Forty-three“I think a drink is called for, don’t you, dear?” Ivy said as soon as they came into her small sitting room. Stephen’s first impression was that the tiny apartment stank - an unpleasant combination of damp and urine. The unattractive and ill-matching furniture reflected the taste of a mean landlord rather than an incompetent homemaker - a job lot from a junk shop, the upholstery barely hygienic, everything about twenty years old, Stephen thought and the 1940’s was not a good decade for interior design he thought. It was either trying too hard to be Fascist with its brutalised art deco or it got lost trying just as hard not to look like it. Age had withered everything here including the tenant. Ivy had done very little to add her personality to the place beyond littering it with her detritus - empty bottles, plates with the fossilised remains of meals, improbably large greying undergarments in piles on the floor and, in multitudes, framed black and white theatrical photographs from the 1920s and 30s - hanging on the wall or standing on every flat space; Stephen assumed that Ivy did not realize the value of the pewter art deco frames. Many of the photographs had the elaborate signatures of long forgotten variety artists or provincial matinee idols. One face reoccurred in a number of the pictures - a platinum blond woman in full stage make-up. In one, she presented her coyly dimpled smile through a misty gauze to the camera. In another she was laughing with a frozen pose of stagey artificiality. In each she represented the eternally worldly woman, a man’s woman, an idealised barmaid, milkmaid, tart - man’s real best friend. Draped either in white fox fur, shimmering chiffon or body clinging satin, she was unmistakably Ivy Cooper.
“I was a bit of alright then, wasn’t I? That was a lovely dress. Pink lace, hand made, from Belgium. Oh well! The Lord giveth and the Lord taketh away - the mean old sod!”
They sat down in the two old armchairs with their tumblers of whisky and Stephen offered her a cigarette.
“Thanks, love, I’m dying for one. They’re the only pleasures an old bird like me’s got left - fags and booze. Though I can still appreciate a good-looking young man like you even though they don’t come my way very much any more. But don’t worry, darling, I only look these days, Heaven help me!”
Stephen was holding the whisky to his nose to lessen the room’s odour of decay. As he sat back in the chair, his body began to itch and he tried to ignore the probable cause.
“I thought you might be one of those solicitors at first. You know the ones who come from nowhere to tell you you’ve inherited a fortune from a relation you didn’t know you had. Not that you look very like a solicitor with your dandy looks and your lovely long hair! And I don’t suppose there’ll be any money from Austin - that was a bad penny if ever there was one.”
“That’s what I want to find out.”
“What? If he had any money?”
“No, I meant him being a bad penny as you call him.”
“So you want all the sordid details? It’s a dirty job digging around in the past, dear. You dig up some pretty rotten things - and you might put your hand on something really nasty like my old man Austin. “
She took another drink and settled into her chair pulling at her skirt that had stretched tight over her thighs. Involuntarily, Stephen noticed the large knotted garters of grimy elastic that held up her stockings.
“Why did you marry him?” he asked averting his gaze to his whiskey.
“It’s a long story, dear, but the main reason was that he was lovely looking. Another things was he had a way with him. His eyes stripped the clothes off your back the moment you walked into the room. He knew what women wanted, you know, in the bedroom and he let you know that the moment he met you. I was successful, pretty attractive as you can see, and I could have had anyone I wanted - and that’s mostly what I did! I had all of them, dear, don’t you worry! But, Austin, he was a beast, a devil really but God was he a lovely man!”
She laughed coarsely at the memory. There was no doubt about her thoughts as she gulped her drink.
“I loved him, dear. It’s a simple as that. I made a bloody fool of myself and then he left me - the bastard.”
“Did he leave you for Emilia Jeffries?”
“So you know about her, do you?”
“Yes, we’ve met.”
“Jesus God! You’re serious about all this aren’t you! Emilia Jeffries! Posh little Miss Jeffries. Yes, he left me for her. She was a pretty little thing, I’ll admit that. She doted on him, little fool that she was. She never stopped chasing him even after I warned her about him. Told her what he was like, about his little habits if you know what I mean. But she would hear none of it - all she could see were the stars. Her ears were full of heavenly choirs but he was made of earthier stuff, I can tell you. Actually, when he was gone, I missed him. We saw eye to eye, you see. We knew that this is a rum old World and that there aren’t any pots of gold at the end of any rainbows. I don’t think Emilia saw that.”
“She told me that they became lovers when he was still living at Frampton and that they split up in London. She didn’t tell me about you though.” Stephen could feel the story was spinning out of control again.
“I bet she didn’t! I bet she didn’t tell you one half of the truth either. Cunning little vixen! They split up all right but that wasn’t the end of it. Not by a long chalk. Yes they were lovers in the good old days. The days of yore! When they could both afford to be all lardy-da But Austin, the dirty little bugger, messed things up didn’t he? Got chucked out of the stately pile and ended up with nothing. He’d been getting up to a bit of ow’s yer father with his mother as far as I could tell – can you believe that!. Emilia and he fell out but he carried on falling. All the way. That’s where I came in. Enter a showgirl!”
“What do you mean?”
“Well, it was quite straight forward. I was doing very nicely thank you. I was doing a musical in the West End; I forget which one, probably something by Ivor Novello, that old poof. I was on top of the World, topped up with champagne and looking for fun. I walked right into him. Down and out, dirty, ragged with nowhere to go but he was still something. He had what it takes. You could say that I saw his potential and couldn’t resist it!”
“So what happened?”
“Come on, love! I bedded him - after scrubbing him up a bit first! And then I wedded him! We spent loads of money, partied a lot, drank a lot and then little Miss Perfect came back on the scene and he buggered off. There you have it. Big-hearted Ivy lost her boy. ”
She took another swig of whisky gulping it noisily.
“Where did they go?”
“Oh, I don’t know. Abroad somewhere I heard. I never found out - I didn’t much care to be honest. There were plenty more fish in the sea so I wasn’t going to waste my time with the ones that got away. No, Austin and Emilia went off into the sunset and I got on with my life. And a funny old life it’s been too!”
She patted him on the knee using him as a support to lever herself up.
“I’ll get us a couple of drinks and then I’ll show you Austin Randolph.”
From the recesses of a drawer, she produced a black covered photograph album.
Stephen moved his chair closer to her’s as she flipped through the pages that documented her life as Mrs. Austin Randolph. Typical of their day, the photographs were mostly of groups at special occasions. One showed Austin and Ivy pulling jokey faces to camera, he playing the he-man and she the vamp. Others had them in evening finery with friends at some evening diner table or in swimsuits lounging in the sun, cocktails in hand. They could have been stills from a film - Ivy and Austin were the perfect glamorous couple, daringly modern in the high fashion of the day and confidently extrovert in front of the camera. There was no denying his charismatic appeal - he was the tall dark man of Hollywood dreams. No longer the young aristocrat of Mrs. Irving’s picture, with marriage to Ivy he had become a star.
“What do you know about the British Union of Fascists?” he asked, getting to the point, he hoped, at last.
“Oh, so you know about the Brown Shirts too. I told him he was a silly bugger getting involved but he wouldn’t listen, he enjoyed the excitement, the idiot.”
“Why did he join? Was he involved in politics?”
“No it was just a bit of a game, like a told you. He said they were going to get the communists but I don’t think he really cared who it was. He was after a fight, that’s what turned him on you know and they loved having him. They liked him for being posh and, of course, he could cut a dash. He was always good at that.”
“I thought they were against the Jews.”
“Oh I don’t think so. No more than a lot of people were in those days, dear. I knew a lot of nice Jew boys before the War, there have always been a lot of them in the entertainment business. I nearly married one once, God he was handsome too, I was a fool not to, and I can tell you there was nothing wrong with him. Austin thought he waas being smart saying bad things about the Jews but I don’t think he meant it, not really. I don’t think he really cared one way or the other about anyone.”
The more familiar he became through the pages of Ivy’s album, the less Stephen understood Austin Randolph and the less he liked him. By now, he knew the face well but the man was receding further and further from his understanding. He declined a third whiskey and persuaded Ivy to lend him the album.
“So you’ll put pictures of me into your book. That’s a good boy! The World should not forget old Ivy Cooper. I tell you, luvvie, on a good day I was up there with the best of them.”
Surreptitiously, with an uncertain sense of its symbolism, Stephen slipped a ten-pound note, Austin Randolph’s money, on to the sideboard and left Ivy to finish the bottle. He walked home feeling disturbed, challenged and depressed. He had got so near to giving up the project and then this happened. He had been drawn to Ivy against his will and now he had found out that Emilia had lied to him. He telephoned her from the phone box on the corner of his road; it took a long time to answer.
“I’m sorry, Stephen but this is a bad time. I’m desperately packing and I’m off to France tomorrow for four weeks holiday. It’s the perk of being a school ma’am. Call me when I get back”.
Charming, as always, she managed to cut him off before he could even mention Ivy’s name and he knew her well enough to recognise the anxiety in her voice.
To be continued next Saturday.......
and Elena Ceauscescu, the wife of the former Romanian dictator, made Lady Macbeth look like a Sunday School teacher.
Nina Carberry is not shy with that whip either
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