by Noel Virtue
The house was rarely empty. William had a great number of friends who regularly came to dinner. He had relatives in Canada who used to fly over and stay. Now they stay away in droves. William’s own parents were not that close. They also lived down in Brighton, or rather in Hove, but didn’t get along well with Mother and Father. William came from a more conventionally strict background than mine. His sister had been an actress for some years. Dead now. The black sheep, she was. Excommunicated Elaine, Will called her. From a long line of Fitzpatricks going back to secular roots in Ireland. William’s mother was horrified over my singing success. She’d never forgiven me for insisting I be known as Jean Barrie after Will and I married. She was terribly cold. I’d been singing at the odd venue for some years by the time I married Will. His parents came to the wedding but left straight afterwards.
Jared was precocious as a boy. My first born. He and Gemma were close as children, not so noticeably when they became teenagers. They had a nanny when they were small. Later came a succession of au pairs: Swedish, Italian, one from Spain who stole money. I was never happy about the au pairs, but I was away such a lot by then, travelling, giving concerts everywhere I was asked. I forgave William when I discovered he’d been having an affair with one of the Swedish girls. Aunt Dizzy was the only one I confided in over that. No one else found out. She’s probably entirely forgotten about it now, bless her. That was a difficult time. She pauses.
The tape is switched off, then back on.
Aunt Dizzy was so vivacious and energetic when the children were small! Always at the house during the week. Organized everything, came over when I was away. Gemma adored her. Jared decided by the age of ten that he wanted to become a veterinarian. Lord knows where that came from. Gemma had no idea what she wanted to do. Her ideas changed like the wind. She went through plans to study law, to become a barrister, a film star and a doctor – oh, there were so many changes in her as she grew up. A strange child. Very bossy but sweetly so. For two years she professed to hating Jared. He was forever playing pranks on her. Putting acorns in her shoes, tying shoelaces together, convincing local boys from the estate up the road that Gemma fancied them, or whatever the expression was they used back then. Encouraging them to call at the house. She threw a knife at Jared once, one evening in the kitchen. Missed him by inches. The mark’s still there, on the cupboard door.
William was rarely home during the week, even in the evenings. He had a small flat over near Westminster, where he sometimes stayed overnight. He was always home at the weekends – or mostly – when the family gathered. There were very few outsiders, you understand, in the early days. Everyone was what you might call family-fixated. We were rather inward-looking. Introspective, is that the word? And my career did make waves and created change, as I said. I was eventually to become known, popular, in demand, independent of the family. People stopped by more and more often. The house got to be like Euston Station. Fortunate that my success did not really begin to take over until the children were older and able to adapt. Gemma went off to boarding-school at one stage and stayed there exactly one term. She hated it, missed the house, the weekend parties, the excitement of Mother becoming a star! Jean laughs, then stops suddenly. We threw so many dinner parties, it was like opening a restaurant. I began to drink.
The tape stops.
‘Is this what you really want?’ Jean asked Anthony Hibbert one evening after he had listened to one of the tiny tapes, checking it. ‘It’s all so ordinary. I sound smug and I think I’ve contradicted myself somewhere, on one of the other tapes.’
‘Just chat,’ he told her. ‘Tell little stories. Reminisce. I’ll do the rest. I can check back with you for particular dates and facts.’
‘I never kept a diary. I told you that.’
‘It doesn’t necessarily matter. Speak about anything that comes to mind. The two awards, if you want. How you were able to combine success with family life.’
‘But that’s just it. I didn’t.’
‘The extra notes you’ve promised to write will help.’
Jean sipped at her tumbler of gin and stared at him without saying anything else.
Jared sweetened, as he grew older, if that’s the word I mean. Maybe not. He was never sour … he was self-assured, intelligent. Nothing namby-pamby about Jared. He and Gemma seemed to swop personalities. Whereas she’d been sweetness and light as a child and far too trusting, if rather fickle and temperamental, with Jared consistently up to no good with his pranks, as they grew older they took on each other’s behaviour. Odd, really. I might be imagining that. It wasn’t something I noticed at the time. Perhaps I wouldn’t have said that now, if they were still…
The tape stops, then restarts.
Jared once found a blackbird’s nest in the garden, with three tiny corpses inside it. He secretly wrapped it up in pink tissue paper, placed it in a cardboard box and decorated the box with glitter and paper cut-outs of hearts. He kept it hidden until Gemma’s birthday. She had a party that year, in the garden – just out there – and when it came time for her presents he made a grand entrance and handed his gift to her, all smiles and grand gestures. Her little friends were all agog, giggling and whispering as Gemma opened the gift. Dreadful, it was dreadful. Gemma had hysterics. Screamed the place down, made everyone go home. She would not speak to Jared for two months. Hated him. Hated him!
They both equally adored my parents, would do anything to get us to all go down to Brighton. Jared even phoned a minicab service once, in a disguised voice, ordering a taxi to take four ‘adults’, as he explained, down there on a visit as a surprise. He and Gemma got dressed and ready as if Will and I had arranged the entire thing. Terrible boy. The pranks – that kind of behaviour – carried on right throughout his early teens as well. He was relentless if Gemma showed any signs of interest in boys. The pranks would escalate. A terrible thing to admit, but I sometimes did wonder if he loved Gemma in a little too unbrotherly way. Is that a word, unbrotherly? He had a fixation on chalk when he was about seven or eight. Stole pieces from school and kept them in a shoe box under his bed. One Saturday night, terribly late, he crept out of the house and into the street and wrote in huge letters along the tarmac: GEMMA FITZPATRICK IS IN LOVE WITH ARCHIBALD DOOLAN AND WANTS HIM TO MARRY HER. Poor little Archibald was an excruciatingly shy, unfortunate boy who stuttered and came from a broken home. Bright red hair, face covered in freckles. I was so angry over that with Jared. It must have taken him an age to write the words along the road, a foot high. It’s little wonder he wasn’t run over. And on Sunday mornings families would gather along the pavement to chat, catch up on news, something that certainly wouldn’t happen nowadays. Jared took Gemma out there once the stage was set and neighbours had had time to read the message. So cruel, really, but Jared thought it a huge, huge prank. Gemma was in floods of tears over that one. She did forgive Jared, eventually. And she wrote a sweet little note to Archibald Doolan, insisting he came round for tea. She sat in here with him, on that chair next to yours, and served flavoured milk and sticky buns, telling him sincerely that her brother was insane and about to be taken off and locked away. The tragedy of it was that Archibald Doolan believed her and went home in floods of tears. I had to phone his mother.
‘This is excellent,’ Anthony Hibbert told Jean. ‘It’s those little stories that we can use to illustrate what was to come.’
‘Have you done this often?’ Jean asked him brusquely, deliberately changing the subject. ‘You can’t have. You’re very young. I am impressed. You’ve got me talking about things I thought I’d forgotten. I’m not sure I even remember things as they really were.’
‘It’s to help you bring it all together,’ he said, ‘I’m sorry if that sounds rather arrogant. Manipulative? And yes, I have done this before. My age isn’t relevant.’
‘Oh dear, I’m sorry. I didn’t mean … You do seem young. Or is it that I’m so much older. Everyone seems younger these days. Oh Lord. You’ve flustered me now. To be hones
t, I’m not really enjoying this at all. I know it’s important…’
Neither Gemma nor Jared were all that impressed with my singing career. Not really. They were both too preoccupied with their friends and problems. I did as much as I could to keep it separate from what went on at home. I was away such an awful lot, for weeks sometimes. I guess that’s when the drinking started to get worse. William noticed, Aunt Dizzy noticed. Will began to give me little lectures. I suppose it was the pursuit of true success that started the disintegration between Will and I, however hackneyed that sounds. And hindsight is a disturbing thing. My singing and being away did pull Will and I apart. It began to seem as if I had two separate lives. I made friends outside the family, I took on another persona. I was not Mother, or Mummy, not William’s wife, out there. I was Jean Barrie. Blues singer. Lady Jean, eventually. A fan once referred to William, as she was talking at me, as Mr Barrie.
The entire family got involved and enthused when we heard I was to be given the two awards. Well, one. The other was a complete surprise. Most Promising Female Vocalist and then Best Female Vocalist, the same night. It caused some controversy. We went to the awards dinner together, along with Aunt Dizzy and two spinster aunts of Will’s who were over from Canada. Oh, of course and Freida, too. It was an extraordinary evening. The children were hardly children by that time, but they were in awe of the whole thing. It’s something I can’t talk about without crying. I’m sorry. Can we… ?
The tape stops, then restarts.
Sales rocketed. I was invited on to a couple of chat shows on the BBC. There were plans for a documentary in which I was to take part. For several years after that I did forget who I was to the children, to William. I became a stranger to them. What if it had all happened when the children were small? Babies? Yet the thought never occurred to me. Not then, not when it was happening. It was exciting. Invigorating. For a time I left those I loved most behind me. I became a celebrity. Jean stops speaking, laughs, then is silent. The tape keeps running. More and more often I wasn’t here at the weekend gatherings. I’d be in New York or Manchester or recording some new damn album. The ‘social’ drinking went on. If only I’d known … I‘m sorry. We’ll have to stop.
The tape ends.
‘How would you like to approach what happened down in Wales?’ Anthony Hibbert gently asked her one night. They were sitting upstairs in the Green Room – the drawing-room. It was late, almost eleven thirty on a Tuesday. They’d enjoyed a salad that Christopher had made and steak that Jean had grilled. Jean stared down at her hands and didn’t reply to Anthony Hibbert’s question. The telephone downstairs had stayed quiet all evening. No Freida. No Aunt Dizzy worrying about something like her teeth or her ‘medicinal’ stockings. The house remained hushed, as if it were listening. The Fallen Nun was away, holidaying in the Algarve. Several brief interviews had already been recorded by then, Jean dismissing most as being a waste of time and effort. She had talked with less and less enthusiasm into the minicorder while Anthony Hibbert sat opposite, not always looking at her and sometimes browsing through the few pages of notes she had given him. Her anxiety and discomfort had begun to escalate each time he placed the minicorder in front of her. She did not reveal how she felt. She knew the taped interviews were false and forced. Her words sounded unnatural. She hadn’t lied. She could not find the courage to ask him to stop.
After her long silence he did not ask the question again. A half-hour went by of mostly silence and then he was leaving. In the hall she said, ‘I’m not going to talk about Wales at all. I’ve just decided. It’s too painful, too difficult. I am sorry. You have access to newspaper reports. That’s the best I can do – that’s all I can do. What we’ve already done. You can try to change my mind, I suppose.’
He had gone to put his arms around her, to hug her, but she pulled back, avoiding his gaze. She watched him as he crossed the paving stones and went up the steps and out into the street. After he drove off she walked back indoors and switched off all the lights. Settling in the front room with a bottle of vodka, she drank herself, not for the first time, into oblivion.
SIX
Jean had tried to telephone Freida several times. There was never any reply. Her answerphone was not in use. In the post had arrived a brief note on headed notepaper, from William, asking Jean to call him. She hadn’t. It was eight days since Aunt Dizzy and Christopher had moved in. They were out together, taking a walk in Regent’s Park. Aunt Dizzy seemed filled with an energy Jean had not previously noticed. Always having talked a great deal, now she was also much more physically active. When Christopher was not meeting his Uncle Fergus or attending lectures, he and Aunt Dizzy were rarely apart, venturing out for short walks, visiting art galleries or the cinema. Uncle Fergus was coming for afternoon tea. Out of character, Jean had baked a chocolate cake, which Christopher had iced. There were cucumber and tomato sandwiches, two bowls of fresh asparagus with hollandaise sauce and three choices of tea. Christopher meticulously laid everything out in the drawing-room upstairs before leaving the house with Aunt Dizzy on his arm, explaining apologetically to Jean that Uncle Fergus was particular in everything, especially afternoon tea.
‘He’s really looking forward to meeting you,’ Christopher said. ‘I’ve told him all about Aunt Elizabeth, too, and her living here now.’
There had been no more telephone calls from Christopher’s parents. Jean had sent a card suggesting they visit or that she go to see them to discuss Christopher’s immediate future. There had been no response. Christopher had seen his father walking past the house twice on the pavement opposite. He had stopped to stare across at the windows before moving on, Christopher, with lips trembling, explained.
‘He uses a walking-stick with a gold handle. Just in case you see anyone hanging about.’
Mr and Mrs Harcourt were elderly. They had married late after an engagement that lasted fifteen years. Christopher had grown up being told by his mother that his birth had been a regrettable accident.
Work had been completed on Aunt Dizzy’s new front room. Deep pile carpet had been laid, the walls had been painted mushroom, new electrical sockets and plumbing had been seen to. The furniture, along with the new bed, was installed. Jean kept the windows open during the day, while the smell of paint faded. Aunt Dizzy did not approve of the room. Jean planned to move her in from upstairs as soon as she was able. Aunt Dizzy, however, had made it perfectly clear she wanted to remain upstairs and now refused to discuss the matter at all. She was fully determined to get her own way.
Jean was upstairs in her bedroom dressing, thinking about Catherine Truman, when the doorbell rang. The Fallen Nun had returned from the Algarve. She had left a letter on the hall table announcing that she was moving out. I’ve been happy living here with you, she wrote, but I have found myself a room in Belsize Village, to be closer to my fiance. She went on to say, in a three-page explanation, that she was to be married soon to a man who loved her deeply, who was planning to take her to live in California, where she was to have a lead role next year in a major film opposite Kevin Bacon. All her hard work had paid off, she wrote. I will try to see you before I leave, but I’m wretchedly busy. If I don’t manage to, then I hope you will be happy always. Inside the envelope was a large cheque to cover several weeks’ rent and bills. The amount was excessive.
Standing on the front steps when she answered the doorbell stood a tall, thin, slack-jawed man with a moustache. Jean knew instinctively that it was Uncle Fergus. He was wearing a canary-yellow three-piece suit that looked 1930s in style if not in age and immaculately pressed. There was a pink rosebud in the lapel. Uncle Fergus wore a monocle in his left eye. Jean immediately thought: P. G. Wodehouse. In his arms he was carrying a bunch of pink carnations wrapped in heavy chartreuse tissue paper, which he thrust at her as if it were a weapon.
‘Exquisite Jean Barrie!’ he warbled. ‘Lady Jean! At last we meet! The flowers are for you, dear personage. I do trust I am not late? I was overcome by horripilation i
n the taxi, so I vacated it. I walked from the cricket grounds. Such a splendid day, the air so crisp, so clean. The trees are burgeoning – as they tend to do in spring.’
Jean had a fleeting urge to curtsy. She smiled hesitantly and ushered Uncle Fergus into the hall.
‘Christopher and Aunt Dizzy aren’t back from their walk, so you aren’t late at all.’
‘Oh, horrors. Then I must be early. Quite unforgivable. But never mind, for I am here and what a distinct pleasure it is for us all. Christopher has not stopped talking about your good self nor of your aunt. I dare say he feels he has found a wee haven here, away from that detestable sister of mine and her pincushion of a husband.’
He kept on talking as he followed Jean down the hall and into the morning-room. She’d taken the flowers and carried them through into the kitchen.
‘You know, I’ve often thought to buy a small property over this way. I have a modest, minuscule bivouac off Long Acre, but I long for a little garden like your own. Living where I do is all very well, but I undeniably miss such delight as a garden. A civilized thing, having one’s own garden.’
Still talking as Jean came back into the morning-room, he was peering out through the french windows, hands thrust into the pockets of his jacket. His speech was comparable to recitation.
‘My dear mother, bless her spirit in heaven, insisted that the family had a country retreat, to which I was trundled down every year of my childhood. As the older son I inherited it. I’ve been considering inviting you and your aunt down there, once summer spreads its splendour upon us. A glorious spot in Cheshire. I am greatly, greatly grateful that Christopher had you to turn to in his hour of darkness. In the circumstances need I say more?’