A Cry from the Dark (5 page)

“You really should dip into some of the old and some of the recent ones. Research your market. I once met a real writer—in the trenches—and he said that was what would-be writers always needed to do, but very seldom did.”

“Did you fight in the trenches?” asked Betty. This was new to her.

“Eventually. I tried to be an objector, but as time went on I couldn't believe anymore that keeping out of the war was any sort of answer…We shall be celebrating Armistice Day soon. ‘Greater love hath no man than this, that he lay down his life for a friend.' So true.”

“But wouldn't it be even greater if he laid down his life for an enemy? Or for someone or something he didn't really care about one way or another?”

The Reverend Potter-Clowes seemed perplexed. “What have you in mind, Betty?”

“Well, Czechoslovakia, for instance. Or England. No one really seems to like England or the English very much, but the men go off to fight for her.”

“Ah, our conversation the other night. I don't think you'll find your father's friend is right about Czechoslovakia. In the end and even if you don't know much about a country, you find you can't just shut your eyes to what is being done to its people…Ah, there's my lift to Corunna. Do put on the light if you need it, but I don't suppose you will.”

Betty smiled as he left the house. Electricity was Michael's little meanness. He used it as little as possible. She called him Michael to herself, getting it from her father, but she had to be careful not to use the name aloud. She settled down with a ten-year-old volume of the
Bulletin,
then changed to more recent issues when she got bored, enjoying the controversies about living issues which she had heard about on the wireless. She was digesting the information about the competition for young journalists when Potter-Clowes returned.

“I'm just finishing,” she said, getting up. “There's a limit to what I can take in in one go.”

“Of course there is—but don't go on my account. Did you find it interesting reading?”

“Oh yes—I always do. But some of the people who write in say some very strange things.”

“I expect that's true of people who write to all newspapers and magazines.”

“One man wrote in saying the dole was utterly wrong because birds don't have any such thing. It's a bit hard if we're never to have anything the kookaburras don't have, isn't it?”

The vicar laughed.

“The
Bulletin
's got itself a very sharp reader in you…You know, it's wonderful to think that Bundaroo has thrown up such a keen brain and a creative intelligence such as yours is.”

“Oh…I don't know—” Betty squirmed a little.

“Dear girl, don't be embarrassed. It's very clear to me that you have it in you to be something exceptional. Whether you
do
become that special being is in the Lord's hands—and your own, of course. But I feel very blessed that in my little parish there is someone who can think—think
through
matters that other people just accept. It's a great joy for me.”

As she started on her way, Betty felt burdened by the vicar's high expectations for her. She felt they were something she could never live up to. By the time she reached home, however, she had squared her shoulders and lifted her head. Oh yes, she could!

 

Turning the
OFF
button on her tape recorder three days before her two visitors were due to arrive, Bettina fell into a reverie. She knew what had happened to Michael Potter-Clowes. He had got another parish at the beginning of the war, but one hardly more impressive than Bundaroo and the surrounding townships. His time as a conscientious objector probably didn't help. But what about the others from her childhood in Bundaroo? Her friend Alice Carey, for example? Or Steve Drayton? Or Mr. Copley and Miss Dampier? Had the latter got married and concentrated on home and children, or had she stayed with a job she had a real talent for? Bettina had an idea that at that date you were forced to give up your job as a teacher if you had children.

Another age! But she wished she knew something about those people. She was cut off by what happened at the Leavers' Ball, 1938. That was when her life had changed entirely.

The next day, with only forty-eight hours to go before Oliver arrived, Bettina received a letter with Australian stamps on it, and in an unknown handwriting. Tearing it open and going straight to the signature, she confirmed what she had already suspected. It was from Sylvia Easton. She put down the pages, conscious that her heart was beating faster, and took two swigs from her breakfast mug of tea. This was a situation that seemed more fictional than real: she had last seen Sylvia when she was two months old. Now she must be in her late fifties. This was the first time Bettina had seen Sylvia's handwriting. She had never received, and never wanted to receive, a photograph or any other memento of her. She chewed slowly through a piece of toast and apricot jam. Then she felt strong enough to read the letter.

Over the rest of the morning, which was mainly spent making notes for her next chapter, Bettina thought about the letter. She decided she approved of it. This was probably because the proposal suited her down to the ground. Emotionally and practically it had every advantage. One thing there had been no question of was showing emotion at her reunion with Sylvia. If she had felt no love for her at her birth, had felt no impulse to get in touch with her during her now quite long life, it would have been rampant hypocrisy to pretend any pleasure at the prospect of meeting now.

The tone of the letter, too, suited her. Matching the proposal itself, it was distant. No, that wasn't quite the word—matter-of-fact was more like it. Or businesslike. They would meet, they would talk about plays and operas, about present-day Australia. The tone of the letter was exactly right for such a prospect.

She wondered why her daughter had addressed her by her married name. Hardly anyone used it these days—hardly anyone knew of her marriage, for a start. She had used the name Cockburn during the year or so of her marriage to the inadequate Cecil. In those days every married woman used her married name. But she had not published anything at that point, so she had not been burdened, as Agatha Christie in her heyday had been, with the name of a man from whom she had long been parted.

Perhaps that is how they refer to me in Ollie's household, she thought. She could imagine that Judy, whom she had met only once, was quite hot on respectability. A married name was a badge of respectability, particularly for a woman who had a child. Or was Sylvia Easton trying to register some kind of claim? She dismissed the thought. Hughie's notion that she was surrounded by leeches and potential leeches should not be allowed to gain a foothold in her brain. That would poison whatever relationship they might manage to achieve.

Nevertheless the notion came up again the next day, when her agent, Clare Tuckett, paid her one of her occasional breezy visits. She steamed in, waving little envelopes.

“Tickets, darling. And in particular tickets for Covent Garden—and for the Golden Pair singing in
Tosca
. I can tell you I had to use every
ounce
of nous, influence, skullduggery—you name it, I've had to use it. Officially you'll—or rather
we'
ll—be part of a corporate booking from British Gas, so we'll be surrounded by people who are either asleep or talking. I felt I had to go along, after all the strings I'd pulled.”

“I'll pay of—”

“Of course.
Have
you got a cigarette, darling? Thanks. Light? Oh yes, now I got tickets for Colin Davis and the LSO, for the Royal Shakespeare in
Julius Caesar, South Pacific
at the National—can't think what's national about
South Pacific,
can you?—and a big, vulgar concert of lollipops at the Albert Hall. So that takes care of five evenings. Anything else is up to you.”

Bettina was, as usual, flabbergasted but grateful at having her responsibilities and choices preempted for her by her agent.

“Clare, I didn't expect you to do anything other than the Covent Garden—”

“All part of the service, darling. These cigarettes are
vile
—why do you smoke them?” She stubbed hers out and absentmindedly took another from the packet. “Apart from Covent Garden I got three tickets for everything. I didn't think your nephew Mark would be trailing along, from your account of him.”

“Oh no, Mark won't be with us. Quite apart from anything else, he's a would-be actor, and taking him to the National or the Royal Shakespeare might suggest reasons why he's not getting any work.”

“Bitch,” said Clare approvingly. “He sounds wonderfully stupid. If he's in some general plan to murder you I can't see him staying out of police hands for long.”

“That
is
a comfort. Anyway it's not a plan to murder me, just to get my money.”

“Since you're much too sharp to be swindled out of it, the one thing suggests the other. Have you got your will all in order and as you'd like it to be?”

“Well, not really. It's years old, and some have died—”

Clare cast her a piercing glance tinged with contempt, then marched over to the phone, dialed, and arranged a meeting with her solicitor for that afternoon.

“We'll want it finalized, and signed and witnessed on the spot. It probably won't be a final one, but it's urgent that it's done, and is valid.”

She banged down the phone.

“Clare, it really isn't that urgent.”

“Of
course
it's urgent. Leaving aside Hughie's scare-mongering, you're eighty.” A thought struck her. “Oh, by the way, I can't get any rumors that Hughie is in financial low waters. It's probably just senile suspiciousness. Now, Bettina, you've got till three o'clock to decide what you're going to do with what you have. Write it down if you can, so we can just
tear
through it. Oh—that reminds me: you're dictating things these days, aren't you?”

“Yes. I bought myself a tape recorder.”

“Hmmm. Not the safest of records.”

“Why not? You hear of people who've lost thousands of words from their computers.”

“That was long ago, darling. Everyone has backup discs nowadays. Have you had what you've done already transcribed?”

“Oh, I don't know that it's really ready for that yet, but I have got the name of a very good person who—”

“So the answer is no. Give me all the tapes so far, and I'll have them duplicated.”

“Clare, I'm sure there's a studio nearby that—”

“Darling, it's all part of the service. We have a lot of old crocks like you who dictate their books. We know what needs to be done—we have a standard drill. Anyway, we'll charge you the earth. Now, when we've done that, your very good little woman—
bound
to be a woman, I presume? And cheap as dirt—can collect them and begin the work of transcribing. And when you have a new tape ready—no, a new
chapter
ready—she can bring it in, then collect it when it's been duplicated.”

“You're going to an awful lot of trouble, Clare.”

“Darling, you haven't written a book in seven years, and you've only been with Tuckett and Mancini for ten. We can't live off little pieces you write about your first book for the
Author
or celebrity paragraphs on your favorite city for the
New York Times.
You've got to throw us a bit of meat now and then.”

“Don't pull the line that you only keep me on out of charity, Clare. You'll do very nicely out of reprints and film rights.”

“After a
great deal
of spadework and a lot of hard bargaining. Anyway, all I'm saying is a real book to sell and promote will be a nice change. I have no intention of letting you be murdered.”

“That's comforting to hear. Though I've no intention of letting myself be murdered either. You don't just give up because your eightieth year is just around the corner. I'm not going to lie down and die.”

“I'm sure you're not, darling. Knowing you you've got a Kalashnikov stored behind your front door. Now, get me those tapes and I'll be on my way.”

When Clare was on her way, with the tapes stuffed into her handbag, Bettina luxuriated in the pleasant feeling of being looked after. Of course Clare was protecting her investment, but she felt sure that real liking was involved too. If the memoirs she was not writing proved to be a good commercial proposition then Clare would be well rewarded for years of support, tender loving care, and sheer cheering up. It was nonsense to see Clare as a person who was battening on her except in the obvious and accepted professional way. Meanwhile there was the wearisome and worrisome matter of the will. Bettina made some coffee and prepared to come to some decisions.

Clare turned out to have some unexpected business that afternoon, so she sent a secretary from the agency whom she knew Bettina was fond of to take her to the solicitors'. She arrived at a quarter to three, and by then Bettina had made up her mind. Twenty minutes later she was spelling out the terms of her very simple new will to the agency's lawyer: equal legacies of £5,000 to her brother, Oliver, to Sylvia Easton, Hughie Naismyth, Peter Seddon, and Katie Jackson. The rest, and all future royalties from her books, she left to the National Portrait Gallery. It was the place in London where she felt happiest.

That settled (for the moment, and until she got a better idea), she got herself prepared, materially and mentally, for the arrival of her brother and her daughter. The last time Ollie had come to Britain he and Judy had done the flight in one. That was in 1977, and though they had left Mark and their daughter with Judy's parents, they had been exhausted for days after their arrival. After a week in London they had flown on to their real destination, Los Angeles, to visit Judy's brother. By Ollie's account at the time they had arrived there all but dead, and the foul air had made sure that they hardly made any recovery during their two weeks there. This time Oliver had scheduled a stopover in Singapore. Bettina was informed of their intentions by a very casual Mark.

“They get to Heathrow at seven in the morning, Auntie Betty. Dad reckons they'll both need eight or ten hours' shut-eye, which at their age is probably spot-on, wouldn't you say? I've got something on most of that day, so I wondered if you could lay on the tucker that first night.”

Lay on the tucker,
thought Bettina disgustedly. Mark's Australian accent and vocabulary had got broader since he arrived in London. Probably he was hoping this would get him any Australian parts going. He was certainly not likely to get any English ones. Quite apart from anything else he looked Australian, with his enormous body, his jutting-chinned face, cleft chin, and his daunting air of healthiness.

“I'll be delighted to see them and give them dinner,” she said. “Will they come by taxi or will you bring them round?”

“Oh, whatever. I'll see what I've got on,” said Mark, obviously determined to have
some
thing.

Bettina had a day to prepare a meal, since she had no intention of meeting the visitors after a day spent toiling over her stove. She had never made a great thing of entertaining, though she was a competent enough cook. Feeling she would have enough emotionally on her plate that evening to need help with the mechanics of it, she rang Katie and arranged for her to do the serving and the washing up afterward. She prepared a casseroled carbonade, all but the bread topping, then went down to Kensington High Street and bought gravlax as well as some ripe nectarines to make a sorbet with. She also bought in some good wine—she usually bought Australian or New Zealand, but thought that would be silly in the circumstances. She surveyed her purchases with satisfaction when she got back to the flat: they would fit the bill nicely—something midway between the fatted calf and a Barmecide feast.

Not, thinking of the former, that Sylvia was in any way a prodigal daughter. If anyone had been prodigal in their relationship it had been the mother.

They arrived around seven, watched for from Bettina's first-floor window. Mark drove them to Holland Park Crescent and then pointed them to the door. He had a genius for doing things in ways that got Bettina's hackles up. But since he was not there to freeze she put him out of her mind and gave the visitors a proper welcome.