Last Act Read online

  Jane Aiken Hodge

  LAST ACT

  For Alan

  Contents

  Chapter 1

  Chapter 2

  Chapter 3

  Chapter 4

  Chapter 5

  Chapter 6

  Chapter 7

  Chapter 8

  Chapter 9

  Chapter 10

  Chapter 11

  Chapter 12

  Chapter 13

  Chapter 14

  Chapter 15

  Chapter 16

  Chapter 17

  A Note on the Author

  1

  “How long does he say?” asked Anne Paget.

  The doctor looked down at the letter on his desk, and then straight at her for the first time. “Six months; something like that? If he’d only had the X rays when he saw you. These wretched delays … What with the post and the technicians’ strike. That’s why he wants to do the exploratory operation the minute he gets back. If you’ll just agree to that we’ll have a better idea. X rays don’t necessarily tell the whole story. And these—well, you know how things have been with this strike on. It’s a miracle we got them done at all.”

  “You mean.” She grasped at it. “There’s some doubt? They’re not clear?”

  “Clear enough, I’m afraid. With the other symptoms. That’s why I sent you straight to the top. It’s a pity about that conference he’s had to go to, but just another week’s delay … He’s still the best man.” He looked back at the letter on his desk. “He says, after the operation we’ll know where we stand.”

  “And it might cure me?” She asked the straight, vital question.

  “He doesn’t say that. Oh, it might, I suppose. Miracles do happen, but I most certainly would not feel justified in suggesting … in holding out hopes …”

  “I thought not. It might just give me a little longer?” She could not take her eyes off the letter on his desk, her death warrant.

  Even on this, he was not prepared to commit himself. “It might. But it’s been too long already. You should have come to us sooner.”

  She nearly screamed at him, “But I did, and you said it was ‘nerves’.” What was the use? He had been busy. He was always busy. Even now, facing death across his desk, she was aware of the queue in the waiting room outside.

  He was writing. A prescription. More tranquillisers? “Some pain-killers for you.” He handed it to her. “You’ll need them, I’m afraid. I do suggest that you reconsider and have the operation. Consult your husband, your family … Ring when you’ve made up your mind, and we’ll put things in train right away. He’ll be back on Monday week. You shouldn’t leave it longer.” He was folding up the consultant’s letter, putting it neatly in her file. The interview was over.

  She went on sitting there for a moment, trying to take it in. Surely there was something more that she should ask? That he should say?

  Apparently not. He rose courteously to his feet, and as he did so, pushed her folder to one side and picked up the next patient’s notes. “I’m sorry,” he said.

  “Not nearly so sorry as I am.” Anger got her to the door and out through the crowded waiting room into a street where the sun still shone. She would not ring up. Why should she expose herself once more to those cold, impersonal hands? For dying, six months were enough. Too much.

  She passed the building where she worked, and headed blindly for the Green, quiet at this time of day, with children at school and dogs walked for the morning. An empty bench with a view of trees. One of them an elm: dying. Talk to your husband. The unconscious irony of it had left her speechless. But why should this doctor have known? It must be pages back in his files. Another tired man, in another town, had given her all those tranquillisers and sleeping pills after Robin crashed the car, killing himself and the unknown girl with him. She had wanted to die then: Robin gone; her faith in him gone; everything gone. She had been angry with the doctor for giving her those tempting, lethal pills; she had thrown them at last into the river and made her sleepless, automaton’s way through the scandal and misery of the inquest and newspaper sensation. “Young Pianist in Death Riddle” had been one of the headlines; “Date with Death” another that seemed grimly appropriate now. Robin and the girl must have been blind drunk, according to the official figures. Robin who never drank because it made his hands shake on the keys.

  And the girl—four months pregnant,—had never been identified: an illegal immigrant, the police thought; a musician, perhaps, encountered on the concert tour Robin had made alone because of Anne’s pupils. He had not wanted her to take them, any more than he had been prepared to let her go on with her own brilliantly promising career after they married. The career, in the first glow of the honeymoon, she had sacrified almost gladly. How could she tour with Glyndebourne or Kent Opera parts when Robin needed her at home to protect his practice from intrusions? But the pupils, presenting themselves a year later, had been something else. By then, Robin had managed to alienate all her old friends. She must be all his, he had said, and said it again when she wanted to come off the pill. Lonely then, and a little frightened, she had insisted on taking the pupils when they offered themselves. They had quarrelled about it, seriously, for the first time, and he had gone on the German tour without her. So—all her fault? The drink; the girl; the death? If only she had gone on that tour—of course that was when the affair had begun. No. She looked down at her ringless engagement finger. It had begun long before. When she sang Che faro from Gluck’s Orpheus at the summer concert and met the brilliant young pianist making his own debut with a taxing Beethoven sonata. Brilliant, a genius, Robin had a genius’ total self-absorption. Fathoms deep in first love, she had ignored the danger signals, married in haste and only gradually begun to see how completely she had been taken over.

  All past. All done with and best forgotten. She rose slowly to her feet, aware that the sun had gone in and she was shivering. As if it mattered—I have caught an everlasting cold. She moved instinctively towards the safety of her bed-sitter. With Robin’s death, everything had gone; all the possessions she had lovingly collected for their first home, the convenient cottage so handy for London. All sold, swallowed in the great morass of Robin’s debts and unpaid tax. Two people might or might not live more cheaply than one. Two households most certainly could not.

  And with all the rest, unbelievably worst of all, her voice had gone. And so—because of that? because of the scandal?—had the pupils. In a way, it had been liberating. That was when she had packed her old college suitcase with what was incontrovertibly hers, taken off her wedding ring and moved to London, to a bleak hostel, to the blessed anonymity of her maiden style, Miss Paget, and at last to a job. Lucky to get it, they had said at the employment exchange. Arts graduates were two a penny, and her singing experience useless now her voice was gone. In the end, her small savings exhausted, she had preferred the wretched job in the back-street plastic assembly works to the grudging dole allowed to a widow who had been self-employed. Sweated labour, and the smell of it never left you, but by working all the overtime she could, she had managed the move to the glorious privacy of a bed-sitter.

  Her key in the front door lock, she remembered what palatial luxury it had seemed. Still did. Glancing at the hall table where residents’ mail was left, she was surprised to find two letters for her. One a buff envelope. Not more taxes? Send my demand to the graveyard. Take it out of my death benefit if you can. So far, she had not cried. Now, she could feel hysteria, a coil of snakes in her chest, rising, rising …

  Upstairs, quick. The other key: her own room. The door slammed behind her. Over to the window; the high view of suburban gardens; trees in early leaf; a prunus flowering. She swallowed with an effort, then stood still, making herself do the
breathing exercises Carl Meyer had taught her. Carl. Her mind was steadying. She had a friend. Had had a friend? Dear Carl, so furious when she gave up her singing career that he had actually come to the house and made a scene with Robin. Or tried to make a scene. Robin did not indulge in scenes, he sulked. She had begged Carl to go, and he had gone.

  She had not heard from him since. Not a word, even, when Robin’s death made headlines. So—not a friend? But memory of him was warming, just the same, helped to hold down that angry knot of hysteria in her breast. Carl, an untidy contrast to Robin’s careful elegance; unpressed trousers, shaggy hair, hands and teeth stained from his perpetual cigars. If he was here, she might almost tell him that she was dying.

  Dying. She took ten more deep breaths and moved across the room to plug in her electric kettle. Just enough water for a cup of instant coffee, and she needed it. What does one do about dying? It is time that I made my will. With all my worldly goods I thee endow. She looked round the shabby room and loved it, suddenly. The Japanese print she had bought at college; the blue vase with the chip at the back where it could not be seen.

  The kettle boiled and she made the coffee, black, strong and milkless. Sipping it, she picked up the letters, which had been forwarded from the old address. Now she looked at it properly, the buff envelope was the wrong shape for a tax demand. The postmark: Lytham St Anne’s. She had forgotten all about those ten premium bonds. Twenty-five pounds, perhaps? But the form said it was a thousand. She gazed at it blankly. A thousand pounds. Now I can die in some comfort. She opened the other letter, noticing for the first time the flimsy, foreign-looking paper and unusual stamps.

  Typed. Two pages. “My dearest Anne.” Dearest? She turned to the second page and saw the scrawled black signature: “As always, Carl.” And, below, neatly typed by some efficient secretarial hand, “Carl Meyer, Director.”

  Director? Of what, dear, shaggy Carl? She sat back, relaxed for the first time, actually tasted the strong coffee, and read the letter:

  “My dearest Anne,

  “I only heard the other day. What can I say? How can I bear not to have been there for you, in so much trouble? What must you have thought of me? What a selfish brute I am to worry about that, but I do.

  “I also know that you will have been very brave, perhaps too brave for yourself. I do not like what I hear, and we will not talk about it, ever, if you do not wish to, but I hope you are singing again. Your poet Milton said something about a talent that must not be hidden. Yours is one of those, and you know it. You will be happier, dear Anne, if you use it. But it will be difficult, I know, for you to get back into things, and that is why I dare make my proposition.

  “I am sure you will have read about the lost Beethoven opera that was found here last year. It has fallen to my country to have the honour of mounting the first production of Regulus in our new opera house, which is to be opened when the international peace conference is held here next month. What could be more fitting? Beethoven wrote Regulus, as I am sure you know, for performance at the 1814 Congress of Vienna. When Napoleon escaped from Elba the project was abandoned and the score lost. It is magnificent, Anne. It is Beethoven, the master, at his strongest and, although it is a tragedy, at his happiest. It is a profound statement of the value of the individual. I find it more moving, even, than Fidelio. What more can I say?”

  She turned the page. “Dear Anne,” the letter went on, “if I am boring on about this, it is with a purpose. I have the infinite happiness of acting as producer/director. We are keeping our costs down as much as we can, for various reasons. But it should be a great event, just the same. And there is a part in it just right for your extraordinary voice. Marcus, page to Regulus. Do you know your Horace, English barbarian? Or shall I tell you the story? I wish I could be with you, over a bottle of wine at Luigi’s, to tell it properly and see those big brown eyes of yours fill with tears at the ending. Regulus was a Roman general, ignorant Englishwoman, who fought against the Carthaginians in the first Punic war, was captured, held prisoner for some years and finally sent back to Rome on parole to urge an ignominious peace. Instead, he warned the Romans roundly of the dangers they faced from Carthage, then insisted on keeping his word and returning to Carthage, to face torture and death. Quite a story?

  “And Marcus, his page, a character supplied by the librettist, goes back too, although he has fallen in love with Regulus’ daughter. Not a huge part; but vital. His parting duet with the girl, Livia, is only matched by his last one with Regulus. I wish I could offer you the part itself, dear Anne, but that goes to one of our own Lissenberg singers, who will do it well. The only understudy we have found is a disaster, in voice, looks and manner. She has a contract, unfortunately, but I am sure, if you come, I can find some means of getting rid of her. Of course I thought of you in the first place, but thought you—unavailable. We were talking of it the other day and someone mentioned your husband’s tragic death. So, I am writing to you, to urge you, to beg you to come. It is the chance of a new start for you, and of a change, both of which I think you must need. The pay will be small, I fear, and I must warn you that Lissenberg is even more expensive than Switzerland, but you will be housed and fed in the singers’ hostel, adjacent to the opera house itself.

  “It is only three weeks to the opening night. The whole of Europe will be there. If anything should happen to Alix, who sings Marcus, we would be a laughing-stock. Imagine the disgrace to Lissenberg, the ill omen for this important conference and—to be selfish—the effect on my career. It is not a long part. I know how fast you learn. I promise you could do it. Dear Anne, telephone me, any night, between six and seven, reverse the charges. I’ll pay. Just say you will come. I need you.” And then, the familiar, scrawled, “Carl.”

  The letter fell to the floor. The first tears were streaming down her cheeks. Carl needed her. Offered her the chance she needed. And—she could not help him, could not take it. The chance, of course, was neither here nor there. In six months she would be dead, beyond all chances. But—what a chance it was. Even in the shocked aftermath of Robin’s death she had been aware of the furore when Beethoven’s forgotten opera was found. And now it was to be produced in connection with the great international peace conference. At the new opera house in Lissenberg. She had forgotten Carl was born there. She now remembered him describing it; a tiny country, somewhere in central Europe. Dear Carl. Even to understudy on such an occasion would be a chance indeed. But there was more than that. There was something in Carl’s letter; a note almost of desperation. “If anything should happen to Alix.” Why should anything happen to Alix? Of course, things did happen; sore throats; infectious diseases; motor accidents. The snakes were writhing in her breast again. She made herself get up and move over to the open window to do her breathing exercises. Ten times, deep and slow, as Carl always made her begin her lesson, and then the arpeggios.

  She was singing them. The notes rang out, round and true, and, outside a blackbird stopped singing. She was shaking. With shock—with joy—with excitement. One more great, delicious breath of spring air and she was fully launched into Che faro. I have lost my Euridice … They had sung it in English at her school, where she caused a sensation as Orpheus, but the Italian came out, as always, rounder, more satisfying. When she had finished she stood for a while, leaning against the window frame, breathing quietly, taking in the full miracle of it.

  A knock at the door roused her. Opening it, she was confronted by fat Mrs Briggs who owned the house. “I’m sorry I’m sure to have to speak,” said Mrs Briggs, “but I did say, when you moved in, Miss Paget, no loud gramophone or radio in the daytime. You know Briggs and I work at home.”

  “I’m sorry. I quite forgot.”

  But Mrs Briggs was darting sharp, suspicious glances round the room. “I don’t understand,” she said. “We quite thought, Briggs and I, it was that Kathleen Ferrier on a record we didn’t know. ‘Pity to turn it off, really,’ Mr Briggs said. Quite a connosser he is, in his quiet wa
y. But rules is rules. Only”—she came to the point,—“Where have you got the gramophone?”

  “I’m sorry,” said Anne meekly once again. “It was me. I won’t do it again.”

  “Christ almighty!” said Mrs Briggs.

  Three weeks from six months leaves something like a hundred and sixty days. Suddenly hungry, Anne opened a tin of sardines and ate them, prowling around the room, thinking, calculating … The doctor had not been definite. Say four months then, to be on the safe side. It still left a hundred days. The season at Lissenberg was to be short, she was sure, a couple of weeks or so. What exactly had the doctor said? Pain increasing towards the end. Well, of course; it was increasing already. Except, oddly enough, that she had hardly felt it since she opened the two letters. Reminded of them, she filled in the premium bond form, put it into its envelope and hurried down to catch the afternoon post at the box on the corner. A thousand pounds. It had been her annual income once, before Robin persuaded her to sell her inherited investments. Now, it should last her very pleasantly for six months, however high the cost of living in Lissenberg.

  Was she really planning to go? She seemed to be. Was she mad? Very likely. Suppose she spent all her money and then took more than six months to die? Well, she would just have to cross that bridge, like all the others, when she came to it. She walked the two long blocks to the plastics factory to give in her notice. It was unpleasant, but easier than she had expected. Would dying perhaps be the same?

  She went on to the public library, to look for an atlas. “Liss … Lissatinning … Lisselton …” There it was: “Lissenberg. Page 34.” Central Europe. A physical map, she was glad to see, with green valleys and brown mountains, and Lissenberg, when she found it at last, a green patch fringed with brown, with the town of Lissenberg marked, and the river Liss flowing west through the valley to join the Rhine before it plunged into Lake Constance. How large? She measured with a thumb and decided the whole country must be something like ten miles by eight. Smaller than London. Extraordinary.