The Fallen Architect

by Charles Belfoure

  “Father, are you an artist in the theatre here?”

  “Yes, I paint the pictures you see behind the performers,” Layton said, waving his arm toward the cloth he’d been working on.

  “I say,” Ronald said, blinking in amazement. “You’re talented.”

  Countless times, Layton had wondered what his son was like now. Was he still the amiable, outgoing boy he’d shared story time with? Meeting the boy in person, he was not disappointed. As the grandson of Lord Litton, Ronald would of course have been taught manners; politeness was the way of English gentlemen. He would have been learning to shoot, to ride and play cricket—the thought made Layton’s throat catch. All these were things he had imagined teaching his son.

  But he could plainly see that the boy had an innate basic kindness that exceeded mere manners. That pleased him. Layton had wanted to guide his son into becoming a good person with the set of values he had learned from his own dad growing up in Dorset, not in Mayfair. During his elaborate masquerade among the upper classes, he’d always felt that he’d been better brought up than those who were supposed to be his betters. He was amazed to find so many shallow, selfish people in the smart set. Rarely did he meet a good, decent human being. Daniel Harker was a better man than ten toffs put together.

  In his absence, Edwina had no doubt left the child-rearing to her father, just as she had left mothering to Nanny Hawkins. She had always cared for her son in the way of society ladies: small doses of affection, given intermittently. In the upper-class world, the needs and desires of parents came first.

  Layton knew his son was probably on holiday from his boarding school; this was why he’d had time to seek out his absent father. He wasn’t surprised that Nanny had set him on her search. Like all nannies, she was the true mother of his son.

  A boy should know his father, he thought, looking down at Ronald. Even though he was a convicted murderer.

  “Where do you go to school?” he asked.

  “Stansbury. When I’m thirteen, I’ll go to Eton.”

  “I’m sure your grandfather will insist on it,” Layton said, forcing a smile. “Now, what time do you have to be back this afternoon?”

  “By four thirty.”

  “I’ll walk you back to Hyde Park, and we can talk. Then you can come visit me again.”

  “Tomorrow?” Ronald asked eagerly.

  “Yes, indeed. Tomorrow won’t be soon enough for me,” Layton said with a laugh. “When you come to the stage door, ask Simon for Frank Owen and he’ll come get me. A confused look came over Ronald’s face. Layton had known that, sooner or later, this question would arise.

  “Everyone in the variety theatre has a stage name, Ronnie. Raymondo the Great was born Gus Cobb. And my pretend name is Frank Owen.”

  Ronnie nodded, satisfied.

  To Layton’s delight, there was no awkwardness or long spans of silence on the walk to the park. They chatted as though they had seen each other only the day before. Both asked questions of the other and took genuine interest in the answers. Ronald was most interested in his father’s life in the music hall and in such matters as whether the Great Cosmo really swallowed razor blades.

  “I’ll see you tomorrow, Ronnie. And here’s ten bob for Cedric’s kind cooperation.”

  All too soon, Layton waved goodbye, waiting and watching his son disappear into the park. He knew he wouldn’t be able to sleep in his anticipation of tomorrow.

  29

  Because Layton had wanted a particular shade of purple to paint heather on a cloth for Wee Geordie, the Scottish Prankster, he had to go to a warehouse off Waterloo Road across the River Thames to fetch it. Wee Geordie was anything but wee; he was the size of a building and was one of the very few Scottish comics to do well on the West End. Maybe it was because his native accent wasn’t so thick that the audience couldn’t understand what he saying. Layton liked the giant comedian and wanted to do something special that would remind Geordie of the Scottish Highlands from whence he came.

  Layton sat at a window seat on the Number 7 motor omnibus as it crawled along the street. With the paint can resting on his lap, he watched the hectic world of London pass by. When he saw some boys about Ronnie’s age on the sidewalk, he smiled brightly. This week, he was supposed to take Ronnie to the London Zoo, something he had never done before. There were scores of other things he wanted to do with his son—go to a cricket match in the spring, take him to the seaside resort of Bournemouth, a circus.

  On the sidewalk was an old man holding the hand of a six-year-old as they looked at a display in a store window. Seeing the two set Layton to thinking about his father. They say that all parents want grandchildren to spoil and fawn over. He wondered if behind that stern visage, his father harbored the same wishes. His late mother certainly had, good-naturedly badgering his older brothers to produce some grandkids for her. Raymond, being a professional soldier, thought it cruel to be away from a family for months or even years, so he never married. Roger thought children a bloody noisy nuisance. Layton pondered whether his brother would like Ronnie and change his tune. But maybe he wasn’t the marrying type and preferred the string of strumpets he had in Dorset. The sight of the boy and old man gave Layton an idea to drop his father a line informing that he had a grandson he may want to meet, but he quickly decided against it. Maybe in the future, when things were more settled in his life.

  With a low groan, a man plopped wearily down in the empty aisle seat next to Layton. As passengers normally did, each flashed a quick sidelong glance at the other. Layton felt a flicker of recognition—I know that fellow! He could tell that the other man was feeling the same. Simultaneously, they ever so slightly turned their heads toward each other, which confirmed the identification. Then both twisted their bodies sideways to face each other squarely.

  “Douglas Layton, you bollocks-eating turd,” said the rotund man in surprise, a shock of pure-white hair topping his head.

  If an old friend said something like that, it would be an affectionate jest, but this was said with pure maliciousness. Alec Shaw of Shaw Construction Ltd., the builder on the Britannia Theatre. Shaw’s watery blue eyes were focused on Layton’s like lighthouse beams. Layton remained silent and turned to looked straight ahead at the back of the head of a man with oily brown hair sitting in the seat in front of him.

  “I was really hoping that you’d be murdered in Mulcaster, but here you are, sitting next to me on the Number 7 bus. No justice in this bloody world.”

  By nature, Shaw was an unpleasant, blustery man who came from the north of England near Manchester. Layton remembered that fact because Shaw would often start a sentence with “where I come from in Manchester,” explaining how tough he was and how he didn’t abide any foolishness. He never tired of telling anyone of his humble beginnings—“I rose from the scum of the gutter”—and how he created one of England’s biggest construction firms from nothing—“just three quid in me pocket.” Like all insecure men, Layton had discovered in life, the more the insecurity, the more the boasting of their wealth and success. Shaw would never stop bragging about his possessions: a new carriage, a second home by the sea, a racehorse. The minute Layton had met Shaw at the start of the Britannia project, he had disliked him but tried to get along. Shaw had hated Layton on first sight, he could tell. There wasn’t even time for a personality clash to arise, so Layton had assumed it was because he was an architect, and Shaw, like most builders, disliked architects. But Shaw was different; he had an almost pathological hatred of architects. “Why do we need these poofs? I could build the whole bloody thing myself, and it would look better than his design,” Shaw had thundered frequently.

  During his articling with John Hicks in Dorchester, Layton first learned of the traditional fissures between builder and architect. The architect does the design for the client but does not actually construct the building. A builder is hired to do that. Like the lion and the hy
ena, Hicks once told him, the architect and builder are natural enemies. With a laugh, Hicks would say that the architect is the lion, an artist, and the builder is a hyena intent on a profit. Most builders hated to be bossed around by architects, and Shaw especially resented it.

  “You piece of shite, you only got five years—because Lord Litton was your father-in-law,” Shaw said in disgust.

  Layton remained silent and kept staring straight ahead.

  “You fuckin’ ruined me on the Britannia. Did you know that, you shite?”

  From the beginning, the Britannia project had blown up into a state of total war with Shaw. As a matter of business, a builder would give the architect client a firm price based on the architect’s drawings. But in this case, Shaw hadn’t read Layton’s detailed drawings properly, and he had seriously underbid the job, even boasting he might bring the job under that price. The owners’ representative, the late Basil Dearden, had been delighted. But beginning with the building of the foundation, Shaw realized his mistake. The foundation was a complex bit of engineering, because the theatre had to span over an underground spring used in the days when London was a Roman town. Shaw tried to blame Layton for an oversight in the foundation drawings, but Layton proved him wrong. Then Shaw tried to cut corners on the construction of the foundation, and Layton, with Basil Dearden’s approval, made him rip it out, do it again, and eat the cost of the work. This set the pattern for the entire job, in which Shaw constantly blamed Layton for mistakes, trying to raise the project cost to make up for his low price. Shaw continued to try to cut corners, so Layton and Dearden would force him to redo the work without a price adjustment in his favor. The brick and stonework, the ornate windows, the roof, the interior plaster and woodwork all had to be corrected at his expense. This enraged the builder, but he was bound by the contract and couldn’t walk away.

  Shaw would constantly try to change the design to something less expensive, such as saying the simplified detailing on the plasterwork looked so much better than Layton’s design, and he shouldn’t have to change it. The London County Council had strict building codes about theatres, which Shaw tried to sidestep because of cost. Items as small as the upholstered seating became a problem, with Shaw trying to substitute a cheaper, inferior-quality seat. “Someone’s bum won’t know the difference,” he had growled. Even on the legitimate change orders Layton would initiate, Shaw would try to charge three times what they were actually worth.

  The odd thing was that Shaw did first-rate work! Layton had admired it in other buildings Shaw had constructed. Layton wanted that kind of quality in the Britannia. And in the end, he got it. The paradox was that though the theatre was Layton’s downfall, the workmanship was beautiful.

  “I used to travel up this road driven by a team of the finest horses you could buy. Now, I’m using the Number 7 bus. And you’re to blame, Layton.”

  “Don’t blame me for your blunder on the Britannia,” replied Layton, still staring straight ahead.

  “Hah, you’re one to talk about a blunder, mate. Fourteen dead people.”

  Layton flinched a bit.

  “You shit, you made me redo that whole entire plaster domed ceiling. Do you know what that cost me?”

  “No, I had no idea about your business finances. That wasn’t my concern.”

  “And that foundation! I went bloody broke and lost my company by the time I finished your job. Me and my family lost everything.”

  “Maybe you should learn to read architectural drawings. Or don’t people from Manchester do that sort of thing?”

  “I was in the courtroom when they sentenced you. I was mad as hell when they didn’t hang you. Bloody architects, always building monuments to themselves. They should hang all of ’em.”

  “You’ll be glad to know that I’m no longer practicing architecture. And I’m extremely sorry about your company, Shaw. I remember you saying that you had started from nothing.”

  Shaw glared at Layton, trying to figure out if he was making fun of him.

  “I’m doin’ house renovations now. Me, who used to put up office buildings and banks. I live in Southwark now. Me, who used to live in South Kensington with servants.”

  “My stop is coming up. Jolly good to see you again, Shaw,” said Layton in a hurried voice as he slid past Shaw into the aisle.

  “Fuckin’ gobshite,” Shaw muttered under his breath.

  Layton fled out of the bus onto the sidewalk. He had gotten off two stops before he was supposed to. Holding his paint can against his stomach, he walked in step with the river of people in Piccadilly Circus, then he went over to the doorway of a newsagent and stood there, shaking. The word gobshite kept echoing through his mind like a thunderbolt. He knew where he had heard that word before. The tram accident.

  Meeting Shaw on the bus opened a floodgate of bad memories. The scenes of the constant battle with Shaw replayed in his head. Yes, he remembered, many times during the project, Shaw, his face beet red, had cursed him for sending him to the poorhouse, and he had said he’d get even with him. Layton brushed off the abuse and the threats of a blowhard.

  But now he realized that Shaw had been in the perfect position to exact revenge—by bringing down the balcony. The builder had the knowledge to bring it off and, more importantly, direct construction access to the structural steel frame. He had just said he wanted Layton to be hanged for murder! And the Britannia job had ruined Shaw, a proud man who had fallen down the ladder of success. Did he hate Layton that much to do such a terrible thing? He also may have wanted to get even with Basil Dearden and the circuit for siding with the architect, making him redo all the work with no compensation. He could ruin both Layton’s and the circuit’s reputation at the same time. Then Layton remembered Cissie telling him how Basil was found dead in his house. His mind began to race.

  Layton started walking toward the theatre. His brain was spinning around like a toy top, trying to fathom Shaw as the murderer. It was entirely possible. But Shaw hadn’t gotten the revenge he truly wanted from the disaster—that’s why he pushed him under the tram.

  30

  “Hold, throw.”

  Ronald leveled the spear, strode forward, and made a pretend throw.

  “Right as ninepence,” exclaimed Mangogo.

  Layton, who was backstage watching the tutorial, couldn’t help smiling.

  “Did you see that, Father? And in exchange for cricket lessons, Mangogo is going to show me how to use a bow and arrow!” Ronald squealed.

  Mangogo had been fascinated by the baby elephants playing cricket and wanted to learn. If an elephant could play England’s national game, so could he.

  “Mbuti ripping good with bow,” Mangogo said, nodding affirmatively.

  Cissie approached, put an arm around Layton’s waist, and pulled him close. “Ronnie will be the only boy at Eton who’ll know how to hunt like a Pygmy,” she said.

  “It’ll certainly make him stand out in the admissions process to Oxford,” Layton agreed, grinning.

  “Mangogo can write him a letter of reference.”

  “Pygmies don’t write,” Layton said, teasing now. In a passable imitation of Professor Evans’s voice, he added, “They communicate only orally and by song.”

  “Well, he can bloody well write a reference song, go to Oxford, and sing it to them,” Cissie said, laughing.

  They watched Mangogo follow Ronald down the stage right steps to the stalls.

  “Your boy loves being with you,” Cissie said softly.

  “It’s being backstage, I think,” Layton said. “It’s a magical world for a boy.”

  “Bollocks. He’s happy finally meeting his dad. A boy needs a father.”

  “I could get into a lot of trouble for seeing him like this,” Layton said. “If Lord Litton found out, he’d have me behind bars.” In England, an ex-wife could legally keep her children from their father, pa
rticularly if the man was a convicted felon.

  “After what that bloody cow did to you? To hell with her,” Cissie exclaimed.

  “He’ll be going back to school soon,” Layton said.

  Cissie raised one eyebrow. “That school of his is in Essex. Plenty of trains go there. We’ll figure something out.”

  Layton smiled at Cissie and drew her closer against his body. She had told him that she enjoyed the surreptitious nature of these rendezvous. The secrecy gave her a thrill of excitement.

  Ronald could only visit the Queen’s Palace on the afternoons when he was meant to be playing in Hyde Park. The theatre was just minutes away, making it easy for Ronald to slip off. Layton had thought he would never risk a place like Mulcaster again. But for Ronald? The choice was easy. Seeing the joy on his son’s face gave him a pleasure unlike any other. He would continue to see Ronald as much as he could.

  In the afternoons, certain acts rehearsed onstage. Ronald was allowed to sit in the front row of the stalls and watch: a personal command performance. Today, with Mangogo sitting next to him, the boy was entirely transported. Luigi had just finished his rehearsal. He tossed Mangogo one of the bricks he had been juggling.

  From stage right, a voice called out, “Next!”

  Two stagehands carried a long table with a heavy wood top and metal legs onto stage. As they stood there waiting by the table, Dainty Amy came out stage right, smiling and waving at Mangogo and Ronald. She was wearing a white shirtwaist and a long, charcoal-gray skirt.

  “Come on out, lads,” she yelled behind her.

  Three stagehands sauntered onto the stage. Their expressions said they didn’t want to be there.

  “Everybody take a seat like I showed you before. Be sure to crowd together in the center.”