Branwen Erley took a tray out to the terrace and began to clear away more crockery. She had forgotten how much she hated July, but it was the same every year: Portmeirion bustled into life at Easter, when the excitement of opening and the last-minute preparations for the new season bred a hopeful camaraderie amongst the hotel staff; May and June passed quietly, with a moderate number of guests and no great test of anyone’s patience; but as summer dragged on, the combination of a more intense heat and a sudden influx of people forced a change in everyone’s mood. Staff bickered, guests treated them like dirt, and Branwen grew more frustrated by the day.
She moved from table to table, reaching in and out of people’s conversations, picking up glasses and gossip. They acknowledged her so rarely that she could almost have believed herself to be invisible, and those who noticed her at all saw only a uniform. But she saw
them
. She saw the lies their lives were built on – the stale marriages, the mismatched affairs, the pretensions to money or youth; had it not been laughable, she would have despised them for it.
‘You wanted to talk to me.’ Absorbed in her own thoughts, Branwen had not noticed that Bella Hutton was behind her, and she tried not to look intimidated. For years, she had longed to speak to the actress; now they were face to face, all her carefully rehearsed questions eluded her and she stood there, tongue-tied and stupid, reading her own inadequacy in the other woman’s face. ‘Well?’ Bella asked impatiently.
Branwen put the tray of glasses down and stared back with what she hoped was defiance. ‘Like I said in my letters, I think you know what happened to my mother,’ she said. ‘Your family owes me. I know it’s not your fault, but you’re the only one here who can make amends and I think it’s the least you can do.’
The actress looked at her thoughtfully, as though trying to gauge her mettle. ‘It was a long time ago,’ she said, putting a full stop to all Branwen’s hopes.
She turned to go, but Branwen grabbed her arm, making it impossible for her to walk away without causing a scene. ‘I don’t want to make trouble for you, Miss Hutton, but . . .’
She knew instantly that it was the wrong approach. Bella held up her hand. ‘Let me stop you there, young lady,’ she said quietly. ‘You couldn’t make trouble for me even if you wanted to. Better people than you have tried and failed before now, and if you follow in their footsteps you’ll regret it. Do I make myself clear?’ Branwen nodded. ‘Anything I say to you will be of my own choosing, not because you’ve forced me into a corner.’
‘So you
will
help me?’ There was a pathetic, pleading note in her voice which Branwen despised herself for, but the show of arrogance that she used as a weapon against the pain of her mother’s absence was fragile at the best of times.
‘Come and see me later. I’ll have dinner in my room. Make sure you bring it to me.’
‘I’ll be off shift by then,’ Branwen said desperately. ‘It’s my night with the band – I can’t change it.’
‘I see. Fifteen minutes of glory in front of Alfred Hitchcock is more important?’ Her mocking tone drew attention from some of the nearby guests; the actor who had been insulted in the foyer earlier had come out onto the terrace, Branwen noticed, and was watching her intently. ‘Don’t waste my time. You don’t know how lucky you are that I’m even giving you the chance.’
She started to walk away and Branwen stared after her, sick and tired of being told that she was lucky. It had been the recurring theme of her life for as long as she could remember, established by her gran when she was a child and refashioned at regular intervals since. Lucky to have a job. Lucky to meet interesting people. Lucky to be her. Repeat it often enough and it might even be true. ‘You wouldn’t say that if you knew what my life was like,’ she called angrily, and the actress turned round in surprise. ‘It’s all right for you – you left here as soon as you had the chance, just like she did. You didn’t have to stay in that bloody town where every day’s the spitting image of the one before it.’ Branwen’s family had lived in Porthmadog for generations, their lives seemingly interchangeable in the same houses, the same front rooms, the same boat. Families wove themselves into the fabric of those narrow streets, and each day was regulated by the sound of boots marching to work like an army to war. The men spent their nights brawling in the local pub, and violence was a third language. As a child, Branwen remembered lying on the makeshift bed downstairs, listening to her grandfather’s footsteps move slowly across the bedroom, tracing their progress as clearly as if she could see the soles of his boots through the ceiling. Her mother had left that life behind at the first opportunity, abandoning a two-year-old daughter in the process; it was a courage for which Branwen both admired and resented her. ‘I don’t blame either of you for getting out,’ she said quietly‚ looking at Bella. ‘And maybe having a mother around wouldn’t have changed things for me. But maybe it would. Maybe if she’d taken me with her, I could have had some of the chances that she must have had.’ She rubbed a hand across her face, determined not to cry. ‘I need to have that conversation with her, now more than ever‚ so if you know where she is, please tell me. Surely that’s not too much to ask?’
Bella stared at her with an odd mixture of pity and respect. ‘I’ll see you later on tonight,’ she said. ‘But somewhere more private than this. As you can see, people are far more interested in our business than in their own.’
‘All right. Where?’
‘I’ll let you know.’ She walked off without another word and Branwen watched her go, scarcely daring to believe what she had been promised.
‘They looked lovely when we left Shrewsbury,’ Ronnie insisted, poking a bunch of wilted roses as if she could somehow taunt them back to life.
‘Yes, but that was months ago,’ Lettice said weakly, collapsing into a deckchair. ‘I think
I
turned forty somewhere around Welshpool.’ She leant forward and took a long drink of Archie’s beer, then looked appealingly at her cousin. ‘I don’t suppose you could rustle me up a gin and tonic, could you?’
Archie looked wearily at Josephine. ‘What did I say about a fragile peace?’
Ronnie cuffed the back of his head. ‘For that, you can get me a very large Pimm’s.’ She pointed scornfully at Josephine’s glass. ‘And
she
shouldn’t be drinking lemonade at her age. Go and sort us all out.’ She watched him go, and added with a wry smile‚ ‘You two look cosy.’
‘And you look exhausted. Cocktails up to scratch last night?’
Ronnie was the only person Josephine knew who could blush and look more brazen at the same time. ‘Let’s just say that there were several new combinations on the menu which I found very much to my taste,’ she said.
‘And it wasn’t your head they went to, I don’t suppose.’
Ronnie grinned, briefly losing the mask of sophisticated cynicism. ‘So are they as strange as I expect them to be?’ she asked, changing the subject with a modesty that Josephine found unconvincing.
‘Who?’
‘The Hitchcocks, of course. Lettice and I were talking about it on the way down. She thinks he’s a genius, and I’m convinced he’s an overrated voyeur. Which of us is right?’
‘I don’t know – we haven’t even seen them yet. But ask Archie – he’s met Hitchcock through work.’
‘You surely don’t mean he’s got a record?’ Lettice sounded horrified, while Ronnie slapped the table triumphantly.
Josephine laughed. ‘No, of course not. It was about some filming on the Thames. He had to get permission.’ She repeated what Archie had told her, embellishing the story to get maximum effect from its punchline.
‘He must have been devastated after going to all that trouble,’ Lettice said seriously. ‘But the film’s still marvellous. That bit where the lodger’s being chased by the crowds is so exciting.’ Josephine agreed. It was several years ago now, but she remembered how the film’s recreation of the Jack the Ripper case in a more contemporary London had shocked her when she first saw it, not because it dealt with a series of brutal killings but because it showed how infectious violence could be. Hitchcock’s depiction of a frenzied mob, driven by fear, revenge and hysteria to take justice into its own hands, was frighteningly credible. It reminded her of the crowds that had gathered in the streets during the early days of the war: there was nothing more terrifying than a pack united by a common hatred, believing itself to be unquestionably in the right and using its fear to justify every innate prejudice. ‘I did feel a bit cheated when it finished, though,’ Lettice admitted. ‘He’s guilty in the book and it’s a much better ending.’
‘That’s what you get for casting Ivor Novello,’ Josephine said. ‘Rule number one of popular entertainment: a matinee idol can never be a killer – that really would incite the crowds.’ She thought for a moment, and added‚ ‘Anyway, I think it was better that way. There’s something very powerful about an innocent man being destroyed by people who think they’ve got right on their side.’
‘It wouldn’t surprise me if Hitchcock
had
been in trouble with the police, you know,’ Ronnie said, returning to give her dead horse one last flog. ‘There are far too many handcuffs involved in those films for my liking.’ She lit a cigarette and leant back thoughtfully in her deckchair. ‘It can’t be a very
normal
sort of marriage, can it?’
‘Is there such a thing?’
Ronnie gave her a wry smile. ‘What a shame that age has made you so cynical already.’
Josephine reached for the cigarette case and took one out for herself and Lettice. ‘How many so-called normal marriages can you name?’ she asked. ‘Normal is one of the casualties of our generation, and I knew that when I was twenty-one, so please put my cynicism down to something more creditable than age.’
‘Johnny did tell us that Hitchcock has a vulgar sense of humour,’ Lettice conceded. ‘He said he wasn’t at all sympathetic to his actors on the set and he felt very taken for granted.’
‘But don’t you think that’s Johnny trying to excuse the fact that he simply wasn’t very good in the film?’ Josephine asked. ‘What was it one critic said? “Bloodless, stilted and inept”?’
‘I have to say, sticking Johnny opposite Madeleine Carroll and expecting sparks to fly is commendably optimistic,’ Ronnie said. ‘I’ll give Hitchcock that, at least.’
‘Exactly, so I don’t think we can take Johnny’s testimony as gospel.’
‘It’s not just Johnny who’s been on the receiving end of it, though, is it? He sent Julian four hundred smoked herrings for his birthday and filled Freddie’s flat with coal while he was away on honeymoon. What sort of man does that?’ Ronnie sounded genuinely bewildered. ‘Perhaps it’s something lacking in me, but I just don’t find all that schoolboy stuff very funny.’
Josephine – who had heard only professional gossip about the Hitchcocks from Marta – was growing increasingly uneasy. ‘Can we change the subject?’ she asked. ‘If I’m going to end up working with the man, I’d rather not know all this.’
‘I wouldn’t take it too seriously.’ Archie put the tray of drinks down on the table. ‘That sort of stuff went on all the time after the war whenever any group of men got together. I doubt that film studios were any different to army barracks or a police incident room.’
‘But this is eighteen years after the war,’ Josephine pointed out. ‘We
are
going to have to stop using that as some sort of all-purpose excuse eventually.’
‘Ah, but there’s another excuse on the horizon,’ Archie said. ‘So I think it’ll tide us over.’ He handed the glasses round and raised his own. ‘Cheers. Did anybody know that Bella Hutton was going to be here?’
‘Bella Hutton?’
Lettice looked as doubtful as her sister. ‘Are you sure, Archie?’
‘Positive. I nearly stood on her dog.’ He glanced at Josephine. ‘And Lydia and Marta have arrived – they’re just checking in, but there seems to be some sort of confusion over their rooms. They’ll be out in a minute.’
It was a well-intentioned warning, but Josephine wished he hadn’t said anything. As it was, her behaviour on first seeing Marta was likely to be strained enough; now, robbed of the element of surprise, she could already feel her stomach tightening and the sincerity draining from her face. Resisting the temptation to glance over at the hotel, she tried to concentrate on what Ronnie was saying.
‘No one ever really got to the bottom of why Bella Hutton came back from Hollywood so suddenly, did they?’
‘Is this one of your famous conspiracy theories? I thought her marriage failed.’
‘Yes it did, but that doesn’t mean she had to throw her whole career away.’
‘Perhaps being married to America didn’t suit her any more than being married to an American,’ Josephine suggested. ‘I can’t imagine Hollywood’s a very pleasant place to be, and she must have made enough money from her films and the divorce not to have to work unless she wants to.’
‘And she comes from somewhere round here, anyway,’ Lettice added. ‘So it’s not surprising she should visit.’
‘What?’ Ronnie stared at her in amazement. ‘You mean Bella Hutton’s
Welsh
?’
‘Bella Hutton, my dear, is international.’
She seemed about to offer further insights into the movie star’s life, but Ronnie interrupted her. ‘I never thought this would last, you know,’ she said, stubbing her cigarette out and peering at the hotel. Marta and Lydia were on the upper terrace, looking round for them. ‘Why “rooms”, I wonder?’
Josephine reached for her sunglasses, although the fierceness of the day had begun to die down. From their safety, she watched as the couple walked across the lawn. Marta wore a halter-neck top and linen trousers, closely fitted to her hips. Her skin, pale from a London summer, was burnt a little at the shoulders; her face was impossible to read. In the past, Josephine had searched for words that would adequately describe that face, but it moved so swiftly between strength and insecurity, laughter and an intense seriousness, that its essence always eluded her. Now, she took heart from the fact that Marta, too, seemed to need a mask. Even so, when she stood to greet them, it was Lydia she turned to first, Lydia whom she hugged with a genuine warmth. She had rehearsed this moment for weeks, but, when Marta was beside her, all she could manage was a perfunctory kiss and a subdued hello.
Archie looked round for two more empty deckchairs, but Lettice stopped him. ‘Have ours,’ she said. ‘We’ve got to go and unpack.’
‘Just a minute,’ Ronnie said. ‘I want to find out where Marta stands on the Hitchcock issue.’
Marta sat down opposite Josephine. ‘What issue’s that?’
‘Is he a genius or just a strange little man?’
‘Does it have to be one or the other?’ She shook her hair out and retied it while Ronnie considered what was obviously a new idea to her. ‘Sorry – I’ve only met him briefly, so I can’t really help, but his wife is very sane and very clever, and I doubt she’d settle for less in a husband.’
‘Mm,’ Ronnie muttered, unconvinced. ‘His family owns MacFisheries, though. That can’t be right.’
Archie exchanged a weary look with Lydia. ‘Can I get you both a drink?’ he asked.
‘I’m dying for a gin and tonic, but don’t bother fetching it, Archie. Someone will come over.’
‘It’ll be quicker if I go to the bar. They’re very busy out here. Marta?’
‘Tea would be lovely.’
‘I’ll give you a hand,’ Josephine offered. ‘I could do with the exercise, and you’ve been back and forth so often they’ll think you’re trying for a job.’
‘No, you stay here – I can manage. It’ll give me a chance to see who else has turned up. Do you know Daniel Lascelles, Lydia?’ he asked casually.
‘Danny? Yes, he was with me in
Close Quarters
. He’s a sweetheart. Why? Is he here?’
‘Yes, I met him at the bar earlier. He’ll be pleased to see you – it looked like he could do with a friendly face and a bit of encouragement.’
‘Oh, I’ll come and say hello now. I haven’t spoken to him since he lost his father.’ Archie walked with her to the hotel, leaving Marta and Josephine alone. It had been subtly done, and Josephine hoped she was the only one who had noticed.
They looked at each other for a long time without speaking. Eventually, Marta leant forward and removed Josephine’s glasses. ‘Hello again,’ she said quietly. ‘How are you?’
‘Pleased to see you.’
‘Are you? I thought with all the work you’d put into avoiding it that you might not be.’ Her voice was gentle, the words a genuine question rather than any sort of reproach.
‘It’s not that I didn’t want to see you. I just thought it would be better to wait a bit, that if we saw each other too soon . . .’
‘I might not be able to control myself?’
Josephine flushed. ‘No, of course not. I only meant that you and Lydia needed time to sort yourselves out, find out how you feel.’ She stopped and bit her lip before she found something even more patronising to say. This wasn’t what she had intended, and she wondered what had happened to the wise, funny, eloquent woman who had held so many imaginary conversations with Marta since they had last seen each other. She tried to think of all the things she had wanted to say, but the reality of Marta unsettled her more than ever and her mind was completely blank. In the end, all she could manage was a simple confession. ‘I ran away,’ she admitted. ‘I’m sorry.’
She had expected Marta to press the point further, but she only nodded. ‘And how has your birthday been so far?’
The abrupt change of subject floored Josephine. She had taken it for granted that, left alone, they would discuss their relationship and its future – if it had a future – but she realised now that her constant reliance on Marta to articulate feelings for both of them was childish and unfair. For the first time, it occurred to her that of all the obstacles she had placed in their way – Lydia, Archie, family commitments and physical distance – the hardest to overcome was her own selfishness. Livid with herself, she tried to find a way back, but it was too late: the moment had been missed, and they talked about Portmeirion until Archie and Lydia returned with the drinks.