The Ex-Wives (22 page)

‘What's the matter?' Celeste held him arm. ‘Are you okay?' She sat him down; her voice had softened. ‘You look awful.'

During the second half he decided to brazen it out. When the curtain came down he would take Celeste round to the Stage Door and introduce them. Who knows? Celeste might even consider him racy to have fathered this exotic, dusky creature. Out of wedlock, too, for he had never been married to Nyange's mother. Up on the stage Camillo was speaking.

‘
I have heard, sir, of such a man, who hath a daughter of rare note: the report of her is extended more than can be thought to begin from such a cottage.
'

Of course they must meet. How piquant! Besides, he himself was longing to meet Nyange again – at last in a setting that both of them understood: the theatre. A world that could bond them together at last. Watching his daughter move across the stage, poised and solemn, he felt a curious warmth. It was such an unfamiliar sensation that for most of Act IV he couldn't identify it. Then he realized: it was pride. He was actually proud of one of his children. Would it be asking too much for them ever to be proud of him? Yes.

‘
You gods! Look down, and from your sacred vials pour your graces upon my daughter's head!
'

The cast took their bows to loud applause. Buffy grabbed his back-rest and ushered Celeste out.

‘There's someone I want you to meet,' he whispered.

‘Is this the way?' asked Celeste.

LEVEL 8, said the sign. TIERS 1/2.

They hurried along a sodium-lit corridor. At the end was a gate. EMERGENCY EXIT. He rattled the bars; it was locked.

He took her hand; they hurried down another corridor and emerged onto a windy walkway. It was freezing. Their feet clattered on the concrete.

‘I'm sure this is wrong,' she panted.

They pounded up a flight of stairs. GATE 2. Again they were stopped by a locked door. Beside it was a metal plate of entryphone buttons. NORTH STAIR. FLATS 28-46. Buffy's heart pounded; he tried to catch his breath.

They hurried down a ramp. LEVEL 8. An arrow pointed one way. LEVEL 7. An arrow pointed another way. FOLLOW GATE TO YOUR DESTINATION. They hurried down another corridor and pushed open a door. A stream of cars thundered by, choking them with exhaust fumes. They seemed to be in some underground road. What a nightmare this place was! Where was the Stage Door? Signs and
arrows pointed them in all directions, NO ACCESS TO VEHICLES. ADVANCE BOOKING LEVEL 5. SPRINKLER STOP VALVE INSIDE. How could he get to his daughter when everything conspired to confuse him? Once, when he was visiting his sons in Primrose Hill, he had been allowed to go upstairs to Bruno's room. On the door was a large metal sign saying NO ENTRY.

They hurried across the carpeted, orange expanse of wherever they were, some level or other. The Barbican building was emptying. Maybe he was losing his way on purpose. Maybe he was doomed to take the wrong turning, to find himself up a blind alley. To bang on the glass while one son, Quentin, slid out of sight, disappearing into Harrods. To gaze helplessly at Nyange, unreachable on a stage.

Celeste had stopped somebody and was asking them directions. She turned and grabbed Buffy's hand, pulling him along.

‘This way!'

His chest hurt, his corns throbbed. Gasping, he followed her through a door. They emerged at the mouth of the underground car park. People were climbing into taxis and driving off in clouds of diesel smoke. Maybe he had missed Nyange; maybe she had already gone.

‘There it is!' said Celeste.

Stage Door. Royal Shakespeare Company
. One by one the actors were emerging, looking smaller than they had looked on stage. Buffy paused.

‘Who are we looking for?' asked Celeste.

At that moment Dermott Metcalfe strode out. He was well wrapped up in an astrakhan coat and fedora.

‘Russell, old cock!' He strode up to Buffy. ‘Long time no see. Where've you been hiding? Enjoyed the show?' He turned to Celeste. ‘Well, hello. This your daughter?' Buffy opened his mouth but Dermott was shaking Celeste's hand. ‘Following in the family footsteps, eh?'

Not this one! Buffy wanted to shout. Not this one, the other one! But at that moment a car slid out of the mouth of the underground car park and stopped beside them.

‘Darling.'

Serena's face, thirty years older but still recognisable, and indeed beautiful, smiled from the open window of the driver's seat.

‘Russell Buffery, remember?' said Dermott.

She frowned for a moment, then her face cleared. ‘Russell! Our children used to listen to Hammy. I told them, I used to know that man. Well, hamster.'

Dermott turned to Celeste. ‘They were sweethearts once, these two. Before I staked my claim.'

Celeste stared at the woman in the car and turned to Buffy. ‘
Another
one?'

Dermott was talking. ‘Every evening she drives me in from Gerrards Cross, isn't she a jewel?' He kissed the tip of his wife's nose. ‘A pearl beyond price. I'm a lucky bugger.'

Suddenly Celeste took Buffy's arm. ‘Oh, he's a lucky bugger too, aren't you Dad? What with Mum and all of us.' She turned to Dermott. ‘There's lots of us, you see, but we're one big happy family. Isn't that right, Dad?'

Buffy nodded, dumbly.

She squeezed his arm. ‘Trouble is, Dad's just too much of a stay-at-home. He's spent his whole time with us, playing with us, being a good Dad, that he's hardly had time for his career. Isn't that true, Daddy? That's why nobody sees him around much. But it's been worth it. For all those happy memories and happy times together.' She pulled him away. ‘Come on, Dad. Time for bed.'

‘My God, Celeste!' Buffy gazed at her. They were sitting in a taxi, driving home. ‘That was terrific. What an actress!' He cleared his throat. ‘Er, why did you do it?'

She turned to look out of the window. ‘He was such a creep, I suppose. I'm fed up with people going
on about how happy they are. Then you see them messing around in basements.'

‘Basements? Who's been messing around in basements?'

She didn't reply. She was sitting huddled in the corner. He moved closer.

‘Did you really mean it? About it being time for bed?'

She shook her head. ‘Just drop me off in Kilburn High Road.'

‘Celeste.'

She turned to look at him. The street lights chased across her face. Her eyes, how dark they were!

‘My darling girl, what's the matter? I never know, with you. That very first day, in the shop – your lovely face, it changes like the weather. Let me take you home.'

She sat there, gnawing her fingernails.

‘I don't even know where you live!' he said.

‘There's lots you don't know.'

He removed her hand gently. It was trembling. ‘Tell me.'

‘Not now. Not yet.'

CELESTE EMERGED INTO
the sunshine of Sloane Square. Each tube escalator, she was discovering, propelled her into a different London. One day she might piece them all together. No drunks here; even the air smelt more wholesome and expensive. Women in tweeds strode past, carrying bags from the General Trading Company; one of them had a labrador in tow. A glossy Penny-type, wearing a designer suit, yelled ‘Taxi!' in a carrying voice. Celeste herself felt smarter now; she had bought a new coat, russet red, from one of those shops she had once found too intimidating to enter. The coat had cost a lot – a whole month's rent from the people living in her old home, but that's the sort of thing she did now.

She consulted her map and walked down Sloane
Gardens, past blocks of mansion flats which resembled Buffy's except there were BMWs parked outside. Her shiny new boots tap-tapped on the pavement; they sounded confident, but her heart was bumping against her ribs. Why had she been so stupid the night before? Buffy must think she was mad, suddenly jabbering on like that in front of other people. And what would he think if he saw her now? This was the third journey she had made into his past, the third and the deepest. Each one, she had thought, would be the last. How could anybody have had so many wives? Other women, too. She felt like an archaeologist, uninvited and illegal, digging through the foundations of an old building, through Victorian layers and then medieval layers and finally unearthing, way below, the broken mosaic of a Roman villa.

She was in an area called Pimlico.
Passport to Pimlico
was one of the old films Buffy loved; he had appeared in it, he said, as a talented juvenile. He had told her a rude story about one of the actors but she was in no mood to remember it now. She turned left and walked down Pimlico Road. There it stood on the corner: The Old Brown Mare.

She crossed the street and approached the pub. The sun glinted on its windows. Drawing nearer, she paused. It didn't look like a pub anymore, not quite.
It looked too airy and clean. There was fancy script above the window:
Wine and Tapas Bar.
She pressed her nose against the glass; inside, the place was empty. Just a lot of chairs and tables, with pink tablecloths on them.

She hesitated. Then she pushed open the door and went in. Behind the bar, the mirrors were still there; the mirrors which had reflected multiple images of Buffy's ex-wife. She smelt garlic. A woman appeared, carrying dishes of food. She was so tanned and stylish that Celeste felt drained. She put a plate of squid on the counter.

‘Yes, what is it? We're not open yet.'

Celeste said: ‘I'm looking for someone who used to run this place. When it was a pub.'

‘Dominic!' she yelled.

A man appeared from the kitchen. He, too, was extremely good-looking. ‘Where's the effing enchilladas?'

‘Talk to this woman would you,' she said, wiping her hands on her apron.

Celeste explained again, adding: ‘It was years ago. She was called Popsi Concorde.'

‘
What?
'

Celeste blushed. ‘She was, really.'

He gazed at her. She felt embarrassed on Buffy's
behalf, that he had married somebody with such a silly name.

‘We negotiated with the brewery,' he said. ‘I've no idea who the landlord was. Never met him.'

They turned away. They were like two racehorses, tossing their heads and walking off while she stood there rattling her bucket.

Her knees felt weak. She stood outside; ridiculously, her eyes filled with tears. Nobody would talk to you like that in Melton Mowbray. If only Buffy were here; he would have bellowed at them. He would have thumped the counter, making the pimentos jump. She needed him so much that her chest hurt. She thought: I have no one else in the world.

Just then she looked at the row of shops opposite. One of them was a hairdressers.

A peroxide blonde
. A peroxide blonde went to the hairdressers, didn't she? She needed frequent touchings-up. A peroxide blonde went to the hairdressers
a lot.

Celeste crossed the street. Of course Popsi could have used one of the many preparations she herself sold over the counter. But no harm in giving it a try. She stopped outside the shop. In the window, the colour photos of models had faded. The place looked as if it had been there for years; that was a promising
sign. It said
Unisex
but she couldn't see any men inside; just an old dear being combed out. A plump woman, well into her fifties, was standing on a chair pinning up a string of gold letters: MERRY CHRISTMAS TO ALL OUR CUSTOMERS. When Celeste came in she stepped down and approached her, smiling.

She looked so friendly – such a change from the people across the road – that Celeste said. ‘Hello. I'd like some highlights. Do you think they'd look nice?'

How soothing it was! Long ago her mother used to wash her hair, cradling her head in the bath, massaging in the shampoo and gently lowering her into the sudsy water. Then the rubber hose, the spray sluicing her head. The shell tiles, glimpsed through stinging eyes.

The hairdresser was called Rhoda. All through the highlights operation, which had taken ages, she had chatted to Celeste and the other stylist about how she was going to decorate her new flat in Lechworth. With each new customer, she started all over again. The lease had expired on this place and The Body Shop was moving in. ‘It's the end of an era,' she said. ‘My regulars are gobsmacked. What do they want with Peppermint Foot Lotion?' Celeste sat while
she blow-dried her hair. ‘I'm giving you the tousled look,' she said, ‘it's all the thing.'

Once, Celeste had seen a TV programme of a butterfly emerging from a pupa. It had pushed out slowly, straining and splitting the sides of its strong brown envelope. She too was making an effortful transformation. Once, she had just washed her face with soap and water and put on a track suit. Now she was learning how to apply make-up; how to buy grown-up women's clothes. She gazed back at the streaky, tangled mop on top of her head.
Your own mother wouldn't recognize you.
Was she more herself, or less?

Puff-puff went the spray. She looked at Rhoda in the mirror. ‘Remember when the pub opposite was a pub?' she asked. ‘Do you remember the woman who worked there? Years ago, it might have been. Do you remember her?'

Rhoda nodded. ‘Course. Eileen Fisher. Oh, we had some laughs!'

‘Eileen Fisher?'

‘She was a lovely person. Big-hearted. A warm, lovely person, wasn't she, Deirdre?'

‘With that little ratty husband,' said Deirdre. The place was empty now; she was fixing a paperchain onto the wall with a drawing pin. ‘They put him inside, didn't they? Always thought he was dodgy.'

‘It can't be the woman I mean,' said Celeste. ‘Mine's called Popsi Concorde.'

‘Oh, that was her stage name. She'd been in the theatre, see. Before she took up with what'shisname.'

‘Terry,' said Deirdre. ‘But give him his due, Rhoda, he was always nice to her little boy.'