Coffin on the Water

He could see right down the hill towards the river. The Royal Observatory was to his right amidst the trees of Greenwich Park. Down there but not visible was Wren’s great palace, now a naval college, and a museum.

He found the view pleasing and touching. He noticed that the roof had an area with the tiles missing; when it rained his room would be damp.

Down there too was Stella and he meant to go on knowing her, but he wasn’t thinking of her. Down there also was someone else he was interested in. A faceless, nameless someone at the moment. He had his own problem there. Coffin’s own mystery, he thought.

There was the sound of music floating up from below. A window was open and in that room someone was playing a piano.

He closed his own window to go downstairs to call on Alex. As he went down the stairs he could swear that from behind one door he heard an old woman singing. She was singing ‘The Wearing of the Green’. That would have been treason once, he thought, might be even now for all he knew.

Alex was sitting on his bed polishing his shoes.

‘Bed’s hard.’

John Coffin sat down on the only chair. So was his bed hard. They wouldn’t stay here for ever, it was temporary while they looked around, but anywhere to live was hard to come by at the moment.

‘Hope she’s all right.’

‘Who?’

‘The girl. Stella.’

‘Oh, she’ll fall on her feet,’ said Coffin; he knew a survivor when he saw one. He was one himself.

There was a photograph of a pretty woman with a young boy on the table. It must be Alex’s mother.

‘You got a brother, Alex?’

‘No.’ He was the boy in the photograph, then.

‘Sister?’

‘A sister, yes. Half-sister. What about you?’

‘No,’ John Coffin considered. ‘Not as far as I know.’ He added, ‘Wonder if we’ll get anything to eat?’

Stella did not regard herself as having fallen on her feet.

She had run happily into the warm, dark womb of backstage Theatre Royal shouting that she had arrived, and straight into the arms of Joan and Albie Delaney who were standing briskly engaged in one of their arguments.

They broke off to welcome her warmly, and at once got down to the essentials. ‘Want you on stage with book this afternoon.’ Joan Delaney never wasted words or time. Two sharp,’ and she turned back to her argument with Albie, which appeared to concern Eddie Kelly who was sitting smoking astride a wooden kitchen chair, apparently indifferent to what went on.

‘Now, Eddie, about the bloody lighting in the last act.’

Joan and Albie worked as a team. Joan was said to be the practical one and Albie the artistic conscience, but Joan’s vaunted practicality existed only for theatrical purposes and did not extend to everyday life, where the pair lived in chaos. This showed itself at once with Stella.

‘What digs have you got me?’

‘Ah.’ Joan wrenched her head away from Eddie who was saying softly that it was his bloody face that the bloody lighting was turning bloody green and he bloody well wouldn’t have it. ‘I couldn’t get you in anywhere, dear. I tried old Madam Lorimer but she’d let her last room to two young men. You can share with us till something turns up. Doss down with us, Albie and me, in our sitting-room.’

‘That’s very kind of you.’ Any doubt in Stella’s voice was justified. The couple’s quarrels were famous and their cuisine notorious. Then she remembered that she was an actress and they were her boss. ‘Thank you,’ she said with false enthusiasm.

‘Poor girl.’ Eddie got up. ‘Haven’t we met?’

‘Yes. At the station. You took the cab.’

‘I had it ordered, my dear. In my permanent pay. More or less. My gammy leg.’ He had lost a foot at Dunkirk. ‘But I’d have given you a lift.’

Stella turned to Joan and Albie. ‘Can’t I sleep in the dressing-room. Just for a bit? While I look round.’

Eddie moved nearer towards her. ‘The girl will perish. All the dressing-rooms leak. Albie, assert your authority.’

Albie asserted his authority, and in a characteristic way. ‘Eddie, dear boy, you do something. Why not try Rachel Esthart’s? You seem to have influence with her. She must have more empty rooms than Buckingham Palace.’

‘Rachel Esthart?’ Stella couldn’t stop herself. ‘Is she still alive?’

‘Say that and she will love you.’

‘But she was a marvellous actress.’

‘Still could be, still could be,’ said Albie. ‘If she hadn’t hidden herself from the world.’

Eddie moved towards the telephone, carefully not limping. ‘I’ll try. But don’t say I didn’t warn you. Don’t let her make a slave of you.’

Joan said, in a whisper, ‘He hates you to see him limping. The funny thing is – he’s all right on the stage. Wouldn’t know. That’s actors for you.’

At the door Eddie made a dramatic gesture. ‘Rachel Esthart and you – I hope I know what I’m doing.’

Afterwards Stella thought that Edward had known exactly what he was doing and he was doing it for Rachel Esthart.

Edward soon reappeared to say Mrs Esthart would receive her, she actually used those words, which was Stella’s first intimation of the regal way Rachel had sometimes. ‘But we’ll have to walk. I’ve got no petrol for my motorbike. Joan will send the bags up in a barrow with one of the men later on.’

On the way up Maze Hill, threading past the church, seeing the Royal Observatory on their left, Eddie walked fast, even while limping.

I’ll show you round, if you like. Interesting district. Where were you working last?’ The perennial question between actors, what really interested them.

‘Windsor Rep,’ said Stella. ‘Before that, Dundee. Albie saw me at Windsor. Offered me this. I wanted to be in London.’

‘Oh? Any reason?’

‘No. Just nearer the big managements. Tennent’s, and that lot. My agent said it was the right move.’

‘Ah. His right. Post-war theatre’s going to be different from pre-war. Lot of the old names will be on the way down now. There’ll be a new wave. Old management giving up, new ones coming in, new money, new ideas.’

‘I’m looking forward to it.’ Stella intended to be the new wave. Now the war was over, she felt a whole new world was beckoning to her with promise.

‘Meanwhile you can’t do better than be with Joan and Albie. They know change is coming. Watch them. If they go up, they may take you with them.’ Or they might go down; that too was possible.

‘I hope so.’ Stella was getting breathless, keeping up with his fast, limping walk.