Carnforth's Creation (21 page)

So – another couple of weeks; more phone calls from Eleanor; and always ‘yes’ from him. By then Roy had known he wanted her; had tried to pretend otherwise (without fooling himself), and had fallen back on what Paul had half-jokingly said about wanting to make Eleanor feel guilty. But Roy reckoned he’d have got in deep with her, whatever Paul had said.

Occasionally he sensed something too deliberate about her eagerness to go on seeing him, but this didn’t affect the buzz he got from simply being with her. In no time she’d had him thinking,
yes
, she really wants to know how I got into music; what it means to me. Not easy though to explain the impact of
Heartbreak
Hotel
to someone who could only recall two Elvis titles:
Blue
Suede
Shoes
and
Hound
Dog.
The names had stuck in her mind … never having seen a blue suede shoe, but having come across plenty of hounds. As for Little Richard, Chuck Berry, Eddie Cochran … not even names to her. The fag end of the big bands was all she remembered of the golden age of pop. ‘Oh you know, a long line of saxophone players looking like penguins.’ His own American inspired teen-dream fantasy – gum-chewing, coke-sipping, blue-jean jiving kids – had passed her by
without
a trace. Just some square dancing once at a charity ball.

Another problem. Working class to her meant blood and guts on the dole before the Welfare State. She’d seen a few films like
Saturday
Night
and
Sunday
Morning.
‘Did you belong to a gang, Roy?’ ‘Chains and razor blades in
Loughton
, Essex? Bored out of our skulls mostly. Nina and Frederick must’ve been thinking of my street when they wrote
Little
Boxes
.’ ‘Nina and Who?’ ‘Used to imagine Elvis’s caddie sliding round the corner; P. J. Proby leaping from a phone-box, trousers splitting.’ ‘P. J. Who?’

So he’d made her laugh instead and she’d repaid the compliment. Nanny stories, hockey stories, little rich girl yarns: ‘When Granny lost her diamond brooch, she’d just planted two hundred tulip bulbs. We found it in the one hundred and eightieth hole.’ A different world – ski-ing, ponies, hunt balls …

‘I once played at one. Very
Tatler
and
Queen
setting. Someone nicked my very first suede jacket. The Master of the outfit asked if I was “quaite suah” I’d brought it with me. Wouldn’t believe how much it cost either. It turned up later in beautiful shape … a plateful of trifle in one pocket and Russian salad in the other.’

She’d been horrified. What an inexcusable thing to do. She
often described trivial things like being kept waiting in a restaurant, as ghastly, frightful, etcetera. If an uncle was dying, it was a pity, tough, or some equally low-key word. She laughed when he mentioned this. ‘Can’t be any odder than calling people cats, and money bread.’ Her clothes were elegant but simple. She had such a clear idea of how
everything
ought to be; very formal in some ways, but she still came out with plenty of embarrassingly direct remarks. ‘What’s it like, using your body to excite them?’ ‘Do you practice in front of a mirror?’ He’d never met anyone faintly like her.

In December he had done his first live appearance since the tour: singing at places like the Marquee, the Lyceum and the Country Club, as well as various colleges around London. A long time till July and America, and, since he had refused to consider another British tour, Exodus wanted him to keep his stage act going in the meantime. Without telling him, Eleanor had gone to one of these gigs. Till then he’d managed to keep part of himself detached. But this initiative of hers had changed that, coming, as it had, just when he had begun to feel he was either going to have to see less of her or force things forward.

When she told him she’d been to hear him sing, she seemed nervous; for once talked too much – not a lot about his act – mostly about herself, her childhood, how she’d sometimes dreamed of being something exciting: an actress, opera singer, member of Parliament. She laughed at herself without bitterness; it had been obvious she would end up exactly as she was.

That evening was the first on which she cooked dinner for him, and she chattered while boiling water for French beans (already prepared) and heating chicken in a cream and wine sauce (also left ready on the sideboard). He detected
self-consciousness
, something contrived, but wasn’t worried – not then, anyway. She looked stunning, moving about in that sparkling kitchen, her hair loose, soft strands swaying across her forehead. His throat felt tight. What’s her game? he asked himself; but the question didn’t stick. Why couldn’t
she just fancy him? His heart raced. This is it; you’re going to make it with her; you’ll eat, digest a bit; then goodbye once and for all to niggling conversations. She would come to him; her face white and swooning; not a poke, a lay, a screw. He realized she’d been saying something.

‘I don’t believe you heard a word,’ she laughed, chopping green peppers. ‘I was asking about America. If you’d buy some amazing house there. The sort of place Selznick lived in … Isn’t that what pop stars do?’

A feeling in his stomach like the drop of a high-speed elevator. ‘Yeah, and a mink bleeding cover on every bog seat.’

‘But you ought to enjoy your money; it’s terrible the way the rich don’t spend.’ Her eyes wide with concern.

‘I’ll have a guitar-shaped pool, with flower-beds round it like notes of music …’

She waved an impatient hand. ‘Why be inhibited? If that’s what you want, do it.’

He knew he should ignore this, but didn’t know how. If she’d got his taste
that
scrambled, what else had she
misunderstood
?

In the dining room, the polite sound of silver on bone china. At last Eleanor said quietly, ‘When I was eighteen, nineteen, I used to be taken out by quite a few young men.’ Delicate sip of wine. ‘And what I remember best … or worst, was the drive home after dinner in some restaurant. To kiss or not to kiss? Remember? And if not to – a sullen sulky face speeding off into the night … made a fool of, never ask her again, bitch, cow …’

‘You never invited it?’

‘Possibly.’ She smiled disarmingly. ‘Anyway, I’m
grown-up
now. No invitation unless I’m giving a party.’

Relief at first, great gusts of it; and inside him pleasure, the bar of an electric fire beginning to glow. Amazing that he’d let a few words upset him. Got it bad; no doubt of that. He looked up from his green salad and gazed at her:
embroidered
cravat, taffeta shirt, understated chic that went well with calm deep eyes. Something escaped him, however
hard he looked. It no longer upset him to think she had probably seen this day coming for weeks. If she was using him against boredom, against Paul, against anything else … why complain? Perhaps she still thought she could, go through with it as a mental game, but she’d soon know better. When it came down to flesh and blood facts, no clever stuff would keep him at a distance. Suddenly he didn’t know how he was going to stay sitting there, chewing his chicken. Then the sodding phone started up.

When she came back from answering, he
knew
she was going to cry off.

‘That was my mother.’ Then a big splurge about how ‘Mummy and Daddy’ were going through a sticky patch, like a couple of seagulls in an oil slick. She looked disappointed; give her that.

‘I’m going to have to see her.’

‘Like
now
?’ Eleanor nodded. ‘She sure picks her
moments
.’

‘Could you drive me?’

‘My charges are going up.’ He sounded bitter, and wasn’t sorry. What the hell could be up with ‘Mummy’ that couldn’t wait till morning? Then as if she’d read his mind, she told him she couldn’t face letting him think she was standing him up without good reason; and, though it embarrassed her, started into this amazing ‘sex in high places’ saga. How ‘Daddy’ had this married piece half his age, and signed cheques to keep her husband sweet. How everything had been fine till hubby wanted to marry another bird and claimed his first marriage had been wrecked by old man Herrick’s money. And how after that Elly’s dad had got out nice and friendly, by handing out redundancy pay. But being the proper gent he was, he’d told Lady H. Couldn’t have her hearing from anyone else, though to Roy the odds had looked stacked against that. The husband wouldn’t want his new woman to know he’d rented out his wife, and presumably
she
wouldn’t want to shout about it either.

When Eleanor said her mum was ‘very cut up’, Roy saw her point.

‘She’s talking about divorce, judicial separation and God knows what.’

Which Roy didn’t need telling wouldn’t do much for anyone in politics.

‘Think your mum’ll cool off?’

‘She always has before. But I’ve still got to see her.’ A pause. ‘In fact it’s not as squalid as it sounds … I mean it’s much worse when rich men squander a single girl’s best years. Daddy probably thought he’d got the one set-up which
couldn’t
hurt anybody.’

‘I’m no heavy moralist.’

She gazed back at him. ‘I don’t think I can be either … I’m still very fond of him.’ After pouring coffee, she added, ‘The mad thing is how I used to see it all from Mummy’s point of view. As if she
had
to feel whatever convention said she should.’

‘Lot o’ marriages like that. One hops over the wall and the other locks herself in the empty cell … Course it could be the bloke.’

He’d not thought he’d said anything special, but she looked at him as though
she
certainly reckoned he had. Then she apologised for weighing in with ‘private’ things.

‘And who isn’t conventional?’ he asked gently.

When Eleanor came down from her mother’s flat in Eaton Square, after two harrowing but productive hours, she was smitten to see Roy still waiting in his car – though she’d been at pains to beg him to go home if she wasn’t down by a quarter to eleven. As he looked up, she recognized familiar signs of mistrust. An awful class thing, perhaps; but he made her think of a poor street boy given something precious by a smart lady, then wondering if he could really keep it. Even when finding his sensitivity wearing, it came as a revelation after Paul’s impenetrable charm.

Leaving Eaton Square, a policeman on a motorbike flagged them down and tapped peremptorily on Roy’s
window
. Before a word was spoken, Eleanor knew that Roy would be desperate to put the man in his place; partly to impress her; partly because it was the sort of thing that would
be sure to matter to him. As ill-luck would have it they weren’t in Roy’s old Bentley, but in his swanky new A. C. Cobra. As he pressed the button to lower the window, she was tempted to say, ‘Leave this to me; you weren’t speeding or doing anything wrong.’ But she didn’t.

‘Nice car, sir. Any proof of ownership? Log book,
insurance
?’

After various remarks of hers about the camp appearance of pop stars’ clothing, Roy had taken to wearing ‘poor boy’ gear: patched jeans and sweatshirts. Clothes worth a few shillings, a car worth ten thousand pounds.

‘Why’d’you stop me?’ Roy’s voice almost a snarl.

‘Lot of missing cars in this league, sir.’

‘You accusing me of anything, mate?’

The policeman (not much older than Roy) had adopted the weary tolerance of a man used to dealing with idiots. ‘Just asking if I could take a look at your log book, sir.’

‘It’s at home.’

‘Which is where, sir?’

‘This is a free country.’

‘Driving licence at home too, sir?’

‘That’s right.’

When Roy refused to give his address, Eleanor gave it for him. The policeman’s manner changed the moment he heard her voice. Roy reacted badly. Eager to end it, Eleanor produced
her
driving licence. The policeman took a look, and returned it rapidly.

‘Sorry about that, Lady Carnforth. Got to keep our eyes open. Some very pricey cars been finding their way to the Continent recently.’

Perhaps Roy looked devastated because she had taken control, perhaps because he hadn’t been recognized.

Driving away, his resentment filled the car like a
poisonous
gas. Eleanor smiled. ‘Think how much more you earn than people like that.’ Silence while the gas thinned.

‘Why not say it?’ They had stopped outside the flat.

‘You mean you were a clot?’ Without thinking, she had taken his hand. ‘What does it matter?’

She thought he would argue but was wrong, just a slight shrug and a smile of sorts. Then, still in the car, he told her about going to court when only ten for placing pennies on a railway line. ‘Just to see what happened to them.’ He had been chased, caught, taken home by the police. Trespassing on railway property, ‘large’ objects placed on the track. His mother had wept, father shouted. Then in a borrowed suit in court. A woman magistrate in tweeds and pearls: ‘What you did was very stupid and dangerous …’ Later, in front of the class: ‘Where were you this morning, Roy?’ ‘Nowhere special, miss.’ ‘Children, Roy Flannery was in court …’

‘Thirteen rotten years later, I’m still banging on. Didn’t even have me nails pulled off.’

‘It must have been awful,’ she murmured, meaning it.

A slightly foggy night; few lights in Wilton Crescent. Eleanor later remembered thinking how much younger his face looked than his eyes. He glanced sideways. A surprised expression, as if she had just got into the car.

‘Something pretty dumb’s happened to me,’ he muttered, looking bewildered. Suddenly he leaned across and kissed her hard on the lips. Not in a car, she thought distractedly, trying to push him away. His kiss became gentler and she could feel his body trembling. To be really wanted, she thought lightheadedly. She might have lived all her life and never known what it was like.

‘We shouldn’t,’ she tried; but, even to herself, her voice sounded unconvinced. Somewhere during the kiss she joined in; and couldn’t stop. They came apart rather dazed, and she said quite formally, ‘Perhaps you should come in.’