Her mother’s hand was shaking as she held the letter and read it. Trudie Lang had never been beautiful; now she was nearly sixty, grey-haired and lined after years of hard work, and she had the worn brightness of old silver, her strong nature showing through her bony face. She had had a tough life, worked hard from her childhood up, been married twice, often been hurt and lonely, only had one child, Annie, born when she was nearly forty.
Annie watched her, knowing that her dream had been Trudie’s dream first. From when she was very small, her mother had encouraged her to perform: she had paid for private music lessons, dancing lessons, elocution lessons, paid money they could ill afford, and all to see Annie get up in front of an audience and shine.
‘You got in!’ Trudie burst out. ‘Annie! You’ll get your chance, that was all I wanted, for you to get the chance I never had. I’d have given my eye-teeth to be an actress, but of course there was no chance of that, not with my family. They’d rather have seen me dead.’
Annie knew all this, had heard it a hundred times before. She didn’t listen now.
‘But this makes up for it,’ her mother said. ‘One day you’ll be famous, I’ll sit in the front stalls and listen to them applauding on your first nights.’
Desperately, Annie broke out, ‘Mum, I …’ But her voice died away. She couldn’t kill the joy she saw in her mother’s eyes.
Trudie wasn’t listening, anyway. She was too excited. ‘This is the chance of a lifetime, Annie. Don’t waste it.’
Her heart sank. She was trapped – how could she explain wanting to turn it down? Except by telling her mother … and she couldn’t, she couldn’t. Oh, maybe he had only been kidding when he told her what he would expect from her if he awarded her a place? She’d never been pretty: she was too thin, flat as a pancake. None of the boys at school had ever given her a second look.
Even her best friend, Megan, had given up trying to do something about the way Annie looked. Megan had left school now and worked in an office; she lived for Friday and Saturday and spent all her wages on clothes. She had curly hair and big breasts, wore tight skirts and sheer stockings, giggled a lot and made out in the backs of cars; the boys all liked her. Annie didn’t see much of her any more. If Roger Keats had made a pass at Megan she’d have giggled and probably let him do whatever he liked. Megan hadn’t been a virgin since she was fourteen. Annie was. And she hated the thought of Roger Keats touching her.
‘But, Mum, the grant I’ll get is only for the tuition, but I’ll need lots of books, and they’ve sent me a list of clothes I’ll need – you’ll have to keep me while I’m there. Can we afford it?’
Her mother turned away as the kettle boiled. Over her shoulder as she filled the kettle she said, ‘I’ve been thinking about that. You’re right, equipping you will cost a lot, but I’ve thought of a way to make some more money. I’m going to let out that spare room. I should have thought of it before. I’ll put a card in the shop window. I’ll only let it to a woman. I don’t want any men here, especially when I’m out at work so much and you’re here on your own.’
On a humid morning in late July, a gangling boy in jeans walked into the shop while Annie was piling potatoes into an old woman’s basket.
‘There’s a card in the window,’ he said to Trudie, who looked sharply at him. ‘A room to let? Has it gone yet?’
Annie’s customer held out some coins; Annie took them and turned to the till to ring up the amount, listening to her mother talking behind her.
‘What’s your name?’
‘Johnny. Johnny Tyrone.’
‘How old are you?’ Trudie bluntly asked, and he went a bit pink.
‘Twenty. I’ll be twenty-one in October.’
Trudie Lang studied him with wary eyes. ‘Got a job?’
‘I’ve just started working on the local paper.’
‘Where d’you work before that?’
‘I’ve been at college, this is my first job.’ His voice was excited; Annie looked over her shoulder at him. His eyes shone, dark blue and thick with long black lashes. Longer than hers. She’d never seen eyes like them before, on a boy, anyway. He’s beautiful, she thought. It sounded odd to say that about a boy, but no other word applied.
‘Why aren’t you living with your family? Don’t you come from around here?’ Trudie Lang was staring at him, too, her face uncertain, but Annie could tell she liked him; her voice was softening.
His face changed slightly, Annie thought she saw sadness in his eyes. ‘I only have a grandmother. She lives too far from here for me to go home every day.’
Trudie hesitated. Annie crossed her fingers behind her back. Let her say yes, let her say yes. Her heart was beating so hard it shook her chest.
‘The house is just around the corner. I’ll walk round with you and show you the room. It isn’t very big, and there’s no cooking facilities, and you’ll have to share the bathroom with us. I’ll throw in breakfast every day, and if you like you can eat with us in the evenings, but I’ll have to charge extra for that.’ Trudie took off her apron and hung it up behind the door. ‘Annie, mind the shop. This is my daughter, by the way, Annie.’
She went to get her coat from the room behind the shop. Johnny Tyrone watched Annie, who was automatically polishing apples; her mother disapproved of idle hands and liked to see her keeping busy when there were no customers in the shop.
‘Hi.’
‘Hello,’ she shyly whispered, turning to face him. He had a wonderful smile; his face was so open and friendly when he smiled. His good looks didn’t seem to have spoilt his character – at school Annie had often noticed that the best-looking boys were often the most unkind, the vain ones, the ones who made fun of other people. Of her. She was often a target for their idea of a joke. Could Johnny Tyrone be an exception to the rule? Or was he clever enough to hide his real nature? Was she having the wool pulled over her eyes?
‘How much for one of those?’ He pulled a handful of coins out of his jeans pocket. ‘I’m starving. One slice of toast for breakfast and I won’t get anything else until I get back to Grandma’s tonight. Those apples look awfully good to me. I could eat a horse.’
Annie speechlessly held out two apples.
‘I can only afford one,’ he said. ‘How much?’
She pushed the coins away, then heard her mother coming back and just had time to whisper, ‘Don’t tell her!’
He caught on at once. Pushing both apples into the pocket of his blue denim jacket, he gave Annie a slow, warm smile, his eyes searching her face as if he liked what he saw.
‘Thanks. See you again soon,’ Johnny said, following Trudie Lang out of the shop.
Annie stared after him, trembling with happiness.
That evening at supper, her mother told her what she had found out about him. ‘Irish family, I knew it the minute I heard that name. Tyrone; Irish name. He looks Irish, too. His parents are dead. He’s been living with his grandmother for a couple of years, but she lives in Epping; he wouldn’t be able to travel here and back every day. He got the job from an ad in a trade paper; he says it’s tough getting a reporter’s job, too many people chasing every job, so he had to take this one, even though it means leaving his grandma alone.’
‘He’s very fond of her, then?’ Annie was so interested she wasn’t eating; her mother looked at her untouched plate, clicking her tongue impatiently.
‘Don’t waste good food, girl!’
Annie hurriedly forced some potato into her mouth while her mother watched her. Only then did Trudie go on, ‘I liked the way he talked about his grandma; most kids his age don’t care about old people, but he said he would be going back to her house most weekends, doesn’t want her to feel he’s gone for good. He said he would be out a lot. He will have to work late some nights – they work them hard on those little local papers. Sounds as if he really wouldn’t be any trouble.’
Eagerly, Annie asked, ‘So are you going to let him have the room?’
‘I can always t
ell him to leave if it doesn’t work out,’ Trudie thought aloud.
‘Yes,’ Annie said, breathlessly, fighting to hide her joy.
He moved in a week later. He only had one suitcase; it seemed heavy as he dragged it upstairs. ‘Books, mostly books he brought,’ her mother told her next day, shaking her head. ‘Not much money there; all he has to wear is jeans and sweatshirts and one cheap suit. That’s what he wears to work every day. I suppose journalists have to wear suits, to impress people.’ She had inspected his wardrobe while he was out at work, to Annie’s shame. She only hoped Johnny Tyrone hadn’t realised his room had been searched.
Annie didn’t see much of him at first, because as the latest newcomer on the newspaper he was landed with all the boring jobs nobody wanted to do, he explained. Church fetes, flower shows, funerals, making a daily tour of the police station, the churches, to check up on any possible story. The court cases were covered by one of the senior reporters and any big news story went to them, too. Johnny was just the dogsbody, learning his trade, even though he had studied journalism at college.
Annie didn’t even see him at breakfast because Mrs Lang always sent her off to open up the shop, so she had her tea and toast and left the house long before Johnny came downstairs.
She heard a lot of him, though; his room was next to hers. At night she heard him get home late, often after midnight, creep upstairs, the creak of the bathroom door, the discreet flushing, the running of water as he washed, then his tiptoeing across the landing, the give of springs as he sat down on the bed to take off his shoes, his movements as he undressed, and then the long sigh of relief with which he finally got between the sheets.
He was always sleepy in the mornings. He spent his long day running from job to job, and never had enough sleep, even at weekends.
His room was a narrow, oblong box, holding just a bed, a small chest of drawers, a wardrobe and a chair. A mirror hung on one wall. The window looked out over the garden; the curtains matched the coverlet on the bed, light green cotton. The walls were painted cream; there was something springlike in the colours. Annie had chosen them, had helped her mother do the painting, had made the curtains too.
When he was out and her mother was busy at the shop, Annie sometimes crept into the room. She liked to imagine him in there. She made his bed and tidied up, looked at the titles of the books he had put out on top of the chest of drawers. Some stood up, their spines showing, propped there by a little pile of other books on either side.
She listened to him breathing in the night sometimes, knew when he was asleep and when he was awake and reading. She even heard him turn the page, a light fluttering sound. He read a lot. He liked poetry, he had a lot of poetry books. Annie liked it, too; she was thrilled to see he liked the same poets.
One day when her mother was out shopping Annie lay down on his bed, her long blonde hair brushed down over her shoulders, and read Tennyson aloud.
She was so engrossed that she didn’t hear him let himself into the house or come quietly upstairs.
When he pushed open the door of his room she almost fainted. She dropped the book and jumped off the bed, her face dark red, trembling violently.
‘Don’t stop,’ he said, staring at her. ‘You read beautifully. You’re going to be an actress, aren’t you? Your mother told me. You’ve got a wonderful voice. Do you like Tennyson? He’s my favourite poet and that’s one of my favourite poems.’ He murmured some of the words she had just read aloud. ‘O, for the touch of a vanished hand and the sound of a voice that is still.’
His voice was so sad Annie’s eyes stung with tears. Had he been in love with someone who died? He sounded as if he really meant the words.
He sat down on the bed, patted the place next to him. ‘Read me some more. Please.’
That was how it began.
She started at drama school mid-September, a windy, bright, chilly day with leaves chasing down the gutters and wet cobwebs glittering like diamond windows in the hedges as she walked to the station.
She was tense and shaking as she joined the little crowd of other students pushing in through the open doors of the school. All the time, Annie was looking out for Roger Keats, but he wasn’t in sight. She checked her name on the lists hanging in the hall, and went off to the room indicated. That first morning was spent in having the daily routine explained, being shown which rooms to go to for fencing, dancing, singing lessons, after which they went to see the well-equipped gymnasium, the music rehearsal rooms, which were full of pianos and other musical instruments, and had padded doors with goldfish-bowl windows in them, double-glazing, and sound-proofing in the walls.
The new students soon began to recognise each other’s faces, got to know some of their tutors, and saw a lot of their year tutor, a short, ferocious man with a droopy moustache.
It was a long morning. Everyone was starving by the time they broke for lunch in the gloomy, narrow dining-room. It was self-service. They queued up with their plates to get salad and cold meat.
‘And I hoped I’d got away from school dinners!’ a girl behind Annie said glumly as they sat down again at one of the long, scratched tables. She had introduced herself earlier; Scott Western was her name, she claimed, but Annie suspected she’d made it up. A redhead, sylphlike and blue-eyed, she had already got a lot of attention from the tutor and every other male who had so far set eyes on her. She wore what Annie wore, jeans and a black top, but Scott wore it with a difference – on her it looked expensive. Maybe it was? She talked as if she came from a moneyed background.
Annie felt a jolt of shock as Roger Keats walked into the room. A gleam of autumn sunlight lit up his high forehead, the dark brown widow’s peak of his hair brushed back from his face, that very red mouth.
‘The vampire has arrived,’ Scott said in a sepulchral voice, and Annie almost choked on her salad. It fitted him exactly.
She wished she could laugh at him. She wished she had Scott’s laid-back assurance.
‘That’s the guy who auditioned me,’ Scott said.
Had he propositioned her, too? She was so lovely – surely he must have been interested in Scott?
Scott didn’t seem bothered, if he had. Annie was so on edge, she couldn’t swallow; she kept chewing one piece of ham over and over. Her throat seemed to have closed up.
He was prowling from table to table, pausing to talk to people.
Finally, he arrived at theirs. ‘Ah,’ he said, his moist lips curling upwards and his eyes glinting on Annie. ‘My Alice in Wonderland. I hadn’t forgotten you – but I’m rather busy just at present. I’ll see you soon.’
He walked away and Scott gave her a curious, sidelong look. ‘What was all that about?’
Annie swallowed the ham at last and almost choked. ‘No idea.’ She knew Scott didn’t believe her.
On her way to fencing class a week later Annie caught sight of Roger Keats again and tensed, but luckily he was too busy talking to a small, dark girl to notice her.
‘Dirty old man,’ muttered a boy behind her.
‘Is she his latest?’ someone else asked.
‘Yeah, silly bitch. I don’t know why they let him get away with it. But there’s a new one every term. I wouldn’t mind his job with perks like that.’
Annie took a look at them; she’d seen them in the dining-room, second-year students who thought they knew it all.
One of them grinned at her. ‘Hi. I saw you this morning, you were with a set of first-years who came into ballet class on a tour of the school.’
‘Oh, you’re a dancer?’ Annie smiled back shyly, wishing she dared ask him questions about Roger Keats, but afraid of the questions he might in turn ask her.
‘No, I was playing the piano for the dancers. Mrs Gundy, the usual accompanist, is off sick, so they asked me to stand in for her.’
Annie hadn’t noticed him, but she remembered the music she had heard and looked at him, very impressed. ‘You play very well – did you ever think of doing music rather than
drama?’
The boy with Rob said maliciously, ‘He thought of it, but his father isn’t a governor of a music college.’
Rob gave him a lazy punch on the arm. ‘Shut your face.’
‘Just a joke, Rob!’
Annie stared at them both blankly. ‘I don’t get it, sorry.’
‘My father’s a governor,’ Rob said, offhandedly.
‘So how about a date?’ his friend teased, and Rob punched him again.
‘Shut up, Jeff.’
‘Whoops, sorry, I forgot you’re gay!’
Seeing Annie’s bewildered face, Rob said cheerfully, ‘Take no notice of him, he’s a fathead with a crazy idea that he’s a comedian. How do you like it here so far?’
‘I love it,’ Annie said breathlessly, and both boys laughed, as if they felt the same.
Time flashed by that first term at the drama school. She could hardly believe it when they reached half-term and were given a week off. It was November, cold and rainy, raw winds blowing the last leaves off the trees.
On the Sunday, Johnny had breakfast with her while her mother was at the shop, stock-taking. She had told Annie to stay in bed another hour.
The phone rang as they drank coffee and ate toast and egg and bacon which Johnny had insisted on cooking for them both.
He answered the phone and came back looking white and shaken. ‘I’ve got to go. Sorry.’
‘What’s wrong?’
‘My gran. She’s been taken ill. That was a neighbour. It sounds bad.’
He looked scared, suddenly younger. She knew by now how much his grandmother meant to him, the only family he had.
Uncertainly, Annie offered, ‘Would you like me to come with you?’
‘Would you?’ His face brightened, he gave her a grateful look. ‘Please. I’d like that; I’m scared of being alone.’
The words rang in her ears as they drove there on his old motorbike. If his grandmother died, Johnny would be left totally alone, with no family at all. How would I feel if Mum died? wondered Annie, and shivered.
In the Still of the Night Page 2