blows that life had dealt her: abandoned as a baby, then claimed again only to have her second chance at happiness destroyed by a conflict which she was of no age to understand – if such an age existed. Thousands like Elspeth there might have been, but the sharing of tragedy – even on such a scale – did not make the personal cost any easier to bear for each individual it touched.
Josephine knew that as well as anyone. Twenty years after it started, the war had reinvented its suffering for a second generation in the form of inescapable confinement with the sick and wounded, and an eventual loss whose pain was the more sharply felt for its delay. After her father’s long illness, then his death, who could blame Elspeth for taking refuge in the less demanding emotions of the stage, or for contemplating another, more glamorous, identity? It was not so different to what she herself had done and – in the face of her own father’s fragile health – what she continued to do.
‘I hope you won’t think it rude of me to ask,’ Elspeth continued,
‘but will you be sad when your play ends?’
Josephine had asked herself the same thing when she saw the press notice earlier. The answer had not required much soul-searching, although it would have been churlish to show the true extent of her relief. ‘No, not really,’ she said. ‘It’s going on tour, after all, and it’s lovely to think that people all over the country will see it. I do have another play or two on the go, and my publisher wants a second mystery story at some point, so there’s plenty to keep me busy.’ She did not admit it to Elspeth, but there was another reason why her heart was no longer in the play that had made her name: that business last year with Elliott Vintner had soured the whole experience for her. The voice of reason inside her head told her time and time again that she was not to blame for the court case or its repercussions, but the thought that a man had taken his own life because of her success filled her with a coldness that no amount of rational argument could eradicate.
Fortunately, before Josephine could go further down that road, a restaurant attendant passed through the carriages to announce the next sitting for lunch. ‘Let’s go and have something to eat,’ she 8
suggested to Elspeth, conscious that the young woman’s enthusiasm for her work was beginning to wear a little thin with everyone else in the compartment. ‘It’s been a long morning.’
The train’s delay had created a healthy appetite in its passengers.
The dining car was almost full when they arrived, but a waiter showed them to the last vacant table. ‘Gosh – how lovely,’ said Elspeth, looking round at the bronze lamps, plush carpets and walnut veneer panelling, ‘I don’t think I’ve ever eaten anywhere as luxurious as this before.’ She removed her hat, then looked round anxiously for somewhere to put it before the waiter came to her rescue and took it from her with a wink. ‘I’m not used to first class,’ she admitted, picking up a silver butter knife to admire the railway crest on the handle. ‘The ticket was a present. Will you order for us – I’m sure it’s all delicious.’
Josephine smiled at her. ‘To be honest,’ she said, ‘Inverness isn’t exactly overrun with top restaurants so I think we should just treat it as a posh café and have what we like. I’m going for the sole –
how about you?’ Elspeth studied the menu and, when the waiter arrived, chose a no-nonsense steak and kidney pudding. ‘A glass of wine, miss?’ he asked.
‘I’d love one, but I wouldn’t know where to start,’ Elspeth said, looking at Josephine.
‘The Burgundy would go well with your lunch, so let’s both have that,’ she said and watched, amused, as the waiter unfolded Elspeth’s napkin and slid a silver vase of flowers closer to her with another wink that brought a flush to her cheeks.
‘I’d love to know more about the cast,’ Elspeth said, as their drinks arrived. ‘Tell me – are John Terry and Lydia Beaumont as close off stage as they are on? I won’t tell anyone if it’s a secret, but they make such a good couple as Richard and Anne.’
Josephine smiled to herself, imagining how pleased Terry would be to perpetuate the rumour of a romance with his glamorous leading lady, but she had to crush Elspeth’s hopes. ‘No, they’re both . . . well, they’re just good friends,’ she said. ‘I suppose it would be difficult to work together if they were involved and they’ve got another joint project lined up with my next play.’
9
‘Am I allowed to ask what it is?’
‘Of course you are. It’s a play about Mary Queen of Scots. In fact, I wrote it for Lydia. She’s always wanted to play her.’
‘How special to have a play written for you! She must be so pleased. I can’t wait to see her in it.’
‘You’ll see her sooner than that, actually. She should be meeting me at King’s Cross if this train arrives before she has to be at the theatre,’ Josephine explained, tucking in to her meal and encouraging Elspeth to do the same. ‘I’ll introduce you if you’d like to meet her.’
‘Oh, that would be wonderful. You know, I can’t wait to tell Uncle Frank about all this. He’s seen Richard almost as many times as I have.’
‘Is that who you’re staying with?’
‘Yes, I always do when I’m in London. He and my Aunty Betty have a shop in Hammersmith – shoes and knitwear, that sort of thing.’
‘Do you come down often?’
‘About once a month. I bring the hats and help out in the shop a bit. It’s a family business, so we all chip in. But Uncle Frank’s passionate about theatre. He collects memorabilia and drives Aunty Betty mad because there’s only a small flat above the shop and he packs it with stuff. When I’m down, we spend as much time as we can in the West End. He’ll be so thrilled when I tell him about my journey. I don’t suppose you could sign a copy of the programme for him and leave it at stage door, could you? Would it be too much trouble?’
‘Of course not, and I’ll sign your magazine as well if you like.’
She thought for a moment, then said: ‘Do you have your tickets for the show yet? I’ve got some reserved for the week and you’d be most welcome to join me one evening.’ It was unlike her to encourage intimacy in this way but, for some reason, she felt protective towards the young woman in front of her. Much to her surprise, the response to her question was a pink tide which began at Elspeth’s neck and rose slowly upwards.
‘Actually, I’m going with someone tomorrow night and he’s got us top price seats,’ she explained. ‘We’ve been out a few times and 10
he’s lovely. It’s his first job in theatre and he doesn’t get much time off, so I suppose the last thing he needs is to sit through it all again,’ she added, and instantly looked horrified. ‘Not that he doesn’t love the play, of course, it’s just . . .’
She tailed off, at a loss as to how to redeem herself, and Josephine came to her rescue. ‘Please don’t worry – if I could choose between another night with Richard and a good dinner at the Cowdray Club, there’d really be no contest. You can have too much of a good thing. No matter how entertaining it is for the audience, it’s a bit of a busman’s holiday if you work there – he must be very keen on you to go at all.’
As Elspeth blushed again and excused herself for a moment, Josephine asked for the bill. She looked on, amused, as the waiter transferred his attentions from Elspeth to another table, where he spent more time than was strictly necessary polishing a crystal glass for a young woman dining alone. This girl was more receptive, and she watched while the couple circled round each other, wondering what the outcome would be. When Elspeth reappeared, Josephine shook off her insistence that the bill should be halved and they headed back to their compartment.
At last, the carriages began snaking through the outskirts of the capital. How England’s cities were changing, Josephine thought, looking out at the small, modern houses and giant cine-mas which seemed to have sprung up everywhere. As the train slowed its speed still further and ran into a deep cutting, the dwindling daylight vanished altogether. When it returned, it gave form to the dark bulk of St Pancras and the Midland Grand, an edifice which would have looked more at home in a gothic tale of terror than it did next to the ordinary contours of King’s Cross.
Josephine had heard that engine drivers on this route took a pride in the journey, racing against the timetable and each other to achieve speeds of more than ninety miles an hour, and she was not the only passenger on board to offer up a silent prayer of thanks to the competitive nature which had brought the train to its destination less than an hour behind schedule.
*
11
Stamping her feet against the coldness of the day, Lydia Beaumont was nevertheless in a remarkably good mood. Ever the actress, she always felt an affinity with the transience and variety of somewhere like King’s Cross: the wandering population of travellers and street traders had an anonymity which intrigued her and a colour which appealed to her weakness for showmanship and talent for mimicry.
The other reason for Lydia’s unshakeable good humour was standing beside her. She and Marta Fox were, to paraphrase her character in the play, still at the stage in their relationship where the heavens could collapse without undue damage to either of them. By March, it was not uncommon for the year to have offered Lydia at least three different versions of the love of her life, but Marta had survived to enter victoriously into a fourth month of tenure. By Lydia’s own admission, this was a relationship of some permanence.
From the approaching train, Josephine spotted her friend and felt the same mixture of admiration and apprehension that always accompanied their meetings: admiration for her graceful charm and childlike mischief, for the humour which was always in her eyes and never far from the corners of her mouth; apprehension because, if she were honest, Josephine was almost as uncomfortable with the celebrity of others as she was with her own. With Lydia, though, there had been a mutual appreciation from the out-set – a genuine trust stemming from their shared frankness and hatred of vanity in all its guises – and Josephine had come to value the friendship greatly, whilst marvelling that it should be hers.
From force of habit, she cast an appraising eye over the woman who stood next to Lydia on the platform and was pleased to note that her own first impressions tallied with the description that her friend’s letters had carried to Inverness. Even from a distance, there was an air of calm about her, a quiet containment in the res-olute stance that held its own beauty. If Marta proved as strong as she seemed, she could be just the antidote Lydia needed to the fickleness which was an inevitable part of her life in the theatre.
Elspeth was so excited at the sight of Anne of Bohemia alive and 12
well less than fifty yards away that Josephine’s gentle wave of greeting could hardly be seen from the platform. Keen to leave the train and meet Lydia, the girl reached up to drag her bag down from the luggage rack but, in her haste, forgot that she had opened it earlier to find the magazine for Josephine to sign. When its contents spilled out onto the floor, she looked mortified and Josephine
– whose instinct towards amusement was overcome by her sympathy for Elspeth’s vulnerability – came quickly to her aid. As the two scrabbled on the floor for stray sweets and loose change, they looked at each other through the legs of the other passengers, and laughter soon won out. Standing back against the window to allow everyone else to gather their belongings, they took a minute to compose themselves sufficiently to leave the compartment.
What sort of scene they were creating for those on the platform, Josephine could hardly imagine.
‘Here she is at last,’ said Lydia, pointing towards the carriage window. ‘My God, dear, have you seen that hat?’ Marta took one look and muttered something about getting them a place in the queue for taxis. ‘We’ll be with you in a jiffy,’ Lydia called after her.
When she turned back to the train, Josephine was on her way over with the companion who had made such an impression on the train’s arrival. Had she not known her, Lydia would never have guessed that this quiet Scottish woman, dressed simply in a dark suit and pearls, was the author of the biggest hit in the West End. Nothing about Josephine had changed since Lydia first became aware of her as a shadowy presence in the stalls during rehearsals. She still looked more like a school teacher or one of those solitary women you saw writing letters in the corner of a hotel lounge. It had been hard to get to know her, as she discouraged intimacy and rarely gave her confidence to anyone, but the effort had been worthwhile. Josephine was thoughtful and sensitive, interested in everything and possessed of a puckish, sarcastic wit that was as evident in her conversation as it was in her work.
Greeting Lydia with a hug, Josephine introduced the girl as a friend she had met on the journey down. The actress, always gracious when faced with her public, went through the routine of 13
conversation and autographs that had become second nature to her, whilst managing to make Elspeth feel that she was the first person ever to mention the poignancy of the death scene. After a politely timed exchange of charm and admiration, she remembered Marta and the waiting taxi. ‘Come on, we must get you safely to that madhouse you’re staying in,’ she said to Josephine.
‘I’m sure you could do with a rest after such a long day, and I need to be at the theatre on time or Johnny will be a bag of nerves throughout the entire first act. You’d think he’d be used to it by now.’ She flashed a winning smile at Elspeth, and picked up Josephine’s travelling case. ‘Is the rest of your luggage being sent on?’ she asked.
At the mention of luggage, a look of panic crossed Elspeth’s face. ‘I don’t believe it,’ she cried. ‘After all that fuss, I’ve left my bag on the train. I must go back and get it, then I’d better find my uncle. My mother’s entire new range is in there,’ she explained, gesturing towards the mountain of hat boxes that an unlucky porter had felt obliged to transfer from the luggage car to a platform trolley, ‘and she’ll kill us if we don’t get it safely delivered to Lillibet’s.’ Hugging Josephine tightly and promising to look her up at the theatre, Elspeth vanished back into the carriage from which she had so thoroughly emerged, too concerned about her bag to notice that the feather had become dislodged from her hat and now lay on the platform floor. Josephine bent down to pick it up.