He was astounded. ‘I don’t believe it. You’re just kidding me. You have to be.’
‘I’m not. This is the truth I’m telling now.’
He could see that she was serious. ‘So there’s no Yorkshire parson in your life?’
She shook her head. ‘I’ve never been there.’
He was gradually taking in the purport of what she was telling him. If there was no Yorkshire parson and no dead mother, how much of the rest of the story she had fed to him was true? He put the question bluntly to her.
‘Very little, I’m afraid.’
‘You mean to say you thought it all up as you went along? That time when I was taking notes.’
‘Not entirely. It was more or less the story I’d been telling people about myself. It sounded more romantic than the truth. So I had it all more or less by heart and just repeated it to you.’
And he had got it into print for her. Now it was all down in black and white. And it was nothing but a fable.
‘So why have you decided to come clean with me now?’
‘I should have thought that was obvious. You’re special aren’t you? I just couldn’t bear to keep you in the dark any longer.’
He was pleased to hear this, but he was uneasy about the fact that the false story had been published in the Women’s View magazine, and he told her so.
She was airily unconcerned about that. ‘Nobody expects to get the truth in those things – unless they’re very simple-minded. What’s it matter? It’s just another story.’
He was not sure he went along with that – not entirely. But there was nothing to be done about it now. It was out of the question to write to the editor of Women’s View, telling her that there had been a mistake and that there was no truth in the feature they had printed about Angela Street.
‘I think,’ he said, ‘that you’d better give me the true facts about yourself now, don’t you?’
‘Of course,’ she said. ‘That was what I was going to do, wasn’t it?’
So then she told him; told him the truth. Yet it was the other story, the figment of her imagination, that was to become accepted by all and sundry and to stick with her throughout her career. Apparently no one would ever take the trouble to make the journey north and seek out the parson in Brontë country who was reputedly her father. But after all, Yorkshire was a large county and she had never given any precise information regarding the situation of the vicarage from which she had made her escape at the tender age of fourteen years. So why bother?
The fact was that her real name was not Angela Street but Maggie Maggs. Her father had a small greengrocery shop in the East End, and her mother had been a chorus girl until a weight problem had put an end to that line of work, and she had been only too glad to accept Alfie Maggs’s offer of marriage. He had been a good-looking young man and a smart dresser, while the mother had been quite a beauty.
Maggie was an only child and had been sent to dancing classes almost as a matter of course, both parents hoping, and indeed expecting, that she would eventually go on the stage. At a very early age she was performing in charity shows and displaying a precocious talent for the business. Her progress as she grew older had not been as eventful as she had painted it in that first account she had given to Sterne, though it had not been without its struggles and setbacks.
The change of name had been made with the full approval of Alfie and Queenie Maggs, who agreed that Angela Street sounded far more distinguished. Soon she had moved out of the East End to a small flat of her own, which was more convenient for the theatre world and all that went with it. Later there had been another reason for getting away, a more compelling one; but she did not tell him that. He was to find out in time, and it was to come as a shock; but for the present he was to remain blissfully ignorant of it.
She had shed her cockney accent with the original name. She was a gifted mimic, and the change had been easy to make. From the way she spoke now it would have been difficult to guess where her roots were.
‘So now what do I call you?’ he asked when she had reached the end of her narration. ‘Angela or Maggie?’
She gave a laugh. ‘Just call me darling. That’s what I like best.’
*
The greengrocer and his wife were delighted to see their daughter. He got the impression that her visits were not very frequent. It occurred to him also that when she had lost her job and her flat she might have gone to them for help. They would certainly have been happy enough to take her in. They would probably have given her money to tide her over the hard times as well. In fact they would have been the obvious people to go to. And yet she had not; instead she had come to him. Why?
The only answer he could think of to that question was that this was what she had wanted to do; that she had had in her mind from the outset the intention of moving in with him. This conclusion pleased him. She had misled him, of course, by giving the impression that she had nowhere else to go, no one else to help her, the vicar being far away in Yorkshire and unlikely to feel inclined to be charitably disposed towards her anyway, but he did not give two pins about that; he was just glad.
The greengrocer’s shop was in a rather slummy district of London which had suffered from the depression and where a large proportion of the population was living on the dole; but it looked reasonably prosperous. The Maggses had a flat above the shop. The rooms were small but cosy. There was nothing luxurious about the furnishing, nor any indication of poverty either. Sterne would have guessed that Alfie Maggs was not short of a bob or two even if many of his customers were finding the going rough.
They had arrived in the evening, just as the shutters were going up, and high tea was about to be put on the table. It was taken for granted that they would stay and share the meal.
Angela had introduced him and added: ‘David is a writer. He’s going to be famous.’
‘Is that a fact?’ Alfie said. He looked at Sterne with a hint of amusement, a twinkle in his eye. ‘Is that really a fact?’
‘It’s an exaggeration,’ Sterne said. ‘I’ve no hope of it ever coming true.’
‘But you should ’ave. What’s the use of going on without ’ope? Me, I’ll never amount to nothing, but youngsters like you an’ ’er, you’ve got it all in front of you. You can reach the top.’
Angela gave a laugh. ‘All right, Dad. We’ll do it, just for you and Mum.’
Eating cold ham and salad in the little living-room on the first floor, Sterne found himself being pumped by Mr Maggs, who seemed to be the sort of man who would not be easily imposed on. It was quite obvious that he was sizing up this person his daughter had brought along, and trying to determine whether he was a good or a bad thing. Somehow the greengrocer got him talking about the farm and his early life.
‘Never knew much about the country meself; ’ardly ever bin there. Might give it a go one of these fine days. Sell up and buy a little cottage out in the wilds.’
‘Not you, Dad,’ Angela said. ‘You’re a Londoner and you always will be. You’d be lost in the country.’
‘Well, it was just a thought.’
Sterne noticed that Angela made no mention of the fact that she had had to give up her flat and had moved in with him, though she did say she had left the Windmill and was looking for somewhere else. He wondered how much the Maggses guessed. They asked no questions on that subject.
Mrs Maggs said she was sorry the Windmill job had come to an end, but she made no attempt to probe into the details of the matter.
‘Still, I’m sure you’ll not be resting for long. Not with your talent.’
*
‘So what did you think of them?’ Angela asked when they were on their way back to the flat in Rosetta Avenue.
‘I liked them.’
‘You really mean that?’
‘Of course I mean it.’
‘Good. They liked you too, you know. Mum told me in confidence that she thought you were a very nice young man. What do you say to that?’
/> He grinned. ‘I’d say she has excellent taste. Your father grilled me a bit. I think he was running the rule over me.’
‘He would. He has this thing about protecting me from the rogue male, and he’s afraid I’ll –’ She stopped abruptly, as though catching herself on the point of saying something she had not intended.
‘Afraid you’ll what?’
‘Oh, nothing. Nothing important.’
He thought it might have been more than that, but he did not press her to elaborate. Nevertheless, he felt a little prick of doubt, of uneasiness. He knew so little about her even now. There were gaps which had never been filled. The story was still incomplete.
He wondered why she had taken him to see her parents. Perhaps she wished to show him just what her roots were, so that he could never accuse her of concealing her origin from him. Perhaps there was a kind of bravado in it, as if she were challenging him to be critical. She need have had no fear of that; he had told her the truth: he did like Alfie and Queenie. They were the genuine article, no doubt about that.
There might perhaps have been another motive for paying the visit; a financial one. He had not actually seen any money change hands, but next day Angela bought a few items of new clothing, and it was not difficult to guess where the necessary cash had come from.
*
And so life went on: days of writing, writing, writing, and nights of ecstatic love-making, exploring every curve and mound and hollow of her glorious body with passionate sensuous delight beyond all imagining. And she as ardent as he; sinuous in her movements as a snake, making of each nocturnal encounter a reaching upward to the very zenith of desire.
It could not last. Perhaps in their hearts they knew it must end; that the very intensity of it made certain there must be a limit to its endurance. The hottest fires burn out most quickly.
And yet it was not this that brought the close; no gradual cooling that would one day cause them to face each other and ask the question: ‘Where did it all go? We had something truly exquisite and now it’s gone. So how was it lost?’
No, it was not like this. It was brought to a close while still among the peaks and not the foothills; while still nothing had cooled, no fire quenched, the flame still as brilliant as ever.
One day a man walked in and smashed the dream.
Chapter Eleven – SORRY
When Sterne went to answer the knock on the door he had no inkling of what was about to happen. When he thought about it afterwards he could not help but feel that he should have had a premonition; that some sixth sense should have warned him not to open the door, because to do so would be to let in something evil. The vibrations should have been felt through the wood; they should have impinged on his brain, warning him.
But there had been nothing.
And even if there had been, even if he had refused to open the door, he could not have kept that evil out. Eventually it would have found a way in. It was fate.
He opened the door and the man was standing there. The man looked at him but said nothing.
‘Yes?’ Sterne said.
‘My name is Judas Raven,’ the man said.
It was an odd name, Sterne thought. Maybe even a name of ill omen. But it meant nothing to him.
The man was a handsome devil, no doubt about that. He had black crinkly hair and he was lean-faced, with a thin blade of a nose and dark eyes. His complexion too was dark; there could have been gipsy blood in him. He was not tall, being slightly shorter than Sterne, but he held himself well. He looked hard; he looked hard as old iron. He looked like someone a man would be wise not to tangle with. He could be a mean bastard.
‘So?’ Sterne said.
‘I’d like to have a talk,’ Raven said. His voice was soft, with a strangely lilting quality about it; a London accent without doubt, but with subtle overtones that might have been picked up elsewhere.
‘With me?’
‘Yes, with you.’
‘About what?’
‘Maybe I’d better come in,’ the man said. He was wearing a charcoal-grey suit that looked almost new and very smart. His black shoes were polished to a gleam. ‘Best inside.’
Sterne did not wish to let him in, but there would have been something ridiculous in refusing to do so.
‘Very well.’
Raven gave a quick glance round the living-room when he walked in. It was as though he were searching for something; but if so, it was evidently not there.
‘You can sit down,’ Sterne said, a trifle grudgingly.
Raven sat down. ‘They tell me you’re a writer, Mr Sterne.’
So the man knew his name; knew his occupation too. He wondered who ‘they’ were.
‘That’s so.’
‘I’m looking for someone,’ Raven said.
It gave Sterne a jolt. The thought that sprang immediately into his mind was that this someone Raven was speaking about was Angela. Who else could it be? And he knew exactly where she was at that moment: she was taking a bath. And the bathroom was just two doors away: you went through the bedroom to get to it.
‘The name of the person,’ Raven said, ‘is Angela Street.’
Which was immediate confirmation of what Sterne had suspected. He wondered whether the man had noticed his involuntary reaction when he had stated that he was looking for someone. Probably. There was that about him which suggested that he would not miss much and would not easily be fooled.
But why would he be looking for her? Who in hell was he? She had never mentioned that name. But probably there were a lot of things she had never mentioned. Perhaps Alfie Maggs could have told him quite a bit about Judas Raven if he had asked.
He spoke warily, hoping Miss Street would take some time over her bath; hoping he could get rid of this man before she walked out of the bedroom.
‘Why have you come to me?’
‘I’ll tell you,’ Raven said. ‘I’ve been away. You don’t have to know where; it ain’t important. I come back and I’ve lost touch, if you see what I mean. I try to pick up the threads, but it looks like things have changed. I pay a call on her flat as used to be, and it’s in different hands now and the people ain’t never heard of her. So then I go to the Windmill Theatre where she used to perform, and they tell me she ain’t working there no more and they don’t know where she’s living. It looks like a dead end, and I’m just leaving when they say why not try this magazine called Women’s View, ’cause there was a piece about her in it not long ago and they might know where she is.’
Raven paused and stared hard at Sterne.
Sterne said: ‘And did they?’
‘No, they didn’t. But they remember the piece and they hunt up the name and address of the man who wrote it. And of course it’s as clear as daylight he must’ve been in contact with her and would maybe know where she’s hanging out right now.’
Once again Raven paused and gave Sterne a hard cold stare, as if boring into him with his eyes.
Then he said: ‘You did write that piece, didn’t you?’
‘Yes, I did.’
‘And you know where Miss Street is now?’
Sterne knew only too well, but he did not wish to tell Raven. He wondered why the man had not got in touch with Alfie Maggs. But perhaps he had and had got no change out of him. Or perhaps he had known he would get just that and had not even tried. He didn’t know whether Angela would have wanted to see him, but he knew that he himself would be happier if the meeting did not take place. He could see no good coming from it and possibly a great deal of bad. He did not like the look of Raven. His guess was that he was not a man to be trusted.
So he said: ‘No, I don’t.’
‘You can’t help me?’
‘No.’
Raven did not believe him; that much was obvious. He said: ‘But you must have had contact with her when you were writing about her.’
‘Of course. But that was when she was living at the flat. Now you say she isn’t there any more.’
‘Are you sa
ying you don’t know her new address?’
‘That’s it. No idea. And now I’ve got work to do, so if you don’t mind –’
He thought for a moment that Raven would refuse to leave. But then he got up from the chair and walked to the door. He turned with his hand on the knob.
‘I’ll find her,’ he said, and he sounded vehement. ‘I’ll find her if it’s the last thing I do. She’s my girl; do you know that?’
‘No,’ Sterne said. And he did not want to know it; did not want to believe it. ‘No.’
‘Well, she is. And anybody that says different had better watch his step. He bloody well had better, I’m telling you.’
He twisted the knob viciously, as though he might have been wringing the neck of some person unknown, and pulled the door open.
And that was the moment when Angela chose to come in from the bedroom. She was wearing a dressing-gown and mules, and her hair looked damp.
Raven heard the sound, turned and saw her. He slammed the door shut again and she gave a cry.
‘You!’
‘Yes, me,’ he said. ‘Surprise, surprise!’ He rounded on Sterne with a kind of snarl. ‘You lied to me. You bloody lied to me. What in hell’s going on?’
He received no answer.
‘Well,’ he sneered, ‘it’s easy to see, ain’t it? She’s been living here. Left her flat and moved in with you. That’s nice.’
Angela said: ‘You don’t understand, Jude.’
‘Oh,’ he said, ‘I understand all right. Couldn’t wait for me, could you?’
‘Jude, it’s been a long time.’ She seemed to be pleading with him, and Sterne could tell that she was nervous, perhaps fearful of this man who had stepped back into her life so unexpectedly. ‘Things change.’
‘Oh yes,’ Raven said, ‘it’s been a long time sure enough. You don’t need to tell me how long. And I’ll bet it’s been one hell of a lot longer for me than it has for you. But it’s over now. I’m back and I’ve come for you. Get dressed and pack your bags and we’ll be on our way.’
‘Now hold on,’ Sterne said. ‘She’s not going anywhere. You’ve got a nerve barging in here and dishing out your orders. Get out of here. Go on. Get out.’
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