Familiar Rooms in Darkness by Caro Fraser Page B

she described as a quiet backroad. As though Dulwich contained any other kind, thought Adam, as he got out of the car that afternoon. The early summer air was blank and still, awash with suburban melancholy. He felt its genteel oppression as he walked up the pavement to Cecile’s house, through the gate, up a short flight of steps, and pressed the bell.
    Cecile answered the door, dressed in loose trousers, a long cardigan with a brightly coloured scarf at the neck, and house slippers. She smiled at Adam. ‘Do come in,’ she said. Her voice was husky, languid, with nicely accented vowels. Although she no longer appeared on stage, and very rarely on television, it was a voice which kept her much in demand with producers of a certain kind of Radio Four drama.
    She made Adam coffee, and they sat in the front room with a plate of chocolate digestives on the table between them. It was not the kind of room Adam associated with an old person. The floor was of polished wood, the walls white, hung with pictures, and the furnishings a tasteful blend of whites and neutrals. But then Cecile, as he hadrealized from glimpses of her at Harry’s funeral and memorial service, was not a typical old woman.
    â€˜I don’t use this room a great deal. The other one,’ she gestured vaguely behind her, ‘is a dreadful clutter. Full of clothes, you know, and my sewing machine and paraphernalia. I do some dressmaking – just for a few clients, friends, really. And myself, of course.’
    Adam nodded, then took out his tape recorder and set it down on the table next to the biscuits. ‘Shall we start?’
    â€˜Of course,’ said Cecile. ‘Fire away.’
    â€˜Tell me about the early days with Harry. You first met when you were cast in
Crying Out Loud
at the Royal Court, didn’t you?’
    â€˜Oh, we met before that, you know, when I was playing with the Birmingham Rep, and Harry came to see one of the plays – I can’t recall what it was. Anyway, the director was Donald Weir, and Harry was a friend of his. Donald was terribly temperamental, and not at all the kind of person one liked working for. But a job was a job in those days… So that was when we first met. Then the following spring I was in
A Taste of Honey
at the Wyndham’s, and he came to see me, and I suppose he thought I would be good for the part of Christine in
Crying Out Loud
. So he suggested me to Bill Prior, the director. The last thing in the
world
I expected was that Harry would ask me out. But he did…’
    â€˜Do you remember what you did, the first time you went out together?’
    â€˜Oh, yes. I wanted to see
At the Drop of a Hat
– you know, Flanders and Swann – at the New Lindsey. It was the most wonderful smash. But it was sold out, andanyway it wasn’t really Harry’s kind of thing. So we went to a Tennessee Williams play which had just opened,
Camino Real
. Harry loved it and I thought it was dire. I think time has proved me right, and Harry wrong – please, do have the last biscuit. And after that,’ she clasped her hands between her knees and smiled brightly at Adam, ‘we began to see one another on a regular basis and… well, we went on from there.’
    â€˜Tell me about your life together after that. You appeared in his next play, didn’t you?’
    For an hour Adam sat listening as Cecile recounted as much as she could recall of her marriage to Harry. He noticed that she scarcely mentioned Bella and Charlie.
    â€˜And then, you know, we divorced.’
    â€˜Was that a difficult time?’
    â€˜Oh, in some ways. He was not a particularly provident person, you know, Harry, when it came to money, and so on… The children were very young, and things were quite hard, financially. But emotionally difficult? No. We had rather gone our separate ways some time before that.’ Cecile stared abstractedly at the back of her hands, and just as