‘Hmm, it is a little snug,’ said Billie, wriggling her way in and forcing up the zip. She stood in the centre of the living room, hands on hips. ‘Can you see my undies through it?’
Tash tilted her head appraisingly. ‘Only if you stare quite hard. Maybe you should go without.’
Billie choked back a snigger and glanced towards the bedroom where Jeff could be heard slowly getting dressed. Tash, noticing, lowered her voice.
‘How are things?’ The meaning of the question was all in her eyes.
Billie in reply gave a tiny grimace and shook her head. Since the day she had found him breaking up his work with a hammer there had been a stand-off between them. Jeff seemed to have withdrawn into himself, which actually felt more disquieting than his usual recourse to tantrums. At least when they argued she could be sure of what he was thinking; now he just smoked and brooded.
She heard the kettle whistle and went out to the kitchen to make a pot of tea. On returning she found Tash reclined on the sofa, leafing through a souvenir book of Beaton’s photographs from the stage production of My Fair Lady. Nat had lent it to Billie to pass on.
‘Good of him to remember, wasn’t it?’ said Billie. ‘He said you could keep it as long as you liked.’
Tash said, ‘Thank him for me,’ and dipped her head back to the book. Billie, intending to have a post-mortem on their evening, sensed a reluctance in her sister to cooperate. Nat hadn’t said much the next morning, either, beyond a cursory thank-you and a pleasantry about her mother. She had hoped for a little more enthusiasm all round.
‘Mum really liked him, anyway,’ said Billie, as if she were picking up a previous conversation. ‘Thought he was a bit full of himself, of course – but ever so entertaining.’
Tash, still horizontal on the sofa, looked up again and gave a nod. ‘He is very entertaining.’ Her tone was so matter-of-fact it might have been mistaken for irony. Billie waited for more, but nothing came.
‘So … Nat didn’t say anything – when he was driving you home?’
‘About what?’
‘About Mum.’
She shook her head in such a way as to indicate the matter closed. This only goaded Billie’s curiosity: she didn’t want to think her matchmaking venture, however unlikely, had been a complete damp squib. ‘Maybe I should bring her along with me, you know, to this party.’
Tash clapped shut the book and stared at her. ‘Don’t do that. He’s not interested in her, Billie, I’m sorry.’
‘How can you tell? According to you he didn’t say anything.’
‘Can’t you just leave it?’
‘Well, I’d rather know why you’re so certain.’
Tash sighed, and paused. ‘He misread the whole thing. He thought he was being set up with me, not Mum.’
Billie’s expression passed rapidly from startled to incredulous. ‘You? But he’s, like –’
‘Old? Men don’t think like that. They just see a girl they fancy and go after her. Doesn’t matter to them if they’re closer in age to the mother.’
Billie was trying to imagine how the misunderstanding came out. ‘Did Nat – I mean, did he …?’
‘Nothing like that. He looked a bit put out when I didn’t invite him in – and when I told him what you’d had in mind he looked shocked.’
Billie put a hand over her mouth, smothering a nervous giggle. ‘I suppose it’s comical, really.’
‘I don’t think he found it all that funny,’ said Tash, who also began laughing. ‘To be honest, when he arrived at Mum’s I thought at first he was queer. I mean, those clothes …’
The bedroom door had opened, and Jeff, in denim jacket and jeans, stood there with the unsmiling air of a ticket inspector. He greeted Tash with a barely perceptible lift of his chin, then looked at Billie. ‘Who are you talking about?’ he said. It occurred to Billie that he was paranoid enough to imagine they’d been talking about him.
‘Oh, just a friend,’ she said lightly.
‘But who?’ he persisted.
‘Nat Fane. The scriptwriter.’
‘I know who he is,’ he said. ‘But what was he doing at your mum’s?’
‘We had him over for dinner last week. Tash cooked.’
Jeff silently absorbed this. ‘Very cosy. Presumably you did that so you wouldn’t have to invite me.’
Billie felt her heart sinking. This was exactly why she’d meant to keep it quiet.
‘To be honest, I didn’t imagine you’d want to meet him. And I know you wouldn’t want to see my mum.’
‘You might have said something. Do you not trust me?’
The unhappy answer to this, as far as Billie dared consider it, was no. She thought him in his present state too fragile to trust, and preferred to go behind his back rather than risk another scene. But now something else had snagged Jeff’s attention: he had just noticed the cocktail dress.
‘Why are you wearing that?’
Tash, alert to the tense mood, stepped in. ‘It’s something of mine I brought for Billie. Doesn’t she look good in it?’
‘Going to a party in it, by any chance?’
‘I am, actually,’ Billie said, tiring of his peevish tone. ‘There’s a cast and crew get-together next week, and I wanted something a bit glamorous. Tash has lent me this.’
‘Glamorous,’ Jeff said in doubting echo. ‘You think so?’
‘Don’t you like it?’ asked Billie.
‘Looks tarty to me.’
Billie gasped, stunned into silence. Tash, however, wasn’t one to shirk a fight. ‘That’s nice, Jeff. Insulting both of us at once there.’
‘Just being honest,’ he shrugged.
Tash shook her head, more pitying than indignant. ‘And you wonder why you aren’t invited to dinner. Ha! Billie, come on, let’s get out of here.’
But Jeff was ahead of her, opening the door. ‘Don’t bother, I’m going. You can stay here and slag me off to your heart’s content.’ He slammed the door behind him, though not quickly enough to miss Tash’s defiant ‘Good. We will!’
They watched him stalk up the basement stairs and disappear. A residual sourness lingered in the room, like smoke from a firecracker. Billie sadly unzipped the back of the dress, mortified. She looked at Tash, who was half amused, half amazed by what she had just witnessed.
‘I’m sorry about that,’ said Billie quietly.
‘You don’t have to apologise. It’s his problem, not yours.’
Billie looked away. ‘He’s just in a bad way. He’s depressed about work – about everything – and he lashes out at people.’
‘You mean he lashes out at you.’
‘I’m just the one who’s around.’
‘Don’t make excuses for him, Billie. He’s a swine to say that. If it’d been me I’d have clocked him.’
Billie didn’t say anything. If she poured it out now – told her what had been going on – she wasn’t sure she could stop herself breaking down. There was pride involved, too. She and Tash were close, but she didn’t want to admit that she might have wasted the last two years and more on a boyfriend her sister hadn’t much liked from the start. Jeff was a swine, she knew it, really, yet she had kept hold of the slim possibility that things would pick up and he might revert to the person she fell in love with. But they hadn’t; and he hadn’t.
The city sweltered in the heat of July. Cabs prowled through Covent Garden hunting for fares. Nat, in his lightest summer suit, was already sheened in perspiration as he skipped up the steps of the Garrick Club. He carried under his arm a copy of The Times, which contained a news item he thought might please his host. Within the cool, musty gloom of the hall he asked the porter whether Mr Summerhill had arrived, and was directed to one of the small lounges on the upper floor. He felt the reassuring creak of the oak stairs under the thin soles of his loafers. Victorian actors and dramatists, their likenesses caught in oil, peered down from heavy gilt frames.
An arrangement had at last been made to discuss Vere’s
projected memoir, for which Nat would enlist as ghostwriter. An editor at the publishing house had been in touch to talk about money. Once filming on Eureka was done they would need to clear a little time in the diary to get started on the reminiscences. Nat had suggested that they meet at Albany, but Vere instead had proposed lunch at his club (‘May as well use the place while I’m here’). He offered a little wave from the corner table where he sat, by the window.
‘Nat, darling,’ he said in his melodious croon. His handshake was dry and papery. He was dressed in a serge pinstripe suit, though he showed no sign of discomfort in the heat. ‘I’ve got a gin and It on the go.’
‘I’ll have the same.’
Vere, with the merest lift of his eyebrows, signalled the waiter, then offered Nat a cigarette from a fancy silver case.
‘I gather you’re close to a finished script.’
Nat laughed at the implied rebuke. ‘One final push. I fancy I’ll still be handing in pages on the last day of shooting.’
Vere shook his head. ‘Even when we made those absurd little thrillers at the Marlborough in the thirties it was never quite as seat-of-the-pants as it’s been on this one. I wonder if Reiner can pull it all together.’
‘If anyone can … He’s a brilliant improviser, that boy. Comes from his work in the theatre.’
Vere nodded, then fixed Nat with a stare that felt strangely and unguardedly fond. Disconcerted for a second, Nat smiled back and picked up The Times he had brought in. Riffling through its pages he found the article. ‘Here, listen to this. “The Sexual Offences Bill has received royal assent. Debate in the House yesterday blah blah … has decriminalised homosexual acts in private between two men who have attained the age of twenty-one.” Victory at last!’
He passed the paper to Vere, who read in silence to the end; he folded it up carefully before handing it back. His expression was indecipherable.
‘You must be pleased, surely?’ said Nat.
Vere tweaked a smile. ‘I find it amusing that even the bill’s sponsors plead for homosexuals to comport themselves “quietly and with dignity” – no “public flaunting”, as they put it. I’ve a feeling they’d prefer it if we didn’t appear in public at all.’
Nat, feeling his triumphant messenger role somewhat deflated, pulled a face. ‘I thought, after what you’ve been through, this would be a red-letter day.’
‘Well, of course, but it’s come rather late for me, I’m afraid. How could one really know what it meant to live if one wasn’t allowed,’ he sighed, ‘to love?’
‘But you can now,’ Nat protested.
‘As I said, too late for me, dear boy. Thirty, even twenty years ago, I would have danced in the street – gone in for a little public flaunting, even. But I’ve grown old. The party has started when I’m no longer able to join in.’
Nat must have looked crestfallen, for Vere leaned over to give his hand a consoling pat, and suggested they went down for a bit of lunch. The dining room had an off-season feel – a lot of members summered out of town – and they got a table straight away. As they were examining the menus Nat’s eye was drawn to the signet ring glinting on Vere’s pinkie. He’d seen it before.
‘I don’t often wear it,’ Vere admitted. ‘It was bequeathed to me by a great-aunt I hardly knew. I think she lived in Oswestry. She came from a time when the Summerhills were landed gentry, hence the family crest.’ He held it up for a closer inspection.
Nat squinted at it. ‘Very handsome. Lends you a certain distinction.’
‘That implies I have been somewhat short of the quality hitherto,’ said Vere with a snuffling laugh. In a moment of abstraction he revolved the ring on his finger, as though he couldn’t quite believe he’d bothered putting it on. The waiter came to take their order – they both chose the sole meunière – and Vere, egged on by his guest, ordered a bottle of champagne to mark the ‘great day’; Nat still hoped to make something of the occasion, despite Vere’s seeming indifference. Once the waiter had poured and left the bottle with a napkin around its neck, Nat raised his glass and proposed a toast. Vere, anticipating it, shook his head.
‘Let’s drink to something else.’
‘Very well. How about to our joint venture – the memoir?’
At this, Vere’s expression changed. One could not be sure – he gave so little away – but it seemed almost a wince of apology. Had he had second thoughts about their collaboration?
‘This is what I wanted to talk to you about.’
‘Ah. Have you decided on someone else?’ said Nat, bracing himself for another rejection: he seemed to be collecting them at the moment.
Vere fluttered his hand in dismissal of the thought. ‘Not at all, darling, you’re the ideal man. It’s just that –’ He stopped, and leaned back in his chair. ‘I don’t think a joint venture is feasible. What would you say to writing the book on your own?’
Nat blinked in confusion. ‘But it’s a memoir. Your memoir. I’m just the writer for hire.’ He wondered now if Vere had lost interest in the project, or whether he simply couldn’t face digging up the past. It might be exhausting to confront so many ghosts at once. ‘What do you mean by “feasible”, anyway? Are you going off somewhere?’
Vere gave a wistful half-laugh. ‘In a manner of speaking.’
A dread that had stolen almost unnoticed into Nat’s consciousness was starting up a tom-tom in his chest. It had first been planted there, he realised, when Vere had talked of the Sex Bill as ‘too late’ for him. Nat had taken that as a sixty-year-old’s rueful nod to his lost virility; now he felt he had quite misapprehended the remark. He looked in appeal across the table, and Vere, holding his gaze, said quietly: ‘I didn’t mean to tell you like this, but in the circumstances, I’m sorry, it seems unavoidable.’
And that told him for certain. ‘Oh no, Vere. No. Not you.’
Nat, to his surprise, felt tears brimming over his eyelids. He could hardly bear to listen as Vere described his last visit to Harley Street, the doctor’s grave concern, the series of X-rays, the diagnosis. ‘You said it was just a check-up,’ he gasped, almost accusingly.
‘I thought that’s all it was,’ replied Vere patiently. ‘I’d had a scare last year and got the all-clear, remember? Well, these things have an unfortunate habit of coming back.’
A long time seemed to pass before Nat could command his voice.
‘Did they say – do they know – how long?’
‘Maybe six months. A year, if I’m lucky. It’s in the lungs and making further inroads.’
At this point the waiter reappeared with their food, and Nat averted his tear-smudged face in embarrassment. They stared for a moment as the fish steamed on their plates.
‘O my prophetic sole,’ he muttered. He had to pull himself together, and a silly pun would be a start.
Vere chuckled, and filled up their glasses again. ‘Here, I have a toast, if I may,’ he said. ‘To the end of the line. The last of the Summerhills.’
Nat looked at him, aghast. ‘You can’t mean …’
‘I have one relative left in the world. A sister, lives alone down in Hampshire,’ Vere said, in a strangely cheerful voice. ‘She’s no more likely to have an heir than I am.’
The stoical way he said this caused Nat such a pang he thought he might break down again. ‘To you,’ he croaked.
‘To the last of the Summerhills,’ Vere gently corrected him. They drank. ‘And I must ask you, dear boy, not to let any of this out – not yet. On a personal level I couldn’t stand the fuss. And money-wise it might damage the film, too, with the insurance and so on.’
‘Will you be able to … finish it?’
‘I should think so. I get tired, of course, and I’m not quite the ray of sunshine I’d like to be.’
It was all falling into place for Nat, who now said, ‘I fear you may have been a little short with our mutual friend; Billie?’
Vere gave a wince of dismay. ‘That was the day I’d heard. The poor girl got me at just t
he wrong moment.’
‘I know she’ll understand. She’s got a kind heart.’
They struggled through their lunch. Nat had lost his appetite, though he drank very determinedly. Vere did little better, pushing the food around his plate before abandoning it in favour of a cigarette. They talked about the remainder of the shoot, the week’s location in northern Italy and a few days in Rome. It was not ideal, given his condition, but he would make the best of it. Nat knew he would: it was the old spirit of self-sacrifice that Vere’s generation had absorbed in the war. Head down and carry on. It might be sensible, Nat suggested, to slip Reiner the news on the quiet: it would enable him to arrange filming around Vere’s need for rest. The latter nodded his acquiescence.
Nat was feeling rather woozy from the drink by the time they descended the club steps. On putting his arm out for Vere he felt that he himself might need propping up more than his companion did. The summer afternoon had been ticking by sedately while he’d been inside, dealing with a bombshell. He asked the porter to whistle up a cab for Vere. While they lingered on the pavement he said, ‘Is there anything I can do for you – anything you need?’
Vere shook his head slowly. ‘Although, please think about the book. The publishers will only give it to some dolt, otherwise.’
‘I’m not sure, you know, without your …’ He didn’t want to complete the sentence for fear that it sounded like Vere was already gone.
‘You’d have my papers, of course: correspondence, diaries and so forth. You’re the man best qualified to write it, darling.’
‘Really?’
Vere looked at him. ‘You know, when I was in prison friends kept promising to come, and sometimes they made excuses or else they just didn’t bother. Too scared, perhaps. All the time I was inside – I’ve never told anyone this – I only had two visitors. One was my lawyer. And the other was you.’
He had a distant smile on his lips as he spoke, though Nat thought he detected behind his nonchalance what it had cost him in pride to admit this. It struck him as odd that Vere hadn’t ever really talked about Pentonville, though perhaps no odder than his never having asked. As the taxi pulled up to the kerb he turned to Nat with a solicitous frown.
Eureka Page 20
