Читать книгу At Freddie’s - Penelope Fitzgerald, Simon Callow - Страница 8

IT must have been 1963, because the musical of Dombey & Son was running at the Alexandra, and it must have been the autumn, because it was surely some time in October that a performance was seriously delayed because two of the cast had slipped and hurt themselves in B dressing-room corridor, and the reason for that was that the floor appeared to be flooded with something sticky and glutinous. The flood had been initiated by one of the younger boys in the chorus. He had discovered a way to interfere with the mechanism of the B corridor coffee-machine so that it failed to respond to the next fifty sixpences put into it. The defect was reported, but the responsibility for it was argued between the safety manager and Catering. When the next coin was put in the machine produced, with a terrible pang, fifty-one plastic cups, and then heaved and outpoured its load of milky liquid.

At eleven years old, Mattie could not have hoped for a better result. The production manager said that he must go. These quaint tricks were for leading players only, and even then only at the end of a long run.

‘This is the third bit of trouble we’ve had with him, we shall have to send him back.’

The casting director thought there were three weeks of his contract to run. The GLC, mercifully perhaps, only allowed children to appear in commercial productions for three months on end.

‘No, not in three weeks, we’re returning him at once good as new, they’ll have to send us another one. Where did you get him from?’

‘Freddie’s.’

Both wavered. The casting director told his assistant to notify the Temple Stage School. The assistant spoke to his deputy.

‘Perhaps you’d better go and see her.’

The assistant was surprised, having studied a casual style.

‘Won’t it do if I phone her?’

‘Perhaps, if you’re good at it.’

‘Where will she be then?’

‘Freddie? At Freddie’s.’

‘I’m afraid you’ll have to speak a little more clearly, dear. It comes with training … you can’t have rung me up to complain about a joke, an actor’s joke, nothing like them to bring a little good luck, why do you think Mr O’Toole put ice in the dressing-room showers at the Vic? That was for his Hamlet, dear, to bring good luck for his Hamlet. I’m not sure how old O’Toole would be, Mattie will be twelve at the end of November, if you want to record his voice, by the way, you’d better do it at once, I can detect just a little roughening, just the kind of thing that frightens choirmasters, scares them out of the organ-lofts, you know. I expect the child thought it would be fun to see someone fall over … two of them detained in Casualties, which of them would that be, John Wilkinson and Ronald Tate, yes, they were both of them here, dear, I’ll send Miss Blewett round to see them if they’re laid up, she can take them a few sweets, they’re fond of those … I suppose they’d be getting on for thirty now … well, dear, I’ve enjoyed our chat within its limits, but you must get the casting director for me now, or wait, I’ll speak to the senior house manager first … tell him that Freddie wants a word with him.’

The senior house manager came almost at once. Having intended to say, and for some reason not said, that all this had absolutely nothing to do with him, he summoned indignation in place of self-respect and spoke of what had come to his ears and not knowing what might happen next, also of possible damage to the recovered seats, and the new carpeting which had recently been laid down in every part of the house.

‘What became of the old chair covers?’ Freddie interrupted. ‘What of the old carpets?’

The manager said that this was a matter for his staff. It seemed, however, that the Temple School, with its forty years of Shakespearean training, was carrying on the old traditions in a state not far from destitution, with crippled furniture, undraped windows, and floors bare to the point of indecency, and it was not to be believed that a prosperous theatre like the Alexandra would stand by and watch such things happen without giving a helping hand. The manager knew what was happening to him, even though it was for the first time, for he had heard it described by others. He was being Freddied, or, alternatively, Shakespeare would have been pleased, dear-ed, although the phrase had not passed between them. Thirty-seven minutes later he had agreed to send the old covers and carpeting round to the Temple, on indefinite loan. He felt unwell. Weakmindedness makes one feel as poorly as any other over-indulgence.

Everyone who knew the Temple School will remember the distinctive smell of Freddie’s office. Not precisely disagreeable, it suggested a church vestry where old clothes hang and flowers moulder in the sink, but respect is called for just the same. It was not a place for seeing clearly. Light, in the morning, entered at an angle, through a quantity of dust. When the desk lamp was switched on at length the circle of light, although it repelled outsiders, was weak. Freddie herself, to anyone who was summoned into the room, appeared in the shadow of her armchair as a more solid piece of darkness. Only a chance glint struck from her spectacles and the rim of great semi-precious brooches, pinned on at random. Even her extent was uncertain, since the material of her skirts and the chair seemed much the same. The covers from the Alexandra, of drab crimson with bald patches, were put on to the furniture as soon as they arrived, but made, after all, little difference. Opposite was another, much smaller, armchair, which, though Freddie kept no pets, gave the impression that a dog had just been sitting in it. Placed there, the caller had to meet Freddie’s eyes, which, though not at all bright – they were of a pale boiled blue – expressed an interest so keen as to approach disbelief. The face, like the ample skirt, was creased with lines, as though both had been crumpled together at the same time. What might a good ironing not reveal?

Although Freddie usually began by saying something gracious, the caller’s first instinct was that of self-preservation, or even to make sure that the door, now to the rear, could be reached in a hurry. Yet in fact no one left before they had to. The margin between alarm and fascination was soon crossed. Partly it was her voice, a croak suggestive of long suffering, which adjusted itself little by little, as though any difficulties were worthwhile, to caressing flattery. This flattery usually saved Freddie money. – I hope you don’t mind the room being rather cold, I don’t notice it myself while I’m talking to you – knowing that this kind of thing could be seen through, but that in itself constituted a further flattery. Certainly she could create her own warmth, a glow like the very first effects of alcohol. As to what she wanted, no mystery was made. She wanted to get the advantage, but on the other hand human beings interested her so much that it must always be an advantage to meet another one. When she smiled there was a certain lopsidedness, the shade of a deformity, or, it could be, the aftermath of a slight stroke. Freddie never tried to conceal this – Take a good look – she advised her pupils – I’m not nearly so amusing as you’re going to be when you imitate me. – But the smile itself was priceless in its benevolence, and in its amusement that benevolence could still exist. One had to smile with her, perhaps regretting it later.

Her shabbiness was a grossly unfair reproach. Her devotion to the things of the spirit was a menace. The trouble, of course, was that she never asked anything exactly for herself. Why, after all, had the Alexandra parted with so many lengths of rep and velvet? Why did the Royal Opera House, at every end-of-season auction, allow so much indulgence to bids from the Temple School? Why was Freddie represented – looking just the same, even with the same skirt and brooches – alongside of the Great Stars of All Time on the safety-curtain of the Palladium? Why, again, was Mattie allowed to go on working in Dombey & Son? Only because Freddie cared so much, and so relentlessly, for the theatre, where, beyond all other worlds, love given is love returned. Insane directors, perverted columnists cold as a fish, bankrupt promoters, players incapable from drink, have all forgiven each other and been forgiven, and will be, until the last theatre goes dark, because they loved the profession. And of Freddie – making a large assumption – they said: her heart is in it.

She must have had origins. Even for Freddie there must have been some explanation. It was understood that she was born in 1890, and was a vicar’s daughter. Some periods of her life were not well explained. A fading photograph on the wall showed her in the streets of Manchester, apparently raising the banner of the Suffragette Movement. But who was the male figure to her right, in a half-threatening attitude, with his foot on the pedal of a tandem bicycle? Was it then, perhaps, that she had had her stroke? A later photograph, with Freddie in breeches and puttees, was much clearer. She was hoeing turnips to make into jam for the men in the trenches. Certainly she had left her job as a Land Girl in the following year, 1917, and come to London to join the staff of the Old Vic. That meant working for the formidable Lilian Baylis, who had taken over the place five years earlier as a temperance coffee house in a disreputable quarter, and had turned it into a Shakespearean theatre for the people. Miss Baylis declared that she was not educated and not a lady, and did only what God told her to. Her staff were warned that they would have no home life of any kind. Her audiences, broken in to the hard seats, were entirely loyal. Her theatre was so uncomfortable and so deeply loved that it was believed that the British public would never allow it to close. She was the Lady of the Vic, almost the only person of whom Freddie spoke with respect.

It was from Lilian Baylis that she had studied the craft of idealism, that is to say, how to defeat materialism by getting people to work for almost nothing. At the Vic, indeed, the lower-paid actresses often had to take men’s parts, and were told that it would be good for them to put on beards and speak such lovely lines. Freddie did not copy these methods, rather she invented her own variations. In one way, however, she surpassed the Lady, who told her staff: ‘Come to me in your joys and come to me in your sorrows, but not in between, because I’ve not time for chit-chat.’ Freddie, on the other hand, was always ready to talk, and, in those days, to listen. By the end of the war she had come to know and be known by pretty well everyone in the London theatre.

In 1924 she left the Old Vic, not at all on bad terms with Miss Baylis, but with a recognition that the two of them, compressed under one roof, might provide the conditions for an explosion. With a small legacy – but who was it from? – she opened the Temple School.

A certain amount of her life, then, was accounted for. But there were conflicting elements. Her assistant, Miss Hilary Blewett, had been favoured with darker glimpses, Freddie having told her more than once that she had known the very worst of poverty. That was either in Peterborough or St Petersburg, Miss Blewett hadn’t quite been able to make out which. The Bluebell was, by the way, quite capable of disbelief. Her devotion to Freddie, necessitating very long hours, was difficult to explain, even to herself. She was, perhaps, under some form of mild hypnosis.

Freddie’s name was Wentworth, but she scarcely ever referred to her relations. There were no photographs of them. Her younger brother, however, who was a reputable solicitor on the south coast, had been known to call, though only once, at the Temple. Worried about his sister’s finances, or what he guessed of them (not having seen her for many years), he sent her a carefully composed letter. Freddie told him that she had been too busy to read more than the first sentence.

‘I imagine I am as busy as you, Frieda, and to considerably more profit.’

He was sitting awkwardly in a small armchair, not at all right for a solicitor.

‘I have to conserve my energy, dear. I manage that by never doing anything that isn’t strictly necessary, and above all by never reading anything I don’t have to. I knew you’d tell me what was in your letter.’

‘Look, Frieda, I’ve been trying to think back to the time before this atmosphere of craze, I scarcely know what to call it, anyway this involvement with the theatre, began. Of course, I’m considerably younger than you are, I always have been. But I’d like to know how it was that you became so set on running this school, which I’m afraid is leaving you in a very discouraging financial position … I’m simply asking you to take stock of your position, Frieda.’

‘Well, it was good of you to come, James, and I’m interested you should have thought it worthwhile to do so. I think it will make you feel better. Why, this very evening, when you talk things over with your wife – what is her name, by the way?’

‘Cherry,’ the solicitor replied.

‘But that was your first wife’s name.’

‘I have only been married once, Frieda.’

‘When you tell her that this place appeared not to have been dusted for God knows how long, and that I couldn’t even find your letter, and what an old wreck I looked, and so forth, well then you’ll be able to tell each other at regular intervals how good it was of you to come.’

‘Cherry and I would like you to come and have dinner with us,’ he persisted.

‘You’d like to feel that I’ve had dinner with you, perhaps. But I’ve reached a point in my life where I never go out in the evenings. You’ve nothing to reproach yourself with on that score.’

She remained calm, with an imposing appearance of sanity. But that wouldn’t do, all the common sense was on his side, as the frayed furniture bore witness. From notes which he had made he began to read an analysis – simply a rough guess, since she hadn’t seen fit to confide in him – of the school’s finances at the present time; he’d just asked around and had been told that there weren’t more than forty pupils, if that, and there was a dangerous dependence on Peter Pan and the Christmas shows for employment, with the odd musical and the few Shakespearean parts. No TV work, no film work, no modelling, the Temple didn’t countenance any of them. – A luminous smile passed over Freddie’s face, as though the depths stirred. – He persevered, asking how long it was since she had had the place surveyed or inspected in any way. Freddie replied that a Ministry of Education inspector was due in a few weeks’ time. When the solicitor brightened she added that she hoped the Ministry wouldn’t send anybody too heavy as she was doubtful about the sagging floor of the upstairs hall, and had given the children instructions never to walk straight across it, but to skirt round the edge of the boards. His sharp glance, rather like hers at that moment, told her that she was exaggerating. Probably she was trying to amuse him. As it happened, he was quite wrong. If his ears had been a little keener he could have heard the alternate shuffling and pattering above their heads. But he was a man who kept his eye on things, rather than listening to them. He said that he was obliged to be going, for, as a busy man, a necessary condition of his being anywhere was to be on the way somewhere else. He picked up his coat and brief-case, and then, although he knew that he had brought nothing else with him, looked round, as though he were not quite sure.

‘I don’t like to leave you like this, Frieda.’

‘You’ll find me looking exactly the same next time you come.’

‘That’s what I’m afraid of. I don’t find the idea at all reassuring.’ As he continued the moves of departure, Freddie, who had never stirred from her chair, pointed to a bureau which stood sideways on, struggling for position between two larger chests of drawers.

‘Help yourself out of the left hand small top drawer, James. That’s where I keep the complimentary tickets, I’ve forgotten what’s there.’

‘Well, if they’re going to waste … I’ve no objection to a good show … there’s a glass of milk here which seems to have been there for some time,’ he added as he opened the bureau. But he could not regain the upper hand.

‘You’ll find some passes for the Palladium, dear. Tell Cherry they’re good for any night.’

He put them carefully away into a compartment of his notecase. As he got into his car he felt a sense of injustice at not being able to dislike his sister more, for surely she was not likeable. The smile she had given him at the last minute was probably responsible.

This method of dealing with her relative, or relatives, left Freddie at liberty to elaborate the story of her life pretty much as she wanted. She was not likely to be challenged. To take one more example: could it be true that at one time she had been on the stage herself? When she rose from her chair her bulk was supported by the unmistakable, not very graceful, walk of a dancer, the upper part of the body quite still, the feet planted flat, like a sea creature on dry land. It was startling to see her glide forward like that. She enjoyed the surprise it caused.