Mrs Midnight and Other Stories

by Oliver, Reggie

  ‘Naughty, naughty!’ said Sir Roger, taking in every detail with his mean little eyes.

  Adela snorted and convulsed herself with hysterical laughter.

  ‘Steady on, old girl,’ said Talbot.

  ‘What the fucking hell are you playing at?’ said Sophie, climbing off me and frantically putting on her blue silk dressing gown.

  ‘Just our little joke,’ said Sir Roger.

  ‘Bit of a lark, eh?’ said Talbot. ‘No harm intended. Bit of a laugh.’

  ‘Bastards! Bastards!’ screamed Sophie. I was too stunned to speak. I was staring at their idiotic childish grins, their greedy, lascivious eyes. Sir Roger was still fully dressed, but Talbot and Adela were in matching pyjamas and dressing gowns. The two looked oddly similar, like elderly identical twins.

  ‘You know, Sophie dear,’ said Adela, in between spasms of laughter, ‘I knew you were a bit flat-chested, but I didn’t realise it was quite as bad as that. You ought to do something about it.’

  ‘Put Pussy Cudworth onto her!’ said Talbot. ‘He likes boys.’

  ‘Put Pussy onto her!’ gasped Adela before she collapsed once more into hysterics. By this time I had recovered enough to order all three of them from the room.

  ‘All right all right!’ said Talbot. ‘Just a bit of fun. Serve you right if you can’t take a joke.’

  ‘Get out!’

  They went, followed shortly by Sophie. I lay awake for the rest of the night wondering how I could live through the following day, let alone the following weeks.

  V

  I did not feel much like putting in an appearance at breakfast the next morning, but I did. I sat myself in the most obscure corner of the dining room, which was deserted. The waitresses stared at me: did they know? I felt no happier when the dining room began to fill up. I thought my fellow guests were taking covert looks at me too. Admittedly the other members of the cast seemed no more curious than the complete strangers.

  Neither Sir Roger (who was probably breakfasting in his suite) nor Cudworth came down to breakfast, but Talbot and Adela eventually did. They were bickering as they entered the dining room and when they saw me they contrived to seat themselves as far away as possible.

  I pretended to read a book, but I glanced at them occasionally, and I noticed that they were occasionally stealing furtive looks at me. Whenever they saw that I had noticed this they would turn away and begin to talk to each other urgently. I sensed a tension between them.

  Twice Talbot tried to rise from the table but was held back by Adela’s sinewy brown arm. At the third attempt he succeeded in breaking free and I saw that he was threading his way past the other tables towards me. I turned back to my book. Then he was standing over me.

  ‘I say, young Allan, do you golf?’

  I was so confused that I thought some obscure sexual innuendo was intended. I looked blank.

  ‘Do you play golf?’

  ‘As a matter of fact I do. A bit.’

  ‘Fact is, I booked a round at the Brighton and Hove this morning with an old chum. Well, sort of chum, but he’s backed out. If you haven’t got a set of clubs you can hire one at the pro shop, or borrow mine. Pick you up at ten outside the hotel. What say you?’

  I wanted to refuse him, but he put his hand on my shoulder. There was pleading in his look. At that moment a guest at the hotel approached Talbot for an autograph. I’m afraid that ultimately it was the desire to look good in the eyes of this obscure fan that made me say: ‘Okay, Talbot, I’d be delighted. Ten o’clock, then.’

  It was a bright August day, if windy. While I waited in the Davenant’s foyer for Talbot to pick me up I saw Sir Roger checking out of the hotel and ordering a car to take him back to London. That was a relief. When he saw me Sir Roger stared back, smiling slightly. I had the feeling that he was exulting in a kind of victory. If he had failed with Sophie, he had at least ruined my chances with her.

  It was a relief to see Talbot draw up outside the hotel, the top of his cherry-coloured Jaguar down, in honour of the weather. We said little as we headed north on the Devil’s Dyke Road towards the Sussex Downs. Talbot wore a loud tweed check cap and a paisley patterned silk scarf at his throat. With his pencil moustache (slightly dyed, I thought) and his still rakishly handsome features, he looked the epitome of the ‘cad’ from a bygone era. He drove with almost reckless speed. I had no idea what was going through his head, and he was not letting on.

  I hired some clubs from the pro shop and we decided to do nine holes before, as Talbot put it, ‘having a spot of lunch at the old clubhouse’. I had once been a fairly proficient golfer, but it had been a long time since I could afford to play regularly. Nevertheless, as we teed off, I felt the old skills coming back; Talbot on the other hand, a far more practised player, seemed out of sorts. We were evenly matched.

  The course is high on the Downs, and the views are extensive. I was surprised not to see many other players about. As we began our round I did notice a couple on the distant horizon, but they appeared to be walkers rather than golfers.

  Having halved the first hole, we were at the second, a five hundred yard par five, played uphill into the prevailing wind. The flag was visible at the top of the ridge and the two walkers were standing a little apart from it by a belt of trees, silhouetted against the horizon. I was preparing my tee shot when Talbot spoke.

  ‘Look here, about last night. Sorry about that really. Hope you don’t mind. Just a bit of a laugh. It was Roger’s idea, as a matter of fact. I don’t quite know what got into us. We had had quite a bit to drink, I suppose. Not Adela, of course, she’s T-T. But we sort of got carried away. Anyway, no hard feelings, eh?’

  ‘I doubt if I shall have hard feelings for a very long time after what happened last night.’

  ‘What? Eh? Oh, I see! Hard feelings! Yes! Ha ha! Very droll!’

  I had not intended this remark to make him even more unsettled, but it had that effect. My tee shot was a good one. The ball landed in the fairway just in front of a bunker. Talbot hooked his badly into the rough.

  ‘Hey, did you see that?’ Talbot said, turning to me. ‘That pair of rubberneckers on the ridge. One of them waved at me just as I was driving. Put me right off my shot. Hi! You!’ But the couple had gone. ‘Mind if I have that one again?’

  This time he overcompensated and sliced. I won that hole and five of the remaining seven. Talbot’s playing became erratic. He fumed in bunkers; he was forever looking around him as if expecting to be put off his shot by some interloper. We did not see the two walkers again, at least not in plain sight. I thought once or twice that I had caught a glimpse of two figures lurking in a copse of trees or sheltering behind some gorse bushes. The wind was high and its shrill, wayward whistle through the undergrowth upset Talbot more than once.

  Back in the clubhouse Talbot began to relax. We sat in the big bay window that overlooks the eighteenth hole, eating excellent ham sandwiches and drinking whiskies and soda. Since our return, there seemed to be more golfers about. By the end of his second whisky Talbot was in a reflective mood.

  ‘Terribly sad business about Billie,’ he said, as he stared out of the window. ‘To die that way, chasing after her idiotic dog. Of course, I was devastated about our having to let her leave the show, but it had to be. Turned out to be the right decision. All the same, I felt for her, you know. Billie and I went back a long way. I was engaged to marry her once. Did she ever tell you that?’ My obvious surprise informed him that she hadn’t. ‘We’d just had this huge hit together in Dark Romance and we were—Well, we were an “item”, as they say. Then the call came for me to go to Hollywood, and, of course, I went. So things didn’t work out in that direction. Anyway, shortly afterwards, she met this Harry character who was, apparently, the love of her life, so all was well. Funny chap, though, Harry. Never quite knew what she saw in him. Pots of money, of course, but a very ordinary-looking little bloke.’ Talbot stroked his moustache for a while in silence. ‘Had these rather bizarre views about
the afterlife. They used to go to séances together and stuff. Takes all sorts, I suppose. . . .’ Talbot lifted his glass to his mouth and then stopped, transfixed by what he saw beyond the window.

  Two people were crossing our line of sight, just below the eighteenth green. I think they were our pair of walkers, a man and a woman. Closer to they seemed an odd couple. She was wearing a fur coat and a black pillbox hat with a veil. He was some inches shorter than her and appeared to be in a uniform of some kind. Talbot rose from his seat, as if he wanted to interrogate them, but they disappeared from view and he subsided.

  He drove me back to Brighton over the Downs in a silent whisky-fuelled fury. On the Devil’s Dyke Road we touched a hundred. I could say nothing; I was too terrified to speak.

  That night in the theatre Sophie and I saw each other of course; we addressed lines to each other on stage, but we could not talk. Once I saw Adela eyeing us with amusement. I don’t think I had ever felt so lonely.

  After the show I ate a solitary meal somewhere and went for a walk along the front. I was walking aimlessly on the promenade, perhaps even too distracted to be feeling sorry for myself, when I saw someone walking ahead of me. It was close to midnight, a time when Brighton is usually still alive, but though the lights shone, and the sea chattered on the shore, the streets were almost deserted.

  It was a tallish woman in a fur coat and I thought I recognised her. She was heading towards the West Pier. I suppose you could say I followed her, but I might have been going in that direction myself. I can’t remember.

  When we had come almost to the pier, the figure stopped and looked towards the sea. I did the same, and on the beach, under the network of metal joists that held up the now abandoned structure, I saw several people. Most of them were dark and indeterminate, but there was one whom I recognised. It was Pussy Cudworth. He appeared to be in negotiation with one of the figures, a big man in what looked like black leather. I thought I saw money change hands. Then the man got behind Cudworth, encircled his arms round Cudworth’s waist and began to undo the buckle of his belt. Under his toupée, slightly askew, I saw Cudworth’s face suffused with a kind of wondering delight, like a child with his first bicycle. I was about to turn away when I felt a strong pressure on my right arm which had been resting on the promenade railing. I turned and saw that it was the woman in the fur coat. I could not see her face—there was a black veil over it which obscured all but a few pale highlights of her head—but she was compelling me to look towards the beach.

  It was hard to work out what was happening exactly. Cudworth’s trousers and pants had fallen to his ankles. His head was thrown back in an ecstasy of pleasure as the dark man worked behind him, his arms clasped tightly around Cudworth’s waist. Then I saw that other black figures on the beach were converging on the two men. They began to surround them, to conglomerate into a shadowy mass of pulsating male activity. One of them knelt in front of Cudworth and buried his head in his crotch. Now Cudworth was enveloped by these dark creatures, so that I could see only his head. I watched his expression change from pleasure to apprehension, then fear, then horror, then agony. He let out a cry of terror and pain which seemed to echo through the empty town. The toupée was torn off and he disappeared beneath a writhing mass of black bodies. I strained everything to go to him but the fur-coated arm held me fast.

  When I at last broke free I ran, not towards the beach, but away from the fur coat, away from everything, along the promenade and back to my hotel. I was in terror. I could not help myself. Suddenly I noticed that the streets were again full of people, some of whom looked askance at me as I ran. I was some distance from the West Pier when I at last slowed down. I was dizzy and confused. That was why, I told myself, I needed to get back to the Davenant Hotel.

  I was walking up the front steps of the Davenant when I met Talbot Wemyss coming down. He looked distraught.

  ‘Ah, there you are!’ he said. ‘Where were you? I’ve been looking for you everywhere.’

  ‘What’s the matter?’

  ‘Look old chap, I need your help. It’s Adela. She’s somehow got back into the theatre. I can’t do anything with her. She’s . . . she’s started drinking again. Can you help? We’ve got to get her out of that theatre somehow, or there’ll be hell to pay. Come with me. Please!’

  I followed him to the Theatre Royal. The stage door was open and we went in. No lights were on.

  ‘Are you sure—?’ I began.

  ‘Sshh!’

  We were silent and then just faintly I could hear singing from somewhere.

  ‘Happy feet!

  I’ve got those happy feet!

  Give them a lowdown beat

  And they begin dancing . . .!’

  ‘My God!’ said Talbot. ‘She’s on the stage!’ He charged through the pass door and I followed.

  In the wings, behind the wood and canvas walls of the set it was almost pitch dark, but I could see that a couple of working lights were dimly illuminating the stage proper. The voice was coming from somewhere on stage.

  ‘Happy feet!

  I’ve got those happy feet!’

  The voice was female: raucous, whining, out of control. It was Adela, but Adela as I had never heard her before. With the singing we heard an irregular thumping sound, like bare feet on a sprung floor.

  ‘Oh, dear God!’ muttered Talbot.

  We felt our way into a position by the prompt corner where we could see what was happening on stage.

  Under the dim overhead working lights Adela was dancing in nothing but her underwear. Around her was the elegant ‘drawing room of Lady Ashbrook in Belgravia’, a shallow façade of make-believe elegance. She waved her thin, scrawny arms aloft, in one hand brandishing a half empty Vodka bottle. It could hardly be called dancing. She reeled and weaved and stamped her feet.

  ‘Give them a lowdown beat

  And they begin dancing . . .!’

  Talbot began to edge his way on stage. ‘Adela,’ he said rather too tentatively, I thought. ‘Adela darling?’ Adela swung round to face him with burning eyes.

  ‘Oh, it’s you, is it? Well, piss off! Can’t you see I’m having fun for once?’

  ‘Adela, darling, you can’t do it here!’

  ‘Why not? It’s the theatre, isn’t it? Can’t you enjoy yourself in the theatre, for Chrissake?’ She let out a raucous cackle and emptied the rest of the Vodka in the vague direction of her mouth. Having done this she hurled the bottle high into the auditorium. I heard it shatter against the circle balcony. Then she began to dance again with even more violence and abandon than before.

  ‘Happy feet!

  I’ve got those happy feet!’

  Suddenly she tripped and fell. As she lay on the ground giggling, apparently uninjured, she waved her thin sinewy legs in the air.

  ‘Now’s our chance,’ I said.

  We ran onto the stage and picked her up, taking an arm apiece. She struggled for a while, then went limp. The rest of her clothes could not be found, so we got an old overcoat from somewhere and draped it round her to take her back to the Hotel.

  We hurried her past the reception desk without attracting too much attention, and into the lift to take us to the third floor where our rooms were. As we were going up in the lift, the faintly moaning Adela held up between us, Talbot glanced across at me. He had put on an expression of noble, tragic suffering for my benefit. Bloody actors, I thought. We don’t stop acting, even when it’s for real.

  As we were getting out of the lift on the third floor Adela began to rouse herself again. ‘I want to go to the theatre! I want to go to the theatre,’ she kept saying.

  ‘Adela, darling. Sshh! It’s nearly one o’clock. We don’t want to wake people up, now do we?’

  ‘Oh, yes, we do! Happy feet . . . !’

  By this time we had got her to the door of their room.

  ‘I think we can manage from here,’ said Talbot to me. ‘Thanks awfully, old man.’

  ‘Old man?’ said Adela. ‘Wha
t’s this “old man” business? He’s a young man, aren’t you, darling? I’ve seen it. Aha! Here! Don’t you push me, Talbot Wemyss!’

  With an effort we bundled her through the door and I shut it behind them. For a several seconds I stood in the corridor, too drained to move, listening to the faint murmur of Talbot and Adela bickering in their room. As I was beginning to think of returning to my own, the door to the next room along from Talbot and Adela opened and Sophie emerged. She was wearing the same tightly belted pale blue silk dressing gown that she had worn the night before.

  ‘What in hell’s going on?’

  I said: ‘Can I come in for a moment, Sophie? I’ll tell you.’

  In Sophie’s room I sat on a chair, while she sat on the bed and I told her everything that had happened. No. That’s not true. I did not tell her the stuff about Cudworth, because I was beginning to think that that was some sort of hallucination.

  Sophie listened in silence. The only thing she said was: ‘What in hell is happening to us?’

  I had no answer. We were silent. Through the walls we could hear the indistinct hubbub of Talbot and Adela in altercation. The noise rose and fell, never clear enough for us to make out individual words, except once. We heard Talbot pleading with her, and saying: ‘No, Adela. No!’ There were a few moments of silence, then a thump on our window.

  ‘Christ! What’s that?’

  ‘Probably a seagull, or something,’ I said. Sophie’s room, like all those on that corridor looked out onto the sea front. I went over to the window and drew open the curtains.

  Adela’s naked body was spread-eagled against the glass outside. Her white, staring face was pressed up to the pane and when she saw me her lips started palpitating slimily as if she were miming a kiss. Sophie screamed.

  ‘How the hell did she get there?’ I said.

  ‘There’s a narrow ledge all the way along just below the windows. I noticed it the other night. She must have got out and climbed along it.’