Curtain Call (13 page)

It was nice, she thought, the way he said that. ‘What did they do with you? Is everything . . .?'

‘Oh, just some tests. I'll be right as rain.'

He needs a lie-down, she thought, worried by his fragile look but not sure it was her business to tell him.

Tom, collecting himself with an effort, said, ‘It's so kind of you to wait for me.'

She gave a little shrug, and said, ‘It isn't any trouble.'

‘You really are a Samaritan, aren't you?' he said, looking at her wonderingly. ‘Would you allow me to thank you – with a cup of tea?'

‘Oh, there's no need –'

‘Please,' he said. ‘Just as one more favour to me.'

They found a Corner House and settled at a table by the window. Tom, still shaken, put on a show of his best manners, and tried to block from his mind the dismal fact of his illness's return. It depressed him the more for having believed he'd got clear of the thing. It was his rotten luck that it should recur just as he was planning a significant change in his life. Or was it the anxious contemplation of such a change that had set off the old trouble? He took out a cigarette and lit it, but the first lungful of smoke made him so nauseous that he stubbed it out almost immediately.

Madeleine could see how distracted he was. ‘When you first woke up – I'm not sure you'll remember – you told me about some people you were going to meet. I think one of them was called Jimmy.'

Tom let out a groan of disgust. ‘Dammit. Sorry – you've just reminded me . . .'

‘What is it?'

‘A luncheon I was meant to attend. At the Ivy. Jimmy is my employer – it's to celebrate his new book.' He glanced at his watch. ‘Oh well, too late now.' He'll think I missed it on purpose, Tom reflected gloomily.

‘Isn't the Ivy quite near? It's only quarter past two,' said Madeleine.

‘No, please, forget I mentioned it. I'd be no company for them anyway.'

At that moment a waitress arrived with the tea they had ordered, as though to underline Tom's non-attendance at the lunch. He gave the teapot an absent stir.

‘What sort of books does he write, your employer?'

‘Oh, mostly about the theatre. James Erskine – drama critic of the
Chronicle
.'

Madeleine looked blank. Tom looked incredulous.

‘You've never heard of him?'

She grimaced apologetically. ‘I don't read the papers much. Is he famous?'

‘He'd like to think so,' he said with a laugh.

‘Are you his . . .?'

‘Secretary, officially – dogsbody, really. I do all sorts – editing, correspondence, some writing if he's too busy. And quite a bit of fetching and carrying.'

‘It sounds rather a nice job to me,' she said.

Tom, sensing his ingratitude, began back-pedalling. ‘I know, I know, I'm lucky to have it. He gave me my first start in journalism, when I was young – younger. And he taught me about the theatre – the plays we've seen! . . . I just didn't think I'd be with him for, what, nine years?'

Madeleine nodded. ‘I used to like the theatre. My aunt took me now and then – just amateur productions, you know.'

‘But you don't care for the West End?' he said, bemused.

‘Well, it's difficult, because I work in the evening,' she said, and instantly regretted it.

‘I see. What d'you do?'

‘Oh . . . I work near Piccadilly, at a nightclub.' This was partly true. When she had no clients of an evening she would serve drinks at one of the underground dens from where Roddy operated. The hours were late, and the customers could be a vulgar lot, but it was better than escort work. Tom was secretly surprised. This girl looked anything but the brassy nightclub type – judging from her face and manners, he would have pegged her for a schoolteacher, or a nurse. That reminded him.

‘By the way, you showed great pluck back there. Most people are petrified by someone having a fit.'

Madeleine smiled sadly. ‘My mother had epilepsy. I learned what to do if – you know, not interrupting the fit, protecting the head from damage, that sort of thing. Have you had them all your life?'

He shook his head. ‘The first time I was eighteen. I'd been serving in France – the trenches – for about six months. There'd been a lot of shelling, with some terrible . . . casualties.' He broke off and swiped his hand wearily across his face. ‘I can't exactly recall what started it – I was fixing a bayonet or something, and I started to shake. Everything went white and I was thrown to the ground. I don't know what happened then, but I'm told it gave the boy next to me a fright.'

‘So they sent you home?'

‘Eventually. At first they thought I'd got the wind up and this was just a ruse to get out of there. When it happened again they had a doctor examine me, and after that there wasn't any doubt.'

‘My father was in the trenches,' said Madeleine. ‘He was killed at Ypres, though they never found him.'

‘I'm sorry,' Tom said, and paused. ‘When they discharged me I felt, well,
relieved
of course. But guilty, too. Knowing how many of them would die . . .'

A sudden look of mortification seized her. ‘Oh, no, I didn't mean – you mustn't feel guilty for surviving. That's not why I mentioned my father. I didn't really know him.'

He looked at her. The thought of offending him had caused her genuine alarm. Who was this woman? It had been a long time since he had encountered such
feeling
in someone. She had suffered, too, you could read it in her face. Madeleine said, ‘Is something the matter?'

Tom, blinking away his reverie, laughed at himself. ‘I beg your pardon – miles away. I wonder, you said you liked the theatre. I go all the time, for free. D'you ever get a night off?'

‘Hardly ever,' she said. ‘Nights are – busy.'

‘Surely you could ask your boss?'

You don't know my boss, she thought. ‘He'll say he can't spare me.'

That seemed to decide the matter. Tom helped her on with her coat, somewhat bedraggled from its recent adventure. Feeling rejuvenated by the tea, he thought he might show his face after all. Outside, the afternoon had come into its own; the silvery sun had elbowed through the massing clouds and wasn't going to budge. At the door of the Corner House they performed a hesitant minuet of departure.

‘I'm going to walk up towards the Ivy,' he said. ‘I feel I ought to call in, for some reason.'

‘I'm sure they'd understand if you didn't,' she said, eyeing his bruised cheek.

He put out his hand. ‘Well, thank you, miss – and farewell!'

She smiled her acknowledgement. ‘Goodbye. I hope you feel better.'

Tom turned up St Martin's Lane, aware of his slightly valetudinarian pace. He was older suddenly. Now that the attacks had started again he knew he had to be on guard. Next time there might not be anyone around to help either, he could fall on the pavement, crack his head, bleed to death . . .

Behind him he heard pattering footsteps.

‘Excuse me, er –?' He turned to find Madeleine, slightly out of breath from running. ‘I'm sorry to – it was awfully nice of you to invite me to the theatre, and I'm sure if I give them enough notice I could get a night off . . .' She had gabbled it out in a nervous flurry.

‘Righto!' he said, smiling. ‘What d'you say I give you my telephone number and you let me know when you've an evening off? Is there anything in particular you'd like to see?'

‘Oh, no, not really . . . You decide. Please.'

He wrote his number on a cigarette card, and handed it to her. ‘It's my employer's telephone, but I always answer it.'

She examined the card for a moment, as though she might commit the number to memory. ‘Thank you,' she beamed, and waved before walking off again.

By the time the company at the Ivy dispersed, Tom was feeling faint again. He knew he ought to have taken himself home, but his sense of duty had got the better of him. Jimmy, cheeks rouged from the drink, seemed to have forgotten about his late arrival, and was now too befuddled to care. The afternoon was darkening as the stragglers emerged from the restaurant – Tom, László, Edie, Felix Croker, with Jimmy swaying at the rear. Abel, the doorman, pointed at the cab across the street.

‘There's yer chariot, Mr Erskine. Been there since one o'clock.'

‘Since one?!' cried Edie. ‘Jimmy, really – why didn't you send it off?'

‘Taxis are his favourite extravagance,' explained Tom.

‘I'm an invalid,' said Jimmy, pointing to his stick.

‘But you only live about five minutes' walk from here.'

‘Doesn't matter,' said Tom. ‘I've seen him hail a cab to get from one side of the road to the other.'

Jimmy, oblivious, clambered into the taxi, raising a vague hand to them as the car pulled away. Edie glanced at her watch and said to Tom, ‘If you're going east we could get a cab, too.'

Tom nodded, and turned to László. ‘How about you?'

‘I think I shall walk. In a moment of idiocy I gave my last shilling to some beggar on the Charing Cross Road.'

Croker made an incredulous
pfff
sound. ‘You know, László, I sometimes wonder if you're actually a Jew at all. You're the only one I've met who's never got any money.'

László responded to his mocking tone with a characteristic shrug, and Tom wondered why the constant stream of jibes never seemed to upset him. Perhaps he had become immune to them.

‘We're going quite near Commercial Road,' Tom said to him. ‘Why don't you come with us?'

László gave him a shy smile. ‘Most kind of you, Thomas, but I shall be happy to use that estimable conveyance Shanks's pony.'

They said their goodbyes, and parted.

In the cab home Edie kept up a lively run of chat, for which Tom was grateful. He felt too depleted to be marvellous company. She was telling him about a recent holiday in Athens and an outing to the theatre with her friends one night. ‘Of course none of us had
a clue
about the language – all Greek to me, darling – but Dot insisted we go – home of drama and all that. So we went. It being Athens we thought we'd go for a tragedy, Sophocles or the like. We took pot luck with something called
The Sister of the Mother of Karolos
, thought it sounded, you know, high-flown. Well, it took us a while before we realised – this was no tragedy. The audience had started giggling, for some reason. Next thing they were rolling in the aisles! We just sat there. D'you know, Tom, a whole hour went by before I realised we'd stumbled into a Greek version of
Charley's Aunt
!'

Tom laughed. ‘
The Sister of the Mother of Karolos
– you're right, it does sound like a tragedy. Jimmy would love that story.'

‘I know! It'll probably end up in his next book.'

‘I hope you didn't mind being the only woman at lunch. I did point this out to him, but . . .'

‘You know Jimmy,' she said, shrugging. ‘Women bore him. He only puts up with me cos I'm as rude as he is.' She looked at him. ‘I gather you two haven't been getting along.'

László must have told her, thought Tom. ‘Things have been . . . He's become very needy of late. Hates being alone in the flat, so if he's not got company he expects me to sleep on the couch. And of course he's the most appalling hypochondriac. I think the only conditions he hasn't complained of yet are anthrax and dry rot.'

‘Well, he
is
getting on a bit,' she said.

‘Doesn't he know it. At heart he's scared of dying.'

‘Hmm. I'm a teeny bit afraid of that myself.'

‘No, this is different, it's an obsession. The other day I was sorting through his post – you know he gets a lot from readers – and found this letter from someone, a Mr D'Eath – is that how you pronounce it? I showed it to Jimmy, and he looked at it like Macbeth at his dagger. First he accused me of playing a prank on him – said it was in “very poor taste”. When I assured him it was nothing to do with me he went pale, and dropped it on the floor.'

Edie drew her brows into a puzzled look. ‘What's the matter with him?'

Tom shrugged. ‘I dunno. It was like he'd received a personal summons from the Grim Reaper. When I asked him how he wanted to reply he waved it away – just expected me to deal with it.'

After a pause Edie said, in a softer tone, ‘He's so fond of you, though. When he thanked you in his speech he sounded like he really meant it.'

Tom shook his head, brooding. ‘I can't keep doing it, Edie, this job. It's one thing to be his secretary, but I don't want to be doing his shopping, fetching his pills, minding the flat. And it's not like he pays me extra. I've been on the same screw for six years, and whenever I've –' He stopped, and looked at Edie. ‘Sorry to go on . . . I think it's time he got one of his boys to look after him.'

‘'Sfunny, isn't it,' she said, ‘how Jimmy still chases after 'em, at his age? I suppose it never leaves you.'

‘That's something else he's terrified of – getting caught.'

‘I'm not surprised. A friend of mine got done a couple of weeks ago. He was hanging about the arches by the Adelphi when some man approached him. Of course he thought he was a pansy – round there you would, wouldn't you? So they've found a quiet corner and my friend's just dropped his trousers, when the feller gets out the Brendas and tells him he's under arrest.'

‘Brendas?'

‘Brenda bracelets – handcuffs, darling.'

Tom grimaced. ‘I think Jim rather enjoys the risk – like walking a tightrope. He's always on the hunt.'

Edie gave him a sly look. ‘Has he ever, you know . . . with you?'

Tom smiled. ‘He wouldn't dare.' This wasn't quite true. When he had first started as his secretary in 1927 he had known that Jimmy was queer but had no inkling of his promiscuity. He didn't regard what his employer got up to as any of his business. It had taken three or four weeks for the boundaries of their relationship to be established beyond doubt. Tom had been standing in the flat's galley kitchen reading a newspaper when he felt Jimmy sidling up behind him. Next thing he jumped as an exploratory hand dipped down the back of his trousers. While he couldn't recall exactly what he had said it must have been something of sufficient clarity, for Jimmy, without any change in his expression, uncupped his palm and withdrew. ‘Please yourself,' he murmured equably.