by Jo Walton
“Oh I like that,” I said. “It gives it extra meaning. I wonder if I could be reading some philosophy in the words scene. Who’s a prominent philosopher I could be reading?”
“Plato?” Doug suggested.
“I’ll ask Antony.”
Antony was at that moment engaged with the Players, who would mostly rehearse alone after today and until the first full rehearsal, which was set for the following Wednesday afternoon. I stood at the front of the stage and looked out at the house.
The Siddons was a typical old London theater, a semicircle of seats facing a proscenium arch of stage. There was gilded scrolling, a little in need of upkeep, and the fronts of the circles and boxes were set with plaster cupids, and tragic and comic theatrical masks. The Royal Box, where presumably our potential victims would sit, was on my right as I looked up at it. It had a shield with the three gilded leopards. I couldn’t see anywhere immediately appropriate to put a bomb. The best place would presumably be inside the box itself, though what reason anyone might have for going there was beyond me.
It was strange how at one moment I could be completely absorbed in the play, excited about a better understanding of my character and of Horatio, and at the next remember that there would be no play, that if I did what Devlin wanted, I would destroy it myself. Being in the theater it was easy to be entirely swept up in the play’s reality, as being with Devlin I became swept up in his reality. For Devlin the most important thing in the world was killing the tyrants. For Antony and the others, the most important thing in the world was putting on Hamlet. Poor Hamlet couldn’t decide whether or not to take the word of a ghost and kill her uncle, and she had my complete sympathy.
I did think, for a moment at the front of the stage, waiting for Antony, that I could walk out now. Devlin wouldn’t be waiting for me. I could go home, get my passport, and be in France by the time Devlin came back to the theater. I needn’t break my word or tell anyone anything, I could just disappear. But what could I do in France? The Reich had no need of English actresses. I couldn’t imagine what I could possibly do there.
Then Antony was free, and he agreed that my book should be Plato and made a note of that and the way to play the philosophy line. He then began the walk-through.
I managed most of my lines, with only a little prompting. I wasn’t the only one who didn’t know them. We were all terrible, as you’d expect. Mollie, with much more excuse for not knowing her lines, was word perfect, but her conception of how she wanted to play Gertrude and Antony’s weren’t entirely congruent. As Antony was playing Claudius as well as directing, this meant that their scenes were being constantly interrupted. We stumbled and stammered our way to the end of the play, taking about six hours to get through what we hoped would come in under three on the night. Charlie corpsed both me and Mollie in the fight scene, to Antony’s great annoyance. It was well after six when we finished.
“Well, I’ve seen worse first rehearsals,” Antony said, picking himself up at the end. “But I don’t know when,” he added. “We’ve got less than two weeks to get this mess into shape. We’ve got eleven days before the dress rehearsal, twelve days before the first night. Pick up your schedules from Jackie, she’ll have them ready for you, for God’s sake learn your lines”—this with a glance at me—“and get back here tomorrow ready to give all of yourselves to it.”
Jackie, his long-suffering assistant, came up out of the pit and handed round the schedules. She’d found time somehow, between dealing with Antony’s tantrums and writing down his instructions, to get them typed up. I stuffed mine into my bag. I was aching with tiredness. Hamlet is an extremely physically demanding role, and we’d repeated the swordfight several times, for the blocking.
“Are you sure it wouldn’t be better to come home and get some sleep?” Mollie murmured.
If it had been up to me, I wouldn’t have hesitated. Wonderful as Devlin was, I’d have traded him right then for a bath, one of Mrs. Tring’s dinners, my own bed, and the chance to go over my lines. As it was I had no choice. “He’ll be waiting for me,” I said.
Mollie shook her head and went off. I collected my bag from my dressing room and waited a moment before following her.
The doorman smiled and opened the door for me.
“Is this the only exit from this theater, apart from the front-of-house?” I asked.
He blinked at me. “Well, there’s the back entrance, like, which we use for bringing in big things on a dolly—flats sometimes, or pieces of scenery that get built elsewhere that are too big for a normal door. It’s always kept double-locked when it’s not in use. Don’t you worry that anyone will be getting in to bother you in your changing room, miss.”
“Oh, thank you,” I said. “I know it’s silly but I always do worry and want to make sure.”
“It’s double-locked, and nobody has the keys except Nobby and me.” Nobby was the stage manager.
“That sounds safe enough,” I said, and thought that while he believed I was worried about people getting into my dressing room I’d keep on with it. “And there aren’t any unusual ways of getting around behind from front-of-house, are there?”
“Just the usual pass door or up the steps onto the stage, when the steps are there, miss. And front-of-house is locked, usually, and when it’s open before a performance there’s always a doorman there too.”
“Thank you so much for reassuring me,” I said, and tipped him again. I walked up the alley to where I could see that Devlin was waiting.
“Your friend Mollie told me to let you get some sleep tonight,” he said. He was smiling.
I was mortified. “She is a bit overprotective,” I said.
“Well, maybe I will and maybe I won’t. It all depends. Can you cook?”
“I can’t cook at all,” I admitted. I never had any chance to learn when I was young, and Mrs. Tring did all the cooking for me and Mollie.
“Then you’ll have to clean up after my cooking,” he said, and drove off without another word.
14
Carmichael realized as soon as he came through the door that it was a bad time to try to talk to Jack. The trouble was that it was always a bad time. Oh, they had their good times, the times when the flat felt like a magical haven of calm in a turbulent world, the times when Jack got up to make his breakfast, when they shared a pot of special tea, when Carmichael felt blessed with his luck and didn’t want to take risks with it. Then there were the other times, when Jack was restless, jealous, when he accused Carmichael of treating him like a servant, which strictly he was. There was nobody as sympathetic as Jack on a good day, and nobody as self-centered as him on a bad one.
Jack came out of the kitchen as Carmichael turned his key in the lock, and it was immediately obvious from his face that this wasn’t one of the good times.
“I need to talk to you,” Carmichael said, hanging up his coat and hat.
“And I need to talk to you,” Jack echoed. “Can’t we go out? We never go out. Can’t we go out to eat and then go dancing? You’re always away, or working late, or if you’re here you’re tired out.”
This was a very familiar complaint, and no easier to take because it happened to be true. The real trouble was that Jack was starved of excitement. He went nowhere and saw nobody. An occasional meal in a restaurant, with Carmichael constantly worrying that they would be recognized; an occasional dance in a dance hall, shuffling around the floor with tired tarts paid sixpence for the privilege; an even more occasional party with Jack’s friends, who Carmichael loathed; or a trip to the theater or cinema—these had been the highlights of Jack’s life for the last eight years, since the end of the war, since he and Carmichael had set up house together. Carmichael’s work brought him as much excitement and stimulation as he wanted. When he came home he wanted to relax. Only too often, Jack had spent a boring day at home and wanted some fun.
“Not tonight. I need to talk to you.”
“We could talk in a restaurant,” Jack said, putting h
is head on Carmichael’s shoulder.
“I eat in too many restaurants as it is,” Carmichael said, ruffling Jack’s hair. “When I come home, I want your cooking.”
“I don’t know why you don’t get married if what you want is home-cooked meals all the time,” Jack said.
“I don’t get married because I don’t like women and I do love you,” Carmichael said, evenly. This too was a familiar argument. He knew Jack’s lines as well as his own. “Never mind the food, come and sit down. I want to talk about something different.”
Jack followed him into the room they called the lounge. There was a divan and a coffee table and a cabinet with a large radiogram and a tiny television set Jack had coaxed Carmichael into buying a year ago for more than they could afford. On the coffee table was a tray with glasses and a bottle of Haig. Without waiting, Jack poured two small pegs and handed one to Carmichael. Then he perched on the other end of the divan.
Carmichael took a sip of the whisky. He would have preferred a cup of tea and some dinner, but he didn’t want to press the issue. He fixed his eyes on the little pile of Jack’s books on the coffee table. The Alexiad of Anna Comnena was on the top, and underneath it three hefty books with the word Byzantine or Byzantium in their titles. It was Jack’s latest enthusiasm. “How would it be if I left the Yard?” he asked.
Jack took down half his peg in one swallow. “And did what?” he asked.
“I don’t know,” Carmichael said. “Something else. Something where I wouldn’t constantly feel I was being forced into an impossible position.”
“But you love your job!” Jack leaned forward. He was twenty-eight, but there was still something boyish in the way his sandy hair fell across his forehead.
“I used to.” Carmichael sighed. “There’s something I didn’t tell you. At the end of the Thirkie case, I had all the evidence, everything, and I took it to Penn-Barkis and he told me to forget it, Kahn had done it. And he threatened me, he said he knew what I was, and if I didn’t forget it and agree that Kahn had done it, that he’d expose me, prosecute me, fire me, ruin my life even if I didn’t go to prison.”
Jack looked scared, and guilty. “You were always saying they’d find out about us, but I didn’t believe it.”
“I don’t think we were especially indiscreet,” Carmichael said. “I think someone worked something out, and then investigated. It’s not your fault. I relied on nobody asking too many questions. It’s tacitly got away with all the time, because nobody wants to know. If somebody did want to know, somebody high up, they could find out.”
“Penn-Barkis wanted to know?” Jack looked even more scared now.
“Penn-Barkis or someone higher,” Carmichael said. “There were people involved in the Thirkie case who are right at the top. The Home Secretary. The Prime Minister. They didn’t want me jumping to the right conclusions and exposing them. They may even have known before and sent me especially because they knew they had a lever to use against me if they needed it.” This bitter thought had been a torment to him ever since.
“But you went along with it? You did what they wanted? You said Kahn had done it, and Kahn hadn’t done it?”
“Kahn was as innocent as a baby. The person who did it was our dear Prime Minister, who talks on the BBC as if butter wouldn’t melt, but who is to my certain knowledge Thirkie’s murderer. And for what it’s worth, he also ordered the murder of several other innocent people.” It was a relief to say it, to have someone else know. “There was a hairdresser called Agnes Timms who was shot, and Lady Thirkie, the dowager Lady Thirkie, was killed because she wouldn’t cover it up for them. I met her. I liked her. But I went along and I helped cover what they wanted covered, and let them have the scare they wanted that put them securely into power, and now they know I’ll do what they want.”
“Why didn’t you tell me before?” Jack asked, accusingly.
“I’m sorry. I was ashamed of it, and it never seemed like the right moment,” Carmichael said. “I realized today there was never going to be a right moment, and the fact I hadn’t told you was going to get bigger and bigger.”
“You should have said.”
“I know.” Carmichael put his hand on Jack’s knee. “But listen. Today in his office Penn-Barkis taunted me with being queer, just a little bit, and I have to get out of there. I have no integrity left, Jack, he’s bought me and he knows he can do what he wants with me.”
“Would he let you leave?” Jack asked.
“I think so.” Carmichael sat back and sipped his whisky, consideringly. “I think if I resign at the end of this case, which is completely separate, it won’t look as if it has anything to do with the Thirkie murder. In those circumstances I think he’d be prepared to let me go into obscurity.”
“But what would we do? Where would the money come from?” Jack finished his whisky and put the glass down.
“We might have to cut back a bit. But there ought to be firms that would hire me. All my experience is police, but at least that shows I’m trustworthy. Or I could try going back into the Army.”
“No!”
“That would be a last resort,” Carmichael said, gently. “But I’ll always think well of the Army. It brought us together.”
“Brought us together and wouldn’t let us have a bloody minute to be together,” Jack said, bitterly.
Jack had been assigned as Carmichael’s batman, before they went to France. Carmichael was attracted, and more than attracted, not only by the young man’s beauty but by his gentleness and courage. He had seen Jack wading in to a fight to stop a baby-faced recruit being bullied, and had loved him for it even as he stopped the fight and put them all on fatigues. But he would never have spoken, never have said anything inappropriate if it hadn’t been for Dunkirk.
Jack had been beside him in the boat when they were strafed by a Stuka. They had been under fire before, all of them, but there was something peculiarly horrible in being sitting targets in the open boat. They were too tightly packed together to be able to dodge, even if it would have done any good. The machine-gun bullets hit the sea, and then the side of the boat, then the arm and head of one of the men beside them. The plane turned for another run, and they had thought they were facing their final moments. In that moment, without the slightest bit of fuss, as if it was the most natural thing in the world, Jack had got up and flung himself in front of Carmichael.
A big gun on a corvette nearby hit the Stuka neatly as it turned, and they saw it plunge into the sea in front of them, the waves it made rocking their little boat. Jack sat back into his place, and Carmichael busied himself with some others throwing the dead man into the sea. When they sat down again, he had put his arm around Jack. It had seemed natural, not only to them but apparently to the others on the boat, a mixed crew from all the regiments of the British Expeditionary Force, with one or two French poilus among them. Nobody said anything. They had sat like that for the hours of the Channel crossing, hardly speaking, but acutely aware of the touch and of each other.
The next time Carmichael was alone with Jack, in the camp at Pevensey where they were hastily assigned, he put out his hand and tried to thank him for what he had done. Jack had taken his hand, looked into his eyes, and taken him in his arms. If Carmichael had acted he would never have ceased to reproach himself for taking advantage. But it was Jack, younger but far more experienced and much less inhibited, who acted, and Carmichael followed. All the time until the end of the war, moving from one camp in England to another, constantly interrupted by drills and air raids and men wanting orders, they had talked and dreamed of the time when they could set up house together in peace and secret comfort.
“My man,” Carmichael said now, softly. It was their old joke, old endearment. It was what rich men called their valets, their servants who saw to their needs, and Carmichael could refer to Jack as his man to anyone. They had found each other and miraculously come together across all the barriers of class and gender. “My man,” he said again.
“They probably wouldn’t have me anyway,” Carmichael said. “I’m getting old for that game. No, I’ll look about for an office job. Nine to five, no traveling, home on time every day, wouldn’t that suit you?”
“It wouldn’t really be any different, except that you’d be bored too,” Jack said. “We’d still be stuck in this flat, we still couldn’t ever hold hands coming out of the pictures or do anything together without being afraid. They’d fire you from a job like that for being queer, if they found out.”
“How about if I looked for a job in colonial administration then?” Carmichael stroked Jack’s hair back off his face and looked down at him tenderly. “India, or Africa? The Exotic East? Burma, maybe? I’ve heard that in Burma the people don’t care about homosexuality.”
“You bet your life the English people do,” Jack said. “There isn’t any magic place we can go that will make any difference. There’s nowhere in the world where people like us can live openly like anyone else, have friends, ordinary friends, act normally. You and I love each other but we get sick of each other because we’re too much cooped up alone.”
“Come on, you’re always telling me stories about rich queers who live on the Riviera perfectly openly.”
“Along with stories about poor queers being sent to Hitler’s camps to be worked to death. I flat out won’t go to the Continent, P. A.” Jack sat up, fully in earnest. “India or Africa if you say so, but not to Europe. We should have stopped Hitler when we had the bloody chance.”
“You and Winston Churchill and Crazy Lord Scott,” Carmichael said, fondly. “Nobody’s suggesting going to Europe. But I think it might be getting as bad as that here, by and by. We might look at Canada, or Australia?”
“I’ll miss London,” Jack said, settling back against Carmichael. “I’ll miss the libraries and the cinemas and my friends. But if you decide you have to go, I’ll go where you go, you know that.”