Last Act (2 page)

“And Marcus, his page, a character supplied by the librettist, goes back too, although he has fallen in love with Regulus' daughter. Not a huge part; but vital. His parting duet with the girl, Livia, is only matched by his last one with Regulus. I wish I could offer you the part itself, dear Anne, but that goes to one of our own Lissenberg singers, who will do it well. The only understudy we have found is a disaster, in voice, looks and manner. She has a contract, unfortunately, but I am sure, if you come, I can find some means of getting rid of her. Of course I thought of you in the first place, but thought you—unavailable. We were talking of it the other day and someone mentioned your husband's tragic death. So, I am writing to you, to urge you, to
beg you to come. It is the chance of a new start for you, and of a change, both of which I think you must need. The pay will be small, I fear, and I must warn you that Lissenberg is even more expensive than Switzerland, but you will be housed and fed in the singers' hostel, adjacent to the opera house itself.

“It is only three weeks to the opening night. The whole of Europe will be there. If anything should happen to Alix, who sings Marcus, we would be a laughing-stock. Imagine the disgrace to Lissenberg, the ill omen for this important conference and—to be selfish—the effect on my career. It is not a long part. I know how fast you learn. I promise you could do it. Dear Anne, telephone me, any night, between six and seven, reverse the charges. I'll pay. Just say you will come. I need you.” And then, the familiar, scrawled, “Carl.”

The letter fell to the floor. The first tears were streaming down her cheeks. Carl needed her. Offered her the chance she needed. And—she could not help him, could not take it. The chance, of course, was neither here nor there. In six months she would be dead, beyond all chances. But—what a chance it was. Even in the shocked aftermath of Robin's death she had been aware of the furore when Beethoven's forgotten opera was found. And now it was to be produced in connection with the great international peace conference. At the new opera house in Lissenberg. She had forgotten Carl was born there. She now remembered him describing it; a tiny country, somewhere in central Europe. Dear Carl. Even to understudy on such an occasion would be a chance indeed. But there was more than that. There was something in Carl's letter; a note almost of desperation. “If anything should happen to Alix.” Why should anything happen to Alix? Of course, things did happen; sore throats; infectious diseases; motor accidents. The snakes were writhing in her breast again. She made herself get up and move over to the open window to do her breathing exercises. Ten times, deep and slow, as Carl always made her begin her lesson, and then the arpeggios.

She was singing them. The notes rang out, round and true, and, outside a blackbird stopped singing. She was shaking. With shock—with joy—with excitement. One more great, delicious
breath of spring air and she was fully launched into
Che faro. I have lost my Euridice
… They had sung it in English at her school, where she caused a sensation as Orpheus, but the Italian came out, as always, rounder, more satisfying. When she had finished she stood for a while, leaning against the window frame, breathing quietly, taking in the full miracle of it.

A knock at the door roused her. Opening it, she was confronted by fat Mrs Briggs who owned the house. “I'm sorry I'm sure to have to speak,” said Mrs Briggs, “but I did say, when you moved in, Miss Paget, no loud gramophone or radio in the daytime. You know Briggs and I work at home.”

“I'm sorry. I quite forgot.”

But Mrs Briggs was darting sharp, suspicious glances round the room. “I don't understand,” she said. “We quite thought, Briggs and I, it was that Kathleen Ferrier on a record we didn't know. ‘Pity to turn it off, really,' Mr Briggs said. Quite a connosser he is, in his quiet way. But rules is rules. Only”—she came to the point,—“Where have you got the gramophone?”

“I'm sorry,” said Anne meekly once again. “It was me. I won't do it again.”

“Christ almighty!” said Mrs Briggs.

Three weeks from six months leaves something like a hundred and sixty days. Suddenly hungry, Anne opened a tin of sardines and ate them, prowling around the room, thinking, calculating … The doctor had not been definite. Say four months then, to be on the safe side. It still left a hundred days. The season at Lissenberg was to be short, she was sure, a couple of weeks or so. What exactly had the doctor said? Pain increasing towards the end. Well, of course; it was increasing already. Except, oddly enough, that she had hardly felt it since she opened the two letters. Reminded of them, she filled in the premium bond form, put it into its envelope and hurried down to catch the afternoon post at the box on the corner. A thousand pounds. It had been her annual income once, before Robin persuaded her to sell her inherited investments. Now, it should last her very pleasantly for six months, however high the cost of living in Lissenberg.

Was she really planning to go? She seemed to be. Was she
mad? Very likely. Suppose she spent all her money and then took more than six months to die? Well, she would just have to cross that bridge, like all the others, when she came to it. She walked the two long blocks to the plastics factory to give in her notice. It was unpleasant, but easier than she had expected. Would dying perhaps be the same?

She went on to the public library, to look for an atlas. “Liss … Lissatinning … Lisselton …” There it was: “Lissenberg. Page 34.” Central Europe. A physical map, she was glad to see, with green valleys and brown mountains, and Lissenberg, when she found it at last, a green patch fringed with brown, with the town of Lissenberg marked, and the river Liss flowing west through the valley to join the Rhine before it plunged into Lake Constance. How large? She measured with a thumb and decided the whole country must be something like ten miles by eight. Smaller than London. Extraordinary.

There was no mention of Lissenberg in the library's subject index, but the girl at the desk suggested she try under Austria or Switzerland, and she found it at last in a battered old 1970 guide to Switzerland, with a whole page to itself, but not a great deal of information. An independent principality since 1780 … tourism … ski-ing. The capital also called Lissenberg … total population 30,000. German spoken. Currency: the Lissmark. Three hotels in the town of Lissenberg itself, which lay between the Liss and the mountains, and two more higher up with ski-ing facilities.

The travel agent in the High Street was helpful. He had indeed heard of Lissenberg; was amused that she should doubt it. “It's a tax haven, you know, like Liechtenstein. People go there to set up offices, hold conferences. The hotels are quite good, I believe. One or two of the coach tours are beginning to stop off there, just for lunch and a bit of shopping. And now, of course, there's the new conference centre and the opera house and the big new hotel that goes with them. Booked solid for the opera season. I had an enquiry the other day, turned down flat. Expensive, too.” He had summed up her frugal appearance with a professional eye.

“I've got the chance of a job there,” she explained. “Living in.
It's just a question of getting there.”

“Oh, I see. No problem. You fly to Zurich, get the local train there. Or train all the way of course—cheaper.” He had her placed, she thought, as a nanny or au pair.

“Oh, I'd fly. Can you look me up the connection?”

“A pleasure.” He delved through time-tables, found a morning plane to Zurich; then an hour on the international express. “To Schennen. Then it's a local bus, I'm afraid. I couldn't book you on that.”

“No. Naturally.” She had written down the times as he looked them up. “I'll let you know in the morning what day. There won't be any problem about the flight, will there?”

“Not for a week or two. They're pretty heavily booked later on, what with the conference and the opera.”

“Yes. I'll come in first thing in the morning. Thanks.” Leaving the shop, she felt the familiar onset of pain and stood quite still, making herself breathe quietly, pretending to gaze at the tour advertisements in the window. Crazy to be planning this. But she had decided. She was going. There was something very liberating, she began to think, about having only six months to live. And—something else had decided itself—she was not going to tell Carl anything. It was odd to be so sure of her voice, but she was, and as to the other thing, that was, simply, her own affair. The travel agent had confirmed that
Regulus
was only running for two weeks. She had never been incapacitated by the pain yet. She would go. She would plunge back into her old, lost world. She would make the most of it, and then, when it was over, she would begin to think of a refuge, a hole where she could crawl and die with as little fuss as possible.

Shops were closing now, the pavements crowded. Time to go home for a cup of tea and get ready to telephone Carl at six. Reminded, she stopped at the sub post office on the corner and got a pound's worth of change. Thanks to that blessed premium bond there was no need to behave like a pauper and go through the inconvenience of reversed charges. Her small savings would last her until the cheque came through from Lytham St Anne's. She must ask Mrs Briggs to forward it. A blessing that the premium bonds, bought with her first earnings, were in her
maiden name.

Lissenberg could be dialled direct. The public telephone was in the corner of the ground floor hall, with no pretence of privacy, but she did not need it. She piled her ten-and twopenny pieces beside it, dialled the long code, waited for the ringing tone and pressed a cautious tenpence into the slot. “Opera,” said an unmistakably German female voice.

Robin had been almost as fluent in German as in English, and had been impatient with Anne's attempts at it, so that hers remained largely operatic, but she had prepared for this: “
Herr Meyer, bitte,
” she said, and went on, in carefully studied phrases. “I am calling from England. He expects the call.” She pressed more money into the slot.

“Ah.” The girl obviously knew about the call and put her through at once. “Hallo.” Carl's cross voice might have been from round the corner. “I told you I'd pay for the call, extravagant hussy.”

“Darling Carl.” Amazing to hear the laughter in her own voice. “I'm a rich woman. For the moment. Do you really want me?”

“
Want you!
When can you come? Tomorrow?”

“The next day.” Pips sounded. “Hell!” She pushed in more tenpenny pieces. “Four thirty at the bus stop in Lissenberg?”

“Always so capable.” Now Carl was laughing at her. “I should have told you that. So—yes. I'll meet you there.”

“What do I bring?”

“Your voice.” The pips again. “Till then,
liebchen?
”

“Till then, dear Carl.” She put down the receiver slowly, puzzled. That German endearment had been so unlike the Carl she knew. But then, much can happen in two years. He was back home in his native principality, where they spoke German. A pity she did not know it better.

Mrs Briggs was hovering. Mrs Briggs very often did hover when one telephoned, as if one might have some fiendish way of doing it without paying. “Off for a trip?” she asked coyly.

“Yes.” This was an expected bridge. “I'm sorry, Mrs Briggs. I've been offered a job abroad. I'll pay you a week's rent, of course.”

“From Saturday.” Mrs Briggs was mollified. “What about your things, dearie? You can't take all that stuff abroad.”

“No.” This had been bothering her. What does a dying woman need with “things”? And yet, if she did come back to England to die, she would like that Japanese print with her.

“I tell you.” Mrs Briggs had thought about it too. “There's a cupboard at the end of the hall. See?” She opened its door and showed a cavernous depth. “Anything goes in there, we'll look after, Briggs and I, pound a week. Right?”

“Fifty pence.”

“Seventy-five. You can afford it, ducks. Anyone who can sing like that—we don't know what you're doing here, Briggs and I, and that's for sure.”

“Thanks.” She meant it. “It's a bargain, Mrs Briggs, and if anything should happen to me abroad, you keep the things.”

“Thank
you,
I'm sure. But you'll be back, Miss Paget. We look to hear you at Covent Garden, Briggs and I. On the telly, that is. Can't afford their prices, not these days. But we do fancy an opera on the telly. Sandwiches and beer for us, when they do one. Would you be singing one of those what-d'you-call-'em parts miss? Boy's clothes and all that? You've the figure for them, that's one thing. We watched one the other night; girl with a face like a horse and legs like a kitchen table, all done up in breeches and a fancy wig, and the ladies falling over themselves for the ‘boy'. Clean spoiled it for Briggs and I. We wished we'd listened on the radio 'stead of watching. Now, you'd be something else again … Tell you what.” She loomed nearer, smelling of beer and fried onions. “You want to practice, between now and when you go, go right ahead. It'll be a pleasure.”

“Thanks.” Escaping at last to her room, Anne felt warmed by the unexpected encouragement. She swung open the door of her tiny closet and looked herself over gravely in its long narrow strip of cracked glass. Touching of Carl not to ask whether she still looked the part—suppose she had been one of those women who grow fat on disaster. But in fact, she had lost weight. Twenty-three, five foot four, a hundred and twelve pounds. Short dark hair, brown eyes, a face that, amazingly, smiled at her from the glass. Yes, she thought, I'll do. I won't disappoint Carl. Of
course, nothing will happen to Alix, but I will be singing again. She moved to the window and began.

Somebody, Somewhere, Was going slow. The departure lounge at Heathrow was packed with people, and the boards showed flight after flight as “delayed.” When Anne arrived, breathless from her early start, just at checking-in time, the flight indicator for Zurich showed only a blank. She wished now that she had had the strength of mind to join the queue at the airport bank and get herself some foreign currency before she came through passport control. Too late now, and, if her plane was much delayed, no time at Zurich either. Her suburban bank had produced traveller's cheques readily enough to the extent of her small savings, but had been able to supply neither Lissmarks nor Swiss francs at such short notice.