The Wardrobe Mistress

by Patrick Mcgrath

  Julius lifted his head.

  – Who said this?

  – Delphie Dix, said Joan, not entirely comfortable.

  – You’re not like us so it’s not so bad.

  Julius repeated the words in grim, flat tones. Joan glanced at Gustl who was gazing at her with some concern. She leaned across the table, and again covered Joan’s hand with her own for a few seconds. Joan suddenly and for no apparent reason remembered Frank Stone sitting at her kitchen table, eating tinned salmon and tongue, and doing the same thing, covering her hand with his own. But Gricey was a fascist and it wasn’t as Delphie said, it wasn’t ‘not so odd’ or ‘not so bad’. They all knew how it had worked in Germany. Knock on the door in the middle of the night, quick march to the cattle truck, and no one knew it better than Gustl.

  – You had better to tell her, said Gustl.

  So he told her. Yes, Gricey was one of them. Blackshirt. And highly regarded too. Now they’d started up again. The government had to release them after the war and they were back at it. And he, Julius, with Gustl and others, was on the other side, fighting them.

  – But maybe she’s right, Julius then said, rather suddenly, your friend. Maybe she’s right, it’s not so bad for these … opinions to be expressed, yet again. Perhaps they’ll exhaust themselves. And it’s not likely these people will command real influence in the country, not now. Pah! Their day has passed.

  He spoke now with what sounded like blithe unconcern. His tone was mild, ruminative, scholarly almost in its conjectural speculation. The women gazed at him.

  – Draw attention to it, you only make it worse! And, of course, it is a matter of the balanced point of view. Free speech, what we’ve been fighting for. This appears to be the government position, and perhaps they’re right.

  He shrugged. He was looking at his own hands now, spread out there on the table. Then up came his eyes, and all at once he was angry. He lifted a hand and brought it down flat on the table, bang!

  – But it matters, he cried. It matters to these men who risked their lives, who died, some of them, fighting fascism, and came home from the war, men like Karsh – his eyes were ablaze now – came home to their lives in the East End, to their families, to find men shouting for their destruction because they are Jews!

  A wintry sun had emerged from among heavy banks of cloud.

  – And it was Karsh who started pushing back. Oh yes.

  Joan was astonished. A kind of excitement, with which she was unfamiliar, had stirred to life inside her.

  – What did he do?

  – What did he do? cried Julius, leaning forward. Oh, I will tell you what he did. He and three other men broke up a meeting.

  – What meeting?

  – Fascist street meeting.

  – It shouldn’t be allowed, said Joan.

  – You think it, Liebste, said Gustl.

  Gustl looked at Julius, who was silent now. He was staring at his hands again, the fingers stained a deep tobacco brown at the tips. Faint sunshine drifting in from the garden caught in his pale gold hair. He was shining again. He told Joan how four Jewish ex-servicemen had listened to a fascist on a platform and decided they’d heard enough, so they went in, and they knocked some fascist heads together and overturned their platform. They’d given them a good kicking, yes, really put the boot in. Oh, they were angry. And they broke up that meeting good and proper.

  – And you were there, said Joan.

  – I drove the car. I knew what we’d done.

  – What was that, Julius?

  – Changed the situation. Started a fight. Quietly suggested there was no place in this country for fascists.

  He paused.

  – Then we kicked their arses halfway to Sunday.

  – Did Gricey know?

  Did Gricey know. Oh, Gricey. Oh, fucking Gricey. The fact of the matter – Julius had spoken of this only to Gustl – the fact of the matter, Gricey was mad at the end. He’d gone mad. Not mad like a rabid dog, but a rabid exterminationist. Kill them all, it was frightful. It was as though the mask had got stitched on so tight he couldn’t get it off again. Joan must surely have known this, he thought. Didn’t she see it, did she have no clue, until she found that badge? He remembered their last furious argument, that bitter cold day in January, himself and Gricey outside the back door at the top of the garden steps. Each was mortally dangerous to the other, for Gricey had seen Julius among the fascists, acting the part. And Julius had heard Gricey talking extermination. More ovens, more gas, sickening stuff. But when the pushing started, it was Gricey who went down.

  – Oh yes, Gricey knew. He knew all right.

  There was an interesting sort of a silence, full of questions. Then suddenly, a loud knock at the front door! Bang bang bang bang! It startled all three of them – a collective lurch of dread, Joan rising from the table, Gustl’s eyes wide, a hand over her mouth. Then Julius went off down the corridor, closing the kitchen door behind him. The women heard voices, and a second later in came Peter Ryder, limping, and then Karsh himself. Oh, Karsh. Dear Karsh. He was a short man in a crumpled suit, a flat cap in his hand, no collar or tie, and he was ugly, mottled, unwholesome-looking, with blue eyes and a grey, pock-marked face, and apparently no other name, and Joan stared at him with some fascination. He nodded at her. He leaned across the table to shake her hand, and it was a large dry strong hand he gave her, and she felt oddly reassured by his presence and even a bit excited. She liked him. He made her feel almost tearful, she told us, she couldn’t think why. We knew why. Then the three men were talking in low tones at one end of the table, while the two women sat at the other.

  Auntie Gustl that day had a shawl around her shoulders, a silky thing, pale blue with tassels. Her blonde hair was pulled back from her face, which brought out the unflattering puffiness of her rouged cheeks. Now she was pouring tea. There was a nice little ruby on her finger. Joan rather distractedly admired it, while still absorbed in the peculiar atmosphere, the weather, or whatever it was, the excitement that Karsh had brought into the room.

  – Yes it is nice, isn’t it, said Gustl, lifting her hand.

  – Where did you get it?

  – Oh, a man.

  She reached over and absently touched Joan’s hand. She was watching Julius at the other end of the table as he quietly talked on, mostly to Karsh, while Peter Ryder glanced at the women and Joan thought: he’d rather be talking to us. Or to Gustl, anyway.

  – What kind of a man?

  – There’s only two kinds—

  – Gustl, cried Julius, who’s the fellow with the lorry?

  Gustl’s sad eye lingered on Joan a moment then she turned towards Julius.

  – Phil the Soil.

  – No, I think it’s Bill Bagshaw.

  – Julius, Bill Bagshaw is not with lorry.

  – I have to go home, said Joan.

  – No, stay please a little, said Gustl.

  Joan was standing now with her hands on the back of her chair. She sat down again. There was nowhere she had to be other than her empty flat.

  – What are the two kinds of men? she said quietly.

  – What? Oh I forget now.

  – Was it in Berlin?

  – Nein! Es war Paris!

  She was suddenly alight. Paris, where Julius had found her, and carried her off to safety. What did Joan know of Paris? Or Berlin, for that matter? Next to nothing.

  – Fascists and everybody else.

  – What, love?

  – The two types.

  – I want to help.

  – It’s not safe, love.

  Joan didn’t have to say a word. Of course it wasn’t bloody safe. One look at Karsh told her that.

  – Wir müssen Informationen haben.

  – In English!

  – Information. We need information. What they are thinking, what planning. Who they are—

  Joan gripped her arm.

  – Tell me what to do!

  14

  WE SE
E JOAN and Frank now, sitting in the Prince of Wales on Victoria Street. She’d come from the Beaumont where Heartbreak House was in rehearsals. He’d come from The Duchess of Malfi rehearsal room in Waterloo. Both were tired. It had been almost four days. She had by now allowed him to cover her hand with his own on several public occasions, sometimes for as long as fifteen seconds. Poor man, his coat, suit, scarf and hat, all had been the property of Charlie Grice. On Frank Stone they created the impression of a dashing gentleman of straitened means, a poor man trying to suggest that he’s better off than he actually is.

  – Will you let me ask you something, Mr Stone? she said.

  It was a Thursday night. The lighting was dim, as ever, the beer was rationed, and who could afford whisky in these times? But the place was thick with smoke and there was an agreeable crush of people around the bar, and the barking laughter of the men amid the lighter voices of the girls suggested a new tone in the air. Was it a rumour of spring? Joan had heard it in the costume shop, a faint lift in the voices of her girls. The gloom of their seemingly interminable winter was lightly punctured now by thin shafts of hope. A better day, or at least a warmer day was coming, this was the feeling abroad. Joan was aware of it but as yet unable to share in it for hers was a different sort of excitement.

  Dear Frank, his attention, his affection, his devotion never wavered. He had given her not a single moment of doubt.

  – Yes, Mrs Grice.

  It was no longer an annoyance, his reluctance to use her first name, and she reciprocated. It was their humour to do so, and her name was invested, on his lips, with warmth, yes, and with longing.

  – Why do you never ask me to your home?

  He’d been afraid of this. He’d been dreading the question. He’d made up his mind how he would answer it when it came.

  – Because I live with my mother.

  – But I thought she was dead.

  He shook his head.

  – But I wonder why you didn’t want to tell me, said Joan, the question addressed as much to herself as to him. She seldom smoked but she wanted to smoke now.

  – Is she ill?

  – She’s very ill.

  – Yes, I see.

  She was troubled and wished she were not.

  – But I have good news.

  – Mrs Grice, said Frank, leaning forward, what is it?

  He didn’t trouble to apologise for not telling her the truth about his mother. He assumed her trust.

  – Vera is moving out.

  – Oh!

  He sat back, or rather he rocked backwards on his chair. He dared not say what these words at once aroused in him. Joan smiled, and as she was a woman not accustomed to displays of warmth her smile was occluded, although it made fire in Frank’s blood. He knew what she was telling him. She turned her head away and exhaled smoke. She lifted her chin. She turned again to his eager face.

  – Now stop that this minute, she said. I don’t want any trouble from you.

  Much about Vera Grice was mysterious to those closest to her. Of predictability there was none. She had told Julius she would return to his house, but that she wished to continue living in the attic, and although Julius disliked the idea he agreed, believing it better that she live under his roof in any circumstances than elsewhere. He’d driven into the East End in the big Wolseley and brought her back in quiet triumph.

  We see Joan wandering through the flat later that evening, and discovering that a change has occurred with Vera’s brief occupation. Joan has come to think of the kitchen as the single room in which she is safe, and of Gricey’s room as the ghost room, for it contains the great wardrobe where the morbid residue of the man endures. Vera’s presence has had the effect of diminishing Gricey’s. It is as though he’s been driven into the very deepest recesses of the wardrobe, or even into the fabric of the building, still there, she thinks, but fainter now, and much less dangerous. She sits on the bed, where Vera in her haste has left behind a scarf, which Joan now fingers absently.

  A bit later she’s sitting in the kitchen. She covers her face with her hands because it’s too much for her. And yes, it is too soon to turn to life, and yet she wants to, and knows herself well enough to be confident that despite his wishes she will try.

  Frank Stone dislikes deceiving others about his past but finds he can’t help it. He wants to stand naked before Joan Grice. He’s recognised a quality in her that he wishes to possess, and his attraction is experienced viscerally. He wants literally to stand naked before her, and for her to stand naked before him. It is as fierce a thing as he has ever known, he thinks. He doesn’t imagine he will reveal these feelings to her when next he sees her, on the Sunday, but in fact he does. For it is on that Sunday, a moonless night in early March, the air sharp as a blade, that she takes him into her bed. Yes. Not the bed in Gricey’s room, where Vera has been sleeping, but the big bed that Gricey and Joan had once shared.

  Oddly it is Gricey’s hat that sets it off. Joan was startled to find it on the hook on the back of the kitchen door. It had been in the wardrobe when she last saw it, and the wardrobe was locked. But now it was on the hook on the back of the kitchen door. It enraged her to see it there because it meant he’d been in the kitchen. That’s what started it. She took Frank off down the corridor to the bedroom. And then she again heard Gricey’s voice, but by that point she frankly didn’t care.

  But isn’t it enough for you?

  But what did he mean? A dead fascist in your wardrobe, isn’t that enough for you? And no was her answer. No. No. No.

  When later in the night she rose from the bed she swiftly wrapped herself in her dressing gown and slipped away before Frank Stone could properly see her. He found himself alone. He linked his fingers behind his head and gazed at the ceiling, all in shadow but for the glow through the crack in the curtain from the lamps in the street. He didn’t know what this longed-for event meant to her, but he hoped she’d been in heaven, with him. He had no idea there was any question as to whether he was a man or a ghost in that bed. Joan meanwhile was in the kitchen. She took Gricey’s hat from the back of the door. It was the grey felt trilby. She put it into the stove. There it shrivelled rapidly on the dormant coals and burst briefly into flame before disintegrating with a hissing sound, as of a deflating phantom.

  She thought it might have been Vera who’d hung it there. Then she remembered that Julius had come in the car earlier and taken her home. She returned to the bedroom, her heart heaving with resolve. Frank hadn’t moved. She sat on the edge of the bed and gazed at him. He wanted to talk but had sense enough to be quiet. Her hair was loose and her eyes were soft. After some seconds of this wordless scrutiny she eased the silky dressing gown from her shoulders, and as it fell to the floor Frank glimpsed her long throat and slim arms as she slipped back under the bedclothes with as little disturbance as a spirit entering seawater from a rock. She took him in her arms and soon they were warm again, for it was bitter cold in the flat in the middle of the night. Her pain began to subside after that.

  There was a period of calm. It was Joan’s unspoken belief that whatever passion had occurred, and would occur again, she must go forward with utmost prudence. We saw little of her during this time. With the flat all her own now, as she thought, she was able to conduct her life with almost complete discretion. In effect she sank into obscurity. She embraced obscurity. She rode her bicycle to the Beaumont each morning, and in the evenings, sometimes late, returned to Mile End, where it is our belief that she was visited each night by Frank Stone, himself coming from a rehearsal room in Waterloo, perhaps by way of the flat in Seven Dials. They no longer met in public for they had no need to. Nor did they wish to arouse comment in the theatre, which is a place of the most florid gossip, and where a story such as theirs would like wildfire spread from costume shop to dressing room, from the wings up to the flies. Small surprise then that Joan allowed no opportunity for herself and Frank Stone to be seen and commented upon by this peculiar tribe.

&nbs
p; Later she would speak of the domestic atmosphere they created, these shrouded lovers, in the latter days. Only then did it occur to her how very lonely she had been after Gricey died. But now so much had been recovered – austerity was at an end! For there was again talk in the evening, attention paid to the inconsequential drift of her day which in large part, as it always had, involved the violence encountered in the costume shop. For it was an assault, what was suffered by the costumes in which actors stepped out each night then ripped off between scenes, until Joan and her girls took them in hand, applied sharp needles and, whispering soft words, brought them back good as new before sending them out to be ravaged again the next night.

  All this she told Frank Stone, drily, as Gricey had liked it told, with small flares of lip and eyebrow to mark the absurdities of the world in which she worked. He listened to her with pleasure, being one of those who ravaged costumes himself, given half a chance.

  – Dear, she said one evening, as they sat in the kitchen, late, him reading a newspaper and herself darning his socks.

  He looked up. His face would seem to cloud over with what she liked to believe was love, when he turned to her, and it moved her. It made her soft. This had rarely happened with Gricey in the latter years, for they were at cross purposes often. But Frank did seem to understand that she must make the decisions, and had the good sense to let himself be rendered malleable by the gifts she gave him nightly. She made him want not to oppose her.

  – Frank, how is your mother?

  A flash of shame. Her glance was sharp.

  – I am neglecting her.

  – Yes, I thought so.

  A few seconds of silence as she continued with quick fingers to darn the toe of a raddled sock.

  – And there’s nobody else to look after her?

  She continued to darn. He was silent. She looked up.

  – There’s nobody else?

  – There is a Hungarian—

  – A Hungarian. Frank, what are we to do about her?