Curtain Call (7 page)

‘Are the subs going to be long? I have an appointment to keep.'

‘What, at this hour?'

‘The night is young.' Jimmy shrugged, wary of his curiosity. Lambert was just the sort of tittle-tattler who could do him damage. Changing the subject, he fished out the business card lately entrusted to him and handed it across the desk.

‘Know anything of this fellow?'

Lambert wrinkled his nose. ‘Gerald Carmody. Mm, used to knock around with the Blackshirts, before he fell out with Mosley. Met him a couple of times.'

‘He claimed acquaintance with me, but I didn't know him from Adam.'

‘That wouldn't stop Carmody. He puts himself about. I gather he's running a theatre in Covent Garden – belonged to his wife's family.'

‘Yes, the Marquess. He's trying to raise funds – asked me along to a dinner in support. I suppose I ought to lend my name.'

‘But of course – a theatrical legend such as yourself . . .' Jimmy thought he detected a note of sarcasm in his voice, but Lambert's expression was impassive. ‘He's not altogether trustworthy, of course,' he continued, handing back the card to Jimmy. ‘He oughtn't to be giving out these things for a start – he's not an MP any more.'

At that moment a copy boy poked his head round the door, waving a proof of Jimmy's review. For the next twenty minutes Jimmy fiddled furiously, breaking up paragraphs and honing down sentences with the pained but beady eye of a master jeweller forced to cut a beautiful gem. Ten lines – lines he had lovingly composed – gone! Still, better he did the job than allow some sub to get his paws on it. When he had finished he placed it on the desk before Lambert, who was now slumped in his chair, blowing smoke rings at the ceiling.

‘I'm off. Are you going to have another look at it?'

Lambert lifted his chin in vague acknowledgement. ‘I'm sure it'll do.'

Jimmy bristled. This was too much. ‘It will more than
do
,' he said coldly. ‘Much as it might surprise you, my copy does not come by the yard, like cloth for curtains. Nor is it something to be topped and tailed like a French bean. It is a piece by James Erskine – therefore it will be the outstanding ornament of tomorrow's newspaper.'

He didn't wait for Lambert's response to this blast of magisterial hauteur, brushing past the copy boy who had been loitering at the door. He was halfway along the corridor when the response did come, belatedly: a rising three-note screech of hilarity, accompanied by another's low appreciative snigger.

Back in the cab, which he had kept waiting, Jimmy fumed uselessly over the scene he had just exited. He had forgotten how much he disliked Lambert.
I'm sure it'll do
. . . Time was when he would have had him carpeted. The Erskine of old would not have suffered such impudence from a subordinate. That time was fading. Jimmy felt himself to be a person of diminishing consequence. It was partly to do with age. Young men like Lambert didn't care tuppence that he was the great drama critic of his era; they just saw a fat old man in checks and a bowler who had to walk with a cane.

It might have been different, had luck been on his side. Or should he say
looks
? In his early twenties he had strutted the stage himself, working in a repertory company whose productions had caught the eye of the local newspaper. His Laertes at that little theatre in Edgbaston was hailed as a triumph (he still had the cutting somewhere) and for a while he had even understudied the Prince. He possessed a melodic voice and a decent athletic figure, but as time went on he noticed that the roles being offered to him were getting smaller and, strangely, older. Instead of the dashing romantics he longed to play, directors were casting him as uncles, loyal advisers, second dukes. Three years after his ‘triumphant' Laertes he auditioned for another
Hamlet
and was asked to read for – the gravedigger! Frustrated, he eventually took aside Mr Becker, the manager of the company, to ask why he was being overlooked for the major roles. Jimmy listened to him blather for a while before he pressed him to give an honest answer. Becker paused, embarrassed, and then he said quietly, ‘I'm sorry, James, but nobody will cast you for those parts. You simply don't have the looks.'

So there it was. He could have persevered in defiance of the man's judgement, but in his heart he knew he had heard the truth, or something like it. He quit the company, without so much as a goodbye to anyone, and worked for a time in his father's drapery business. It was a desolate period in his young life. For months he avoided the theatre altogether, sickened at the thought of his lost future. Then, during a week's holiday in London, he went to see Henry Irving play Dubosc in
The Lyons Mail
, and was transfixed. On returning to his lodgings he wrote a review of the play, rhapsodising over three paragraphs on the actor's ferocious gusto and individuality. He had written pieces for the school magazine, but nothing before had so fired his enthusiasm, or his pen. He sent it to the
Post
, with a covering letter, and the next day an editor wrote back. The paper couldn't run his Irving review, but would he care to try out as their London theatre correspondent? Four weeks later, following a brief interview, the job was his. The performer in him had not been wholly thwarted; henceforth he would create his own sort of drama from the stalls, to be enjoyed in print the next day. It was revenge of a kind. But in thirty-eight years he had never forgotten the critical verdict Mr Becker had passed, regretfully, on his physical appeal.

The cab had stopped on Charlotte Street, quiet at this hour, though he could see the lamps still agleam inside Bertorelli's. He paid off the cabbie – quite a fare after all his waiting – and found the covered alley by the side of the pub. Newman Passage: don't mind if I do, thought Jimmy. At the foot of the alley was a cobbled mews, where he counted off the numbers until he reached the door he'd been told about. A sullen-faced bantam who answered his knock gave him the once-over before stepping aside. The lounge he entered was long and dimly lit, like a Mayfair clubroom, and occupied by men in murmurous colloquy. Not knowing anyone, Jimmy was about to settle in a corner armchair when a strapping fellow with brilliantined hair and a neat moustache approached him.

‘Mr . . . Quex, is it?'

‘Call me Jimmy,' he replied, accepting the man's handshake.

‘Sergeant Teague, sir. What'll you have to drink?' Without waiting for an answer he called to another man lounging nearby. ‘Bottle of Black & White, if you will, Reg. Two glasses.'

‘And a tankard,' added Jimmy. The man nodded and slunk off.

Teague looked at him in a genial way, but said nothing, so Jimmy began the story of his evening, and made a little comic anecdote of his dropping off during the play. Teague only listened, though when the Scotch arrived at the table he poured them each a good three fingers and raised his glass. ‘Here's how.'

Jimmy drank and continued to talk of the London theatre and its audiences, cracking the odd joke, but Teague just sat there, nodding benignly. It seemed that whatever he said, and however amusingly he said it, he could not pierce the fellow's carapace of polite indifference. Jimmy, used to entertaining company, decided on a different tack.

‘So, Sergeant,' he began, looking about the room, ‘you're all from the Albany Street barracks?'

‘Indeed we are, sir.'

‘I've done me bit for the King, too. Captain in the Army Service Corps, '14–'18. Mostly in Le Havre and Boulogne, you know, looking after the horses. Much safer than the front, of course!' Jimmy thought he should make this modest admission in case he came across as a shirker. Teague at last responded.

‘No shame in supplying a good service, sir.'

Jimmy heard the ulterior meaning in his words. ‘Quite so,' he said, taking out his wallet and laying two ten-shilling notes on the table. The sergeant winked, and calmly folded them into his pocket. Jimmy looked around at the other clientele, huddled in convivial clusters. He experienced a stab of panic. ‘These men are all . . . I can trust in their discretion?'

‘Absolutely, sir,' said Teague, smiling. ‘Allow me to conduct you upstairs. I've a couple of friends I think you'd like to meet.' He signalled to his man to carry up the Scotch and the tankard, and Jimmy followed after.

At four o'clock the two guardsmen said their ‘g'nights' and pushed off, each of them ten bob to the better. Jimmy, sprawled on a divan, hauled his trousers back on and went downstairs in search of Teague. He didn't mind having to do all the talking – in truth he rather enjoyed it. But the sergeant had gone, so there was nothing else for it: home, James. Back on Charlotte Street the facades of cafes and shops gazed out, oddly hostile, the serried upper windows glimmering from the reflection of the street lamps. He headed for Bedford Square, his ears pricked for other footsteps, though there really was nobody about, not even an early milkman. His shadow seemed to gain on him as he walked, and he looked in fright over his shoulder to check he was not being followed. He hated having to walk home – he hated having to walk
any
where – and took to muttering some verses to keep himself company.

We aren't no thin red 'eroes, nor we aren't no blackguards too.

But single men in barricks, most remarkable like you;

And if sometimes our conduck isn't all your fancy paints,

Why, single men in barricks don't grow into plaster saints.

Indeed not!

He had just reached the British Museum, nearly at his door, when he saw a lone, lean figure strolling in his direction. The helmet gave him away. He had heard stories of policemen disguised as trade, soliciting men like himself. One couldn't be too careful. A discreet exchange of looks, a descent into the public lavatory – and the surprise snap of the handcuffs. Gotcha!

‘Good morning, Constable,' chirped Jimmy, with an insouciance he didn't feel.

‘Sir,' he replied, with a tap to his helmet, walking on.

Jimmy wondered how respectful the bobby would have been had he witnessed his recent ‘conduck' with the guardsmen. The younger of the two had been rather shy when he asked for his usual. ‘What – in there?' he said, looking at the tankard on the table. Jimmy watched as the man unbuttoned his fly and flipped out his cock, giving it a quick peremptory tug; a few moments later an arc of urine drummed inside the pewter, then slowed to a dribble. The man gave himself a shake, and withdrew.

‘That's the stuff,' said Jimmy, taking the remainder of the Scotch and upending it into the tankard. He sniffed a thin ammoniac odour, then put the vessel to his lips and downed it in great gulps.

He went softly down the hall, shrugged off his coat and peeked into the living room. Through the grainy dark he saw the recumbent form of Tom, his secretary, asleep on the sofa. The bed he had made for himself was, like everything he did, severely neat; he had even tucked in the blanket corners. With tender feelings of relief Jimmy crept into the room to turn down the lamp. As he did so the prone body on the sofa stirred, and a sleep-blurred voice came: ‘Jim – that you?'

He gave him a little pat. ‘Yes. Go back to sleep. Bring me in some tea at eight, will you?'

Tom grunted a vague affirmative.

‘Good man,' whispered Jimmy, backing out of the room and closing the door.

MADELEINE JUMPED WHEN
the waitress put down the pot of tea at her elbow. She'd been miles away. ‘Sorry, dearie,' cooed the woman, who must have seen her startled expression because she patted her hand in apology. A sudden hot surge prickled at Madeleine's eyes. It was the sort of random gesture of sympathy that could set her off these days, she didn't know why. The waitress, older than the others, had just asked her something, and mechanically she replied, ‘No, nothing else, thank you.'

‘Right you are,' she said, and moved away. Madeleine's gaze followed her halting progress around the other tables, where she would stoop enquiringly, nodding through the orders on her notepad, sharing an inaudible moment of cheer. She treated all of her customers in the same affable way, and none of them seemed to find it unusual. If only – if only this nice old lady were her friend, the things she would tell her, all those things choked up so tight inside they felt like some terrible indigestion. But then perhaps she would only frighten her off, for who would wish to be tainted by her sordid packet of despair?

Without removing her thin scarf she put her fingertips to the skin around her throat, which still felt sore, weeks after. She looked about her to check that nobody was watching, and, of course, nobody was. Who were these people, she wondered, these blithe patrons of the tea room, jawing away to one another without a care in the world? How had they come by such unthinking gaiety? She drew the scarf around her protectively. It was one of only two souvenirs from her time at Diprose's, the smart ladies' clothing establishment off Piccadilly. She sometimes tormented herself with the notion that all might have been well if she had stuck it out there. If she had been a little more self-possessed . . . The manager, Mr Campbell, had seemed quite the gentleman, asking her how she liked working in the linen and hosiery department, often popping down from the third floor to say good morning. She soon learned why. He was old – at least forty-five, she supposed – and immaculately turned out, with a pocket square in blazing scarlet or gold to offset his dark double-breasted suits. She had once seen him in the Burlington Arcade reading a newspaper while a shoeblack worked away on his gleaming oxfords.

At first, when she was required at his office to help with the mail orders, she thought his standing rather close to her was a helpless eccentricity – she had noticed the tendency in others before. When he started to touch her she said nothing, but tried to keep her distance if they happened to be left alone together. He must have taken her silence as encouragement, because he became bolder, not just rubbing up against her but actually snaking his hand along her neck and shoulders. She didn't know what to do. She was friendly with a couple of the other assistants without their being actual friends, but she sensed that telling them about Mr Campbell's interferences would not be welcomed. They would think her a troublemaker, or the type of girl who sought attention. Her superior in the hosiery department was a middle-aged lady, Mrs Pearce, whose horn-rimmed spectacles alone were enough to repel any thought of confiding in her. Her obsequious regard for their employer left no doubt in Madeleine's mind whose side she would take if the story came out.