All the way to the bank. But he didn’t say that, he left that implied. He always knew, in interviews, how to say just enough. Or to say nothing much really, but say it entertainingly. His company, but hers too. He liked to acknowledge it. ‘Oh I have the most wonderful business partner, you see, and managing director. Wife actually.’ The first two with a strong hint of a wink (the eyes now a little crinkly), the last with a rare unacted grateful directness.
‘My wife is my inspiration, you see. I’d be nothing without her.’
Oh come off it, Jack, don’t overdo it. But didn’t it contain more than a grain of truth?
Jack Robbins. She could already feel him now—or the man the public knew—becoming a memory, a ‘name’. Jack Robbins. Wasn’t he in that TV show long ago? That sitcom that ran for ages. Such is Life. When he’d stopped doing variety, stopped calling himself Jack Robinson. When he’d changed into Terry Treadwell. Wasn’t that his first big lucky break, the one that really got him an audience?
Break? Lucky? Don’t you believe it. He was the one who said it was a lucky break. A favourite phrase. All modesty and innocence. But it was Evie White (sometimes known as Mrs Robbins) who’d put him there, Evie White who’d marched him down to Lime Grove and said, ‘Sign, Jack, and say thank you to the nice people.’
She had flashed her smile. She had, too, a certain presence, a certain force. Jack had said, ‘This is Evie White.’ He hardly ever said ‘Mrs Robbins’. And from that day on, until further notice, Jack became Terry Treadwell, and Jack Robinson faded even further into the past.
In the mirror she might see him now if she peered hard enough—he’d never really gone, just popped out—standing behind her, his hands on her shoulders, stooping to kiss them, each one, to kiss the nape of her neck, to clasp round her neck the pearls he’d given her. It was twenty years ago. These pearls that she’d just taken off, pearls for a pearl wedding.
Jack Robbins. Jack Robinson. Mr Nod-and-a-wink, Mr Make-’em-laugh, make-’em-smile, make-’em-swoon. Mr Moonlight. Just an old song-and-dance man, just an old handsome dreamboat, never short of a girl or three. But, as it turned out, an actor of surprising depth and range and, more surprising still, and all things being relative in the world of entertainment, a remarkably uxorious man.
She could vouch for it. Who would know better?
Listen to me, George, since we’re here to honour the old boy: what’s more extraordinary, that actors turn into these other people—how on earth is it done?—or that people anyway turn into people you never thought they might be?
Evie White. Chorus girl. Prancer and dancer. Up for anything really. Even one-time magician’s assistant. But, as it turned out, hard-headed and sharp-eyed business woman. She could vouch for that too. And Jack Robbins’ wife for nearly fifty years. Not Ronnie Deane’s. Who would know better?
And what’s more extraordinary: that magicians can turn things into other things, even make people disappear and appear again, or that people can anyway one day be there—oh so there—and the next day never be there again? Never.
She might have said such things over their lunch, but she didn’t. And George might have listened and said, ‘Well, that’s quite a lot to chew on, Evie.’
All things being relative. And who cares about the famous two-week fling, back in the Seventies (Eddie Costello went to town on it in the News of the World), with a well-known rising actress (and where is she now, and what was her name again?). Did ‘Mrs Robbins’ (as Eddie called her) care? Jack came back, tail between his legs.
Did she care now? Come back, Jack, tail wherever you like.
And did she have any right, even then, to complain? How, after all, had their not-quite-fifty years begun? And who would have believed—was there no justice?—that they would have contained so much? Including even at least one kind of fiftieth, not so long after the launch of Rainbow Productions: Jack Robbins, fifty years on the stage. They had thrown a big party, in this house. She had ordered secretly a massive cake (never mind Jack’s expanding waistline) and had specified that on it there should be, in gold icing, the two famous masks, but not in this case of comedy and tragedy—both masks must be smiling.
Jack, before cutting it, had demanded her assistance. So there had followed a flustered little performance, or competition, of hands. Whose hand should go on top to press down and guide the other’s? Everyone had seen: it was like a wedding. And everyone had seen, despite the two smiling masks and the general laughter, the tears that had dripped for a second down Jack’s face. Real tears, not actor’s tears. No illusion.
Flash bulbs had popped. A riotous speech had followed. Oh the parties! The evenings! And one golden anniversary anyway.
Jack Robbins, who’d first trodden the boards in June 1945 in Cliftonville, Kent. She might picture it: tap shoes and a pint-sized penguin suit. Fourteen years old.
She fingers her pearls. His company and hers. More hers in fact. Now effectively all hers. She had always had the controlling share. His generous concession. ‘Should anything happen to me, Evie . . .’ Well it had. Rainbow Productions. It was their entirely private understanding that he had red, orange and yellow and she had blue, indigo and violet. And green. Why ‘Rainbow Productions’? Never mind. It was well named. It had brought them a pot of gold. It had bought them Albany Square. And she had green, the middle and deciding colour, the controlling share.
Though hadn’t she