Ghost Song

by Rayne, Sarah

  ‘As long as Toby’s safe and well, I don’t care if he lives in sin with twenty women in five different continents,’ said Flora. And then, quite suddenly, ‘Oh, damn, I vowed I wouldn’t cry, I promised myself I wouldn’t…’

  ‘Cry all night if you want to,’ he said, and his arms came around her. ‘Because he’s back with us, and he’s safe.’

  ‘Will he remain safe though?’

  ‘Yes,’ said Hal very firmly indeed. ‘Toby will survive.’

  CHAPTER THIRTY-EIGHT

  THERE HAD BEEN times over the last weeks when Toby had not been sure if he was going to survive. He thought no one had realized this, except Sonja. He felt better now they were in London, but he still felt strung up with apprehension.

  He had expected to find the dark empty Tarleton slightly eerie, jumping at every creak and sigh of the old building, but he did not. This is my place, he thought after his parents left with Sonja and Frank. This is the place I know and that knows me. He made up a makeshift bed on the green room couch and fell into a deep sleep from which he did not wake until seven the next morning.

  The days blurred and unless he went out to the foyer where there was a narrow window alongside the main entrance, he had no way of telling if it was night or day. For this reason he was careful to keep his watch wound up because of Shilling’s midnight round; but when it came to it, he always heard Shilling coming in and it was easy to slip out of the green room and stand in the deep shadow of the stage box, or in the wardrobe room. Shilling made his round faithfully and efficiently, although on the second night of his stay, Toby heard him uncork a bottle of something and caught the faint aroma of whisky or brandy. He smiled as he stood in the darkness of the stage box; he did not in the least blame Shilling for having a few swigs from a bottle on his lonely vigil.

  Sonja and the others came in fairly frequently, usually bringing food—cooked chicken and ham which his mother packed in greaseproof paper, veal and ham pies, and thick wedges of cheese. Toby made tea on the green room gas stove, throwing the tea leaves down the lavatory near the dressing rooms, but he did not dare cook anything in case the smell made Shilling suspicious. Rinaldi came several times, shocked at the situation in which Toby found himself. ‘Oh, Mr Toby, what a pickle it all is. That I should live to see the day when you’re locked inside your own theatre.’

  Toby’s father came only once. Toby guessed he was not very comfortable with the secrecy or with the concept of the ghost figure, which everyone else was rather guiltily enjoying, although Rinaldi said he could not bring himself to entirely approve, because it was tempting Providence to call up ghosts.

  But Hal was able to tell Toby about events in the outside world, which Toby greatly appreciated. ‘When this is over, the map of Europe will have changed for ever,’ he said. ‘In any case, our lives will all be vastly different until the war ends.’

  ‘Over by Christmas?’

  ‘Not for a minute,’ said Hal. Then, ‘Did your mother tell you she’s already making plans to take a touring group of performers to the army bases—wherever the army bases eventually are.’

  ‘She did tell me.’ Toby had found his mother’s ideas rather good; he had contributed several suggestions of his own which Flora had seized on enthusiastically.

  ‘I’m hoping she won’t actually be going into any danger,’ said Hal. ‘I don’t think she’ll be close to any battlefields. But I’m not trying to dissuade her.’

  ‘She wouldn’t let you anyway,’ said Toby. ‘Not if her mind’s made up.’

  ‘Exactly.’

  When Toby asked if any of them had yet thought of a way of getting him out of the country, Hal said they had not. ‘There’s this new passport system now—much stricter than before. It may even come to a question of arranging a false one for you.’

  ‘Might it? Could you get that done?’

  ‘I think so. My God, I never thought I’d hear myself say that. But there’s still the problem of where you would go.’ In a rare gesture of physical affection, he laid a hand on Toby’s arm. ‘Somehow, though, I will get you safely through this.’

  Frank came in most days. He generally stayed for an hour or so, drinking beer, discussing future work. Toby wanted to write some lyrics about the assassination, and Frank was trying out a few bits of music that would fit them. Toby knew they could probably not perform the song for a very long time, but perhaps one day they could. Or perhaps one day somebody else could.

  Frank was also working with Flora on the idea of staging entertainments at army and even naval bases. A small touring company, he said—perhaps even more than just one. Songs and musical sketches and a few comic acts, of course. People needed to laugh when there was a war rampaging all across Europe. They would use men who were a bit too old for actual fighting.

  ‘But you’ll be fighting?’ said Toby, and Frank grinned and said, God yes, was there ever an Irishman who passed up the chance of a scrap. Things were still a bit disorganized, but he would be signing up for the army when they had Toby sorted out. In the meantime, he was enjoying helping Toby’s mamma with her plans.

  Toby found all these discussions deeply reassuring because they helped him believe there would one day be a return to normality.

  Sonja brought books to help pass the time. Toby’s mother had arranged for her to have a key—and she came each afternoon, looking waif-like and defenceless in the long cloak.

  The Tarleton’s musical concert was going ahead. ‘We can’t avoid it,’ Flora said, sitting in the green room, sharing Toby’s picnic lunch. ‘It’s been planned and there’ve been posters in a lot of places, and to cancel it would draw attention to the theatre which is what we’re trying to avoid. I’m sorry, Toby, but you really will have to remain out of sight for a few hours that night.’

  ‘In the cellar?’ said Toby.

  ‘It would be the best place.’

  ‘With the door locked,’ he said, expressionlessly.

  ‘Yes. We can’t risk anyone coming in by chance and finding you.’ They looked at one another and Toby knew there were two quite separate memories in their minds: one was his own childhood terror of the cellar; the other was his mother’s own, very private, memory of something that had happened before he was born. He had not pressed for details of Stefan Reznik’s death or the thirty-year-old quarrel; his father had simply said the twins had attacked Toby’s mother; there had been some violence and Anton’s brother had died as the result of a tragic accident.

  ‘Rinaldi’s taking lanterns and plenty of candles down there,’ Flora said. ‘And it really won’t be very long.’

  ‘I know,’ said Toby. ‘It’s all right.’

  It was not really all right, of course, but it was still the best arrangement. But despite his resolve, as soon as Toby stepped inside the cellar, the childhood fears came rushing back, and when Rinaldi turned the key in the heavy old door at the head of the stairs, he had to beat down an impulse to rush up the stone steps and shout to be let out. He walked determinedly to where Rinaldi had set up a slightly battered chair. There were two lanterns in a corner, together with a box of thick candles and matches, and there was milk, bottled beer, and a cold chicken and fruit. To pass the hours, Toby had a copy of a fairly new play by Bernard Shaw, whose work he admired. The play was called Pygmalion and was described as an anti-romantic comedy; Toby thought if anything was designed to drive back the sinister atmosphere of this place, it was Shaw’s witty intelligent dialogue.

  But as he read, he found himself constantly looking up from the page, sure that something had moved in one of the corners or that he had heard a stealthy footstep at the head of the stairs. Towards seven o’clock he had the sensation of the theatre filling up. He glanced towards the far end of the cellar, to the grave trap. When its floor was winched up to the stage as it was now, it sealed the cellar off from the stage fairly effectively, but several times he heard faint strains of music. He hoped the evening was going well, and he laid Pygmalion down for a moment, imagining th
e audience listening and enjoying themselves. I wish I was up there, thought Toby. If I have to leave England because of all this, how will I manage to leave the Tarleton? And then, with a lifting of his heart, he thought, but Sonja will be with me.

  An hour later, he replaced the burned-down candles with new ones, ate part of his supper, and returned to Shaw. Eliza Doolittle was starting to acquire a veneer of polish and gentility, although Toby liked her better as the urchin in the opening scenes. He took a drink of the beer and he was just embarking on the second act, when he heard a sound at the head of the cellar stairs, then soft footsteps coming down towards him.

  For a wild moment he thought his nightmares were materializing, but the footsteps were too light to be sinister. A shadow fell on the wall of the stairs, and then Sonja Kaplen appeared.

  Toby put down Shaw and the beer, and said, ‘What are you doing here? I thought we’d all agreed that everyone would stay clear of the cellar until the theatre was empty.’

  ‘That’s exactly why I’m here,’ she said. ‘Because everyone is staying clear until the theatre is empty. I borrowed Rinaldi’s cellar key—I promised to let him have it back by eleven, though.’ She came over to him and sat down, and although she had spoken quite coolly and normally, her eyes were wide and fearful as if she was unsure of her reception.

  Toby took her face between his hands, and began to kiss her.

  It was like the igniting of a forest fire, or the undamming of a vast river. The emotion that had simmered between them for the past weeks—the emotion neither of them had dared acknowledge in the face of the other dangers—blazed up, fierce and overpowering, sweeping everything else away.

  She was wearing plain cotton underclothes—Toby, more accustomed to ladies such as Alicia Darke who calculatedly wore silk against their skins, found this so unexpectedly endearing that he had to blink back tears.

  ‘What have I done wrong?’ she said, seeing this.

  ‘My darling girl, you haven’t done anything wrong—you’ve done everything right, but this ought to be happening in some silken bedroom with moonlight and starlight or a rose garden or something… And I’m not sure it ought to be happening at all, because if I don’t stop now, we’ll end up doing something you might regret.’

  ‘I shan’t regret it,’ she said. ‘I’d like it to be you and I don’t care about moonlight and rose gardens.’ She looked up at him, suddenly hesitant. ‘Only I’m not exactly sure what I should do…’

  ‘Oh, Sonja,’ said Toby helplessly and, as he pushed her back onto the rumpled pile of old stage curtains, he realized that neither of them would have noticed if the entire world had become suffused with moonlight or if the scent of all the rose gardens in Isfahan had been in the room with them.

  When he entered her she gave a gasp of surprised pain and stared up at him in sudden fear. ‘It’s all right,’ said Toby, very gently. ‘From now it gets better.’

  ‘Oh,’ she said, a few moments later. ‘Oh God—yes, I see what you mean…’

  She lay against him when it was over, her hair tumbling round her shoulders. She was soft and sweet, and Toby could not imagine what he would do if he had to lose her. He told her this, and saw the delight in her eyes.

  ‘They tell you about the hurting part,’ she said a few moments later. ‘I think that’s to put you off behaving—um—immodestly. But no one ever tells you what’s after that bit of hurt.’ She turned on her side so that she could look at him. ‘Does it get even better than that?’

  Toby looked at her. Her eyes, seen so close, had tiny flecks of gold in them. ‘Let’s find out, shall we?’ he said, and began to kiss her all over again.

  Sonja eventually left him shortly before ten o’clock.

  ‘If I stay any later I might be seen,’ she said. ‘They’ll be coming out of the theatre quite soon. I’ll just mingle with the crowds and seem to be part of the audience.’

  ‘Come back tomorrow? Please, Sonja.’

  ‘Yes, please.’ She stood up, pinning her hair back into place. ‘I’ll have to lock the cellar door again. I’ll hate doing it, but I’ll give the key back to Rinaldi and he’ll come down to let you out.’

  ‘You do know you’ve chased away all the nightmares of this place, don’t you?’

  ‘Have I? I think you’ve chased a few away for me as well,’ she said. ‘I told you I didn’t believe in outmoded conventions, but—’

  ‘But you did believe in some of them?’

  ‘Just the one that nice girls don’t do this before marriage,’ she said, and again there was the fearful look in her eyes.

  ‘Marriage might redress the balance, though,’ said Toby. ‘But I’m damned if I’m proposing in this place. I shall insist on the moonlight and all the other things for that.’ He saw the light return to her eyes, and said, ‘Let’s just think about the present. How will you get back to the hotel? Will you be all right?’

  ‘Rinaldi will get me a cab in Burbage Street. In any case it’s quite early by the standards of London streets. I’ll be perfectly all right.’

  Toby listened to her go up the steps, and heard the lock turning in the door. He disliked the prospect of another hour down here by himself, but it would soon pass. He tried to return to Pygmalion, but could not. Instead he lay back on the chair and watched the shadows made by the flickering candles, and thought about Sonja, and wondered if they really would get out of all this and how, and where they would go. The thought of spending the rest of his life with her was so deeply satisfying he refused to contemplate the alarming obstacles that reared up to gibber at him. There would be a way.

  When he looked at his watch again it was a little after eleven. Rinaldi would appear at any moment. Toby listened, hoping to hear the cellar door being unlocked, but nothing happened. It was completely silent overhead; everyone would have gone home by now, or along to the Linkman or the Pickled Lobster Pot. Something must have delayed Rinaldi; it was not like the old boy to be late for anything; he was very particular about punctuality. It was the politeness of kings, he sometimes said. And it was now twenty minutes past eleven. Toby put down Shaw and went up the stone steps to make sure the door at the top really was locked. It was just possible Rinaldi had unlocked it without him hearing, assuming he would go out of his own accord. But the door was firmly locked. Toby considered shouting, but then it occurred to him that despite the apparent silence, there might still be people around and that was the reason for Rinaldi’s absence. He would give it a little longer.

  His watch was showing ten minutes after midnight and he was becoming concerned, when he finally heard the door being opened. Toby was about to call out, asking where on earth Rinaldi had been, when there was a second sound. The cellar door was being locked again, this time from the inside. Whoever had come into the cellar had locked himself in with Toby. A beat of apprehension started up in his mind, but before he could think what might be going on, there was the sound of someone descending the steps. Someone whose footsteps were nothing like Rinaldi’s quick brisk steps.

  There was no time to turn down the wick of the lantern, but acting on instinct Toby snuffed out the two remaining candles. As quickly as possible, he snatched up the empty beer bottle as a weapon, and darted across the cellar to stand behind the grave trap’s frame.

  The cellar was almost completely dark except for the dull glow from the lantern, and in this sullen light a shadow appeared on the stair wall, red-tinged and menacing. It came down the last few steps and was in the cellar with him.

  Anton Reznik. And in his hand was a gun.

  He stood at the foot of the steps, looking round, and Toby knew that despite the dimness Anton had seen him. In the smeary light Anton smiled and Toby flinched because it was a smile so utterly devoid of sanity and of any kind of humanity, it was as if something sharp and cold had skewered between his ribs. But he remained where he was, hoping that if Anton did fire at him, the grave trap’s frame might provide a form of shield. He entertained a fleeting hope that the gun migh
t not be real, but he was too familiar with stage props to believe for more than a couple of seconds that this was a prop. This was small, black and wicked, and unquestionably genuine.

  ‘Well, Toby,’ said Anton softly, ‘so I was right when I thought you would run for home and your safe little nest.’

  ‘What do you want?’

  ‘To kill you. To execute you in your own theatre. You should have been executed by the British government as a spy—a conspirator in the assassination of Franz-Ferdinand. That was what I planned for. A public shaming. In this country you would have been hanged; in Bosnia or Germany they would have shot you, which is what I shall do tonight. And when Sir Hal and your mother find your body, they will understand.’

  Toby said furiously, ‘You know damn well I had nothing to do with the assassination. Those statements you and Ilena made were flat-out lies. It was your stupid melodramatic revenge for something that happened thirty years ago, wasn’t it? What happened that night, Anton? I know your brother died that night and I’m sorry for it. But did my mother reject you? Did my father fight you and dent your dignity? Or humiliate you? Have you brooded over it all these years?’ I’ll keep him talking, he thought. Because surely Rinaldi will come in soon. Or will he? Anton must have got the key from him and he’s locked the door.

  ‘Your mother—also your father—were responsible for my brother’s death,’ Anton Reznik said, moving nearer. ‘Did your father tell you how we were imprisoned in this place without light or water?’ said Anton. ‘How we were shut in the pitch darkness for nearly three days? Stefan could not bear it—he was always afraid of the dark, from a small child. He died in agony and terror.’ He took a step nearer. ‘And on that night I told your father that although your justice system would not punish him, one day I would do so. That I would destroy him for Stefan’s death. And that is what I am doing now—I am destroying Hal Chance through you. It is not as good as the punishment I originally planned, but it is nearly so.’