Elegance and Innocence (68 page)

I unfold it carefully.

Filling in for an indisposed Janice Waites, Eve Albery proved a ferocious, intensely sexually charged Lady Anne, matching Anthony Kyd’s sybarite Richard at every turn of their first scene, hurling the verse with an assurance uncommon in such a young actress. The emptiness of Lady Anne’s grief in Albery’s capable
hands is transmuted at lightning speed to something far more potent and dangerous, at times overtaking the character itself; there’s a powerful moment at the end of that scene, when she stands, baffled, an uncomprehending victim of her own strength of feeling. I’m certain that we’ll be seeing a great deal more from her in future.

There were other reviews, the
Telegraph
and the ever popular
Warwick Bear
, but this one was the best; the one that haunted me. Now, to my surprise, I feel strangely detached.

I riffle through the contents of the box: Alex’s birth certificate, a pair of tiny white knitted baby socks, an old passport, postcards, divorce papers …

And a letter, sealed and addressed to Jake, care of Messrs Strutt and Parker.

It’s not very long; I know it by heart.

Dear Jake,

Your son, Alexander, was born on 14 April 1997. He is a healthy, uncommonly beautiful little boy
.

I only thought that you should know
.

Yours,

Evie

Of course, the envelope is yellowed now; the stamp out of date.

And across the address, someone has written ‘Return to Sender’.

It came back with a brief note form Alfred Albert Manning, informing me that Messrs Strutt and Parker were no longer employed to handle Mr Albery’s affairs. But by that time there was very little left to manage. The band had dissolved; the third album abandoned, the tour cancelled; houses and cars seized by the Inland Revenue.

And Jake had disappeared, in the way that only the famous can after something like that. There were rumours of a celebrity rehab in Antigua; a house in Geneva …

Alex sighs in his sleep, turning over in the next room. I listen as he settles again.

It was incredible that he survived at all; that’s what the papers said.

It was only later, days later, that I realized the pill box was missing.

No one knew he’d been to see me. To anyone else, it appeared as if he’d waited at the stage door in vain.

I tried contacting him, but the hospital was swarming with reporters and paparazzi. Once I knew he would recover I realized, to my shame, that I didn’t know what to say.

Then the unthinkable happened; the impossible.

I was pregnant.

I’d gone to the company GP complaining of flu symptoms. It never occurred to me she’d test for it. But she just
smiled and said, ‘You’re having a baby,’ as if it were the easiest, most natural thing in the world.

‘That’s not possible,’ I said.

She looked at me sideways. ‘You have had sex, haven’t you?’

I stared at her, stunned. I’d broken up with Evan. The only man I’d slept with was Jake.

After I left her office, I bought as many home pregnancy tests as I could afford; lining them up, one after the other, on the bathroom windowsill, terrified that even one of them might reveal she was wrong. But they didn’t. And as two months grew into three and then four, the cage in my heart creaked open again.

There was never any question about what to do.

There’s something else at the bottom of the box. I pull it out from beneath the pile of papers; a stack of loosely bound pages, curling at the edges, covered in slightly off-centre typeface. It’s the old script, from the pub theatre days: ‘Innocents in the Underworld: A love story’.

I never finished it.

Maybe it wasn’t a love story after all.

What kind of love tears people apart the way we did?

Yet has the power to create the most unfathomable passion of all?

PART FOUR

December 1997

Chapter 4

It’s a wet February morning. The black cab turns into the narrow street in Fulham; the windshield wipers flick back and forth, back and forth. Outside, rows and rows of identical little houses pass by. Finally he pulls up in front of one with a bright-red door. ‘Here we are,’ he says. ‘Number fourteen.’

I hand him the ten-pound note I’ve been clutching ever since I got in, back at Euston Station.

It’s raining harder now. I pull my coat tight but it doesn’t fit any more. I can’t get it round the growing bump. I open the cab door, struggling to lift my case.

‘Leave that, luv.’ He quickly gets out. One of the few pleasures of being noticeably pregnant is the sudden heroism of strangers. He lifts the case easily, gallantly, getting drenched in the process, while I waddle up the front path after him.

I ring the bell and there’s the sound of dogs barking, scrambling, their little doggy toenails clicking against the wooden floor inside.

‘Quiet! Heel!’

They pay no heed, barking louder as she descends the steps.

‘All right, then?’ The cabbie nods hopefully.

‘Yes, thank you. You’ve been so kind,’ I say. He runs back, ducks into his cab. And I watch as it trundles down the street.

The door opens.

‘Come in! Oh, Evie! Yes, you are getting big, aren’t you?’

I smile. In many ways Gwen looks exactly the same as when I first met her, all those years ago, in the basement offices of the Actors Drama Workshop Academy. She has the same sharp bob, only greyer now; the same quick smile and intelligent, animated face; the same fondness for long, slightly bobbly wool cardigans and layers of chain necklaces, strung round her neck.

‘Here, let me help you.’ She drags the case inside; it’s full of clothes I can’t even squeeze into but that I had to bring away from Stratford anyway. My Japanese lodger has several more months to go before I can move back into my room. And now I’m too big, too pregnant to continue my contract with the RSC. I found myself suddenly out of both a job and a home. It was Boyd who suggested I contact Gwen. Apparently they’re looking for an extra pair of hands to man the office at the Academy. He also urged me to apply for the Speech and Drama Teaching Course at the Guildhall to qualify as an acting coach. He’s become my dearest ally.

‘I think this is so exciting.’ Gwen pushes a scraggly-looking
terrier away with her foot. ‘So nice for me to have company. Down, Mordrid! Get down!’

Mordrid, a drooly little pug with a black, squashed face, is doing his best to climb up my leg. I pat his head warily.

‘Just give them a shove,’ she instructs. ‘They’re both quite old and a bit deaf. This is Parsifal.’ She indicates the terrier, smiling wistfully. ‘My son was an enormous fan of
The Once and Future King
. Shall I make us a cup of tea? Let’s go into the front room.’

I follow her through the dark-red hallway, lined with piles of books on makeshift bookshelves. The front room’s painted an amazing bottle-green; walls covered in paintings and sketches, their colours mirrored in the spines of still more books stacked heavily on to the bookcases on each side of the fireplace.

A pair of ancient red velvet sofas sit opposite one another, lined with faded throws, and there’s a battered upright piano against one wall, covered in sheet music; mostly musical theatre scores. Small china trinkets are massed on the mantelpiece in no particular order. It’s like a house in a Victorian play: overflowing with life, busy with knowledge and experience. Even the dogs, lolling about on the oriental carpet, are engaged in battles of good versus evil.

I’m going to like it here; I’m safe.

I settle back into one of the red velvet settees and Gwen goes to put the kettle on. Almost immediately I have to pee; another one of the joys of pregnancy.

As I waddle up to the first-floor landing, I take a peek inside what will be my room for the next few months. It used to be Gwen’s son’s room, years ago before he headed off to Cambridge and then began filming all over the world as a nature photographer. It’s easy to see it’s a boy’s room. There are clumps of blue tack on the wall where surely posters of Madonna and Pamela Anderson once hung, stacks of old issues of
Viz
and
Private Eye
, and the slightly musty smell of boy, which is really just the absence of any perfumed beauty products. Gwen has made up the bed for me with pretty pale-pastel bed linen, underneath the framed photograph of a red Lamborghini Countach. I feel comfortable and welcome; part of a family. I’ll be piling my clothes into drawers that once held mismatched sports socks and hidden copies of
Playboy
.

When I return, Gwen’s lit a fire and laid out elevenses – with a proper teapot, china cups and an assortment of biscuits on a plate. None of the china matches; most of it’s seen better days, but it’s all extraordinary and at one time would have been quite valuable.

She pours me a cup. ‘So, here we are.’ She smiles and I sense a kind of sadness floating underneath the surface. ‘I hope you’ll be all right,’ she adds quietly.

‘I took the liberty of having a poke around when I went to the loo,’ I confide. ‘It all looks so lovely; I really can’t thank you enough.’

She holds her tea, cradling the warm curve of the cup in the palm of her hand. ‘I didn’t mean that. I’m pleased, of course, but I was thinking of you …’ She pauses. ‘George’s father and I were divorced when he was three. It’s not easy, Evie. At least, it wasn’t easy then and I suspect not a lot has changed.’

We sit a moment and I stare into the fire. Parsifal rolls onto his back, sighing with contentment at the pleasure of having his tummy warmed by the flames.

‘You see, Gwen …’ I stop.

She takes a sip of her tea, waiting.

‘The timing could’ve been better,’ I admit. ‘But I never thought I’d get pregnant; in fact, I was told I’d never have children at all. So something amazing has happened.’ That’s all she really needs to know. ‘Something miraculous and frightening and terribly, terribly inconvenient,’ I add.

She smiles again.

‘I’m so grateful that you’re helping me. My parents want me to live in Ohio. But … I don’t know, I just can’t see myself going back. After everything, London has become my home – the place where all my dreams are.’

‘And the father?’ she asks gently. ‘Will he help?’

I focus on the grey sheets of rain. ‘We’re not in contact.’

She nods silently; the drain spout taps out a rhythm, over and over.

‘Of course,’ she says after a while, ‘all that pales in comparison to working with Simon day after day!’

She passes me the biscuit plate. I appropriate a shortbread finger.

‘Still … what’s the word? Challenging?’ I ask.

She sighs. ‘Some characters are too big for any stage. I think you’ll like the new office – once we’ve sorted it all out. It will be so nice to have you around. The studios are really quite wonderful. And Boyd will be taking a few masterclasses next term.’

I smile wryly. How quickly things change: one minute I’m an actress, the next I’m a pregnant secretary, sorting through papers and answering phones for young American students with dreams of taking over the world. God has quite a sense of humour.

There’s a twinge in my lower back. I stand up, walking over to the mantelpiece to examine the various objects crowded upon it. There are tiny figurines, more teacups and saucers, photographs in silver frames … and a strange wooden plaque on which the slogan ‘This Too Shall Pass’ is carved.

I hold it up, looking across to Gwen. ‘What’s this?’

‘Yes, it is ugly,’ she concedes. We both laugh at her frankness.

‘So what’s it doing here, among all these lovely things?’

‘I have a particular fondness for it.’ She drains her cup of tea. ‘I had a cousin, Ralph; he was extraordinarily bright – a really handsome chap; women adored him. And so funny! He used to drink,’ she continues. ‘You know, the
way some people do; as if it’s a profession. After a while he couldn’t hold down a job. My aunt sent him to a place, some institution to dry out. They had a wood shop, which was ironic; Ralph was so clumsy he could barely slice a piece of bread. I visited him shortly after my divorce and he gave it to me. That was years ago.’ She feeds Mordrid a Jammy Dodger. ‘It was his way of letting me know that everything would be all right.’

I turn it round in my hands; it’s a rough, unfinished thing. I run my fingers over the words: This Too Shall Pass. It seems such a forlorn sentiment.

‘How is he now?’

She looks up at me. ‘Now? Oh, I’m afraid he’s dead. People like that don’t often see old age.’ She stands, brushing the dog hair and biscuit crumbs off her skirt. ‘But it was so sweet of him to think of me. And of course he was right; nothing does stay the same. Now, shall I help you unpack? I’ll just take this into the kitchen or the dogs will eat everything.’

She picks up the tea tray and heads down the hallway. I place the little plaque back between the delicate figurines and family photos.

Later that afternoon, after I’m unpacked and settled, I return to my room to have a lie-down. There, on top of the dresser, is the funny little wooden plaque. Gwen must’ve put it there, identifying some layer of significance I cannot see.

But as I lie on my bed, I’m haunted by an image of a handsome man with clumsy hands, working with great concentration, as if something so simple could redeem him.

The Actors Drama Workshop Academy on Bayswater Road looks out over Hyde Park. It spreads over the first two floors of a massive Georgian town house. The lower floor is divided into two large acting studios and a small rehearsal room with offices on the ground floor.

Gwen, a receptionist named Amber (a young singer with thick red hair and a passion for R & B) and I work in one office. Simon shares his with the accountant, Alan, twice a week. It’s perhaps a little cruel on Alan, who dashes out at lunchtime, pale and shell-shocked, heading for the nearest pub, but as he’s able to recover for the remaining five days, we all feel it’s justified.