by Stan Barstow
'Best two bloody coats here,' Conroy says.
'I suppose we're earning the most money.'
'Aye.' He pulls his coat on. "There's times when I can't stand bloody actors,' he says, the sourness coming through again.
As we leave the bedroom he says suddenly, 'Hang on a minute.' He goes off into the living-room and I wander after him as far as the doorway. The party's thinned out a bit by now but there's still enough people sprawling about or else hanging on to one another to the noise of the record-player in the dim light and the smoke.
Conroy comes out of the kitchen, stuffing a pint bottle of beer into each overcoat pocket and shoving one at me.
'Here, take that.'
'What for?'
'Because it's ours. We're not leaving it for this scrounging shower.'
As I slip the bottle into my pocket Donna comes out of the bathroom, pulling the door shut behind her.
'She's been sick. She'll be all right now.'
'Get her to bed,' Conroy says. 'That's the best thing.'
'I can't till everybody's gone home.'
'Dump their coats out here in the passage.'
'No, she'll be all right. She's swilling her face with cold water. She goes off quickly and comes round the same way.'
Conroy opens the door. 'Well, we'll be seeing you.'
'Yes.'
'Thanks for having us,' I say, thinking of the neck of the bottle sticking out of my pocket and how mean it must look if she sees it.
We go down the stairs and out into the cold clear night. I'm feeling just a bit out of sorts with Albert as we walk round the corner and across the thin hard snow of the car park. It's not just that he's spoilt the end of the party, but that I might be associated with his peevishness in Donna's mind.
'Freezing hard,' he says as we approach the car. I say nothing, waiting for him to get in and reach over to unlock my door. The silence gets over to him as he runs the car out on to the road.
'You're not saying much.'
'I've nowt to say, Albert.'
'You mean you don't like saying it.'
'I just thought you were a bit short with Donna, that's all.'
'Did I start it? Am I responsible if Fleur gets too much to drink? I'm not her bloody keeper.'
'It just struck me that the fatal Conroy charm had let you down and you were feeling peevish about it.'
He grunts. 'If you ask me she's as bent as a fiddler's elbow.'
'Eh?'
'I'm not saying she couldn't enjoy it with a man, but she'd as soon have a woman.'
'You what!'
'That's what I think.'
'Gerraway!'
'You've heard about it, haven't you?'
'Well, of course I have, but -'
'But you've never come across it in a woman?'
'Oh, I can't-'
'How many men queers were there at the party?'
'None, as far as I know.'
'There were two at least.'
'Well I never saw them.'
'You saw 'em but you didn't spot 'em because they didn't act like pansies. They don't all, y'know.'
'I think your imagination's running riot, mate.'
'The theatre's a gathering ground for 'em, Vic. It goes with artistic leanings, so they say.'
'And what about Fleur?'
'I think she's got a crush on Donna. She's staying the night.'
'Oh, come on, now. You're not trying to say that Donna's bent as well.'
'Probably not. But I've a good idea about Fleur.'
'How do you know?'
'Oh, one or two things she said about Donna and herself.'
'You know, I don't see that a woman has to be queer just because she doesn't want it with you.'
He takes that without rising. 'No, there's more to it than that. I'm sure there is.'
'Oh Christ!'
'What's it matter to you if the whole crowd of 'em's bent, anyway?'
'I just hate talk like this.'
'Does the thought of it revolt you?'
'Look, live and let live; but there was nothing queer about the way Donna kissed me tonight.'
'Ah ha!'
'Ah ha what?'
'It upsets you, doesn't it? You like to think you might have a chance.'
'I don't know what you're talking about... Look, take it easy. There's ice on the roads.'
'It's all right. It clings like a limpet.'
'I felt the back end slide just then.'
'Imagination.'
'Aye, like you with Fleur.'
'All right, Vic, let's drop the subject. But watch it, old lad, just watch it.'
'Again, I don't know what you mean.'
'I know you. I know you better than you think I do. You've got a lot to learn.'
'So it seems.'
Conroy opens the front door with his key and we go up through the dark house - quietly, though the sound of the car being parked in the driveway and the slamming of the doors must have waked anybody ready to be disturbed - and say good night on the first landing outside Conroy's room. Up in my own room I undress and brush my teeth and get into bed without lighting the fire. I wind my alarm clock, check that it's set for eight, then lie with my feet pulled up behind my thighs, waiting for the sheets to get warm, and thinking about what Albert said, and earlier, when Donna wished me a happy new year and I kissed her. That odd fleeting look in her eyes that, if I'm any judge, was an instant of accurate womanly intuition about me. An intuition about a feeling that comes over me again now; foolish, hopeless, with the seeds of all kinds of trouble in it, but with a glimmer at the heart of it, persistent and unmistakable, of something I can only call joy.
11
All I know is that I've got to see her again, and quick. Beyond this is a country of complications where my mind won't travel; probably because the passport to it is a return of feeling by her that I can't imagine either, though it's naturally what I shall come to hope for more and more. It's hard to remember that I once felt this way about Ingrid, watching her walk along an office corridor or sitting on the crowded bottom deck of a bus, without either hope or hopelessness at first, but just curiously happy in the beauty of the feeling itself. But without guilt, either. And that's an ingredient that'll be part of this too soon, whatever happens from now on. I come from a kind of people who see a positive virtue in never having felt temptation.
Well, one advantage to me of her being an actress is that I can see her nearly any time, except that watching her on the stage isn't like actually meeting her, and I can't go so many times to the same show or somebody's going to catch on pretty quick. And there's Conroy.. Living on top of each other, like we do, means it's a bit tricky for me to do things on my own without him knowing about it. I've made no friends in the town apart from the theatre crowd and if I say to Albert that I'm off somewhere on my own he's bound to think it a bit funny. It wouldn't matter if I was prepared to be open about it with him, but he's guessed too much already and if I'm going to act like a moonstruck kid I don't want to parade the part for his amusement. Not yet, anyway.
The trouble is that after Donna's party Albert shows no sign of wanting to go to the Mitre and meet them all again. In fact becomes out with the occasional snide remark that sounds like he's gone off them altogether. I take the cracks as being a bit childish, though I can see his point - if she really upset him - why he might not want to seem to be hanging about waiting for crumbs from Fleur's table.
So it's not long before I'm forced to go out on a limb and it happens when I mention going to the Christmas play, which we haven't got to see yet.
'It won't be up to much. Family entertainment, and all that.'
'I thought it might be worth a try. Pass an evening on.'
'Waste of good drinking time if it's a dud.'
'Mmm.'
'You go if you want to.'
'Well, I-'
'Look, Vic, we might be mates but you don't have to live in my pocket. You do what you want to do.'
'What about mee
ting in the pub afterwards?'
'No. I've got a standing invitation to have supper with some people I know. It's a good chance to take 'em up on it.'
He lets me off the hook with only the faintest flicker of a smile in his eyes, and:
'You don't need me to hold your hand, do you?'
The play's an Arabian piece, a cross between a pantomime and a straight play, based on the 1,001 Nights, with incidental music from records of Rimsky-Korsakov and Borodin. Fleur's a knockout to look at as the Sultan's daughter and Donna plays Scheherazade, a wily bird, the latest in a series of unfortunate women, who stalls the Sultan (a wasteful old lecher who likes a fresh wife every night) from lopping her head off by telling him a string of tales. The thing that's surprised me most on going to the theatre is the colour of it, even in an ordinary play. On this piece, of course, they've been able to let themselves go a bit and there's all the colours you can think of mingling on the stage, in tapestries, hangings, costumes, and skin made up brown where the costumes are on the brief side as they are with the Sultan's slaves and - a treat for the dads - the young houris in transparent trousers and bangles. Remembering the slimness of Donna's wrists and hands and her general air of frailty as Blanche Dubois, I'm surprised to see how firm and well-covered her body is: in the plump hollow of her navel and the fleshing out of her breasts above the gold-coloured bra-like top half of her costume.
I'm sitting down towards the front of the stalls, in the middle of a row, and it takes me some time to get out of the building at the end, crawling up the aisle behind kids in a daze from the combined effects of the show and stopping up later than usual, and parents trying not to get separated from their broods while making sure they haven't left scarves or gloves or coats behind. One nipper of six or seven waits till he's nearly to the foyer before remembering that he slipped his shoes off during the show and he's left them back among the seats. His mother, exploding, turns him round and begins to force a way back against the tide while a chap I take to be the father stands aside and, catching my glance, lifts his eyebrows at me.
'There'll be no dealing with them tomorrow morning.'
'Only once in a while, though.'
'Thank the lord for that,' he says, returning my smile.
I knew it was odds on that they'd be coming over to the Mitre after the show but to make sure of it I've sent a note round to Donna during the first interval, asking her if she'll have a drink with me there. I'm well down my first pint, and not drinking fast, by the time she comes into the pub. I see her first, apparently on her own, as she stands in the doorway to look for me. A wave of the hand takes her eye and she smiles as she makes her way to me.
'Sorry I've been so long but I had to have a bath.'
'You're white again, then, under your clothes?'
'Pink and glowing,' she says, laughing.
'The others still splashing round in the tub?'
'No, an ex-member of the company dropped in and most of them have gone off to another pub.'
'Well look, don't let me keep you if you-'
'No, no,' she shakes her head. 'I see enough of them.'
'What will you have, then?'
'A half of bitter.'
'It'll run to a gin and tonic, you know. Or even two,' I add as she seems to hesitate.
'I don't drink beer because it's cheaper, particularly,' she tells me. 'I like it.'
'Well, be a little devil tonight.'
'In that case I'll have a Scotch and dry ginger.'
'Right you are. Suppose you grab those two seats over there and I'll be with you in a jiffy.'
She goes away and I look after her for a second before emptying my glass and ordering the drinks. She's just a bit taller than Ingrid and put together in the same neat way. Is she prettier? Would you say, seeing the two of them together, that one was more attractive than the other? But there's no point in comparisons of this sort. Detailed item-by-item totting up of physical qualities gets you nowhere when you're judging the power of a woman. Neither does adding personality. Because all these things together can't account for the fact that one man will sell his soul for a woman that another chap will only glance at with casual interest.
And my interest in her is more than casual.
Would I be doing myself a good turn if I had a drink with her then walked out of here and never laid eyes on her again? I might. But all I'm concerned with now is that she's here and on her own, which is a break I never expected. And the knowledge that she's just a few feet away and in a couple of seconds I shall be with her sends surging up through me as I pay for the drinks and take hold of the glasses a wave of happiness, pure and simple.
'Here we are, then. Do you want all the ginger in?'
'Half of it, please.'
I pour half of the Canadian dry into her Scotch and sit down next to her on the bench seat. I don't know whether it's better to be close to her like this or sit opposite so that I can look directly at her. Either way will do. I just wish we had more time. In half an hour they'll be turning us out of here and I don't see how I can set up this situation again without showing too much of my hand. Which wouldn't matter if I wasn't married. Married. That word, after all this time, sounds its old note of clammy doom; and sitting there with Donna next to me, seeing with one part of my vision the fingers round her glass, with the main part the glitter of bottles and glasses behind the bar, the drinkers at the counter, hearing the murmur and clatter of their talk and the soft music coming through off the tape, I wish, I wish like hell, not that I wasn't married exactly, or not in a way that would hurt Ingrid, but that I was free and had choice. And I'm mad as I haven't been mad for a long time with that younger me who fell for a bird, found he didn't love her but still had to have her, and had her in a way that made him twice stupid, turning what should have been a bit of a fling with a willing girl - to be remembered afterwards as an experience and no real harm done on either side - into something that would affect his whole life. I want to thump his stupid head.
'Where's Albert tonight?'
'Visiting some friends ... It's one reason why I wanted to see you. After the party, I mean. It left a bad taste in my mouth.'
'What did?'
'Well, Albert. I thought he came over a bit childish.'
'I suppose I helped to rub him up the wrong way.'
'I didn't want you to mix me up with it, that's all.'
'I hadn't really thought about it. It's nothing to what can happen at parties.'
'I just wanted it straight, for the record.'
'All right.'
She sips her whisky, adds a drop more dry ginger, then opens her bag and feels for cigarettes.
'Here, have one of these. If you smoke 'em with spats on.'
She takes one, smiling. 'I used to advertise these.'
'I beg your pardon.'
'On television. I was the girl who fell into the water trying to throw a stick for the dog. Then my boy friend gave me a cigarette while I sat wrapped in a big towel. "Together - the two of them -and Rolled Gold." Don't you remember?'
'Vaguely.' I can't remember seeing her but I'm very impressed.
'Thank you. Shows what an impact I made. They must have thought so too. I wasn't asked again.'
'Did you like doing a commercial?'
'Oh, I don't think anybody actually likes doing them. It's the money that's useful. And they pay well.'
'I thought you must have some sidelines. I mean, you said there wasn't much money in rep. but you have that flat.'
'That's an extravagance, really. I suppose I should share with somebody, but I prefer to be on my own. Besides, I don't keep a place in London like a lot of people in rep. do. This is cheaper than a flat in town- or cheaper than a comparable place, anyway- and I'm near enough to be able to catch anything interesting that comes my way.'
'How long will you be here?'
'Probably for the full season. That's till the summer.'
'And what then?'
'Oh, something will turn up
. Perhaps my big break's just round the comer. I thought I was beginning to make headway last year. I had thirteen weeks in "The Matchmakers" on television but then the series folded and the characters with it. That led to small parts in two films. Very small parts. In the second one my one immortal line of dialogue ended up on the cutting-room floor.'
'You've got more guts than I have, being in a business like that.'
'It's an overcrowded profession, but there's always room at the top, as they say. And everybody hopes he'll establish himself a good way up the ladder. I haven't done too badly at all. I work and I live. Though I don't exactly manage to save.'
'How do you manage when there's no work going?'
'You do other things. I've been a waitress, a shop assistant and a cinema usherette in my time. Of course if you're only out for a few weeks you can go on the dole.'
'The dole?' I grin. 'Do actors draw the dole?'
'Of course. They're entitled to it and they all do it now and again. The big fish and the little ones. There's one labour exchange in town, you'd be surprised to see who turns up there from time to time.'
I catch the waiter's eye.' Same again?'
'Yes, please.'
I order another round and Donna drains her glass and shrugs.
'If things got really bad I suppose I could go home and live off my parents for a while.'
'Where's home?'
'Cornwall. They would have to be bad, though, because it's too far away to keep in touch properly.'