Curtain Call

by Anthony Quinn

  The operator put her through, and a moment later a man’s voice answered. She gabbled out an apology, in case she was wasting his time, but no, he had seen her screen test at Talman’s office and had been expecting her call. It seemed that Marlborough were considering her for a different film, not Fortune’s Cap, and would she care to have a chat about it? Her heart hurried a beat as she heard this, though she kept her voice casual. Yes, she did happen to be free the early part of this evening, and no, she didn’t mind going up to Hampstead – they had an office up there. She checked her watch; if she set off now she would be back in time to meet Stephen for dinner at eight thirty. He gave her the address (‘not far from the Tube’) and was about to ring off when she said, ‘What name should I ask for?’ There was the briefest pause. ‘Oh, I’m sorry, did I not say? It’s Druce.’

  Nina thanked him, and rang off.

  Tom had got so bored with waiting that he decided to go and make himself a gin fizz in Jimmy’s kitchen. He had been feeling a bit strange all day, and wondered if it was his illness gathering on the sly. A drink would calm his nerves. He poured a large slug of Tanqueray into the cocktail shaker, then added lemon juice, sugar, soda water – he didn’t fancy the egg whites somehow. He tested it for strength, then carried it back into the living room. Jimmy’s bedroom door was still shut. Having hired a costume for tonight’s ball he had spent the last hour in there putting it on – Tom knew only that it was to be ‘a surprise’.

  He noticed that it had gone quiet, and called out, ‘You haven’t dropped dead in there, have you?’

  Through the door came a muffled voice: ‘Don’t joke about things like that.’

  ‘Jim, really – it’s quarter to seven. We should leave here in ten minutes if we’re to be on time.’

  ‘All right, all right,’ Jimmy shouted testily. There followed some muttering and groaning from within, as if he were under a physical strain. Tom wandered over to the fireplace and, ever the diligent housekeeper, turned off the gas. He caught himself in the gilt mirror; he looked pale, and undernourished. For some reason he thought of Madeleine. This was the night they had meant to go to the pictures. What a fool he’d made of himself . . . He had thought of telling Nina Land all about it that afternoon he drove her home, but couldn’t do so, despite her sympathetic manner.

  The bedroom door opened, and Jimmy appeared, with a defiant expression, in a full-length Edwardian evening gown. Long white gloves came up to his elbow, and on his head sat a broad-brimmed hat decorated with a mass of black feathers. More alarming than anything he wore, however, was his face, rouged and powdered as though he might be on his way to the Folies-Bergère. The final incongruous touch was a fat cigar he had clamped between his teeth. Tom was momentarily stunned into silence. The effect was too grotesque even to make him laugh.

  ‘Well?’ said Jimmy. ‘Is burgundy not my colour?’

  Tom found his voice from somewhere. ‘That corset looks a little tight.’

  ‘Tight? It’s like a medieval torture. It’s taken me half an hour just to get it on.’

  There was another pause as Tom stepped to one side, appraising him. ‘I didn’t realise you’d be in, erm, full fig.’

  ‘It’s a drag ball, for God’s sake.’

  ‘Yes, I know – I just wasn’t expecting Lady Bracknell.’

  Jimmy raised his eyes heavenwards. ‘I’m not that old!’ He had been holding a fan, which he now opened and wafted about. ‘Lady Windermere, if you please.’

  ‘Sorry,’ Tom said with a stiff bow. ‘Well, m’lady, your carriage awaits, so let’s get a bloody move on.’

  But now Jimmy was frowning pointedly at him. ‘I shouldn’t wear that,’ he said, gesturing at his necktie. Tom gave way to a disbelieving splutter of mirth.

  ‘You’re hardly one to talk on the matter of evening wear,’ he said, looking Jimmy up and down. ‘What’s wrong with it anyway? It’s just a tie.’

  ‘No, it’s a red tie, dear, and where we’re going that could get you into quite a bit of bother.’

  ‘What d’you mean?’ he asked uncertainly.

  ‘It carries connotations. Just as the Masons have their secret handshake, well, a red tie signals that you belong among a certain class of men – in short, you’re a poof.’

  ‘Are you joking?’ said Tom, but Jimmy only shook his head and disappeared back into the bedroom. He returned moments later holding between his fingers a clubbable navy-and-silver-striped tie, indicating that Tom should take it.

  ‘I’m not putting that on,’ he protested.

  ‘We’re not leaving until you do.’ He dangled the tie in front of him. With an exasperated snort Tom snatched it from his hand and stalked over to the mirror. ‘That’s the fellow,’ Jimmy said approvingly. ‘You’ll thank me for it later.’

  They had got as far as the entrance hall of Princess Louise Mansions when Jimmy, peering through the glassed front door, said, ‘I don’t see the motor.’

  Tom explained that he’d parked on Bury Place, just round the corner, but Jimmy looked incredulous. ‘You think I’m going to walk anywhere in this get-up?’

  ‘It’ll take two minutes.’

  ‘Then off you go – I’ll be waiting here. And put the hood up, it’s colder than Keats’s owl.’

  Tom shot him a weary look. Muttering, he hurried off, while Jimmy checked his handiwork in the hall mirror. He turned his face one way, then the other, caught between admiring himself and a faintly appalled suspicion that he looked like a griffin. Well, he would have to brazen it out. Just then Alf, the mansion porter, sidled out of his office, and Jimmy froze. A notebook and pencil in his hand, Alf was preoccupied with some calculation or other. Only when he looked up did he notice Jimmy standing there. A momentary flicker of uncertainty danced in his eyes, before he said, ‘Ah, glad I’ve caught you, Mr Erskine. Milkman asked me to pass this week’s bill on. Shall I put it through the door or do you want to take it now?’

  Jimmy, with a dreamlike sense of incongruity, smiled wanly and took the proffered note, croaking out his thanks. Outside, the car horn parped a summons. The porter, ever helpful, pulled open the hall door and ushered Jimmy through. As he descended the steps he heard, through his muddle of surprise and embarrassment, Alf’s pleasantry: ‘Enjoy your evening, sir.’

  Settled in the passenger seat, Jimmy mused, ‘Idea for next week’s column: “In praise of the British working man’s sangfroid.”’

  He continued to chatter and chunner as they drove north through Camden and Kentish Town, the closed shops and cafes giving way to residential streets whose trees huddled against the autumnal dark. The moon was hoisted high on a canopy of clouds. Once they reached the steep climb towards Highgate Tom asked Jimmy for directions to the house. It turned out to be a Pugin mansion just off the high street, clogged with gables and turrets. A couple in long ball gowns were just approaching the wide front door. Even at a distance Tom could tell from their heavy-footed gait that they were men. Jimmy, discarding the car blanket, stepped out of the Bentley. He thought briefly about leaving his cane, he didn’t want to look doddery in this crowd. But good sense prevailed. He glanced at Tom as they crossed the road.

  ‘You look rather pale. Not nerves, is it?’

  ‘Just feeling a bit off. Why, should I be nervous?’

  Jimmy laughed at his quailing tone. ‘My advice – don’t catch anyone’s eye and keep your hand on your ha’penny.’

  A bewigged footman admitted them, and they adjusted their eyes to the candlelit gloom of a pillared atrium, already boisterous with men in varying degrees of drag. Some, like Jimmy, had gone the whole Wilde way into dowager finery; some were dressed in more epicene costumes of velvet and silk. Certain others, ignoring the anniversary theme, had come as Restoration popinjays in white stockings, frock coats and tottering perukes. Arriving guests raised their hands on spotting friends across the room – an orchard of waving palms. Tom looked around at this peacock display, wondering if he oughtn’t to have made more of an effort himsel
f. He felt a bit of a spoilsport. But wait, here came a fellow in a jacket and tie – mufti was permitted after all. As he passed, Tom gave a shy half-smile in acknowledgement of their being drag-dodgers, but the man returned only a humourless appraising look that seemed to consider and reject Tom at the same moment.

  At his side Jimmy was mobbed by a bevy of young queens whom Tom vaguely recognised from nights at the Café Royal and the Long Room at the Trocadero. They were loudly amused by Jimmy’s costume for the occasion, cooing and gurning as if at a monkey in his cage. ‘Ooh, hasn’t she got a lovely figure?’ ‘Is that a hat you’re wearing or a lampshade?’ One of them, Jolyon, gave him a squeeze. ‘Dunno how you got into that corset, James. You sure all is safely gathered in?’ Jimmy allowed them to giggle and goggle their fill before enjoining one of them to fetch him a drink. ‘And one for my guest here while you’re at it,’ he said, nodding at Tom, who clearly didn’t interest any of them. They continued to cluster about Jimmy in an eager jostle, claiming and excluding at once.

  Deciding to leave them to it, Tom ambled towards the main hall, and was immediately accosted by an arm around his shoulder. The man, tall and stately, was attired in a cream linen suit that echoed a famous photograph of Wilde from the early 1890s. His face, heavily made up, reminded him of dear old Peter Liddell. In fact . . .

  ‘Peter – is it you?’

  ‘Well, of course it’s me, you silly ass,’ Peter cried genially. ‘The question is – what are you doing here?’

  Tom nodded across the room at Jimmy. ‘He couldn’t really take the bus, dressed like that.’

  ‘Jim hasn’t taken a bus since about 1922, in drag or not.’ Peter’s expression was kindly but rueful. ‘You’ve made a rod for your own back with that car.’

  Tom only nodded, then smiled up at Peter. ‘You’re looking very dapper, I must say. Where did you come by the green carnation?’

  ‘It’s not nature’s doing,’ said Peter with a sly glance about the place. ‘A florist I know supplied me. He just dipped it in dye.’

  Tom felt less of an impostor with Peter standing by, though the room with its steady whirl of painted faces and disguises was unsettling; it had the air of a slightly sinister masque. It was a wonder to him how such a world operated, how indeed it could flourish under the threatening shadow of criminal prosecution. Everybody knew the risk involved just in being here, yet there seemed not the smallest hint of secrecy about the occasion.

  ‘I suppose this place is quite . . . safe?’

  Peter frowned in amusement. ‘I shouldn’t worry about being molested.’

  ‘No, I don’t mean that. I mean, is it safe from the law?’

  ‘Oh yes. I remember a police raid a few years ago at a ball in Holland Park Avenue, but people are much more discreet now. The rozzers wouldn’t know about an event like this, and even if they did, there are lookouts posted around.’

  Just then two men in raffish pale suits like Peter’s presented themselves. Both sported identical straw boaters, and red ties. The older one peered closely at Tom, as if to confirm something.

  ‘Thought so!’ he said, turning to his companion, who explained: ‘Seems you’re the only girl here without a bit of slap on.’

  Peter leaned forward enquiringly. ‘And who might you gentlemen be?’

  The younger flashed his eyes humorously. ‘Bosie – and Bosie. Double the fun, you might say. So who’s your friend?’ he said, nodding at Tom.

  Tom was about to speak but Peter got in ahead of him. ‘This is Mr Erskine’s private secretary,’ he said, with a warning touch of coldness, and threaded his arm through Tom’s. ‘We were just on our way upstairs for the music.’ And in fact the dim strains of a piano could now be heard tinkling from above. As Peter escorted him away Tom overheard one Bosie mutter to the other, ‘Is he naff then?’

  Ascending the staircase Tom said, ‘D’you know, Jim forbade me to wear a red tie this evening?’

  Peter lifted his chin in acknowledgement. ‘We’re just trying to protect your innocence, my sweet.’

  ‘Well, I’m very grateful to you,’ replied Tom, who nonetheless thought he was quite capable of protecting himself. ‘What’s “naff”, by the way?’

  Peter snorted out a half-laugh, and shook his head. ‘Not Available For Fucking. Ah, here’s another bar. Thirsty?’

  At the same moment, less than a mile away, Nina was emerging from Hampstead Tube station. She had managed to freshen her make-up before leaving the theatre, but noticed as the train rattled up the Northern Line (hellfire!) she had a ladder in her stocking. Well, nothing to be done, and in fairness Mr Druce hadn’t given her much notice. She turned down the high street and into Flask Walk, quiet at this hour, though the murmurous burble from behind the frosted windows of a pub seemed to offer a provisional welcome. The address was a house on Willow Road, which sloped steeply towards the Heath. The street lamps here were so dim and far apart you almost had to feel your way along. She watched her own shadow lengthen and slide away into the enveloping dark.

  It said something about her that she was ready to trot up to Hampstead at the drop of a hat, just to meet some film producer. In truth, she wanted this as much for Stephen’s sake as her own; he had introduced her to Ludo, after all, and it might cheer him up if she managed to wangle a part. His voice came to her now, the afternoon they had been at the Corner House and he’d told her that she was the loveliest woman he had ever met. The words were like a little keepsake she held close, something she could take out every now and then to think upon. As long as she had his love all her worries – about her career, her mother, her disinheritance – dissolved into nothing.

  She wasn’t concentrating and had missed the house. Retracing her steps she saw that the anonymous wooden door set into the brick wall was actually the front gate. She clicked the handle, and pushed through onto a narrow stone path leading up to a roomy but uncongenial-looking villa. It also looked deserted – there wasn’t a light on in the place. The star-mottled navy sky made a forbidding silhouette of the building’s pitched roof and chimney line. She mounted the steps up to the porch and pulled on the bell, hearing it sound in the hall. No answer came. Had she got the wrong house? Pressing her face to the window she tried to make out a sign of life within. It was so dark she could barely see a yard in front of her. Standing on the porch, irresolute, she took from her coat pocket a cigarette lighter by which to check the address she had scribbled down. No sooner was the tiny flame flickering in her hand than a door creaked somewhere below. A man’s voice called up, quietly, ‘Miss Land, is it?’

  Nina, with a breathless giggle of fright, replied that it was, and stepped down from the porch in the direction of the voice. ‘Erm, would you mind putting a light on?’

  He evidently didn’t hear this, for no illumination came. Going back down the steps she saw a tradesman’s door now ajar, though he had not bothered to wait and greet her. She had heard that film types were brusque, but really . . . ‘This way,’ she heard him call, and passing through she saw he had entered the house by a side door. Less certain of herself, she followed his dim outline through a back parlour, wondering if this wasn’t all a bit rum. He had been expecting her, but why arrange to meet in this gloomy old backwater? Ahead, another door had been opened, and here at last a weak amber flame glimmered through the dark. Entering, she found herself in a large drawing room whose windows seemed as black as the night outside. The light was coming from a tiny oil lamp on a table. Behind her the door shut softly and her host came up alongside her in an almost feline movement.

  ‘Miss Land, thank you for coming,’ he said. His face was still in shadow as he went round the table. ‘I was going to say “pleased to meet you”, but in fact we’ve already met.’

  Nina smiled blindly towards his voice. Had they? ‘I’m not sure I recall . . .’ – and it was too dark to tell either way. For answer he turned up the lamp, revealing his face. She couldn’t immediately place him, but yes, there was something familiar about the dar
k eyes, the long jaw.

  ‘We weren’t actually introduced,’ he said in a dry ironic tone, and in that instant she knew – heard herself cry out in fear. Oh God, God, what had she done? She took a step back, and another, before turning and bolting for the door. Which was now locked. He remained at the table, watching her. ‘So you do remember. Well, as I was saying, our last encounter at the Imperial was rather unsatisfactory. I fear I may have been uncivil – but you had intruded on me and . . . my companion.’

  Nina felt her knees tremble as she stood there. Through short, shallow breaths she said faintly, ‘I’ve never seen you in my life.’

  He sighed. ‘We both know that’s not true, Miss Land. Though it was lucky that your description of me to the police was – inaccurate? Now, come away from that door.’ His tone was quietly reasonable.

  Nina, her whole body shaking, took a couple of steps forward. He was staring at her, his head as still as a cobra’s, measuring, evaluating. ‘That’s it, a little closer. I suppose you’re anticipating some “extravagant” behaviour on my part, but you mustn’t. You see, I just want some information – about the girl. Madeleine. I think you might be able to tell me.’

  She shook her head, and felt tears blinding her eyes. How had this happened? Was her own imprudent behaviour to blame, or mere bad luck? He was talking again but she wasn’t listening, she was just crying, silently, at the sudden prospect of her life being snuffed out – a life she had always imagined as so hard to let go of. Oh, Stephen, what have I done? She needed a handkerchief, it was difficult even to see, and she unclasped her handbag in search of it. As she looked inside she caught a glint of something unfamiliar. The letter knife. From Stephen. She must compose herself, order her thoughts. She had something he didn’t know about, something to defend herself with.