Reprise

by Claire Rayner

  ‘Oh, dear heart, me in Hamburg? I ask you! What’d they want with the likes of me?’ He wasn’t being American any more, she noticed, and felt frightened again. He was being different, arch and silly and –

  ‘I want you,’ she said loudly. More loudly than she meant. ‘I missed you. A week’s a long time. Three weeks’ll be even longer. George’ll have to know, to make the bookings. Sure he’ll want you, the whole band will –’

  ‘Dolly, darling, may I be cut in little pieces and boiled for a pudding!’ he exclaimed, and patted Dolly’s shoulder again. ‘It’s time for your poison, and here’s me nearly missing it. They’ll drum me out of the Red Cross Cadets if I go on like this –’ and he came to the door and automatically she made way for him and as he passed her he bent and kissed her cheek, cheerfully, comfortably and with no feeling at all and she had to clench her fists to stop herself putting her arms up and round his neck and holding on hard.

  There was a little silence when he’d gone away down the stairs, whistling, and then Maggy said in that same hard little voice, ‘So you’re all right again?’

  ‘He was so good and kind, lovey, you can’t imagine! Made me feel really well, one of the best nurses – Ida was really put out –’ and she giggled, inviting Maggy to join in the dig against Ida. But Maggy stared stonily back and said, ‘You’re doing it again. Aren’t you? You’re doing it again.’

  ‘Doing what again? Lovey, what am I doing again?’ Dolly’s face crumpled, went soft and a little lined. ‘I’m not doing anything at all –’

  ‘He’s my bloke!’ Maggy said loudly, staring at her, not daring to come any further into the room for fear of hitting out at that soft anxious face. ‘He’s my friend, not yours. He’s coming to Hamburg with me!’

  ‘I wouldn’t stop him, lovey, if he wants to go! I’d never stop anyone doing what they want, you know that. But –’ She put her hands out towards Maggy, leaning forward so that the feathers lifted and whispered on her shoulders. ‘Not really your fella, you know! Not anyone’s fella, not Oliver. You do know that, sweetheart, now, don’t you? He’s a good friend to you, course he is. Good friend to me too, now, and glad I am of it. But not for you dearie. You’re no fag hag –’

  ‘That’s not – you can’t – it isn’t –’

  But of course it was. She’d known as soon as she’d seen him sitting there on the lilac counterpane. She’d always known, perhaps. Somewhere deep inside she’d always known, but she’d hoped she was wrong, that there was still a chance, a possibility. But when he came upstairs again whistling with the medicine and fussed over Dolly and plumped her cushions and then perched on her lilac bedspread at her side and smiled over his shoulder at her, she knew she’d lost.

  9

  ‘I’m truly sorry, Maggy. You never said, you see – I thought you were glad to be rid of me –’

  ‘I don’t know what the hell you’re talking about,’ Maggy said loudly. ‘I want that key, because everything in this room is my property, and you’ve no right to it. So do I get it or do I take steps to make you give it to me?’

  He shrugged and his face blanked and he threw the key across to her. ‘Have it, ducky, for all I care! There’s no way I want to take anything out of here. I come in sometimes, just to remember old times, when I’m miserable. It’s been a long time, you see. We were together a long time, Dolly and me – fifteen years is a long time –’

  ‘Oh, Jesus, spare me the whining,’ she said, and put the key in her pocket and turned back to the wardrobe to close the door. He came and stood behind her and peered over her shoulder at the contents and said conversationally, as though they had been on the most amiable of terms all morning, ‘Odd, aren’t they?’

  ‘How do you mean?’

  ‘Well, ducks, a wardrobe full of gear no one ever wears – how odd can you get?’

  ‘They’re not yours?’

  ‘Mine?’ He opened his eyes very wide. ‘My dear girl, I ask you! Would I wear the likes of that?’ He leaned over her shoulder and took the trilby hat and put it on and posed in the mirror and she almost laughed, he looked so absurd. The anger that had filled her was dissipating now, leaving her tired, almost floppy, not caring much about anything.

  ‘Then whose is it?’

  He put the hat back, and slid his hands along the clothes on the rail. ‘I don’t know. She never said. They were there when I moved in, and they’ve been there ever since. She’d never say, and I learned not to ask after the first time.’

  ‘Were they – did she ever mention Mortimer Lang to you?’

  ‘Who?’

  ‘A chap we – someone we knew. Used to live in the Creffield Road house.’

  ‘Well, maybe she mentioned him. She used to tell me a lot about the old days, did Dolly. We’d sit for hours and she’d rabbit on – but I can’t say she ever mentioned – Mortimer, you say?’

  He was looking at her with very sharp bright eyes and suddenly she shrivelled away inside herself. For a moment there she’d been relaxed, off her guard, had forgotten that she had to be careful. She’d been talking to him as though he were just – well, a person to talk to.

  ‘It doesn’t matter.’

  ‘But you asked, so of course it does! Now, let me see, let me cast my mind back –’ He struck a little pose, thinking. ‘She talked about a lot of people from those days. There was a – now, it was a funny name, to do with toys – damn it, what was it? I said at the time it was being five years old again – Hornby! That was it! Ted Hornby. A right villain he was, from all accounts. A real one, I mean – and I’ll never forget his friend’s name because it was so funny – Jim Codling. She talked about them a lot. Even visited one of ’em in prison sometimes.’

  She frowned, not wanting to know about that. ‘I’m really not interested,’ she said as crisply as she could, and moved over to the door. ‘I’ll see you out. I’d rather be on my own, thanks all the same.’

  ‘But Mortimer Lang. Now that rings not so much as a tiny tinkle. Is he important?’

  He was still standing by the wardrobe as though she hadn’t spoken, and she opened the door wide and said a little more loudly, ‘I’ll see you out.’

  ‘To do with the stuff in that box, maybe? Would that be it?’

  ‘Out! Now. Or, by Christ, I really will get the police on to you.’

  He sighed, exaggeratedly, and shook his head. ‘Oh, come on ducky – such dramas! As if they’d give a shit! But I don’t want to be bad friends with you, darling, not after all these years, so out it shall be. Coming for a cuppa? Ida’s out – gone to raise hell at the wholesalers. They’ve been screwing her on the price of lavatory cleaner.’ He giggled, and came to the door and stood beside her, and she shrank back a little. Damn memory, damn dead feelings that won’t lie down. ‘Come on. Maybe I’ll remember something useful about this bloke for you. And being suspicious of me isn’t worth it, ducky, I mean – me! I couldn’t knock the skin off a rice pudding! I’d never be any trouble to anyone, would I? You don’t have to mind old Oliver.’ And his eyes seemed doggish, now, appealing and apologetic.

  ‘On your way,’ she said, but there was no anger in it now. ‘I don’t want any tea, I don’t want any coffee, I just want you out.’

  ‘You coming too?’ He hovered outside the door; and she looked back into the room, blank and bright in the morning light, and knew, suddenly, that she couldn’t stay, and almost pettishly picked up her bag and followed him out into the corridor, and with a slightly childish emphasis locked the door, and put the key away in her pocket.

  ‘There’s a good girl!’ he said and grinned, and put his hand on her arm. ‘Now the cuppa, hmm?’

  ‘No,’ she said, and went ahead of him down the stairs, and across the hall, not looking back, feeling obscurely that she had somehow lost a round in a battle, without knowing what the hell the battle was all about. He followed her and stood on the top step, watching her as she went down the street and called after her. ‘Try looking that bloke up in the phone book, d
ucky. I mean, you’re not playing cloaks and daggers, are you? No need to go hunting around in Dolly’s bits and pieces in secret – unless you’re looking for something naughty –’

  She ignored him and quickly went along the street, clutching her bag under her arm and trying not to run.

  And there the name was, in the phone book. She resisted the idea all afternoon, going back to the flat, making a few phone calls, picking up her messages from her answer service, and all the time pretending that Oliver and anything he might say were a waste of time. But when all the calls were made and there was nothing else she could do she picked up the L to R directory and almost defiantly looked.

  And there it was. Mortimer Lang. How many Mortimer Langs could there be, for God’s sake? It had to be him, and she stared at the name and address unbelievingly, and then, feeling foolish, rang directory enquiries and asked them. And they confirmed it. Mortimer Lang, 73 Duplessis Road, Waltham Park, E17. 451 2369. She picked up the phone again, and actually got as far as dialling the exchange before she stopped to think and then crashed the receiver down hard. Phone him? And say what? ‘Dolly said you’d know all about it. Kindly tell me at once.’ Or, ‘Hi there. Just thought I’d get in touch. How have you been? How are things?’

  She couldn’t phone him. She’d have to go and see him. Find some excuse to go and see him and talk in a vague way about vague things and hope she could get round to what it was she wanted to know, or hope that he would, because she didn’t even know what questions to ask –

  There was nothing special to do that afternoon. The weather had changed, become sullen and less hot, and sitting there alone in the flat was no joy. There was work to do, of course; and she looked across at the piano and pile of manuscript paper and the Purcell stuff and shook her head. The way she was feeling all she’d make of that would be disaster. So why not go and see him? Or at least look at where he lived. There’d be no harm in that. Maybe go into a couple of local shops, find out what he was doing, what sort of chap he’d turned into –

  She looked up the address in the street atlas, and ran down the stairs, feeling alert again. Something to do. It was what she needed, something concrete to do, and she got into me car and wheeled into the heavy traffic with a lift of excitement that made her feel good.

  It was an agreeable drive, working her way through the tangle of shabby Islington streets once she’d left the West End behind, and then along the winding ugly length of the Essex Road as it became shabbier and shabbier and petered out into the Lea Bridge Road. Not until she reached Whipps Cross Hospital on the edge of Epping Forest did she begin to think about where she was going and why, instead of concentrating on the traffic and finding her way through the ill-marked streets.

  But by now it was too late to run back. She’d come this far, and she’d at least look; and she wheeled the car left into upper Walthamstow at last, watching carefully for the street name, and trying not to feel frightened.

  The house when she found it startled her. It was large, extremely large, the wreck of what had once clearly been a Victorian house of some splendour. It was built of crumbling red brick with peeling stucco additions, and bedecked with so many curlicues over the windows and doors and turrets and gables that it looked like a cakemaker’s nightmare.

  She parked the car at the kerb and got out and stood there uncertainly for a moment, staring at it. Did he own a place this size? And then she was annoyed at herself, for wasn’t her own flat the top floor of just such an old big house, albeit a rather more elegantly designed one? This place could be subdivided into as many as six or seven separate flats, and obviously he lived in one of them, although it was odd there hadn’t been another number as part of his address; Flat 2, 73 Duplessis Road, say.

  She was twiddling and she knew it, and with a sharp movement designed to prove to herself how determined and sensible she was, she locked the car and walked through the gateway, up the weed-spattered gravel path which swept from one side of the house front to the other, towards the front door. There must surely be bells with individual names on, or something of that sort, so that she’d know exactly where to write to him; so she told herself and tried to believe.

  The front door stood wide open and there were no bells with names underneath them on the jamb, and she stood uncertainly in the porch, looking in. The hallway was large, red-tile floored and extremely shabby. The dull green paint on the walls looked as though it hadn’t been washed, let alone replaced, for more than ten years; the staircase, which ran up from the centre, was covered in dull green linoleum, and there was a strong smell of old boots and cooking and machinery in the air, the latter probably coming from the tangle of bicycles which were stacked in a corner of the porch.

  It’s a bit like a school, she thought uneasily and stepped back to look again at the door jamb, to see if there was any indication at all of names, just as a door on the far side of the hall opened and someone came out. She couldn’t see who it was; the light from the door framed the shape and threw details into shadow, but clearly it was a man.

  He moved forward, setting his head to one side, and speaking as he walked. ‘Can I help you? Were you looking for someone?’

  ‘I – er – I’m not sure if I’ve come to the right place –’ she said, and stepped back a little, feeling somehow safer out on the gravel path, instead of in the porch.

  He was at the door now, and she could see him clearly. Tall. Thick grey hair untidy over a long face that was sagging, the flesh seeming to be slipping off the bones. He had dark eyes, and looked worried and a little abstracted yet friendly enough, and she stared at him and tried to see the funny man who had made her laugh when he tickled her, all those years ago. He was there all right, but she couldn’t see him properly.

  ‘This is Deneside,’ he said, and his voice was as tired as his face. ‘For young people, you know. Waltham Forest Social Services Department.’ He peered at her. ‘I – we’ve met before, have we?’

  She wanted to giggle then, wanted to tell him that the last time they’d met she’d been wearing her blue viyella nightie and had been deliberately throwing herself around on her bed so that he could see her bottom. But she only raised her eyebrows. ‘Possibly.’

  ‘Well, can I help you? I’m the housefather here – what was it you wanted?’ He was beginning to sound less tired, more irritable, and looked down at the sheaf of papers he was carrying in one hand and put on an air of busyness. ‘I’m rather tied up at the moment, and the youngsters will be in soon, some of them –’

  ‘I – I was looking for Mr Lang,’ she said, and stared at him, knowing she’d found him.

  ‘Yes, yes, that’s right, my name’s Lang,’ he said, even more fussily now. ‘Housefather here. Are you from the Department? People change so fast these days I never know from one week to the next who’s likely to turn up.’

  ‘No,’ she said and still stood there staring at him and now he looked at her again, and fumbled against his shirt front, where a pair of glasses were hanging from a cord round his neck, and put them on, and looked at her again, and she smiled. She couldn’t help it; he looked such a caricature of a schoolmaster, peering through round spectacles like that.

  ‘We have met before, though, haven’t we? I can’t quite place – really, I don’t – ah!’ And now he sounded relieved as someone else came through the open door at the far side of the hallway and came towards them. ‘Perhaps my wife will know – Sally –’

  She was a square woman, with a square face and square hands and a mouth that opened whenever she spoke into a wide tooth-filled gap that was almost square too, and she had a great deal of untidy grey hair. It made her look absurdly like her husband, for all he was so long and lean next to her solidity.

  ‘You want me?’ she said briskly and looked at Maggy. ‘Yes? You’re not from the Lord Charterman School, are you? I’ve been worred about young David Midler this past month, and I’ve told the head I am, so if he’s up to his old tricks, you can’t say you weren’t warn
ed.’

  Maggy shook her head. ‘I’m a musician,’ she said. ‘Not a teacher, not a social worker, a musician.’ It was important suddenly to establish this, to show these anxious grey people that she was something other than they, something exotic, special. ‘I’m a musician,’ she said again.

  ‘A musician?’ Sally Lang said, and her eyes blanked. ‘Oh, how nice. Well, I’m sure Morty can sort out whatever it is – I’ve got the kitchen to see to. They’ll be in any minute, the school lot – and tonight’s scouts and then there are the late-night people and they always fuss so –’ Still talking, she went busily away to disappear to one side of the staircase and Maggy looked at Lang again and said, ‘A musician. Doesn’t that help? Or maybe then I hadn’t started lessons. Come to think of it, I don’t think I had. It wasn’t till I started at Fletcher Street School that they found out I had any music in me –’

  He blinked, took off his glasses and put them on again and then, tentatively smiled. But his eyes were still very anxious.

  ‘Dolly,’ he said, almost to himself. ‘Dolly. You’re a lot thinner.’

  ‘Dolly’s dead,’ she said loudly. ‘For God’s sake, man, she was sixty-two! And I know I’m not a baby – but sixty-two, for Christ’s sake!’

  ‘Margaret Rose,’ he said, and bent his head to his papers, and fussed with them. ‘Margaret Rose.’

  ‘Maggy,’ she said crisply, in control now, all her own anxiety washed away by his. ‘Maggy Dundas. You don’t listen to jazz, I take it.’

  ‘I do, actually, I really do. Always liked it. But I don’t buy records, you know. Not on my salary! And there’s all this –’ He swept his hand around in a comprehensive gesture. ‘The council are too damned mean to find me a pennorth of nails, truth to tell, so any real amenities we have to find for ourselves – so no records. But I heard your name a few times. On the wireless –’