by Patrick Gale
‘No thanks. I’m sure the three of you …’
‘I’ve eaten,’ said Penny. She rose, tossing her hair back off her face. Her body unfurled from beneath the table. Her heels were inordinately long, and red. ‘Mustn’t be late for work,’ she muttered. ‘Terry, I’ll see you ‘round, OK? Nice to have met you, Mrs Tey. ’Bye, er, Billy.’
Everyone said goodbye and she was gone. Thierry slung down two plates of steaming crepes and a bowl of sugar. He felt in his jacket pocket and produced a miniature bottle of orange fluid which he tipped over his creations.
‘Grand Marnier,’ he explained to Billy. ‘I filch it from behind the bar.’
Domina found she had been waiting for them to begin before she ate. She took a mouthful. It was good, full of pieces of nut and dried apricot and fig. She felt stronger.
‘What does she do? I thought she was an actress.’
‘Actress?’ Thierry started incredulously. ‘Well, only for audiences of one at a time. C’est une fille de joie, Madame.’
‘Oh,’ said Domina, unsure whether to sound surprised. She sought to involve Thierry’s guest. ‘Do you work in the same restaurant, Billy?’
Startled, he looked up and blushed. ‘No … I …’ he began.
‘Non. Non. Je l’ai trouvé en revenant. C’est un ange, qui ne parle pas français.’
Billy looked from one to the other without understanding and smiled at last, a fresh, white smile which disarmed and justified. He seemed quite happy to sit and listen, so Domina chatted to his host awhile, asking him about his family.
Thierry hailed from Saint Malo. His father was an insurance clerk. His mother was fat and pious, it seemed, but worthy of respect on account of her mystic understanding with pastry. He had a brother called Yannick who was married and studying to be an architect, and a little sister called Véronique who was still at the stage of wanting to be a nun.
There were footsteps on the stairs and Avril opened the door. In a flash the crepe plates were in the sink and it had been perceived that pauvre Guillaume was exhausted and must be taken to bed immediately. The muesli had now quite woken Domina. If she went to bed she would only lie and brood. She stayed to feed the insatiable appetite for character.
‘Hello there. Dormy feasts?’ asked Avril.
‘Yes. Isn’t it fun? Just like being back at school. Would you like a bowlful?’
‘No, thanks awfully. It catches on my plate.’ Avril slumped into a chair and tapped the ash of her cigarette into the Diet Coke can. She was still in tweeds and stout brown shoes.
‘Have you just got in?’ asked Domina, placing her age at about fifty-four.
‘No. On my way out, actually. Off to work.’
Not wishing to jump to alarming conclusions, Domina trod her way with care. ‘Tilly told me you were a writer.’ She delivered the statement as a question.
‘Yes. I’m off to do some research. All very thrilling. Rent boys in Piccadilly. I’m far too early, I know, but I can’t afford to take taxis everywhere, so I’ve got to grab the last tube then hang around Leicester Square with my thermos till I can find “a piece of the action”, as they say.’
‘Rent boys?’
‘Boy prostitutes. There are hundreds of them, you know. It’s like the eighteen-eighties all over again. They come from the provinces – especially the Midlands and the North – hoping pathetically to find work, and end up on the streets. People assume that happens to girls, but for the most part it’s their younger brothers.’
‘Really?’
‘Oh yes. You see, dear, girls are more circumspect. Most girls who turn up down here have gained some skill in advance. Typing, for instance. Women aren’t as romantic as men.’
‘I went to one of those typing agencies today.’
‘My dear, I thought you were a teacher,’ said Avril with a look of deep concern.
‘I am. But I won’t find a teaching post just like that. It’s usually a matter of having interviews for posts that won’t be vacant for months ahead. But I can type, so I thought I could join the monstrous regiment of temps while I waited.’
‘What a stroke of luck. You don’t ever consider doing transcript work?’
‘I love it. I learnt to type to help my husband with his sermons, in fact.’
Avril was excited. She had lit another Camel. When she exhaled she waved her cigarette hand like a fan before her face to disperse the smoke. Her grey-blue coiffure was a ragged, once-every-two-months job. This emphasized the loose, canine quality of her face. Her nose was long as a setter’s and her mouth dropped on either side so that the lower lip kept being pulled up into place to hold back the dribble. There was a marked droop to one of the eyes as well; perhaps there had been a stroke.
‘Now tell me what you charge.’
‘Oh Lord. I haven’t the faintest …’
‘Because the only girl I’ve managed to find quoted me something absurd.’
‘Well, why don’t you quote me something less?’
‘Right you are. Seventy-five pence a page, and I supply paper and carbons and so forth.’
‘Fine. I can start tomorrow. I’ve got a machine in my room.’
‘Well, there is one thing I’d have to sort out.’
‘Yes?’ said Domina with a helpful smile.
‘I know this sounds odd, but I really must be able to rely on your discretion. It’s a very delicate matter. I’m using false names throughout, of course, but I’m only getting half my material by swearing absolute secrecy. If they were to find out that a third party was involved things could take a rather nasty turn.’
Domina kept a straight face. Just.
‘Is it a novel?’ she enquired.
‘Heavens, no. I’m not nearly imaginative enough. No, I’m what’s called a ghost writer.’
‘Oh, I see: autobiography. Do I know them?’
‘Not unless you’re a regular visitor to Wandsworth Jail.’
‘Ah,’ said Domina, trying to react as befitted a late canon’s spouse.
‘Yes. All very thrilling, as I say, but rather tricky. I was put in touch with him by a friend who does visiting. No one she knows personally, you understand. She goes to chat to the ones who don’t have any family, or any family who’ll recognize them, that is. She sent me along, said I’d find something to my advantage, and there’s this poor chap aching to tell his life story.’
‘Why … er?’
‘Matricide, among other things. Worked his way up through petty crime, ran away to London and became a successful rent boy and then drugs peddler. Then he started getting visitations – very strict Methodist upbringing working on the LSD if you ask me – and some holy voice told him to kill his mother.’
‘Goodness!’
‘Yes. Rather a loose woman, I understand. Anyway, they didn’t believe the story of the voices. The verdict was that he was guilty of murder etc. etc., and that the religious element was a cunning invention to try to swing the jury. The mad ones often get better treatment, apparently.’
‘And now?’
‘Oh, he still gets the visions. Visions, voices, promptings from within, or above or below – hard to tell, actually. The biggest trouble is that he is totally illiterate and not especially articulate to boot. He has no written evidence for me to go on, and the family refuses to co-operate. I have only his fairly incoherent ramblings to go by and they’re thin at their best.’
‘So you have to make things up?’
‘Not exactly. But most of us ghosters have to feel where the characters need a little plumping out. Where an episode is important to the storyline and you only have the bare bones, you obviously have to improvise a bit of dialogue, too.’
‘What fun!’
‘Yes. But tricky fun as I say, because even with false names, you don’t want to go misrepresenting things, just in case someone reads the thing who decides to raise merry hell. I won’t get a mention on the cover, of course, but these boys can find out anything if they put their minds to it.’
‘Well, I can start as soon as you like.’
‘Lovely. I’ll put what there is under your door. You’re on the top, aren’t you? By young Quintus?’
‘That’s right.’
‘I must dash or I’ll miss the last tube. Many thanks. See you soon.’ She swept out by the area steps, jabbing a half-smoked Camel into the Diet Coke can where it sizzled briefly.
Domina felt a yawn coming and welcomed it with a loving stretch. The typing would be amusing. Avril Gilchrist. The name was unfamiliar, but then one never did hear of any ‘ghosters’. Picturing the one that had just left, with her Thermos in a plastic string bag, her hounds and horseshoes headscarf and her ugly jewellery, Domina doubted she had met with much success, doubted indeed that she had been published at all. Kensington attracted her sort. Hers was a species that sat taking vigorous notes on park benches, that hounded assistants in the Reference Library, that ended up shuffling sightlessly along Queensway, picking at her filthy clothes and embarrassing shoppers by crying, ‘Look at the birdies! Look. Look there, I tell you! They’s awatching for the Great Day!’
‘Hello, lovie. Couldn’t sleep?’ Tilly, also in a quilted dressing gown, a cigarette bouncing on her lower lip. She grinned.
‘No. I’d been asleep for hours, then I woke up.’
‘Always the way. It’s the trains underneath; not loud, but they’s always there. You’ll get used to them in a day or two. I came down to lock up.’ She shot the bolt on the street door, then came to sit at the table. Domina stood and washed her bowl before returning. Tilly was peering darkly into the brown paper bag that held the muesli.
‘Have some,’ suggested Domina, ‘it’s very good.’
‘You must be joking. Hate the stuff. It’s all bitty, like guinea-pig food. Can’t nick a drop of milk, can I?’
‘Go ahead.’
‘Nothing I like better at this time of night than a rum nog.’ Tilly waddled to the stove with the milk. ‘Heat the milk in a saucepan, like so. Don’t want it boiling, just swing it around till it’s letting off a spot of steam.’ Domina listened to the commentary, trying to memorize the speech patterns. ‘Then you nicks one of Master Thierry’s eggs and beats it up in a mug with a fork, like so. Then,’ she produced a half-bottle of dark rum from her pocket with a flourish and a wink, ‘you adds a drop of the old brown magic, a pinch of sugar, and last of all … you whips in the hot milk.’
‘Sounds disgusting.’
‘No, honestly. It’s great. Here, try a sip.’ She sat back in her chair and pushed the brimming mug across the table-top to Domina. Domina hated hot milk, but forced herself to take a sip of the brew, and was surprised to like it.
‘You’re right. It is good.’
‘Told you. You’ll never want cocoa again,’ Tilly chuckled. ‘Met any of the others yet, have you?’
‘Yes. I met Quintus in the park today.’
‘Oh, he’s a duck.’
‘Yes. Then this evening I talked to Thierry and Avril and Penny and a boy called Billy.’
‘One of Thierry’s?’
‘I think so.’
‘Old Tel’s a caution. Different boy every night of the week, just about; never seems to try to keep them. Oh, sorry.’
‘What?’
‘Well.’ Tilly was suddenly covered in embarrassment. ‘It must be the rum, I completely forgot myself for a moment. Oh, Mrs Tey, I’m so sorry. With you being a vicar’s widow and that.’
‘Oh, for heaven’s sake,’ Domina laughed, ‘I was the vicar’s wife, not the vicar himself. And the church is quite “with-it” now, you know. I met young Penny earlier on.’
‘Yeah?’
‘Yes. She was on her way to work.’
‘Oh Gawd.’ Tilly laughed now. ‘You’ve been through it all now. I was so afraid you’d want to leave or something – go somewhere more “respectable” like. I’m amazed Quin’s stayed as long as he has.’
‘I don’t see why you worry. Look at Mary Magdalene.’
‘Who’s she?’
‘Oh, just a famous tart.’
‘That’s it. As soon as they get famous everyone wants to be seen with them. Like that girl what got caught with the MP and the spy.’
‘How long has Penny been with you?’
‘Over a year, now. It’s so sad. She really does want to be an actress.’
‘Don’t they all say that?’
‘Well, I don’t know. But she’s dead serious. I’ve seen the photos. She’s got lots of photos of things she was in at college and that. Yeah. She went to college and everything. She came up here after her A-levels. She’d got a place at drama school and she lived here and went up there on her bike first thing every morning for about eight months. Dead keen she was. Then her dad got made redundant and she had to give up ‘cause he couldn’t pay the fees. I said, “Look, love, you can stay here free if that’d be any help.” ‘Cause I’ve plenty of rooms, and having one charity guest wouldn’t make a bit of difference really. But she’s that proud, you know. Wouldn’t take a thing. “I’ll make it on my own. Somehow, I’ll make it on my own,” she says. And she does try. She goes to auditions nearly every day. But they always have to say no because she has to have that thing, that liberty card or something.’
‘Equity card.’
‘That’s the one. Anyway, I says to her, “You’ve got A-levels, now get yourself an office job or something to tide you over while you wait.” But she says she can’t afford to, in case she had to miss an audition and ruin her chances. So she’s on the dole with the rest of them. Apparently, if you’ve a UB40 to show, you can get free dance classes, so she’s learning them all – jazz, tap, classical ballet she can do – the lot.’
‘But that’s wretched. She must be good to have got into drama school in the first place; the competition’s very stiff at those places. Hasn’t she any friends there who could help her?’
‘No go.’
‘She needs some contacts.’
‘She’s too proud. She’ll sell her body before she asks a favour.’
As she mounted the stairs once more, muesli bag under her arm, milk carton in hand, Domina resolved to help the girl. Beneath all the make-up her face had been striking. Ginny had at least one Equity card virtually in her gift each year. She would get her to audition Penny. Bingham could write out of the blue, in her role as director of the Bristol company, saying something about recommendations from the school. Even if she was hopeless, it would boost her ego. Ginny could always make her a walk-on.
Radiating virtue, Domina climbed into bed and fell asleep mentally composing a letter to Randy.
12
It was another morning. It was Thursday morning, the eighth of August. An electric buzzing sounded twice outside her door. Domina lay and stared at some flies describing squares near the ceiling. Something had woken her. She wondered why. The two buzzes came again. She lifted her eyes from the bed and sought out the face of her alarm clock. Half-past ten. She swore and sat up violently. Someone banged on the door.
‘Here. There’s someone at the front door for you.’
The charwoman. Domina swung her feet to the floor and swung her dressing-gown about her shoulders. Mrs Moorhouse was leaning on her hoover on the landing. She stared blankly at Domina’s emerging form.
‘Here. There’s someone at the front door for you,’ she said again. ‘Pick up the intercom.’
Domina obediently lifted the receiver. There was a click and a woman’s voice asked:
‘Domina? Domina, cara, is that you?’ Domina held the receiver away from her ear and looked back at Mrs Moorhouse’s stony face.
‘It’s my mother,’ she told her.
‘Well, press that button on the box.’
Domina pressed the button on the box, wishing it could make her caller go away. Her heart quickened as she heard the distant clatter of the electric lock in the hall and a pair of feet advancing over the tiles. Ignoring Mrs Moorhouse’s stare, she turned back into her room and star
ted to tidy things as best she could. By the time Isobella had exhausted the possibilities of the other floors, she might even have found some clothes. Instinctively, she threw together the semblance of breakfast on a tray. She began to make her bed, then heard Mrs Moorhouse betray her.
‘She’s up here, room number twelve.’
‘Shit,’ said Domina and sat heavily on her bed, running her fingers through her hair. There was a clipped knock at the door and it opened.
‘Domina?’
‘Mamma. What a lovely surprise.’ She looked up as Isobella glided in, dropping bags and stretching out her hands in greeting. She had always asked to be called Mamma with her native accent, an affectation that heightened the operatic feel of her arrivals and departures.
‘Domina, cara, what is the meaning of this? What has he done to you? That horrid, horrid Randolph. I never like him. I just count the days. And now …’ She planted several kisses on her daughter’s hair, then stood back in disgust. Now she’ll notice the room, thought Domina. ‘But this room! Diamine, it’s worse than my worst dreams! What can you have been thinking of? Look at you. Half-past ten, and my daughter’s still undressed and sitting in a maid’s room in a slum. It makes me feel so guilty. No, it makes me feel so ashamed. Why didn’t you tell me?’
‘Mamma, please? Just shut up a moment, yes? Per piacere?’ Domina raised her face to the storm and silenced it. She sat, patting the bed beside her. ‘Come,’ she said.
Isobella settled beside her. Domina took her hand and stared deep into her face, a technique she had discovered in her teens for holding her mother’s attention. Only Isobella Feraldi would wear such an exquisite hat on a mission to save her daughter from perdition, she reflected. Jealous tongues hinted at surgery, but Domina knew this face to be the real thing; the years had been kind to the point of extravagance. Mamma mixed her scent herself, from little phials she bought from the nuns at home. The smell evoked years of adoration. Beside the goddess that had somehow found time and patience to produce a child, Domina felt like a cement worker from Poggibonsi.