The Magic Hour

by Charlotte Bingham

  Well, it seemed that the toy having just been junked would now eat a hearty breakfast. He rang for the steward but when the poor man arrived Tom could face nothing except black coffee.

  Bob was standing on Deanford station looking determinedly cheerful. He had already been home and said goodbye to his family, but saying goodbye to Minty was something altogether different. It was difficult, not dutiful.

  ‘You take care of yourself, Minty, until I come bob, bob, bobbing along back to you. You will, won’t you?’

  Alexandra held his hand tightly.

  ‘I shall mer-mer-miss you so.’

  ‘I shall be too busy square-bashing to miss you for even a second, I hope. But I should appreciate it if you wrote nice long letters, to which I probably won’t reply, of course. But I would like you to write jolly letters, all about Deanford and Mrs Smithers and the dogs—’

  He stopped, looking away.

  ‘Actually, I wish I hadn’t said that. I can’t wait to be coming home to you and the dogs, Mints. Don’t stop thinking about me, will you?’ he pleaded above the sound of the train arriving and, having kissed her, he jumped on to it, and then leaned out of the window the way Alexandra had so often seen troops do, waving and whistling, pretending cheer, when really they would probably give anything to be at home in front of the fire with a nice cup of tea and the radio playing.

  ‘Bye!’

  ‘Bye, darling! Bye!’

  Alexandra repeatedly kissed her hand to Bob and ran beside his carriage until the train drew away from her, slowly at first, and then gathering speed with smoke furling and unfurling behind it reminding Alexandra of the untidy wayward college scarf that Bob sometimes wore on their walks on the Downs.

  Alexandra stood for some long minutes on the now empty station platform until the realisation came to her that the train would not be reappearing with Bob still on it, after which she turned slowly and walked back to number thirty-two, trying all the while to kick herself out of her lachrymose state.

  Why did she think she was so different? Why did she imagine that their parting was more painful than someone else’s parting? Why didn’t she realise that people all over the world were busy parting from each other? Finally, why did she feel so strongly that she would never see Bob again? Answer: because everyone felt like that when they were saying goodbye. The act of saying goodbye was always and ever haunted by the words ‘for ever’. It was normal. Just as Bob and she were normal. Not like the characters in the opera. They did not sing arias to each other, and have parents who made impassioned pleas. They were just normal. Bob would do his National Service, and eventually he would take her home and introduce her to his parents, they would buy a cottage with their savings, and he would come bob, bob, bobbing back to her, as he had promised her he would, and that was an end to it.

  When she reached her flat she took off her coat, and ran upstairs in answer to Mrs Smithers’s urgent call. Mind you, Mrs Smithers’s calls were always urgent, but for once Alexandra was nothing if not grateful for their very urgency.

  The following morning, having slept only fitfully, Tom found it necessary to eat a hearty breakfast, following which he went to the bedroom and slept through the day until evening started to fall. He awoke therefore to the almost dull notion that if he was not to do anything more dramatic, he must bath and dress, and sally forth for dinner.

  He had never undertaken a long sea voyage before, but he knew enough to understand that the more expensive the suite booked, the better placed your table in the dining room, which was why an hour later he found himself following a waiter away from the centre of the room to a table for two, at just the right angle to be served first, just the right position to command the maximum attention from the wine waiter.

  The menu was long and in French, but thanks to Florazel, with the exception of some of the sauce names, it presented few problems for him. Thanks to her too he was up to ordering the correct wines for each course, but also thanks to her, dammit, he felt lonely and isolated, as one person seated at a table quite obviously set for two must always do. To add to his tension he found himself absurdly grateful for the orchestra playing, for every mouthful of the undoubtedly delicious food seemed to take an age, whereas had he been with Florazel he would have hardly noticed that he was eating, so busy would they have been, laughing and talking, gossiping and watching. Finally, feeling as if all eyes were upon him, which he knew could not be the case, he left before the dessert, defeated not just by the many courses, but by his still potent loneliness.

  He started to wander the decks, smoking a cigarette and feeling the length of the evening ahead of him, miles of minutes and hours that seemed suddenly already unbearably long.

  ‘This is the lone bachelor station, to lean on these rails you have to pay an entry fee of one Havana cigar, but membership lasts for the whole voyage.’

  Tom turned to see the tip of a large cigar glowing in the darkness, the owner of which was standing smiling at him. The moment that Tom’s grey eyes met Alfred Bodel’s mischievous black ones, they instantly recognised in each other a kindred spirit.

  Alfred promptly handed Tom a large cigar, which Tom lit with great difficulty, his back to the wind. Finally they both leaned on the guard rails, puffing happily and staring out to sea, as if they had known and met each other in this fashion for months.

  ‘How did you know I was a lone bachelor?’ Tom asked after they had introduced themselves.

  ‘Probably, my friend, because, like myself, you left before the dessert. Eating alone is a miserable business. Tomorrow we must make sure to lunch and dine together. Meanwhile, tell me which suite are you in?’

  As Tom named his suite Alfred Bodel looked instantly impressed.

  ‘Oh dear, so now is when I creep to you, is it not? Or would you prefer it if I just crawled?’

  Tom smiled, about to explain that he had not actually paid for such a sumptuous suite from his own pocket, when he stopped.

  ‘You can share my table,’ he offered instead.

  ‘Your table just has to be more comfortable than where I am, by the service door, courtesy of my berth in the bowels of the ship,’ Alfred joked.

  ‘I’m not sure I can finish this cigar …’

  ‘Feeling a bit acey-deucey, huh?’ Alfred took the cigar and threw it overboard. ‘I smoke the damn things day and night, and have done since first grade. So.’ He frowned and looked at Tom. ‘Look, right now I have to go play chatty bridge with a group of dowagers. Want to come?’

  ‘Certainly. I play bridge.’

  ‘You do?’

  ‘A bit.’

  They walked together down the decks, already in step.

  ‘The dear ladies, they do so love to lose to me, and really it’s a pity to deprive them of their little pleasures, don’t you agree? Tonight we are not playing for such stakes as would make your thick dark hair stand on end, so you may feel you can sit in when one of them finally leaves, exhausted from the pleasure of losing to me.’

  To watch Alfred making his way towards the bridge table with the kind of easy swagger of a man who knows just what he is good at was something of an education for Tom.

  ‘Lady Bilsey, may I introduce my good friend Tom O’Brien?’

  ‘Oh Mr Bodel, I am sorry to say Lady Settington is not at all the thing and is lying down, and so unable to join us tonight. Shall you be able to find someone to partner you?’

  Alfred shrugged his shoulders but, turning to Tom, he asked, as if it had only just occurred to him, ‘I say, you don’t happen by any chance to feel like chatty bridge tonight, do you, Mr O’Brien?’

  Tom smiled. He did. Both ladies too smiled, delightedly. Tom was not so handsome that they had not noticed.

  Tom had always had a fine card sense, as well he should growing up in stables and yards where incessant bad weather led to card games as easily as wine leads to love; and of course once Florazel had taught him bridge, which he had picked up in no time at all, they had become something of a
formidable partnership around the quieter drawing rooms of Mayfair.

  ‘Shall we go mad and play for – say a shilling a hundred?’

  Alfred stared round the table at the other three, his eyes finally resting on Tom, who immediately guessed what his new friend was up to, and worse, what he might be. He had seen this little playlet re-enacted over and over again among the better-off grooms and hunt servants. The sharks always started low, casual, relaxed, waiting for the other players’ blood to warm, for them to become excited by the play; they waited to find out how good they were, how much they remembered cards that had been played. And of course they never struck during the early games of poker or rubbers of bridge, but bided their time; once the other players had been lured, excited – ‘fluffed up’ old Westrup used to call it – then they moved in, and the poor lambs were shorn before they even knew they had been rounded up.

  ‘Weren’t we kind though?’ Alfred put a friendly arm around Tom’s shoulders. ‘Weren’t we just so kind, but really? We lost to them, and they felt ever so, ever so awful.’ He stopped outside Tom’s suite. ‘Here, my friend, we must part, I to the bowels of the ship, and you to Queen Mary’s best.’

  Tom looked embarrassed, and then, having opened the door, he turned to Alfred.

  ‘Look, why don’t you come in for a drink? No, more than that, why don’t you move in with me? There’s room enough for three people in here, let alone two. And I am on my own, as you know.’

  ‘My dear chap, I couldn’t possibly.’

  ‘My dear chap, I’m sure you could!’

  ‘Oh, very well, if you insist, I will hare off before you change your mind.’

  They both laughed and not very much later Alfred arrived back at the door of the suite with a small suitcase and some hand luggage.

  ‘The card sharp’s luggage, you can spot it a mile off, see?’ He pointed gaily at all the labels on the side of his case. ‘Backwards and forwards we go, New York to London, London to New York, until winter comes when we go into hibernation, ready for the next season. Mind,’ he went on affably, as he walked into the opulent drawing room, ‘mind, we good guys never, ever cheat. No, we just win. Simple as that. Wow, what did you ever do to deserve this, my friend?’ He looked round him in amazement at the gilt and the plush. ‘Are you Lord O’Brien, or Duke O’Brien, or just a young millionaire?’

  Tom shrugged his shoulders, momentarily playing with the idea of telling the truth and then rejecting it once again as he remembered that it was only a short time since he had palled up with Mr Alfred Bodel.

  ‘It was a present, from a friend, in return for a favour. This voyage was a present, and no, I haven’t a handle, I am just plain mister, like you.’

  ‘Why do the British call a title a handle? I keep hearing the old biddies saying that so-and-so has a handle.’

  Tom paused, thinking for a second.

  ‘Because handles open doors?’

  ‘We are going to be friends, you know that?’ Alfred stated after they had both finished laughing.

  ‘No,’ Tom replied, after a second. ‘No, Alfred, we’re going to be more than that, we’re – we’re going to go into business together.’

  Alfred stared at him.

  ‘We are? But we have only known each other a few hours.’

  Tom shrugged his shoulders.

  ‘I believe in fate, don’t you?’

  ‘Only when it favours me, if it favours someone else I don’t believe in it at all—’

  ‘After all,’ Tom continued ingenuously, ignoring him. ‘After all, you can’t spend your whole life fleecing, sorry playing cards with old ladies on liners, and I can’t spend my whole life – in large suites on ocean liners.’

  ‘No, not fleece, Tom, I don’t fleece nice ladies, I stop them feeling lonely, in return for which I let them lose money. That’s quite different.’

  ‘First.’ Tom went to the drinks tray. ‘First we will have a drink. He who aspires to be a hero must drink brandy.’ He seized a decanter and started to pour. ‘Next we will make a plan. Open our eyes to the possibilities ahead of us in New York, where we will need contacts.’ He handed Alfred a glass.

  ‘Well, my friend, if we need contacts, no better way than to start on an ocean liner. People have affairs, make friends for life, leave each other, it all happens on ships.’

  ‘You’re right. Of course, it must do.’

  ‘Believe me, I know. And now I come to think about it’ – Alfred looked round him with an appraising eye – ‘this suite is an admirable starting point for contacts, you know that? It’s impressive. How about if we give a cocktail party here? Ask all the most influential people? It would be a start, wouldn’t it? They won’t wait to come, because—’

  ‘Because we are two handsome young men, and ladies like handsome young men,’ Tom finished for him.

  ‘No, really?’ Alfred murmured. ‘I never noticed.’

  ‘All we need is a few contacts in New York to start us up, and I’m sure we can land on our feet, start a business, start a new business.’

  Alfred raised his eyebrows.

  ‘You move fast, Tom O’Brien. But here’s to it, my friend, here’s to it.’ There was a small silence as they drank. ‘Yet. Tell me. I don’t want to sound too practical, but once we have made our contacts, what kind of business might two beautiful young men like ourselves be good at, do you think?’

  There was a long silence as they both mused, and drank.

  ‘Selling something, certainly,’ Tom ventured. ‘After all, if you can sell yourselves you can sell anything, and I certainly think we can sell ourselves.’

  ‘Oh yes, we are certainly beautiful at that, as we proved tonight! We sold ourselves so hard to those two dear old birds that they can’t wait to fly back to the table for a good plucking.’

  ‘And after all,’ Tom went on, ‘America is all about selling a life, that’s what America has always been about, hasn’t it? The new life, starting afresh and all that?’

  ‘But where can we start? Where can we get ahead before the rest of the competition? Something new, something that needs that overworked word: pizazz.’

  Tom lit a cigarette and stared ahead of him, feeling elated, feeling free, his self-pity completely vanished. He was going to revenge himself on everyone, and the best revenge of all was success.

  ‘Advertising, that’s where we’d be good,’ he stated, slowly. ‘It’s not new, but television advertising is new, and it needs people who are slick, and young, and we’re both of those.’

  ‘Yeah? This campaign brought to you by: Bodel O’Brien.’

  Tom tried it for sound.

  ‘That’s good. Certainly has a ring to it. You’re right, Alfred. That’s a brilliant idea. We’ll set ourselves up as an advertising company. Slick, young, vibrant, but we won’t bother with anything except television.’

  ‘And what with your British savoir faire and my slick American savvy, here’s betting we’ll clean up in no time.’

  Tom frowned.

  ‘It will take a bit of self-sacrifice, Alfred, you know that?’

  ‘Certainly. I’m quite prepared for that.’

  ‘Starting tomorrow night.’

  ‘That soon huh?’

  ‘Yes. Starting tomorrow night, when we lose yet again, at the bridge table.’

  Alfred groaned.

  ‘But the dear ladies like losing to me, it gives them a cheap thrill.’ He imitated one of the dowagers. ‘ “Oh but you’re so brilliant, Mr Bodel, how can any of us ladies possibly keep up with you?”’

  ‘These ladies have to become our friends, Alfred, not our victims.’

  ‘Oh, very well.’ Alfred shrugged theatrically. ‘You’re right, as it happens, because I happen to know that there is a widow of an oil well on board, and the widow of a motor-car company. Potential sponsors please call in at our suite?’ He laughed, his eyes alight.

  Tom went back to the drinks tray and collected the decanter.

  ‘From tonight on, we are g
oing to have to teach each other everything the other one knows. No holds barred. I shall begin by teaching you English.’

  ‘OK. So what can I teach you?’

  ‘American.’

  ‘Done!’

  ‘Hands across the sea?’

  ‘Brandy, my friend, hands across the brandy.’

  A Voyage of Discovery

  Alexandra had written to her father asking if she could come to visit Lower Bridge Farm. She had carefully not asked if she could come ‘home’, which she thought might irritate Kay. It was some time before she received a reply, but when she did, it was from Kay making it quite clear that she, Kay, thought it was a nice idea for her to visit them, but she hoped that Alex would not be put off by the smell of paint as all the guest rooms were being redecorated, and all they could offer her in the way of a bed was the sitting-room sofa.

  Alexandra stared at the letter, determined not to be irritated by its patronising tone. Shortly after she booked a room at the White Harte, and then sat down and wrote to her grandmother’s friend, Janet Priddy, telling her that she would be coming to the White Harte, and would love to call in on her for tea, if or when it was convenient. She also wrote back to Kay saying more or less the same thing but that she would like to call in for dinner, if or when it was convenient. She knew that Kay would miss the underlying sarcasm and would feel only relief that she was not going to stay with them.

  ‘So you’re off to your homeland, far away from dear old Deanford, and then on to London to visit your cousins?’

  Mrs Smithers was looking genuinely put out, and not just because Alexandra was leaving her for a short holiday, but also because, as Alexandra well knew, she feared that Alexandra, once home, might not come back.

  ‘I’ll be back by Sunday evening next, smart as paint, wait till you see.’

  ‘I shall miss you, Minty dear, even if I do have whatever her name is to look after me—’