Running to Paradise (14 page)

Algy
’s journal, which he kept fairly conscientiously until his marriage in April 1924, is mainly a record of dinners, parties, theatres and the like; his passion for Char is confined to his letters. However, there are a couple of entries which interested me as they show a fleeting glimpse of that other Char, the Char of whose existence then he was so blissfully ignorant,

*

Bryanston Square, London WC — 1st September 1923

Weekend
at Cuckoo Farm. Each time I leave Char is worse than the last time. I feel more and more I simply cannot bear to part from her. An odd thing happened, though.

I
caught the 1.30 train to Sherborne on Saturday, as usual. My darling met me in the Ford. I came out into the station yard and saw her, hatless, talking to a tall, dark-skinned, dark-haired fellow, who looked like some sort of workman. I stood there for a moment, watching them. Char was laughing up at the chap, her head back, her hair blowing about in the wind, oblivious of the arrival of the train and general exodus of passengers from London, including myself. Then as I watched, the fellow, still laughing, bent over and pressing her with some familiarity on the shoulder, turned away into the crowd. I felt as though someone had doused me with cold water, and stood there like an idiot, my bag at my feet, being bumped into by people rushing for cabs or taxis. Then she saw me and came running into my arms, lifting her face to be kissed. Of course, I couldn’t think of a blessed thing to say, just buried my face in her hair. Only when we were out of the town, bowling along through the harvest fields, dust from the road blowing about us, did I venture to ask who the man was she’d been talking to in the station yard. ‘Jeff Sparkes. He works on the Home Farm. He was a sergeant in the Dorset Regiment in the War and had his leg smashed by a shell. He helps Ma sometimes with the, horses.’

‘
You seem on very friendly terms,’ I said, idiot that I am, but I couldn’t help it. For an answer she put her foot hard down on the accelerator making the car leap forward so suddenly I banged my face on the windscreen. ‘Steady on, old thing,’ I shouted above the roar of the engine. ‘I only asked a simple question. It gave me a bit of a shock, you see, seeing you with...’

Just
as suddenly as she had accelerated, she braked and pulled the car into the side of the road beside a small spinney. She switched off the engine, and for a moment there was silence, apart from the cawing of rooks in the trees behind us. Then she said so softly I could barely hear her: ‘Why don’t you make love to me now, here, Alge? It’s such a lovely little wood and the grass is nice and dry. We’ll be married soon —why wait?’

I
just sat there paralysed. I wanted to make love to her more than anything in my whole life, but I knew if I laid a finger on her then, we’d both be lost. I tried to explain what a caddish thing it would be for me to take advantage of her innocence; that one simply did not do such things. But she just looked straight ahead of her and kept repeating, ‘But it’s such a lovely place; it would be right here, I know it would.’ God, I was tempted, but she just didn’t understand — the silly child. After a little while we drove on and talked of other things. The remainder of the weekend was so busy — cricket in the afternoon, I took two wickets (!), the Petersons’ dance in the evening, and we never had another minute to ourselves. God, how I long for next April to come, when she really will belong to me.

Bryanston
Square, London WC — 20th March 1924

Feel
a bit low tonight: silly really. All these wedding preparations are getting us both down, I think. We seemed to spend most of the weekend making lists and unpacking the most frightful presents. Mrs O didn’t help: she’s in bed with some back complaint or other.

I
thought at first that with Mrs O
hors
de
combat
Char and I would have more time to ourselves, but not a bit of it. If she called my bird upstairs to her bedroom once, she called her twenty times and always on some trifling pretext or other. When she shouted down for the twenty-first time (or rather banged her stick on the floor) I told Char to stay downstairs and went up myself. Mrs O was sitting in bed draped in shawls looking exactly like a witch. ‘Algy my dear, so kind of you,’ she said, taking my hand and squeezing it. ‘But you mustn’t give in to my little Char, you know. If you do she’ll trample all over you.’

Not
bothering to keep the sarcasm out of my voice, I told her that I wasn’t ‘giving in’ as she put it. It was simply that Char was tired, had one of her heads, and as she’d been up and downstairs quite a number of times already that evening, I thought it only fair to offer to go in her place. Of course, she ignored the sarcasm, and smiling in that maddening way of hers, patted the end of the bed and pronounced (she never just says things, she makes pronouncements): ‘Fairness is totally irrelevant to human relationships, Algy dear. If you’re entering marriage under the impression it will be played according to the Queensberry Rules or some splendid set of public school ethics, you are doomed to disappointment. Life is not like that, neither is marriage, and least of all marriage to my Char.’

Suddenly
I felt furious; furious that she should denigrate her own daughter to me; furious, for a moment, with everything. I put my hands in the pockets of my reefer jacket, for, Lord help me, I felt like hitting the woman. ‘What can I fetch you, Mrs Osborn? Our dinner’s on the table and getting cold,’ was all I could think of to say.

She
didn’t answer for a minute, trying to think of something for me to fetch, I suppose. Then she said in quite a different, quavery sort of voice: ‘My Bible dear, if you don’t mind. It’s on the top shelf of the bookcase under the window. I always find a browse through the Gospels helps to relieve pain — the English — so beautiful.’

When
I returned downstairs Char was already seated at the dining-room table. She had a spoon in her hand and was examining the pattern on its handle, a sulky, lowering expression on her face. For an instant, as I stood watching her through the doorway before she realised I was there, I saw her completely objectively: not as the girl I loved and was about to marry, but through the eyes of a stranger, critical, appraising and, quite inexplicably, found myself shivering. Suddenly aware of my presence, she looked across the room at me and her eyes appeared to glitter in the candlelight. She put down the spoon and leaning forward, very deliberately, took an apple from the silver fruit bowl in front of her, then, taking careful aim, hurled it with all her strength straight at my face. Without thinking, I put out my arm to protect myself and fielding the apple (quite expertly I thought) threw it back into the bowl. Then we both burst out laughing, the tension between us gone. But for a moment I’d wanted her so much, I could have killed to have her.

Only
three more weeks to go and this testing time will be over and my darling and I will be together always.

*

From the
Times
, 9th May 1927.

CHARTERHOUSE: on 6th May, to Charlotte Mary Charterhouse, wife of Algernon George Charterhouse of 3 Cheyne Square, Chelsea, London SW3 — a daughter.

Garden
Court, Kensington

9th
May 1927

Dearest
Char,

We
are all so thrilled about the baby! When Algy rang with the news I couldn’t help shedding a tear or two — absurd I know, but somehow the thought of my prickly little Char becoming a mother was too much. Roo, right as usual, accused me of being a silly, sentimental old woman and opened a bottle of champagne!

Darling,
I’m sorry to hear you had such a painful time; Algy says you were so brave and patient. Am longing to see you and the little one — I hear she is to be called Ann. All my love, darling

Aunty
Beth

PS
. Such a nuisance, this wretched hip. It means I’m confined to a chair and can’t get out.

*

From the
Times
, 12th August 1930.

CHARTERHOUSE: On 10th August, to Charlotte Mary
Charterhouse, wife of Algernon George Charterhouse of 3 Cheyne Square, Chelsea, London SW3 — a daughter.

From the
Times
of the same date.

OSBORN, Elizabeth Mary: on 10th August, peacefully at her home 8 Garden Court, Kensington, after a long illness bravely borne. No flowers please.

Garden
Court

1
3th August 1930

My
dear Char,

Thank
you for your sweet letter. It is indeed a sad time for all of us. Beth was the finest person I ever knew, or am ever likely to know, and although her death was expected, and indeed she was prepared for it, it still came as an immeasurable shock to those of us who loved her.

Char,
my dear, you musn’t blame yourself for not visiting Beth enough these last months. She perfectly understood the demands made on your time, and loved to read of your doings in the society papers. How very strange that your daughter was born and Beth died on the very same day. I was able to tell her of the birth before she died and I am sure she heard me, for her last words were ‘dear Char’, and she was smiling so happily.

Algy
tells me you had another bad time and Dr Scott (such a dear man) advises complete rest. Do take his advice, dear, for all our sakes. Con writes she cannot attend the funeral, but Dick is coming up and staying for it.

All
my love, dear,

Aunty
Roo

*

Cuckoo Farm

21st
June 1932

My
dearest Char,

Your
worrying letter arrived second post yesterday, since when I’ve thought of nothing else.

Darling,
there’s so little I can do to help; these matters simply must be sorted out between a husband and wife alone. If you really feel you cannot give yourself to Algy in that way, you must tell him so and not make excuses. However, if you do, you must accept that he will look elsewhere for solace; it’s men’s nature to do this and in the main they’re selfish creatures. You have your dear girls to love, your household to manage, and your work at the Battersea Settlement — by the by, Roo writes a glowing account of all your help — and this, perforce, must be your life. I am sure Algy still loves and respects you, and perhaps in time you will be able to love him again in the way he needs. But you must try to explain to him how you feel and make him understand these things are different for a woman. You say in your letter he’s ‘insanely jealous’. Well, dear, he would be. No doubt he thinks you’ve fallen in love with another man. You see, it would be impossible for him to understand that you do not wish to be made love to by anyone. That’s why it’s so important that you make him understand how you feel.

You
’ve had two difficult births in quick succession, followed by dear Beth dying: you and Algy have been married eight years (always a testing time) and all these things have come together to make you feel as you do. But to talk of leaving Algy is nonsense. You’re made of sterner stuff than that surely? You must be brave, dear, stick it out and ride the storm; you have two little girls to think of now.

Your
father writes he and the Russian woman are buying a place in Hampshire, what with, I cannot imagine, as I gather she spends his money like water. Had such a nice card from Milly and Harold honeymooning in Florence. They sound so happy.

Be
brave and strong, my Char —

Your
loving Ma

*

Hotel Majestic, Madrid

4th
October 1932

Darling,

Arrived last night and have been hectically busy all day. Penny de Vere-Carson is staying here — isn’t it a coincidence! We met in the bar last night when I arrived, and are dining together tonight. She sends her love and wishes you were here. She’s got her divorce at last, but claims she leads the life of a nun!

My
dear, I’ve been so busy these past few weeks organising the Spanish trip, I know I’ve been an absolute bear. I am sorry, really I am, and promise to be a good boy in future. When I get back perhaps we could arrange a little holiday together, just the two of us. We could go to that fishing pub on the Usk, Berty Townsend told me about; three or four days complete rest would do us both good.

Lisbon
on Friday the 7th and home on Wed, 12th. By the by, I don’t think much of Vera’s packing, she forgot to put my sponge bag in. Never mind, Penny has braved the local chemist and bought me another!

All
my love, darling

Alge

10

It
was time now for Char’s 1933 diary. This was a large, expensive-looking notebook of green and gold tooled leather that testified quite clearly to her material affluence at that time. I remember a feeling of anticipation as I opened it. Other years were represented by tiny pocket diaries — all of which seem to have been supplied by the Gargoyle Club in Soho — simply cataloguing such mundane events as visits to the dentist, dinner guests and the dates of her period. What was so special, then, about 1933 that it merited a full-scale journal? Had she thrown all the others away, or was it just a one-off affair? I’d soon see.

Sophia
was in Montreal on some conference or other, but by tacit consent she had left me to plough through her mother’s papers on my own. ‘You can show me the juicy bits afterwards,’ she said, with typical flippancy. I picked up a large, glossy photograph by Lenare: Char looking soulfully beautiful, gazing down at a sleeping, shawl-wrapped baby, presumably Evelyn, who was born in 1930. Somehow the photographer had managed to squeeze all of Char from the likeness; what remained was a lovely, fashionable shell bearing a marked resemblance to all the other Lenare subjects. It was a nice picture to have around, all the same.

In
the back of the notebook was a bundle of letters tied with a red ribbon. On the top envelope Char had written, ‘B.E.’s letters — destroy’. Was that an instruction for me, or had she written the note years ago for herself?

I
began to read.

*

3 Cheyne Square, Chelsea — 2nd January 1933

Writing
makes me feel self-conscious: as though someone sitting behind me were laughing at my feeble attempts at self-expression, but here goes...

I
am sitting up in bed in my bright yellow room. It’s nine o’clock in the morning; fog drifts outside the windows and the street lamps are still on. Cook has been for orders, I’ve rung the butcher and the fishmonger. Later, Aunty Roo, Milly, Harold and I will lunch — liver and bacon and apple fritters — and take Ann and Deirdre (Harold’s whining niece) to
Peter
Pan
. Ann has an upset tummy, Evie is teething, Nanny is in love with a man called Charlie who runs a greengrocer’s shop in Pimlico, and me? I’m dead, I think. I look in the mirror and someone’s there alright: ‘popular hostess, Mrs Algy Charterhouse’, with her marcelled hair, her Molyneux dresses, her sables and her Hispano Suiza, but where the hell is Char Osborn, that’s what I’d like to know.

‘
Write a little every day and you’ll find she’ll come back,’ was what that funny young man at the Chelsea Arts Ball on Saturday told me and,
voila
, that’s what I’m doing. God, I must have been tight though; we all were, I suppose. Algy a matador, me a Carmen, and frantic Diana M a bilious raspberry ice, masquerading as a Dresden shepherdess.

How
did it happen, our meeting — the funny young man and mine? I know: I was alone in our box, Algy and Diana dancing, Bunny taking Perdita home in a cab as she’d been sick, Richard (or was it Tommy, they’re all beginning to look alike) gone to fetch more drink. I was sitting dropping cigarette ash on the heads of the crowd below, the band was playing that thing from ‘Cavalcade’ and in he came and sat down beside me.

‘
That’s a rather childish game you’re playing, isn’t it?’ he said. ‘Can anyone join in?’ I said yes, and he promptly emptied the ashtray on to the head of a huge man dressed as a pierrot, who happened to be jigging about immediately below the box. The huge man looked up in fury, his face a purple half moon under his pointed pierrot’s cap, and we quickly ducked down behind the parapet of the box. It was then I realised that the young man wasn’t wearing fancy dress. He was tall and heavily built, about my age, with thick, black hair, a wide, sensuous mouth and looked as if he needed a shave. But it was his eyes I really noticed; they were green, cat’s eyes, but with tiny flecks of brown in them, and I know I’ve seen those eyes before.

‘
Let’s sit down here,’ he said. ‘It’s more comfortable on the floor and the parapet helps deaden the sound of that ghastly rubbish of Coward’s.’

‘
I like Coward,’ I said, beginning to get a bit annoyed. ‘And if you don’t, why do you bother to come to a dance like this? You aren’t even in fancy dress.’

‘
And how do you deduce that?’ he said, pointing to the rather shiny tail coat he was wearing. Tor all you know this might well be my fancy dress.’ Suddenly, and I can’t imagine why, we both began to laugh; we just laughed and laughed and couldn’t stop. There we sat on the floor of the box like a couple of zanies, holding on to one another in paroxysms of mirth.

After
a bit we managed to pull ourselves together and wiped our eyes, or rather he wiped mine as well as his own, I hadn’t got a handkerchief, and he said: ‘I knew you’d be like that, I knew from the moment I saw you through the door of the box. That’s why I came in.’ He took a quick swig from a silver flask he pulled out of the pocket of his tailcoat and said, ‘Tell me before all the ghastlies return and the clock strikes twelve, why are you so sad?’ For a moment I felt so odd; he was looking straight into my eyes, his own bright, full of curiosity like those of a child. I felt as though he had opened a door into my soul and was briskly shining a torch round it to see what was wrong. Then I found myself trying to explain; to explain how I felt; how Algy and I were drifting further and further apart; how the only time we reached one another now at all was when we fought; how bored I was, how hopeless. And that was when he told me I must write a little about myself each day.

‘
It might help,’ he said, ‘you never know, and then we’ll see...’ He sounded like a doctor.

Then t
he band stopped playing, Algy dragging Diana behind him, barged through the box door, the others with more champagne, behind him. My young man leaped to his feet, towering over everyone. He clapped his hand to his head, and looking wildly round shouted: ‘Christ, the witching hour’s upon us, I must fly lest my coachman turns himself into a rat,’ and dashed out of the box.

‘
And who in God’s name is that frightful bounder?’ Algy said, and of course we had another row. The absurd thing is, I don’t even know my young man’s name. Shall I, I wonder, find out?

Goodness,
I do believe his advice has worked. I’m beginning to come alive just a little. I might be able to face my lunch party — even the liver and bacon — with a modicum of enthusiasm. By the time my dear husband returns from his holiday in Switzerland, who knows how I shall feel?

3
Cheyne Square, Chelsea — 6th January 1933

A
card from Algy in St Moritz; he’s having a lovely time (of course), but poor, dear Diana has sprained her ankle — a small comfort in a sea of gloom. Nothing from my young man and no one knows who he is — even Perdita who knows everyone. Did I imagine him? Nanny’s greengrocer has proposed and she can’t make up her mind whether to accept him. ‘I shall miss the life here, Madam,’ she says. ‘Handling cold veg all day wouldn’t be the same.’ I advised her not; marriage is grossly overrated, although a greengrocer’s shop in Pimlico might be more fun than ghastly Cheyne Square.

I
shall have my bedroom painted Bakst blue. This yellow is driving me mad.

3
Cheyne Square, Chelsea — 7th January 1933

I
’ve heard from my mysterious young man! A letter arrived last night. Big, bold, black writing. Rather scruffy paper though, postmarked Chelsea.

Dear Mrs Charterhouse (he writes)

Sorry to leave you to your own devices for so long after my promise (rash no doubt) of help, but the party went on rather longer than expected. How is the writing, is there any sign of improvement yet?

May I come to tea on Sunday, or will your husband eat me? Got up as a matador (that was what he was supposed to be, wasn
’t it?) he looked a bit frightening and I’m feeling frail. Please let me come, I promise I’ll behave; I can actually, if I try very hard. If you’re absolutely adamant not, ring me on Flaxman 8077, otherwise I’ll be there. I’m camping in Peter Steerforth’s house in Flood Street while he’s away in New York.

Yours, etc,

Barny Elliott

PS Get in a good supply of cig ash and we can have another
game.

Thank
God Algy’s still away, but Sunday tea — how odd. I think I’ll ask Perdita too; better still, get her to ‘drop in’ unexpected like. A têtê-à-tête might be overwhelming. Will he like the children? Hard to imagine him listening to
Jeremy
Fisher
, but one never knows.

A
letter from Algy; Diana’s ankle is improving and it’s snowing again. To
Evergreen
tonight with Tommy and Co. Will wear my pink chiffon, I think.

3
Cheyne Square, Chelsea — Sunday late, 8th January 1933

I
’m alone by the drawing-room fire with just the table lamp on. I can see the reflection of the flames flickering across the prim faces of the brass sphinxes on the fender. The curtains are drawn tight to keep out the fog, but it seeps in all the same and leaves a smoky haze across the room. The house is quite quiet and only muffled footsteps from the street outside break the silence.

And
my young man? Well, we dine tomorrow night, that’s all. Except I’ve never met anyone like him, yet I know I’ve seen those eyes before. He arrived late (of course). Perdita already ensconced. He carried a small bunch of freesias and was dressed most correctly, in a dark suit, but he still needed a shave. I was impressed by the suit, but felt the jacket to be a bit short in the arms. ‘You’ve noticed,’ he said (does he know
all
things about me?). ‘This suit is of respectable lineage, but belongs to my host. All my clothes disappeared in a train on the way to Kathmandu.’

‘
Oh,’ I said, rather inadequately I suppose, ‘what a bore for you.’

But
Per looked impressed. Peter Steerforth is, apparently, the son of a viscount. She smiled at him through her hair — someone the other night, I forget who, told her she had a look of Garbo and it’s been on her mind ever since — and said: ‘How frightful, my dear. Come and sit by me and have a muffin. Tell me, does Peter still have that perfectly adorable dog?’ And it went on like that for most of the time. Then Nanny brought the children down and Per went — children, she always says, exhaust her — and things were much better. Ann had brought
Jeremy
Fisher
with her, I knew she would, and Evie the singing top she had for Christmas.

‘
Do go, Mr Elliott, if you like,’ I said. ‘I’m afraid I’ve contracted to read to my daughters and don’t think I can back out now.’

‘
Don’t be absurd,’ he said. ‘I used to love those books. I’ll read if you like. People say my imitation of a frog in labour is quite marvellous.’ And he did, read, I mean. The children loved it — so did I, but kept wondering where I’d heard the voice before — and sat quite still all the way through; when he’d finished they shouted for more.

After
Nanny came to take them to bed, he said a bit abruptly, ‘I must go now. Will you dine tomorrow night?’ I said yes before I’d thought whether I could or not, and that’s how it will be; he calls for me at seven thirty.

This
room is cold and I must go to bed.

3
Cheyne Square, Chelsea — 10th January 1933

Cook
has been: ‘Don’t bother about tonight, Mrs Andrews. I’ll be dining out after all. We can keep the lamb cutlets for tomorrow.’

Cook
purses her lips: ‘What about the scallops then, Madam?’ she says.

But
I don’t care about the scallops, or about Ann’s throat. ‘I only hope it isn’t thrush, Madam,’ or about my fitting at the dress-maker. ‘I’ve had to re-do that seam, Mrs Charterhouse, can I see you at say two thirty?’ I can only think of walking through the silent City with Barny.

‘
Have you ever done it before?’ he asked. ‘It’s rather fun. Everyone’s gone home, you see, and there’s only you and the cats and the rats. I do it quite often.’ I said no, never, but I’d like to and so we went.

But
first we were conventional. We dined at the Ritz. ‘Why the Ritz?’ I asked, surprised. ‘I shouldn’t have thought it was your sort of place.’

‘
Well, you see, I’m doing a piece on financiers and I have this little arrangement with the head waiter. Also, one won’t meet anyone one knows.’

We
sat under a palm too near the violins; the food was too rich and the head waiter not as friendly as I’d been led to believe. Somehow it didn’t matter, though. We giggled a great deal and I told him about ghastly City dinners with ghastly City bores, and he told me about beastly newspaper editors, beastly deadlines and losing one’s luggage on the train to Kathmandu. We smoked incessantly, drank champagne like water and hardly ate a thing. It was when the orchestra had played the ‘Merry Widow’ waltz for the umpteenth time that he said we’d better go as the head waiter wanted our table. Would I like to dance at the Gargoyle or walk? I said walk, please. ‘Alright then,’ he said, ‘we will but first I’ve got to do some horse trading over the bill.’