Fallout (12 page)

‘I want to buy you dinner,’ Paul told her, and they went to a trattoria in Soho, early on a Saturday, far from the cold office buildings and lifeless streets around the Lord Grafton. Leigh ate spaghetti alle vongole and didn’t worry about the garlic. He didn’t make her nervous about things like that. They had made a rule not to talk about Graft but the funny thing was, all Paul did was talk about Luke.

‘If he doesn’t show me what he’s writing, I’ll kill him. I think it’s plays,’ he said and, ‘Did you know his father was in the RAF?’ and ‘He sends a postcard home every week.
Every
week, Leigh.’

Leigh twirled the wet spaghetti on her fork, chased the little tinned clams about the plate and Paul poured more red wine. The tiny restaurant was half-full. A table of Australians were throwing some far-gone joke back and forth, and Leigh watched them jealously. For months her world had been Jack Payne’s relentless speechifying, the black upstairs room at the Lord Grafton and frantic last-minute searches across London for the right sort of coal sacks, or a leather-bound book, or begging fake blood from friends at the Old Vic, where they had a budget and a proper props department. Saved bus receipts for petty cash. Fingers needle-pricked until they were swollen. Words from plays going around her head like songs.

‘Neither of us has had a night off since
Deaf Hill
finished,’ said Paul, as if she had spoken.

She put her chin in her hands and smiled at him.

‘
Is this a dagger which I see before me
. . .’

‘God,’ he said, ‘you’ve got it stuck, too.’

‘Drives me mad.’

‘Here.’ He held his hand out to her across the table and she put down her fork and took it.

‘Look at the state of you,’ he said, his father’s Yorkshire accent creeping in, as it did when he was affectionate or angry.

Her fingers were paint-stained. She had a blister from hammering nails through the blackout blinds. Paul took his napkin and dipped it into his water glass, dabbing the paint and scratches.

‘
I washed my face and hands before I came, I did
,’ she said.

‘You’re not a proper girl at all.’

‘What about you? Pansying about in theatre. Your dad despairs of you.’

‘Not despairing,’ said Paul. ‘But nearly.’

‘You want
a proper job with a good living wage
.’

‘Can’t get married without a good wage.’

The word
married
. Like a great flag, waving at her.
Silly
, she thought.

‘Wants you married, does he?’ she said, just to prove she too could say it weightlessly.

He held her hand in both of his.

‘Have you had enough to eat?’ he asked. ‘Would you like to go?’

They left the restaurant and walked along Shaftesbury Avenue. The theatres were coming out, pouring onto the pavements beneath the canopies, names and titles lit-up hugely above them. They walked slowly, holding hands and laughing at people, reading what plays they had come out of by their clothes.

‘Glasses, polo neck – Robert Bolt, Nicholls.’

‘Long flowery skirt – Bolt, Stoppard.’

‘Fur coat – Ayckbourn.’

They had reached the charmless broken round of Piccadilly Circus. It was emptying already, red buses and cars dreamily traversing the unmarked tarmac. A bouncer outside a peep show was talking to a policeman and lighting his cigarette for him.

‘I was counting the digs I’ve stayed in the other day,’ said Leigh.

‘Thrilling.’

‘Shh – instead of counting sheep. You know: Birmingham, Liverpool, Sheffield, Doncaster, Cardiff, Bournemouth . . .’

‘Ah me, happy Bournemouth, paved with gold.’

‘I must have stayed in twenty places.’

‘More.’

‘And glamour!’

‘So much glamour.’

They turned down Haymarket and walked on, past a taxi stopped on the corner of Panton Street by heaps of rubbish bags, open-doored and grumbling to itself as a man in black tie stepped over it to lean in and pay.

‘When you were in Worthing,’ she said, ‘did you ever stay with Mrs Mac?’

Paul gave a laugh. ‘
Mrs Mac in Worthing
.’

‘With her signed pictures?’

‘
They’ve all stayed here, dear
. . .’

To their left they could see the giant-looming glare of the Comedy. Leigh stopped and looked. She began to walk towards it. Her face was lit by the bulbs surrounding the bent-over French maid and red-faced butler and the flapper behind them, whose mouth formed the scarlet, suggestive O of the ‘WOT’, her hands held up in comic surprise.

‘Suit, fur coat –
Not Married
,’ said Paul.

‘Bloody look at them,’ spat Leigh. ‘And they all are married too. I bet they hope it makes their wives randy.’

‘Shh! They’ll hear.’

The scented smoky crowd came out, opening like a fan from the hot theatre, waving down taxis, patting rigid hair.

‘I don’t care,’ said Leigh, and Paul saw she was furious.

‘Enjoy that, did you?’ she said, loudly, to a man walking towards them. He looked startled, not sure if she was talking to him.

‘Leigh,’ said Paul, hovering.

‘How would you like to train for three years to play Lady Macbeth and then run around in your knickers for two hours and get paid less than half what the men do?’ she demanded.

The man, embarrassed, moved his mouth in such a way as to look as if he were responding but turned away, word-lessly. He took the arm of the woman next to him, who had an embroidered evening coat and diamonds, and they hurried off.

‘Prick!’ she shouted.

‘Leigh? Are you pissed?’ said Paul.

He hadn’t thought she was drunk.

Leigh glared at him and pulled away, going up the steps of the theatre until she had a vantage point. Nobody had seen or noticed her. She took a huge breath –

‘YOU ARE ALL GUILTY OF PERPETUATING THE DEGRADATION OF WOMEN!’ she shouted.

A few heads turned and then looked away in distaste, hoping there wasn’t going to be a row.

‘
I SAID, YOU’RE SEXIST PIGS!
’ shouted Leigh.

‘And you’re a lesbian,’ came an invisible little voice from the crowd.

There was laughter. Somebody clapped. Nobody looked at Leigh. They all pretended she wasn’t there.

‘DO YOU WANT TO SEE MY TITS?’ she shouted.

A few people turned then – startled – but immediately away again in embarrassment. This was very nasty indeed.

‘I’LL SHOW YOU MY TITS IF YOU LIKE!’ she shouted again, full of wild joy, and she glimpsed Paul, red-faced, backing away towards the kerb. He looked terrified.

‘SEE?’ she screamed, ignoring him. ‘YOU ONLY WANT TO SEE THEM IF THEY’RE BOUGHT AND PAID FOR! IT’S NOT SEX – IT’S COMMERCE! THIS SHOW DEGRADES WOMEN!’

A small angry man in a frilly shirt suddenly appeared at her shoulder, a little group of ushers and usherettes watching wide-eyed from the foyer. He wore a bow tie and had a moustache. He grabbed Leigh’s arm.

‘Now look here,’ he said, ‘we’ve had enough of your lot. I shall call the police if you carry on with this. Just clear off.’

‘Let go of my arm!’ shouted Leigh, furiously. ‘LET GO OF ME!’

All at once, she was aware of a couple at the other end of the steps. They were watching her from beneath the brightly lit canopy. The man was slim and fair and the young woman on his arm had long brown hair and a mysteriously veiled, blank expression. The man, even from fifteen yards away, had a presence – ownership or power – and he was smiling at Leigh indulgently. He looked pleased that she was there. She registered it all in one quick moment and then was distracted by the pain in her arm, where the theatre manager was gripping it.

‘You’re causing a disturbance,’ he hissed.

‘Good!’ said Leigh. ‘You should be ashamed of yourself.’

‘
Policeman!
’ called the man, sharply, holding his hand up in the air as if he wanted to speak out in class.

Leigh looked about wildly, wriggling away, but the man was holding her arm in a pincer grip.

‘Hey! Police!’ shouted a portly usher in the foyer behind, and waved.

‘Let go!’ said Leigh.

People were happy to watch now; now that she was captive. Stopping and staring, talking about her.

Paul appeared at her shoulder, barging up to the manager, aggressively crowding him.

‘Let go of my girlfriend,’ he said. ‘Now.’

The manager let go of her, quickly, just as a policeman’s helmet came bobbing towards them through the gawping crowd.

‘Your girlfriend?’ said the theatre manager. ‘Well, I suggest you control her.’

‘How dare you!’ said Leigh. ‘How dare you speak to me like that?’

‘I wasn’t speaking to you, young lady,’ said the manager, with distaste.

‘I am not a “lady”,’ said Leigh.

‘That much is plain,’ he sniffed.

‘Fuck off,’ said Leigh, distinctly.

‘Leigh, for God’s sake,’ said Paul, looking towards the policeman, and he put his hand on her arm.

‘Get off me!’ She turned with angry tears. ‘
Your
girlfriend – I’m not
yours
!’

And she pushed past him, and into the clear night, away from the glare of the canopy, and out into the welcoming dark.

The policeman had arrived, anxious beneath his helmet. ‘Everything all right, sir?’ He held his whistle poised, and the manager opened his mouth – Paul didn’t wait to hear.

‘I’m sorry,’ he said and ran after Leigh.

She had almost disappeared from view. He didn’t want to lose her. ‘Shit!’ he said, catching her up. ‘Are you all right?’

‘
Him
? You were just as bad,’ she was choked with anger and storming. He had to chase her to keep up. ‘
Worse!
’

‘Me? What did I do?’

‘Nothing! “Oh excuse
my
girlfriend, she’s mad” . . .’ She was tearful with rage.

‘I was just trying to help.’

‘Using their language.
My
girlfriend . . . P-possessive,’ she was hiccuping the letters in her distress, ‘p-personal pronoun . . .’

‘I’m sorry. I was just – I was surprised.’

‘Oh really?’ She had stopped walking to rail at him. ‘You haven’t read all about that horrible show in the papers? The outcry from all
thinking
people? You haven’t heard a million times what I think of it? Do you think I’m just going to walk past, and laugh and smile when I’m being dragged by my hair back to the bloody Dark Ages by this demeaning crap—’

‘Shh – calm down.’

‘No! They changed the law for
freedom
in ’sixty-eight – and now people who hate women use it to make fucking money!’ Leigh had stopped crying.

‘I’m sorry,’ he said, ‘it’s okay—’

‘It’s not okay! I hate it. I hate them all, with the way they look at us and the way they talk to us and do what they want with us, and we’re supposed to just take it – and you bloody apologised for me!’

They stood on the pavement as the cars passed by, blind.

‘I’m sorry,’ said Paul. ‘I was just surprised, that’s all.’

‘Shocked.’

‘Not shocked. Surprised. Maybe a bit shocked.’

She smiled at him, damply. ‘You think I’m a harpy, too.’

‘What do you care? I’m only a man,’ he dared.

And he leaned down quickly, and kissed her.

A car honked at them.

They stopped kissing but stayed together, cheek to cheek.

‘All the fun of the fair with me,’ she whispered.

‘Beats arguing with Jack,’ he said. ‘He wouldn’t taste so nice. We should do this more often. There’s some porno cinemas on Wardour Street we could hit next time. I’ll make a placard.’

‘Shut up.’ She held him close to her. ‘If you tease me, I’ll punch you. I’m not a lady, you know.’

They drove out of Soho, west along Oxford Street. Paul put a cassette into the portable tape-deck they kept in the car and Leigh repaired her eye make-up in the vanity mirror while Al Green sang. Then she looked out at the people at the bus stops, the tube stations closing.

‘Will you spend the night?’ asked Paul. They had turned onto the Edgware Road.

‘With you?’ she said.

‘No, Mrs Mac in Worthing – yes, me.’

She leaned over towards him across the car and put her cheek against his shoulder. She lifted her lips to his ear. ‘You’d better come to me instead,’ she said softly.

Paul swerved the car violently, over the white line and back again.

‘Sorry.’

She sat up, sharply. ‘Glad I excite you.’

‘You do. Lost control of myself.’

‘I can tell.’

‘I can’t come to you, though,’ he said, and his voice was nervous, more nervous than she’d ever heard him.

It touched her that he should be anxious about her, when they liked each other so much and she’d already said yes.

‘We’ll have to go to Fulham,’ he said. ‘I’ve got my script notes at home, and there’s stuff I need.’

She looked out of the car. They were already driving the wrong way for Camden, out of control. ‘Your place? What – about Luke?’ It was too late.

‘He’ll be all right.’

‘Really?’ She felt panicky.

‘He might not be there.’

‘Where would he be?’

‘With Lady Macbeth.’

‘Oh.’ Leigh had seen Luke and their Lady Macbeth. She had not thought it had got so far.

‘Or someone else might be there,’ said Paul.

‘Well, let’s leave it.’
Someone else?

‘But he might not.’ Paul was hasty now, scared of losing her. ‘It’s not as if he
always
does.’

Her hands had begun to sweat. She didn’t want to be talking about what Luke did or didn’t do with girls. Not now. ‘That’s restrained of him,’ she said.

‘Restrained,’ said Paul, shortly. ‘Well, he’s not, is he? But he does all the cooking so I can’t turf him out.’

‘I just wish we could go to my place,’ she said miserably.

Paul checked the mirror very deliberately, indicated, slowed and stopped the car on a yellow line. He turned the music down. ‘I need my things,’ he said. ‘If you like, we could stop off at mine and then go to you.’

‘No,’ she said, ‘it’s late. That would be mad. It’s fine.’