William Boyd - Waiting for Sunrise

Icouldn’t believe what was in the envelope that Fyfe-Miller handed to me. I opened it after Gilda had gone (around ten o’clock — second time, very satisfactory) to find a formal invoice from the War Office detailing the amount I owed to His Majesty’s Government. The 10, 000 crowns of forfeited bail came to £ 475. Herr Feuerstein’s legal fees and expenses were totalled at an exorbitant £ 350 and food, drink and laundry were estimated at an equally preposterous £ 35. No rent charged for the summerhouse, I noted, gratefully. Grand total: £ 860. I laughed. “Full remittance would be appreciated at your earliest convenience.” I am earning £ 8 10 shillings a week in the International Players’ Company. My savings are virtually exhausted because of my lengthy stay in Vienna. I owe my mother over £ 100. The expenses of my daily life (rent, clothing, food, etcetera) are considerable. Roughly calculating, I reckon that if I could stay working fifty-two weeks of the year (and name me an actor who can or does) I might be able to pay off this debt in five years — in 1919. Compound interest, moreover, is being added at 5 per cent per annum. I tore the invoice up.

I’m deeply grateful to Munro and Fyfe-Miller — they were crucially instrumental in my escape from Vienna but, from one jaundiced angle — mine, I admit — the whole ploy looks like a clever money-making scheme for the Foreign Office. I could spend most of my life paying this off.

♦

Rehearsal for Miss Julie this morning. I must say I’m having no problems learning the lines, unlike Gilda. I find the two idioms — Shakespeare and Strindberg — ideally distinct, the lines learned seeming to occupy different cubbyholes of my brain. Not so Gilda, who is still reading from the script, much to Rutherford’s annoyance. His exasperation this morning almost made her cry. I consoled her and we stole a kiss — as much as we’ve managed to achieve since that first night (and morning) of the First Night party. If anything she seems to have cooled somewhat, as if regretting giving herself to me. She’s perfectly friendly but she always seems busy after the show. Sick mother, friends in town — there’s always a good excuse.

Rutherford wants us both to re-enter after the ballet with our clothes in disarray and with wisps of straw in our hair. He actually suggested I come on stage buttoning my flies. Gilda is advocating more decorum but I can see how adamant Rutherford is — there will be battles ahead. He is determined to have us banned within twenty-four hours.

♦

Strange dream about Hettie. I was drawing her — she was naked — in the barn. There was a banging at the door and we both cowered down, expecting it to be Hoff. But instead my father walked in.

♦

I overheard this conversation at Leicester Square Tube station as I waited for a train. It was between two women (working class, poor), one in her twenties, one younger, sixteen or so.

Woman: I saw her up Haymarket, then in Burlington Arcade.

Girl:

She told me she had a job hat-binding in Mayfair.

Woman:

She’s not hat-binding, all painted like that.

Girl:

She said she was sad. That’s why she was drinking.

Woman:

I’m sad. We’re all sad — but we don’t carry on like that.

Girl:

She could’ve been a lady’s maid, she said. Five pound a year and all her grub. Now she makes five pound a week, she says.

Woman:

She’ll end up in a rookery. I bet my life. Selling herself for thruppence to a shoe-black.

Girl:

She’s a good soul, Lizzie.

Woman:

She’s half mad and three parts drunk.

♦

A subject for Mr Strindberg, perhaps, were he still with us. The river of sex flows as strongly in London as it does in Vienna.

♦

August the fifth. War was declared on Germany last night at 11. 00 p.m., Greville said when he came in. I went out this morning to find a paper but they had all been sold. This evening we had barely twenty people in the auditorium but we performed the play with as much zest as if it had been a full house. Rutherford very cast down — says we’re bound to close at the end of the week. So, the world will be denied Lysander Rief and Gilda Butterfield in August Strindberg’s Miss Julie . Gilda was upset. I said German troops had advanced into Belgium and attacked Liège, a fact that made our little theatrical problems and regrets seem insignificant. “Not to me,” she said fiercely. For a second I thought she was going to slap my face.

♦

7 thAugust. I see in the paper that HMS Amphion has been sunk by a mine off Yarmouth. For some odd reason I wondered if the Amphion had been Fyfe-Miller’s ship — and that thought suddenly brought the war alive to me in a way that days of shouting headlines hadn’t. It was personalized in the shape of an imagined Fyfe-Miller drowned at sea off Yarmouth. It made me cold and fearful.

♦

I was being measured for a new suit at my tailor’s yesterday and I said to Jobling that I rather fancied a ‘waist-seam’ coat. “Very American, sir,” he said, as if that was an end to the matter. I said I thought the waist-seam was flattering. “You’ll be wanting slanting pockets next,” Jobling said, with a chuckle. Not a bad idea, I retorted. “Your father would turn in his grave, sir,” he said and went on to talk about Grosvenor cuffs and double collars. And that was that. My father’s ghost is still determining what I can wear.

♦

A letter from Hettie arrived in this afternoon’s post. The stamp was Swiss.

My dear Lysander,

Isn’t this the most terrible business? I cry all day at the awful folly of it all. Why would Britain declare war on us? What has Vienna done to London or Paris? Udo says this is a purely Balkan affair but other countries are just using it as an excuse. Is this true?

I’m very, very frightened and I wanted to send this letter to you with all urgency to tell you what I have decided to do in these awful circumstances. My position is difficult, as you will be well aware. I am a British subject living in a country with which Britain is in a state of war. Udo has offered to adopt Lothar, the better to protect him and to make his nationality secure. I may be interned but Lothar would be safe — so of course I agreed. Once the papers are drawn up he will take Udo’s name and become ‘Lothar Hoff’. It’s for the best, my dear one — I can and must only think of Lothar, I mustn’t think of myself nor of your feelings, though I can easily imagine them.

Lothar is very well, a happy healthy boy. I wish us all happier and more secure times.

With love from us both, Hettie.

Hamo tried to console me — he was very affectionate and warm. Think of the little chap, he said, it’s for the best. I came down last night (Sunday) to stay in Winchelsea with Hamo and Femi. Hamo is thinking of adopting Femi himself, he said, as there has already been fighting in West Africa between the British and the German colonies. Togoland has been invaded by British and Empire forces.

Last night we stayed up late, talking. I said that I assumed all his plans for making a trip to Vienna must now be abandoned.

“No can do, dear boy,” he said. “But as soon as this damn war ends, I’ll be there. With a bit of luck it might not last that long.”

I sit in the spare bedroom, under the eaves of this little cottage, writing this up, wondering what to do as everything seems to conspire against me. There is a stiff gale blowing up tonight, ripping the first leaves off the trees. I suppose I should try to find another job as the theatres show no sign of closing but the thought of auditions makes me feel sick. From somewhere in the lane the lid of a dustbin has been lifted off and sent clattering and spinning down the alleyway, its tinny percussion discordant and unnerving beneath the sudden giant rushings of the wind off the sea.