The Disappearance Boy (15 page)

11

After he’d rearranged the dead irises, Reg coughed, wiped his hands and started with the usual.
Hello again
, he said, then
Hope you’re warm enough
– but neither of them seemed to work. He stood up straight, coughed and trotted out some stories from his backstage week, making the best job he could of making them sound like news, stopping occasionally to look around and see if there were any spare fresh flowers nearby that he could lift to replace the irises. He told his mother how the houses had been during the week – poor to start with, but building by the Friday, like the weather; about how silly Mr English got with Pam sometimes, treating her like she was a cut above the other girls –
She’s the real thing, that Miss Rose. Never gets her tone wrong, if you know what I mean
, he’d said to Reg one evening – and all about what a good round they’d got for the act from the third house last night.
Enough to shake a bit more gilt down off those stars on the ceiling, I shouldn’t wonder
, he said.
Mr Clements Sole Prop will have to get the decorators in if things carry on like this, the old skinflint
– and so on. As he continued, he became more and more aware that he wasn’t talking about what was really on his mind. He’d woken up with Pam in his head this morning – Pam in the alleyway, Pam laughing, Pam with Mr Brookes’s hand in the small of her back – and now all of that seemed to be sticking in his throat and making the familiar lump worse. When he got to last night itself, with Pam walking away from their lamp post and disappearing round the laburnum tree, he stopped and fell silent. A plane – a rarity, in those days – was ruling a metallic line over his head, but he didn’t look up to watch it.

Well, we all have visits that fail, I suppose. Reg tried telling himself that it wasn’t his fault that he didn’t feel in the mood to talk, but it didn’t work. It was that hand in the small of Pam’s back again that was the problem – that was what was stopping him talking. He’d seen that before, and now he didn’t know what to do about it. Not at all. Even as he tramped back into town to meet Pam for their Sunday-afternoon date at the Essoldo, he still couldn’t get it out of his head.

There were lots of other things that Reg didn’t mention, of course – as I’m sure you’ve noticed. He didn’t mention the boy with the black hair that he had stared at yesterday morning on North Road – it was the chef from his breakfast cafe, as it happened, the Italian one – or talk about what his feelings were now that he was going to be heading back to London pretty soon, back to another single bed in a top-floor room. In other words, he didn’t talk about
himself
at all.

Mothers can do that.

12

‘Strand?’ said Mr Brookes.

Mr Clements Sole Prop refused the proffered cigarette, but reached across his desk and took a cigar from the open pewter box with a thick-wristed hand. Mr Clements was only forty, but well past his prime – think of Eric Morley in an unsympathetic role, but with more weight and less breath. He sniffed his cigar before lighting it, and paused, ostensibly for thought. Mr Brookes let him take his time; he didn’t have to be back downstairs for the matinee half for another ten minutes, and Mr Clements knew that.

‘And you’re going to feature this new girl of yours again, are you?’ Mr Clements asked, sniffing again – as if the tobacco he was rolling between his fingers might contain some faint trace of the lady in question.

Like the door to the bar at the back of the stalls, Mr Clements’s mahogany-panelled office up at the back of the second circle also had stained glass in its window. That, combined with a general dustiness, made it a dingy place to do business on a Thursday afternoon, but Mr Brookes wasn’t going to let that cramp his style. He was pretty sure he’d aroused Mr Clements’s interest; now all he had to do was finesse that into a booking. He took his time – he knew that the last thing you ever needed to do in these conversations was to sound like you were desperate for work. It was all, as always, a question of timing. Slow on the build-up; quick on the produce.

‘Well, you saw yourself how well she goes across when you were kind enough to drop in and catch us on Saturday night, Mr Clements, especially with the lads upstairs,’ he said lazily, making it sound as if he had six other offers in his pocket already – and as if he hadn’t personally invited Clements to come and watch that particular show. ‘Basically, I’m thinking about really going to town on the costumes for this one, and then putting her in something abbreviated for the finale. Of course –’ he paused strategically – ‘Of course if I
do
decide to open the act here then that would all depend on what sort of a bill you might be thinking of putting together for the celebrations. Where are you heading? Naughty, or nice – that’s always the choice in this business, isn’t it?’

‘Oh, I think we’ll be staying naughty, Coronation night or not,’ said Mr Clements, keeping his eyes on the coiling smoke from his now-lit cigar. He instinctively mistrusted illusionists, and this Brookes character was giving him even more of the creeps than usual with his well-oiled patter. ‘People can always get nice at home. I’ve got a new girl troupe lined up for the double spot at number two – Marie Devere’s lot. They’ve just been supporting Max at the Leeds Empire. Though if I know Marie, there’ll be a couple of strategically placed Union Jacks in the finale just to keep things proper.’

‘So a double number-two spot for the girls with a fast turn-around in between that needs covering, just like on this one?’ said Mr Brookes quickly, but looking airily down at a fingernail all the same, just to keep up appearances.

They both knew that that was the real point. The art of putting together a good running order for a variety show is a very practical one, and having found a formula that worked, Mr Clements was reluctant to change it. The ladies in the audience had to be kept happy with the comedy and the occasional well-turned-out gentleman, while the men in the audience had to be kept in their seats with the promise of seeing the goods at the end of the evening. That meant that the two outings for the troupe of underdressed young ladies who were always the number two attraction at the Grand had to be held back until the second half and then put on close together under the headliner, and that in turn meant a very nifty change from near-undress to near-illegal in between their two spots, with a new backdrop to go in upstage as well. The problem was always finding the right third-from-top filler to cover this change – too saucy, and it stole the nudes’ second-spot thunder and killed the build-up to the headliner; too straight that late in the evening, and it was bound to get the bird.

‘Yes … that’s one possible idea. I still haven’t made up my mind, of course. There are nearly four weeks to go …’

Mr Clements released a throatful of smoke into the colour-stained air as he said it, watching the blue and purple mix and turn slowly muddy as if to emphasise his point. His face was mask of heavy-jowled neutrality.
Good
, thought Mr Brookes,
he’s going to bloody book me
.

‘And of course I’d be happy to stick a Union Jack anywhere you fancy on my Pamela if that’s what it takes to make her fit the bill, Mr Clements. You just say the word.’

There was another exhalation of smoke, another winding together of blue and purple.

‘Got a title?’

Of course Mr Brookes had a title; it had been in his little black notebook since teatime on Tuesday, inspired by a tea-shop encounter with a youngster who’d told him she’d just had her first row with her husband. Just as he had imagined doing with her, Mr Brookes took his time.

‘Well,’ he said, giving a fair impression of a man in need of a fellow artiste’s professional opinion, albeit with one raised eyebrow. ‘I’m still not
quite
sure … but how does “Teddy Brookes: Respectable At Last!” strike you as a billing?’

Smoke snorted out of Mr Clements’s nostrils as he laughed, and he held out his fat right hand across the desk for Mr Brookes to shake.

‘Very clever. And does the young lady in question know what she’s in for yet?’

‘I think you can leave that to me, Mr Clements.’

‘I’m sure I can.’

He could have winked, but he didn’t need to. The business part of the meeting concluded, he shouted through the half-open door behind him.

‘Florrie!’

A thin plain woman with a bun and a notepad squeezed herself in sideways through the connecting door, and took up what was clearly her usual seat in the only other chair, pencil poised.

‘Yes, Mr Clements?’

‘Contract,’ Mr Clements barked. ‘Two weeks in the Coronation Special with one week extension to be confirmed; June second kick-off, same rates, new title, billing as agreed. Cash in hand after the first house on Thursdays, et cetera. And if we might have that pot of tea now, that would be lovely.’

Mr Brookes took the main foyer stairs down to the auditorium two at a time, and as he crossed the still-dark carpet his mind was working as fast as his feet. He wasn’t sure he could afford the old girl in Forest Hill for the frocks this time – what was the name of that piece on Mare Street who’d said to be in touch if he ever needed any second-hand rigs? She was about Pam’s size, wasn’t she? – and he was sure he could get the outfits on tick if he treated her to a quick reunion. Then there was the apparatus, of course – and which music to use for his entrance. Something smart, he fancied – upbeat, but smart. Jo Stafford’s ‘You Belong to Me’ – just a first idea, obviously, but not bad, not bad at all when he thought about it …

He paused for a moment to compose himself. Straight after picking up the wages this evening would probably be the best time to try to confirm with Clements that they could use the stage to rehearse again – the Grand must have pulled down well into three figures with that last house on Saturday, so there was a fair chance that the weekly accounts would have put him in a good mood. And he’d have to have a careful think about how he was going to talk Pam round into working on a new routine when she’d only just got on top of the current one – though he was confident that he’d already successfully laid the groundwork in that department, thank you very much.
Ready when you are, Mr Brookes
, would be his professional assessment of that particular situation.

Smiling, Mr Brookes decided that some sort of celebration might be in order. He visualised the relevant page of his notebook, and landed on the fourth name on his current list. He just felt like somebody else buying the drinks for a change. He wiped his hands, and pulled open the heavy metal of the pass door. It sighed – as always – and slid softly shut behind him.

13

Thursday was matinee day of course, and there’s something about doing the bloody thing three times in a row that always gives the company an extra determination to get that final house applauding properly. Even Mr Brookes was not immune to this general impulse, it seems, because when Pam came up from her second dip in their final calls that night he did something that he never did and threw in an impromptu. Turning to her with an extra, unscheduled bow, he kissed the back of her white-gloved hand – right in front of everybody – provoking an extra cheer from the boys upstairs and a ringing shout of
Good luck, mate!
from one of them in particular. Milking it, Mr Brookes winked ostentatiously out at the house as the tabs came down, and patted the trouser pocket where he’d stowed his ropes, getting yet another laugh – making Reg, who was still curled up inside his hot little metal prison in the base of the apparatus, wonder what all the extra noise was for. Once the tabs were down, Mr Brookes surprised Pam by brightly suggesting that they might keep the new piece of business in, if she didn’t mind, and if the house seemed to warrant it. Pam said, yes, of course – the move made sense – and wondered what had got into him. As she watched him pull off his gloves and nod a quick
Good evening
to the tall redhead leading Madame Valentine’s girls onstage, it occurred to her that Mr Brookes had the definite air of man who was planning a date after work. There’d been an extra spring in his step all the way through the act tonight – an extra lightness. Yes, that was it – look at the way he was pulling his gloves off, grinning already as he headed upstairs to get changed.
God help the lucky lady who’s on the receiving end of that one
, she thought to herself as she watched him go.

When Pam got upstairs and peeled one of her own gloves off – the inside of the satin had now taken on the exact colour of her own skin, she noticed – she discovered that Mr Brookes’s gallantry had left a carmine stain. She turned the glove right-side out again and laid it flat on her dressing table ready for Reggie to collect for the wash, thinking nothing more about it.

Reggie, when he arrived to help her undress, noticed the lipstick straight away. His lips tightened when he saw it, and he carried on with his usual routine of unzipping her dress and offering his steadying hand in conspicuous silence. All he did say, finally, was that maybe they should get her a second pair of gloves so that she could have one in the wash and one on the go. Pam could tell he was upset about something more than just an extra bit of hand-washing – there was a definite edge to his voice – and when Reg’s silence continued she decided that the air definitely needed clearing. She lifted off her wig, and started pulling out the first pins.

‘Look, Reg, if you’re worried about Mr Brookes getting fresh with me, don’t be.’

Reggie kept up his business with the dress. The hands lifted, and patted, and pulled.

‘Reg? It’s not as if I’m going to let him –’

‘What?’

The word had come out harder than he’d meant it to. Their eyes met in the mirror, and Pam was about to reply, but before she had time to do it she was cut off by a sharp rapping on the dressing-room door.

‘Are you decent in there? Hello?’

Of course, they knew who it was even before he called out; he’d used his knuckles in exactly the same pattern as he used on the cabinet with his cane – too hard, and a touch too smartly. Pam was the one who broke the contact of their eyes in the mirror.