Corpsing (11 page)

It was unlikely she would have known for definite that I (or Cyril or the older man or another man altogether) was the baby’s father. She wasn’t likely to have had amniocentesis on something she was intending to abort. Nor, I doubted, would there have been time to organize one – unless she’d gone private. And that was something which Lily, trying to retain some vestige of her natural actorly leftism, had always been passionately against. Whatever Lily was intending to tell me it wasn’t ‘I’m carrying
your
baby, but I’m going to have an abortion.’ Not unless she was prepared to lie – to cover up the fact she’d been sleeping with another man, or more than one other man. (And why do that? Hadn’t the whole thing – last-minute call, expensive restaurant, new frock – been a demonstration of how totally in the past I was for her?) If there was a confusion as to who the baby’s father was, Lily was unlikely to want to argue about it over asparagus and veal.

Veal,
I thought, as I sliced into the pale flat flesh,
what a cruel thing to order.

(When we met I was a conscience – and Lily a health-vegetarian. Her downfall, when it came, was not the archetypal bacon sarnie but a touring production of
The Ghost Sonata.
It had been Lily’s
first really serious rôle: The Colonel’s Daughter, in reality the Old Man’s Daughter. Half-way through, Lily began to have fainting fits. The assistant director spotted her proto-anaemia and thought it very good for Strindberg but very bad for insurance. He therefore ordered her to eat steak and eggs. When she came back from tour, she corrupted me as well.)

A little undue attention came my way, as the other diners noticed I – sitting on my own – had ordered two meals but was only eating one. Michael had obviously told the other waiter, whilst out of sight in the kitchen, who I was and what I was doing there. Slowly, as he buzzed around, the other waiter began to pollinate the further off tables with this golden information. Cutlery clinked, heads turned, eyes narrowed then widened. More stamens of curiosity were tickled. The buzzing came closer. I heard the word
shot.

The maître d’ came and stood for a minute or two near the head of the stairs. To his right were the double doors to the kitchen. This was the point at which Lily might have seen the man who was about to kill her,
if
she’d been looking – but she hadn’t.

Michael served me impeccably throughout the meal. I think he was trying to prove something to himself about his own professionalism. Today, for him, was well on its way from being a torture to becoming a good story; and maybe that in turn would rehabilitate the earlier and unmentionable day. Was Michael an actor, I wondered. Was he trained? Any more than serving the general public in
any
capacity is a training for disguised megalomania and moderated contempt. Speaking of which, the maître d’ approached me after I’d asked for the bill.

‘Mr Redman,’ he said. ‘What can I say? You are a very brave man. It is a privilege to have you as a customer.’

And all the time his body language was screaming –
Get out, low-life scum!

‘I hope you are making a swift and full recovery. And, as an
expression of the esteem in which you are held by all at Le Corbusier, please accept this meal – and your tragic last meal – on the house.’

‘Thank you for your generosity, but I am determined to pay for both meals. It’s something I need to do for myself – and for Lily.’

‘Well,’ he said, hands flying apart like well-choreographed doves. ‘Next time, perhaps.’

‘Thank you,’ I said. ‘But this has all been rather traumatic for me. However, I may at some point want to book this particular table for some friends. I have strange friends. Curious people. It would be good to know that you would make it available for them – as a favour to me.’

‘Of course,’ he said, undisconcerted.

‘But there is one thing you could do for me today.’

I could tell that the maître d’ wanted to say
Anything
but was holding back. If he said that, I
could
ask for anything: I was a potential madman back from the dead. No-one could predict what obscenity I might want.

‘What can we do for you?’ he asked.

‘Could I please have a look at your reservations book for August last year?’

‘If we had it, Mr Redman, of course. But unfortunately the police have taken it away.’

Interesting.

‘Ah, I don’t suppose you can remember under what name the table for us was booked.’

The maître d’ hesitated. Here was a chance for him to demonstrate his double power: the power of knowledge and the power of knowledge withheld. Both, in different ways, were a temptation – but he settled for disclosure, as it was most likely to send me away quietly and to keep me away once sent.

‘Yes, I was with the Detective Inspector when he examined the reservation book. The name was Alun Grey. When the waiter
– Michael – called for the ambulance, he gave that as your name. Some confusion may have resulted.’

I made more of getting to my feet than was absolutely necessary, but not much.

‘Thank you for clearing that up,’ I said.

‘A pleasure, Mr Redman.’

We began to move towards the door, eyes following us.

‘I hope the
incident
hasn’t affected your business.’

‘On the contrary, Mr Redman. It may be a sad comment upon human nature, but our bookings have actually increased.’

‘Really?’ I asked.

‘By over 10 per cent.’

There
– I had discovered the greedy shopkeeper in him. He realized his mistake and was ashamed. A figure should never have been mentioned. Not to a customer, and particularly not to
this
customer. Attempting to cover up, he babbled.

‘They are constantly asking for
that table
and they say
You know the one I mean.
Perhaps you experienced some difficulty in booking?’

‘I would have preferred to come in the evening.’

‘Unfortunately, Mr Redman, the ghouls are particularly fond of the evening.’

I turned to him at the top of the stairs.

‘But you’ll clear the table for me, if I ask.’

Only his eyelids moved, but it still conveyed a nod.

‘Certainly.’

I made him shake hands on this and on our goodbye.

‘Could Michael help me down the stairs again?’ I asked.

The maître d’ retreated – off to fetch him.

Michael halted.

‘Yes,’ he said.

‘Do you remember what it was?’ I asked.

He looked back up the stairs.

‘Alun Grey,’ he said.

‘And did you take the booking?’ I asked.

He nodded, quickly.

I looked at him. Did I really have to
ask
the next question? It seemed I did.

‘Who made the booking?’

‘The police already know this,’ he said.

‘But I don’t,’ I said. I lifted up one of my crutches – casually, as if I was so used to them they were merely a useful extension of my arms.

‘Mr Grey actually made the booking.’

‘On what day of the week.’

‘Monday or Tuesday.’

He seemed to have something else to say, if only I asked the right question.

‘And?’ I asked.

‘I think it was Monday,’ he said. But that wasn’t the answer he’d been meaning to give.

We turned our attention back to the stairs.

Once outside again on the street, I said to him, ‘Thank you for your help.’

He smiled.

‘Take care of yourself,’ he said.

‘And you,’ I replied.

Really, we had much more in common with each other than either of us had with the maître d’. We were the same kind: strugglers-after-something-we-aren’t-going-to-get.

‘See you again, maybe,’ he said.

He put his hand on my shoulder before jogging back up the stairs.

As I walked away from Le Corbusier I felt exhausted, but I had the name – an unexpected name – and I had my next task: Alun Grey.

Dorothy had recently reached that age many actresses reach, where a combination of hormonal changes and the exercise of certain professional muscles had rendered her almost completely uncastable. Her throat had widened into a trunk of resonance, capable of rattling dentures in the gods. Her voice was now a blasted-out husk of cracks, creaks and virtuosic but unnatural octave leaps. Her mouth and eyes were so wide that any camera found them painful to look at. Skin aged by make-up and make-up removal, dried by the lights, wrinkled by the repeated-repeated-repeated emotions: again and again, grief. So much so, that her only plausible roles nowadays were grief-stricken or aggrieved. But because she could no longer credibly carry off before-grief as well as after-grief, she rarely got the chance. Dorothy, you see, had ceased to be a believable human being. She was now a
monster of the theatre – a creature whose only viable existence was on the stage of the Royal Shakespeare Company, shuddering and gesticulating, whispering and strutting, croaking out the pentameter, leaping into unscripted clutches with any actor that happened to be passing (much in contrast to her famously monogamous off-stage life).

Posters advertising Alun and Dorothy’s modern dress production of
Macbeth
were all over London.

The whole thing was ridiculous – a last kiss-off by the RSC to a dedicated old stager. Dorothy was far too old to play a convincing Lady Macbeth. ‘Bring forth men children only,’ would be a hoot. (Dorothy was forty-eight and had a fifteen-year-old son, named Laurence after Olivier.) It was a vanity production, and all the critics knew that it was Dorothy’s farewell. (Whether Dorothy knew was another matter.) After this it would be witches all the way.

Lily and Alun had toured together in
The Ghost Sonata.
But I hadn’t been aware that they’d done anything else after that, other than keep in professional touch the way actors do – just in case they ever have to work with any particular co-actor again, perhaps for many performances, perhaps for many productions.

This secrecy suggested an affair – always assuming that they’d been seeing each other whilst she and I were still living together.

If they hadn’t, then Lily’s frock might still suggest an affair – maybe not in process, but definitely in the offing. Designer, as far as Lily was concerned, had always meant sex.

(During our last episode of fuckings, we’d done it on the floor of the women’s changing rooms at Harvey Nichols – Lily flicking V-signs at the security camera over my shoulder. Well, it was a lot better than sitting outside with the other partners, exchanging shrugs and grimaces.)

Maybe the Le Corbusier date had been intended as their reunion – finally, we can be together, etc. But Alun wasn’t going to leave his wife.
The
Dorothy Pale. Not for Lilian Irish. Mere Lilian Irish.

I had met Alun three times. Once when I picked Lily up after a
Ghost Sonata
rehearsal. Once drunkenly, at that production’s first-night party. And once in the classical music section of the Virgin Megastore – where he apologized for his behaviour during and after the first-night party. On each of the three occasions I’d been impressed by his masculinity, his nostril hair and his aftershave – all of which were pronounced.

In a nearby newsagent I bought a copy of the
Standard.
Then I sat down at one of the pavement tables outside Bar Italia and looked through the theatre listings. There it was:

After being kicked out, I deliberately hadn’t bothered to have my mail redirected – hoping that this would give me an excuse for some minimal contact with Lily. (I could think of her touching my forwarded post.) In fact, she’d been supposed to bring along my letters to our dinner date.

Josephine hadn’t left very much personal stuff. There were letters and postcards from Lily’s friends. I read a few of them.
Thailand is still totally wicked… And then he dumped me, just like that… Can’t wait till this fucking shoot’s over…
I’d never really liked Lily’s friends.

Most of the envelopes were junk mail, continuing for months after Lily’s death: credit cards, health insurance. There were also bills for her utilities: gas, electricity, water, phone.

A vague idea forming, I looked through the phone bill – it just gave totals. But turning to the bill for her mobile phone, I saw that it was fully itemized.

There were several pages of computer printout detailing the numbers which Lily had called, the length of those calls and how much she’d been charged for them. It covered the month before she died. I became excited. There would be plenty of useful stuff here, surely – Alunwise. But even before I’d started looking through properly, something struck me: I flicked to the last page – knowing that Lily’s last hours would be there. She had made
quite a few calls the day she was shot – which was all as expected. But what shocked me was what I saw at the very bottom of the page.