The Disappearance Boy (25 page)

At least the tide was in.

He imagined the black water pressing through the submerged metal forest, lifting the beards of weed; scouring away all traces of the night before. The idea gave him an angry satisfaction – he liked the idea of all that
stupidity
being drowned under a weight of darkness and cold that nothing could survive. He watched the skin of the water break and glitter around the tops of the black metal branches for a bit, then walked on. Feeling the need to finally clean his mouth out once and for all, he lurched along the promenade railing until he reached the top of the stairs that had led him down to the stones two nights ago, stared down the steps, and spat.

He held on to the rail for a bit, then let go. The hot tea had settled his stomach, and the sugar was doing its job now –
Monday bloody morning is right
, he muttered.
People who want to get paid need to get themselves to work on bloody time
.

Mr Brookes had called them in for half nine, and he had all the costumes to check before then. He swung straight across the roundabout by the Royal Albion, ignoring the pavements, and headed on past the Pavilion, past the library and up North Road.

Mr English seemed a bit preoccupied about something, but Reg was in no mood to ask how anyone was this morning. He could see from the keyboard that Pam and Mr Brookes were both in already, but that was only to be expected, and he told himself again to stop worrying and to just get on with his job. He scrawled his name in the book, and was already heading off down the corridor when Mr English called him back in that funny high-pitched voice of his.
What now, you old fusspot?
thought Reg. Mr English explained that he was a bit worried about Miss Rose. One of the Devere girls who had come in to collect a parcel had mentioned that she’d popped downstairs to the Ladies, and heard the sound of crying. It wasn’t his place to pry, of course, but might Reggie just pop down and make sure Miss Rose was all right?

There’d been no sound when he’d knocked, so he’d just pushed the door open. She was leaning with her hands on one of the basins, staring into the mirror, and his first thought was that she must have been being sick. When she eventually turned and looked at him, however, he knew straight away that that wasn’t it. Her skin was powderless, and the marks under her eyes were so dark that he was shocked. Her lips were dry, and cracked, and the bottom one was trembling.

8

‘Has he hit you?’

She looked down, then up in the mirror again, and pushed her hair back. He waited.

‘No, Reg. Nothing like that.’

The voice was barely there.

‘Well, what then? Mr English said you’ve –’

‘I’ve clicked.’

One of the taps in front of her was dripping into the handbasin, and she twisted it shut. He hadn’t understood what she was saying. Was she –

‘Well, come on then, Reg, say something. Tell me off.’

She twisted the tap again, and squeezed her voice into an ugly whisper.

‘’Cause it’s my fault, that’s for sure. People say the cap doesn’t work if you put it in in a hurry, and I was certainly that –’ she spat the words out – ‘I was certainly that, three Friday nights ago, in the Ladies toilet of the Bedford Hotel.’

Then she let out a laugh so bitter it strangled itself – Reg wanted to step into the room and stop her, but a lifted hand made him stop.

‘God! – the rigmarole they make you go through to get that bloody thing, Reg … The girl I shared with at Murray’s was married, and at least four of us must have borrowed her certificate for that all-important little
interview
at the clinic.’

The bitter laugh came back, and she turned her voice into a whining parody of gentility.

‘Oh yes, Doctor, I certainly
do
have my husband’s permission. He says if we just wait another year or two for Baby to arrive, he feels he’ll be better able to provide properly for all three of us …’

The voice dropped, and the hand slammed down onto the tiled shelf in front of the mirror. Reg took five steps towards her, then another.

‘… Christ!’

‘But how long?’ Reg was trying his best to keep up with what she was telling him, but most of it was over his head. He really hoped that that was the right question.

‘Eighteen fucking days –’ she inspected a nail, uselessly, – ‘and yes, I have done the sums. Ticked the days off on my sodding calendar, counted them, told myself it’s too soon to be sure till I’m blue in the face –’

‘Are you not sure then? I thought –’

‘Tell it to these,’ said Pam, cupping her breasts with both hands and offering them up as if she were offering two pieces of fruit from a stall. ‘Sore as if they’ve been punched, Reg. Ripe. Sweaty. And I’m clogged up inside. True, I’ve only missed once, and they say it has to be twice, but trust me, I’m sure. Remember that time when you told me your body never makes mistakes about things that hurt it? Well, you were right.’

‘That is a spot of bad luck.’

The voice dropped into the windowless room like a stone, and they turned their heads together to identify its source. Mr Brookes was standing just where Reggie had been, framed in the doorway with one hand up and resting against the woodwork.

‘Still, I’m sure we can sort you out.’

His face was as calm as it was in the act when he was palming something. The voice, too – measured, like a doctor’s. He took his hand away from the door frame, and wiped it.

‘Well, first things first.
Are
you sure?’

For the first time, Pam sounded more frightened than angry. Like Reg, she didn’t how long Mr Brookes had been standing there, and didn’t know how much he’d heard.

‘Too soon to tell until the sixth week, they say. I’m probably just fussing, Ted, honestly. I –’

‘I lie for a living, remember,’ said Mr Brookes. ‘Now, let’s see …’

He reached into his jacket, produced his wallet, and counted nine banknotes out onto the tiled shelf in front of her; nine, one after the other. Each note snapped slightly as it was lifted from the pigskin.

‘You can’t troupe with a kid, that’s for sure,’ he said as he worked, ‘and personally I’m hoping that you and I will be touring together for quite some time, Pam –’ the voice was almost purring now – ‘quite some time – and I’m sure you feel the same way, after all our … after all the hard work the two of us have put into our new act together. You just concentrate on that for a few days, and then when the time is right we’ll pop you off to somebody I know here in town who’ll be able to take care of you. Or rather, to somebody who knows somebody who will. There.’

He’d aligned the notes into a neat pile, exactly as if he’d been laying out cards for the start of a trick. He thought for a moment, and then, as if he had just recalculated the acceptable amount for a tip in a club or restaurant he was visiting for the first time, added two more notes for luck, and dug into a trouser pocket for two half-crowns, which he laid on top of the last note as his finishing touch.

‘Now,’ he said, the dirty work done, ‘why don’t you tuck that little lot away in your handbag, my darling – or ask Reggie to look after it for you if that would be easier – then splash your face, pop upstairs and get yourself changed for today’s rehearsal. Reggie’ll make you a nice hot cup of tea – two sugars today please, Reg, nice and strong – and we’ll start work in five minutes. Take your mind off things. Always the best policy in a crisis.’

As if he’d just completed a routine, he checked both their faces for a smile to match his own. His eyebrows rose.

‘No time like the present, boys and girls …’

The silence after he left them was long. Neither of them moved, and when Pam finally spoke it was in a voice Reggie hadn’t ever heard from her before. She sounded as though something very big was being compressed into a space that was much too small. She wasn’t staring after Mr Brookes, but at the money on the tiles – four blue fivers, five singles, two brick-red ten-bob notes and the two silver half-crowns, each note creased just the once from Mr Brookes’s wallet.

‘Put that somewhere where I can’t see it, would you, Reg?’ she said carefully, twisting her bracelet. ‘Otherwise I think I might do something silly.’

Reg picked up the money and stowed it away. He knew that Mr English kept a quarter-bottle of brandy at the stage door somewhere, and was wondering what would be the best way to get some of it down her before they started work – she was looking as white as a bloody sheet now. They could talk about what she was planning to do later.

‘Shall we go and –’

‘Notice he didn’t ask if it was his or not,’ Pam interrupted, her voice sharpening. ‘Which is a bit rich – don’t you think? Perhaps he’ll get Mr Clements to slip the programmes for the show with a title change – but then I shouldn’t think “Not So Bloody Respectable After All” would go down that well, even here at the Grand. And I doubt if Her Majesty would care for it, especially not on her big day, when everything’s going to be so … so very fucking
nice
.’

The control tightened, and almost slipped. She made a desperate attempt to keep her temper leashed, raking her fingers through her hair.

‘And did you see the way he put the notes down? Like he was counting them out on a tart’s mantelpiece. Like he was paying a flippin’ Frith Street
tart
.’

Reg was about to answer, but she didn’t give him time. She started to pace up and down the tiny room as if it were a cage, her voice getting louder and sharper with each turn.

‘He’s done that before, wouldn’t you say? In fact, he’s done that whole bloody scene before if you ask me. Notice he already knows exactly who to send me to – gives a whole new meaning to the phrase
one in every town
, doesn’t it? Still, as the gentleman said, no time like the present; I may as well go and get myself done and dusted as soon as he gives us a morning off. After all, there’s no point in pretending I can keep the wretched little –’

It was only when she saw the words strike Reg across the face that she realised what she’d done.

‘Oh Christ, Reg,’ she whispered, stricken, and reaching for him straight away. ‘I’m so sorry. I’m so sorry. But you know I have to, don’t you?’

She stroked his face, trying to get him to open his eyes.

‘Believe me I don’t want to, but I have to. Come on, Reg, say something, please. Please. Don’t be angry.’

‘I’m not,’ he said, his eyes still closed. ‘Honestly. Not with you. It’s just that …’

‘What?’

Reg jerked his chin up, trying to get his face away from her hand, and swallowed hard.

‘Later,’ he said. ‘Later, all right?’

He was already past her and out through the door when he spoke again, his voice thrown abruptly over his shoulder down the white-tiled corridor.

‘For now let’s just do what he says and get back to work. That spin out of the wedding dress is still nowhere near quick enough, and your garter needs tightening … Come on, I’ll make us that tea.’

Pam watched him go, but didn’t follow. Her feet wouldn’t move.

Reggie wasn’t lying when he said that about not being angry with her. Horrified, yes – but not angry. When he’d seen Pam’s mouth twist as she spat out those words about getting rid of her child he’d realised – as immediately as if he was feeling bile or vomit rising to his mouth – that he was watching his own mother. His mother, on the day she’d found out she was carrying him; watching her pace and rail and swear against her body’s trap as she felt it closing shut around her.

And Mr Brookes, standing there in the doorway with his face all stone as he reached for his wallet – well, now he knew. Now he knew what his father had looked like.

9

I need to explain about the money. In particular, I need to explain why Mr Brookes was able to count out the price of an abortion from his wallet as if that was the easiest thing in the world, because twenty-five guineas – which was what he counted out onto that shelf – was more than four times the weekly wage of almost everyone in this story.

Being seen as the kind of man who always had the price of a drink or taxi about his person was an important detail of Mr Brookes’s act, and apart from when he was onstage – in which case it was locked in his dressing room and the key handed over to Reggie for safe keeping – that pigskin wallet never left his jacket pocket. Even so, it was fortuitous that Pam’s expensive little bit of news arrived on his doorstep on that particular Monday morning, because, as luck would have it (so to speak), that particular Monday morning was one when Mr Brookes was positively flush.

Over the years, Mr Brookes had accumulated a small collection of gold or gold-plated jewellery. A few of the pieces had been gifts, but mostly they were stolen – little morning-after trophies, rings taken from a bedside handbag and suchlike, trinkets like Pamela’s gold cat, the kind of thing it would be too much trouble for a married woman to report missing – and knowing that once the new act was open he’d have to pay off some of the bills incurred in getting it up and running, he’d kept a previously made appointment that morning to turn some of this stolen jewellery into cash. The meeting was in a small and not particularly reputable premises at the back end of the Lanes – one of the shuttered-up second-hand places I’ve shown you Reggie lurching past a couple of times, in fact. There had been some toing and froing on the price, but in the end Mr Brookes had come away with thirty-five quid and no questions asked. Obviously, he hadn’t been planning on giving this money away, but as he told himself as he headed back upstairs from the Ladies towards the stage to start his morning warm-up, the unexpected outlay was more of an inconvenience than a disaster. In fact, it was an investment – he could hardly tell Pam to sling her hook a week before their opening night, could he? Having seen other girls through this little difficulty before, he was pretty sure he could rely on her not to bolt. Once they’d quietened down a bit and were feeling more sensible, pointing out the advantages of keeping their jobs usually did the trick. Not to mention the convenience of his knowing somebody safe he could send her to. As for his bills, the ones for the apparatus and rigs and so on … well, there were a couple of outstanding bar loans to acquaintances at the Arts that could be called in if he got short towards the end of the week, and he could easily talk his landlady into another week or so’s credit on his rent – and even then he would still have his cigarette case, his lighter, his watch and his signet ring in reserve, any of which he was sure his friend in the Lanes would be happy to bargain for if push came to shove. Come the opening night, he was sure his pigskin would be well lined again. If he could just keep Pam working hard, he didn’t see any reason why they couldn’t all get over this together.