by Carol Smith
“I’ll tell you what, young man,” she said, the fourth time Tom mentioned his desire to hear her sing. “If you’re not doing anything tomorrow, why not motor down to the country with me? I’m having tea at The Maltings with Britten and dear Peter, to discuss a new production of Gloriana. Nicholas will be tied up all day with matters of diplomacy. I’d be glad of someone to do the driving.”
Tom was bowled over but secretly confident. He had always had a knack with women, particularly older ones. It was one of the assets that led him inevitably into gynecology.
“May I come too?” Catherine’s voice was almost plaintive as she watched herself, not for the first time, being upstaged.
“No, darling,” said Eleanor smoothly. “If you’re so hard-pressed you can’t find time to visit home, I wouldn’t dream of taking you away from your important work.”
Then she turned back to Tom with a radiant smile and coquettishly tapped the back of his hand.
“They’ll love it if you come. Poor Ben is in such bad shape these days, this could be the last chance you’ll get to meet him. You can give him the benefit of your medical wisdom. That ought to cheer him up.”
So off they went the next morning at the crack of dawn, Tom driving the rented Rover, Eleanor resplendent in what she considered a concession to country visiting, an Italian two-piece in pale beige linen with a huge straw hat to protect her from the sun. And, of course, the obligatory dark glasses. Just outside Aldeburgh, she signaled a stop.
“Pull off there,” she ordered. “I booked a table at the White Lion for lunch. I think we deserve a little treat, don’t you?” She placed one manicured hand on his knee and Tom felt his heart turn a tiny somersault of excitement. This was what he’d heard about these show-biz types; couldn’t get enough of it. Well, Tom Harvey was certainly the man for her. Once, in his first year at medical school, he’d indulged in a fucking competition, which he’d won. Thirteen strikes to his opponent’s mere eleven, as he recalled. A gleam came into his eye and a smile to his lips as he maneuvered into the car park and helped her alight.
Lunch was a riot and Tom enjoyed it thoroughly; whoever would have imagined staid little Catherine’s mother to be such fun. They laughed and flirted and he reveled in her company, made all the more enticing by the amount of homage she was attracting from hotel staff and other lunchers alike. She treated him just like an equal, deferring to his opinion and hanging on his every word with her great luminous eyes as if she could not get enough of him. When coffee arrived she made an excuse to slip away, returning ten minutes later with a satisfied smile as she slid back into her seat and ordered them each an Armagnac.
“Slip this into your pocket,” she whispered, offering him a closed fist, and Tom’s heart missed a beat as he felt the cold metal and realized she was giving him a key. “It’s a pity to rush things, don’t you think, so I’ve booked a room upstairs for the rest of the afternoon.”
He was thunderstruck. “But Mr. Britten . . . ?” he stuttered, his cool quite gone.
Eleanor waved airily. “Oh, Ben and Peter won’t mind, they’re men of the world. There’ll be plenty of time for Gloriana once we’ve finished our own private party.” She gave him a blistering smile.
“Trust me,” she said.
For the sake of discretion, Eleanor suggested that Tom go on up while she settled the bill and she’d join him a little later. Hardly able to believe his luck, or the great honor she was bestowing upon him, he hurried away up the carpeted stairs and unlocked the door of Room 14, catching his breath when he saw the size of the bed and the lavishness of the fittings. If only the folks back home in Consett could see him now. Humming a jaunty tune, he ripped off his clothes and took a quick shower, then lay down nonchalantly on the bed, admiring himself in the mirror while he waited for her to join him.
An hour later, when she still had not appeared, Tom dared to phone down to the desk. Cautiously, as if he really were the chauffeur, he inquired about the whereabouts of Lady Palmer—only to be told that she had departed, immediately after settling the bill, but had left a note for him.
“If you really believed, you insignificant little squirt, that you could pull me,” the note read, “then you’re even vainer and more stupid than I thought. You, with your vulgar manners and pit village accent. Come near my daughter again and I’ll blow your cover. The Ambassador will not like his daughter being trifled with.”
Ignoring the grin on the face of the desk clerk, Tom shot out into the car park, but he was an hour too late. She had taken the car.
He hitched his way back to London, arriving—tired and bad-tempered—at his digs in the early evening. He was so angry he wanted to kill, but the object of his venom was so far out of his reach, he would have to make do with the daughter. Right on cue, she rang. She had something to tell him, she said. Her face was strained and her eyes puffy when she let him into the house but there was hope in her eyes as, with a slight half-smile, she opened her arms and begged him not to be angry.
• • •
Duncan watched Catherine with concern. She had been back at work for only a few days, still on a part-time basis by doctor’s orders, yet it was clear to him that she was a long way from being right. She had always been on the thin side physically but now was near transparent, and her hands shook with a perpetual tremor whatever she was doing—sorting papers, dialing telephone numbers, carrying in cups of coffee. He had tried to discuss it but she brushed the subject aside. She was, she told him firmly, on the mend and it was only a matter of time before she’d be back working full-time. She was sorry for the inconvenience.
Duncan laughed and gave her thin shoulders a light hug. What was he going to do with her? He had suggested a holiday, somewhere restful in the sun, perhaps, but she had brushed the idea aside. And it wasn’t his style to intrude too much; everyone was entitled to their privacy. Yet he did care. He was a kind man with a full life of his own, and his caring for damaged creatures, which he had made his life’s work, extended also to his staff. He would have liked to see her happier but didn’t know how to fix that, and he feared she might be iller than she realized. Today, for instance, she was sorting out appointment cards with a slight smile on her face and a flush of pink on her cheeks which was not normal. Furthermore, she was humming.
• • •
Catherine floated home that night on a wave of silent song. She had the strangest feeling about Tom, as if at any minute, around the next corner, she might bump into him. It was almost as though they had recently met, but it could only be in her dreams, perhaps induced by the strong medication the hospital was making her take. Just thinking about him brought a tightening to her throat and a flutter in her stomach, and twenty years dissolved as if they had never happened. She would get her hair done stylishly, perhaps with a few discreet streaks, and sort out her lighter clothes in readiness for the warmer weather. Having lived her life in Eleanor Palmer’s shadow, Catherine abhorred makeup that showed, but a little light mascara could do no harm, with perhaps a touch of blue shadow to accentuate her eyes and some pastel lip gloss. Tom had always commented on her smile, and at least her waist was as small as ever and her legs, though thin, had retained their shape.
The driving wind had dropped for a while and the sun had come out so that, despite the biting cold, it was not impossible to see that spring was finally on its way. Any minute now the temperature would improve and people would shed their coats and their winter blues.
Catherine positively bowled into Albert Hall Mansions and up the first flight of stairs to her own front door. It was twenty past six and Mama would be waiting for her sherry, but tonight, for no particular reason, Catherine was determined to make a fuss of her. She stopped in her tracks as she heard distant voices, and there was no imperious shout from the drawing room to signal her arrival home. She took off her mac and hung it in its accustomed place, then smoothed her hair and went into the music room to investigate.
Sally was lolling across an armchair,
as much at home as if she lived there, while Eleanor sat at the piano, laughing and picking out phrases from arias as she talked. Both looked up in surprise at Catherine’s entry and Eleanor even glanced at the clock as if she were intruding.
“Hi,” said Sally brightly. “I’ve met your ma and she’s a real hoot. The stories she’s been telling.”
Eleanor extended one floury cheek for her daughter to kiss, then beamed in welcome.
“This young lady,” she said with approval, “has been brightening up my afternoon. The life she’s led! All around the world on a shoestring, and entirely on her own initiative too.”
There was a veiled criticism in the words that Catherine chose to ignore.
“So she’s going to join us for supper.”
Catherine was about to protest that there were only two pork chops and some sprouts in the fridge but Eleanor waved her aside with a queenly gesture.
“We’ll go to the Brasserie St. Quentin,” she said. “Call and book a table for seven-thirty. And then let’s have a sherry. I’m positively parched.”
And she laughed like a giddy young girl.
Chapter Eighteen
It was extraordinary how Eleanor took to Sally, and so quickly too. Catherine had never known anything like it and, in her usual spirit of self-deprecation, took it as a mark against herself. What a dull stick she had become in these past few years. No wonder her mother, exiled from the world of glamour and high society that was her lifeblood, took so readily to the breezy, uninhibited New Zealander, for she was certainly fun. Dinner at the St. Quentin was a riot, and both mother and daughter cracked up at some of Sally’s stories about her travels around the world.
But she was a good listener, too. She sensed instinctively exactly when the moment had come for her to cease the ice-breaking tales of her own crazy escapades in order to defer to the older woman, and once Eleanor had regained the limelight, she held them both in the palm of her hand for the rest of evening. Eleanor Palmer might be a private nightmare but her public persona was entirely different, and tonight Sally saw it at its very best. She was known and revered at the St. Quentin and the waiters could not do enough for her, giving her party the table in the window and hovering throughout the meal just within earshot so that they could attend to her slightest whim.
Eleanor was in her element. Once they had settled what they were going to eat—the goat’s cheese salad, she recommended to Sally, and then perhaps a little grilled fish—she settled back to enjoy herself and match Sally’s storytelling with anecdotes of her own, of Vienna, of the world of opera, of the days when she was the celebrated diva, constantly traveling, ever in the public eye. And Sally could see, as the years fell away, the handsome woman she must once have been, with her fiery eyes and the lustrous indigo hair, dyed now a flat theatrical black.
She was entranced. She had no knowledge at all of opera, and the only music she enjoyed was pop, but that didn’t deter Eleanor from spilling out the stories of the good old days when she sang Madame Butterfly in Rome and the real-life Pinkerton fell in love with her and pursued her across three continents with his wife in hot pursuit; when she took New York by storm as Lucrezia Borgia; when she first sang Salome in Milan and had a standing ovation which lasted twenty minutes. She talked and laughed and flashed those dramatic eyes and occasionally put one hand to her fine bosom and warbled a phrase to stress a point, until soon the rest of the restaurant fell quiet and when Sally turned she found herself part of the cabaret, the rest of the diners recognizing and transfixed by the star at her side.
It was heady stuff and Sally would not have missed it for the world. How Catherine could have been raised by this woman, spent most of her life in her presence, even inherited her genes and yet remained so mousy and inhibited was a mystery that defeated her. What an opportunity! She scarcely remembered her own mother, but what a gas to have had one like this. When Eleanor finally paused for breath, Sally leaned across and told her so and was rewarded by a kiss on either cheek and a demand that she consider Albert Hall Mansions her home from now on, with an open invitation to drop in at any time.
Catherine smiled and shook her head ruefully as Eleanor, in imperious tones, called for the bill. When she finally rose to leave, with the maître d’ helping her out of her chair and walking her to the door like royalty, the rest of the restaurant broke into spontaneous applause. To which Eleanor responded with a gracious bow before stepping out into the Brompton Road and allowing Catherine to hail a cab.
“They really love you,” said Sally, taking her arm and giving her a kiss on the cheek.
“One has one’s admirers,” said Eleanor modestly. “One has been around for a very long time, y’know.”
Sally got out of the cab with them but, recognizing the exhaustion on Catherine’s face, declined Eleanor’s invitation to come up for a glass of white port.
“Some other time, maybe,” she said, helping the old lady with her wrap as the night was growing chilly. “I’d really love to hear you sing.”
“The voice is not what it was,” said Eleanor, pleased. “But certainly come again and we’ll see what can be arranged.”
Poor Catherine looked as though she were dying on her feet and Sally was quite alarmed. Eleanor ignored her daughter completely and swept ahead of her through the door and into the lift.
“Now, remember,” she called, before the doors closed behind her, “I shall expect to see you again soon. Sunday, at noon. Before lunch. Why don’t you?”
Why not indeed? Sally walked home to the Earls Court Road, zigzagging along the plusher streets of Kensington, with Eleanor’s laughter ringing in her ears, feeling she had made a real friend and found, perhaps, another bit of surrogate family. She thought of Catherine and the stories she had told in hospital about her mother’s tyranny, and reflected that all either woman really needed was to be loved, only they came at it from such conflicting angles it was a foregone conclusion they would clash.
If only she would learn to stand up to her, she thought, they might become real buddies. Ah well, it was probably too late for that, but Sally counted herself lucky to have bumped into Catherine. Life contained these little richnesses if you kept your eyes open and had the tenacity to follow things up.
• • •
“I met this really great old lady,” she told Joe next morning as she stood in the bar, polishing glasses. “She was an opera star in the thirties and forties until she married this upper-crusty ambassador and went to live in Vienna and became a great social hostess.”
Joe gazed at her bleakly. It was five past eleven and he had had a hard night.
“What are you on about?” He had to check the bar stock before they opened and there was still the cellar work to do.
“She’s like something out of an old black and white movie. Really great. She must be a hundred and four but she looks like a duchess, a cross between Carmen Miranda and Edith Evans.”
Joe laughed in spite of himself.
“You’re daft, that’s what,” he said fondly, swatting her backside with the end of a dishcloth. “Get a move on with those glasses, will you, and start the oil cooking for the chips.”
Sally looked into the fryer and made exaggerated retching noises.
“This looks and smells really gross. When did you last change the oil?”
“Never you mind, get cooking. And if you’re so fussy, eat at home.”
“You have to be joking.”
He laughed again, showing a melon slice of perfect teeth. “Listen, doll, we’re here to sell booze. Nothing more or less. And what the punter doesn’t see won’t hurt him.”
“Yeah, but the salmonella will.”
“Shut it. And get cracking, will you. Otherwise I’ll dock your pay.”
Still chuckling, Joe put a CD of the Pogues on the sound system and carted a couple of cases of tonic water from the hallway into the bar. She was a right case, this Sally, but life was a lot more fun with her around.
“So when’s s
he coming in, then?” he shouted after a while. “Who?” Sally, armed with a long wooden spoon, was poking disconsolately at the inside of the fryer, which was belching out black fumes like a juggernaut.
“Your old lady. The opera star.”
Sally laughed. He didn’t believe her.
“Any day now, just you wait.”
“I will.”
And he would. And she’d come. Sally had no doubt of it.
• • •
She did too, the following Sunday evening. Joe couldn’t believe it and neither could Catherine. She was worried about allowing her mother out on the town with only a crazy kindred spirit like Sally to keep her in check, but what could she do? Eleanor made her own decisions and these days Catherine felt so wrung out she could hardly cope with just getting through the day.
“You look knackered, love,” said Sally with concern, after they’d all had sherry and a lamb chop lunch and Eleanor had sung them a few arias from Norma and La Bohème. “Why don’t you go and have a lie-down and I’ll take care of your ma. Go on, you need it. We’re getting along fine.”
They were, too, closeted together in the drawing room with Eleanor’s press cuttings and some faded sheet music and a bottle of Harrods white port “just to wet her whistle.” She really shouldn’t allow it, she knew that, but she felt so tired and wretched and the pain in her side had returned, though not as acutely as before. Sally was an angel, a regular saint, and Mama simply doted on her, so where was the harm? Maybe just forty minutes on the bed, if they didn’t mind.
As if they would, she thought, as she slipped off her shoes and cardigan and lay down under the eiderdown. They were like a couple of kids with their laughter and their stories, each vying to outdo the other, and she fell into a doze secure in the knowledge that her mother was safely incarcerated in the other room and that Sally had her eye on her.