Friends for Life

by Carol Smith

  She awoke hours later to Sally’s gentle tap.

  “We’re just going down to the pub,” she said into the twilit room. “I hope that’s all right. Eleanor’s longing for a pint of Guinness and I have to get back to my evening shift. I promise I won’t keep her out too late and I’ll see she gets home safely.”

  Catherine sank back into her pillows with scarcely a grunt. Her neck, when she tried to raise her head, felt like overcooked spaghetti and her brain wasn’t functioning at all. She’d have another five minutes and think about it later.

  • • •

  Joe fell in love with her, and so did the punters. With a little encouragement and a bottle of champagne to spice up the Guinness—“Black Velvet, my boy, keep them coming”—Eleanor was prevailed upon to hitch herself up on the edge of the bar, showing legs still surprisingly shapely for a woman of her years, and belt out a few arias from Carmen followed by some bawdy music-hall numbers that had them all in stitches.

  “She’s amazing, your friend,” gasped Joe, wiping his eyes. “Do you think I could sign her for a regular spot? She’s dynamite!”

  “Ask her,” said Sally. “There’s lots more life in the old girl yet. Far more than her daughter’s ever had, poor thing.”

  Eventually Eleanor started to fumble her words and appeared a little short of breath, so Sally took her home. It was inconvenient because she was still on bar duty but it was the least Joe could do in the circumstances. The saloon bar was packed and the customers were staying, instead of drinking up and moving on. He hadn’t seen anything like it in years. It was as good as an East End knees-up and livened up the King’s Road no end.

  “All right, Gran?” he asked, as Sally helped Eleanor into her wrap and tidied her hair, a little like a kindergarten teacher with a small charge.

  “Less of your lip,” shrieked the Ambassador’s widow, then turned in the doorway and executed a perfect curtsey to the delight of the audience.

  “Let’s not tell poor Catherine,” said Eleanor snugly, as she sat with Sally in the cab, her hand tucked safely into Sally’s arm like a trusting child.

  “Don’t you worry,” said Sally soothingly. “Your secret’s safe with me.”

  “And can we do it again, maybe?”

  “You bet!” said Sally, rapping on the window to tell the driver they had arrived. “The sooner the better as far as I’m concerned.”

  • • •

  So Sally Brown became a regular visitor to Albert Hall Mansions and the Palmers were all the better for it. No longer did Catherine drag herself home from the practice, exhausted and tensed up at the prospect of another battle with the bored old lady. Sally got into the habit of dropping around before her evening shift and was therefore happily ensconced long before Catherine got home. She brought small gifts—a handful of flowers, a bag of apples, anything that caught her magpie eye—and these days Eleanor was ready for her, done up in her formal clothes with the full slap on her face, glasses and sherry bottle set out on top of the piano and old sheet music on the stand.

  Catherine came in one evening to find the piano silent and Sally and Eleanor sitting close together on the sofa, deep in the pages of a photograph album. Oh, Lord. They had been through the ones of Eleanor onstage and as a young girl, all teeth and flashing eyes, and were now into the more formal ones of Sir Nicholas and Lady Palmer at home. Sir Nicholas looked a decent enough old boy, with white hair and a pleasant smile and now Sally could see where Catherine had inherited her gentleness.

  “He looks great, your dad,” said Sally, looking up to acknowledge Catherine’s presence, flashing her radiant smile. Eleanor took no notice; as far as she was concerned they were still alone.

  “He was a fine man,” she said with a sigh. “And gave his life for his country.”

  Sally was startled. She thought he had been a diplomat.

  “Died in the saddle, so to speak, worn out with all those diplomatic functions. And they made him travel about too much. Mind you, I wanted Milan but the best we ever got was Vienna.”

  Sally caught Catherine smiling and winked at her. What a case she was, entertaining in the short run but probably horrendous to live with day in, day out. Catherine went off to dump her things and put on the kettle and when she returned they had moved on.

  “That’s never Catherine?” Sally was saying, her finger on a faded black and white portrait. “You looked really wonderful,” glancing up.

  “She’s in her nurse’s uniform,” said Eleanor approvingly, “the day she received her diploma as a State Registered Nurse.”

  I’d never have recognized her, thought Sally, not from the faded, uptight shadow of herself I knew in Sydney. I wonder what happened?

  Catherine came to peer over their shoulders at the pretty, fair-haired English rose she had been all those years ago. Before the lights went out in her life. Like Sally, she’d never have recognized herself. What a waste.

  “It was just before she took that job in Australia,” said Eleanor, still behaving as if Catherine wasn’t there. “She’s never been the same since, have you, darling?” And suddenly, she looked her daughter straight in the eye, with such venom that both the other women felt the fallout.

  Chapter Nineteen

  The way Georgy figured things was this: if Gus Hardy had once had the hots for Beth (and Imogen was there as the living proof of it) then he was not, no matter what they might say, a dyed-in-the-wool faygeleh like so many of his ilk but simply a red-blooded male with a taste for adventure who had not yet found his proper focus in life. And since the Hardys had been divorced for years and Beth was, in any case, almost a generation older than Georgy and inclined to let herself go a little, it was up to Georgy to get in there and snatch him before anyone else did it first.

  She knew he liked her, that was clear from the way he talked to her backstage, and on closer acquaintance with the beautiful, pouting Karl, she realized he was not the threat he had originally appeared but nothing more serious than a chorus boy from Autumn Crocus. He was young, foreign, and probably homesick, and Gus, in his role as director of the show, had given him temporary house room. The company needed accommodation, and living in rented digs must be no fun at all, while Gus maintained that great empty house in Islington all for himself. Sharing with girls would put him in danger of casual gossip; far better to have a fella as a house guest, and he had naturally used his discretion and chosen Karl. Or so reasoned Georgy.

  To begin with she had been jealous of Beth and seen her as a rival. Once she established that the tie between the Hardys was founded on a kind of sibling affection rather than passionate love, Georgy began to relax. Beth had other men in her life and, besides, Georgy gathered from what she had overhead in hospital and since, it had been she not he who had elected to end the marriage. Quite simply, Beth was central to Georgy’s master plan, so she cultivated the friendship.

  Georgy had never been particularly strong on female friendship. New York was a veritable forest of feral females, all out for what they could get and each one jealously guarding her back, her job, and, if she had one, her man. Georgy firmly believed that all is fair in love and war and she was not about to let any female friend get in the way of that. Besides, it wasn’t as if suitable men were exactly thick on the ground; certainly not in New York, nor even here in London where the going was fractionally less tough.

  Georgy preferred male company and flattered herself she got on better with men. She was sparky and ambitious, thrusting and efficient and the equality battle held no worries for her. She had chosen a profession in which she could be equal and, through sheer hard slog, had risen quickly and made quite a name for herself without pulling any special favors along the way. She watched other more pliable females scoring points by simply scoring but tried not to let that make her bitter. She was essentially feminist and scrupulously fair. She was tough on other people but no tougher than she was on herself. She fired from the hip and took no hostages. You knew where you were with Georgy Kirsch. />
  But she did, badly, long for a boyfriend of her own and that was her Achilles’ heel. Deep down, beneath the toughness and bluster, Georgy was simply a nice, old-fashioned Jewish girl looking for a partner.

  She was nervy and taut in her manner, which was not an advantage, but positive in her likes and dislikes, and, once a target was sighted, ruthless in pursuit. There simply wasn’t time to mess around; she was more than halfway through her twenties already and thirty was looming on the horizon like the man with the scythe. Despite what the ladies of Cosmopolitan might preach, there was no room in this game for finesse. If she saw a man she even half-liked—married or single, it made little difference—then Georgy would go after him. After all, women had sacrificed their lives to achieve equality.

  Back home she had a small apartment on the Upper East Side, immaculate like her, and this was the web into which she enticed her prey by giving regular small dinner parties for which she loved to cook. Out would come one of her eight complete dinner services and the Villeroy & Bosch stemware, together with the sterling silver, registered at Tiffany’s for her thirteenth birthday and added to, piece by piece, ever since. Her meals were plain but perfect and her preferred number of guests was six or eight. She never hesitated to risk rejection by calling an interesting stranger after the most cursory of meetings, and it was surprising how, on the whole, this strategy worked.

  Men had to eat and were also often flattered to find themselves the sudden target of Georgy’s unswerving attention. She was lively and intense with a keen intelligence that masked her lack of humor and, although not classically pretty, her thinness, her cloud of Botticelli hair, and her style made her better than that—chic. In the arty circles of Manhattan, that mattered.

  For a while these transitory relationships would flourish, with Georgy doing most of the running and the man being simply sucked into her orbit by the force of the effort she put into it. But later, as the net began to close, the poor chap would usually see what was happening and begin to struggle before he went down for the third time. The second phase of Georgy’s courtships was inclined to get messy, punctuated by late-night phone calls and urgent scribbled notes, endless monologues (on her side) about commitment and expectations followed by tears and recriminations and then weeks of solitary lamenting as she failed, once again, to understand where it had all gone wrong. And, since she had always put such little value on the friendship of other women, the lamentation had usually to be done in private, with the result that the mistake was compounded countless times.

  But if all that had been the rehearsal, Gus Hardy represented the real thing. He was all she had ever dreamed of—attractive, cultured, older, successful, and fashionable. That above all else. Like many fiercely ambitious young women, Georgy was mainly turned on by obvious success and Gus, currently the rage of Broadway, represented the pinnacle of her aspirations. He was cool, he was trendy, he would look good on her arm and on her résumé. Most of all, he was likely to impress her father, who might have reservations about the theater but always respected another high-flier. A star himself, he wanted nothing less for his three little girls.

  So Beth was the target, but the problem was Sally, who seemed to have got in there first.

  Beth and Sally had become friends at first sight since they were both warm, open, and outgoing and shared a similar sense of humor. When Georgy began to accept Beth’s invitations to drop round for a drink or a meal, she usually found Sally there ahead of her, sitting at the table shelling peas or helping Imogen with her homework, or else draped over the sofa just gossiping, her boots on the edge of the stove, a glass of something in her hand. It should have made Georgy feel loved and appreciated to be included in this amiable quartet, but it didn’t. What she felt was jealousy and resentment at not having mother and daughter all to herself. She wasn’t going to compete with Sally so she usually sat there in silence, which was a drag for everyone.

  Beth was aware of this faint antagonism but chose not to intervene, and if Sally saw it she ignored it totally, just continued to prattle on, drawing Georgy into the circle as if they were best buddies, which they could be if only Georgy would let up a little. Sally was five years older but certainly didn’t seem it and since they were both transient visitors to London it made sense for them to pal up. As Beth pointed out.

  “I would if she wasn’t so spiky,” Sally demurred. “But she’s altogether too edgy and up her own arse. Life’s too short.”

  Occasionally Gus would walk in while they were there—at times Beth’s house resembled Paddington station at rush hour—and then Beth and Sally would watch with fascination as Georgy went into instant overdrive. She had a strange sort of theory, considering she proclaimed herself a dedicated feminist, that certain subjects were out of bounds in mixed company and was in the habit of changing tack abruptly when a member of the male species came within earshot. It was really rather ludicrous, and it was not a matter of prudishness; Georgy was starkly outspoken and normally didn’t care what she said or to whom. It was more a question of selectivity. Her traditional upbringing clashed in some weird way with her avant-garde posturing, resulting in a certain coyness where subjects she considered too girly were concerned. Love, human relationships, things like that. Beth and Sally agreed she was a scream.

  “If you fancy him that much,” remarked Sally, as they were walking home one Sunday after lunch with the whole of the Hardy family, “then go for it. Men like that don’t grow on trees. Beth doesn’t want him so why not grab him while the going’s good?”

  “Don’t you fancy him?” asked Georgy suspiciously, still unsure how far she could trust Sally.

  “Be my guest.” Sally liked Gus but he wasn’t her type. She preferred them more rugged and to smell of good honest sweat rather than Paco Rabanne.

  “So what do I do?”

  “Aw, come on! You didn’t come down in the last shower of rain. Let him know how you feel. If necessary, pounce. What have you got to lose except your dignity?” Which, in Sally’s mind, Georgy had done already since she behaved like a silly kid whenever he was about.

  So Georgy started to follow Sally’s advice, albeit cautiously, because she still didn’t entirely trust her.

  • • •

  Gus was at Orso’s having a late supper when Georgy tracked him down. He was with Marla Henderson, her leading man, and a handful of chorus members including Karl. They were all ravenously hungry after three hours treading the boards. Georgy appeared like a wraith just as they were digging into their main-course pastas. She hovered at the edge of the group, uncertain.

  “Hi there,” said Gus, seeing her first. “Grab a chair and come join us. Have you eaten?”

  Georgy waved aside the offer of food but accepted a glass of red wine. For one split second Marla’s face was a mask of fury, then the consummate actress took control and she continued holding center stage and ignored Georgy completely. That was all right. Georgy only wanted to be near Gus, and this she had achieved. She stacked her expensive camera equipment on the floor beside his feet and settled down to bask. Karl, as mutinous as Marla but allowing it to show, jostled her slightly from time to time and made it clear he thought the table far too crowded for an extra person, but Georgy hung in there. You could always rely on her for that.

  She was rewarded by an occasional smile from Gus, a pat on the hand, and an alertness to her every need, even though his attention was elsewhere. At the end of the evening he even bothered to check that she had the taxi fare home. He was a nice man, Gus, with excellent manners. And he felt sorry for her. Besides, she was a friend of Beth’s and good to his kid. She’d do. One of the most compelling things about Gus Hardy was his innocence: he was totally impervious to the effect he had on men and women alike.

  Some days later, Georgy was buying gloves in Harrods when she sensed a presence beside her, the strong scent of expensive perfume and a fur jacket to put her own sable to shame. It was Vivienne Nugent, pale and preoccupied as she pondered the relative
merits of pale gray suede over serviceable black kid.

  “Vivienne?” Georgy spoke spontaneously, before she had time to think. She was obviously learning more than she realized from Sally.

  Vivienne turned wintry eyes on her, hesitated as if trying to recall who she could possibly be, then smiled tautly with her mouth but not her eyes.

  “How nice to see you.” Georgy could see her mind running frantically through an invisible Filofax.

  “Georgy Kirsch,” said Georgy, extending a hand. “St. Anthony’s, remember?”

  How could she possibly not, the cold cow? Vivienne obviously did and turned a shade paler. Oh, Lord.

  “Of course,” she said graciously, as the assistant fussed with her charge card. “How are you getting along?”

  “Not bad. The scar still itches but seems to have healed okay. How about you?”

  Vivienne’s smile could have nuked a rain forest. For a moment, Georgy thought someone more important must be standing right behind her but it was merely English upper-class good manners telling her to get lost.

  “I’m fine,” said Vivienne softly, sliding her card back into her pigskin wallet. “And now I really must be going; I’m late as it is.”

  Chapter Twenty

  The girl in the straw hat and the canary-yellow dress stood out like a beacon among all the suits in the crowded foyer of the concert hall. It was the hottest night of the year and, even despite the air-conditioning, men were removing their jackets and women fanning themselves with programs.

  He stood slightly elevated, at the top of a short flight of steps, and looked across the monotone crowd—gray suits and gray faces—toward this one bright splash of color. Nice. As if feeling his eyes upon her, she turned slightly and smiled at him; even across all those heads he could tell she was singling him out and he started to move on automatic pilot toward her, like a moth to a flame. It had been a tough, hard, harrowing day and he felt in need of a little light relief, something to release all that tension. His own suit was gray (but the shirt hand-stitched) and he felt anonymous in the middle of the sweating, querulous city crowd.