The Collected Short Stories

by Jeffrey Archer

  “Your Majesty,” he continued after the usual formalities and thanks had been completed, “I also would like to make two awards. The first is to an Englishman who has given great service to my country through his expertise and diligence”—the king glanced in Gerald’s direction. “A man,” he continued, “who completed a feat of sanitary engineering that any nation on earth could be proud of and indeed, Your Majesty, it was opened by your own foreign secretary. We in the capital of Teske will remain in his debt for generations to come. We therefore bestow on Mr. Gerald Haskins, CBE, the Order of the Peacock (Second Class).”

  Gerald couldn’t believe his ears.

  Tumultuous applause greeted a surprised Gerald as he made his way up toward their majesties. He came to a standstill behind the gilt chairs somewhere between the queen of England and the king of Multavia. The king smiled at the new recipient of the Order of the Peacock (Second Class) as the two men shook hands. But before bestowing the new honor upon him, King Alfons leaned forward and with some difficulty removed from Gerald’s shoulders his Order of the Peacock (Third Class).

  “You won’t be needing this any longer,” the king whispered in Gerald’s ear.

  Gerald watched in horror as his prize possession disappeared into a red leather box held open by the king’s private secretary, who stood poised behind his sovereign. Gerald continued to stare at the private secretary, who was either a diplomat of the highest order or had not been privy to the king’s plan, for his face showed no sign of anything untoward. Once Gerald’s magnificent prize had been safely removed, the box snapped closed like a safe of which Gerald had not been told the combination.

  Gerald wanted to protest, but remained speechless.

  King Alfons then removed from another box the Order of the Peacock (Second Class) and placed it over Gerald’s shoulders. Gerald, staring at the indifferent colored-glass stones, hesitated for a few moments before stumbling a pace back, bowing, and then returning to his place in the great dining room. He did not hear the waves of applause that accompanied him; his only thought was how he could possibly retrieve his lost chain as soon as the speeches were over. He slumped down in the chair next to his wife.

  “And now,” continued the king, “I wish to present a decoration that has not been bestowed on anyone since my late father’s death. The Order of the Peacock (First Class), which it gives me special delight to bestow on Her Majesty Queen Elizabeth II.”

  The queen rose from her place as the King’s private secretary once again stepped forward. In his hands was the same red leather case that had snapped shut so firmly on Gerald’s unique possession. The case was reopened and the King removed the magnificent Order from the box and placed it on the shoulders of the queen. The jewels sparkled in the candlelight, and the guests gasped at the sheer magnificence of the piece.

  Gerald was the only person in the room who knew its true value.

  “Well, you always said it was fit for a monarch,” his wife remarked as she touched her string of pearls.

  “Aye,” said Gerald. “But what’s Ramsbottom going to say when he sees this?” he added sadly, fingering the Order of the Peacock (Second Class). “He’ll know it’s not the real thing.”

  “I don’t see that it matters that much,” said Angela.

  “What do you mean, lass?” asked Gerald. “I’ll be the laughing stock of Hull on mayor-making day.”

  “You should start reading the evening papers, Gerald, and stop looking in mirrors, and then you’d know Walter isn’t going to be mayor this year.”

  “Not going to be mayor?” repeated Gerald.

  “No. The present mayor has opted to do a second term, so Walter won’t be mayor until next year.”

  “Is that right?” said Gerald with a smile.

  “And if you’re thinking what I think you’re thinking, Gerald Haskins, this time it’s going to cost you a tiara.”

  ONE MAN’S MEAT …

  Could anyone be that beautiful?

  I was driving round the Aldwych on my way to work when I first saw her. She was walking up the steps of the Aldwych Theatre. If I’d stared a moment longer I would have driven into the back of the car in front of me, but before I could confirm my fleeting impression she had disappeared into the throng of theatergoers.

  I spotted a parking space on my left-hand side and swung into it at the last possible moment, without signaling, causing the vehicle behind me to let out several appreciative blasts. I leapt out of my car and ran back toward the theater, realizing how unlikely it was that I’d be able to find her in such a melee, and that even if I did, she was probably meeting a boyfriend or husband who would turn out to be about six feet tall and closely to resemble Harrison Ford.

  Once I reached the foyer I scanned the chattering crowd. I slowly turned 360 degrees, but could see no sign of her. Should I try to buy a ticket? I wondered. But she could be seated anywhere—the orchestra, the dress circle, even the upper circle. Perhaps I should walk up and down the aisles until I spotted her. But I realized I wouldn’t be allowed into any part of the theater unless I could produce a ticket.

  And then I saw her. She was standing in a line in front of the window marked “Tonight’s Performance,” and was just one away from being attended to. There were two other customers, a young woman and a middle-aged man, waiting in line behind her. I quickly joined the line, by which time she had reached the front. I leaned forward and tried to overhear what she was saying, but I could only catch the box office manager’s reply: “Not much chance with the curtain going up in a few minutes’ time, madam,” he was saying. “But if you leave it with me, I’ll see what I can do.”

  She thanked him and walked off in the direction of the orchestra. My first impression was confirmed. It didn’t matter if you looked from the ankles up or from the head down—she was perfection. I couldn’t take my eyes off her, and I noticed that she was having exactly the same effect on several other men in the foyer. I wanted to tell them all not to bother. Didn’t they realize she was with me? Or rather, that she would be by the end of the evening.

  After she had disappeared from view, I craned my neck to look into the booth. Her ticket had been placed to one side. I sighed with relief as the young woman two places ahead of me presented her credit card and picked up four tickets for the dress circle.

  I began to pray that the man in front of me wasn’t looking for a single.

  “Do you have one ticket for tonight’s performance?” he asked hopefully, as the three-minute bell sounded. The man in the booth smiled.

  I scowled. Should I knife him in the back, kick him in the groin, or simply scream abuse at him?

  “Where would you prefer to sit, sir? The dress circle or the orchestra?”

  “Don’t say ‘orchestra,’” I willed. “Say ‘circle’ … ‘circle’ … ‘circle’ …”

  “Orchestra,” he said.

  “I have one on the aisle in row H,” said the man in the box, checking the computer screen in front of him. I uttered a silent cheer as I realized that the theater would be trying to sell off its remaining tickets before it bothered with returns handed in by members of the public. But then, I thought, how would I get around that problem?

  By the time the man in front of me had bought the ticket on the end of row H, I had my lines well rehearsed and just hoped I wouldn’t need a prompt.

  “Thank goodness. I thought I wasn’t going to make it,” I began, trying to sound out of breath. The man in the ticket booth looked up at me, but didn’t seem all that impressed by my opening line. “It was the traffic. And then I couldn’t find a parking space. My girlfriend may have given up on me. Did she by any chance hand in my ticket for resale?”

  He looked unconvinced. My dialogue obviously wasn’t gripping him. “Can you describe her?” he asked suspiciously.

  “Short-cropped dark hair, hazel eyes, wearing a red silk dress that …”

  “Ah, yes. I remember her,” he said, almost sighing. He picked up the ticket by his side a
nd handed it to me.

  “Thank you,” I said, trying not to show my relief that he had come in so neatly on cue with the closing line from my first scene. As I hurried off in the direction of the orchestra, I grabbed an envelope from a pile on the ledge beside the booth.

  I checked the price of the ticket: twenty pounds. I extracted two ten-pound notes from my wallet, put them in the envelope, licked the flap and stuck it down.

  The girl at the entrance to the orchestra checked my ticket. “F-11. Six rows from the front, on the right-hand side.”

  I walked slowly down the aisle until I spotted her. She was sitting next to an empty place in the middle of the row. As I made my way over the feet of those who were already seated, she turned and smiled, obviously pleased to see that someone had purchased her spare ticket.

  I returned the smile, handed over the envelope containing my twenty pounds, and sat down beside her. “The man in the box office asked me to give you this.”

  “Thank you.” She slipped the envelope into her evening bag. I was about to try the first line of my second scene on her, when the house lights faded and the curtain rose for Act 1 of the real performance. I suddenly realized that I had no idea what play I was about to see. I glanced across at the playbill on her lap and read the words “An Inspector Calls, by J. B. Priestley.”

  I remembered that the critics had been full of praise for the production when it had originally opened at the National Theater, and had particularly singled out the performance of Kenneth Cranham. I tried to concentrate on what was taking place on stage.

  The eponymous inspector was staring into a house in which an Edwardian family were preparing for a dinner to celebrate their daughter’s engagement. “I was thinking of getting a new car,” the father was saying to his prospective son-in-law as he puffed away on his cigar.

  At the mention of the word “car,” I suddenly remembered that I had abandoned mine outside the theater. Was it on a double yellow line? Or worse? To hell with it. They could have it in part-exchange for the model sitting next to me. The audience laughed, so I joined in, if only to give the impression that I was following the plot. But what about my original plans for the evening? By now everyone would be wondering why I hadn’t turned up. I realized that I wouldn’t be able to leave the theater during the intermission to check on my car or to make a phone call to explain my absence, as that would be my one chance of developing my own plot.

  The play had the rest of the audience enthralled, but I had already begun rehearsing the lines from my own script, which would have to be performed during the intermission between Acts 1 and 2. I was painfully aware that I would be restricted to fifteen minutes, and that there would be no second night.

  By the time the curtain came down at the end of the first act, I was confident of my draft text. I waited for the applause to die down before I turned toward her.

  “What an original production,” I began. “Quite modernistic.” I vaguely remembered that one of the critics had followed that line. “I was lucky to get a seat at the last moment.”

  “I was just as lucky,” she replied. I felt encouraged. “I mean, to find someone who was looking for a single ticket at such short notice.”

  I nodded. “My name’s Michael Whitaker.”

  “Anna Townsend,” she said, giving me a warm smile.

  “Would you like a drink?” I asked.

  “Thank you,” she replied, “that would be nice.” I stood up and led her through the packed huddle that was heading toward the orchestra bar, occasionally glancing back to make sure she was still following me. I was somehow expecting her no longer to be there, but each time I turned to look she greeted me with the same radiant smile.

  “What would you like?” I asked, once I could make out the bar through the crowd.

  “A dry martini, please.”

  “Stay here, and I’ll be back in a moment,” I promised, wondering just how many precious minutes would be wasted while I had to wait at the bar. I took out a five-pound note and held it up conspicuously, in the hope that the prospect of a large tip might influence the barman’s sense of direction. He spotted the money, but I still had to wait for another four customers to be served before I managed to secure the dry martini and a Scotch on the rocks for myself. The barman didn’t deserve the tip I left him, but I hadn’t any more time to waste waiting for the change.

  I carried the drinks back to the far corner of the foyer, where Anna stood studying her playbill. She was silhouetted against a window, and in that stylish red silk dress, the light emphasized her slim, elegant figure.

  I handed her the dry martini, aware that my limited time had almost run out.

  “Thank you,” she said, giving me another disarming smile.

  “How did you come to have a spare ticket?” I asked as she took a sip from her drink.

  “My partner was held up on an emergency case at the last minute,” she explained. “Just one of the problems of being a doctor.”

  “Pity. They missed a quite remarkable production,” I prompted, hoping to tease out of her whether her partner was male or female.

  “Yes,” said Anna. “I tried to book seats when it was still at the National Theater, but they were sold out for any performances I was able to make, so when a friend offered me two tickets at the last minute, I jumped at them. After all, it’s coming off in a few weeks.” She took another sip from her martini. “What about you?” she asked as the three-minute bell sounded.

  There was no such line in my script.

  “Me?”

  “Yes, Michael,” she said, a hint of teasing in her voice. “How did you come to be looking for a spare seat at the last moment?”

  “Sharon Stone was tied up for the evening, and at the last second Princess Diana told me that she would have loved to have come, but she was trying to keep a low profile.” Anna laughed. “Actually, I read some of the reviews, and I dropped in on the off-chance of picking up a spare ticket.”

  “And you picked up a spare woman as well,” said Anna, as the two-minute bell went. I wouldn’t have dared to include such a bold line in her script—or was there a hint of mockery in those hazel eyes?

  “I certainly did,” I replied lightly. “So, are you a doctor as well?”

  “As well as what?” asked Anna.

  “As well as your partner,” I said, not sure if she was still teasing.

  “Yes. I’m a GP in Fulham. There are three of us in the practice, but I was the only one who could escape tonight. And what do you do when you’re not chatting up Sharon Stone or escorting Princess Diana to the theater?”

  “I’m in the restaurant business,” I told her.

  “That must be one of the few jobs with worse hours and tougher working conditions than mine,” Anna said as the one-minute bell sounded.

  I looked into those hazel eyes and wanted to say—Anna, let’s forget the second act: I realize the play’s superb, but all I want to do is spend the rest of the evening alone with you, not jammed into a crowded auditorium with eight hundred other people.

  “Wouldn’t you agree?”

  I tried to recall what she had just said. “I expect we get more customer complaints than you do,” was the best I could manage.

  “I doubt it,” Anna said, quite sharply. “If you’re a woman in the medical profession and you don’t cure your patients within a couple of days, they immediately want to know if you’re fully qualified.”

  I laughed, and finished my drink as a voice boomed over the P.A. system, “Would the audience please take their seats for the second act? The curtain is about to rise.”

  “We ought to be getting back,” Anna said, placing her empty glass on the nearest window ledge.

  “I suppose so,” I said reluctantly, and led her in the opposite direction to the one in which I really wanted to take her.

  “Thanks for the drink,” she said as we returned to our seats.

  “Small recompense,” I replied. She glanced up at me questioningly. �
�For such a good ticket,” I explained.

  She smiled as we made our way along the row, stepping awkwardly over more toes. I was just about to risk a further remark when the house lights dimmed.

  During the second act I turned to smile in Anna’s direction whenever there was laughter, and was occasionally rewarded with a warm response. But my supreme moment of triumph came toward the end of the act, when the detective showed the daughter a photograph of the dead woman. She gave a piercing scream, and the stage lights were suddenly switched off.

  Anna grabbed my hand, but quickly released it and apologized.

  “Not at all,” I whispered. “I only just stopped myself from doing the same thing.” In the darkened theater, I couldn’t tell how she responded.

  A moment later the phone on the stage rang. Everyone in the audience knew it must be the detective on the other end of the line, even if they couldn’t be sure what he was going to say. That final scene had the whole house gripped.

  After the lights dimmed for the last time, the cast returned to the stage and deservedly received a long ovation, taking several curtain calls.

  When the curtain was finally lowered, Anna turned to me and said, “What a remarkable production. I’m so glad I didn’t miss it. And I’m even more pleased that I didn’t have to see it alone.”

  “Me too,” I told her, ignoring the fact that I’d never planned to spend the evening at the theater in the first place.

  We made our way up the aisle together as the audience flowed out of the theater like a slow-moving river. I wasted those few precious moments discussing the merits of the cast, the power of the director’s interpretation, the originality of the macabre set and even the Edwardian costumes, before we reached the double doors that led back out into the real world.