Myrtle—2003

      I am sitting in the back room of Orchard House. I am always sitting in the back room waiting for something to happen. And when you sit, as I do, for hour after hour, you find yourself reminiscing. You cannot help it.You begin to wonder about how it all came to pass. The young look forward. The old look backward.

      I remember the child I once was, the child who visited Kew Gardens with Mother and brother Albert. I craned my small neck, looking at the red pagoda that rocked upwards, diminishing into the unremitting drabness of an oyster-grey sky.And I dreamed my dreams. All the way home, as the bus rumbled and coughed, and juddered and spluttered, through London traffic, I watched a fly fling itself against a sooty pane of glass. Turning my head, I could see Albert, beautiful Albert, with his piercing ice-blue eyes, sensuous red mouth, and dark curls. And I could see my mother, her brown hair neatly crimped, her own prim mouth, bright with deep pink lipstick, her round cinnamon eyes, dancing with obvious delight. Their heads were touching, mother and son, their voices low and intimate, washed into one another. Close as conspirators they were, oblivious of me, gazing at them from across the aisle. So I turned away, back to the fly buzzing and battering itself against the glass, its frenzy futile. I imagined smashing that pane of glass with a closed fist, hearing it shatter. I pictured the fly bursting out into the infinite space, and whirring away, hardly daring to believe its luck.

      I recall how years later, shortly after the war, my gentle giant of a father died. His disease-ridden heart, the organ that had prevented him fighting for his country and earned him a coward’s feather, finally gave out in peacetime. It seized up and froze before a plate of pink blancmange. As the breath trickled out of him he keeled over, right into the cold, gelatinous pinkness of it, a single bubble of breath breaking the surface seconds after. I remember my dismay looking on, knowing I had lost my only ally in the gloomy red-brick house in Ealing.

      And I recollect my first sight of you, Ralph—dark, tall and dashing, with alert steely-blue eyes, clasping a camera before you.You were covering an amateur show for the local rag, and had come to photograph its parochial stars. I was numbered among them. Gwendolen in Oscar Wilde’s The Importance of Being Earnest. At best, my performance could be described as lacklustre; at worst, wooden. But you, it appeared, had seen a different play altogether, as you posed me for your photographs, your face so animated, those beguiling eyes of yours sparkling. Next to your striking looks, it was the enthusiasm that captured and held me. It was as if there was nothing you couldn’t do with it. Take a shabby little amateur production in a village hall, with threadbare costumes and tatty scenery, and transform it into a glittering spectacle, showcasing the astonishing talent that lay at the heart of a thriving community. Or, perhaps, take a dull British girl destined for banal suburbia and transform her into a shimmering princess?

      ‘What a superb show! I don’t know when I’ve laughed so much. And you, well, you were wonderful Miss Lambert, entrancing. I brought Lucy, my sister, along too.And she loved your performance.’

      That’s what you said to me, as you pushed a strand of hair back from my face and, with a finger under my chin, adjusted the angle of my profile. You were wonderful. I knew I wasn’t. Hadn’t the director, Ron Fowler, spent eight weeks informing me of the fact? And all the while his invective boomed out, those expressive fingers of his would spear back his leonine mane, and his fleshy cheeks would colour plum-red.

      ‘Do lighten your delivery,Myrtle.This is Wilde at his finest,witty, effervescent repartee. It’s a comedy, darling, not a wake. Must you keep clinging onto the furniture, lovey? Anyone would think you were on the Titanic, hanging on for dear life, seconds before the bloody thing went down. Sweetheart, do pick up your cues a bit more promptly, you’re slowing down the pace to a deathly crawl. Must you keep folding your arms, darling? You look like the genie from Aladdin, not the alluring Gwendolen Fairfax.’

      They just kept coming, and the worst of it was knowing the comments were completely justified. I had no talent: my foray into amateur theatre only served to confirm what I had always suspected. I did not have the fascination of the sea about me, no glittering treasure lying undiscovered many fathoms down. It was disheartening to realise the truth. Oh Ralph, I just wanted to shine for a time, the way Albert did, for Mother to be just a little in awe of me…as if…as if I really was an interesting person. Is that too much to ask?

      You did that. Looking back, I think something in your exuberance answered to my reticence. I was self-contained, you were abandoned. Opposites attract, isn’t that what they say? But I knew, almost immediately I knew. As I sat there wishing I was not quite so tall, that my hair would not fall so stubbornly straight, that I could instil some mysterious depths into my eyes, like Rita Hayworth or Bette Davis, and your camera clicked and flashed, I knew. You were my ticket out of there, away from Mother and the ever-present reprobation in those grim button eyes of hers, away from Albert, the brother, the boy, the son and heir, who had been given so many gifts that there were none left over for me. And away from the gloomy corners of the red-brick house, and the grey that I felt my soul was steeped in.

      I sensed you were attracted to me that first meeting. It was quite enough to be going on with. Had director Ron only known it, I followed my dismal debut as Gwendolen Fairfax with a breathtaking improvisation of Myrtle Lambert, the woman every man wants by his side, his perfect helpmeet, the accomplished hostess, the contented housewife, the adoring lover. I gave it everything I had, because, you see—and here, believe me I am not exaggerating—my future relied upon it. And when you didn’t ask for your money back, but seemed entirely swept away by the illusion,indeed,just kept following curtain-call with curtain-call, I knew I had a triumph on my hands. Maybe not worthy of the Oscar which all Hollywood actresses hanker after, but then who wanted some old statue gathering dust on their shelf when instead they could have handsome, dynamic Ralph Safford for their very own. And more, a life as far away from dreary Britain as it was possible to get, thrown in with the bargain.

      So