She knew she was violating an unspoken trust, but her curiosity was now a runaway horse. Taking a chair to stand on she peered into the dark recess above. She touched the hard edges of a wooden box, and carefully took it down, half dreading what she might find. Flipping back the lid she boggled at a collection of canes, whips, crops, sticks, rackets. And masks! Masks to suit a housebreaker or highwayman, and carnival masks with witchy noses and pumpkin grins. An adult’s dressing-up box; but from where did the thrill derive? Without thinking she took up a Pierrot mask and put it on, eyeing herself in the wardrobe’s inlaid mirror. She picked up a cane and bent it like a sadistic schoolmaster, emitting a low snarl. She giggled, feeling nothing, and returned them to the box.
She had filled the suitcase and was about to close up the wardrobe when she saw, half hidden behind the rack of shoes, a verdigris-coloured metal box – the sort the staff kept at the hotel for petty cash. She picked it up by its thin handle and pulled it out. Locked, of course, but after the secrets disgorged elsewhere this had to be worth investigating. She began to hunt for the key in the desk drawers, in the bedside table, in the kitchen. The couple of keys she uncovered didn’t fit. Sighing, she prepared to give up the search when her eye fell on the ring of keys Nat had given her, discarded for the moment on the dining table. She hadn’t noticed the little subsidiary key beneath the Banham that had let her into the place. With a quickening jolt of trespass she inserted it into the lock, which she knew would turn half an instant before it did.
The porter had handed her into the cab with the same obliging blankness as before. She watched Piccadilly flash by, Nat’s suitcase wedged into the corner seat opposite. She had cleared all trace of her brief trawl through his rooms, even washing up the glass she had used for the gin and tonic. She closed her eyes and returned to the night back in June when they’d had Nat to dinner at Fortess Road. God, to think she had tried to set him up with her mum – the anguish of humiliation she might have caused.
She was still trying to blink from her eyes the imprint of what she had found in the metal box: photos, a stash of them, some sleek with expertise, others just staged Victorian smut. They were variations on a theme: a woman, partly undressed, with a coy smile and her backside bared to a man, who was usually masked and holding a cane or whip. Then there were the Polaroids, in colour, explicit and unsentimental. She couldn’t understand the pleasure to be had from gazing at close-ups of an anus, its pink puckered ‘O’ gaping at the lens. What strangers we are to one another, she thought. The Nat she knew was suave, droll, a generous friend and an invaluable patron. To think he might have shopped her, justifiably, to the police; instead he had given her the break of her life. Of course he was also known to be a bit of a devil, as evidenced in that weird game of guess-the-underwear he’d initiated at the hotel in Italy. With artists and writers outlandishness was part of the deal. But a sadomasochistic pervert?
The taxi was turning into Gray’s Inn Road as she emerged from her troubled reverie. On a whim she asked the driver to stop at Frederick Street, where she could quickly collect a few things of her own. She was taking a risk – Jeff might be at home, though on a warm morning like this she thought he would be out. Having asked the man to wait she fished out her house keys and hurried down the steps to let herself in. Her relief at his absence was mingled with a sadness that it should be this way: the day he had moved in here had felt so brimful of hope. She surveyed the living room and its tidal scum of smeared dishes, loaded ashtrays, discarded newspapers; carelessness was another of the artist’s privileges. An urge to clean up chafed at her, but she resisted. In the bedroom she emptied out a drawer and filled a bag with her jewellery, make-up, some perfume. She cleared another drawer of her underwear, rather ordinary-looking, even frumpy, after what she’d found at Nat’s place. She hesitated over her stack of albums. It seemed too painful to extricate these tokens of her youth, the songs she’d listened to, over and over, when she was falling for Jeff. She stared at the sleeve of Beatles for Sale for a few moments, then put it back with the others.
She was back in the living room when a shadow descended the steps and a key scratched in the lock. Jeff stood in the doorway, immobilised with shock. He wore jeans and a T-shirt emblazoned with the name of a band she’d never heard of. His beard looked thicker.
‘Billie,’ he said, as though trying the name for size. ‘What’s going on?’ A glance at the two carrier bags at her side answered his question.
‘Just picking up a few things,’ she said, her voice low. ‘How have you been?’
He ignored that. ‘Did your mum tell you I’d been round?’
‘Yeah. She was all for calling the police.’
Jeff scowled, as if he might have expected such an injustice. ‘You know I’d never hurt you. I can’t even remember doing … whatever it was she said.’
‘Well, you were standing over me, holding a hammer. With murder in your eyes.’ She looked at him now; she felt a thin quiver of fear, still, but overriding it was pity. He seemed reduced, his presence somehow a caricature of what he had once been.
‘I’d never hurt you,’ he repeated.
‘I’m not going to give you the chance,’ she said, picking up the bags. She made to leave, and he took a step in front of her. ‘Jeff. Please. You’re not going to stop me.’
‘Can’t we just talk? You’ve not even heard me out.’
She sighed at that. ‘I stuck with you for a long time. I know things were hard, but it meant I always had to tiptoe around you, worrying that I’d say the wrong thing, put you in a mood. It was exhausting.’
‘But it’s not like –’
‘I can’t do it any more. Whatever I used to feel, it’s gone.’
‘Billie.’ His tone was pleading.
‘I’ve got a taxi waiting up there. Sorry.’
When she made for the door she half expected him to make a lunge for her, but he didn’t. Her foot was on the steps when she heard him say, ‘Go on, then. Back to mother.’
But she realised it was beyond him to provoke her. At the top step she turned and said, ‘Bye, Jeff.’
Back in the taxi she was overcome by a trembling, the sort you felt after stepping off the roller coaster at a fairground. The jelly-legs, the galloping heartbeat. It was relief, and something else – a certainty that she had made the break, and needn’t ever put herself through it again. She asked the cabbie to drive around for a few minutes while she collected herself. The double discombobulation of Nat’s wardrobe and Jeff’s appearance was quite enough for one morning.
She paid off the driver and stood outside the studio flat for a moment, the suitcase and bags at her feet. The street was so tucked away it surprised her to see another car pull up shortly after the taxi’s departure. It was a silver sports car, from which two men got out. One of them was so tall it was a wonder he could have folded himself into such a dainty-looking motor. The driver, she realised, was someone already known to her.
‘Carry yer luggage, miss?’ Joey Meres stood there, smiling, though it was a smile as thin as a prison shank.
Billie instinctively picked up the bags for herself. ‘Joey. What are you doing here?’
Joey’s grin turned rueful. ‘I think you know what. We’ve been behind you all the way from Piccadilly.’ He looked up at the house. ‘Funny to be back ’ere. My old manor.’
‘So you’ve been looking for me?’ asked Billie, despairing of her own bluff.
‘Come on, Billie. We know he’s here. Either you let us in or Valentine’ – he nodded at his enormous slab-cheeked companion – ‘will take that door off the hinges.’
With the graciousness of a hotel porter Joey took the suitcase off her and nodded encouragingly at the door. Helpless, she let them in. At a nod from Joey, Valentine remained in the hallway, his face blank as granite. Billie led the way up, a sick feeling in her stomach. At the half-landing she stopped and turned.
‘Please don’t do anything to him,’ she said, beseeching him with her
eyes.
‘I don’t intend to. I’m just here to collect him. Harry wants a word.’
‘Joey, honestly –’
He shushed her. ‘Don’t upset yourself. He’ll be all right.’
She couldn’t tell if he said this to appease her or if he really meant to spare Nat. He jerked his chin in a mute command to proceed. She took the final flight of stairs, and with a tap she entered the room. Nat stood against the far wall, grim-faced, smoking like a man about to be blindfolded.
‘Nat, I’m sorry,’ she said, a moment before Joey crossed the threshold behind her.
‘It’s all right,’ said Nat. ‘I saw the car outside.’
‘There he is, Speedy Gonzales!’ cried Joey. ‘Nat, I couldn’t see you for dust yesterday. What was that about?’
‘I felt a sudden reluctance to accept Mr Pulver’s hospitality.’
‘That’s as may be, but he insists, I’m afraid.’
Nat nodded slowly, and flicked his eyes to Billie. ‘Please don’t involve her. She was just trying to help.’
Joey scowled, seemingly offended. ‘Why would I? It’s you I came for.’
Trying to keep her voice level, Billie said, ‘What’ll happen to him?’
Nobody spoke for a moment, then Joey said, ‘He’ll most likely get a smacked arse.’ The irony in his tone was unmistakable.
Nat cut a glance at Billie, wondering if she understood, but Billie’s face was a mask. Joey wagged his head: time to go. ‘Here’s your suitcase,’ he said, holding it for Nat to take. ‘Plannin’ a holiday?’
They made their way back down the stairs. Nat was calculating the odds of giving Joey the slip again when he saw, in the hallway, a hulking brute whose gaze carried nothing of curiosity or kindness.
‘This is Valentine,’ said Joey. ‘Don’t be deceived by his bulk: he’s very quick on his feet.’
Valentine gave no sign of having heard this testimonial. He briefly stared at Nat, and opened the door onto the street. As they filed out, Nat caught Billie’s eye and said, under his breath, ‘Tell Reiner.’ She watched them get into the open-topped car, Joey at the wheel, Nat in the back with Valentine, proprietorial, like a bodyguard.
‘Joey,’ she called, but he had already switched on the engine, and when he did look at her he only winked, friendly but, in the circumstances, ambiguous. He pulled out from the kerb and drove off.
At the house on Seymour Place Nat was led up the stairs, past the long dining room where he and Berk had endured an uncomfortable hour with Pulver back in June. That was the occasion Harry had asked them – told them – to create a part in the film for his ‘young friend’ Gina. Nat had done him that courtesy. And like many a good deed it had now come back to bite him.
Today’s ‘meeting’ was in a room halfway to being modernised. Leather armchairs and mirrored glass fittings had been awkwardly pressed into the old shell of a lounge, its net curtains and hunting prints still clinging to a pre-war idea of genteel respectability. On a sofa in the corner sat Sonja, pale but defiant, and next to her Gina, her head bowed. They had been in the room some moments before she looked up, revealing a livid black eye. Harry himself sat at the bar eating a steak, a sullen glaze on his face; it lightened noticeably on Joey’s entrance, Nat and his huge escort in tow. The only others present were a barman, and a black Labrador snoozing in his basket. Gina was looking away, so Nat twitched a reassuring smile at Sonja. But he felt only a horrible tightening in his gut.
Joey strolled over to whisper in Harry’s ear; the latter, putting down his knife and fork, stared at Nat while he listened. Something had been decided. Harry was wearing a fawn-coloured shirt with a pinstriped waistcoat and suit trousers. He got down from his stool at the bar and swaggered over to Nat.
‘Heard you were planning to leave the country,’ he said, so close to Nat that he got a noseful of his meaty breath. ‘Joey here’s like a terrier after a rat. He woulda run yer down sooner or later.’
Nat, keeping his voice level, said, ‘Well, I’m here now. I’d be grateful if we could get this over with.’
Harry pulled his chin back, frowning. ‘D’you hear this one?’ he said to Joey. ‘We’re keeping him from his business.’
Joey shook his head. ‘Whatever that is …’
‘I never knew writers were such twerps, did you? I mean, the trouble he’s caused. As for the other stuff he’s been up to …’ He shook his head disbelievingly.
‘Problem is,’ said Joey, ‘if you give someone a hiding, you gotta be sure they understand it’s a punishment. This feller – he’s that weird he might enjoy it.’
Harry nodded, brooding on this philosophical conundrum. He padded over to the basket where the Labrador was curled, and picked up the dog’s chain. He rolled up his shirtsleeves and wound the strap around his fist. ‘All the same,’ he conceded, ‘I think it’s worth putting to the test. He’s only ever had it from the ladies before.’
Right up to the last moment Nat thought Pulver would hold off. To start beating him in front of the others was surely too grotesque, like a deranged Roman emperor whimsically turning on one of his consuls. So when he felt a sharp lash across his thighs he nearly jumped in surprise. The dog lead got tangled around him, so that Harry had to tug it free. He took a few steps back to adjust his range, and swung again, connecting this time with Nat’s backside. It stung, of course, but Nat was determined to give him no encouragement: he would take it, and hope that the humiliation might be deflected upon his tormentor. Another blow, and another, came down. Gina in the corner gasped out, ‘Harry, don’t,’ though fear choked any conviction in her voice. Joey, arms folded, watched impassively for the first ten or twelve thwacks, then stepped back to open a window; the smell of sweat had pinched the air.
Catching his breath, Harry growled, ‘Are you enjoying this?’
Nat, pain singing around his body, only stared at him. Goaded by his silence, Harry repeated the question. ‘I said’ – thwack – ‘are you enjoying this?’ – thwack. ‘Say it,’ he snarled, and swung again. ‘Say it!’
Nat had still not replied when a low voice interrupted. ‘Stop. Stop it now.’
Sonja had stood up and interposed herself between them. Loathing seemed to crackle off her like static. ‘You think you’re a big man, being able to hurt him, but you’re not. People despise you.’
Harry Pulver had gone pale. He was winding himself up to reply when she added, with majestic disdain, ‘A pig, that is what you are. A pig in a wig.’
I wish you hadn’t said that, Nat thought, just before Harry’s free hand swiped her hard across the face. Sonja’s head rocked back; the air seemed to tense with the raw sound of flesh against flesh. When she brushed her hair away her expression wasn’t cowed or even surprised: it was scornful. Calmly, she spat in Harry’s face. Time stilled for a moment. The room had tipped from its axis.
Harry wiped off the spittle, dropped the dog lead and, with an animal speed, grabbed Sonja by the throat. ‘You fucking …’ he breathed, at a loss to describe her. He looked round to the bar where he’d left his food to go cold. A steak knife glinted on the counter and he snatched it up. Nat, his reactions blunted to an underwater sluggishness, saw what was about to happen and cried out – he had no idea what he said, and it made no difference. The bright steel flashed before he even moved, and the air was pierced by a scream, Gina’s – her keening went on and on while they looked at Sonja, at a stagger, her trembling hands leaking blood as they covered her split face. Suffering Christ, thought Nat, struggling not to be sick. He had seen stage blood many times before, but it never looked or smelled like the real thing, great dark gouts of it, running down her arms, dripping on the carpet.
Joey got to her just as she fainted, and he carried her over to the couch. He took out a white handkerchief from his breast pocket to press against Sonja’s face. ‘Gina, shut up and help me,’ he snapped. ‘Keep that pressed to her.’
He came back up the room to Harry, who seemed immobilised by what he’d
just done. Joey stared him in the face.
‘What the fuck? She’s a woman.’
But Harry, breathing heavily, couldn’t summon the will to speak. His skin was as pale and shiny as lard. Joey turned instead to Valentine and grunted an order; when Nat looked back some minutes later both Harry and the man-mountain were gone. Shirt front spattered crimson, Joey took over staunching the wound from the sobbing Gina. Sonja had come round, her moans piteous to the ear. It was decided among them to take her to Paddington, the nearest hospital.
As they drove, Gina nursing Sonja in the back, Joey kept up a nervous stream of instructions to Nat: once she was in surgery he should call Berk, he’d take care of the insurance people; keep the press out, no way did they want a story about Harry attacking a woman, he was already under a cloud after that incident with the waiter. He should also break it to Reiner, though God knows how he’d react –
Nat, finding his voice at last, said, ‘I imagine he’ll want to kill him.’
Joey seemed to hear something more than a figure of speech. ‘Reiner?’
‘He’s a creature of passions. A friend of mine thinks … but I dare say Harry’s got protection enough.’ He looked askance at Joey, who didn’t seem to notice, or else ignored it. His mind seemed to be running in other directions, for he now dropped his voice to a near-whisper.
‘What’s the name of that actor who had the accident? Smashed his face?’
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