I was worried about how Evie would take the news, but she’s been up for sharing every bit of the experience – making sure I’m taking all the right advice, buying all the right things. She says that being godmother will be much more fun. ‘All the gain without the pain, Annie darling! Now doesn’t that sound like me?’ And she thinks Radnor agrees. ‘He’s too wrapped up in his work for fatherhood. At least that’s what he says. And to be honest I can’t imagine him putting up with a load of noise in the house. But he’s really pleased about your baby, Annie. He’s always asking how you are getting on. There’s a whole new side to him you just don’t know.’
I don’t want to know the new side. I feel it will be awfully like the old side. I can’t cope with it. And now he’s coming to the party, and I know it’s significant. He wouldn’t come just to stand around talking to people he despises. While Evie chats on, unwrapping lemon Babygros and tiny vests – Oh, aren’t they sweet! – I feel a cold sensation creep up through my body.
When the time comes, we all cram into the upstairs office – Steve and me, Clive, Richie, Eileen, Luke, Tom, Deirdre, Marsha, Evie – and Radnor. Radnor stands at the back and smiles a lot. Marsha’s gobsmacked, whispers aggressively in my ear: ‘Hey, the guy’s totally charming. A real pussycat. I think you and Evie have been holding out on me.’
Radnor doesn’t say much, doesn’t speak to me directly, but I can feel his scary smile all the time. I think of crocodiles and little fishes. I feel exposed. I want Steve to take me away somewhere quiet and safe, but I’m the centre of attention and have to stay and laugh at Clive’s jokes. When he’s finished saying how much he’ll miss me bossing him about at the office, he pops the corks and fills the tall flutes that Eileen’s holding out on a wobbly tin tray. He’s fussing as usual, getting champagne foam all over his trousers, and before he can organize himself to speak, Radnor raises his glass.
‘To Anne’s baby!’ he says, standing tall and proud in the middle of the room.
Everyone looks at me. Except for Steve.
Steve looks at Radnor.
LOOKING FOR LESLIE HOWARD
Seeing him sitting at that awkward corner table made me jump a bit. I normally didn’t put customers there unless we were really full. He must have sat himself down when I had my back turned, even though there were lots of empty tables much more convenient. His head was turned away from me, so I couldn’t see his face, but his hair was very dark and thick. He still had his overcoat on, and his trilby was placed neatly on the empty chair beside him. He was reading, and the little table lamp threw a small circle of light onto his hands as he held the book.
And that’s when I saw his skin. I always notice people’s skin. In fact, it’s the first thing I notice. His was a lovely golden colour. And I knew it would be soft, too – meltingly soft – just like the kid gloves rich women wear. And his nails were neat and pink as he turned a page with his finger and thumb: a quick, neat movement that made me shiver.
I left off cutting up the Victoria sponge, and squeezed my way through the empty tables until I was standing in front of him – or as far in front of him as I could manage in that corner – with my pad and pencil at the ready, white cuffs well pulled down, collar well pulled up. He didn’t move, as if he had no idea anybody was there. I waited, wondering what kind of book he was reading. It looked like a library book, with a dark red cover and very small print. I couldn’t read the title. After a few moments standing there like an idiot, I coughed and jiggled the empty chair a bit. And then he looked up. Brown eyes, of course, to go with the golden skin. Soft eyes too, fine and bright, with thick, dark lashes that made his eyes look made-up, as if he had drawn a black line all round them, like a film star. He was so good-looking I could hardly take my eyes off him. But I managed to look nonchalant: ‘Can I take your order, sir?’
He stared for a moment as though he didn’t understand the words, and I thought perhaps he was a foreigner. But when he spoke, it was in perfect English. ‘I beg your pardon – miles away. Just tea, please.’
‘Nothing to eat?’
He seemed surprised, and then, ‘Why not?’ His eyes flicked to the teatime menu in its little silver stand. ‘Why don’t I have some … hot buttered toast?’ It was the first item on the list. And the cheapest.
‘Certainly, sir. Strawberry or raspberry?’
He looked perplexed.
‘Jam’s included,’ I said.
‘Is it? Then I’ll have strawberry.’ He smiled. He had a beautiful smile – pleasant, interested, but not too familiar. A gentleman’s smile, in fact. You could tell he was a gentleman, even though there was this mysterious, foreign look to him. When I came back with the tea and toast, he was deep in the book again. Hardly lifted his eyes when I put down the tray and took off the heavy teapot and hot water jug – just murmured a little sound that might have been ‘thank you’ when I put the plate of toast in front of him. I slid the milk jug next to the teapot and placed the cup and saucer to the right of the toast, turning the cup the right way up, and moving the menu stand to a position near the wall. I placed the jam next to the milk, moved everything round again. I made as much noise as I decently could, hoping he’d look up. All the time I couldn’t take my eyes off the beauty of his skin, his narrow face with its long, nice-shaped nose, and his eyelids drawn down slantingly over his eyes. ‘Is that all right, sir? Anything else?’
He looked up, surprised. As if he’d never seen me before, let alone given me an order; as if I might have been a Martian come to stand in front of him. Then he looked down at the table as if the tea and toast had come from another planet as well; as if he hadn’t heard me clash about for five minutes right under his nose. ‘Yes. Thank you,’ he said, smiling up at me. ‘Everything looks very nice.’ And he opened his napkin, laid it carefully across his lap and stretched out his beautiful brown hand for the teapot. His skin looked so much like velvet. I couldn’t help staring, wishing my own was half as lovely. I wanted to stroke it. And, yes, kiss it, too. Let my lips feel the soft smoothness, let the feel of it go straight to my brain.
I was completely daft about nice-looking men. But it was all in my head, all romance and daydreams; I wasn’t a good-time girl who’d flirt with anybody. The man had to be dead right – well-dressed, and well-mannered – or he meant nothing to me. I was always looking out for the perfect gentleman. A man like Leslie Howard, in fact. Leslie was my ideal. I loved all his films. I’d go to the Odeon on my afternoon off and sit through the programme two or three times, until the anthem came up and the lights came on, and I’d walk out in a kind of dream. I kept wishing the men I met in my life were more like Leslie. Most of our customers were genteel, of course, and I’d married myself off to doctors and solicitors on no end of occasions since I’d started work at the hotel. But behind the scenes, there wasn’t much choice. I’d given up on the porter’s boy by the end of the first week. He liked to tell stupid jokes, and whistled loudly if your petticoat was showing even a little bit. And Mr Reeves and Mr Mullan were far too old for me. I’d once had a fancy for Keith Beddoes, the delivery boy from Smollett’s, who winked at me with his arms around a cardboard box full of veg and asked, ‘Anything doing, kiddo?’ But in the end, I gave him the cold shoulder. He was good-looking, but a bit full of himself, and I could tell he was just waiting for a chance to pinch my bottom or put his hand up my skirt. I couldn’t bear the thought of that. One day, I knew, I was bound to find a man like Leslie. He’d come to the restaurant and our eyes would meet.
Miss Jennings always laughed at my ideas. ‘These people – they’re ships that pass in the night,’ she’d say, as she collected up all the forgotten scarves and umbrellas left behind in the cloakroom. ‘Don’t you get any romantic ideas, Elsie, or you’re bound to be disappointed.’ And although I loved the idea of two great lit-up liners passing each other, bright white against midnight blue, with me leaping across the gap into the arms of a handsome stranger, I realized that she was right. Most of my customers behaved as i
f I didn’t exist. They came in a rush, taking off coats and gloves, and talked amongst themselves without so much as a glance at me. Just one or two were chatty and used to tell me what they got up to when they weren’t tucking into cream teas or crêpes suzette. Mr Reynolds, for example. He came nearly every lunchtime and had a lamb chop or a piece of steak, always with season’s vegetables and rice pudding afterwards. He was quite old, with mottled skin like a toad, but always had some story to tell me and didn’t seem to notice my neck and hands. ‘You always brighten my day, Elsie,’ he used to say with a wink. ‘You’re a lovely girl.’
Did he really think I was lovely? Sometimes I’d try to get a glimpse of my reflection in the floor-length mirror in the lobby and persuade myself I looked normal enough in my tailored black dress and white starched pinny.
Now I hovered over the handsome young man, loath to leave him. It was nice, just to be so close to him, to be breathing the same air. ‘Let me know if you want anything else, sir. I’ll be just here.’ I indicated the sideboard where the silver cutlery lay in baskets, where the clean napkins were folded and stacked, where rows of cruets waited to be filled, and where Winnie sat at the cash register totting up the lunchtime takings. It was three o’clock; a quiet time. Lunch had finished and tea had not yet begun. In half an hour Mavis would come on duty, the rush would start and I’d be up to my eyes in orders for Welsh rarebit and ‘a choice of pastries if you don’t mind, Miss’. But in the meantime I could get away with standing at the counter and feasting my eyes on the young man’s beauty as he sat there in his heavy coat, idly stirring his tea, his hot buttered toast left untouched in front of him as he devoured the contents of his book instead. I pretended to give an extra shine to the knives and forks as I watched him from the corner of my eye. He went on reading for ages, drinking his tea absent-mindedly, so in the end I went across to him, squeezing again through the empty tables and chairs, my tray like a shield in front of me.
‘Finished, sir?’
‘By all means.’ He pushed his teacup away, still reading.
‘You haven’t touched your toast,’ I said, as I removed his plate.
He looked up. Then looked at the toast. Again, that look of surprise, as if he hardly recognized it. ‘Oh dear. I’m afraid I forgot.’
‘Well, it’s gone cold now.’
‘Yes, indeed.’ He looked at it unhappily; almost guiltily. I felt slightly guilty too, as it had been me that had pushed him into having the toast, and now he had wasted his money. I didn’t know if this mattered to him. I couldn’t tell if he was well-off or not. His coat looked as if it had been expensive once, and his hat had a nice curl to the brim and, all in all, he had a well-kept kind of look. But I had an idea that money didn’t come easily to him, and that he spent it carefully.
‘You were too busy reading,’ I said, adding boldly, ‘It must be a good book.’
‘Very good. Food for the mind. I’ll have to make do with that.’ He smiled again and my heart fluttered again. But if I’d hoped he would share the contents with me I was disappointed. He closed the book and slid it into his pocket. ‘How much do I owe you?’
‘Two and threepence,’ I said, tearing his order off my pad. ‘Pay at the desk, sir,’ I added as he started to rummage for change in his trousers.
‘Of course. But I was looking for …’ He put a shilling on the tablecloth.
‘Oh, that’s too much!’ I cried.
He looked even more surprised than he’d done before. Nobody turns down a tip, especially a generous one.
‘I mean, it was my fault you had the toast,’ I added lamely.
‘Not at all. And it certainly wasn’t your fault that I didn’t eat it. I’m always letting food go cold. My mother despairs of me.’ He was getting up, picking up his trilby, trying to slide his chair back and getting stuck in that awkward corner, chair and table legs tangling in their usual stupid way.
‘Here, let me move it.’ I reached to pull the table out and as I did so, my sleeves slid up my arms an inch or two. I saw his glance fall on the backs of my hands, my wrists, and I hastily pulled my cuffs back down. ‘Sorry,’ I said, feeling the blood pulse in my neck and cheeks.
‘Nothing to apologize for,’ he said, and I didn’t know whether he meant he had seen or not seen. Or whether he had seen and forgotten it, as a gentleman should. Then he said, ‘Good afternoon,’ made his way to Winnie’s desk and paid quickly before walking out into the lobby. He checked his watch before putting on his hat, descending the hotel steps and turning right. Another ship passed by, I thought.
But after supper, when I was lying on my bed, still in uniform, trying to ignore the sound of Winnie’s wireless from next door, I thought about him again. I reckoned he must be five or six years older than me – around twenty or twenty-one. It was difficult to judge his age as he was quite boyish-looking, but when he spoke, it was in a grown-up way that was completely different from Keith and the other lads. He was clearly very clever, because no one read a book – especially such a dull-looking book – in that concentrated kind of way unless they were. And he lived with his mother. I imagined she’d be dark-haired and dark-eyed like him – a foreigner perhaps, come to England for the love of an Englishman but left a widow with an only child and a small private income. I decided his mother would have just enough money to stop her son from having to work, but not enough to allow them to live in style. Their clothes would be good quality but not new, and she would, I thought, do her own cooking, while the young man would sit at the table in their artistic dining room with his nose in a book, letting the food go cold while he read about – what? Not romance, I felt sure. Not Mary Webb, Ethel M. Dell, or American detective stories. Something serious and quiet. Philosophy, perhaps. That was the most serious thing I could think of, although I had no idea what it really was. However, I imagined the young man taking me back to his house in the leafy suburbs and introducing me to a dark-eyed lady with black hair plaited over the top of her head and coloured shawls over her shoulders, and who would keep a gramophone continually on the wind with gypsy music while she presented dish after dish of exotic fare. Hungarian goulash, possibly, like we had in the restaurant sometimes. ‘My son is very absent-minded,’ she would say. ‘I despair of him. He needs a good woman to look after him. Someone just like you, Elsie.’
‘Elsie, can you do me a favour?’ It was Miss Jennings, rattling my doorknob. She was always bothering me about something or other at bedtime. I got off the bed and opened the door. She had on her satin dressing gown, as usual, and her hair was wound in pin curls and covered with a heavy-duty net. Her skin was shiny with cold cream and gave off a smell I always thought was too sweet – almost sickly, in fact. ‘Oh, Elsie,’ she said, taking my hand in her clammy one. ‘I’ve just put my hair in curls and now I need something from the late chemist. Can you be a love and go for me?’
‘It’s quarter to ten,’ I said grumpily, not wanting to get my swollen feet back into my shoes.
‘I know, dear, but it’s, you know’ – she lowered her voice – ‘time of the month. Come on, Elsie, I’ll do the same for you. Hurry up, or they’ll be shut.’
So I put on my hat and coat and shoved my feet into shoes that seemed to have shrunk two sizes since I took them off, took the slightly greasy two shilling piece, and scuttled down the back stairs with a bad grace. I liked the chance to be friendly with Miss Jennings, to have cocoa with her and chat about how she did her nails, but sometimes I felt she seemed to be taking advantage of the fact that I was the youngest girl on the staff – and although she always promised she’d make things up to me, somehow she never really did.
The late chemist was on a corner down a side street, three blocks from the hotel, just where Stephenson Street ended. I’d never been inside. It had two big glass flasks of coloured water in the window, blue and red, lit up from inside and casting queer stripes of colour everywhere. The rest of the shop was dark. I was afraid it was shut, but the door opened when I pushed it, the bell jan
gling loudly. A man in a white coat stood silently behind the long counter, as if he had been there for ever, waiting for me to arrive. His freckled skin seemed to glow in an eerie manner in the red and blue light. His spectacles were the magnifying kind, and made his eyes look three times as big as normal. I stopped for a moment, not sure what to say. I never liked asking men for sanitary stuff, and would usually wait ages to get a lady assistant – but there was no one else in the shop so I rushed the name out as quickly as I could. ‘A box of Dr White’s, please.’
He sighed, casting a glance up at the clock. ‘You leave things until the last minute, don’t you, young lady? I close at ten. You’ve only just caught me. What would you have done if I’d been closed, eh? Eh?’ He put his white speckled face close to mine, then drew back and gave a kind of laugh that wasn’t really a laugh at all.
I said it wasn’t for me, but for ‘somebody at the hotel’. I tried to imply that it was a guest, somebody important – and it seemed to work, because he stopped laughing and produced a box from under the counter. ‘One and three.’
‘Can you wrap it, please?’ I wasn’t going all the way back advertising Dr White’s, even in the dark.
The chemist slowly pulled out a brown paper bag, slipped the box inside it in rather a pointed way and slid it across the counter. I put the two shillings down and he took it, opened the till and, after a few minutes chinking about in the coin box, came up with the change, which he put on the counter with a smack. I stretched to pick it up, not thinking about my skin because the shop was so dark and the man so old – but the next minute he was gripping my wrist. His hand felt horrible and sweaty. My mother had always warned me to be careful of men like this, and there had been one or two at the hotel who had tried to grab me from behind. But now I was on my own in a dark and deserted shop. I couldn’t help thinking about the crazy scientist I’d read about in Her Present Danger who kidnapped young girls so they could extract the essence of their youth. This man was a chemist; he might know how to do it. ‘Let me go!’ I cried, my voice not bold at all, but high and wobbly.
Lying Together Page 4