James Hilton: Collected Novels (69 page)

Smith was halfway down the aisle on his way out of the theater when an usher touched him on the arm. “Excuse me, sir, one of the artists would like you to go behind, if you’d care to. She says you’d know who it was.”

He hesitated a moment, then answered: “Why, of course.”

“This way, sir.”

He was led back towards the stage, stooping under the brass rail into the orchestra, stepping warily amidst music stands and instruments, then stooping again to descend a narrow staircase leading under the stage into an arena of ropes and canvas. The usher piloted him beyond all this into a corridor lined by doors; on one of them he tapped. “The gentleman’s here, miss.” A moment’s pause. “I expect she’s dressing, sir—you’ll excuse me, I’ve got to get back.”

Again, after the usher had left him, he felt the beginnings of panic, but it was different now—an excitement that he fought only as much as he wanted to fight it. And the door opened before he could either yield or conquer to any extent.

“Oh, Smithy—Smithy—you kept your promise!”

She dragged him into the room with both hands and closed the door. It was a shabby little dressing room, with one fierce light over a mirrored table littered with paints and cosmetics; playbills and an old calendar on the wall; clothes thrown across a chair; a mixture of smells—grease paint, burnt hair, cigarettes, cheap perfume, lysol. She wore a dressing gown over the skimpy costume in which she was soon to appear again.

“I didn’t see you till the end—glad I didn’t—I’d have been so excited I’d have ruined the show.”

He said, smiling: “I enjoyed it very much—especially your part.”

“Oh no, Smithy, you don’t have to say things like that. … Tell me how you are! Better, I can see—or you wouldn’t be here. But what have you been doing with yourself all week?”

“Oh, just looking around. Have to find some sort of a job, you know.”

“Any luck?”

“Not so far. I somehow don’t feel Selchester’s a very good place to try.”

“We’re going on to Rochby next week. More chance in a place like that, maybe.”

“I daresay I’ll get something somewhere.”

“And you
feel
better?”

“Oh yes—fine.”

The call boy shouted through the door, “Five minutes, miss.”

“That means I’ve only got five minutes.” She paused, then laughed. “I do say intelligent things, don’t I?”

He laughed also. “They keep you pretty busy—two shows a night.”

“Yes, but this is Saturday, thank heaven. You’d be surprised what a rest Sunday is, even if you spend most of it in trains.”

“You leave in the morning?”

“Ten o’clock.”

“But it isn’t far.”

“About three hours. We have a long wait at Bletchley. Somehow that always happens. I seem to have spent days of my life waiting at Bletchley.”

“I don’t think I know Bletchley.”

“Well, you haven’t missed much. There’s nothing outside the station except a pub that never seems to be open. Oh God, what are we talking about Bletchley for? … I’ve got some money of yours, you know that? Or did you forget?”

“No, but—”

“Well, I’d better give it back since I’m off in the morning.”

She began to fumble in her dress. “I carry it about with me—doesn’t do to leave fivers lying loose.”

“Oh, but you mustn’t—”

“Well, you don’t think I’m going to
keep
it, do you?”

“I—I—never thought about it, but—”

“Did
you think I was going to keep it?”

“Well—I don’t know—it would have been quite fair—after all, you’d done so much—”

“Listen, you little gentleman—I kept it because I thought I’d have to help you again, and I thought you’d feel better if I was spending your own money! But now you
are
better, thank God, and you don’t need my help, so here you are!” She pushed the notes into his pocket. “I’ve got to go on again in two minutes, so don’t make me angry! You’ll need that cash if you’re looking for a job. … What sort are you looking for?”

“Any kind, really—”

“Outdoor or indoor?”

“I’m not particular about that, provided—well, you know some of the difficulties—”

“You’re scared they’ll ask you too many questions? What you’d really like is for someone to stop you in the street and say—‘I don’t know who you are, or what you’ve been, and I don’t care either, but if you want a job, come with me.’ Isn’t that the idea?”

He laughed. “Yes, that’s exactly the idea, if anyone would.”

“You wouldn’t mind what the job turned out to be, though?”

“I think I could do anything that I’d have even the faintest chance of getting.”

“Figures? Keeping books?”

“Oh yes.”

“A bit of talk now and again—even to strangers—in that charming way you have?”

“I wouldn’t
choose
that sort of job, but of course—”

“You mean you’re still bothered about meeting people?”

He hesitated. She went on: “Well leave that out. What about a bit of carpentry mixed up with the bookkeeping?”

“Why carpentry?”

“Why not? … Back at the intelligent conversation, aren’t we?” The call boy knocked again. “Well … I suppose it’s got to be good-bye till we meet again—unless you want to see the show through twice—you’d be a fool if you did.”

“Perhaps I could meet you somewhere afterwards?”

“We always have supper together on Saturday nights—all the company, I mean—it’s a sort of regular custom, wherever we are. Of course I could take you as my guest, but there’d be a crowd of strangers.” Abruptly her manner changed. “Smithy, would you really come?”

“Do you
want
me to come?”

“I wouldn’t mind a bit, it’s what
you
want that matters. You’re free as air now—that’s how you always hoped to be. And they can be a rowdy gang sometimes. So please yourself, I’m not inviting you anywhere any more … but if you
are
coming, say so now, then I can tell them.”

He felt suddenly bold, challenging, almost truculent. “I’ll come, and I don’t care how rowdy they are.”

She flashed him a smile as she slipped off the dressing gown and put final touches to her make-up. “Number 19, Enderby Road—that’s near the cattle market—about eleven-thirty. You don’t need to hang around here for me—just go straight to the house at the time. I’ll come sharp—ahead of the others. See you then.”

The rain had stopped; he took a long walk in the washed evening air, then sat on a seat in the Cathedral Close and smoked cigarettes till the chime of eleven. He could not quell his nervousness at the thought of meeting so many strange people for the sort of evening party that was a weekly custom of theirs—that in itself made him an outsider. He half wished he hadn’t said he would go, and it occurred to him that of course he didn’t have to—if he failed to turn up, that would be the end of it. But the reflection, though tantalising tip to a point, had the stinging afterthought that he would then not see her again.

Enderby Road was a quiet cul-de-sac of Edwardian houses, most of them let to boarders; Number 19 looked no different from the others, but had a gas lamp outside the front gate. He waited there, watching for her after the Cathedral clock chimed the half-hour; it was comforting to reflect that nobody knew him yet—he was just an anonymous man standing under a lamppost Presently she turned the corner, her walk breaking into a scamper as she saw him. “On time, Smithy—I mean
you
are,
I’m
not. But I hurried to be ahead of the others—I didn’t even stop to clean off the make-up.”

She led him into the house. “Wait in the hall while I go up and finish.”

He waited about ten minutes; the hall was dark and smelt of floor polish with an added flavor—which he took practically the entire time to detect—of pickled walnuts. Near him stood a bamboo hall stand overloaded with hats and coats; the staircase disappeared upwards into the gloom with thin strips of brass outlining the ascent. Voices came from a downstairs room. He wondered what he should say if anyone came out of one of the rooms and accosted him, but when the thing happened it turned out to be no problem at all; the voices stopped, a thin old man with a high domed forehead suddenly emerged through one of the doors, collided with him, murmured “Pardon,” and disappeared along the passage. After a moment, he returned, collided again, murmured “Pardon” again, and re-entered the room. Then the voices were resumed.

Soon after that she came down the stairs two at a time, to whisper excitedly: “Now I’m ready.”

They entered the room, in which—despite the voices—there was only one person, the thin old dome-headed man; he was sitting at the dining table with a large book open before him, propped against the cruet. The domed head rose over the book as from behind a rampart.

“Mr. Lanvin—this is Mr. Smith.”

“A pleasure to meet you, my dear sir.” He smiled, but did not offer to shake hands. Then he closed the book slowly, and Smith could see it was a Braille edition. Somehow that gave him peculiar confidence; Lanvin could not
see
him, could only judge him by his voice; so for the time being he had only one thing to concentrate on.

Lanvin was placing the book exactly in its place on a shelf; it was clear he knew by touch and feeling every inch of the geography of the room. “So you are to join the weekly celebration, Mr. Smith?”

“That seems to be the idea. I hope you don’t mind.”

“Mind? I’m a guest like yourself, though I’ve been one before. I warn you—they’re a noisy lot—though no noisier than I used to be in my young days. If they weary you later on, come over and talk to me.”

Smith said he certainly would, and Mr. Lanvin began to talk about Shakespeare. It seemed he had been reading
The Merchant of Venice,
taking the various parts in various voices. “I used to be quite a good Shylock, though I say it myself—and of course it’s a fine acting part, and the trial scene has wonderful moments. But taking it all in all, you know, it’s a bad play—a bad play. Why do they always choose it for school use? The pound of flesh—gruesome. The Jewish villain—disgustingly anti-Semitic. And a woman lawyer—stark feminism. … Oh, a bad play, my dear sir. You’re not a schoolmaster, by any chance?”

“I’m afraid not.”

“Because if you were, I should like to … but never mind that. Since my eyes compelled me to retire from the stage I’ve spent a great deal of my time reading, and do you know, the Braille system gives one a really new insight into literature. You see, you can’t skip—you have to read every word, and that gives you time to think for yourself, to criticize, to revalue—”

Meanwhile the door had reopened and a heavily built, red-faced, pouchy-eyed man stood in the entrance, waiting till he was quite sure he had been seen before stepping further into the room. Eventually he did so, exclaiming: “Paula, my angel, so
this
is the friend you spoke of?”

She completed the introduction; the red-faced man’s name was Borley. He lost no time in dominating the scene. “Fine to have you with us, old chap.” And then, dropping his voice to an almost secret parenthesis and leaning over the table with the gesture of one about to unveil something: “I don’t know if you’ve ever noticed, but the food in English boardinghouses is always in inverse proportion to the size of the cruet. The larger the cruet, that is, the worse the food. Now this is a perfectly
enormous
cruet.” He gave it a highly dramatic long-range scrutiny. “You’d think it ought to light up or play music or something—it’s really more like a municipal bandstand than a receptacle for Mrs. Gregory’s stale condiments.”

Just late enough to miss these remarks the landlady entered with a trayful of small meat pies. Smith had to be introduced to her also, and it was Mr. Borley who made haste to do this. “Mrs. Gregory, I was just remarking on the quality of your food, and I perceive from yonder succulent morsels that all I have said will soon be amply demonstrated!” Whereupon Mr. Borley delivered a portentous wink all round the room while Mrs. Gregory bounced the tray on the table without much response. She looked so completely indifferent to the bogus compliment that Mr. Borley’s joke was somewhat dulled. “Glad to serve you all,” she muttered. “I do my best, as the saying goes—consequently is, I keep my reg’lars.”

“You not only keep us, Mrs. Gregory, but
we
keep
you—
and proud to do it!”

She shuffled out of the room, leaving Mr. Borley to proffer the dish of pies with an air of controlled distaste. “Well, the risk’s yours, Smithy. Don’t mind if I call you Smithy, do you? That’s what
she
calls you.”

Rather to his surprise, after all this, Smith found the pies excellent. He said so to Mr. Borley, adding that he was even hungry enough to have another.

“Right you are, then—and fortified by your example I’ll even try one myself.” Mr. Borley then began eating and hardly stopped throughout the entire rest of the evening He added, with his mouth full: “But if you’re a hungry man, God help you at Mrs. Beagle’s!”

Smith did not see how the food at Mrs. Beagle’s, whoever and wherever she was, could be any concern of his, but he had no time to explore the point because another member of the party had just arrived—a young man in tweeds, puffing at a pipe, almost like a magazine advertisement of either the tweeds or the pipe; he had a pink, over-handsome, rather weak face to which only premature dissipation had begun to lend some interest. Once again Mr. Borley officiated at the introduction, and while he was still performing two other persons entered, one a pale thin girl with a large nose and spotty complexion, the other an elderly silver-haired man of such profoundly sorrowful appearance that the beholder could not keep back a first response of sympathy. Mr. Borley had to summon all his technical powers to hold attention against such competition, but he did his best by shouting the further introductions.

The silver-haired man smiled and bowed, while the girl marched on Smith, delivered a crunching handshake, strode to the window, stared out for a moment as if deeply meditating, then swung round with husky intensity. “Oh, Mr., Smith, hasn’t it been a wonderful day? I’m
sure
you’re a rain lover like me!”.

Smith felt somewhat cheered by a feeling that in this encounter all the others were standing round to see fair play, especially when the tweedy youth nudged him in the ribs. “Don’t worry about her—she’s always like that. Why Tommy married her nobody can imagine—not even Tommy any more … can you, Tommy?”