The Blue Note

by Charlotte Bingham

  Oh, but how Bobbie, as the time went by, realized that life around Beatrice Harper was bleak. Even the news of her arrival cast a long shadow, as everyone prepared for the sound of her voice, sometimes frantic with gaiety, sometimes almost guttural with fury.

  And how everyone’s eyes took on fixed looks, no-one smiling, except with a kind of forlorn tiredness. People new to her service, who had arrived in a flush of goodwill, grateful and willing, and full of energy, soon slowed up. Where before they had walked quickly and eagerly, at first seeing only the fun and the hope that a place like Baileys Court even in autumn or winter held out to the uninitiated, they soon changed. It did not take long, sometimes only a few weeks, and Bobbie would see them, like herself, walking slowly towards the closed library door, their feet dragging almost audibly. Or she would watch them secretly as they crossed the garden to the house in answer to the incessant ringing of the staff bell, their shoulders hunched, dreading to hear what the next set of commands might be, realizing, all too late, that they had been trapped by the wonderful house and its setting, by the luxurious life, by the lovely autumn weather, by Mrs Harper’s beauty and sophistication – trapped into thinking that they would have a happy time with her.

  And suddenly it would seem that it was already too late to leave, to change their minds, because in a very short time, given that there was still rationing, they had become accustomed to being fed terribly well on food and wines smuggled from France. They had grown used to sleeping in cool linen sheets under thick blankets and goose-feather eiderdowns, and when winter came again enjoying the warmth of the endless heat upon which she insisted, somehow finding fuel supplies where no-one else could, or had. And too they became reliant upon the security she offered, upon the fact that she paid them all twice, sometimes as much as three times, what anyone else would think was sensible.

  Bobbie, however, she did not pay. Bobbie was expected to live on her usual small allowance, and look after herself in the Sheds, and drink Bovril for lunch and make toast without butter which could be dipped in the Bovril, and rely on Mrs Duddy to bring her in the luxuries that she and Miss Moncrieff had enjoyed before Miss Moncrieff had escaped the terrible servitude that Bobbie now disenjoyed.

  ‘You are in my service now, Roberta. You are a very lucky young girl. In return for this you will jump around whenever I am down. You will learn to take dictation, you will learn to answer all the telephone calls that I might wish you to answer, you will be on call, but only when I am down. So, really, you are a very fortunate girl, because I shall not be down a great deal in the winter, so you will have the place to yourself. Liberty Hall it will be, no doubt, when I am away. There will still be some staff in the house – a cousin of Mrs Duddy, or two cousins of hers, actually – and you can eat with them in the kitchen. That will do you until I am down again.’

  Well, winter had come, but Bobbie soon realized that she was about as welcome to Mrs Duddy’s cousins as a common cold. They would stop talking the moment she came into the kitchen and ignore her when she spoke to them, or make faces behind her back, and so she would walk back to the Sheds, and make do with yet more Bovril and yet more toast, until such time as Mrs Duddy called again with eggs and butter and home-made bread which saved Bobbie having to go on the scrounge to the main house, and meant she could just stay staring at the sea, and typing the few letters that were required very, very slowly.

  ‘It’s so bleak here, for you,’ the older woman said one morning, and she stamped her feet and blew on her mittened fingers as Bobbie went to fetch the money to pay her for the groceries. ‘Aren’t you lonely, too?’

  Bobbie smiled and shrugged her shoulders. ‘Oh, people come down at weekends, you know. Mrs Harper, and so on. And of course there’s the wireless, Mrs Duddy, I do know that.’

  ‘What a thing, to be here all alone. And where’s that young man you used to tell me about, the one you used to go bathing with in the summer, you know? That young man.’

  Bobbie looked at the change in her hand, but this time she frowned, and after a few seconds she said, having cleared her throat slightly, ‘He’s – er – gone. He was just here for the summer, and then he went.’

  ‘He sounded so nice.’ Mrs Duddy nodded, noncommittal. ‘I liked the sound of him. We were all hoping, at the farm, that something would come of it and we’d see a ring on your finger by now. But there, I dare say you’ll meet someone just as nice, one of these days. I dare say.’

  Bobbie nodded, turning away, only to turn back.

  ‘I dare say I won’t,’ she said suddenly, to Mrs Duddy’s astonishment. ‘I dare say I will never meet such a friend again, not ever.’

  The weeks that followed were spent avoiding the thought that Julian might return, and everything would be as it had been. How many times Bobbie had turned round to catch his eye, wondering if he had seen the same thing and found it amusing or interesting, only to find that he had? A hundred, two hundred, a thousand times perhaps? What did it matter? What did anything matter once you were alone once more and unhappy again?

  She knew why he had left. He had left before autumn became winter, and now autumn seemed to her, for some perverse reason, to be the loveliest season of the year, because she would always remember him standing among the early fallen leaves, few as there were of them on the lawns, and smiling at her. She would remember him saying, ‘Come on, Roberta better known as Bobbie, follow me to the sea, where we will wallow in cool waters like so many hippopotami.’

  And how he would lead her, and she would follow, down that stony Sussex beach, and how he would look at her suddenly and say, ‘This is … this is the life that one always imagines, somehow, the life of the beach, the sea, and no-one around to tell us not to do anything.’

  ‘Or worse, telling us to do something.’

  Julian had the gift of making everything, even the dullest thing, into something exciting. Even walking into Baileys Green together would become an exercise in hilarity with Julian’s commentary conducted always in the lowest of murmurs.

  ‘First we will pass Mrs Duddy’s washing line, and see if she is still the proud possessor of seven pairs of green ladies’ directoires. After that glorious discovery, we will walk on to the crossroads, to count the number of cars that pass in five minutes – all bets laid must be honoured immediately to buy pints of beer or something similar. Then to the Dog and Dicky Duck to see if the Major’s team won at darts last night, and if so, chalk up a pretend score and leave it there to make him fulminate tonight. Because he does love to fulminate. Shut up, Gilbert!’ (Here Julian would do his statutory imitation of the Major.) ‘And then on to see if Rene’s mother has any new gowns displayed in her shop, and if so, guess the colour of them behind that yellow cellophane she hangs at her windows. And so home, after a long glass of lemonade and perhaps even something a little stronger at the said Dog and Dicky Duck.’

  It was all that which Bobbie so missed from her life, now that Julian had left. More than the poetry and the evening walks, and the long talks with the Major, it was the endless invention, the ability to make something out of nothing, some fun out of what everyone else would either ignore or just leave lying about in an ordinary dull little way. Julian could make a great big pink cloud of the day, where everyone else would leave it to stand around being grey and drear.

  And yet, even now, even then, she had quite understood why he had gone. There was no more innocence left at Baileys Court.

  Julian had used to say, ‘You can’t transplant things, you can only plant them. That’s really why the trees fell over.’

  In a way, Bobbie realized now, she was just the same. She was just like the trees that had fallen over in the winds. She had been brought in, imported from somewhere else, which was probably why she sensed that she too might, like them, quite easily fall over, quite soon.

  Dick Fortescue gazed down at the young girl he and Teddy had laid down on the bed, a puzzled look on his face. It really did not seem quite the thing to bring her back to a b
achelor’s flat, but if, as Teddy kept insisting, this was his long-lost sister, then so be it.

  Nevertheless, having removed his navy blue beret, Dick scratched his head and stared across at Teddy.

  ‘Sorry to say this, dear boy, but she don’t look much like you, you know. I mean – she looks the spit of everyone else in the Blue Note, but not much like you at all, if you don’t mind me saying so.’

  ‘It’s her hair. She’s done something dreadful to her hair. Dyed it or something. Normally she was blond, like me. We were both the same colour. That’s how I came to be her brother, as a matter of fact, because of our hair.’

  ‘Came to be her brother? You must explain, dear boy. How could you come to be a brother to someone? Surely, you just are, or you just are not?’ Dick looked understandably puzzled and scratched his head again.

  ‘If I said it was a long story, would you make a great effort to believe me, even so? Because it happens to be a true one.’

  Dick sat down, waiting for the story to unravel itself, an interested look on his face, as always, unlike so many people. Dick was interested in everything. It was one of his great qualities.

  ‘Miranda and I – well, we lost touch. Mostly my fault, I’m afraid. I lost her address. First of all we’d been evacuated, and then adopted – and then, you see, after the aunts – only they really weren’t our aunts – after they were killed in the war, all their money was put in trust for us, and so on, and so on. But you see, we were never really brother and sister at all. I mean we were, but we weren’t. What happened was that she, Miranda, took me along with her, and pretended I was her brother. As I just said, we were evacuees, and I was in the orphaned bit, due to be shipped off to some orphanage, and I was bawling my head off, so she took me under her wing, and I went along with the brother thing, and whether or not the aunts ever knew when they adopted us officially, I don’t know. What I do know is that the aunts were the kindest people I’d ever had in my life, and Miranda …’ he looked down at her suddenly with bewilderment, ‘she was just the tops, you know. She really was, so beautiful. You wouldn’t think so now, she’s so raddled, but she was really beautiful. Come on now, Miranda, wake up and tell your brother what has happened to bring you to this terrible state. She really was beautiful, you know. It’s her hair, that awful black, it makes her look like a witch.’

  The body on the bed stirred after that, and then slowly, oh so slowly, sat up.

  ‘Water, for God’s sake. Bring me some water,’ it demanded in English, and then, looking from Dick to Teddy, it burst into tears. ‘What am I doing here? Why am I here? Why are you here? Where’s Macaskie?’

  ‘If by Macaskie you mean that man who was last seen pulling your hair to stop you singing, I think, dear Sis, we will forget all about him, don’t you? Not a good type. Steer clear of him, I’d say, and this is, although you probably won’t recognize me, your long-lost brother speaking, so I should know.’

  Miranda took the glass of water and stared up at Teddy, sniffing.

  ‘Teddy! My God! Teddy!’

  She burst into tears once more, immediately flinging her arms around her brother’s neck in such a fashion that he was forced to clear his throat several times as she went on sobbing.

  ‘Thank God you’re here. You’ve found me. I’ve found you.’

  ‘Well, yes, indeed,’ Teddy agreed affably. ‘But you know how it is, Miranda. I may be here, but how and why are you?’

  The story came out bit by little bit. Between long and grateful sips of water, Miranda began to explain her recent past, and how she had come to travel with the man who had discovered her – this Macaskie fellow, Teddy kept on calling him – to Paris.

  ‘Everything was fine between us until I flopped as a model.’

  ‘Flopped? How do you mean, flopped?’

  ‘You know, as in I was no good, Teddy. You know. No good as in can’t do it, thumbs down, get the girl out of here, that’s how I mean flopped.’ She stopped, remembering. ‘Everything was fine, until he had my hair cut off, and then … with my hair went my confidence. I don’t know why he wanted to cut it off so much, or why the hairdresser had to cut it all off at once, but you know – it was going to be fashionable, but once it had gone, that was it. I just wanted to hide away from everyone and everything. I looked terrible. I felt terrible. I mean – you can’t go to bed wearing a hat, can you? You still see yourself, when you’re cleaning your teeth or something, without hair!’

  ‘Bad as the army was eh?’

  ‘It’s growing again now,’ Dick added as if she did not know.

  ‘Too late. Really. Besides, who cares what it does. I don’t want to be a model any more. That’s why I dyed it as soon as it started to grow a little, so as to look like everyone else on the Left Bank. Because when I realized I was a failure, I came across here, and I – well, I earned my living as a waitress and so on, so I had to look like all the other waitresses, or I wouldn’t get work, you know how it is. I was still hoping to be a singer, but Macaskie had invested a lot of money in me, apparently. Which is why he made me sign this agreement when we came here. And I owe him still, so that was why I had to be a waitress, and try to be a singer too. But you know how it is.’ She gave Teddy a sudden wobbly smile. ‘Aunt Sophie having taught me to sing Noel Coward numbers that’s all I had in my repertoire. And, figure-toi, “A Room With A View” is not quite as popular in the Blue Note as it would be in Mellaston at the rectory. That’s what’s happened to me up to now.’

  There was a long pause as Teddy and Dick stared at her, unable to quite believe what an idiot she was.

  ‘And so you really and truly think you have to pay this fearful chap Macaskie back?’

  ‘Of course I do, Teddy. I owe him so much. After all, he tried to launch me as a model. I am his first flop for years, and he hasn’t taken it very well. I was not only camera-shy, I drank before my first show, and’ – she put her head in her hands and sighed heavily – ‘and worst of all, I fell off the catwalk.’

  Teddy tried not to look at Dick and Dick tried not to look at Teddy, because to do so would mean they would start to laugh, and laughter was not going to be quite the right reaction, not when Miranda was looking like something that not even the cat would bring in, but would leave by the dustbin.

  ‘Well,’ Teddy said, having managed to control himself and starting to feel just the right amount of righteous anger, ‘I think this Macaskie should make himself ready for his second damn great flop for years, don’t you, Dick?’

  Dick looked across at Teddy and suddenly felt terribly sorry for him. After all, it must be a shock to find your sister in such a situation, and even more of a shock to find she’d made such a mess of things. This chap Macaskie was obviously her lover, or had been, at any rate; but whether or not Teddy had guessed this he did not know. What he did know was that Teddy was quite right, they had to get out of the apartment and find him, and do what all good Englishmen would do in these circumstances – lay the man out cold.

  ‘It’s no good thinking you can take him on, Ted,’ Miranda said suddenly from the bed, as both men moved as one to the door. ‘It’s no good at all. You see, Macaskie knows everyone in Paris, and if you go giving him a black eye he will have you drummed out of the Left Bank and on your way back to England within five seconds flat.’

  ‘Oh, all right, I take your point. The gendarmes will take it badly if their friend is found with a bump on his chin, eh?’

  ‘That’s it. He knows everyone, really. He even knows de Gaulle.’

  Teddy nodded at her, as if in agreement, and then he moved towards the bathroom door and his recently unpacked overnight bag, and brought back a pill and some more water.

  ‘Take this. They’re really for sea sickness, but they’ll calm you anyhow. And then go to sleep. Try to get to sleep.’

  Miranda sat, a tousled mess, on the edge of the bed. ‘I am such a mess, aren’t I?’ she asked of no-one at all, but they all knew that she was not referring to her frantic hair or
rumpled clothes.

  ‘Not any more you’re not going to be,’ Teddy told her. ‘From now on you’re going to be Miranda Mowbray, Teddy Mowbray’s sister. And I won’t allow my sister to be a mess, do you hear? Now be a good girl and hop into bed, get a good night’s kip, and leave it all to your brother, would you?’

  He gave her a quick hug, and then left her.

  Miranda stared after him. Her head was so painful that she would have loved to end it all, if only to stop the pain. But somehow, what with the wine, and the pill, it did not take long for her to undress and crawl between the rough French sheets and fall asleep, waking only once when she heard Teddy’s voice, and thinking for a few seconds that she was back at the rectory with the aunts, and they were reading to them all, before blowing out the candles and leaving them all to fall fast asleep, ignoring the sound of the planes passing overhead, or occasionally the sound of their wireless downstairs giving out the news rather too loudly because Aunt Prudence always did like to have it turned up when she was in the larder sorting jam.

  And so, with these vague sensations of having somehow come home, Miranda drifted off into the deep sleep of the rescued.

  Chapter Ten

  When the moment finally arrived Bobbie could not have truly said what had made her run away. Perhaps it was that Beatrice had confined her to the kitchens over Christmas. Luckily Beatrice, glorying in her usual ritual humiliation of her ward, could never have imagined it, but the fact was that Bobbie actually preferred to be in the kitchen with the staff rather than in the drawing room. She had far rather spy on Beatrice’s smart friends through the green baize swing doors, far rather watch them through the half-opened drawing room doors, all puffing endlessly on their cigarette holders and shouting ‘Darling, darling, hallo darling, how good to see you darling’, than actually be with them.

  In fact, that Christmas Bobbie heard the word ‘darling’ so often, and said in such an unaffectionate way, that when they eventually all returned to London Bobbie found herself thinking that she would be hard put to hear that particular endearment again without thinking that she had, at the same time, heard iron filings dropping to the floor.