‘Over the East River? Or the Hudson?’ Maggy said it sharply, needing to pull her down, and the woman looked at her and shook her head sadly.
‘Oh, sister, you can sneer and you can scorn, but I tell you that when they hear him tomorrow – tonight – when they hear his word, they’ll all succumb. You come and hear him and you will too. You’ll know the peace and the loveliness of –’
‘How much does it cost to be born again?’ She could see the penthouse imprinting itself as a shadow on the coffee bar, could see crimson and black walls and thick white carpets where reality was garish yellow plastic chairs and green formica-topped tables with ketchup bottles shaped like tomatoes. ‘It must cost a hell of a lot to be born again.’
‘What’s money?’ the woman said swaying over her broom. ‘The Lord provides, the Lord decides. I push my broom for God, and the money is nothing – nothing at all. It goes to the Lord to get more souls for the Lord. All I ask is to eat and sleep sometimes – and even that I would give up for the Lord and for him.’
Still she rocked to and fro and Maggy stared up at the round sagging face with its bright-eyed stare and felt fear stir in her, somewhere deep inside. To look like that, to feel like that, to push a broom and feel like that – how must it feel to be like that all the time, just pushing a broom? I get it sometimes with music, just sometimes, once in a blue moon; but she gets it all the time, with a broom.
And she remembered last night, remembered the first half, heard the music move in her belly and wanted to be like it all the time. Would Adam Lancaster, old friend Andy Kentish, do that for her? She must be mad, running out like this. Stay for the rally, let them collect me and take me to Madison Square Garden, let me be born again –
She had actually put her hand on her bag, was almost on her feet when she realized she was moving at all, and sat down again, staring at the big woman who looked contentedly back at her. God, this is mad, crazy mad. I’m half-way there. I’m right to try to get away. Oh, God, let it be morning soon. Let me get home and safely away. He’ll steal me too, if I don’t get away from him.
She slept on the plane awkwardly, her legs twisted against the seat in front, her head lolling painfully against the backrest, but at least she slept, and at last stood blinking in the hubbub of the baggage reclaim hall, shivering a little with reaction. Three thousand miles ago, six hours away, he had nearly had her. She had sat at a green formica-topped table in Kennedy Airport and almost tumbled over the edge into madness, and now she was safe. It made her feel lightheaded.
Outside customs, standing close to the rope rail, Theo was waiting, looking strained and white-faced in the middle of the chattering crowds and the stolid men holding aloft placards with names on them, and as she came through the door he ducked under the barrier and came to her with long easy strides and the sight of him brought tears to her eyes.
‘Oh, Christ, Theo, but I’m glad to see you! I nearly got hooked, would you believe it? I nearly got hooked, there’s this guy – he was the other one on the photograph, he’s mere now, got another name, calls himself Lancaster, runs a revivalist thing, and he nearly got me hooked. I tell you it was awful. He’d been after Morty Lang – said I was to leave him alone, and he was after me too of course. I know that now. I understand so much about it all now –’
‘Darling, I’ve arranged for you to see a doctor right away –’ He was soothing, taking her luggage in one hand, holding her elbow warm and close with the other. ‘At home, as soon as we get there. I arranged it all. Come on, darling, don’t talk. You need a rest – come on, love –’
‘You got another band out there? Was there time? Did you get hold of Josh? I should have told you, he was at a party at Seventh Avenue, I should have told you, and the contract – but the doctor’ll fix that, won’t he? An incapacity certificate, the contract’ll be fine – Theo, he was awful. And I’m sorry. I’m truly sorry. I thought it might be you, but I know now, it couldn’t have been, could it? It must have been him, because he said he knew what happened here, had friends, he said, so one of them must have, though I’m not sure why – well, of course, I’m a fool! To find Hornby, of course. That’s why they hit me, took all the stuff from the box. It’s all money, really, all money. I’m sure of that. I talked to this woman in the coffee shop, poor devil, he’s got her so hooked – she gives almost every penny she gets to him! To Lancaster, only really he’s Andy Kentish. He’s bad, really bad, and I thought it was you, and I’m so sorry. But you can understand, can’t you, just a bit? With all that was happening –’
‘Maggy, stop it, for God’s sake, stop it! You’re scaring me silly!’
They had reached the outside of the Terminal Three building now, heading for the car park and she stopped and blinked up at the late evening sunshine and then looked at him.
‘What? Scaring you –’
‘Darling, you’re talking nonsense, just talking nonsense. Do stop – just take it easy, doze in the car. I’ll have you home as fast as I can, get the doctor to see you –’
Fatigue clamped down and she nodded dumbly. ‘Yes. I must have – I’m sorry. But I wanted to explain –’
‘Later, sweetheart, later. There’s plenty of time. Later –’
The doctor had gone, leaving a handful of sedatives behind, and she lay back on her sofa, her eyes half-closed, as normality at last moved in again. Across the room she could see her piano standing quiet and ready in the bay of the turret, the light slanting across it from the windows, and beyond that her mirror, tilted to get a view of the street below. Around her she could feel the ordinariness of it all; the familiar smells of coffee and furniture polish and her bath oil and it wrapped her in the first sense of peace and security she had known for weeks.
She could hear Theo’s voice quietly at the door, and the doctor’s heavier burr, and then the door closed and Theo came back, moving quietly, to stand in front of her and she looked up at him and smiled, lazily.
‘He says there’s no harm done,’ he said. ‘It’s not your head or anything. I was so frightened it was – that you’d got a fracture or something that was making you so – but he says it’s just tension and stress and all that. Take it easy a few days, you’ll be fine.’
‘I know,’ she said, and stretched, feeling the tranquillizer the doctor had made her swallow move easily through her limbs. It was a good feeling. ‘I know. I’m sorry if I –’
‘There’s nothing to apologize for. I was the wrong one, letting you go alone.’
‘You couldn’t have stopped me, you know that.’
‘I could, somehow.’ He sounded grim. ‘But I chose to stand on my dignity. Christ, but I chose to –’
‘You were right. I’d never have found out if you hadn’t.’
‘Found out what?’
‘That I was being – stupid to think it was you. The robbery – the papers –’
There was a little silence and then he said stiffly, ‘You thought that I –’
‘I’m sorry, Theo. But I was so damned confused – twice, you see, twice someone had hit me and the second time, you were – well, you were around, you know? And you’d talked about Rainbow Records.’
He was sitting down now, on the armchair facing her, very upright, his face still and hard.
‘You thought that because I want my own record company, I’d try to hurt you. That I’d try and get hold of whatever this money is that Dolly’s left you for myself? You really thought that?’
She closed her eyes, feeling the warm wave of tranquillizer recede a little and anxiety come moving back.
‘See it my way, for God’s sake, see it my way! There I was, in a tangle of Dolly’s silly mysteries, trying to – and all of you so damned interested. Oliver and Friese and Ida – and yes, you. How could I be sure? How could I? I still don’t know for sure that – well, I’m almost sure. I think it was Andy Kentish. I really do. He’s the sort who makes things happen, even when he’s not there.’
‘You’ll have to explain more.
I still don’t understand. I’m still not sure that –’
She explained as carefully as she could, trying somehow to get across to him the smooth silkiness of that voice, the effect that presence had had on her, the way the film had made her feel, the woman in the coffee shop, all of it, and he watched her and listened and said nothing.
‘And he’s bad, Theo, he is, he really is. I know it as sure as I’ve ever known anything. And you should be grateful to him, because without him I might never have been quite certain about you – and I am. I really am, I think –’
And suddenly he grinned, leaning back in his chair and shaking his head and grinning, but there was no pleasure in it.
‘You think. You still suspect that maybe, just maybe – oh, Maggy, why the hell do I put up with you? Do you know what you do to me?’ He had stopped grinning now and she could see the hurt in him and wanted to put her arms up to him, to show him she didn’t mean it. But that wouldn’t work. He had to find his way through this for himself, just as she was doing.
There was a silence and then he said, ‘Well. And now what? Where do you go from here? Or is it verboten to ask?’
‘Don’t get suspicious with me, Theo, please, please don’t! I’ve had a hell of a time – please, don’t. I don’t think I can –’
But he didn’t move, didn’t come and sit on the arm of her chair and soothe her as she’d suspected he would. He just sat and looked at her and then said in a hard tight voice, ‘I mustn’t show my feelings. Mustn’t show my reactions – God, but Dolly spoiled you, Maggy! You were the middle of her whole damned world, so that she fretted over you and planned for you even for after she’d be dead, and you take it all for granted, don’t you. You expect to be the middle of everybody’s world. But there are other people, a lot of other people around! Think about it! Maggy matters, but so do Oliver and Ida and – we’re people too! And me, God help me, I love you. D’you have any idea of what that means? Or are you so used to being the one who gets all the love that you don’t know how to give it back? It’s a two-way experience, in case you hadn’t noticed.’
This time she did put her arms up to him, and her face twisted as she began to cry, and he looked at her and then after a moment shook his head almost wearily, and came and held her close.
They made love then, there on the sofa, and it was gentle and quiet and much much better than it had ever been before, even better than it had been that afternoon that had ended in the attack from wherever it had been. And that surprised her because this time and for the first time she had been much more concerned about him and his needs and his reactions than she had about her own.
24
She woke to a dull sky outside the bedroom windows, but a clear mind inside her head. Lying in bed curled up with Theo, her bottom thrust backwards so that she was virtually sitting in his lap and his arm thrown heavily across her, she revelled in the way she felt. No panic, no anger, no confusion, just herself and Theo, happy in bed.
I shall start again today. I shall get this whole damned business sorted out once and for all today, and then I can forget all about it, and get on with work and with living and Theo. And Rainbow Records. She liked that idea, hugging it to herself with Theo’s heavy arm, and then, made restless by the excitement of the thought, slid out of bed and into the shower.
They shared breakfast in a companionable silence with the papers and then he said, ‘What will you do today? Come to the office? You’re OK, now, aren’t you?’
‘Yes. How can you tell?’ She smiled at him, feeling the life in her veins, enjoying the sense of well-being that filled her.
‘You’re different. After all this time with you I know the way you feel. And today you’re different from yesterday.’
‘I feel great. That was some knock-out stuff the quack gave me.’
‘Yes. He said it was good. So, will you come to the office?’
‘Did you get another band out for tonight – I suppose it is tonight, I get so lost with times – did you manage it?’
He nodded. ‘Hot Quince went. Glad of the chance.’
‘Then I’d better not show, had I? I’m supposed to be incapacitated.’
He grimaced. ‘Damn it, yes. I’m a bloody fool. I’d actually forgotten that – you’ll have to keep a low profile for a couple of days. Mind you, it was a true bill. You should have seen what you looked like when you got off that plane.’
‘Half demented?’
‘Three-quarters.’
‘I was. It’s only now I feel normal, I know now –’
‘Yeah, well, forget it. It’s over now –’
‘I’m not sure it is –’ she said slowly and put down her coffee cup.
‘How do you mean?’
‘He told me that – he seemed to know everything that was going on here. All about Dolly dying, and that I’d been to see Morty Lang –’
‘You keep talking about this Morty.’ He said it almost petulantly. ‘I don’t know who the hell you’re on about, you know that?’
‘I’m sorry.’ She came and sat on the floor beside him, resting her arms on his lap, and staring up at him. ‘I’ve been horribly secretive, and I’m sorry. But –’
‘Yes, I know. You weren’t sure.’
‘Well, no more. Listen. I found a photograph in that box of stuff – the one that was left behind in my pocket, you know, after I was walloped? Right. That was a photograph of Dolly and two men who used to live with us in Creffield Road – Morty Lang and Andy Kentish. And she’d written on Mort’s picture that he knew. So I went to see him.’
‘Knew what?’
‘I don’t know. That’s why I went to see him. And – he was odd. He works in some home or other for delinquents in Walthamstow. That’s what they looked like, anyway. Bully boys in leather with studs and nasty sideways stares.’ She shivered a little. ‘I thought they were following me, that it might have been them who got to me that night. Anyway, he was scared, absolutely shit scared and I couldn’t work it out. I can now, of course. It’s Andy. It’s that damned Andy –’
‘Did he have the information you wanted?’
She looked up at him, waiting for the small lift of suspicion that once would have come in response to that question, but it didn’t and she breathed deeply and took his hand in hers and smiled, wide and brilliant. ‘No – at least he didn’t seem to. But he talked about someone Dolly used to know, who had some money. He was a thief.’ She looked at him solemnly. ‘A tea leaf, a villain, a crook. Went to prison for robbery.’
He laughed then. ‘You sound like a tuppeny ha’penny thriller!’
‘I know. That’s what I – well, anyway, I managed to find out from Miss Lucas – oh, God, you don’t know about her either, do you? She used to teach me when I was a kid. When I first went to Thomas Tallis School, you know?’
‘I don’t, but keep on. Maybe I’ll get some of it clear in my head eventually.’ He was smiling down at her, seeming uninterested in all she was trying to explain, and she knew that he too had passed a moment of truth. He had known she had expected suspicion and that none had come. They were through that patch and out the other side.
‘Well, she told me that Hornby, this thief chap – used to live in Cheltenham. Or near by, anyway, not far from where Dolly came from. So, I thought I’d better go there, see if I could find him. But then I had to go to the States. So that’s my next step. I’d better go to Cheltenham, see if I can find this Hornby bloke, see if he knows what Dolly was on about.’
‘Why should he? I thought Dolly said that this Mort knew?’
‘That was what she wrote on his picture but he said he didn’t. Maybe he didn’t know what she meant. Maybe she knew he’d tell me about Hornby.’
‘You said he was scared. Maybe if you go and tell him you’ve met this Andy of his and lived to tell the tale he won’t be so scared and’ll remember something else.’ He bent and kissed her lightly and then began to clear the breakfast things and she got to her feet after a moment and help
ed him.
‘Listen, Maggy. I’ve been thinking – about this whole damned business. Why not let Ida have the place, hmm? The headaches and the fuss – it just doesn’t seem worth it. And you don’t need it. You’ve got an incredible future ahead of you, my love. I had to phone New York, sort things out while I was waiting for you to get in, and they told me. You were pretty incredible at Lincoln Center.’
‘I was,’ she said soberly. ‘Best I’ve ever been.’ And she stood still, a milk jug in her hands, looking back at herself at the Lincoln Center. ‘Dan said I’m ready to go solo.’
‘Yes. So why bother? Why give yourself all this hassle for – let Ida have it.’
‘No,’ she said and bent her head and looked down into the depths of the milk. She could see her face reflected in it, pale and a long way away. ‘No.’
‘What did she ever do to you to make you so –’
‘It isn’t because of Ida. Not any more. It was, at first. And maybe the money too, a bit. I thought of all I could do if I had it, and – and I was mean. Hateful. I didn’t want her to have the place because – oh, I don’t even know why because! Just a lot of left-over fury and – but that was at the start of all this. Now it’s different. It’s Dolly now, you see.’
‘Dolly?’
‘She wanted me to have it.’ She looked up at him, leaving her reflection to drown in the milk. ‘It was important to her. It must have been to have hidden it so –’
‘That matters to you?’ He was standing beside the sink, drying his hands, and mechanically she turned and put the jug in the little fridge and then started to dry the dishes.
‘I don’t know. I suppose so. Maybe. I just don’t know.’
‘It’s a reason I can cope with. Better than hating Ida. Better than just wanting money.’
‘Yes.’
They finished the dishes in silence, tidying the kitchen and then going into the bedroom to make the bed, going through their usual daily chores, for they were both neat people, needing order around them, and as she straightened sheets and then went into the bathroom to hang up towels and wipe away soap traces from the basin she tried to think, tried to see herself and Dolly together, tried to work out just what it all was that was now driving her to go on with this search.
Reprise Page 26