All the same Ottmar carried around a secret shame. He had offered Anna the job in a moment of temporary madness.
She had come in one Tuesday at half past one in her best suit and had ordered coffee – Turkish coffee – which she drank without sugar. She had carried with her a copy of the book she had treated herself to from the basement of a Charing Cross bookshop and Ottmar had read over her shoulder words he loved though hardly knew in English.
‘Oh, come with old Khayyám, and leave the Wise
To talk; one thing is certain, that Life flies;
One thing is certain, and the Rest is Lies;
The Flower that once has blown for ever dies.’
Anna sat quietly, politely, as he read aloud from her book and then she turned and smiled at him and he felt unutterably foolish. He cleared her plate, though he never normally waited on the tables, and then he begged her pardon.
‘I got … I got carried away. Not so many people read poetry.’
‘Even here?’ she asked.
‘In my coffee house?’
‘In London. In Covent Garden. I thought it would have been full of poets.’
‘If it is they are not coming into my coffee house. London is full of …’ Ottmar waved his hands, tipping the spoon from Anna’s saucer. He bent down to retrieve it from under a table then knelt for a moment on the tiled floor. He looked up at Anna and she stared back at him. ‘London is full of … hare-brained people. Chancers. Gamblers. Opium fiends.’ He laughed to himself at his own exaggeration.
‘You make it sound Victorian.’
‘Do I?’
‘Like something out of Conan Doyle.’
‘I don’t—’
‘He wrote Sherlock Holmes.’
‘The Hound of the Baskervilles.’
‘That kind of thing.’
‘My uncle read me Omar Khayyám. In Arabic. Not Turkish or even English. I tried so hard to understand it. I would ask him what it all meant but he always said the pleasure was in the finding out … the discovery. He said you can keep some poems by you your whole life and they will only reveal parts of themselves to you when you are ready to hear them. So at twenty I would understand one little part of it and then at forty something else. I’m probably not making any sense.’
‘Not at all. You’re making lots of sense. I think … I think that would make me impatient. I don’t want to understand poetry when I’m fifty. I want to understand it now. What if I don’t make it to fifty? Do I have to be cheated out of all that understanding?’
Ottmar smiled apologetically. ‘I think perhaps you do. We can only grow old in days and weeks and months. There is not a short cut. Nobody can know the world at fifteen.’
‘When I was at school it used to drive me up the wall listening to the teachers go on about the folly of youth. If someone is ugly you don’t say to them: “Hey you, stop being ugly over there!” so why is it okay to mock the young for being inexperienced?’
‘I was not meaning to mock you, miss!’
‘No! Sorry. I didn’t mean you were. I meant that it sometimes feels hard to be young when no one has a good word to say about youth.’
Ottmar set down her cup and saucer. He frowned at someone out of her line of sight. ‘If we are grumpy it is because we had to leave the party and you are still there.’
‘And the party is a stupid party?’
Ottmar laughed. ‘Yes. A very stupid party. Very loud and drunken and disgusting.’ His eyes crinkled in all directions. ‘But so much fun!’
Anna laughed and Ottmar felt his heart glow in his chest.
‘Will you have anything else, miss? We have cake. We have sweets. We have baklava.’
Anna held her book at arm’s length and glared at it. ‘I spent my lunch money on something else to cheer me up. But your coffee was wonderful.’
‘Why do you need cheering up? Is it a stupid boy?’
‘A stupid boy of fifty.’
‘Too old for you. Forget him.’
‘I was called to interview at Jamiesons on Waldorf Street. And I borrowed five pounds from my landlady to buy this suit because it said: “Professional position. Business attire is requisite.” But when I got there, there were fifteen girls in the waiting room and I had hardly sat down when Mr Jamieson said: “You mustn’t be too disappointed. We had no idea we’d be so popular.” And that was that. With lunch and fares I’m out by six pounds and five shillings and I can’t conjure that kind of money out of the air.’
‘You need a job?’
‘I only have a short-term contract and it’s almost over.’
‘We have a job.’
‘Do you?’
‘Waitressing. It’s not professional, I’m afraid. I’m not sure what you’d do with the suit.’
‘I don’t mind. I mean, I have waitressed before. How many days would you want me?’
‘All week. Six days. You could start this weekend. In the evenings. If that was convenient.’
‘That would be very convenient. My name is Anna. And thank you so much.’
‘I think you should have some baklava to celebrate.’
‘I’m sorry. I’ve nothing left to spend.’
‘It’s on the house,’ said Ottmar expansively. ‘Our waiters eat for free.’
This was not strictly true.
***
Anna caught the bus from Forest Hill to Cambridge Circus every evening at 5 p.m. She worked from 6 p.m. until 11 p.m. and then stayed on until midnight helping to clean up and tidy and sitting around with the other waiters and waitresses playing pontoon for matchsticks and drinking the ends of bottles. Then she walked down to Trafalgar Square and sat for an hour in a shelter on the east side near St Martin-in-the-Fields waiting for a night bus to take her near to home. She became fascinated by the statue of Edith Cavell and would stand at the base of it in the freezing cold of a December morning, looking up.
Patriotism is not enough. I must have no hatred or bitterness for anyone.
Sometimes those words made her cry. The tears would come uncontrollably and they would not stop. And in those moments Anna found forgiveness and it made her free. But they were only moments. Forgiveness is a hard thing to hang on to.
The Deplorable Word
Monday, 8 November
Orla Hayes climbed the stairs and pulled on a jumper and another pair of socks. She put her head round the door of Gracie’s little room and pulled the quilt and sheet and blanket up to her chin. She stood for a moment looking down at Gracie’s fat, beautiful face; listening to the sound of the breath that came through lips slightly parted; allowing her hand to brush strands of dark hair away from her closed eyes. Nothing on earth must be allowed to disturb Gracie, for if Gracie was fine then so was all the world.
She left her little one sleeping and crept downstairs to turn off the fire, though it was only ten o’clock and the nights were becoming bitterly cold. Her fingers were tingling now and her nose and the tips of her toes. She had wanted another hour of light and reading or else to darn Gracie’s socks before she went to bed but the cold was going to be too much for her.
She pulled the blue-flowered quilt out of its cubbyhole and made the sofa into a bed, arranging her cushions as she always did. She briefly lit the gas and warmed half a cup of milk, which she mixed with sugar and drank down straight. Then she ran to get warm while the effects of the milk could still be felt and pulled the quilt right up to her eyes. The window in the kitchen whistled and shook in the wind. Brennan was late home tonight and she wanted to be asleep when he came in.
She must have been lying there more than an hour when she heard his keys rattling against the door. Then a click and a scrape of wood and brush against the floor and a gust of cold blew across her face and fingers. The door shut again with a soft crunch.
Brennan Hayes paused for a minute, standing on the mat, listening to the silence in the flat. Then he crept into the kitchen, poured water into a glass, left his boots by the understairs cupboard and softly pl
odded up towards his bed. Orla listened to him do this just as she had done on hundreds of other nights and she waited for him to speak to her, though this he never did.
The little carriage clock ticked on the windowsill in the darkness. She guessed it was nearly midnight; he was rarely home earlier than half past eleven these days. In six hours Gracie would be awake, sitting on her mother’s stomach, poking her awake and she would grudgingly agree to light the fire again and make them both tea and porridge and the radio would be playing ‘Make It Easy on Yourself’, which always made Orla want to cry. And after seven he would come downstairs, washed and shaved and in his smart, clean uniform and he would drink a cup of tea at the kitchen table while Gracie told him some crazy story about monsters and eyes and tigers walking her to the shops and then he would kiss his daughter on the forehead and say goodbye and he would be out of their lives again for another fifteen hours or months or even years … because in every real sense he had been cut adrift and it was she who had done the cutting.
Tuesday, 9 November
At twenty past seven Brennan Hayes walked out of the house, squeezing the door closed behind him. He could still just feel the warmth of Gracie’s head where he had kissed her. The sky was dark grey and rain spotted his uniform. He turned north onto Finsbury Square and then headed west towards Smithfield Market. Fleet Street. The Strand. Charing Cross Road. Leicester Square. Piccadilly Circus. Savile Row. And at the end of it all – at the end of the road crossings and the grey-suited shuffle and the noise of angry bus drivers and the taste of petrol on his tongue and the spiky cold air of a London morning which thrilled him and froze him in equal measure – at the end of it all lay a different name, a different voice and a different life.
***
‘Excuse me. My name is Anna Treadway. I’ve been called in for an interview at eleven.’
The desk sergeant continued to stare at her sleepily. Anna felt compelled to continue but couldn’t think what else to say.
‘Shall I go and sit over there?’ she asked, nodding to a wooden bench by the door.
The desk sergeant frowned for a moment, as if this was a truly ingenious question to ask. Then he looked her in the eye as if seeing her for the first time: ‘Yes.’
Anna retreated gratefully and sat down, squeezing herself to the very edge of the bench – against the armrest – in case some strange or large or terrifying other should arrive at any moment and be told to sit with her.
Iolanthe had been missing for ten days and Anna could not shake the feeling that not enough was being done to find her. She’d been all over the fronts of the papers for a few days, and posters had appeared on the lamp posts asking for information, and Anna had found herself thinking how ridiculous it all was, and what a waste that Lanny wasn’t here to enjoy all the fuss. But then the boy had been injured in Golden Square, the headlines had changed and she hadn’t seen or heard from a policeman in over a week until the call last night.
She thought about Lanny’s story of her father, her mother and then her brother dying. She was the very last of her little family. Surely she was meant to carry on – to have children, even. Iolanthe was forty but it might still be possible. If she met someone soon she could have the chance of a child. Maybe she could adopt. She had asked Lanny once about men: was there anyone, was there someone back home in the States?
‘I’ve never been a great one for relationships. And I’m not too good at sex and nothing else. I grew up really fast, really young. Went straight over that drippy crush stage and into the cold, hard world. Men are dangerous, Anna, you never know what they’re really thinking.’
‘I suppose. I’m not any good at relationships either. I quite like having my own life.’
‘That’s it. That’s it exactly. I have my life.’
‘Miss Treadway? Is it miss?’ A tall man carrying a bunch of folders under one arm was calling her from across the hallway. She raised her hand, nerves rendering her momentarily dumb. The red-haired policeman advanced on her with an outstretched hand: ‘Good morning, miss. I am Detective Sergeant Barnaby Hayes. We’re in interview room four. Would you follow me, please?’
Anna followed Hayes along a beige corridor and then another. In the distance she could hear the murmur and rattle of a works canteen, but for the most part the station was oddly silent. Voices murmured and muttered behind half-closed doors; file drawers squeaked and rolled in and out in offices as they passed.
‘Here we are.’ Hayes knocked on the door and when no reply came back they entered. The room was windowless, but held a table and three chairs. The walls were painted pistachio green and the floor was black linoleum.
‘Cup of tea?’ Hayes asked.
‘Yes. Please. Milk, no sugar. No, actually, sorry … sugar please. Two.’
‘It’s comforting, isn’t it?’ Hayes smiled at her. ‘June!’ he cried down the corridor and a door somewhere unseen opened.
‘Yes, Sarge, what’ll it be?’ a voice came back.
‘Two teas for interview room four, please. Normal for me. Milk and two for the young lady.’
‘Your wish is my command.’ Hayes shut the door.
Sergeant Hayes spread the folders out in front of him and pulled out half a dozen forms and bits of paper.
‘Now, I wanted to go back over your statement and then I also wanted to ask you about this interview. The one from The Times.’
‘I was there for that. I was in the room.’
Hayes blinked at Anna with a look that signalled genuine interest. ‘Right. Well … First things first. Would you describe Iolanthe Green as a stable person, Miss Treadway?’
‘Define stable.’
‘Really?’
‘I mean, how stable is stable? She was stable enough … in the grand scheme of things. But she was human. I mean, she was a bit highly strung and a bit, um, prone to moodiness. But then, when I say these things sitting in an interview room, they suddenly sound much more serious, much more terrible, than I think they are. She was … there’s no good way I can put this … she was female and she had female insecurities and she was an actress and she had those insecurities too but that makes it sound like I’m trying to say she was mad when really I just think she was rather ordinary.’
‘So, you’re saying she was essentially ordinary?’
‘Yes. Ordinary woman. Ordinary hang-ups. Ordinary … intelligence. You know, Sergeant …’
‘Hayes, miss.’
‘You know, Sergeant Hayes, actors and actresses are very, very ordinary people. They do a job and half the time the people around them yelp like castrated cats, howl with pleasure and tell them that they are the saviours of the world. But most of them, the ones who don’t let the publicity drive them mad, know that they are very ordinary people, with a basic technical ability: like a plumber or a welder. Except that half the world has decided that this type of welding is akin to performing miracles.
‘Iolanthe wasn’t clever. Not book clever, I mean. But she wasn’t stupid either. She knew that what she was involved in was a kind of popular conjuring trick. And she knew that her career would be finite and that she had to make the best of it and save for the future. She didn’t spend her money on fancy things. The Savoy gave her that room for publicity. She was sent clothes by department stores and designers. She wore costume jewellery and never caught a cab if she could help it. She told me once that she had been born into poverty and had half a mind that she would die that way too. She took her money and she sent it back home. Every month, every shilling she could spare, she squirrelled it away somewhere.’
There was a knock and Hayes rose to let in June, who was carrying two cups and saucers.
‘’Bout time too,’ he noted drily.
‘Up your bottom, Sarge,’ said June, winking at Anna, who was slightly outraged at this piece of rudeness in such an austere setting.
As June shut the door behind her Hayes started to arrange the papers into a chequerboard in front of him.
‘You spoke abo
ut Miss Green sending money home to be deposited. And we have talked with Miss Green’s agent in New York and with their in-house accountant who very kindly gave us select details of the accounts Miss Green deposited her earnings into. Now I don’t have a record of amounts but I do know that over the years Miss Green deposited money into a series of accounts with a variety of names attached to them. We have three accounts in the name of Iolanthe Green. One account in the name of Yolanda Green. Two accounts in the name of Nathaniel Green. And one account in the name of Maria Green. Would you happen to know anything about these other names, Miss Treadway?’
‘Well, Nathaniel was her brother but she said … I heard her say that he died in ’45 or ’46. Just after the war … in Japan. He had a car accident.’
‘And yet he has two savings accounts still open. One held at a bank in Boston and the second at a bank in Annapolis, Maryland. Any ideas?’
‘None. She always said she had no family … Her mother and her father died in the forties or late thirties and her brother died just after. There wasn’t anyone else … though I suppose aunts and uncles?’
‘Her agents knew nothing about her wider family, it seems. They only have addresses and phone numbers for Iolanthe herself. They never met anyone else from her family. Though we have to suppose, given the shared surnames, that all these people belong to the same family. In the interview she said she came from Cork.’
‘Her grandparents came from Cork. She’d never been there. I never saw a card or a letter in the dressing room that looked like it came from family … I mean, she got them from fans, from other actors, from her agency, from the studios she’d worked with …’
‘Did you notice anything which might suggest that she was in contact with people in Ireland? Did she want to visit Ireland? We’re wondering if … well, sometimes people find themselves under pressure and they run. We’re wondering if Miss Green might have run away to Ireland.’
Miss Treadway & the Field of Stars Page 3