by Jessie Keane
Someone grabbed her around the waist. ‘Whoa! Steady on, miss, you can’t go in there.’
One of the firemen. She twisted in his grip like a cat, determined to be released, to complete her purpose.
Now another man grabbed her too, and between them they held her steady.
‘Miss! You can’t go in there, you can’t,’ said the second officer.
And then Clara saw that there was a bundle laid out near the front of the house, a bundle of what looked like blackened rags.
‘Is that . . . ?’ she choked, and then she couldn’t speak any more, the smoke was too dense, too awful, it tore the breath from her lungs. With a gargantuan effort she pulled free and was off, stumbling toward the pile of rags. Ambulances were arriving now, medics piling out. Clara ran, fell, righted herself, ran on. Because that wasn’t rags, it was a person, she could see that now.
Bernie? Oh Christ! Not Bernie . . .
Here in the front garden of her lovely house she could feel the furious roaring heat of the fire; it seemed to blast at her skin, to snatch her breath. She fell to her knees beside the person laid out on the lawn. There was a fireman bending over the body, and he looked up in surprise when Clara arrived on the scene.
‘No – miss – go on, get back, get away . . . ’ he said, and he was choking too, coughing, trying to get the words out.
‘Bernie?’ Clara managed to say. She reached down, pushed back a section of blanket, and let out a gasp of horror.
It wasn’t Bernie.
It was Toby.
And he’d been burned.
65
Toby’s eyes were the same. That was all she could think as she stared down at him. His face was smeared with soot, his skin was scarlet and peeling away from his face in strips, his thick, gorgeous hair had been reduced to frazzled fluff, scorched to blackened tufts, his handsome looks were gone, never to return. He was nearly unrecognizable. But his eyes were the same, even if his brows and lashes were burned off. His left hand rested on the blanket they’d put over him, and it was like a mummy’s claw, dried and seared and ruined.
Oh God, he’d been afire, he’d stumbled out of the house in flames, hadn’t he. She could see it, could picture it in her mind. His hand was black and red and . . . she went to touch it, and she couldn’t. She was afraid to. It would feel . . . horrible. And she might hurt him even more than he was hurt already. But his eyes were still exactly the same, still recognizably Toby’s. Hazel-coloured and beautiful. They stared up at her and the expression in them was dazed, agonized and terrified.
He was alive.
Somehow Clara forced a smile onto her lips, willed her voice to be steady, to be strong. Inside she was screaming Please, not Toby, please no!
‘It’s all right, darling,’ she said. ‘You’re going to be fine, it’s all right.’ Then she said: ‘What happened? Can you tell me what happened?’
He wheezed; couldn’t speak.
‘Where’s Bernie, Toby?’
Toby wheezed in another gasping breath. His eyes held hers. But he said nothing. Could he speak? Had the heat seared his lungs, damaged them? She thought it had.
‘We couldn’t find anyone else in the house, miss,’ said the fireman, crouching beside her. ‘Look, the ambulance crew are coming now . . . ’
Toby’s eyes were still on her face. Somehow Clara didn’t cry. He wouldn’t want her to cry. She had to be calm and resilient, to reassure him that this was only a temporary thing, that he would recover, that all would be well.
It wouldn’t. She knew it wouldn’t. She could see it.
‘Now, Toby, don’t worry,’ she said with terrible forced brightness. ‘The doctors will help. They’re going to take you to the hospital and make you well again.’
‘Clara . . . ’
He could speak! But his voice was cracked, and the effort of speaking was exhausting what little strength he had left.
‘I’m here, darling. I’m right here.’ Her tears were spilling over. She couldn’t stop them now.
‘Clara . . . ’ he gasped, and then his eyes turned up in his head.
‘Toby!’ Clara leaned in closer. ‘No! Oh, please . . . Toby . . . ’
The medics came then, shoving her to one side. Choking, sobbing, she reeled back and the fireman pushed her away, further, out of the gate, to where it was safer. Her eyes were fastened on the pitiful bundle that was Toby, fastened on the people now clustering around him, talking, putting an oxygen mask over his ruined face, pumping at his burned torso.
She couldn’t look away.
All around her there was turmoil, the house still burning, firemen running, directing hoses, cursing the wind and saying loudly that they had to keep this from spreading to the other houses, they had to contain it. The flames leapt like demons. The fire was like a living thing, straight from hell, and it had grabbed Toby and burned his body to a crisp.
All the time Clara stared at that little group surrounding Toby, how they worked at him, how they struggled. And finally . . . at last, after minutes that felt like hours, how they gave up, stood up, shook their heads. She watched one of them pull the blanket over Toby’s face.
No. Oh God, please don’t take Toby too. Not him!
‘Clara?’
She turned, dazed, tear-stained, soot-streaked, toward the voice. Bernie was standing there, staring at her, then her gaze was going past her sister to the burning house beyond. Clara almost fell forward and grabbed her sister in a desperate hug. ‘I thought you were in there,’ she moaned.
‘Where’s Toby?’ asked Bernie, pushing Clara away. Clara thought that Bernie’s voice sounded strange; her face looked somehow wiped of emotion.
Clara couldn’t say it. She indicated with a trembling hand the spot where the ambulance people were now loading Toby’s blanket-shrouded remains onto a stretcher.
Bernie’s eyes widened. ‘Oh my God. Clara! He isn’t. Please say he isn’t.’
Clara couldn’t speak; she could only nod.
‘Oh Jesus . . . ’ Bernie started to cry. ‘Oh no.’
Clara felt the strength leave her. She slumped down onto the garden wall, and sat there, head in hands. She thought of Toby, laughing with her, trying on jewels, mincing around, sending himself up, making her laugh. Making her love him. He’d been no husband, it was true, but they’d weathered that storm without too big a fuss and come through it until finally they were the best of friends.
And now he was dead, gone from her forever.
Oh Christ, she thought. Toby.
66
There were things to be done. There were always things to be done, lots of things, and although life had lost all meaning for Clara she struggled to attend to business, as always. crippled with grief though she was inside, on the outside she continued to cope, to be the same old upright stern Clara.
Having to maintain the pretence of control was a help to her in the grim days after the fire. The insurance men came and grubbed around in the shell of the gutted house, her once-beautiful house full of all the wonderful things she and Toby had acquired over their pitifully short time together. The chimney was still standing, but everything else was a scorched, dripping skeleton of something that had once had life. Now the house itself had perished, along with Toby. And Clara felt that something within her had died, too.
But she pressed on. Bernie seemed to have shrunk away from her even more since the fire, which puzzled and wounded her.
‘We’ll stay at the flat over the Oak,’ said Clara to her sister. ‘There’s room enough for two. Until we sort out what we’re going to do next.’
But Bernie shook her head. ‘No, I . . . a friend of mine, Sasha, has offered, I’m staying with her.’
‘Oh. All right. If you want.’
‘Yes. I do.’
So Clara stayed alone at the poky little flat over the Heart of Oak nightclub, had all her mail redirected there. Toby’s club. Hers, now he was gone.
After Frank’s death, she could remember the feeling o
f release, of sudden freedom. Guiltily, she had also felt that at last she owned something worth having; all that Frank had owned before his death was now hers. Now she owned the clubs that had once been Toby’s, but that thought filled her with nothing but sorrow. She felt numb and alone.
The insurance men poked around some more, and left. She had to sort out the death certificate, do all the paperwork at the registrar’s. Then she visited the local undertaker’s, and arranged a splendid funeral for her late husband. Bernie kept her distance. Seemed almost like a stranger.
Alone, Clara sat in the flat over the Oak, trying not to weep over Toby – and failing. At least he’d lived as he wished to live, happy with his boys and – she hoped and firmly believed – happy with her, too. She clung to that, a tiny life-raft in an ocean of despair. And then, all too soon, the day of his funeral arrived.
It was a wet December day, cold and damp. All the girls and boys from the clubs, all Toby’s friends and business acquaintances turned out, the church was packed to the rafters. Clara gritted her teeth and endured throughout the service, the hymns – all the while staring at the coffin there on the dais. It was deep red mahogany, its brass handles and name plate buffed to a brilliant golden shine, and the whole of it was draped in mounds of sumptuous white lilies. It was just as Toby would have wished, just as Toby would have done for her.
He would have loved this, she thought.
Throughout the service, as she stood shoulder to shoulder with Bernie – thank God, at last they had shaken off that loser David Bennett – she couldn’t take it in. This was Toby they were burying. Toby’s ruined body lay inside that exquisite casket. Her flamboyant, gorgeous Toby. And . . . she glanced around and caught the eye of a beautiful young blond man, tears cascading down his face.
Oh Jesus.
It was Jasper. This was bad for her, horrible, but it must be equally bad for him. When her eyes met his, he looked away.
Soon, it was over.
There was the sad little scene beside the open grave, a blessing, and then it was done. Toby was truly gone. Clara found herself wishing that she could go home to their lovely house with its glamour and its grounds, but that was impossible; the place was a wreck, beyond saving; it would have to be demolished. Their neighbours had been lucky; the Cotton house had been an end property and the adjoining house had suffered a little damage, but nothing major.
She arranged a buffet in the Heart of Oak, and everyone came. Well, nearly everyone. Clara’s eyes searched the crowd for Jasper, who must be suffering over this, but he wasn’t there.
‘My commiserations, Mrs Cotton,’ said Marcus Redmayne, coming to stand in front of her.
‘Thank you. Help yourself to something to eat and drink.’ Quickly, she moved away. Marcus Redmayne always made her feel shaky, and she was shaky enough today, without having to act cool in front of him.
‘Toby was a great bloke,’ said the new manager of the Starlight, shaking her hand. ‘A real character. I’m so sorry.’
‘He was,’ she agreed.
‘One of the best,’ said someone else.
‘Yes. He was,’ she said, and seeing Bernie loitering near the buffet table – which was nearly empty of food now, and thank God for that because that meant this day would soon be over – Clara went to speak to her.
‘Are you all right, Bern?’ she asked. ‘You had something to eat?’
Bernie shook her head. ‘No, I couldn’t face it,’ she said, then her eyes rested on Clara’s face. ‘Clara?’
‘Yes, lovey?’
‘I’ve heard people saying that Toby was . . . well, “queer”. Did you know about that?’
Clara let out a breath. ‘Yes. Of course I knew.’
‘But you were married,’ said Bernie.
‘We were friends,’ said Clara.
‘It can’t have been much of a marriage.’
‘It was a very good one, actually.’
Bernie’s expression grew cold. ‘I don’t think you know what’s good and what’s bad when it comes to marriage,’ she said. ‘All you ever seem to want from any of your husbands is money.’
‘Bernie!’
‘Don’t “Bernie” me in that hurt tone of voice,’ she snapped. ‘David told me that you set him up. He told me you put those photos down the side of the chair in his flat. And you nicked a rubber stamp from his studio to convince me he’d taken the shots. He says he didn’t.’
‘That’s a lie,’ said Clara. ‘He admitted to me that he did take them. Bernie, it’s just lucky we found this out before it was too late.’
‘All I know is I’m miserable without him. And I keep telling myself, you wouldn’t stoop to such a thing, to set him up – but you would.’
‘He was no good for you, Bernie. Whatever I may have done, the fact remains he’s as guilty as fuck. And it’s always better to be a rich man’s darling than a poor man’s slave.’
‘There we are. Back to money again.’
‘Oh, come on, Bernie . . . ’
‘No! I don’t want to talk to you, Clara. I don’t want to hear any more.’ And Bernie hurried away, up the stairs, out of the club.
I’ve lost her, thought Clara. Her guts were churning in anguish. She’d lost Toby; she couldn’t bear to lose Bernie too.
She was relieved when the day was over, when at last she was able to crawl off to the flat upstairs and lick her wounds and cry her bitter tears in peace. The postman had delivered the mail earlier, and she read both letters while sitting slumped on the sofa, feeling exhausted, wrung out, full of misery.
The first was a bill. There were always bills. Clara slit open the second and gasped in a breath. It was from the insurance brokers and they were talking about ‘accelerants’ having been used during the house fire.
Clara dropped the letter into her lap and stared ahead, unseeing.
They were saying the fire had been started deliberately, and so they were not going to pay out. They were saying that Toby could have started the fire himself, to reap the insurance money. But Clara knew that was rubbish. She knew Toby. He’d loved that house as much as she did. And Toby had no need of a big cash payout, the clubs were all doing well, he had no money problems that she knew about.
But accelerants . . .
If Toby hadn’t started the fire himself – and she didn’t for a second believe that he had – then someone else had started it. And by doing that, they had murdered him, in cold blood.
67
She was single again. Fulton Sears watched her come and go in the clubs and in his heart he rejoiced. She was single, she was free. He went on with his life, sorting out aggro on the doors, dealing puff and a little coke, running the boys out on the street making collections from the business interests all around Soho, but in fact, all the while, his mind was elsewhere.
He couldn’t wait to get home to his flat and the shrine he’d set up in his front room. There was her handkerchief, the one she’d dropped while ferrying her first husband home from the pub. It still smelled faintly of her perfume. And there was her comb, still with strands of her black-as-mid-night hair attached to it.
Now he had her watch, too – a beautiful Cartier thing she’d put down in the women’s toilets and forgotten to pick up. The cleaner had handed it to him, and he’d kept it.
‘Clara, Clara,’ he whispered as he stood there and lit the candles on either side of the small table in the far corner of the room. He listened to Elvis Presley singing ‘Surrender’ on the Dansette and thought, Yes, oh yes.
Soon, Clara Cotton was going to surrender, she was going to be his. He’d waited patiently, let her get all this wildness out of her system. Soon, he would propose and he knew she would accept. Of course she would.
She had to.
68
1962
Christmas had passed for Clara in a dismal and solitary blur. She was still staying at the flat over the Heart of Oak and it was pretty much business as usual, only with added tinsel and Bing Crosby singing ‘White C
hristmas’ over and over again until she felt she would shriek, and loads more drunken punters.
She toured all the clubs during the week: the Starlight, the Paradise, the Carmelo, the Juniper and the CityBeat – which was a favourite drinking-hole for the mods, who rolled up, stoked up on amphetamines, on their Lambrettas and Vespas to party all night. Clara had heard of bad clashes between the mods and their fierce rivals the rockers – leather boys in jeans with greased-back hair – but there was no trouble in the CityBeat. Whatever Clara’s personal view of Fulton Sears, she had to admit that mostly he did manage to keep things peaceful. For herself, she was grateful for the necessity to be seen, to be functioning, because otherwise she felt she would have crumbled to dust, sat in the flat alone and cried, done nothing at all.
She had Toby’s contacts book, which he’d left in his desk at the Oak, and that helped her. She phoned round all their suppliers, placing new orders, establishing new lines of communication with the band managers, and everywhere she phoned people said how sorry they were, what a tragedy, if there was anything they could do she must let them know; everyone loved Toby.
Not quite everyone, she thought. She wanted to contact Jasper, see if he could shed any light on what had happened. But there was no entry for him under his Christian name in Toby’s contacts book, and she had no idea of his surname.
Along with the house, all her clothes, all those sumptuous furs and beautiful designer outfits she had so treasured, all her jewels, all her expensive lingerie – everything was gone. She went up West and bought herself some essentials, but she took no pleasure in it. Once, she would have had Toby to advise on outfits, he had a fine eye and would say, ‘No, darling, that’s too outrageous’ or ‘Darling, that is so you.’
Now she shopped alone. Bernie hadn’t been in touch since the day of Toby’s funeral. The police called and questioned her about the fire, but what did she know? Precisely nothing. They also asked if she had anything else to say about the death of Sal Dryden, but she hadn’t. She knew nothing about it.
