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  ‘That Gavin is a part of it?’ Fredericks quickened his pace.

  ‘Sheila’s latest find.’

  ‘Not content with Maurice.’

  ‘Maurice,’ he said, ‘is not content with her. Neither,’ he continued, ‘is Gavin.’

  ‘Lets you have her back.’

  ‘Returned to previous owner, used, but good for a few more miles.’

  Fredericks laughed, signalled the towered building halfway down the slope on their right, and announced, ‘Still, Destiny, you could say, Frank, at this late stage, has come back into your hands.’

  8

  The interior was dominated by a chandelier suspended from within a glass-panelled dome; curtained boxes rose on either side: below the dome, in the furthest recess, fronting the benches of the gallery, gleamed a curved brass rail.

  Up there, high above his head, Attercliffe had caught a glimpse, before the lights went out, of the pneumatically-proportioned figure of Harry Towers.

  The theatre was crowded; having, on his arrival, left his unused ticket at the box-office, the seat beside him was still unoccupied when the lights went down but when, after an interval of several seconds, a reciprocal light came up from the stage a half-stooped figure, apologising to those already seated, came along the row, sank beside him, and a voice he recognised said, ‘Remember me? I’m Heather.’

  Animated to a degree out of all proportion to the vitality of the scene before them – two sisters (one of them Phyllis) discussing a third whose activities were represented by a hammering off-stage – she sighed, leaned back, and added, ‘It isn’t taken, is it?’

  ‘No,’ Attercliffe said, and shook his head.

  ‘Phyl is in a tiz.’

  ‘Why’s that?’

  ‘Douglas hasn’t turned up.’

  ‘How does she know?’ Attercliffe asked.

  ‘Says he can’t get off training.’

  ‘Does she mind?’

  There was a hiss from behind and, leaning closer, she said, ‘Not much!’

  He felt the pressure of her arm: a fur-collared texture, when he glanced sideways, underlay her face and, in the illumination from the stage, the profile of her head was outlined against the darkness of the heads behind: the brow receded, the hair was ruffled: a slender throat subsided beneath a sharply projecting jaw.

  Aware of his scrutiny, she smiled; a moment later, she glanced across, smiled more broadly, and said, ‘Are you all right?’

  Her hand squeezed his.

  ‘I’m fine.’

  The sisters on the stage had been joined by the third: a window, at the back, looked out to a moor. The sisters squabbled; they talked about their mother: their father arrived.

  ‘Phyl is good.’

  The lights went up at the end of the scene.

  ‘Isn’t she?’

  She turned in her seat.

  ‘To say she’s in a tiz, she seems, in my view, to be better than ever.’

  She acknowledged someone seated behind, then returned her gaze, first to a close inspection of Attercliffe’s face, then of his eyes.

  Her cheek-bones were widely spaced, the eyes devoid of make-up: her hair, flung upwards, was caught by a ribbon.

  She smiled.

  ‘Come here often?’

  ‘First visit.’

  ‘Finished your article?’

  ‘Not yet.’

  ‘What’s it like?’

  Her mouth was broad, her teeth unevenly spaced: she regarded the effect of her inquiry by re-examining his face, her eyes moving downwards, returning upwards, smiling.

  ‘Not bad.’

  ‘I heard about your fracas at the Buckingham.’

  ‘How’s that?’

  ‘Pickersgill has a mouth as big as his wallet.’

  She laughed; the lights went down; the mother returned from night-school. The family quarrelled.

  The father went to bed; two of the daughters followed: the mother and the youngest daughter remained by the fire. They talked of the past. The mother retired. Through the darkened french window, looking out to the moor, the daughter’s boyfriend arrived. An artisan, employed in a factory, he was as nervous of the daughter as he was of the house. The daughter expressed the same irritation with him as she had with her mother – the same passivity she identified in both. The boyfriend left: no sooner had he gone than Phyllis, as the eldest sister, reappeared; she took a drink, lit a cigarette and, having heard something of the conversation between her sister and the boyfriend, initiated a further quarrel. The younger sister, defeated, went to bed and for a moment Phyllis was left alone on the stage.

  Heather leant back.

  Phyllis, too, leant back, lit another cigarette, drank: a shadow moved in the window. The latch was raised: a figure entered then, as Phyllis stood up and switched on the light, stumbled.

  Long-haired, slenderly-featured, roughly-dressed, the figure was embraced by Phyllis, given a drink, and revealed himself to be her reputedly dissolute younger brother.

  After expressing his misgivings about coming back, and recalling some of the unhappiness of the past, the brother announced his intention of getting married.

  The woman – almost twice his age, an actress, who had been divorced and who had two teenage children – was staying at a local hotel, but the brother intended bringing her up the following day when he had broken the news to his parents.

  The sister noticed the shaking of his hands, and inquired about his life away from the woman – he was writing poetry, had worked in hotels, but was presently unemployed.

  The scene ended with the two of them starting upstairs.

  The lights came up; the curtain descended: Heather smiled.

  ‘Fancy a drink?’

  ‘I think I ought to get you one,’ Attercliffe said.

  ‘I’ll get you one,’ she said, rising. ‘Phyl asked me to look after you.’

  They moved up the aisle to the bar: Heather laid down the money, retrieved the change and, returning to where Attercliffe had found a space, gave him his glass, glanced round, and added, ‘Phyl told me you’ve been invited to write a play.’

  ‘It’s been suggested.’

  ‘She told me,’ she said, ‘that you’d tried before.’

  ‘Long ago,’ he said.

  ‘Perseverance is not your strongest suit.’

  ‘Other things,’ he said, ‘got in the way.’

  ‘Oh, that.’

  ‘Have you a family?’ Attercliffe asked.

  ‘I haven’t.’ In the babble of voices, and the compression of bodies, he found it difficult to hear her announce, ‘Not yet.’

  ‘But you’ve worked in the theatre,’ Attercliffe said.

  ‘Before my marriage. After my divorce I went back to it.’ She added, ‘I found, in a way, I’d left it too late.’

  ‘You’re telling me,’ he said, ‘it’s never too late.’

  ‘There’s something extraneous about acting. Don’t you think?’

  Having acknowledged several figures in the bar, she turned, frowned, and added, ‘I’d like to base my life on something solid.’

  ‘What work did you do?’ he asked.

  ‘I auditioned for Phyl’s part. They thought I looked too old.’

  ‘Are you older?’ he asked.

  ‘More experienced.’ She laughed, glanced about her once again, and added, ‘I wouldn’t have done as well. I sounded older, which is just as bad. Particularly with someone,’ she concluded, ‘like Harry.’

  The figure of the director approached across the bar, the bandaged head held up at an angle, the pneumatically-featured face turned in their direction – turned in another to acknowledge a greeting, a soft, square-fingered hand inserting itself between a pair of shoulders (finding a place on Heather’s back, drawing her to him, the bandaged eye laid beside her cheek, withdrawn, the same hand thrust in Attercliffe’s direction) – and a narrow, full-lipped mouth declared, ‘Good of you to come.’

  ‘I can’t say he’s enjoying it, but,
’ Heather said, ‘he’s doing his best.’

  ‘His best is all I ask for.’ Towers laughed, his irregular teeth forced from his mouth as if, Attercliffe reflected, he were about to bite him. ‘Heather’s not been disillusioning you about her life in the theatre?’

  ‘About my career I have,’ she said. ‘But not,’ she went on, ‘about his intentions.’

  ‘Oh, those,’ the director said, ‘are the ones we shall have to talk about.’ He added, ‘I’m off backstage. Anything I should say to Phyl?’

  ‘To be more,’ Heather said, ‘of what she is already.’

  ‘I’ll tell her that,’ he said. ‘More of the same, but better.’

  He passed to a door across the bar, released it, and disappeared inside.

  ‘Do you fancy another drink?’ Attercliffe asked.

  ‘Oh, you can buy me another,’ she said, ‘next time.’

  They returned to their seats.

  ‘I have half-shares in a flower-shop at present,’ she said. ‘Not enough to live on but, with the occasional work, I get by. Whereas you,’ she added, ‘are a reporter.’

  ‘That’s right.’

  ‘With the legendary Freddie Fredericks.’

  ‘Do you know him?’ he asked.

  ‘Who doesn’t? He used to be on television when I was young. After that, I’m told, he turned to drink.’

  ‘But not to moralising,’ Attercliffe said.

  ‘It can’t be as bad as that,’ she said. ‘I’m not a do-gooder. Nor am I a preacher.’

  ‘Do you have any influence on Phyl?’ he asked.

  ‘A lot.’

  ‘What about Dougie?’

  ‘On him especially.’ She laughed. ‘The hours I’ve had to listen to descriptions of his matches, whereas all he cares about is being seen with her in public.’

  The audience returned to their seats.

  The houselights began to go down.

  The mother, when the lights went up, was seated at a desk; the two eldest daughters, both teachers, were preparing to leave for work: as the mother added up sums aloud the news was introduced by Phyllis that the son had come back the previous night: a short while later he entered. The son and the mother were reunited: news of the marriage came out; the daughters waited for the encounter with the father.

  Heather glanced intermittently from the stage to the faces around her; in the half-darkness Attercliffe saw her smile.

  ‘Are you all right?’ Again the inquiry came, followed by the touch of her hand. ‘Phyl is up.’

  And when, finally, the father came in and had been reintroduced to the son, and Phyllis and her sister had departed, the father, antagonised at finding his alcohol consumed from the previous evening, turned on the son. The news of the marriage came out, the father’s rage culminating in a speech in which the ineptitude of his son and his own destitution as a father were contrasted with the belief he still felt in his work.

  The lights came up.

  ‘We’ll sit here,’ Heather said, ‘I don’t fancy all that crush. You can buy me the drink you owe me later.’

  She turned a page of the programme; a photograph of Phyllis was framed by several others: a biography mentioned, in italics, the plays she’d appeared in, the film she’d made. More certainly, however, Attercliffe was impressed by the hand which held the page, and the proximity of the head which was inclined to his own: the fingers were strong, the nails unpainted – one of them broken – the thumb, in its slenderness, slightly curled back.

  ‘What happened to your marriage?’ Attercliffe said.

  ‘It broke up.’

  ‘Through what?’

  ‘The pressure of his family that he ought to succeed.’

  ‘As what?’

  ‘They were in the engineering business.’

  ‘Did he marry again?’

  ‘He has two sons.’

  ‘Would you remarry?’

  ‘I value my freedom too highly,’ she said.

  ‘That can exist within a marriage, just as it can without,’ he said.

  ‘You’re a living example.’ She laughed.

  ‘Freedom only exists,’ he said, ‘within limits. It’s no good, for instance, saying you’re free if you’re standing in the middle of a desert.’

  Her gaze was directed to the curtain; odd figures, in the aisle, glanced down: one of them called out.

  She waved.

  ‘I don’t think of this,’ she said, ‘as a desert. But in the best regulated marriage the odds are stacked against the woman. It’s one of the assertions of this play.’

  ‘Have you seen it before?’ he asked.

  ‘I haven’t.’ She smiled. ‘It succeeded in London because of its cast. Here,’ she gestured round, ‘it has to succeed on its merit.’

  He examined the curtain himself.

  ‘Would you marry again?’ she asked.

  ‘Yes.’

  ‘Not the same woman.’

  ‘Hardly.’

  She laughed, leaned back, and examined the chandelier above their heads: it hung from a central chain let into the glass-panelled dome; distorted in each of the panes was a reflection of the scene below, each segment joined at an irregular angle and irradiated by the light from the chandelier itself.

  ‘Perhaps,’ she said, ‘you’re too old to change.’

  ‘I’m only forty-seven.’

  ‘How many children do you have?’

  ‘Five.’

  ‘Boys and girls?’

  ‘Three of the latter, two of the former.’

  ‘Like talking to a soldier in the heat of battle.’

  ‘It is.’

  ‘What about your wife?’

  ‘She’s misunderstood as well.’

  He watched her laugh.

  ‘You’ve really come adrift.’ She contemplated the dome again, the chandelier, the glittering glass: a patina of reflections was cast across the seats and on to the walls of the theatre, speckles of illumination which flickered across the boxes.

  Her hands, disengaged from the programme, were clasped together: the knuckles, in the half-light, glistened.

  ‘I still have an appetite to succeed,’ he said.

  ‘At what?’

  ‘Extracting something,’ he said, ‘from the shambles.’

  She said, ‘Haven’t you, in that sense, done rather well? Better even,’ she went on, ‘than most? Better even, secretly, than anyone around you?’

  A bell sounded at the back.

  ‘I don’t see how.’

  ‘Maybe not,’ she said, ‘but others can.’

  Figures crowded the corridor, their heads, in the congestion, bobbing up and down, the doors to the dressing-rooms swinging open. A figure ran past, called, ‘I shan’t be a minute,’ and clattered down a flight of stairs.

  Heather, in ascending the stairs, had taken Attercliffe’s hand and, with an infrequent, ‘Excuse me,’ inserted herself amongst the crowd; finally, reaching one of the dressing-room doors, she stepped inside and, releasing Attercliffe’s hand, was embraced by Phyllis.

  ‘Marvellous,’ Heather said.

  ‘You’re not just saying it?’ Phyllis inquired.

  ‘I am just saying it,’ Heather said. ‘It happens to be true,’ and added, ‘Never say die, but Dougie has arrived.’

  The bearded and overcoated figure of Walters, his pugilistically-featured face incongruous in this setting – and to some extent a facsimile, if younger, of Attercliffe’s own – appeared inside the dressing-room door.

  ‘I hear she’s very good,’ he said.

  ‘Very, Douglas,’ Heather said.

  ‘I’m sorry,’ he said, ‘I couldn’t see it. I’ll come along tomorrow.’

  ‘The night before a match?’

  ‘Maybe next week. It’s on for a while.’ He thrust his hands into the pockets of his coat and added, ‘How long are you going to take to get ready?’

  ‘Give me time to recover, Dougie,’ Phyllis said. Turning to the door she added, ‘Events like this do
n’t happen all the time,’ as the bandaged head of Towers appeared.

  ‘Energy is all that counts,’ the director said. ‘And more and more as it came to an end.’ To Walters, glancing up, he added, ‘Didn’t see you out in front.’

  Walters glanced at Phyllis, said, ‘I’ll be in the bar for about ten minutes,’ examined the single eye of Towers – contemplated it for a full clear second – and disappeared to the stairs outside.

  ‘His charm,’ Towers said, ‘grows by the hour,’ turning to Attercliffe and adding, ‘No revelations from you, I take it?’

  ‘Don’t bully him,’ Heather said. ‘Not that he can’t,’ she added, ‘stand up for himself.’

  ‘I’m only anxious to see Phyllis get her just deserts. And not just the ones,’ the director said, ‘that have gone out through the door.’

  A group of figures came inside; another group departed: Heather said. ‘We’ll see you in the bar.’

  A moment later, returning down the stairs, she added, ‘It’s in the pub. We can have another talk with Dougie.’

  The square at the front of the theatre – full of vehicles when Attercliffe had arrived – was now deserted: adjacent to the theatre – and separated from it by a cobbled alley – the corner of the square was brightly lit, the illumination coming from the windows of a public house.

  The bar was full to the door; on this occasion Heather walked behind him, her hand in his until, at the bar, two glasses were passed across, the money was given, and they were absorbed into a group of people whom Heather knew and Attercliffe didn’t but to whom, individually, he was introduced. Across the bar, Walters was engaged in a conversation in which he appeared to take little if any interest: periodically, raising an arm, he examined a watch.

  ‘Not your cup of tea either?’ Heather’s face was turned to his. Over her back Walters called, ‘If you see her, tell her I’ve gone,’ and adding, ‘I don’t know how you stick it,’ disappeared, through the crowd, to the street outside.