A View of the Empire at Sunset Page 8

  On her first morning at the Academy of Dramatic Art, she stood anxiously in the school secretary’s office and answered the fearsome woman’s questions regarding her name, current address, and age. She noticed that hovering to the side of her was a confident-looking young man clutching an envelope. He appeared to be rather shorter than average, and carrying a little excess weight, but his round face seemed considerate. His clothes were smart, but the cut of his jacket around the shoulders was a little too broad and the garment hung uneasily, while his unfortunate blue shirt and yellow tie gave him the air of a dandy. It was his eyes that attracted her curiosity, however, for they shone with a brightness which suggested genuine, unfettered enthusiasm. The secretary turned from her and addressed the young man brusquely. “May I be of some assistance?” He stepped forward and held out the envelope with both hands. “My fees. Twelve guineas.” The secretary accepted the envelope and then turned her mind back to the odd new girl. The woman reached into a drawer and took out a single sheet of paper which she passed to her. “A list of what you should buy if you are to study here.” Once again she heard the young man’s strangely modulated tenor voice, but this time he was addressing her and offering to help her decide what to buy. “Young man,” said the secretary as she folded her hands together and placed them squarely on the desk in front of her, “do you enjoy making a nuisance of yourself?” The student took this as his cue to step forward. He ignored the secretary’s question and introduced himself to her. “Harry Bewes.” He held out his hand. “I’m honoured to make your acquaintance.”

  While the secretary busily collated all of her forms, this Harry—having declared himself so dramatically—took a step back and quietly waited his turn. She glimpsed at her reflection in the window and could see that she appeared to be sallow and tired, although her clothes pleased her. The lavender dress hugged her slim figure, and the recently purchased red shawl made her feel theatrical. However, her makeup couldn’t transform her pallid countenance into the rosy, beaming visage she craved, and of course there was nothing to be done about the angular shape of her head beyond styling and restyling her hair to draw attention away from this flaw. What, she wondered, did this young man see when he grinned at her? And then the secretary rose from her desk and left the small office by a back door, which she deliberately left ajar. “They say it might rain later.” Harry’s accent made it difficult for her to be sure she had heard him correctly, so she just smiled and waited for him to continue, but he appeared to have nothing further to say. The secretary hustled her way back into the office and once again slid behind the desk. The woman looked up at her and held out yet another piece of paper, which she took. “Your receipt, Miss Williams. Welcome to Mr. Tree’s school. Tomorrow at nine o’clock sharp.”

  As she made her way down the corridor, she heard the scuffling of footsteps behind her and then a breathless rush of words. “Do you mind if I walk with you? I can always register later today.” Without breaking stride, she turned to face this Harry. When he smiled he revealed somewhat crooked teeth, which made her wonder why this young man, who had barely passed the stage of pimples and blotches, imagined he was in any way suited to a theatrical career. His strange appearance, his awkward gait, his peculiar accent, and now his teeth all marked him as an unlikely future star of the stage, and yet the man seemed imbued with self-belief. He touched her lightly on the arm, and she took this as a signal to stop walking and turned to face him. “I must apologize,” he began, “for I have a sweetheart. I really don’t know why, but I feel obliged to tell you this, Miss Williams. You don’t mind if I call you Miss Williams?”

  Most mornings of the week, Harry took the trouble to slide his politely composed notes into the gap between the door and the frame of her locker, but he was always careful to never leave a part of the envelope visible. Her days began with elocution, followed by movement, and in the afternoon acting and speech, but she always had the sense that she was never alone, not only because of Harry’s physical presence in these same classes, but because in his messages Harry continually sought to reintroduce himself and explain just who he was. Harry was from Devon, and when he first spoke to her about his home, he did so with such a sense of pride that she was convinced this “Devon” must be an extremely important place. She soon came to understand that he had grown up with a solicitor for a father, but he insisted that it was his mother who had taken the greater part of the responsibility for his development. Harry claimed to be different from other children. He frequently used the word “different,” as though he wished to remind himself of the peculiar course of his life’s journey. His hardworking mother was different, his emotionally detached father was different, his lonely childhood was different, but here he was now, one step away from the place that he had always dreamed of—the London stage. He told her that he admired her for having had the courage to come to England by herself, but he admitted that despite consulting two maps he had failed to locate her place of birth. The first map confused him, for her island seemed to be divided into two kingdoms, one part French, the other Spanish, yet there was nothing about her that suggested she might be Continental. On the second map it appeared that her island simply didn’t exist.

  Having endured a month of Harry’s fidelity, she eventually permitted him to walk her back to her lodgings. She knew the polite thing to do would be to invite him in, but as he stepped into her room he began to jabber as though worried that if he allowed the situation to lapse into silence this might be interpreted as a sign that he should conclude his visit and depart. He sat on the wooden chair and continued to babble as she rested on the corner of the divan bed, and then he told her that from the moment he had arrived at the drama school he had been forced to work hard to hide his contempt for the snobbery of the place. Did she not find the second- and third-years intolerable? He asked her three times before she finally nodded in agreement. Later that evening, after Harry had departed for his own lodgings, she lay back on her bed and kicked off both shoes and then sat up and curled her legs beneath her. Harry had tried to behave like a gentleman, but even as they had ascended the three flights of stairs to her top-floor room she could feel the poor boy’s confusion. Having taken a seat, he wriggled slightly, as though he were ready to slip out of his jacket, but he appeared to change his mind. It was then that he began pressing her about her feelings regarding the school and the other students, and having agreed with him, she excused herself in order that she might go in search of some refreshment. When she came back up the stairs from the kitchen, she placed two cups of tea and a plate of biscuits on the table, and then she once again sat down opposite him. Harry leaned forward and gently cupped her left breast with his right hand as though weighing it. For what seemed like an eternity the two of them held the pose as though unsure what to do next. The contact felt stilted and unexpected to her, but finally she could no longer control the tickle in her throat and she coughed and Harry seemed to return to himself and he quickly withdrew his hand. Thereafter, a torrent of meaningless words began to spout from his lips. He promised her that he would always be kind, but why would he not be kind? She had done nothing unkind to him. Eventually he rose to his feet and shuffled nervously. “You can trust me, Gwen. You do know this, don’t you?” After Harry’s departure she thought that perhaps she ought to take the cups and saucers and the still-full plate of biscuits back to the kitchen, as her landlady had made it clear that she didn’t appreciate slovenliness among her boarding girls. However, on this occasion the landlady would have to be patient, for she wished to sit quietly by herself, with her legs tucked beneath her, and wait until the room had emptied itself of Harry’s ungainly presence and returned to its familiar sterility.

  After this first visit to her room, Harry never again placed a hand anywhere near her breast. In fact, the boldest gesture he made was threading her arm through his as they began to stroll together after their weekly Saturday afternoon excursion to the cinematograph shows, and this gesture signalled the full exte
nt of their intimacy. As they walked she would listen to him extolling the virtues or failings of whatever film they had just watched, and then he would leave her at the door to her lodgings and make no attempt to accompany her up the three floors to her room. In the evenings she would sit alone and push and pull her mouth into the shapes that she had been instructed in at school, and try to speak in a manner which she knew would please her frustrated teachers (“It’s pronounced frawth, my dear”), but she always felt cripplingly self-conscious and inevitably discontinued the practice. Of course, lying in bed at night she soon came to realize that the person she was most afraid of disappointing was not herself but Harry, who appeared to have more invested in her eventual success than he did in his own.

  One morning a visibly fidgety Miss Frances, the head of acting, ushered her into the empty staff room and politely asked her to take a seat. She listened to the treacle of the woman’s voice as Miss Frances suggested that, after taking part in the school’s short season in its own theatre, she might consider auditioning for a theatrical manager in the hope of securing an invitation to join the chorus of one of the many professional musical shows now touring the country. This would offer her the opportunity to display her dramatic skills, but without her having to complicate matters with speech. According to Miss Frances, two more years at Mr. Tree’s school were unlikely to produce any tangible improvement as far as her diction was concerned. The following day she didn’t feel well enough to attend school, and that afternoon Harry called to see her and she shared with him the news of Miss Frances’s misgivings. He seemed shocked and ordered her to ignore Miss Frances’s impertinence, and announced that on Saturday they would forgo their excursion to the cinematograph and instead visit the Natural History Museum. On Saturday, however, they progressed no further than the huge skeleton of a dinosaur in the lobby. They stood together to the side of the bony structure for what seemed like an age, and then slowly circled it, always, it seemed to her, pushing against the flow of other people. Harry explained that once upon a time these monsters ruled the earth and everybody cowered in the wake of their majesty. He paused, and then reminded her that dinosaurs no longer existed. “It’s a queer business when you think about it, but not a single specimen survived. Can you imagine it?” But she couldn’t, no matter how hard she tried. It was hard enough for her to imagine Harry’s upbringing in Devon, and so she stood silently and stared at the unhappy dinosaur and simply waited until her friend had finished drifting in his mind and once again returned to himself.

  On the final night of the student production, she sat with the hand glass and listened as the Turkish girl told her that the Count’s latest “trollop” had now begun to make a mockery of her mother’s life. Apparently the man had become bored with the wretch, but his spurned conquest had come knocking at the girl’s mother’s door, demanding to see “her man.” She listened to the seemingly inexhaustible gush of words cascading from the lips of the peculiar girl, who was surrounded by baskets of flowers that had been sent by her devoted gentleman, and then she looked again at her own wan reflection and wondered if Harry had returned from visiting his mother in Devon. Before his departure, all Harry would say was that she was ill and he promised to be in touch with her once he returned to London.

  After the excitement and confusion of the student production, life at Mr. Tree’s school eventually returned to normal, although Miss Frances made it her business once again to suggest that she should consider a future outside the school. The woman even volunteered to write to her Aunt Clarice, but she very smartly persuaded Miss Frances this would not be necessary. At the end of the week she left school and presented herself at the ladies’ undergarment counter at Selfridge’s, where she bought an apricot-coloured satin night dress, which the shop girl wrapped exquisitely and tied with a bow. She made her way back to her dismal room and slipped into the nightdress, but as soon as she stared in the looking glass she knew that she had made a dreadful mistake, for it was the wrong colour for her. In the morning, her landlady knocked gently at the door and brought her a cup of tea. She followed the woman’s eyes as they drifted towards the discarded object pooled untidily on the floor, and as the landlady handed her the cup and saucer, the woman smiled. “Is everything alright, my love?”

  An hour later, as the skies outside began to darken in anticipation of a storm, the woman again appeared at her door, this time cradling a large bouquet of gay flowers and asking if it would be convenient for her to show a gentleman caller up to her room. However, she could see Harry standing behind the woman, and so obviously the landlady had already decided that it would be convenient. As an unusually scruffy Harry sat down, she could see he was tired. He confirmed to her that he had been in Devon caring for his mother, who was now allegedly “ailing.” He then announced that earlier in the week he had formally withdrawn from the school in order to be able to spend more time with his feeble mother. Harry looked surprised that she had not received his letter informing her that he was considering this option, but she suspected he had not written to her. And then he leaned forward and placed his lips against hers in such a manner that there was an efficient pressure to his dry kiss. “Would it be possible,” he wondered, “for the two of us to go steady?” She nodded, but it was unclear to her what exactly the difference might be between this “going steady” and what they were already doing. With this matter settled, Harry relaxed a little and offered her a strangely opaque smile that he probably hoped was reassuring.

  The rain spattered softly against the windowpane and the wind rattled the frame. She had thought about complaining to the landlady, for the noise often kept her awake at night, but she worried about stirring up trouble for herself. Harry appeared to be engrossed in the theatre column of the daily newspaper that he had brought with him, and then lightning suddenly illuminated the room and Harry raised his head.

  “I forgot to carry an umbrella.”

  Quickly folding his newspaper twice along two creases, he placed it on the table.

  “Look, as I thought, right here in this very newspaper there are plenty of shows you might audition for, but I’m still not convinced that you should leave Mr. Tree’s school.”

  “But Miss Frances insists that I’m wasting my time. She thinks I should join a chorus and have done with it.”

  “And give up?” He observed her closely. “Listen, my girl, life’s about making a fist of it. Take my fianc ée, for instance. I tried to keep things going with her even after I met you. I still wanted to remain friendly, so I said to her, I’ve found another girl and try as I might, I can’t be expected to split myself between the two of you, can I?”

  “Did she understand?”

  Harry laughed and took another sip of his tea.

  “Not entirely, but I didn’t give up. I attempted to be civil with her.”

  She looked at Harry and struggled hard to picture the poor girl, whom she immediately felt sorry for. It was then she noticed a small smudge of what appeared to be lipstick on his shirt collar just below Harry’s left ear. Perhaps some girl had buried her face in his shoulder and then peered pleadingly at him. Or perhaps it was nothing more than a shadowy remnant of shaving cream, or hair gel. Whatever it was, she knew she would never feel comfortable asking Harry to explain himself. A few moments later Harry climbed to his feet, fastened the middle button of his jacket, and announced that, because the rain was now little more than a hesitant drizzle, he had better “push off.” She would see him again soon enough, but meanwhile she was to banish all thoughts of terminating her association with Mr. Tree’s school. She couldn’t leave yet, not until she had made what Harry believed to be “an adequate effort.”

  The following month she took the birthday cake that she had bought for Harry out of its box. Her landlady had brought her a large knife and a plate so she was able to slice the cake and fan out the pieces in an almost floral pattern. Harry watched her do so and seemed genuinely touched, but in the early afternoon he claimed that he had to go to
Devon to watch over his mother and he left abruptly. During the past few weeks she had slowly begun to understand the nature of her new arrangement with Harry. Apparently there would no longer be any walks together, or outings to the cinematograph, or trips to museums. Their routine appeared to involve his occasionally visiting her room for a bout of inelegant kissing and some desultory conversation, until the room became gloomy and Harry decided it was time for him to leave. As Harry had poked at his slice of birthday cake, he reminded her that his father had effectively disowned his mother, and although there were rumours that the man wished to remarry and start another family, Harry couldn’t be sure where his father was, and didn’t much care. As she listened to Harry, she picked up her own plate of sliced cake and then changed her mind and put it to one side. It was then that Harry began to press her about her history with men. He wanted to know why there had been none, for he understood that in hot climates passions ran high. She didn’t fully understand what he meant by this, and assumed that eventually he would explain, but he simply pressed on. He boasted to her of his own experiences with a succession of young girls with full bosoms and shapely thighs, and he recounted his one liaison with an older woman who was the first to let him go all the way, and then he sheepishly asked her if she would like to go all the way with him. She lowered her eyes and knew instantly that this was a question she should not answer. “We can’t do it here, of course, but I could arrange a hotel room.” He seemed delighted by the prospect of planning an assignation, and as he spoke, his conviction grew, but she was already beginning to suspect that Harry was simply seeking a girl without experience, an innocent who would never forget him. Harry was clearly excited, but had he troubled himself to look closely at the young woman before him, he might have come to terms with the reality that this particular girl bore no resemblance to the shy English girl he actually wanted.