Lying Together (11 page)

However, ten years after Mr Pendleton's decease, the thickening of Lydia's body was matched by a slackening in the popularity of formal dance. She began to have difficulty managing the spiral stairs down to the ballroom, and she found it harder to keep her balance during the unforgiving spins of the Viennese waltz. The classes themselves became painfully small: fewer young women, almost no young men. They were all elsewhere, in cramped cellars and coffee bars, doing handjive or the Twist. They didn't want to bother with glides and
chassées
and reverse turns. Even the cha-cha-cha failed to interest them. One day, Lydia shut the baize doors of the ballroom for the last time and retired upstairs – the red room on the first floor, always her favourite. Surrounding herself with memories of the past, she began to dig in.

For years she resisted the idea of taking in lodgers, inhabiting her elaborate museum alone until it occurred to her that she need not demean herself with travelling salesmen and cat-owning spinsters: she could take colourful tenants from the acting profession. And now there were three floors of them, poor Miss Henshaw included. And Lydia was like the jam in a sandwich, spreading thickly and redly along the first floor front.

* * *

The door creaks open. There are two heads peering in. Lydia can't make them out in the gloom. ‘Who's that?' she calls out, a little nervously, as she rarely has visitors this late. ‘Miss Henshaw, is that you?'

‘Yes, it's me.' Lydia recognizes Miss Henshaw's rather breathy voice. The girl needs a good voice coach, she thinks. She'd never have reached the back of the Birmingham Hippodrome with a voice like that. ‘And I've brought you a visitor,' she says.

‘Not Mr Rolfe!' Lydia brightens. Her hand strays automatically to adjust her faded grey hair. She wishes she'd had time to tidy herself up, to put on a fresh cardigan, get rid of her old slippers and put on the court shoes that were all right as long as she didn't stand up.

‘No, not Justin. But I gave him your message. He says as soon as the show's up and running he'll be here to toast you with the best champagne – but until then he's in monkish isolation. And he says he hasn't forgotten the rent.'

Lydia is mortified. ‘Oh, I didn't mean it about the rent! He didn't take me seriously, did he? Such a nice young man, always doing me little favours. Permed my hair for me, you know. And did my nails. But never mind that, who
have
you got there?' Lydia squints into the darkness eager to know her visitor. She doesn't have many. The Theatricals, contrary to her expectations, don't have much time for her, always rushing past her door, always in a hurry. Only Miss Henshaw gives her the time of day. She's a sweet girl in spite of that gawky figure and all her strange enthusiasm for “ensemble”, but she never takes Lydia's advice on the importance of glamour.

Miss Henshaw comes forward and squats in front of Lydia's chair. She takes her hand, squeezes it excitedly. ‘I've got a surprise for you.'

‘Surprise?' Lydia doesn't much like surprises at her time of life. They are usually bad ones. But Miss Henshaw looks as if she can hardly contain herself with delight. ‘Does the name Alan Treloar mean anything to you?' she says with a
This Is Your Life
kind of smile.

‘Alan Treloar? …' Lydia stares at the young girl, horribly aware that she cannot reward her with the instant name recognition she clearly expects. She tries to catch at the memory, which whirls and circles like an elusive fly. Lydia knows the name. She knows it very well indeed, but where – and when? She runs through all her leading men, all her directors, all the young men from choruses all over the country, but to her great annoyance she cannot – cannot – place the name. It's all very well for Miss Henshaw to be hovering over her as if she is about to bestow a big birthday present on a child of five, but the poor girl has no idea how many people Lydia has worked with; and how many she has forgotten. Perhaps it's not a theatrical visitor after all, she thinks. Maybe it's a star pupil, or a long-lost relative of Mr Pendleton's.

‘Perhaps I can help.' The man emerging from the shadows has a West Country accent; so, probably not an actor, Lydia thinks. As he comes into the dim red light of the standard lamp, she sees that he is short and almost bald, wearing a good quality camel-hair coat with a tartan muffler neatly folded inside. Lydia is disappointed; he is definitely not a Theatrical; more like a shoe salesman. Yet he bends and takes Lydia by the hands in a way that is almost courtly. ‘You've never met me, Miss Landon, but I can honestly say I've never forgotten you.'

‘Miss Landon!' She's taken by surprise, and giggles. ‘Oh you must be from the past! I've been Mrs Pendleton for years.'

‘I don't know about that. All I know is you were Lydia Landon the night you came to Plymouth with
An Angel in Calico
– the night I called you the “Ginger Rogers of Bath and Wells”.'

‘Alan Treloar!' It all comes flooding back. ‘Of course, how could I forget! I must have read your name a thousand times! My best ever review! I've still got it.' She twists around in her chair, flustered, excited. ‘It's somewhere in that cuttings album. Miss Henshaw, can you pass it to me? You know where it is, don't you? On the what-not. Under the magazines. Be careful with it, mind. It's showing its age – like me!' She turns to the balding man who, she can now see, has very attractive eyes. ‘Was it really
you
who wrote all those nice things?'

‘All my own work.' Alan Treloar smiles shyly as he finds a corner of a dining chair to sit on. ‘My
only
published work, in fact. It was my first chance to write a review – and, would you believe, my last? I was called up the next week. Never went back to the newspaper business. Went into ironmongery, in fact. Got a fair-sized place near Chard – garden supplies, that sort of thing. I don't do badly, but I've always hankered after the theatre, Miss Landon, and I try to see all the old plays, all the musicals. I've looked out for you over the years, seen your name here and there. But things are different now, aren't they? They don't put on things like
Angel
any more. Glamorous stuff, I mean.'

This is a man after Lydia's own heart. ‘Oh, youngsters these days don't know what Glamour means,' she says. ‘Miss Henshaw here' – she turns to watch as the girl carefully pulls out the old cuttings album – ‘She's a lovely girl but she seems quite happy to play three minor parts a night in brown sacking. I couldn't have borne to do that when I was in my prime. But it's the modern way, I suppose. I'm always being told I should march with the times.'

Alan Treloar shakes his head. ‘But it's not always an improvement, is it? Your Arts Centre, for example. I normally never go near it, but I had an hour to kill on my way back to Taunton and thought I'd just see what was on – have a cup of coffee in the bar, perhaps. Rub shoulders with the profession, so to speak. And that was when I heard Miss Henshaw –'

‘Oh, call me Vicki, please,' she says, approaching with the album clasped to her chest. ‘I keep asking Mrs Pendleton to call me that, but she won't.'

‘That's because I have old-fashioned values. When I was the star, I always insisted on my full title. You might do better to insist on it yourself, you know. Respect breeds respect.' Lydia would hate to call this young girl ‘Vicki'. It would be like referring to Mr Rolfe as ‘Justin'. It implied a kind of intimacy, a suggestion that everyone was on the same friendly level when they clearly weren't – even if they spent half their rehearsal time rolling around on the floor together, in the so-called “ensemble work”. ‘Anyway,' she says, turning to her visitor, ‘What was it you were saying, Mr Treloar?'

‘Well, I heard
Vicki
here saying to her director – Mr Rolfe, that is – “The Ginger Rogers of Bath and Wells has bidden you to tea.” I was flabbergasted. I mean, it couldn't refer to anyone else, could it? It was my phrase – my property, if you like. It was me who'd coined it all those years ago. To hear someone else saying it – some pretty young lady I didn't know at all – well, to be honest, I couldn't believe my ears.'

‘And now I don't expect you can believe your eyes – me sat here like a fat plum pudden.' Lydia leans forward, confidentially. ‘I'm afraid I can't walk, now, let alone dance. My heart, Mr Treloar.' Lydia's faulty heart is making its presence known, beating a strange rhythm inside her tight pink jumper. She feels he must be able to see it, fluttering away.

‘Oh indeed, I know. Bodies can let us down.' Alan Treloar pats his almost bald head with a rueful wince. ‘But in you I see the Spirit of Glamour lives on regardless.'

‘Oh, you are still a flatterer I see!' But she is inordinately pleased all the same, and smiles as she opens the cuttings album Vicki has placed on her knees. She smoothes the page, squints at the faded type. ‘Here it is!' She reads the first paragraph aloud. ‘
A touch of Hollywood glamour was brought to us tonight at the Theatre Royal when Lydia Landon danced her way into the audience's heart as if she were the Ginger Rogers of Bath and Wells
…' She leans back. ‘But why Bath and Wells, Mr Treloar? I thought it made me sound a tiny bit like a bishop.'

Alan Treloar laughs. ‘I don't know, to be honest. It seemed to trip off the tongue when I was writing it. And you did come from Bath originally, didn't you?'

‘Well, that's true. But Laurie Burnett came from Cromer, and you didn't mention that.'

Alan Treloar looks her in the eye. ‘I wasn't madly in love with Laurie Burnett,' he says, tightening his grip on her hand. Lydia feels a frisson of the kind she hasn't known for years. They sit for minutes, hands clasped. Then Alan laughs, breaks the spell. ‘Laurie was an awful dancer, anyhow. Couldn't keep time – and what a wig!'

Lydia laughs too. She is enjoying herself now. ‘It wasn't a wig, you know, although everyone thought so – just a terrible dye-job. He insisted on doing it himself, got black stuff all over the sink in his dressing room. And he thought no one knew.'

‘He let you down, Miss Landon. You deserved a wonderful partner like Fred Astaire.'

‘Oh Mr Treloar! I was never that good.'

‘Yes, you were. You were
better
than Ginger, in fact. There was always something a bit hard about her. You were so warm and lovely. You still are.'

Lydia's eyes moisten. She can hear the music, the applause; see the rows of white upturned faces; smell the bouquets. This is the sort of conversation she has missed all these years, the sort of conversation that can take her back to such exquisite memories. Having Theatricals in the house has been a poor substitute. The actors come, they go, they admire her old photographs, but no one really wants to talk about the past. And none of them know about the glory days, even if, like Miss Henshaw, they humour her for fifteen minutes or so.

She looks up at the young actress, so young, so inexperienced, so very different from herself. She thinks, not for the first time, that the poor girl has absolutely no figure. And with those pale lips and great black eyes, it's no wonder she never gets a leading part. She turns to her graciously. ‘Off you go now, dear. Get your beauty sleep. I'm sure you have another heavy day tomorrow.' More rolling around, she thinks. More first names and brown paper sacks and total rejection of Glamour. When Mr Rolfe comes to tea, she'll have a word with him. Even with ‘ensemble playing', there must be an opportunity to shine. It's the least she can do after Miss Henshaw has been so kind.

‘Will you be all right? Do you need anything?' The girl is wringing her hands a little. She seems, for once, reluctant to go.

‘Oh, don't worry. I think I have everything I need. And if not, I'm sure Mr Treloar and myself will be able to
improvise
.' She laughs, and Alan Treloar laughs too.

‘I'll go then,' she says.

‘Yes, dear, do.' Lydia waves her away. ‘Now, pull up that little Indian table, if you don't mind, Mr Treloar. You and I have a lot to catch up on. I've a Thermos, if you'd like a cup of tea. And some ginger nuts if you're hungry.'

Alan Treloar takes off his camel-hair coat and tartan scarf and puts them carefully on the floor beside him, then pulls the table close. He settles himself next to Lydia as if he is thoroughly at home. He's humming a song, now. It's ‘Dancing Cheek to Cheek'. And Lydia's feet tap out the rhythm on the red and blue carpet.

HEART TROUBLE

M
y mother's collar had rain on it. Perfectly circular beads of rain. On the black coat she always hated wearing. ‘It reminds me of death,' she'd said when she brought it home on appro. But Dad and I had said it looked nice, with its swagger back, its stylish yoke, so she gave in and hung it up in the wardrobe. But she pulled a face every time she put it on: ‘Dull old thing.'

She liked bright colours. She had an appetite for life – singing, dancing, acting the fool. Everyone said she looked young for her age.

But not now. She looked a hundred years old, now. And black
didn't
suit her. She stood at the front door, her eyes small, screwed up, staring inward. ‘Sorry to ring the bell, love. I've forgotten my key.'

She'd just come back from the hospital, seeing Dad again. Everything was supposed to be all right. The operation had been a success, and she'd told me I needn't bother to visit any more. But I didn't like what her face was saying to me, now.

‘How is he, then?' The calls came from behind me. The family had the kitchen door open. I could hear the sound of frying and Uncle Ron's radio: the
Light Programme
.

She kissed me, wet collar rubbing my cheek: ‘Has she had her tea?'

I turned to see Gran wiping her hands on her apron, patting her secret Woodbines in the pocket, her thin old wedding ring loose on her bony finger. ‘I gave her a bit of bread and butter, but she wanted to wait for you.'

Mam took off her coat. It looked heavy and dull as she hung it over the banister. ‘I think I've got some soup. Something, anyway.' She slumped; her hands still in the folds of the coat.

‘Come on! How is he?' Uncle Ron shouted down the passage, sports page in hand.

‘I've got to ring them later. They said to come home. There was nothing I could do.'

‘I knew there'd be something. It was like this with my Frank.' Auntie May's head was in the kitchen doorway now, curlers under chiffon scarf.

Gran pushed past her: ‘My legs. I've got to sit down if it kills me. And your Frank was years ago, May. Things have come on since then.'

‘Bloody women!' said Uncle Ron, and disappeared out the back, seeing to his sausages.

‘You won't have to go back, will you?' I didn't like it when Mam went out in the evening – although Gran would let me watch what I liked on television. I wanted to go with her, but the hospital was two long bus rides away and I knew I'd feel sick. Sometimes I
was
sick, throwing up the minute I got off the bus. Mam said it wasn't worth it.

‘I don't know, love. It depends what they say. Dad's not so good just now.'

I wanted her to stay home. After all, the operation had been a success. The doctors would look after him. Why did she need to go back? I didn't think about Dad. It was Mam I needed to be there with me; Mam who kept a watch on my whole life – plaited my hair, took me shopping, sent me out to play when the weather was nice, worried about me being warm enough without my cardigan, made sure I had my mac when it looked like rain. Without her, there was a hole in my life.

Dad was more distant. He'd spend his evenings sitting in the armchair reading the
South Wales Echo
, or tinkering with the innards of a watch, his black eye-piece monocled fiercely in his right eye, tweezers in hand. He was irritable if disturbed. On Sundays he'd fiddle about in the only bit of our garden that got any sun, tying up zinnias and asters, checking for slugs. On his days off he'd spend the afternoon in the cellar developing and printing our summer snaps – Ilfracombe, the bandstand talent competition, the harbour full of boats – until my mother told him to come up before he froze to death. When he came up his fingers would be white, and my mother would start on him: ‘Why do you keep on doing it? That damp old place? You know it does you no good.' And she'd chafe his fingers and make him sit down and hold a cup of tea bowled in his large hands. ‘Stubborn as hell, you are.'

And quiet, too. My dad was known for being quiet. Conversation was my mother's domain; she had words enough for two. But he'd hug me and give me a kiss, and sometimes he'd show things to me, explain them: like the piston engines on the Campbell's paddle steamers, and how to build a proper three-tier sandcastle. I loved him, of course – because loving him was unquestionable, best in the world, next to Mam. But his being away made little difference to my days. Except making playground talk more interesting: ‘My dad's got a bad heart. He's having a New Operation.' I felt pleased to have something new to tell them. We kids loved everything new, everything bright and clean and modern. As we dawdled home along Albany Road, we took excited detours around the new British Home Stores with its pastel flooring, plastic fittings and enormous plate-glass windows – and turned up our noses at Woolworth's dark wooden counters and splintery floors. We watched with joy as our houses grew brighter with jazzy curtains, mix-and-match wallpaper and (if we could afford it) the picture of a Chinese woman all done in green. We adored television and
Quatermass
and the progress of science. We hated anything old-fashioned.

The hospital at Llandough was new. At least it seemed new, compared with the tall, church-like infirmary where I'd gone to have the stitches in my forehead just the year before. The first few visits there had been exciting. I felt important, going all that way, walking along the drive with the grown-ups, my mother hissing quietly at me ‘Remember to say you're twelve!' But I hated the journey, juddering along in the smelly Western Welsh diesel, trying to gulp fresh air from the window as the bus twisted and turned up the hill away from Cardiff. And the visit itself started to be less interesting – me sitting night after night by the bedside with the stiff white coverlet at eye-level, and the whispering of hushed voices all around the ward. I'd listen to my mother talking – her raconteur style, imitating voices, the arguments of Uncle Ron and Auntie May, the quirks of the customers at the shop, all the people who sent good wishes. I would smile, not knowing what to say. He'd make an effort: ‘How's school?' and I'd tell him we were doing a puppet play Mr Williams had written about the women of Fishguard. And that Andrea Jenkins had the main part because she had a loud voice, and other kids had parts because they had good puppets. But that I'd helped to paint the scenery. He'd pat my hand: ‘Good girl.' Then we'd pause, no hooks of small talk between us. Sometimes I'd read a book. (He'd taken a photo of me reading like that, sitting on my own on the deck of the
Bristol Queen
, absorbed in
Malory Towers
while the sea washed over the rail.) But really I was hoping to be in time for a bit of television when we got back. I'd kiss him goodbye as soon as the bell rang, anxious to get the bus.

And now something was wrong. I couldn't understand it. After the operation he'd been fine. ‘He'll be all right, you'll see,' Gran kept saying to Mam. Saying it over and over again as she laid the cloth and put out the plates: ‘He'll be all right. He'll be all right.'

Tea was quick; devilled ham sandwiches. Mam cut herself on the tin and cried all over the plaster. When we'd cleared away, she crossed the road to ring from the phone box on the corner, came back not looking at me and mouthing over my head: ‘They think I'd better go back.' She asked Uncle Ron to go with her. As a rule she'd never go anywhere with him. He was a bit touched, she said, and liable to make a scene. It was all right for him to pick rows at home, but you kept away from him outside because he'd shout and show you up. But now she was
asking
him, and he was saying, ‘All right, love,' and looking serious like a normal person. Mam said she'd already rung for Glamtax, not to waste time.

We only ever had taxis to get to the Pier Head to catch the boat for holidays. I had this feeling in my stomach like before a ballet exam, or going back to school. Horrible, but exciting too. ‘Can I come?' I said, following Mam around as she put things in her bag. Mam kept hugging me and saying, no, it would be all right, I'd be better staying with Gran; Dad would understand. She put on her coat. It made her look suddenly grey.

The taxi arrived – a man in dark red uniform and cap – and I saw Mrs Marks next door holding back the curtain to see what was going on. We stood on the front step, waved them off, Auntie May going on about Frank that last time, and Gran whispering, ‘Quiet, you. Think about the child.'

I stayed up late, watching a film about a tap dancer with a ribbon in her hair and a tiny cupid-bow mouth. And a blond friend who talked fast and smoked, and wore a fox fur round her shoulders. And then hundreds of smiling dancers marching out of nowhere on a vast shiny stage with a boom of coordinated feet.

‘Stay home tomorrow,' said Gran, which was another treat. She let me sleep in her feather bed, which dipped in the middle.

When I woke up, Mam hadn't come home. Gran said no news was good news, and gave me toast and Marmite. Then Uncle Ivor (not my real uncle, just a friend of Auntie May's) came knocking on the door with a message from Mrs Rice across the road who had a phone and was always willing to take a call. ‘Sticking her nose in, mind you,' said Uncle Ivor, heading for the kitchen. ‘But you can't complain.' They shut the kitchen door, shut me out, but I hung over the banister, trying to catch the words. No words, only the sudden wail. I galloped up the stairs two at a time, heading away from them. I knew they'd have to come and tell me. Sit me down like David Copperfield to give me the news. I waited in my bedroom, in the little armchair Dad had made, drawing doctors and nurses, patients in bed. And coffins and crosses and graves. Plenty of shading, thick 2B pencil. I listened for the rattle of the kitchen door as I built up the shadows.

It was Auntie May who came, knocking on my door like a servant in a play – but not knowing her lines, and crying all the time. She said she'd come to say my daddy was in heaven. She was holding her best white prayer-book with the shiny cover. I'd been asking her for weeks if I could have it, and she'd said no, not until you're grown-up. She handed it to me now.

She tried to say something more, but I told her to leave me alone. That's what people said in plays and films.
Leave me alone!
I threw myself down on the bed as she closed the door, and writhed around on the shiny green eiderdown. The prayer-book slid sideways and fell open onto the rug. The bookmark fell out so I could see the picture of the Infant Jesus, swaddled like a rolled-up parcel, halo curling round his head like a giant turban. I looked at it covertly through my tears. The halo was interesting. I thought of copying it in my new drawing book, shaded to look more shiny round the edge.

At dinner-time, Pat and Jenny came from school, wondering where I'd been. Laughing up the path, expecting influenza or a cold. Standing on the front tiles, ringing the bell.

I told Gran I'd answer the door. I felt important, and wished I had a black dress with a veil like a Victorian orphan, not a tartan skirt with straps and a Fair Isle cardigan with a button off. But, opening the door and seeing their smiles, their questioning faces, I found I couldn't say a word and started to cry. Uncle Ivor, temporary man of the house, took over, said the necessary words in a whisper, and: ‘Tell the school, will you, girls? Save us going down.' They ran off, sad and gleeful, hoods up against the rain.

Not much for dinner. Bread, and Gran's sugary butter from the still-laid table. A bit of paste, some jam. I sat and drew whole funerals, paying special attention to shoes (I'd just learned how to draw high heels and feet from the front). I sat in the front window and watched for my mother. But she didn't come. ‘She'll have a lot of things to sort out,' said Gran. Other people came, though. Relatives we only saw at Christmas. The neighbours. Friends who'd heard. Someone's daughter who was a nurse. Gran made tea and smoked in the back kitchen with the door open: ‘I wish to God they'd all go. Fly their kites.'

Time dragged. I drew clocks. Uncle Ben and Auntie Flora came in see-through macs, she very jolly, discussing the sales and the new black wallpaper they were having in the bathroom: ‘Well, you got to keep going'; he telling funny stories, glancing round for an audience, noticing my half-smile: ‘Liked that one, did you, love? That's the way.'

The curate came in a wet cloak, had a cup of tea and went again. ‘Hoping for something stronger,' said Gran. ‘Well, he won't get it from me.' She swept up sugar from the tablecloth, threw it in the fire. It crackled and burned briefly blue. She stood, hand on the high mantelpiece, staring down.

Half-past four. Still no Mam. No food for tea either. Nobody'd been shopping. Uncle Ivor fancied chitterlings and sent me off: ‘Something for her to do.'

I stood in line on the sawdust floor at the pork butcher's, an orphaned child out in the Wide, Wide World, blinking back tears. The man behind the counter paused as he swung the bag closed by its corners. He looked in my face, kind for a minute: ‘All right are you, love?'

The kindness was the worst thing. The tears rose but I nodded, brave. He gave me the bag. ‘Two and six, then.'

I walked home slowly, head down. I splashed through the rainbow puddles on the pavements. I didn't care if I got my shoes wet. I wanted wet shoes. And wet hair. And a wet face. I trudged in a funeral procession, holding the wrapped chitterlings in front of me like an offering. I went down the lane to the back of the house. And in through the back gate – wood swollen and needing a push. And past Dad's roses hanging their heads. And up the high kitchen step and into the house. With the parcel of meat in one hand and sixpence change in the other. Expecting Gran and Auntie May and Uncle Ivor round the kitchen table. But not expecting Mam. In a black coat that didn't suit her. With pale face and red eyes and rain on her collar. And the hot tears bursting from me as I leapt across the room.