by Lissa Evans
‘Without Cerberus?’ asked Sophie.
Ambrose hesitated. The stately phrase ‘for the good of the production’ swam through his mind, accompanied by a minnow-sized twinge of conscience. ‘Oh, I’ll take the bloody dog,’ he said ungraciously, and Sophie stood up quickly and left the room; he could almost have sworn she was smiling.
It was another ten minutes before he could leave the flat. ‘His blanket,’ said the maid, handing him a faded quilt, ‘and also in this bag I put his bowl, his cloth I use for his feets wiping, his toy,’ – this a repulsive patchwork clown with stuffing cascading out of its stomach cavity – ‘his soft collar if his neck sore, his smart collar, his boot he chew, his flea powder . . .’
‘He has no fleas at present,’ said Sophie, swiftly.
‘. . . his pillow, his new bone, his old bone what he sleep with, his medicine for when there is bomb, and his clippies for his nail. He like chasing stick in the park but he have terrible fear of pond. He have oat for breakfast if no meats, he like horse, he like potato, he like gravies, but remember to not give fish ever.’ She fixed Ambrose with what looked like the evil eye. ‘Not ever.’
Cerberus stood beside her, his tail swinging slowly. The white patch on his nose – the one obvious respect in which he differed from Chopper – was very noticeable.
‘His lead,’ said the maid, looping it round the dog’s neck. She offered the end to Ambrose. ‘He’s good boy,’ she said, stooping to pat the narrow head.
The cab started hooting while Ambrose was still in the flat, and by the time he’d manoeuvred dog, bag and blanket down two flights of stairs and through the exterior door, the cabbie had tired of waiting and had driven almost as far as the turning. Ambrose bellowed and waved and the vehicle swung in a wide loop and headed back towards the flats again. It slowed to a crawl as the driver stared at Cerberus, who had chosen that moment to defecate copiously in the centre of the pavement, and then it accelerated off again, leaving an empty road.
‘And some passed by on the other side,’ shouted Ambrose. He pulled at the lead, and Cerberus ambled forward a few paces before making a sudden sideways lunge at the row of salvage bins on the corner.
‘Bastard,’ said Ambrose, reflexly, a friction burn stinging his palm. ‘Come back here. Back here.’
The dog continued straining in the direction of the bin marked ‘PIGS’ for a good five seconds longer, and then seemed to lose interest. The lead went slack, man and beast were momentarily in step, and then Cerberus spotted a small stain on the kerbstone three yards ahead, and dived forward. Ambrose felt his shoulder almost leave its socket and he dropped the lead and was seized by the urge to kick the ugly little creature straight up its filthy backside, to punt it clear across the street, and it was only the thought that Sophie might be watching (somehow, through the boarded windows) that stayed his foot. Instead, he leaned forward and smacked the brindled rump, hard, in a gesture that might, from a distance, be construed as affectionate.
‘Bad dog,’ he said. ‘Bad.’
Cerberus’s only response was to crouch slightly, and to continue pressing his nose to the oily mark on the pavement. It was entirely predictable, of course, that a dog owned by Sammy would lack any vestige of discipline. Edible bribes would no doubt be needed for the enforcement of good behaviour – strudel rather than the stick.
They had progressed another hundred yards together, weaving, checking, lurching, doubling back – strip-the-willow as choreographed by a drunkard – when the first person spoke to Ambrose. It was a woman with a toddler, and she asked him the doggie’s name.
‘Ooh, that’s a funny one,’ she said, on receiving the answer, ‘and is he safe with kiddies?’
‘No,’ said Ambrose, ‘he’s extremely vicious.’
The second encounter was beside Highbury Corner, while Cerberus was urinating against a pile of sandbags. ‘Lovely dog,’ said a workman, ‘oh, ’e’s a lovely dog, ’e’s a lovely dog. I love bull terriers I do, he’s a lovely feller, and he’s friendly too, ain’t he? You’re a lovely lad, ain’t yer? Ain’t yer lovely? Ain’t yer? Ain’t yer a lovely ’andsome friendly feller?’ Tearing his gaze from this canine paragon, the man glanced at Ambrose. ‘Tell you what, give you a couple of nicker for ’im.’
Christ, it was tempting. ‘I couldn’t possibly,’ said Ambrose.
The workman gave him a nod of grudging respect. ‘Fair enough. When your ’ome’s gone, what else have you got to hang on to? Rest centre’s over there, mate,’ and it dawned on Ambrose that he’d been mistaken not only for a dog lover, but for a bombed-out vagrant, toting his remaining possessions in search of a nice cup of tea and a chit for a public bath.
He jerked the lead, and Cerberus trotted after him, past the rest centre, where a photographer was loitering – waiting, presumably, for a subject of the requisite crass symbolism. The yellow press seemed permanently plastered with pictures of dusty but defiant grandmothers, and bandaged urchins signing ‘V’ for victory. England, apparently, could ‘take it’, though whether she could also dish it out was a moot point, since it appeared to Ambrose that there was no corner of Europe or North Africa where she wasn’t currently having her nose rubbed in the dirt. It was all an utter disaster, and yet if one were to read certain of the newspapers, one might believe that an invasion could be forestalled by a few pallid bank clerks armed with cobblestones, and that a nation could be fed on allotment carrots and the odd can of beans lobbed over by Roosevelt.
Cerberus sniffed the photographer’s turn-ups, and seemed momentarily inclined to use them as a lamp-post, before Ambrose dragged him away. They crossed the road towards the underground station in relative synchrony.
‘No dogs except in transit,’ said a policeman, standing by the entrance. It was not yet five o’clock, but already a line of would-be shelterers was shuffling past the ticket office and towards the stairs, their arms full of bedding, their hands clutching newspaper-wrapped packages, the paper spotted with the grease of makeshift suppers.
‘I am not intending to spend the night on the platform,’ said Ambrose, ‘I am about to purchase a ticket to Great Portland Street.’
‘What’s the blanket for, then?’
‘It belongs to the dog.’
‘And what’s in the bag?’
‘Also items for the dog.’
‘Not bedding, then?’
‘No.’
‘And you wouldn’t be intending to fool the authorities by buying a ticket and then dossing down on the platform with Fido here?’
‘Certainly not.’
‘I see.’ The policeman eyed the blanket again. ‘And you wouldn’t rather get a bus to Great Portland Street, would you, sir? Only it’s regulations that—’
‘Leave ’im alone,’ shouted a fat woman, queuing with a gaggle of small children. ‘Bloody flat-foots, nag nag nag all the bloody time, regulation this, regulation that, you know where you can shove yer bloody regulations, don’t you?’
‘Up your arse,’ said one of the children, helpfully.
‘Up your arse,’ agreed the matriarch, with filthy vigour. ‘You take your doggie down there if you want to,’ she added, to Ambrose. ‘We won’t tell no one.’
‘Now look here—’ began the policeman.
‘No, you look here, you bloody peelers is all the bloody same, where was you when my sister-in-law ’ad her joolry pinched when ’er ’ouse come down? If you ask me it was you lot what pinched it, telling ’er she couldn’t go back and get ’er bits, and then when she asked and asked and they let her in to look for ’em, the box was empty, weren’t it, and the rings she got from her mum, and her cameo brooch ’er old man bought for ’er ruby wedding, and her opal-chip pin was all gone, and the bloody blue-bottles whistling with their ’ands behind their bloody backs and their eyes turned the other bloody way, so don’t you tell me to look here, like I’m the one what’s done something wrong, when it’s you what’s—’ The woman’s speech rolled on, magnificent and vitriolic, her voice like t
he clanging of a great cracked bell, and Ambrose, momentarily forgotten, hauled Cerberus across the tiled floor towards the booking office.
‘Shelterers to the right hand side by the wall,’ shouted a warden, stationed at the top of the spiral staircase, ‘bona feed passengers to the left.’ Ambrose hesitated and eyed the narrow section of tapering steps that was left to him. The dog, normally so eager to plunge ahead, sat firmly on the top tread. ‘He’ll have to be carried,’ said the warden, just as Ambrose reached the same annoying conclusion.
It was an awkward task: there was none of the pliability, the sinuous weight of a cat’s body – lifting Cerberus was like lifting a heavy box.
‘Oh look,’ said a girl, ‘he’s holding a doggie. Look, Jackie, can you see the doggie?’
‘Aah, it’s a dog. Aaah.’
Ambrose tilted his head to avoid having to gaze into the crusted cavern of Cerberus’s right ear, and began, cautiously, to descend.
‘Oh look, don’t that doggie look sweet.’
‘Oh, he’s a lovely boy. Isn’t he a lovely, lovely boy?’
‘I wish we had a dog, Mum, can we have a dog like that, Mum, can we?’
Each slow step downward brought a fresh burst of cooing, a new face upturned, an exclamation of surprise and delight.
‘Oh, he’s wagging his tail, just look at him.’
‘Handsome little fellow.’
‘Look at him watching us. He’s a clever little chap, ain’t he?’
It was like a hellish parody of a premiere, the marble staircase to the foyer replaced by fissured concrete, the tiaras by head-scarves, the aroma of cigars by the reek of carbolic and cold bacon and sweat and wet knickers. And there was a final difference, more unsettling even than the others: as each successive gaze slid past Ambrose, he realized that he himself was playing the role of unregarded escort. The star was on his arm.
‘Just look at ’is lovely shiny nose . . .’
And while it was one thing for a fickle public to forget one’s face, it was quite another to be rendered invisible.
‘Good dog,’ he said, quite loudly, and Cerberus lifted his head and swiped his tongue across Ambrose’s cheek. The result was immediate.
‘Ohhhhh, look at that.’
‘Oh, don’t he love his master!’
‘Aaaah, he knows who loves him, doesn’t he?’
For a moment or two, the limelight shifted and there was warmth enough for both of them, and then Cerberus sneezed and Ambrose was once again eclipsed. One would have thought, from the reaction, that Garbo had swooned.
They reached the south-bound platform at last and Ambrose lowered the dog to the floor. A few yards away, a loud argument was taking place between two families claiming the same bunk-bed, whilst beside them a small boy amused himself by repeatedly hitting a tin cup with a spoon. Ambrose felt weary and a little soiled, smeared by the unremitting coarseness of contemporary life. It seemed strange, then, that the image, specific and unwonted, that kept popping into his head during the ensuing ten-minute wait was that of his ex-wife, Anthea, preparing for a party.
He could see her dabbing Rose Bleu into her considerable cleavage. She’d been too shapely for the fashions of the twenties. ‘I was born for corsets and bustles,’ she’d said, rather often, ‘not these silly tunics. What’s a girl supposed to do with her bosoms?’ although he’d always thought them marvellous, those bosoms, pillowy wonders straight out of Boucher, snowy mountains, carmine-crested, a sonnet-writer’s dream.
The tube rails began to sing and Cerberus, who had been staring at the mice in the tunnel, gave a little start and looked up at Ambrose enquiringly.
‘Do I have to go?’ Anthea had said, almost every time. She had loathed film parties. ‘Look at me, Ambrose, I’m all dressed up, I’ve plucked my eyebrows till they bleed, I’ve bathed and shaved and creamed every last inch, and all for nothing. When we get there those awful hangers-on will give me one glance and then fawn all over you. I don’t think you realize how utterly pointless and insignificant it makes me feel.’
‘And how ungrateful it makes you sound,’ he’d added, sharply.
He’d thought her a fool to leave him.
The tube carriages were standing-room only, and once again Ambrose found himself carrying Cerberus.
‘And isn’t he handsome?’ said a young woman, her soft, pink face lighting with pleasure. ‘And isn’t he a clever little man?’
*
There was new linoleum in Rose and Lily’s kitchen, and a lovely Welsh dresser, and a gas-powered refrigerator, and a polished brass jug filled with roses on the window-sill, and a pair of crisply-starched gingham aprons hanging on a hook by the double sink. The front room, stuffed with nautical nicknacks, offered a choice of stylish sofas and the use of a wireless and a telephone. Next to the latter stood a picture of Errol Flynn, clearly cut out of a fan magazine and stuck into a sweetheart frame, and Catrin, peering in through the unglazed bay window, was glad to have found something – anything – that linked this gleaming palace with the real Rose and Lily.
The entrance hall of the house was parquet-floored, though the parquet pattern was painted on, and there was carpet on the stairs, but the flight led to a blind landing and the twins’ bedroom was twenty yards away, right at the other end of the studio. Three of its walls were papered with lilac sprigs and the fourth was entirely absent. It faced, at a distance of a few yards, the set of a pub interior, and the effect was vaguely indecent, as if the locals might line up for a nightly view of the girls getting ready for bed.
‘Can you move, Miss?’ shouted a man in overalls, and Catrin ducked to one side as an enormous flat was carried past. It was marked with odd splashes and dabs of grey and white in a seemingly random pattern that magically assembled itself, as it moved away from her, into a rough-cast stone surface of ancient pedigree; the wall of a French farmhouse, she realized, and wanted to applaud the cleverness of the illusion. There were feints and contrivances wherever she looked – painted views to be glimpsed when a door opened or a curtain was drawn, and hedges made from crêpe paper, and rooms without ceilings, whose light fittings dangled from a spot-rail forty feet overhead – and it felt almost illegal to be wandering round unchecked, as if she might at any moment be arrested for spying, although no one so far had taken the slightest notice of her. ‘Pay a visit the day before shooting starts,’ Buckley had advised, ‘when it’s all looking spanking new and bursting with possibility, and for a moment or two you can dream that they’re actually going to make a film that’ll treat the script with the respect it deserves . . .’
In the studio wall behind the pub there was a pair of weighted doors, and beyond them a short corridor with rooms leading off on either side. At the far end another pair of doors led to the second sound-stage, and Catrin entered cautiously, and saw not a jigsaw of sets but an enormous wooden water-tank, its buttressed sides taller than a man. The Redoubtable floated within it – a scaled-down version, she judged, a good ten feet shorter than the one on location.
The first sound-stage had smelled of Ellis’s studio – of glue for the canvas, of freshly sawn wood and linseed oil – but the second reeked improbably of high summer. Catrin sniffed again, and thought of tarry pavements melting in the heat, and at the same moment spotted a workman holding out a bucket and a dripping black brush towards a hand that was reaching from within the tank. Even on tiptoe she was too short to see who the hand belonged to, but there was a thirty-foot scaffolding tower at one end of the studio, with a ladder lashed to its side and nobody in particular watching it, and she climbed up as far as the first platform and saw that the Redoubtable was not floating, but standing on stilts, and that its ‘sides’ ended just below the waterline – or just below where the waterline would be once the tank was filled. Currently it was crawling with workmen engaged in applying a coat of pitch to the interior.
Beyond the tank, at the far end of the studio, she could see yet another version of the Redoubtable – a truncated one, this
time, consisting only of the wheel-cabin and a section of deck, the whole mounted on wooden rockers so that it could be wobbled around in imitation of a heavy sea-swell. Behind it, a giant canvas leaned against the wall, its top half painted a pale grey-blue, the bottom half just a shade or two darker and a misty, indeterminate transition between the two.
Or perhaps the mist had another source – for as she stood there, one hand grasping the ladder, it seemed to Catrin that a ragged veil had begun to drift across the studio, a veil that appeared to be emanating from an enormous door that split the side wall from ceiling to floor. She stared, trying to understand what she was seeing; it was not smoke, but something wispier, more ectoplasmic . . .
‘Fog,’ said a man in overalls, standing at the foot of the ladder. ‘It gets in through the scene dock. Now we’ve a bloody great brute of a lamp to fix up there, so can we have our tower back, or was you wanting to rent it?’
An hour earlier, when she’d walked from Hammersmith tube station, there’d been no more than a trace of haziness in the air, and she’d been able to see the chain of barrage balloons that wallowed over South London like a school of hippos; now as she left the studio, the world outside was a blank. From the river wall, she could hear the slap of water but there was nothing but a shifting sepia curtain where the Thames should be, and she realized, with a rush of relief, that there would be no bombers over London tonight.
Lately, the fear had begun to creep up on her. In the autumn, when the Luftwaffe had scarcely missed a night in three months, she hadn’t been nearly so scared, but there had been a kind of grim routine, then: the scramble to buy groceries, to catch the bus, to get through the front door before the siren sounded. One had expected a raid, and a raid had come. Now it was unpredictable, and that was somehow worse, and rather than wait powerlessly in the flat, straining to catch the first popping of the guns, she preferred to be somewhere else in the evenings – rolling bandages at the Red Cross post in Marylebone High Street, or fire-watching in Soho Square, or sitting through a full supporting programme in the stalls of the Odeon – anywhere where there was noise or activity. She was not yet used to the Mary Celeste feel of a home with only one occupant, where the door opened each evening on an unaltered scene, where nothing ever changed unless she changed it.