‘Please don’t go to Torquay, Dill. Please. Stay here. It’s been so nice.’ Bobbie sounded so emotional that Dill frowned and looked cross and embarrassed at the same time. But she was silent as Bobbie continued, ‘You see, I don’t really want to go to live with the Saxbys, precisely because they are my sort of people. They won’t be nearly such fun as being here with you and the canaries. They’ll stand on form all day long, I dare say, and then where will I be? I might as well be back with my guardian in Sussex. Really, I like being here with you, Dill.’
‘Kissed the Blarney Stone you have, Miss Bobbie. Look, don’t look a gift horse in the mouth, will you? Things have a way of working out, one door closes and another door opens.’ Dill held up a stern finger and wagged it at Bobbie. ‘And that’s just what I heard a minute ago – the sound of one door closing, and another door opening. So. Just you be thankful. Instead of moping about and getting sentimental over my high teas, you be thankful for that opening door, Miss Murray. Be thankful, and do as I say, go through the open door, instead of moaning and feelin’ sorry for yourself.’
Bobbie started to say something, and then stopped.
It was true. Dill was right. And what was more, if she was being truthful, Bobbie had heard that sound, too, even as Dill was lecturing her. The clear sound of one door closing, and another door opening.
Chapter Twelve
Miranda stared at herself in the full length cheval mirror that filled one end of her bedroom at Aubrey Close. Having spent some days in and out of Andre’s famous hairdressing salon in Sloane Street, she was once more completely blond again. But it was not just her hair; the truth was that she was blond again inside too. With the return of her natural blond flaxen hair, which somehow seemed to emphasize the colour of her pale English skin as well, the real Miranda had also arrived back once more. There was now no trace of the awful ‘Randy Darling’, the creature Macaskie had invented, and then discarded, but forced to pay him her pitiful earnings as waitress and sometime singer, by way of some sadistic recompense for letting him down.
Of course, since the terrible night in the Blue Note, she knew that she must never touch drink again. She knew it without being told by either Teddy or Dick. She herself did not want to touch drink again. She actually found it boring and dull. Neither did she want to smoke any more. The memory of Allegra’s Passing Clouds in their pink boxes now made her feel vaguely sick. No, nowadays, when she awoke in the morning, her first thought and her greatest delight was to look forward to a cup of coffee and that most magic of all magical accompaniments, a real French croissant from a real continental bakery that she and Dick had found hidden away a few streets away from Aubrey Close. It was full of secret gourmet delights, apparently enjoyed only by the residents in the locality. And there had been other discoveries too for Miranda, of course, other delights – not least of all Teddy.
He was about to come round and show her his new photographs. Teddy was so awfully pleased with himself at the moment that she and Dick Fortescue had to keep working terribly hard to bring his head down to a normal size. Dick had even invented a trumpet sound which he now made every time Teddy took too long to tell them some new, usually fairly involved story about his latest shoot. Of course he devoutly imagined, indeed he was convinced, that he had actually invented a new style of photography, in which everything was to be photographed ‘on the hoof’. Movement, nothing but movement, was what Teddy was always going on about.
He kept trying out things in the studio – cups suspended on threads, stuffed birds eating crumbs; his enthusiasm for action photographs seemed to be unlimited. The previous week he had Miranda directing a hair-dryer towards a line of washing which he had strung across the room, while a model he had hired for half a day stood in one of the costumes from Miranda’s precious studio trunk and held a cup whose saucer, seemingly caught in the air, was suspended underneath it on a piece of invisible pale pink cotton.
‘You must remember that there is nothing new under the sun, dear boy,’ Dick would try to keep reminding him, as he picked up one of Teddy’s new photographs. ‘We are fools if we think we have arrived at anything new. Only God does that, and sometimes even He must regret a few of His less bright notions – such as that awful chap Macaskie that had poor Miranda blinded by his sadistic ways. And wasps. And the present and past British governments who hate art worse than sin.’
Since Paris the three of them, Teddy and Dick and Miranda, had become inseparable in their spare time. And most of their spare time was spent at Aubrey Close where Miranda, once recovered, set about doing what all single girls in triangular friendships always do, namely – cooking for the boys.
In truth Miranda knew very well that this was really why Teddy and Dick came round so often, and stayed for so long. It was for her food rather than her company, but Miranda did not mind. It was one of the many miracles of her life that she had long ago learned to cook, self-taught, for herself and Allegra. It had really been a form of self-defence, for Allegra’s idea of eating had been a cigarette and a margarine sandwich, usually consumed alternately. But now, with fewer restrictions on foods, and less need – for those in the know anyway – for coupons and queuing, Miranda was able to start to experiment.
Paris had taught her about the need for fresh ingredients, and so, long before the boys stirred, she would take the Underground to Covent Garden in the early morning and return with pâtés and cheeses and fresh fruit and vegetables. Happily, speaking both Cockney and café French, as Dick and she called it, Miranda had been able to make friends with many of the stallholders. Weaving among their newly arrived produce she never forgot, before judiciously squeezing their pears, to ask after their wives, their children, their illnesses – anything and everything about them was of interest to her, so that they in their turn obligingly directed her to the best of their produce, which was immensely satisfactory to all concerned.
And then there would be the inevitable early morning taxi ride home to Aubrey Close, for much of what she wanted had to be bought in whole boxes, and in far larger quantities than she would really wish.
‘You should start a restaurant,’ Dick suggested quite casually one day as he finished a more than satisfactory bowl of soup, pushing Miranda’s home-made bread in flamboyant French style around his soup plate to finish and savouring every mouthful of what it mopped up.
Miranda at the kitchen sink, busy washing up, alone, turned and stared at him. ‘I don’t think I am talented enough to run a café, Dick.’
‘I do – and what is more I know someone very nice who will back you.’
‘You do? Who? Who would back someone like me?’
‘Me, dear girl, me. Dear old Dick here.’
Dick stared up into Miranda’s beautiful face as she bent carelessly over him to place cheese and grapes in front of his place. Naturally, because he knew himself to be in love with her now, Dick was hoping against hope that she could not hear how hard his heart beat, despite his best efforts, when she was so near to him. He never would say anything to her, of course, that was not his way. Ever since, when he was a small boy, his mother had mocked his love for the beautiful girl next door, Dick had dreaded that more than anything in the world.
The awful shame of hearing his mother’s voice saying, What do you want to go and see her for? I suppose you have a crush! And along with the shame the dreadful, painful inability to understand just why she should wish to mock him. Now of course he could not even remember the girl’s name. He frowned. He could only remember her long, blond plaits, nothing else, not even her first name.
‘You?’ Although she had actually spoken quite quietly Miranda’s voice seemed to explode around Dick as he tucked into his cheese and fruit, and at the same time tried to avoid noticing the incredulity of her tone, or the surprise in her eyes, as she stood back wiping her hands on her apron, not seeing him at all really, only gazing ahead of her at what might be some kind of new future.
‘Would you really, Dick? I mean really, wou
ld you really be able to back me, if that is the right word?’
‘Of course, dear girl. You were not to know that I have a little inheritance, from a great-aunt. Wonderful woman, upright and tenacious. She left us all, myself and my two brothers, a small sum, in the devout hope that we would make it larger. A large sum would, she always maintained, be bad for us. A large sum would make us lazy, a small sum would make us work.’
‘Well, but – a café. Dick, do you think that I could run a sort of café-restaurant?’
‘Not the Ivy, dear girl, no, you could not do that. But yes, you could easily run a small French-type café cum luncheon place. After all, you’re more or less doing that now, aren’t you? Forever in the kitchen making soups and pounding garlic in that old mortar of yours. You could call it Chez Miranda. And it would have checked table cloths, and – well, you know the sort of cafés you find everywhere in France, but not in England. Nice places that cook for the table and do those thin French chips that arrive all salted and hot at your place within seconds of being fried. You know. And delicious soups. Like what you just served up to moi.’ Dick ran his fingers through his thick curly hair and smiled, suddenly quite openly shy, so much so that he went on quickly, ‘Nothin’ more an’ nothin’ less, dear girl. Savez? Soups, French bread, croissants, coffee, the continental style, wine by the glass, the perfect tomato salad, the perfect crème brûlée, the perfect egg mayonnaise, perfection in every way for very little outlay and maximum pleasure. We might call it not Chez Miranda but the Café Perfect. We might call it that, think you?’
But Miranda had stopped listening to him some few seconds before and was staring past him. ‘There might be somewhere near here, do you know that? A small place, where we could put out tables in the summer – chalk up the menu, that kind of thing. Oh dear.’
‘Why the oh dear? Has my favourite cook thought of something bad?’
‘Not thought, no, I have just seen a rather tall interruption.’
Dick stood up, all concern, longing to take Miranda in his arms and just hold her, if nothing else. She was so very beautiful now she was blond again, and somehow so touchingly determined to reform after what she now saw as being – she had confessed to him now many times – her terrible past in Paris.
To think I was bought for a pair of gloves!
She sometimes said that when they were all sitting up late at night drinking coffee and listening to Dick’s new jazz records, and it fairly broke Dick’s heart to hear her. She had not been bought, he always insisted, she had been young, she had been deceived, and that was quite different.
Same salad, different dressing was her statutory reply after one of their reruns of this conversation.
But now Dick saw that she had, all at once, stopped dreaming and turned hastily back to the kitchen.
‘I see what you mean.’ Dick strolled towards the outer studio doors. ‘I see what you mean,’ he repeated. ‘Oh dear indeed. Enter our very own genius, fresh from the fields of photography, standing four square against oncoming fame. Come in, Teddy Mowbray, and tell us, do. Although before you do, please tell me first, has your hat size grown from seven and three-quarters to eight and a quarter, as rumour now persists in saying it has?’
Teddy nodded, hardly listening, waiting only to begin.
‘Quite right, quite right,’ he called out gaily, ‘and when you see my pictures you will see why. It is true what they are all saying, I am the Michael Angelo of the camera. The day before yesterday I took a shot of two models skating, and just-wait-till-you-see. I have suspended them in the air. Just-you-wait-till-you-see. You will gasp, boys and girls, you will gasp, and you will know,’ he added, calling to Miranda who was already heating up some soup for him, ‘you will acknowledge that your brother, Teddy Mowbray, is something other. I have to be. Just look at these pictures. And although they will always bear the illustrious name of that old devil Stanis that I slave for on the bottom, although he will always claim them as his – tell me, am I or am I not just as evil a genius as him, to produce such work? Tell me. You have to admit it, I am!’
Miranda and Dick stared at the photographs which Teddy generously spread out on the large oak side table with its vast, almost clumsy carvings of grapes, and its heavy legs, purposeful and Tudor-type. As Miranda peered at the pictures she kept wiping her hands on her apron, and as Dick stared, he could not help darting little sideways looks at her. Seeing such high fashion pictures, rather different from the others that Teddy had brought back to the studio before, he worried that Miranda would once again be reminded of the dreaded Macaskie, and the not so recent, but still very painful, past.
But Miranda did not seem to mind looking at other models. She peered intently, even critically, at the photographs, and then, realizing that she was not seeing them in their full glory, went quickly to fetch her new glasses, a necessity nowadays, since whatever had happened to her in Paris had caused her, of a sudden, to become short-sighted.
‘They are beautiful, Ted,’ she told him, when she saw them clearly.
Dick noticed that Miranda always called Teddy Ted nowadays, and, knowing their past, he occasionally wondered if it was Miranda’s way of keeping Teddy’s head down to size. As if in some sisterly fashion she was trying to keep his feet on the ground by reminding him that he was still Ted Darling to her, whatever Teddy Mowbray might be, or want to be, to the rest of the world.
In fact, although the pictures were in actuality photographs, they might just as well have been paintings that had been arranged, expressly, to be photographed. And that was what was so clever. The women in the photographs were ostensibly modelling evening gowns, but of course they were not doing that at all, they were modelling the beauty of an age. At long, long last the great couturiers, numbers of whom had designed stylish utility wear to take women through the terrible years of the recent conflict, had been thankfully able to return to the grandeur of the past.
And so there, in a large ballroom, most decorously lit, were beautiful women modelling beautiful clothes, and the result, not unexpectedly was quite, quite beautiful.
Some of the women were leaning against a piano, very distantly seen. Some, seen only in head and shoulders, were looking towards others, nearer to the camera. For the most part, those in the foreground wore strapless satin dresses, some with matching stoles, and their hair, in contrast to what Macaskie had done to Miranda, was knotted into their necks, or arranged behind their ears to show off small diamond earrings and delicately fashioned necklaces. One young woman had her back to the camera, one shoulder bare, her short hair showing off a marvellous pair of shoulders, not sloping but slender and straight, her dress falling from the waist in satin circles and then caught up to the side in a full drop to the floor. To the right of her were other young women dressed in pale blue or pale lemon satin, and they too had hairstyles that showed off slender straight shoulders, and long evening gloves which covered elbows. It was a picture of an era which was still looking back. And yet, what a picture.
Teddy himself was so pleased with it that he stood looking at his own photographs, lost in admiration for them, long after the other two had moved away.
Miranda waited for him in the kitchen, slowly stirring the soup, making sure that it did not boil. She stirred it so long and so patiently that Dick did not understand why, after Teddy had finally finished praising his own work, she did not, quite frankly, throw it at him. But the fact was that she did not. Not only did she not throw it at him, she placed it most carefully in front of him, poured him a glass of wine, and then, to Dick’s amazement, sat down and listened to the charming old bighead with the most meticulous attention.
Of course, Dick reasoned to himself, as he quickly wound up the gramophone and started to listen to a great new Louis Armstrong All-Stars record, that was what sisters did, even if they were maybe not sisters by blood – they cooked for their brothers, and listened to them.
‘So, there we are. And I was allowed, by the great man, to actually press the trig
ger myself today. I took the picture, Sis, not him. Press, bang, it was me.’
‘But I read that apparently Stanis never does take the picture, Ted. He has always insisted that his assistants take the picture. So it’s not that much of a compliment.’
Teddy laughed at that, but he still would not be put down. That was not his way.
‘Touché, Sis, touché, but I don’t believe you.’
‘And what will tomorrow bring, Ted?’ Miranda stood looking down at Teddy, taking his soup plate away, and carefully placing some fruit and cheese in front of him.
‘Oh, say not to reason why, and don’t ask me about tomorrow.’ Teddy gave a small groan, before reaching hungrily for the cheese and French bread. ‘Talk about from the sublime to the ridiculous. I mean.’ He shook his head as Miranda passed him some more of her precious supply of butter. ‘I mean talk about the sublime to the ridiculous,’ he said again. ‘Tomorrow I only have to photograph some religious nut with a Bible, of all things.’
Bobbie had moved in with the Saxbys only a fortnight after re-meeting the Major in Sloane Square on that summery evening. It was, quite frankly, bliss, after Dill and her canaries. Not just because it was the opposite, smarter side of the road – Bobbie really did not care very much for such things – but because they had more hot water, and the beds were old and Edwardian and the moment she stepped up into hers she slept so soundly that it was difficult to wake without the aid of a borrowed alarm clock.
The Blue Note Page 28