, Mr Wilde,’ said Cyril, approvingly. ‘Hold on a second, sir.’ He retreated into the stage-door office. ‘Hold on. Yes, I’ve got a message for you, come to mention it . . .’ He unfolded a grubby bit of paper; Tony stared at him in irritation. ‘Mr Chalmers had to cancel your dinner. He’s coming back from Dorset tonight and won’t be in London till later, he’s afraid, but he’s telephoned to say he had a lovely time with your missus and the children.’ He looked at Tony over the note. ‘Isn’t that nice, Mr Wilde, sir. Very like Mr Chalmers, to have his fun with one. A very amusing gentleman.’

  Tony gritted his teeth. ‘Very amusing,’ he repeated, and then he looked down at his lap and smiled. Ridiculous situation. ‘Could you let Guy and Kenneth know? Make my apologies. I hope they understand. Thank you, Cyril.’

  He waved at Cyril and, starting the engine, drove down St Martin’s Lane, the glinting light bulbs flashing around the different theatre signs on the road. A bulb on the Garrick burst suddenly with a splintering crack and people jumped out of the way, screams shattering the air. They were nervy – no bombings in London for a while but the IRA had targeted a bar in Belfast only two days ago. Four people killed. One was always rather on edge but what could you do? Square your shoulders and get on with it, like the war. What was the alternative?

  That Sondheim musical was still packing them in at the Adelphi . . . Respectable couples, in heavy wool coats, hats jammed on heads, flocking towards the Tube station . . . Tony’s last dressing room had looked out on St Martin’s Court and he could always tell by the gait of each passerby who’d been at the theatre, escaping into another world, who’d had their ideas challenged, their heart broken, their ears filled with song and laughter . . . He loved the brightness of the West End, the lights that never went out above each theatre, their cramped seats, warren-like structures, where you buried yourself underground to emerge as Romeo, or Ivanov, or Willy Loman. He had played them all, more than once. He’d been Hamlet in space, and he’d done Pinero in Roman togas; he’d worn a doublet and hose literally thousands of times over the years, all the way back to his first performance, a humble production of A Midsummer Night’s Dream, performed in a golden English vicarage garden as German planes studded the evening skies and death was always a possibility, just around the corner.

  As he passed the Coliseum he remembered, in this nostalgic mood, the offices of his first theatrical agent a few doors along. Above a hairdresser’s; Renée Creations, that was it. Maurice Browne, camp and stern with a twist of pale purple hair which Tony had found odd at first and then come to secretly envy – the idea that you cared so little what others thought that you dyed your hair a delicate mauve . . .

  After leaving Central he’d looked for an agent for weeks, tramping up and down St Martin’s Lane like hundreds of other you
ng actors in the wreck of post-war London knocking on doors, begging for a chance, the one piece of luck. Maurice had taken him on that very day, had him in Hamlet in a month, the famous, groundbreaking production of Hamlet that would launch Tony straight into stardom. On the last night, they’d had to draft the police in to control the crowds who’d turned up to see the young star leave his dressing room for the final time.

  He’d loved it, of course . . . Tony smiled reflectively, and slowed down to let a party of nuns cross the road. They smiled at him and he smiled charmingly back, his eyes drifting up to the windows of that first agent’s office again. It was part of his career, that meeting with Maurice – ’52? ’53? 1952, it had been. Which was how long ago now?

  ‘Jesus,’ said Tony under his breath. Twenty-three years ago. He’d been working for one whole young person’s life. (He wondered queasily how old Rosalie was.) ‘I’m past it,’ he said under his breath, and he was even more glad to be getting out of town.

  The traffic was clear. The roof was down, the midsummer’s night breeze in his hair: slowly Tony began to feel calm again. He always did when he knew he was going back there.

  He hoped Rosalie understood the rules. Too often they didn’t, and it became tricky. Like Helen. Or Jacqui, the cloakroom girl from White Elephant who’d written him all those letters. Or Bryan, the sweet boy he’d mentored for a while. Or . . . or any of them, any of the beautiful young things he needed who would appear at the stage door, or at the Garrick door or, for Christ’s sake, once at River Walk, tear-stained face, pale, tortured look in their eyes. ‘You promised me . . .’ ‘You said you’d telephone, Tony . . .’ ‘I love you. You can’t make me switch that off, you know.’ ‘Twelve weeks along, the doctor said.’

  The girl who’d turned up at their house a few months ago – who was she? He screwed up his eyes, trying to recall, and swerved to avoid a black cab which blared its horn at him. Tabitha? Jemima? Something like that. The nanny of those kids who played with Cordelia and Benedick. Didn’t wash. Earthy smell, bushy hair everywhere, armpits, between the legs, proud of it too. He’d got that one wrong too, disastrously so. Sexual liberation didn’t seem to sit with the girls as well as with the boys, he found. He’d rushed happily towards the sixties thinking it meant that at last everyone would be as into it as he was and what a mistake: they still wanted the house and garden and the children, a promise, a ring . . . they wanted him for ever and he was Althea’s, for better for worse. Last time he’d seen her was outside the clinic on Devonshire Street first thing on a freezing May morning, putting the cash in her hand – Tabitha, yes, her name was Tabitha.

  Somewhere past the New Forest Tony realised his head was worse than ever, banding his thoughts with pain. It was as though a crack was opening up in his brain and inside were constant thoughts of naked bodies, bent, twisted, glimpsed through silk or lace, mouths open, hair tumbling . . . thoughts crowded with the most arousing memories and the panic of knowing Simon had been down at the Bosky while he was up in London . . . she wouldn’t, would she? The crack was tiny, he could still just close it if he tried his hardest, but it was becoming harder and harder . . .

  He drove on desperately, the moon lighting his way as the roads of Dorset grew narrower and greener, the empty lanes that in the daytime filled up with day-trippers and farm machinery. Only a few more miles, and then he was home, and he’d slip into bed beside his darling wife and the next morning the children would see him and scream with pleasure, and they’d go crabbing and he’d swim and build them sandcastles, and Althea would sit on the porch with her gin and tonic and put her book down to talk to him in the evening cool, the condensation of the sweating, plump glass running over her slim, creamy fingers, slender feet propped up on the porch balustrade, the sound of her carefree laughter, the look in her eyes that said, I know you, darling. You’re safe with me. For he was; he always felt with her that she was the only one who could save him when it all started up.

  And then he saw Julia’s face, appearing in front of him as if it were yesterday. Come on, she was saying, tossing her hair, bottom lip caught in her white teeth, the deserted beaches, the lines of barricades set up against the imminent attack. Come over here, no one’s around. And her hands on him, and his own eager, searching hands reaching inside her dress . . . Sex, skin, the smell of summer nights and sweat and soap: Tony shook his head, jaw clenched, hands aching as he held on to the steering wheel like a drowning man to a lifebelt. No, no. No. Not her. Glancing at the sky, he grimaced and drove on. There were thin stripes of puffed cloud across the huge August moon, and the fields were silver with corn in the dark. All else was still. Hunched over the wheel, he sped towards the sea, as though something or someone were pursuing him. Home. He would be home soon.

  He had not brought his keys, however, and so it was that when Tony drew up to the slumbering house he could not open the front door. He dared not wake Althea, much less the children, invoke her wrath and start this little surprise off on a bad footing. He pulled out a jumper from the boot of the car, shutting it as quietly as he could, then climbed into the back seat, put the jumper under his throbbing head, draped his tweed jacket over himself. His last sight was of the listing hollyhocks, bobbing black against the house in the light of the moon and, as relief washed over him, he fell unconscious and slept the sleep of the dead.

  Chapter Three

  Tony woke at six-thirty with a start. In London he could sleep till noon if undisturbed but at Worth Bay he always woke at the same time. Aunt Dinah had kept early hours, being used to rising at dawn before the heat of a Baghdad summer got to her.

  The lump on his skull was still tender; his head ached. Gingerly craning his stiff neck, Tony looked up at the house. The curtains remained drawn. His tongue was thick and oily with sleep; his stubble itched at the place where his head had lolled on to his collarbone. He felt dirty, London-ish. He wanted to be up on the porch reading the paper in fresh-pressed trousers and shirt, the feel of the early morning breeze on his smooth, close-shaven cheek. But to wake them . . . it seemed so selfish. Tony sat still, clutching the steering wheel again.

  Suddenly he knew what he ought to do. He’d drive to Wareham and pick up the paper and some buns that the old inn on the square sold fresh out of the ancient bread oven, through a hatch: Rhoda the landlady knew him of old, as it were. He’d get back and settle himself on the cane chair so he’d be on the porch reading when they emerged. What a surprise they’d get! He could picture Cordy’s face now . . . Without further ado he reversed the car, almost joyously – but at that moment he heard a thud, and only then looked in the rear mirror.

  It was a girl. He could see by her fair hair, streaming out like ribbons on the dirty sand path. She lay flat on her back and, as Tony leaped out and rushed to her, he saw blood trickling from her nose. For a moment he wondered if the bump on his head meant he was hallucinating. He stared at her tiny frame – she must be younger than Ben, her flat pale face lifeless, her thin arms and legs flung out as if in defeat . . . His blood froze.

  ‘Oh, Lord. Oh, my God. No.’ He reached for her, then remembered Aunt Dinah’s first-aid training that you should never move someone who might have broken their neck or back. He stroked her cheek. ‘My dear girl – I’m so sorry. Can you—’ He felt ridiculous, sweat breaking out as the enormity of it washed over him. He stared at the small face underneath all that hair. He knew her, he was certain . . . Frantically, he patted her hand.

  ‘Can you hear me? Hello, little one?’

  And then – miraculously! – she opened one eye. He could have shouted with relief. When she saw him looming over her she shut the eye immediately again.

  ‘Sweetheart,’ said Tony, quietly. ‘I’ve hit you with my car. Can you hear me?’ He took out a handkerchief and gently wiped away the blood snaking down her cheek. Something made him say, ‘It wasn’t your fault, you know that? It was mine.’

  He looked down and saw the little fists unclench, and noticed the grime on her dress, on her
socks: the untarmacked lane threw up dust at the first invitation. He took her hand in his. ‘Little one, if you can hear me, I need you to sit up. My name’s Tony. If you can, will you say, “Hello, Tony”?’

  And she opened her eyes, and sat straight up, and said indignantly, ‘I know who you are, course I do.’

  Tony laughed with relief. The little girl sat up, holding her pale silvery hair in a fist, briskly shaking the dirt from it, brushing her skirt and socks.

  ‘Oh, you do, do you?’

  ‘Yes, my auntie tells me about you,’ she said seriously, her huge eyes on him. ‘My mummy actually saw you in Hamlet. She abs’lee loved you.’ She paused. ‘She’s dead,’ she added. ‘She was five foot seven. She died having my brother. He died too.’

  He stroked her hair, involuntarily, and clutched the little fist. ‘I’m so sorry to hear that.’

  She shrugged, matter-of-factly. ‘How well do you know Bristol?’ she said, as though she were entertaining the Queen at a tea party, and he smiled again. ‘I live with my daddy here in the summer but when I’m at school I live with my auntie. She came back from Australia to look after me. She likes you. She lives in Bristol.’

  Tony knew too many aunts like that: they tended to press inedible home-made cakes upon you and sticky autograph books, and to want to regale you with stories of seeing Hamlet and they always stood too close. ‘I don’t know Bristol very well. Look, are you hurt in any other way? Where’s your father? I think we should get you back home and—’