A Polaroid of Peggy Read online

  “Barb and I have been thinking,” confided Herb, “the place needs a facelift. And you know what?” We waited, all agog, to find out what. “I think maybe we should have a more modern name. Isn’t that your line, Andy? Can you come up with something?”

  My heart sank. For this was a challenge I clearly couldn’t refuse, and yet, as every person whose profession is vaguely ‘creative’ knows, there is nothing more guaranteed to dry up the well of inspiration than a request for some instant brainwave by a friend or rel. Well, no, there is one thing, possibly. And that’s when the request is from the rel of a very particular friend, whom, one is hoping, may ultimately become the very closest of rels themselves. I said I would give it some thought, and then unsuccessfully racked my brains while we drove home.

  Then came afternoon tea, not a meal, I think, the Lees of New Rochelle were used to having but clearly added to the agenda in honour of my Britishness, and for which Mrs Lipschitz, whose appetite, unlike her hearing, seemed not to have been diminished by the passing years, rejoined us. As I was passed a piece of Barbara’s homemade strudel – or as near as she got, it was Betty Crocker – I happened to get around, as, of course, I would eventually, to the subject of ‘The Dick Van Dyke Show’ and Rob and Laura having lived in Nooroeshel.

  “My!” said Barbara again, in response to the news that I had seen this on television in England – or maybe to the news that we had television at all in England. And then she said, presumably following some subconscious showbizzy train of thought,

  “Herb, did you tell Peggy that you were going to be Tevye?”

  Herb protested that Peggy’s young man didn’t want to hear about all that stuff and then without drawing breath gave us chapter and verse on the upcoming Temple Israel (their local synagogue) Dramatic Group’s production of ‘Fiddler on the Roof’, in which, despite his protestations that they should ‘give one of the other guys a chance’, Herb had been cast as the leading man.

  “That’s terrific, Dad,” said Peggy dutifully. But, touchingly, I thought, she was obviously genuinely pleased for him too. And thinking I should say something, and, seeing it perhaps as an opportunity to underline my own ethnic credentials, I said, “Mazeltov!”

  This provoked another succession of “My!”s from Barbara as she grappled with the previously mentioned conundrum for all American Jews: how could anyone possibly be English and Jewish at the same time? And then, as Herb drew our attention to the particular difficulties that the role of Tevye presented, particularly when there was less than six weeks to go until opening night – “We’ll never be ready – the director’s a meshugannah!” – it became clear that this interest in the performing arts was not some passing fad of his but a lifelong passion. (And, my paranoia never being far from the surface, I couldn’t help wondering if this didn’t mean Herb hadn’t enjoyed a bond with Miller that he and I could never match.)

  “Always wanted to tread the boards,” he told me. “No complaints. None at all. Been as lucky as a man could be, all things considered. And if any young fellah asked me for my advice on being an optometrist, I’d say sure go ahead, it’s a fulfilling – a worthwhile! – job for a person to do. But, if I’m honest, if I had my time over, it’d be the roar of the greasepaint every time.”

  “I guess you can tell that from the kid’s names,” put in Barbara.

  Ah, the names. Perhaps the mystery was about to be unravelled. Or perhaps not, because Barbara looked suddenly crestfallen and I caught Peggy glaring at her – as sharp a look as I had ever seen her give. Clearly Mom hadn’t been authorised to go there. And then, out of nowhere, Mrs Lipschitz, who wouldn’t have known whether authorisation had or had not been given for anything, piped up.

  “You know it was me who called Peggy, Peggy.”

  I cocked my ear. So perhaps we really were going to get to the bottom of this at last. I thought I detected Peggy catch her breath. She began to interrupt,

  “Andy doesn’t want to hear all this—” but unlike Barbara, Mrs Lipschitz was too deaf or determined to be stopped.

  “It was fifty-three, I think. Or fifty-four. Anyway, Leonard – my husband – Herb’s father – a good man – usually – but, so who’s perfect? – he loved Peggy Lee. The singer I mean. She had a big, big record that year – ‘Black Magic’, you remember?”

  Did I? I wasn’t at all sure. It certainly wasn’t on my list of instantly hummables. But I nodded along anyway. I wanted to know where this might take us.

  “Anyway, it was Peggy’s first birthday and I hated that name he’d given her” – she nodded disparagingly in Herb’s direction, who shrugged as if to say, ‘Please, what can you do?’ – “so I just called her Peggy one day. She was too young to understand anything – not one – maybe one – I don’t know, but she laughed, and laughed. And I don’t why, but then everyone started doing it, calling her Peggy, and it just stuck. Even he gave up and called her Peggy.”

  I waited. But that was it. I suppose I could have asked the direct question, but Peggy’s fierce look to her mother would have been enough to convince me – if I hadn’t known already – that might not be wise. So Mrs Lipschitz was allowed to sink quietly back into the memory of life with Leonard in fifty-three or fifty-four or whatever else it was that went on in her lightly pinkly rinsed head.

  After a few seconds or however long it took for a settled view to be reached that Mrs Lipschitz had now completed her contribution, Herb once again warmed to his theatrical theme.

  “Yup,” he said, “you know who my hero was: Sir” – emphasis on Sir – “Laurence Olivier. What an actor! What a performer!”

  I nodded sagely. And he was British too. Clearly a point in my favour.

  “You like the theatre, Andy?” Herb demanded.

  I did so want to please him, but, knowing the next question would be “What’s your favourite play?” or, worse, “What have you seen recently?” and bearing in mind the only time in living memory I’d set foot in a theatre had been to see the horror show that was Uncle Vanya relocated to modern day Nicaragua, I said, “Yes, yes, you can’t beat the theatre, but me, I’m sort of more of a movie guy.”

  “Oh! The movies! Love the movies! I’m not one of those theatre snobs, no sir. Know my favourite movie, Andy?”

  Was I supposed to?

  “‘Gone With the Wind’, Andy! ‘Gone – With – the – Wind’! Greatest movie ever made, bar none!”

  Peggy seemed to have had enough by now, and with a rather unsubtle wow-is-that-the-time? glance at her watch, drew proceedings to a close. But, before we finally said goodbye, Herb consulted me once again about the possible renaming of Lee’s Eyeglasses.

  “We-ll,” I said, rather desperately, as the Pontiac lurched to a halt, back again at New Rochelle Station. I was about to add nothing more inspired than something like ‘I think you should stick to Lee’s Eyewear – it has authenticity’, when – drum roll! – something came to me. Suddenly I felt totally confident. “How about ‘A Better Look?’”

  “A Better Look. Hmm.” Herb rolled the words around his tongue. “A Bet-ter Loo-ook.”

  “You see,” I said, “It has a double meaning. ‘A Better Look’ as in the way you can see things through your new glasses. And ‘A Better Look’ as in the way you appear in your new glasses.”

  Peggy looked at me almost admiringly. I actually think she was impressed. Almost as impressed as I was myself. And Barbara, well, Barbara’s predictable “A Better Look. My!” did seem to accentuate the positive.

  Herb, however, begged to differ.

  “I dunno,” he said. “Probably okay for Manhattan. But a bit too cutesy for New Rochelle. Well, great to meet you, Andy. And Peggy, be sure to make it over for Fiddler, and bring Andy with you if you want.”

  “Hey, and Andy,” he shouted after us as we disappeared into the station, “be sure and wear those two ties if you come. The rabbi’ll love it. He’
ll write a sermon about it – ‘The man with two ties’ – sounds like it’s straight out the bible.”

  We could still hear him chortling as he started the engine and drove back to Overlook Road.

  *

  I wasn’t quite sure what to make of any of it.

  1. What was that last remark meant to mean? Was he taking the mickey? I consulted Peggy as the train wound its way back to Grand Central.

  “Taking the what?”

  “The mickey. Don’t you say that here? You know, ‘pulling my leg’?”

  “Pulling my what?”

  “Oh for goodness sake. Don’t you say that either?”

  “Yeah. Just pulling your leg.”

  I looked at her. I had my answer. Like daughter, like father, I supposed.

  2. Had I made a good impression? I consulted Peggy again.

  “Well, they didn’t threaten to cut me out of their will.”

  “That’s the best you can say.”

  “Well, what do you want? A partnership in Lee’s Eyeglasses?”

  “Actually, I didn’t think ‘A Better Look’ was that bad.”

  “Uhuh – too cutesy.”

  “You think so too?”

  “Just pulling your leg.”

  3. The name business was really bugging me again. It had something to do with Herb’s Thespian connections, but what? This time I didn’t consult Peggy. Unlike her mother or her grandmother, I wasn’t going there.

  Then the light bulb came on and the Marv business fell into place. Herb had a thing about actors. Marv was obviously short for Marvin. Turn Marvin Lee around and you got Lee Marvin. Bingo!

  But then I came back to Peggy. If Brenda was her real name, and she’d already told me that, why had she been so quick to cut Barbara off? And, wait a minute, Brenda was a singer’s name wasn’t it, not an actor’s? So how did that fit? But then maybe Herb’s showbiz fascination extended to singers too. And Peggy was also a singer, remember. But then we had definitely established Peggy was a nickname so it didn’t need to fit the pattern. Somehow, I couldn’t help feeling I was missing a trick. I was sure all the pieces were there, but I couldn’t make the jigsaw fit. I just couldn’t work it out. And I never did.

  *

  Are you impressed by my desisting from tackling Peggy on the question of her name again, despite my itching curiosity? Are you congratulating me on my newly discovered restraint and maturity? Or are you thinking, well, she’s finally left Miller and she’s introduced me to her parents, so that’s the two steps forward – any moment now comes the giant stride back?

  Well, you’re half right.

  It was as we were leaving Grand Central that I did, thoughtlessly, to some extent, overreach myself.

  “Why don’t you come back to my place?” I asked Peggy. “My place is closer to the office than Noreen’s” – she lived in Brooklyn – “and if you don’t want people to know about us, not that they don’t already,” add raffish grin – “then we can go in separately tomorrow.”

  Peggy, who was carrying the remains of the pot-roast, or whatever it had been, in a Tupperware container that her mother had forced upon her, stopped in her tracks and stood there on 42nd street, shaking her head. I walked on for a step or two without realising she wasn’t with me, then when I saw, I turned and I did, quite literally, take a stride back.

  “What?” I said. “What have I said now?”

  “Didn’t we have this conversation, the last time we came back through Grand Central?” she asked.

  “No” I said, not – not for the first time – catching on.

  “Yes, we did Andy. I told you I wanted some space. I told you I am not ready to belong to anybody. Weren’t those my exact words?”

  Actually, I wasn’t quite sure those were her exact words, but I didn’t think this was the moment to be pernickety. I accepted this had been her general drift, so I said, “Um, well I suppose but—”

  “But what?”

  “But I am not asking you to belong to me. You are sleeping on the couch at Noreen’s, it must be bloody uncomfortable. Whereas – at my place,” – I tried a bit of leavening humour – “you have a whole double bed – well half – and a nice friendly pussy cat to welcome you.”

  It didn’t leaven.

  “Space, Andy, space! It hasn’t been a week since I moved out! Space and time! That’s what I am asking for.”

  “They’re the same thing – Einstein says.”

  “What?”

  “Oh for fuck’s sake, Peggy, lighten up. Okay, so sleep on the couch, get a cricked neck – fat lot of space you’ll have there.”

  She slowly shook her head, looked to the skies, and finally walked on with me. Then we got to the subway, and waited in silence for the 5. I got out at Union Square to walk down to my place, and she went on to wherever she had to get to in Brooklyn. Before I got off, I thanked her for a great day, searching her brown black eyes for some sign I was forgiven – even if I wasn’t quite sure what I was supposed to have done. She made that expression of smiling exasperation that was the sign I was looking for and I gave her a quick kiss and stepped off. She turned to give me a little wave of her fingers and that was the end of our day.

  I walked into my apartment, winced at the smell from the cat, but did nothing about it, just kicked off my shoes, tore off my two ties and threw them in the corner, and flopped onto my back on the bed.

  Belonging. Belonging. It always seemed to come back to that. Once again, I asked myself, was she right? And yes, in a way, I had to concede she was. I wanted to belong to her. And her to me. Was that some kind of implied ownership, which didn’t sound very nice at all? Well, yes, again, I supposed, if you were being completely honest, it was. But wasn’t that what everyone really wanted? Wasn’t that what being married was about? And yes, I did think she was absolutely gorgeous – didn’t she like that? – and yes, I wanted to show her off and tell everybody she was mine. (Might have been the earliest known reckoning on the E to P scale, had it been in my head at the time.) And then again, of course, I could see that was all totally pointless and absurd and who gave a fuck about what other people thought. But you do, don’t you?

  That, as I have since come to realise, is the thing with the E to P scale; it means two tenths of fuck all, but, in the face of all the science, that is still not nothing.

  I turned on the telly to my favourite Sunday night re-run channel. You’ve guessed it. It was ‘The Dick Van Dyke Show’.

  Chapter 15

  London and Richmond Upon Thames, 1999

  “Adultery,” said Harriet Braintree, pouring coffee from a silvery jug into a dainty white china cup, “well, it’s a rather old fashioned idea, isn’t it? As far as the law is concerned anyway. Sugar?”

  I sat in the parqueted and Persian-y carpeted, leather-bound book lined, Georgian table and chaired – repro, I’m sure – meeting room of Hardy Wiggins, solicitors and commissioners for oaths since 1822 or some such. Through the window came the chirping of the little birdies who shared Lincoln’s Inn Fields with all the lawyers. They added an extra top note to the tinkling of the cash registers which mugs like me kept going non-stop.

  “You see, Andrew – may I call you Andrew?” Harriet didn’t wait for an answer. “Today, adultery is not considered to be a cause of a broken marriage so much as a symptom. So, no, in answer to your question, it doesn’t really make a blind bit of difference.”

  Harriet – I presumed I should call her Harriet if she was going to call me Andrew – was a pencil slim, not unattractive woman, (mid-forties I should have said), with short dark bobbed hair and a slight hint of an unplaceable Northern accent, who, despite laughing easily, had the brisk authority of a headmistress. She rather reminded me of Mrs McIver, capo dei capi at Florence’s and India’s school, the main difference being that Harriet had that extra sheen that you only get from
a cool half a million (and up!) a year.

  My question had obviously been whether Alison’s infidelity – another ludicrously anachronistic word – would in any way affect what the settlement might be. As you see, we had quickly got to the nub of the matter.

  “Oh,” I replied. “Yes, I thought that was probably the case. Just thought I’d ask.”

  Well, no harm in asking was there? This was only an exploratory meeting to see if I liked the cut of Harriet Braintree’s jib – and probably for her to check out if I was good for the £450 an hour – but we’d might as well cut to the chase, mightn’t we? Once the decision to separate has been made – or made for you – you are, unless a devout Catholic or something, bound to be contemplating divorce. Then the next thing is to ask your mates if they know anyone, and as three-quarters of them have been divorced themselves, they do. Then they all tell you that their bloke was an overpaid waste of space but their wife’s chap was a bloody crafty sod and, if they were you, they’d go to him. Or her. Quite a lot are ‘hers’ by the way. Then, if you get more than two votes for the same crafty sod, you have a winner. Harriet Braintree got three votes, so it was a no-brainer, and what’s more, she came with the added reassurance of me having seen her name mentioned in the press. She’d saved some superannuated pop singer from having his Filipino maid turned fourth wife get away with half the royalties from his back catalogue, so that couldn’t be bad could it? My only concern was that I wasn’t a high enough roller to get any serious attention from her but, as Geoff had said – he was one of her referees, that is to say his ex had successfully squeezed his pips – £450 an hour is £450 an hour wherever it comes from. So here I was with Harriet, drinking her coffee, eating her chocolate digestives – I had two, they were free, the only thing from her that ever bloody was – and contemplating a much reduced future.

  It really is quite extraordinary how romantic divorce isn’t. All sentiment is squeezed out before you can say ‘list of assets’. The moment you start to give legal force to the notion that love has gone out of your marriage forever, then you turn all your attention to making sure the silver doesn’t disappear after it. Of course, that’s not you. It’s the process. It’s the lawyers. They have a vested interest in making sure you fight for every penny. The longer they’re holding your coat, the more £450s there are to charge. No, it’s not you. It’s never you. It’s them. It’s her. But it’s never you.