Authors: David Wiltshire
Jeremy broke the strained atmosphere by downing the last of the champagne in his glass and standing up. ‘Right, I’m going for a pee.’ He staggered off, bumping into a chair.
After a few moments Fay got up herself, fed up with the whole evening. If she could, she would have left right then and there, but decided to go for a walk around the inter-connected marquees, just to see the sights. In one area there was a jazz band, all dressed up in green striped waistcoats with boaters on their heads, belting out traditional noisy jazz, in another, people were dancing the Valletta to an old time orchestra.
The last marquee held the variety acts. A crowd was watching a man doing card tricks, whilst in the far corner Alfonso the Great was
passing
swords through a box containing his beautiful assistant Nina,
cheered on by the cream of the Cotswolds. She stood for a while,
enjoying
the spectacle, but eventually drifted away to the all-night buffet provided extra to the supper they had enjoyed. In the middle of the long bar opposite was a multi-tiered champagne fountain, with a noisy bunch around it.
Somebody pushed a glass into her hand.
‘Come on, enjoy it while you can – you never know when the train’s going to hit the buffers.’
She frowned. What was the idiot talking about? But she swallowed a generous measure of champagne all the same.
On the way back to their table she was suddenly conscious of the fact that this year there seemed to be more heavy drinking going on than ever before, and a wildness in people. All the party were back at the table, one of the girls sitting on her escort’s lap, giggling as she traced his lips with a finger dipped in champagne.
Jeremy glanced up as she approached. ‘Where the hell have you been?’
Fay flinched at the harshness of his tone and then felt her temper
flaring
. ‘I beg your pardon?’
He looked around at them all.
‘Seems you prefer the company of others to being here with us.’
Fay stamped her foot. ‘How dare you. You left me with an empty table, don’t forget.’
The others stopped chattering and looked at them. He appeared to be about to say something aggressive, then changed his mind.
‘I was worried – thought you might have gone home.’
From the look on the faces of the others she knew that was a lie.
Just at that moment a group of men, arms outstretched, ran around one behind the other weaving between the tables making aeroplane noises. Women were screaming with laughter and goading them on. Several bottles of champagne were shaken and aimed as they ‘flew past’. When one of them was hit by a flying cork he pretended to be shot down, making a howling engine noise before ‘crashing’, throwing himself bodily on to the table, sending drinks and bottles everywhere.
He rolled on to his back yelling, ‘crash and burned, crash and burned’.
A woman then threw herself on top of him. Under their combined weight the table collapsed.
In the ensuing uproar, as the staff rushed to help, they were hindered by staggering and laughing men and women who seemed to have lost all sense of decorum.
But Fay had stopped worrying about what had taken hold of
everybody
.
All she had ringing in her ears was ‘crash and burned.’
A sudden irrational fear for Tom’s safety took hold of her.
Tom Roxham watched the countryside slide past effortlessly at eighty miles an hour as the train raced across the flat land on the approach to Reading. The telegraph poles flicked by, the wires strung between them rising and falling, rising and falling.
The engine was No. 408
Windsor Castle
that had backed on to them at Gloucester, still in pristine livery after royal duties the year before.
With each passing mile he felt the excitement rising. It had been a long week. Hardly a waking moment had passed when he hadn’t thought of her.
With a blast of its whistle, the train slowed to forty miles an hour through Reading Station. The wide platforms slid past with glimpses of people, advertising hoardings, luggage trolleys, the W.H. Smith Newsagent kiosk, waiting rooms, a covered footbridge, station-master’s office, left luggage and milk churns, until finally the platform narrowed, tapered away and was gone.
The carriage lurched as they went over points, then the clickety-click of the wheel bogies on the track started to increase in frequency as they picked up speed, heading for London.
With a sudden roar they crossed a road bridge with a brief glimpse of a main thoroughfare with red trolley buses. Soon they were out in the country again. Every now and then, as they rounded a curve, he could see their locomotive, steam spurting from its cylinder, the connecting rod on the three, big driving wheels moving rapidly up and down, up and down, smoke from its bronze chimney streaming out to roll lazily away across the meadows. They were fairly rattling along. He looked at his watch. They would arrive right on time.
He wondered how Fay was getting on with the singers. He’d had a quick note from her. He took it out of his wallet to read yet again. It was
the opening and closing bits he liked.
Dear Tom
and ending with
all my love, Fay. X
It was the X that got him.
She had warned him that she had three auditions, and she couldn’t say definitely when she could get away, but please, did he mind waiting?
He’d have waited until the end of time, when Paddington Station was being excavated by some future civilization – his white bones still
holding
what remained of the note.
He chuckled out loud, making the lady opposite look up, frowning, from her latest Agatha Christie novel.
Fay had come up the day before, taking a taxi to Claridges. Daddy had already booked a suite for her. The top-hatted commissioner had opened the car door and directed a boy from porterage to transfer her suitcase. She selected a ten shilling note and told the driver to keep the change.
In her room she pulled off her gloves as she looked around. It was tastefully furnished with a large sofa and two easy chairs.
Fresh flowers had been placed on a small table together with the latest editions of
Country Life, Picture Post
and the
Illustrated London News
. Doors led through to a separate bedroom and bathroom.
‘Anything else, madam?’
‘Thank you, no.’
She tipped again, giving the porter a florin. When she was alone she removed her hat and coat and took off her shoes, pushing fingers into her hair as she looked into the dressing-table mirror.
Fay picked up a magazine and lay with her feet up on the sofa. Later, she would be meeting Aunt Constance for dinner in the restaurant. In the morning at ten o’clock, she was going to the Queen’s Hall for the auditions. The first was Terence O’Neil, the Irish Tenor, whose
speciality
was Celtic-type ballads. Later she was being interviewed by Sir Trevor Keynes, the baritone, who needed an accompanist for his tour of Australia and the Far East. The time abroad was something that worried Fay, now that she had met Tom, but it was a splendid
opportunity
. Finally, in the afternoon Kathleen Schroeder was giving her the chance to show how good she was at the unique skill of the
accompanist
. For Fay, all of them were a worrying challenge – at least they had been. Now, all her excited thoughts were on meeting Tom, being with him again for a whole evening in the bright lights of London Town. She flicked through the pages of the
Illustrated London News
hardly taking
in the beautiful big sepia photographs.
The last week had been awful. So it was wonderful to lie there and not have to mislead her mother and father and put up with guilty feelings about Jeremy. All she had to do was think about Tom – without a care in the world. Well, one. Had she dreamed it all last week? Would he really be there tomorrow? It was just so unbelievable,
being in love
.
With a start she suddenly realized that was the first time she had used the expression, even in her thoughts. She was in love.
She was in
love
.
Fay bit her lower lip. Was it just a girlish crush? She swiftly discounted that. What she felt for Tom was much more. It was a calmness of mind: perversely a contentment as well as excitement, a sense of security, a sense of oneness. And he
was
good looking. Not for the first time she wondered just what he saw in her. It wasn’t as if she was that beautiful or anything.
Fay tried to imagine how his week had gone – how much flying he had done. Her heart positively ached to be with him; just the two of them high above the clouds, alone in the universe.
She set the magazine down and decided to ring Aunt Constance to make sure that she wasn’t going to get in the way of tomorrow night. Her aunt would no doubt be encouraged by her parents to chaperon her where possible.
The hotel operator answered.
‘I’d like to be connected to Speedwell 4359 please.’
‘Certainly, madam, one moment please.’
After a delay the voice of her aunt’s butler came on the line.
‘Lady Greenwood’s residence.’
‘Good evening, Harberry, Fay Rossiter here. Is my aunt available?’
‘Oh good evening, miss. Yes, she was expecting you to ring. I’ll just put you through.’
There was a clatter as the heavy bakelite phone was put down.
She knew her aunt’s hall well and imagined it now, with the telephone lying on the gold veneered wall table with its ornate framed mirror above, the white and black squares of the marble floor with the
scattering
of Persian rugs. She could hear the grandfather clock striking the hour and the tap tapping of her aunt’s silver-topped walking stick sounding long before the phone was picked up.
‘Fay dear, is everything all right?’ The slightly tremulous voice came down the line.
‘Yes Aunt, just wanted to let you know I have arrived safely and it’s room 203.’
‘Oh thank you, my dear, that’s very considerate of you. We are
meeting
at eight o’clock in the dining-room, is that right?’
‘Indeed. I’m looking forward to it very much and I am so sorry that I can’t meet you again tomorrow night, but I’ve already booked to hear Myra Hess with a’ – she had a sudden rush to the head – ‘young man I met at a friend’s party the other week. I hope you understand?’
‘I see, well, of course, Fay.’
The elderly woman chuckled. ‘You’re only young once. Is he
handsome
, dear?’
‘Very, Aunty – you’d like him.’
‘Do you have a photograph of him? I’d love to see what he looks like.’
Fay said, ‘No.’
They ended the call by saying how much they were each looking forward to seeing one another that evening.
Thoughtfully, Fay replaced the receiver. What her aunt had asked set her thinking. Perhaps they could have one done while they were together.
All of a sudden it became a burning urgency. She picked up the
telephone
again and got through to the desk.
Yes, they could arrange for a photographer – at what time? She asked for around six o’clock next day.
‘Very well, madam. When you are ready can you come to the desk at your convenience and we will show you to the room we usually use?’
Fay replaced the receiver and wandered to the window, looking down on the street below. It was dusk now, and she could see the limousines and taxis drawing into the kerb, disgorging women in lavish furs,
wearing
hats of all shapes and sizes. After the cloche-type of the twenties the fashion now allowed for an enormous range of textures and designs.
In the bedroom she slipped out of her dress and pulled on a silk
dressing
-gown. She studied the row of dresses in the wardrobe the hotel maid had unpacked for her, selecting one for that night. She still couldn’t make up her mind what to wear tomorrow.
The meeting with her aunt in the pillared and palm fringed restaurant was hugely enjoyable. The elderly lady was as jolly as ever, still with a twinkle in her eye and had teased her about this boy she had met.
With a sinking feeling Fay realized Constance’s memory was as good as ever. After she had seen her on her way, Fay went to bed early and after a restless night was up and bathed by eight o’clock. She had her breakfast
in her room, then, at 9.15, she took a taxi to the Queen’s Hall, to be met by the agent of Terence O’Neil.
He showed her to the piano which had been tuned for that night’s concert, to be conducted by Sir Thomas Beecham.
They went through the music for the popular tenor, who appeared twenty minutes later dressed in a grey double-breasted Savile Row suit and sporting a large carnation. He seized Fay’s hand and clasping it in both of his, gave it a kiss.
‘Miss Rossiter, it’s a pleasure to meet you.’
Later when she went to remove her jacket he was there in a flash
helping
her. Fay sat at the piano, uncomfortably conscious that O’Neil’s eyes were on her the whole time.
When the session was finished, he enthused over her performance, but his agent was more circumspect. She was told that there were others to audition.
Fay spent the next hour sitting in the stalls, listening as his other pianists performed with him. The whole process was repeated again for the eminent Sir Trevor Keynes, a tall imposing man who hardly smiled. Fay was asked to play some difficult Lieder and felt she had been a little slow in coming in – especially in Schumann’s Liederkries.
There was a break for lunch which she took near Liberty’s. Kathleen Schroeder was punctual, and at 2.35 Fay was free, with promises from all three agents of a decision by post early in the week.
Fay was exuberant. She would be at Paddington to meet Tom in plenty of time. Instead of taking a taxi she decided to go by the underground – something she had never done before.
The whole journey was exciting, with the rushing of warm air as the train came crashing into the station, the hiss of air pressure as the doors opened and closed, then the dark tunnels with cables rising and falling outside the window as they clattered around unseen bends. For Fay loved watching her fellow passengers, some strap hanging, others sitting staring blankly straight ahead or with heads buried in newspapers, it felt
liberating
, like being a girl in London with a job.
She had to change lines, walking with the scurrying crowds as they went their various ways, through archways or up escalators. She finally boarded an older bigger train, in a tunnel with twin lines and not very deep. It trundled along, a sudden burst of noise and the flashing lights of a train going in the opposite direction making her jump. The name Bayswater slid by on the white tiled walls as the train squealed to a halt.
Only one more stop to go. Fay looked at her watch. She was an hour early.
The train had slowed to a steady pace as they started to slide through the brick canyons and short tunnels of the suburbs of West London.
Now they were down to a crawl, passing under great gantries of signals and traversing multiple points as rails weaved and criss-crossed on the approach to Paddington: locomotives waited in The Roads, being coaled and watered, or turned around on tables, ready to be signalled in to the platform, reversing tenders first, to be coupled to their coaches.
They finally drew slowly in under the great canopy of Brunel’s
masterpiece
.
The light dimmed as the grime from the daily assault of steam and smoke turned the glass panes opaque. Almost imperceptibly they came to a halt, but even before they had stopped, doors were being opened and people were stepping out on to the platform.
Tom took his time, knowing that he was early. As he wandered down the platform
Windsor Castle
’s safety valve opened. A blast of steam under pressure roared up into the vast space beneath the vaulted glass roof.
The fireman had climbed down and was checking the sand box while the driver leaned out and watched him. On the main concourse Tom checked his watch. She wouldn’t be there for some time yet. He went to the gents, then washed his hands and combed his hair. Outside again, he crossed to the large model of a King class locomotive in a glass case. When his coin dropped the wheels turned and the piston and coupling rods worked. When it finished Tom looked around and decided to wander over to the arrival and departure board that dominated the gates to the platforms. It was where they had agreed to meet.
It was a few seconds before he realized she was standing a few feet away, turning, as he recognized her, to see him at the very same instant. With a rush they met, Tom sweeping her off her feet and swinging her round as they kissed and hugged, grinning like a couple of Cheshire cats.
Fay whispered, ‘Darling, you’re early.’
He set her gently down, ‘Look who’s talking. How did it go?’
She shrugged. ‘We shall see.’
With arms wrapped around each other they just stood there, beaming at each other, until he asked, ‘What would you like to do?’
She looked at her watch.
‘Tom, I hope you don’t mind, but I want to have a photo done of us.’
He looked down at her, grinning. ‘Have you got a box camera?’
Shaking her head, she said, ‘I want a photo of us
together
. I’ve arranged an appointment with the photographers at my hotel. Is that all right?’