The Hardie Inheritance (15 page)

‘John?' she queried.

‘Come on, big sister, wake up. I know it's a terrible time to disturb you, and I'm sorry. This is your brother John Hardie speaking, and I need your help.'

Yes, it was certainly Jay. ‘Where are you speaking from?' she asked.

‘I'm in a police station in London. I was at a party last night and the police suddenly decided that they wanted to take the names and addresses of everyone there. I haven't got a passport because I've never been abroad, and I haven't got a driving licence because I don't drive, and Mother's still got my birth certificate as far as I know, so I need someone to confirm that I am who I say I am. In other words, that my name is John Hardie and that my permanent home is Greystones and that I work in London as a clerk. There's an officer breathing down my neck at this moment, and if you can make him happy I shall be able to get bail.'

‘You mean that you've been arrested?' But Jay had already
handed over the telephone. It was a policeman who asked Grace to confirm what he had been told.

This was not too far from the truth. Although Jay was never called anything but Jay, he had been christened John Archibald Yates Hardie. And in a sense Greystones was his only permanent address, because in London he lived in rented flats which he gave up whenever he was touring. Why he should want to describe himself as a clerk rather than an actor was more mysterious, but in the periods when he was ‘resting' he took any work he was offered, and perhaps this was one of these times. Grace gave the information for which she was asked.

After the call was over, she sent Trish back to bed but herself remained by the telephone. As she had expected, Jay rang her again as soon as he was free from supervision.

‘Thanks for being so quick on the uptake, Grace. The thing is, it was a big raid, and the newspapers are going to have a field day with it. They're bound to pick out the names which are best known. If I'd said I was Jay Hardie, actor, my photograph would have been on every front page tomorrow. As it is, there are enough other well-known people to keep everyone happy. No one's likely to be interested in a provincial clerk.'

‘I don't understand what's been going on, Jay? What sort of a raid are you talking about?'

Jay did not reply at once, and when he did it was with a weary voice, as though he had hoped to avoid an explanation.

‘There are half a dozen pubs in London which have a certain reputation. The police know all about them. But they turn a blind eye, as long as everything's kept discreet. If someone makes a complaint, though, they have to move in. That seems to be what happened tonight. They came along and found eighty men on licensed premises but outside licensed hours, dancing to quiet music for which there'd never been a licence. That's all they've got me for, and there's no defence. I shall plead guilty and get off with a warning. They've got bigger fish in their net tonight, and the charge will be indecent behaviour.
The trouble is that in the public eye all of us will be tarred with the same brush. That's why I want to –'

‘What do you mean by indecent behaviour?'

There was a long pause.

‘It's not like you to be slow on the uptake, Grace. There was dancing in progress when the police arrived, and all the dancers were men. I'm too tired to start giving you a lecture on homosexuality and the law. Why don't you ask Ellis to spell it out for you?'

‘Ellis?'

‘Ellis was at the party as well,' said Jay. ‘Listen, Grace, will you drop a kind of hint to Mother? I don't know quite how you can put it; but just in case a policeman turns up on the doorstep and starts asking questions about John Hardie, I wouldn't want her to say brightly, “Do you mean Jay?” Look, I've had the hell of a night. Thanks for being such a brick with the police. And I hope that Ellis was one of the ones who got away.'

He rang off before Grace had time to ask any more questions. She continued to sit near the telephone in case her husband should also need to contact her, but must have fallen asleep in the chair. What awakened her, at half past four in the morning, was not the ringing of the bell but Ellis's return in person. He was moving stealthily, doing his best not to disturb the household, and was startled when she appeared in front of him in pyjamas.

They stared at each other unhappily. This should have been a triumphant meeting, with the success of the exhibition to be described and enjoyed once more. But already that was forgotten.

‘Jay phoned,' said Grace. ‘Did the police catch you?'

Ellis nodded. For a moment he seemed too upset to speak, but then burst out in fury. ‘It was David. It had to be David. Damn and blast him!'

‘What do you mean?'

‘He must have followed me from the gallery. Someone told
me, at the party, that a friend of mine had arrived and was asking where he could find me. I did think it was a bit odd, because we don't use our actual names much, as a rule, but I can't say I bothered about it. And then about twenty minutes later I was in one of the small rooms and he, David, opened the door. He just stared for a moment and shut the door again. The police told me that they'd had a tip-off, mentioning me by name. It must have been him.'

‘Why should he want to do such a thing, to hurt you?'

Ellis shrugged his shoulders and turned away, pulling himself wearily up the stairs towards his bedroom.

‘Don't know why, but he's certainly succeeded. This will finish me. When I come out of prison, no one will want to know me. Can you imagine that any duchess is going to trust her daughter and her ostrich feathers to a jailbird's studio?'

‘Prison!'

‘Well, I shall fight it, of course, but I can't see much hope. It seems to be me they're gunning for.' He sat down on the bed, burying his head in his hands.

Grace hesitated for a moment, but the question had to be asked. ‘What did David see when he looked in at you?'

‘What usually goes on at parties? Well, of course, you never go to them. At an ordinary sort of party, with men and girls, if a man cottons on to the fact that the bedrooms are available, he picks up the prettiest girl he can see and disappears with her for half an hour. Nothing illegal about that. Expected behaviour. But if a man glad-eyes another man instead, they can throw the book at you.'

Grace blinked, unable to visualize the scene. Even if her imagination had been adequate, she would not have been able to believe it. What could men
do
with each other? But she did not like to reveal her total ignorance by asking. There was another and more important question to put instead.

‘When the police came, did they see – well, the same things as David?'

‘God, no. Puts you off your stroke a bit, a peeping Tom.
Specially when it's your wife's brother. Anyway, Alan scarpered straightaway. I'd have been gone myself in another couple of minutes.'

‘Alan?' Grace queried. Alan was the name of the young man who acted as servant of all work in Ellis's London flat.

‘Yes. Don't bother to tell me we were crazy. I know that now. When we have the opportunity to be private any time we want! It was the party atmosphere, I suppose. Goes to your head. This is rotten for you, Grace, having to listen to all this.'

‘You did warn me,' she said. It was her fault, not his, if she had not completely understood. Had this been an ordinary marriage, with a normal marital relationship, she might well have felt disgusted and betrayed. But because he had been honest she was able to consider the situation as though it had nothing to do with her. It was on his behalf that she was dismayed.

‘The police can't actually prove anything, can they?' she suggested. ‘Not unless David were to go into the witness box, at least, and I shouldn't think he'd enjoy doing that.'

‘They haven't precisely got a photograph of indecent behaviour in progress, if that's what you mean. But everyone at the party, probably, was there for the same sort of reason, so they can take intention and opportunity for granted. That doesn't leave them with much to prove. Juries don't approve of people like me. The benefit of the doubt has a strictly oneway meaning. I've let you down badly, Grace. I'm sorry.'

‘You haven't let me down at all. You spelled it out quite clearly, when you were offering to do me a favour.'

‘But it's spoiled everything for you. On this night of all nights, which started as such a triumph for you.' He looked up at her with tears in his eyes. ‘I'll do everything I can to keep you out of this. Thank God you decided to use your maiden name for the show. There's no need –'

But Grace had other ideas. She said nothing for the moment,
because it was a matter to be discussed with lawyers. But it seemed clear to her that what Ellis needed more than anything else was a wife.

Jay Hardie's appearance in the magistrates' court was the star role of his acting career. The use of the name by which he had been christened could not have protected him had his face been recognized by any of the court reporters who spent their working lives in this sordid theatre. But by a curious chance he had first made a name for himself in a West End revue in which he appeared every few minutes as a bearded eighty-year-old. So successful was this impersonation that he was regularly engaged to play old men's parts. Often he had complained laughingly to Grace of the waste of his youthful beauty: for in his twenties his thick fair hair, smooth complexion, and the long dark eyelashes which framed his expressive eyes, seemed to have been created for youthful
ingénu
roles. But any part was better than unemployment. He took what he was offered and devoted his considerable talent to making each of his elderly characters different from the others.

Today, in the role of a thirty-six-year-old, he was unrecognizable. A currently fashionable oil had darkened his hair at the same time as sleeking it down. He held himself stiffly and had managed to acquire a suit carefully chosen to suggest that it was the Sunday best of someone whose usual dress was shabbier. The same subtlety was applied to the change in his voice. Far from being a caricature of the way in which a lowly clerk might speak, it seemed to reveal the effort required by a man who was speaking well but not naturally.

The case proceeded briskly and without the need for any untruthfulness on Jay's part. He agreed that his name was John
Hardie. He managed to demote Greystones to the status of a semi-detached villa by giving it as an address Number 1, The Ridings. He claimed, accurately, to be unemployed. He agreed that he had been present on the occasion specified in the charge, but in mitigation pleaded the assumption that the owner of the premises would have applied for the necessary licences for music and an extension of drinking hours. He was one of a batch of twenty who had been spared a charge of indecent behaviour by their swiftness to agree that they would plead guilty to a lesser charge, and they were bustled through the court in no greater time than was necessary for each to be fined.

Ellis's case was different, for it was he who had been specifically named in the anonymous tip-off to the police. His case was dealt with as speedily as Jay's, but for a different reason: he was sent for trial by jury at a higher court.

Grace knew in advance that this was going to happen. It had already been agreed between the lawyers that the prosecution would present a summary of its case, but without calling witnesses at this stage; the defence, entering a plea of Not Guilty, would reserve its evidence. She had hoped, all the same, that some miracle would cause the case to be dismissed; and so strong was that hope that she had come to believe it. Over a sad, silent lunch with Ellis she was forced to accept the reality.

‘Well,' he said at last, with a deliberate effort of cheerfulness. ‘I have a choice. I can get out of the country, or I can stay and fight the case. We'll talk about it over the weekend. In the meantime, it will be weeks before anything happens. We mustn't spend the time moping. Business as usual, as much as we can manage. I've no doubt I shall find myself suffering from a mysterious rash of cancelled appointments for sittings. I must think of a new subject for a book of photographs to keep myself occupied.'

‘Party Clothes,' said Grace.

‘What?'

‘Party Clothes. What people wear to different kinds of parties. You've already got some of the most formal examples in your portfolio. A group of débutantes in their white evening dresses for the Queen Charlotte Ball, for example, and in court dress for their presentations. You could contrast that with a street party in the East End. There are bound to be lots of those at Coronation time. And little middle-class girls in velvet dresses clutching a present for the hostess. Fancy Dress at the Chelsea Arts Ball. Christmas parties and Hallowe'en parties and Guy Fawkes Night parties – oh, and Hunt Balls, with everyone in kilts.'

‘But – yes, I see what you mean, and there would be some good contrasts; but what makes you think of a subject like that at a time like this?'

‘Don't you see, Ellis, that's why you were at this particular party. Not your sort of scene really. But you had your camera with you, to get a shot of men dancing together. In their party clothes.'

The idea had only occurred to her while she was actually in the process of explaining it, but its possibilities excited her. Until this moment neither she nor Ellis nor his lawyer had been able to think of any defence at all. This one might stretch belief, but it was better than nothing.

‘If I was only accused of being on the premises, that might run,' said Ellis slowly. ‘But David will give evidence for the prosecution, and I can hardly claim that I was just setting up a scene for the camera when he opened the door.'

‘I shall deal with David.' Grace stood up, pushing back her chair. ‘It's too late to wish that that anonymous telephone call had never been made. But when it comes to the giving of detailed evidence, I don't intend to let my brother send my husband into exile. Leave David to me.'