Seven Dials

by Claire Rayner

  ‘Peter,’ she said as she looked back at the two of them, still sitting by the littered dining-table. ‘If I haven’t said it before, let me say it now. Thanks for what you’re doing for Nellie’s. We do need the money so, and it’s grand of you to make the effort for us -’

  He looked at her in the soft light and then, amazingly, produced a sardonic grin and for one glorious moment it was the old Peter come back again. Thin as he was, haggard though he now looked, there was the wry smile that had been so much a part of him. There were the friendly eyes and the glint of laughter and she felt her own eyes fill with tears at the sight of him.

  ‘Stop ladling out the butter, Lee,’ he said. ‘This is me, remember? You’re just glad I’m doing anything, and to hell with whether it’s for Nellie’s or not.’

  Letty guffawed then, loudly and rather coarsely, and Lee reddened and glanced at her and then said a little stiffly, ‘Well, anyway, thanks. And I’ll look forward to hearing more of the show and what you’re planning. Good night.’

  And she fled, to drive herself home in a state of some confusion. She’d forgotten just how delightful a person Peter had been. Back in the days when they had travelled through Europe together she had been so wrapped up in her own feelings she had given little thought to anyone else. But now it was different. Peter, restored to his old self - and it now was beginning to look as though he might well be restored soon - would be a very interesting person to have around. And she finished her journey home in so abstracted a state of mind that she missed the turning into her own road, and had to reverse to get home.

  It was cold as they went along the Bayswater Road, with tendrils of icy fog drifting over the railings from the park and muffling their footsteps on the greasy paving stones, and both of them had their collars pulled up against the chill and their hands, gloved though they were, buried in their pockets.

  The silence between them was a companionable one, each lost in private thoughts, and then Letty said abruptly, as they came up to Marble Arch and negotiated the traffic to make their way through to Park Lane so that she could cut through to Piccadilly and Albany, ‘I need some advice, Peter.’

  ‘From me?’ He sounded distant, his voice thin and more muffled than even the fog made reasonable, and she said more loudly, ‘Yes, I do. Concentrate, now. Do as I told you before. Listen to every word, repeat it inside your head and then you’ll hear me properly.’

  ‘I’m sorry,’ he said and turned his head to look at her in the dimness. ‘How did you figure out that was the way to make things work for me, Letty? It does work. It really makes me hear. It stops the - nothing gets in the way when I do it.’

  ‘I haven’t directed actors for all my working life without knowing how to make people do as I tell ‘em,’ she said. ‘Listen, Peter, I’m on the proverbial horns of a far from proverbial dilemma.’

  He listened and it was almost as though she could hear him thinking her words inside his head. ‘What dilemma?’

  ‘To take a plateful of glory or not,’ Letty said, and then more gruffly, ‘I had this bloody letter, you see.’

  Again the pause. ‘What letter?’

  ‘It’s ridiculous, it really is. It wants to know if I’ll accept an honour. And don’t say “what honour?” or I’ll spit.’

  He managed a small chuckle. ‘Then spit. I can’t advise if you don’t tell me what we’re talking about. So, what honour?’

  There was again a little silence between them broken only by the sound of their footsteps on the pavement and the swish of the passing traffic. ‘They want me to be a Dame,’ Letty said at length in a rather small voice.

  ‘A Dame,’ Peter said consideringly, and this time he laughed aloud. ‘Like Dame Goody Two-shoes, in the pantomime?’

  ‘Oh, God, that was my first reaction - to laugh and shout, “Lawks a mussy me, this is none of I -” But I don’t know. I’ve been thinking about it a lot. I haven’t said no, at any rate. But I have to decide soon. It’s almost the deadline. It’s for the New Year honours list.’

  ‘Do they say why?’

  ‘Services to theatre and the cinema,’ Letty said and grimaced in the darkness. ‘Not that I was ever concerned about either of them in the abstract. I mean, I care, but I cared most for my own dear old Gaff, and about the Shaftesbury while I had it. But I don’t know - this brave new world they’re building for us - I’ve heard there are plans for so many things. A National Theatre - now, there’s a novel idea! They’ve had something of the sort in France for the devil knows how long - Comédie Française and all that - but here; well! The mind boggles! And then I think to myself, don’t be such a bloody cynic. Think positively - and if they want to make a gesture towards the theatre, who are you to stand in their way, even if it does make you feel like a great fool?’

  Another little silence fell and then Peter said with great firmness, ‘Say yes.’

  ‘Why?’

  ‘Because it shows respect for the theatre. You’re right about that. And because it shows respect for you. You deserve it.’

  ‘Codswallop,’ she said loudly and a passer-by looked up curiously at them as he went scurrying away in the opposite direction along Upper Brook Street into which they had now turned. ‘I can think of umpteen people who deserve honours more than I do. You for a start.’

  ‘Me? I deserve nothing.’ He sounded savage suddenly and his voice rose. ‘I deserve nothing, nothing at all. I stood by and did nothing. I’m alive and they’re dead and -’

  ‘Shut up,’ she said in a very even voice, never altering the rate at which they were walking. But she pulled one hand out of her pocket and tucked it into the crook of his elbow.

  She knew what he meant; he had told her at last, in long silences between painful halting sentences day after day ever since she had first gone to see him at Leinster Terrace to ask him to work for her, pouring out to her his guilt at all he had seen, his horror and his conviction that in surviving as he had, he had in a deeply traitorous way betrayed the people with whom he had shared the disgusting pain of that place in Celle.

  ‘Shut up. We agreed, you were going to stop that. It was not your fault. You did all you could. More than most. More than I did, sitting here in safety and comfort. They only bombed us here. Here was clean and decent and peaceful compared with there. You owe no apologies. Stop making them.’

  They walked on and after a while he took a deep breath, so deep that his body seemed to shake under the hand she still had tucked beneath his arm and then he said, ‘All right. I promised. I won’t talk about it again. Talk about Dame Goody Two-shoes instead. You be Dame Goody Two-shoes because it’s right you should. Everyone would be very happy. Alf and Mrs Alf and Pa and everyone.’

  She laughed then as at last they reached Bond Street and the last leg of their long walk. ‘All right. I’ll write tomorrow and say yes. I’ll feel an absolute prune, but I’ll do it. And we’ll get on with the Benefit and settle down to making a really good plan for it. I thought perhaps - Katy. What do you say?’

  ‘Katy? What about her?’

  ‘She’s here in London. Under contract to me for another year, almost. Champing at the bit a lot, because although The Lady Leapt High is taking good money at the box office the critics were a bit rude about her.’

  She chuckled appreciatively in the darkness. ‘One of them said, “The film indeed leaps high. Miss Lackland, however, manages little more than a bunny hop, which goes well enough with her pert nose and fluffy personality.” Bitchy but rather apt, I thought.’

  ‘What could she do in the show?’ Peter said after another of his long pauses.

  ‘Look pretty, be vivacious. Make’ em fall in love with her - all the things she usually does.’

  ‘She’s worth more than that,’ Peter said, and suddenly it was as it had been at his father’s dinner table; a curtain had pulled back and revealed the old familiar Peter of seven years ago. ‘She used to be a damned good actress. I directed her, remember? I chose her out of the students at Guil
dhall to join the tour of Germany we did. She can act.’

  ‘Then you shall direct her again,’ Letty said. ‘Whatever else we have in this damned show, we’ll have a bit of class. A scene from Shakespeare, maybe? Yes, that’s what we’ll do. We’ll have the wooing scene from The Shrew. They’ll love that - I’ll find her a lively Petruchio and we’ll dress it well, and set it with all the glamour we can lay our hands on.’

  ‘Yes,’ Peter said. ‘The wooing scene.’ But the moment of renewal had passed as quickly as it had come; his voice sounded flat and dull again, but Letty was not worried. She hugged his arm close to her side as at last they turned into Old Burlington Street and reached the back entrance of Albany.

  ‘I’ll call her tomorrow. And you too. Come here again at ten, will you? We’ve work to be done. Can you get home again all right, Peter? Remember what I told you, how to stop the bad thoughts coming - think the better ones -’

  ‘I remember,’ he said. ‘And they’ll get me home again. Thanks, Letty. I - thanks a lot. I do love you, you know.’ And he bent and hugged her and laughed softly in the darkness. ‘Dame Goody Two-shoes -’

  10

  The hallway was big and square, with a highly polished parquet floor and a central table that was so glossy that it could have been used as a mirror. The windows glittered with cleanliness behind snowy curtains and the white paintwork that gleamed everywhere was immaculate. Altogether, Charlie thought, gazing round, the place looks as though it belongs in a shop window. I do hope Brin isn’t hating it here; I do hope it isn’t all as starchy and fussy as this hallway looks. I should have checked it for myself before I sent him here, but there just wasn’t time -

  A tall woman in the navy dress and flowing white veil of the hospital matron came padding softly from the far side of the central staircase, smiling frostily. ‘Miss Lucas?’ she said, in a low and obviously carefully modulated voice. ‘May I help you? I understand you have come to see one of our patients. From Queen Eleanor’s Hospital.’ Her accent was so very refined and proper that she could hardly get the words out.

  ‘Please,’ Charlie said sharply, finding the woman’s particularly careful enunciation of Nellie’s full name grating. No one called the place Queen Eleanor’s any more, for heaven’s sake, she thought irritably. ‘And I haven’t a great deal of time -’

  ‘It is rather irregular for - er - outside medical people to come and see our patients, Miss Lucas,’ the matron said and tried to look down her nose at Charlie, but she stood very tall and stared the woman straight in the eye. ‘We have our own medical staff, you see, and it really is not necessary to -’

  ‘It is indeed necessary for me to see my patient, Matron,’ Charlie said, making her voice as clipped as she could. ‘I must discuss with him the strategy of his further care. Now, if you will please tell me where I can find Mr Lackland -’

  ‘Mr Lackland! Oh! I hadn’t realized that - well, I dare say we can bend the rules a little for him! Such a charming young man, and no trouble to any of us, in spite of his sad problem. Such a dreadful injury to so handsome a man. He was so nervous and tense when he came to us, but I’m sure you will find he has improved greatly in our care. Greatly. So much more relaxed and as I say, a most charming man, eager to help the staff in any way he can, so important in these times of difficulty, don’t you agree? Yes, I’m sure you do - well, now he is probably in the lounge where our patients are able to foregather before lunch. We do try to give our charges the most refined atmosphere we can manage in these days of such severe staff problems. One is afflicted with the most slipshod people nowadays, don’t you agree? This way, Miss Lucas, if you will just follow me -’

  Talking all the way in her carefully strangled tones about the vital importance of maintaining good standards and the general dreadfulness of the sort of plebeian people she was forced to work with these days, the matron sailed ahead of Charlie like a galleon in full rig, taking her to a big room as ferociously clean as the hallway but with so much added daintiness in the form of heavily embroidered cushion covers on chintz draped sofas and chairs and china shepherds and winsome dog ornaments on low tables that Charlie felt as though she had been force-fed with honey. There were a few people sitting about in postures of some dejection, who visibly straightened themselves at the sight of the tall veiled figure who had appeared among them, but no sign of Brin.

  ‘Perhaps the card room,’ the matron murmured. ‘His bridge is excellent and some of our better class of patients - I’m sure you know what I mean, Miss Lucas - some of them have started quite a busy little bridge club -’

  But he wasn’t there either, and finally, clearly put about now, the matron stopped a hurrying little nurse in the corridor that led to the sitting-rooms and asked her where Mr Lackland was to be found and the girl looked scared and muttered, ‘Gone for a stroll in the garden, Matron, said you wouldn’t mind -’

  ‘In the garden? But no one ever walks in the garden in the mornings!’ Matron sounded scandalized. ‘Not at this time of the year. You know it’s not allowed -’

  ‘He went with Nurse Macmillan,’ the other girl said and there was a spark of spite in her voice that puzzled Charlie for a moment, making curiosity push through her growing irritation.

  ‘Shall I go and find them for you, Matron?’

  ‘There is no need for anyone to go and find anybody,’ Charlie said firmly. ‘I don’t suppose the gardens are that big. I’ll find him for myself. Just direct me to the right door -’

  ‘Our gardens are excellent,’ the matron bridled immediately. ‘This is the best appointed convalescent home in the town, indeed on the entire South Coast, I venture to say, both inside and out -’

  ‘I’m sure it is,’ Charlie said. ‘But I can still find him for myself. Don’t you come out, Matron - I wouldn’t dream of taking you away from your duties -’ And she nodded crisply at the tall woman and turned her back on her to look enquiringly at the nurse who pointed to the door at the end of the corridor.

  ‘That’ll lead you out to the rose garden,’ she said, and added almost under her breath, ‘And I’d look down at the far end if I was you - there’s a summer-house -’ And the note of spite was even more marked.

  Charlie escaped into the chill November air with gratitude. The atmosphere of the place was overwhelmingly unpleasant, she told herself as she made her way between the dripping naked branches of the rose-bushes along a sodden grassy pathway; so desperately proper and fussy. Rigid as the hierarchy at Nellie’s was, and strong though the discipline had to be, the place had a deep humanity about it. There was none of this strangled gentility there. Heavens, but Brin must hate it here, she thought again, full of contrition. I must tell him how sorry I am and find him somewhere better to recuperate. Or maybe it’s time I eased him out of being looked after this way, altogether, time I got him back into his own flat, living a more normal life again. He can’t go on for ever hiding away from life like this -

  The rose garden came to an end, opening into a wide lawn dotted with several dejected rhododendrons and there, on the far side of it, she could see what she imagined must be the summer-house that the nurse had mentioned. It was a small structure built of undressed planks with a thatched roof and a trellis to which the dead branches of a clematis clung and she picked her way towards it over the soggy grass, wishing she’d worn more sensible shoes than the slight high-heeled ones she had put on this morning.

  She had in fact dressed as carefully as she could before leaving London, not for a moment admitting to herself that she wanted to impress Brin with how interesting she could look once she shed her white coat, but aware all the same of wanting to make the best of herself. But now, in this wet Broadstairs garden where everything was dank and dismal her smart town suit looked more bedraggled than sophisticated and she was sure she had splashed the back of her stockings with mud; and since they were of lisle (she had no black-market contacts anywhere who could get her any precious nylons) the effect, she told herself miserably, must be less than
alluring.

  ‘Cheeky!’ The voice seemed muffled and then there was a little squeal of laughter, and a breathless giggle and the voice said again, ‘Cheeky devil - just like an octopus -’ and there was a scuffling sound and Charlie stopped walking. The summer-house was now just a few feet away, but she could see nothing because there was no door to be seen and she walked round to the other side, peering as she went, seeking for the doorway.

  And found it. In fact the whole front of the little building was open to the view beyond the lawn, where, when there was no mist to obscure it, there was probably a distant view of the sea. But Charlie wasn’t interested in the view; only in the people she could now glimpse inside the summer-house.

  It was shadowed in there, but she could just recognize the gleam of a starched white apron and cap and beside them a darker shape and then again there was that little giggle, this time cut off short and Charlie stood there frozen, hating herself for being there and yet not being able to walk silently away.

  After a moment, she coughed, feeling wretched and like a character in a bad play, and at once the huddled pair in the shadowed summer-house moved and she saw the apron pull away, saw a pair of hands smooth it down, and then Brin’s voice, that so familiar deep and exciting voice, said, ‘Oh, lummy, caught in the - oh, glory be! No need to flap, silly girl. It’s only my doctor! Good old Charlie! How are you? Why didn’t you let me know you were coming down? I’d have laid on a real welcome for you! God, but it’s good to see you!’

  He had come bounding out and was standing beside her now, holding both her hands in his and shaking them up and down, and his face was alight with real pleasure at seeing her, the uninjured side lifting into a delighted smile and even the damaged one seeming to look good. She stared at him and tried to collect her thoughts; she was wrong, she must be, he hadn’t been locked in that great embrace with anyone, she’d imagined it, imagined she’d seen his hands wandering all over his companion, tugging at that white apron - there’d been no one there, it had been all her own silliness -