Love, Again

By the end of the year, this was the situation in The Green Bird: Meetings were no longer held in the upstairs office but in a rehearsal room large enough to accommodate everyone, for now the theatre seemed full of talented and attractive young people, one of whom had been heard asking, 'Who is she?' — meaning Mary Ford. 'I think she was one of the people who started The Green Bird.'

Sonia dominated everything. She was incandescent with accomplishment, with the discovery of her own cleverness. Her impatient confident young voice and her bright bush of hair, now in an Afro (she wanted to identify with black people and their sufferings), seemed to be in every part of the theatre at once. Virginia, known as 'Sonia's shadow', was always near her. None of the Founding Four had been much in the theatre. Roy's wife had returned to him on condition that he 'worked on' their marriage, and this had meant a family holiday. She was pregnant. He was thinking of accepting a job in another theatre. He said it was bad enough being married to a militant feminist, without having to spend his working days with another. Mary had taken weeks off to spend time with her mother, who was, as a result, better again. If Mary spent all her time at home, the old lady would have a new lease of life. Mary could not afford to do this but might do part time at the theatre and find work to do at home. She was in fact adapting Meredith's The Egoist for the stage, which novel Sonia had read with approval, saying it was a useful addition to feminist propaganda. Sarah was travelling a good deal, to discuss Julie Vairon and, even more, The Lucky Piece, which out of Britain was called, simply, Julie. Already Julie was playing triumphantly in a dozen cities in Europe and — the demand for beautiful but doomed or damaged girls being gluttonous and insatiable — she would soon be in a dozen more and was about to conquer the United States, as the advance bookings showed. Julie Vairon was certainly being appreciated, but by smaller and more discriminating audiences and in fewer places. In short, Julie had become, like Miss Saigon, the latest in the long list of gratifying female fatalities, and it was easy for people hearing the two stories, Julie Vairon's and Julie's, to believe that from Martinique had come two interesting and beautiful girls to try their chances in France. Sisters, perhaps?

Sarah was pleased she was kept on the move. She needed to move, did not want to start yet on the new and better translation of Julie's journals, for which she had a contract. The time was not yet, it would be too dangerous, she must recover completely first.

Often she and Patrick travelled together, and this new phase of their friendship was the pleasantest part of the new regime in The Green Bird. Patrick was as full of newly acquired confidence as Sonia. He was no longer an enfant terrible and had given up his outrageous and gallant clothes because of Sonia's criticisms. 'You are middle-aged, for God's sake,' she had said. 'Grow up.' Sonia had furiously attacked Sarah, Mary, and Roy for babying him. 'Why did you?' she accused. Patrick defended them, saying he had enjoyed being babied, but Sonia wouldn't have it. Enjoyable conversations had taken place between the Four, where Patrick had said his musical was his adolescent act of defiance, enabling him to grow up and become emotionally independent of them, but these had gone on behind Sonia's back. A good deal did go on behind her back and, they agreed, probably always would. Unless her style — her character — changed, surely unlikely. She would never understand why. She was the chief provider of gossip in The Green Bird, particularly her war with Roger Stent. He had confessed he adored her. Would she live with him? She had replied that while she quite fancied his body, the problem was his mind. 'I couldn't face waking up beside you in the mornings.' What could he do to change her opinion of him? he asked, like a knight of old prepared to overcome obstacles for his lady. 'You could stop being a theatre critic for a start. You are as ignorant as a toad.' He confessed his dilemma to her. If he didn't write negative theatre criticism he would lose his job. That was why he had rubbished Julie Vairon. In fact he had enjoyed it. 'How do you know? You never even saw the third act.' She refused to see his difficulties: she had been immediately successful in the first job she had after leaving university. But though pure chance had made him one of the Young Turks, without them what would he be? Merely one of the hundreds of literary hopefuls in London. He was full of conflict. The raucous jeering tone of the Young Turks had now become how people recognized him, but in fact he was a good-natured young man who longed to be a serious critic. Should he write a novel? He was now well known enough to be sure the thing would be reviewed. But how could he write a novel when all his evenings were spent seeing plays? All Sonia said was, 'Oh, for Christ's sake, just get another job.' He asked if he could come and work at The Green Bird. What qualifications did he have? she demanded, and suggested a course in theatre history. His pride would not let him do this. Besides, it would certainly lose him his job. Sonia told him to grow up — as she had Patrick. Meanwhile everyone waited for the next instalment of the drama, confident that Virginia would keep them informed.

The Founding Four met sometimes in 'their' cafe, which had been taken over by 'the children'. Not that they would have dreamed of using this pet name to their faces. For one thing, they had to discuss why it was that Julie Vairon — or Julie — had put an end to the old Green Bird. 'Before Julie' and 'after Julie' — that was how they talked. But they could not come to a conclusion and at last agreed they had been fortunate to have had those years of wonderful comradeship; perhaps, while they were living through them, they had not sufficiently understood how wonderful they were. But now it was all over, and what better could they have done than relinquish the reins to Sonia? It was obvious to everyone else, though not to her, that she was destined to become that recurrent figure in the theatre — a clever, competent woman, impatient of other people's slowness, abrasive, tactless, 'impossible', and as salutary as a thunderstorm. She would always have passionate friends and as passionate enemies.