‘Yes,’ Laura said. ‘If only I could have their two shares, then maybe I could buy –’ She stopped suddenly and her eyes slid away from Angie, but he didn’t notice. He was standing looking dreamily at the ceiling, planning.
‘Then if you could raise the money to buy Mr. Balog’s share and then Mrs. Cord’s, you’d have the lot, wouldn’t you? What’re the chances, Mizz Horvy? Could you raise it? I got a bit set aside I could lend you, and then –’ Now he did look at her, hopefully.
‘No,’ she said shortly. ‘Not a chance. You’d better get back to the kitchen, Angie. The fish arrived fifteen minutes ago.’
‘I know when the fish arrived,’ Angie said with great dignity. ‘You don’t have to give me reminders. Listen, Mizz Horvy, I’ve been looking at the Vinegar Trust Newsletter. You know that new thing they’re doing now? They do these property price lists and last week there was a restaurant over at Frith Street went for –’
‘I don’t want to to talk about it, Angie.’ As if I could go to Ilona and ask to buy her share, she was thinking. I couldn’t even ask Paul easily; to talk to Ilona and therefore to Philip even on the most businesslike of terms would be impossible.
‘It’s a lot, I know, three hundred thousand at least, but I got the best part of fifteen thousand set aside, you know. Careful, I am, always was, and invested a bit of it, and it’d be the best thing I could think of to see you having the whole place. It’s not that I don’t think the world of the rest of the family. You know I do. But it’s all your work and effort, ‘n’t it? Ought by rights to be your place. If you could raise the rest of it, with my fifteen thousand and the bank –’
‘Please, Angie,’ she said and her voice was tight in her throat. ‘Please don’t.’ And he looked at her more closely and nodded.
‘Time I went back to the kitchen,’ he said as though no mention had been made of anything of any interest whatsoever. ‘Would you believe me, I’ve got bloody Hersh coming in this morning? It’s not three months since last time but he rings and says new regulations down at his office, he’s got to change the schedule, would you believe? He’ll be in at eleven. Talk to you later, then, Mizz Horvy –’
And he went back to his kitchen in so towering a bad temper that one of the kitchen boys actually burst into tears as well as giving in his notice and had to be soothed back to work with all the tact that Leno could muster.
Laura, alone in her quiet restaurant, let her shoulders slump and worked at relaxing. It didn’t seem possible that she could be upright at all after a night like the one that lay behind her. Never in all her life had she actually not slept at all, but last night – and she closed her hot eyes at the memory of the long hours spent rolling from side to side of her crumpled too-hot bed.
It’s not as though it had been a surprise, she told herself bleakly now, sitting and staring at the creepers in the window which were waving a little in the draught from the open door and glittering with the droplets from Angie’s watering can. Ever since that evening when Paul had come to her in such a panic she had known somewhere deep inside that her precious illicit love affair was threatened. She hadn’t wanted to face it, had wanted to go on just as they had been, meeting, laughing, eating, drinking, making love and laughing again, and she had worked hard for several days at blocking out the doubts that had come sliding into her mind because of what Paul had said. Don’t meddle, she’d told herself desperately. Settle for what you’ve got. Fun and – don’t meddle.
But of course it hadn’t worked, that self lecturing. So she had meddled, hadn’t been able not to. She had called Alex and he had told her what she had feared for too long was actually true. The man she loved regarded her merely as fun, as someone to play with, but no more than that. To her he had come to be the most important thing that had ever been. It had been as though he had grown and inflated like some vast glorious silver balloon to fill her entire world. And now the balloon had burst.
She had gone on with her work, of course, but it had been round the edges of her life and no longer at the centre of it. Work had ceased to be the magic answer to every fear and every self doubt and every worry about the future; it had become something she did to occupy the dead hours when Philip couldn’t be with her; only when he was had she lived and breathed and felt and known. And she had, all on her own, destroyed all that –
I won’t cry, she told herself fiercely and moving with sharp little actions pulled her ledgers towards her. Work had to be put back where it belonged, slap in the middle of life. It had to be restored to all its old preeminence, to be again all that there was; the one thing above all that mattered, the one thing that could be trusted, the one thing that gave comfort and reassurance.
And for a little while it almost seemed as though it was true; that she could blot out all that was miserable by a mere act of labour, but then the rest of it came pushing back into her awareness. That man Coplin standing there and saying, ‘Well, it would be easier to talk over a drink, but if you can’t, it’ll have to be like this. And the thing is, I’m concerned about a relative of yours. It’s ridiculous I suppose, but I’ve got the notion into my head that he – he’s in some sort of trouble and needs help. He’s a nice man, and I don’t want to interfere, but really, I am concerned about him –’
‘Who?’ Alex had asked bluntly and then added impatiently. ‘It’s all right. I’m Laura’s brother, Alex Horvath. Who are you? And what’s this about a relative of ours?’
She frowned now and tried to push the memory out of her head, concentrating as hard as she could on her ledger, but the scene refused to go away; it played itself out inside her head, pushing its images in front of her eyes so that she watched it happen – shadowy yet dreadfully, painfully real against the columns of figures on her ledger’s pages.
‘May I sit down?’ That was Joel Coplin.
‘Oh, yes.’ That was Alex being impatient. ‘What is it you’re on about?’
‘Paul Balog,’ Joel had said then and had turned and looked at her very directly, ‘Miss Horvath, I don’t want to start any fuss – I really don’t, but he’s been working with me this week, and I don’t – I couldn’t help but notice. And knowing you, however slightly – well, I was concerned.’
‘How did you know Paul Balog was a cousin of ours?’ Alex again, suddenly suspicious, moving his chair closer to hers, setting his arm protectively around her shoulders. ‘What do you know about us anyway?’
‘I’ve been doing research on your family.’ Joel’s voice had been warm and pleasant. She could remember now noticing that and had wondered why, and now, this morning knew why. It was a way of not hearing the words a person said, to listen just to the sound of a voice. I can’t cope with any more, she had been thinking, sitting there in the circle of her brother’s arm. I’ve had a bad day, and I can’t cope with any more. I’ll just listen to his voice. Won’t pay any attention to his words.
But she had to, of course. ‘So what’s the problem?’ Alex being clipped and dismissive. ‘And what work has he been doing with you?’ ‘Just three days,’ Joel had said, equally crisply. ‘Acting in a commercial. But long enough to see what was happening. And he – I think he’s being blackmailed.’
The word had bounced on the table between them and gone on bouncing so that it echoed in her ears. Blackmailed, blackmailed. ‘Blackmailed?’ That had been her own voice stupidly repeating it.
‘It sounds so bloody melodramatic when you actually say it,’ Joel had said apologetically. ‘And perhaps I’m an ass, but I couldn’t help but notice. He looked so – he was so distressed. And then I overheard them talking –’
He’d gone quite white then, an odd effect and she had stared at him, startled, and he’d said loudly, so loudly that other people turned to stare. ‘I’m very embarrassed about this.’
Oddly, Alex had laughed. ‘I never am, and I listen to other people all the time. Quite shameless about it, I am. It’s a useful thing to be able to do. Like reading papers upside down on other people’s d
esks. What did you hear?’
‘He was being very threatening. I have to say that, because it was what it sounded like. Threatened something to do with documents and cheques and telling – talking to his family about personal matters.’
Now Joel’s colour had come back in excess; he was blushing. ‘It’s nothing to do with me, and I don’t want to know. All I can tell you is that Balog looked ghastly and very upset and said he didn’t want to do whatever it was and then the threat was there – “Am I to tell your family all about you? About –”’ And Joel had checked himself and shrugged.
‘Who threatened him?’ Alex still holding her round her shoulders, still being protective, and at that point for some reason she had been irritated by his solicitude and had pulled away from him so that she was sitting quite unsupported when it came.
‘Philip Cord. The man I met here the other night, with you, Miss Horvath,’ Joel had said and not looked at her. ‘I’m sorry, but there it is. That’s what I heard and it seemed to me –’ Again he shrugged.
‘What did it seem to you?’ She had heard her own voice almost with surprise, not knowing she had meant to say anything. ‘That you had the right to come here and make a – to gossip about my family in such a disgusting fashion? Is that what it seemed to you?’
‘You’ve every right to be angry,’ Joel had said and then looked at her very directly, ignoring Alex, turning one shoulder as though to exclude him. ‘If I were you, I would be angry too. But I – I found myself so interested in you and liking you so much when we sat here and talked that evening that I felt – that it made me concerned for you and therefore for the people you care about. That’s all.’
‘Oh, prettily said.’ Alex had clapped his hands together softly. ‘As nice a speech as any I’ve ever had to learn. Who writes your stuff, my friend?’
Joel had looked at him with a flick of his dark eyes and to her amazement Alex had flushed; her brother Alex who always said what he liked and did what he liked and never gave a damn about anyone’s opinion to be discomfited? It was so novel that even in the middle of this dizzying evening where everything in her life seemed to be clattering around her ears like a jerrybuilt shed she noticed it.
‘I’m sorrier than I can say, but I still think I was right to come and tell you. You seemed – there appeared to be a closeness between you and this man Cord, and if I’m right and he is blackmailing your cousin then it seemed to me right that you should be warned.’
He had stopped then and looked down at his hands. ‘It could be of course that I read more into what I heard than was there, because I was so jealous.’ He had lifted his eyes then. ‘But I don’t think it was that, I really don’t.’
There had been a silence between them into which the sounds of the restaurant cascaded; Maxie’s voice extolling the venison on tonight’s menu and the freshness of the new season’s green peas, and customers booming with laughter, determined to extract every atom of pleasure that they could from their evening’s entertainment, and the clatter of dishes in Miklos’s hands and she had sat and looked at this odd man with her eyes wide, trying to sort out what he’d said. Jealous, of Philip? Why should he be jealous? What an extraordinary and ridiculous thing to say.
‘I don’t even know who you are.’ Alex said in a complaining voice. ‘I mean, damn it, here sits a total bloody stranger, slagging off my cousin Philip – not that I doubt for a moment that he’s telling the total truth, Laura, any more than you should, after all the rest of – well after all the rest of it, but all the same, a total stranger – and chatting up my sister too. Introduce me, Laura.’
‘I’m Joel Coplin.’ He hadn’t waited for her to catch her breath, as though he feared she wouldn’t even try to speak. ‘I’m making a film about Soho and your sister was kind enough to give me some help. Also –’ He had hesitated. ‘– also, as it happens, my own family come from these parts, though I was born and raised in Canada. They had a shop not far away and my great grandfather was a friend of your great grandfather, that is. As I understand it –’
‘A film maker?’ Alex had paid no attention at all to any of the rest of it. ‘Christ, you’re a film maker? Television? Or features? Or commercials?’
‘Yes,’ Joel had said and looked at Laura. But she was still staring down at the table.
‘And I, my dear chap, am the best bloody actor in this country! No one’s got round to noticing it, but I am. Time we talked more –’
‘Time you left,’ she had said harshly then, and had stood up. Now, looking back down from the commanding heights of this morning over the long wakeful night to last evening she saw herself, hands thrust deep into her dress pockets, her face no doubt drawn and ugly, being hard and tough. ‘I have work to do and I need this table. There has been a mistake about your booking, I’m afraid, Mr. Coplin. I can’t accommodate you.’
‘I’m sorry,’ he’d said. And then surprisingly, ‘Sorry you can’t accommodate me. Not sorry I told you. You needed to know.’
‘You’re damned right she did,’ Alex had said with an air of rollicking good humour that had made her want to smack him the way she had when they had been children and he had started to tease her in that tiresome way of his. But she had stood there silently with her hands in her pockets, chin up, willing them to go.
‘Come on, old man,’ Alex had said and gone round the table and tucked his hand into Joel Coplin’s elbow. ‘You and I, we have matters to discuss. Like films and television and commercials. You do ’em, eh? So do I, my friend, so do I. When I can get ’em. Isn’t that a delicious coincidence? The Dog and Duck calls. I’ll buy you a large drink and we’ll discuss our careers, mainly mine. Come on. Laura’s all right, aren’t you, my love? She’ll cope. She always does. Remember what I said.’ He’d kissed her then. ’Best out of it, past is past, to hell with spilled milk, wheel out all the old lines and imagine I said ’em. I’ll call you. ‘Night –’ And he’d dragged Joel away and she had watched them go and said nothing.
And now this morning the memory had to be put away. The scene had replayed; now forget it, she told herself fiercely. You’re over the worst. There’s nothing else that can hurt as much as that. Just get on with work now and you’ll be fine. It’s the best remedy there is –
Behind her the door from the kitchen burst open with a clatter and she turned, startled at the sound, to see Angie standing there with his eyes wide and staring and his hair ruffled as though he’d been pulling his hands through it.
‘Mizz Horvy,’ he said hoarsely. ‘For Gawd’s sake, come in here. This bloody man Hersh is here and he’s saying – he’s saying –’ He shook his head. ‘You’d better come and hear it for yourself.’
26
Am I going along with this, Joel asked himself, because I really want to get this film made, and because I really think the story of the Halascz family is essential to it, or because he’s her brother and now the only tenuous link I have to her? And he couldn’t find an answer, and went marching along Frith Street, looking for the restaurant’s name, trying not to think about his own motives more than he had to.
‘It’s the least City Television can do!’ Alex had said cheerfully when they had parted last night. ‘If I’m going to help you with your research you can at least feed me. Poor struggling actor like what I am, weep, weep.’
‘We go to your sister’s?’ Joel had said, standing on the dark street outside the Dog and Duck and looking involuntarily over his shoulder at the dark entrance to Little Vinegar Yard.
Alex had laughed. ‘She won’t have a table for me!’ he said. ‘And I got the distinct impression last night she wouldn’t have one for you either.’ He had chuckled softly in the darkness. ‘Fancy her, do you?’
‘I beg your pardon?’ Joel had said stiffly and Alex had laughed again.
‘I thought so. What a waste! Good looking chap like you – ah, well, that’s the way the bread slices, I suppose. So, listen. Tomorrow. You give me lunch at – let’s see. L’Escargot! That’ll be ni
ce. Decent French nosh, makes a change after Angie’s eternity of paprika. One o’clock then, and I’ll bring my scrap book and you can tell me the work you’ve got for me! I’m determined to work for you, now, so don’t be late –’ And he’d gone whistling down the road, leaving Joel to walk slowly home, his head whirling from the gins that he had swallowed simply because Alex had kept ordering them (and for which, ultimately, he had found himself paying) and also from the way events had turned.
I’m not sorry, he had thought as he had showered and at last climbed into bed. I’m not. If that bastard Cord is blackmailing Paul Balog then the sooner he’s stopped the better. I spiked his guns; and he had grimaced at the banality of the clichéd thought and fallen asleep very abruptly.
I ought to have a headache this morning, he told himself, after all that gin. But he didn’t. His mouth was unpleasant and he had no doubt his breath smelled less than agreeable, but food would put a stop to that; and as long as he stuck to Perrier water for the next few days he’d come to no harm. In fact he felt remarkably good and he stopped and stared up at the pale green snail that was the emblem of the restaurant for which he had been seeking and thought about that. And then grinned to himself as he went up the steps.
The thing is, he told himself as he was ushered up a flight of rather elderly stairs to a room above and was greeted by a pleasant middle-aged woman who made him think, just for a moment, of Laura (not because she looked like her but because she was so obviously in charge) the thing is, I’ve got rid of the louse. It was dreadful to see her looking like that last night, her face drawn and white and all the fire gone out of it. No sign of that blazing smile there then, no indication that she could look as incandescent with life and happiness as he’d seen her; but the man was gone from her life and in time, he told himself, in time it’ll all work out fine. I’ll teach her to look like that again, and be happy, I will –
Lunching at Laura's Page 26
