Lunching at Laura's

by Claire Rayner

  ‘Oh, Paul, do stop being so stuffy!’ Cord’s lighter voice was jovial and full of laughter. ‘She’s a dear, darling old glutton and she’ll adore them, you know that perfectly well.’

  ‘She is not! And even if she were it’s none of your affair. And don’t call her – she’s Mrs. Balog to you. You’re not a relation –’

  ‘Oh, don’t try that on, Paul! I’m married to your cousin Ilona! Of course I’m a relation. And that means –’

  ‘It doesn’t give you the right to call my mother Anya.’ Balog’s voice was shriller now. Goddamit, Joel thought, he’s almost in tears. Because the man is too familiar with his mother? Surely not?

  ‘As if it makes the slightest difference, my dear chap. Do you think you can stop me just by telling me I’m not a relation? Do you think I’ll just say sweetly, ‘Oh, all right then. Let’s forget all about it. I’ll pop off home now? Do be your age! I’m on to something good here and I’m not letting it go whatever you or any one of them say, so there it is. You got yourself into this corner on your own, so you pick up the pieces. And I’ll pick up the cheque and the documents tonight.’

  ‘I won’t give them to you,’ Paul said and his voice trembled now. ‘I won’t sign them –’

  ‘Oh, Balog, do stop being such a bore! We’ve been all through this till I’m sick and tired of it. Am I to tell your family all about you? About your interesting tastes and the sort of men you –’

  ‘Christ, I’ll kill you, Cord,’ Paul said and Joel almost got to his feet. Even at the risk of being labelled an eavesdropper he couldn’t let this go on, whatever it was. Paul was at the end of his control; at any moment now he’d either explode or collapse, that was very obvious. But then Cord laughed softly and said, ‘There you are at last! Three punnets of those raspberries please – the best ones, mind. They’re for a very dear old lady, my aunt, you know, mother of my dear cousin here – gone ninety, you know. Remarkable isn’t it?’

  ‘Remarkable!’ Sam Price’s tones were unmistakeable and as he heard the scales clash gently and the tinkle of coins going into the cashbox Joel subsided back on to the kerbstone, and listened as the two men moved away, hearing the footsteps disappear into the hubbub of the street.

  There was no sign of Cord when five minutes later he made his way round the back of the neighbouring stall to reappear a few yards further down the street. He felt ashamed of being so devious; he could just as easily have stood up and walked straight out into the street, for he had done no wrong in sitting there, but all the same – and as he left the shadows and emerged into the vivid sunshine he looked round covertly. But all he saw was Paul, standing at one side of the shooting area and looking as he had all morning; quiet and composed and ready to work.

  Joel hesitated a moment and then very deliberately walked over to him.

  ‘You all right, Balog?’ he said and looked closely at the man. His face was expressionless as he stared back, and he lifted his brows in cool and rather dismissive enquiry.

  ‘I thought you looked a little – put out. As though something was worrying you.’

  ‘Not in the least.’ He smiled faintly. ‘This isn’t exactly a taxing part, is it? I hoped I was doing what you wanted?’

  ‘Oh, yes, yes,’ Joel said heartily. Too heartily. ‘Great stuff. As nice a little piece of work built on no foundation as I’ve ever seen. I’d like to see you with a part you can really work on, believe me I would. It wasn’t work I meant – I was just –’

  ‘As long as I’m working as you want me to,’ Balog murmured and drew away, slightly but unmistakeably and, snubbed, Joel turned and went back to the camera man who was waiting with ill concealed impatience for him. Sod the bastard, he thought savagely, sod him. I wanted to help, that was all. If he wants to chuck it in my face let him get on with it. See how much I care.

  But he did care. All that afternoon as he got the final shot together – and it worked magnificently in spite of all his preoccupation – he was aware of Paul Balog. He watched him walk faultlessly through his section of the complicated saraband that had been worked out for all the actors playing both stall keepers and the passersby, watched him when they broke as usual after two hours for a cup of tea, brought from a neighbouring cafe, watched as people chattered at him, and he seemed to reply courteously if unenthusiastically. It was all so normal that he began to think he’d imagined that little episode at lunchtime, had drifted into a fantasy in which Cord, the man he so much hated, played the part of a Bad Person. The way he was feeling about Laura and this man’s involvement with her was quite enough to have that effect, he told himself. But he knew, at bottom, that he hadn’t imagined it. There was indeed something going on between these two men that was unpleasant, even, he told himself, sinister, and then was furious at his own dramatising of what was probably a perfectly normal situation. Whatever documents and cheques they had been talking about it was none of his affair. If he had any sense he’d forget the whole thing and get on with his own life.

  Quite when he made the decision to go and see Laura he wasn’t sure. It seemed to grow on him so slowly that one moment he was unaware of it and then there it was, full blown in his mind.

  They were doing the last few cutaways as the market began to close up for the day, hurrying to get them into the can before the light changed completely and the backgrounds lost their animation as the stall keepers pulled down their tarpaulins, when he found himself thinking – tonight, I’ll go and see her tonight, have dinner, tell her I’m worried about her cousin who by a coincidence has been working for me this week.

  Coincidence, he thought and frowned. Will she believe me? It is a coincidence and they do happen all the time, but so often when you try to explain it, it all sounds so contrived. Well, he told himself sturdily, he couldn’t help that. He’d go and see her and tell her about Paul and this man Cord. Maybe she’d listen? Maybe she’d see what he saw, that Cord was very bad news for her?

  The more he thought about the plan the better he liked it, and even took time out to send his P.A. to phone the restaurant and try to book a table for him. It was late in the day and it might be difficult but he had to try; and when the girl came back and told him that she’d managed to get a table for him, because they’d had a cancellation, his spirits lifted absurdly. Maybe today was going to turn out to be one of those magical ones that happened sometimes when everything goes right; a good job of work finished, and a chance to talk to Laura. What more could a man ask for?

  And indeed the work did finish well; they got the final difficult shot in just four takes, which was amazing, though he did a couple more to be on the safe side, and at five thirty sharp was calling the wrap. Inside the budget, he told himself joyously, and Laura tonight. Oh, but life was good to him this warm summer day!

  ‘Why?’ Laura said and set her elbows on the table and rested her chin on her fists. It was the only way she could find to keep herself steady, her hands were shaking so much.

  ‘Some men are made that way,’ Alex said and leaned forwards and touched her face gently. ‘Darling, don’t look so bereft! It’s not the end of the world, is it?’

  ‘No. No, of course not.’ She managed to smile then, and even kept her gaze on his face, though her eyes felt sandy and hot. ‘Of course it isn’t – it’s just that –’

  ‘The man’s a shit,’ Alex said cheerfully. ‘But then everyone in the family’s always known it, so it can’t exactly be a surprise to you. Just you watch out for him, my duck, that’s all. Don’t let him get too close – word to the wise and all that sort of thing, eh?’

  Still she sat with her chin on her fists, staring at him, but she could control her eyes no longer. The pain was pushing against her throat and her nose, as sharp as needles, and the tears appeared and began to run down her face.

  At first Alex didn’t notice; she had sent Miklos to fetch him a bowl of cold wild cherry soup and he was drinking it greedily and didn’t look at her. But then he did look up and at the sight of her ravaged f
ace his own became a mask of amazement.

  ‘Laura! For God’s sake, girl, what on earth –’

  ‘Nothing,’ she said huskily and now she did move, thrusting her hands into her dress pocket to find a handkerchief and rub at her wet face. ‘Nothing – it’s just that I’m –’

  Alex pushed his soup bowl aside and reached across the table to take hold of both her hands. ‘Laura? Why are you so upset? I mean – there wasn’t more to this than a bit of chatting up, was there?’

  She shook her head, speechlessly and extricated one hand so that she could rub her face again, and he almost shook her other hand with impatience, ‘Laura! Will you tell me?’

  ‘It’s not important,’ she said dully. ‘It really isn’t. Now that I know I’ll keep away from him. It’s as simple as that. Now that I know.’

  ‘Of course it’s important!’ Alex said. ‘Godammit all, I have to know! Has that lousy shit been – I mean, has there been a – oh, Christ, I hate all this! It’s all wrong – but has he been screwing you?’

  ‘Nice way to put it,’ Laura said, with a sudden spark of her usual self emerging. ‘I saw it – to me it was different.’

  ‘I’ll murder him,’ Alex said and his voice was very flat, with no histrionics in it at all, and he pushed his chair back as though he were going to get up and go and find him then and there and she pulled him back.

  ‘Don’t be so stupid,’ she said sharply, and again rubbed her face though the tears had stopped now. ‘I’m not a child, nor am I some kind of possession of yours you have to take care of. I’m a grown up person, Alex. Anything I did I did of my own free will. Eyes wide open and all that. So don’t insult me by making a great drama over it. Just let me get over it in my own way. Privately.’

  ‘The man’s a bastard, a shit. I could –’

  ‘Yes, yes,’ she said wearily. ‘Call him names if it makes you feel any better. For my part I’d just like to be left in peace.’

  ‘Christ knows I’m no bloody angel,’ Alex said, and he made fists of both hands and beat them lightly on the table in front of him. ‘I’ve run both ways and thought it fair enough – but you don’t do this to one of your own.’

  ‘Do what?’ she said and took a deep breath. ‘Don’t find you have needs other people don’t? Are you being all moralistic about homosexuality all of a sudden, Alex? It doesn’t suit you.’

  ‘Of course not! But it’s possible to be gay and to be a decent sort of bloke as well. I thought you of all people would know that –’

  ‘I do,’ she said shortly and then leaned forwards and touched his cheek. ‘Listen, Alex, never think I feel like this because – because Philip happens to be gay as well – because he is what he is. It’s not that. I’m upset because he didn’t tell me. And I thought well – I had thought it was a worthwhile thing. Important, you know? And it couldn’t have been important or he’d have told me – about Paul. That’s what hurts. But I don’t blame him. He – he prefers someone else to me. And it happens to be a man. Well, it happens. Happens all the time, they tell me. And now it’s happened to me. It’s just my bad luck – it’s no – it’s not his fault is it? I just wish he’d told me about Paul –’

  ‘And about me as well?’

  She sat and stared at him, her face quite still and then closed her eyes suddenly.

  ‘Oh, God,’ she whispered. ‘Oh, God.’

  ‘Is that worse than Paul?’

  ‘Yes,’ she said, and opened her eyes. ‘Of course it is.’

  ‘It was a while ago,’ he said and looked away, embarrassed, and that she found very touching. Alex had always talked to her cheerfully and easily about his lovers, about the boys he fancied and the ones who fancied him and though she had not liked thinking of him as promiscuous – which clearly he was – she had been glad he had trusted her so well, and had been particularly glad that he was never embarrassed. But now he was.

  ‘It was odd,’ he said then. ‘I mean, one minute he was all over me and then phtt – it was over. I hadn’t minded. I mean, I know he’s Ilona’s husband and all that, but it wouldn’t be the first time I had an affair with a married man –’ He grinned a little crookedly then. ‘It sounds so wonderfully “True Romances” doesn’t it? I like that. But it was him who got bothered, I think. He was talking about the family one evening and then suddenly, that was it. He went and never called me again. It wasn’t till Paul called me I had any idea that – he seems to be cutting a swathe through us all, doesn’t he? Do you suppose there’s something about being Hungarian that turns him on and never mind the gender?’

  ‘I don’t know.’ She seemed to have withdrawn into her own misery now, and was hardly listening to him, but at least she’d stopped crying, Alex thought; and went on talking, needing to give her time to recover even more, for the restaurant was beginning to fill up now with pre-theatre diners.

  ‘He’s certainly fascinated by us all, isn’t he? Did he talk family history at you? He did it with me, for ever. The way the old people came here and how the restaurant was started and who owns it now –’

  ‘Yes,’ she said. ‘He’s interested. But I’m not. Not in him, not any more. I don’t ever want to hear another word about him, do you understand, Alex? I’m grateful to you for coming when I asked you, and grateful to you for telling the truth so honestly. It – at least I know everything now. I thought it was just Paul, but now I know it was – well, that’s it. I never want to see him or hear of him again, is that clear?’

  ‘It won’t be that easy,’ he said. ‘What with family things. Anya Zsuzske’s party every year and all –’ He seemed to brighten then. ‘Maybe she’ll be dead by next year. Then you can dodge it.’

  She managed a laugh. ‘You don’t change, do you? You’re a complete villain, always were –’

  ‘And I love you. You’re the best sister any man ever had, villain or saint. Don’t forget that.’

  ‘I won’t.’ She smiled, shy suddenly. ‘And you remember – not another word about all this. Now I know it all, I can cope. As long as it doesn’t – as long as people don’t chew it over and over. You know what I mean?’

  ‘I know. And I hope we do know all there is to know. I wouldn’t trust Philip Cord as far as – all right, all right. Not another word. Can I have the rest of my soup now? It’s even better than usual –’

  She pushed the bowl towards him and got to her feet. ‘I’ll see how things are going in the kitchen. I’ve got a lot to do,’ she said. ‘Enjoy your dinner – and thanks again –’

  He looked up from his soup bowl and opened his mouth to speak and then shifted his gaze to look over her shoulder, and she turned her own head to follow his stare.

  ‘Miss Horvath?’ Joel said and held out one hand. ‘I’ve booked a table so don’t worry about finding room for me. But there’s something I have to do. I mean I want to talk to you about – well, I was wondering. Could you spare the time to sit down and have a drink with me?’

  25

  ‘I really don’t think I can,’ Laura said carefully, holding the phone so tightly that her fingers tingled beneath her white knuckles. ‘I’ve had a lot to deal with just lately and –’

  She listened, her face creased with irritation.

  ‘Well, Dolly, I’m sure it is, but I really can’t – what? Well, that’s up to Evelyn, of course. It’s not for me to –’

  Again she was interrupted and now she made no attempt to be polite any longer. ‘Look, Dolly, I have to say no. I can’t see you today, and that’s all there is to it. I’m running a hell of a busy restaurant here and I can’t indulge myself with cosy family chats in the middle of it all. What? – Ye Gods, Dolly, who the hell do you think you’re talking to? I am not your employee, or anything like it! I run this place because it suits you all that I should and you get a bloody good income out of it. Don’t try to pretend there’s any more involvement than that for you. You have no right to tell me how to run this business. All you have to do is cash your cheques when you get ’em, which, t
hanks to me, is very very regularly. And they’re large cheques too. So be grateful for that, and stop pestering me!’ And she slammed the phone down on its cradle and stood there trembling, her eyes closed, and breathing in deeply through her nose.

  She couldn’t remember the last time she’d lost her temper quite so spectacularly; it was not the sort of self indulgence she admired, but this last call had been the culmination of so much. Bad enough she had gone through such stress while she was trying to drum up the courage to ask Alex to come in to the restaurant so that she could talk to him about what Paul had said that night at her flat; bad enough to have had to swallow the things he had to tell her. On top of that there had been that unpleasant scene with Joel Coplin last night, and now this – she opened her eyes and stared miserably at the window, where Angie was watering the creepers and very obviously not paying any attention at all to anything but the green leaves with which he was dealing.

  ‘Bloody woman!’ she said loudly now and Angie looked innocently over his shoulder.

  ‘Talking to me?’

  ‘Not to the wall, Angie. Who else?’

  ‘Thought you might still be on the phone,’ he said and grinned at her.

  ‘You know damned well I wasn’t,’ she said and sat down on her tall stool and folded her arms in front of her and rested her chin on them.

  ‘That was Madam De Yong, I take it?’ Angie said with great casualness, pouring water with finicky care onto the plant at the very end of the row. ‘She used to drive your dad potty ’n’ all.’

  ‘She’s impossible!’ Laura said. ‘As if I haven’t enough to put up with without her nagging as well. And talking to me as though – you’d think I was a dish washer or something, she’s so damned imperious. Oh, Angie, I wish I could buy her out! Not that I suppose she’d agree, of course, but wouldn’t it be marvellous?’

  ‘You’d have to buy out your Auntie Evelyn as well, though, wouldn’t you?’ Angie said and at last set down his watering can, unable to pretend to be busy there another moment, and came over to stand in front of her desk. ‘They reckon to be at daggers drawn, those two, but they’re even more like thick as thieves, as I see it. And don’t they have the same share between ’em? Your Uncle Istvan’s?’