Centre Stage

by Judy Nunn

  ‘I thought you wanted rescuing,’ Rodney hissed as they watched the stage door close behind Douglas.

  ‘I changed my mind. Sorry. Come on, let’s eat. I’m starving.’

  Douglas arrived at exactly the same time, fifteen minutes after the curtain had come down, and sent a message that he was waiting for her at the stage door.

  Maddy wondered momentarily about asking him to come up to her dressing room, but then dismissed the idea. It was far too personal. Pasted all around her mirror were photographs of Jenny together with telegrams and cards from well-wishers. On the bench, alongside her make-up, were mementos and good luck tokens. No, the inner sanctum was granted only to close friends and she didn’t want him to get the wrong idea.

  She had actually been regretting her hasty decision to go out with him. And of course Rodney hadn’t helped.

  ‘So he sent you a dozen bouquets of flowers—so what? You know nothing about the man. He could be an axe murderer, he could be—’

  ‘All right, all right …’

  ‘I think I should come with you.’ Maddy stared him down. ‘Well, I should follow you then. I’d keep out of sight.’

  ‘Don’t be ridiculous, Rodney. We’re only going out for supper and I’ll make sure it’s somewhere very crowded.’

  ‘What if—’

  ‘And I’ll make sure it’s within walking distance so I don’t have to get in his car.’

  Rodney finally had to give up.

  ‘Do you mind if we walk? I don’t have a car,’ Douglas said as Bob closed the stage door behind them.

  ‘Oh. Sure.’

  ‘Anywhere particular you want to go?’

  ‘What about Joe Allen’s at Covent Garden?’

  ‘Fine,’ Douglas shrugged. ‘I don’t know it; you’ll have to show me the way.’ But when they got there and saw that the place was seething with actors and the general after-show supper crowd, he said, ‘Do you mind if we go somewhere else?’

  Maddy wasn’t given time to answer as he steered her down a side street. ‘Great little place where we can talk. Quiet. Only a few blocks from here.’

  It was a balmy late spring evening, with summer in the air, but he was walking briskly—a midwinter walk to keep out the cold, and it annoyed Maddy. She barely noticed where they were going—his insistent pressure on her arm forcing her into a semi-trot. Far from being frightened, she found she was becoming intensely irritated. After several minutes, she stopped abruptly and ripped her arm away from him.

  ‘Do you think we could let up on the jogging? I’m wearing heels, you know.’

  ‘I’m sorry.’ Douglas smiled.

  Damn it, she thought, there it was again. That humorous twinkle that could have been admiration or mockery. And again, whichever it was, it was bloody attractive.

  ‘We’re here now, anyway,’ he said.

  ‘Here’ proved to be a small two-storey terrace house which had been converted to a Greek restaurant. Douglas waved a hello to the waiter who obviously knew him and led her through to one of the less crowded rooms out the back.

  ‘Nice, isn’t it?’ Douglas said. ‘Quiet. Good food, too. I hope you don’t mind drinking out of coffee cups though, they’re not licensed.’ Maddy didn’t have much option. A large complimentary mug of retsina was dumped in front of her, along with a basket of bread, a plate of Kalamata olives and the plastic menu. Maddy started to relax. It was her sort of place, after all—maybe tonight would be fun.

  It was. Douglas Mackie was the strangest mixture of everything she liked and disliked in a man, which left her delightfully confused.

  ‘Mind if I order for us?’ he asked and then went right ahead. Yes, Maddy thought, I do mind if you order for me, I loathe people ordering for me. But, as she watched him doing it, she felt totally unoffended. It wasn’t arrogance; he was simply used to taking command.

  Douglas’s attention to the menu gave Maddy time to study him a little more closely. No, he certainly wasn’t handsome: his nose was too big and his jaw was too square. But his thatch of unruly hair was attractively greying, his deep brown eyes held that irresistible twinkle and his mouth …

  ‘Do you like goat’s cheese?’

  ‘No, I hate it,’ she answered. Hell, he’d nearly caught her out.

  ‘Thought you might. It’s an acquired taste.’

  Now that was arrogant, Maddy thought, suddenly very irritated. ‘May I have some more retsina, please. It’s an acquired taste but I’m very fond of retsina.’

  He smiled. ‘Sorry.’ And she knew he meant it. ‘Baby calamari?’

  ‘Love them.’

  ‘Taramasalata?’ She nodded. ‘Dolmades?’ She laughed. ‘I love it all except goat’s cheese. Keep ordering.’

  The conversation was mainly about food until the first courses arrived. Then Maddy asked, ‘You didn’t really see the show all those times, did you?’

  ‘What show?’ Douglas shovelled a heap of taramasalata onto a piece of crusty white bread and popped it into his mouth.

  ‘The Lady from Maxim’s.’

  ‘Oh.’ He nodded and chewed vigorously for a couple of seconds. ‘What about it?’

  ‘You didn’t really see it twelve times?’

  ‘Good God, no. Why should I?’

  A dolmade was halfway to Maddy’s mouth but she stopped it right there. ‘Because that’s how many bouquets you sent. Bouquets with messages that read “Congratulations on a wonderful performance”.’

  ‘Oh. Yes.’ Douglas seemed unperturbed. ‘I put a weekly order in. The florist wrote those messages.’

  Attraction was going right out the window. Maddy suddenly felt an icy chill.

  ‘So how many times did you see the show?’

  ‘Just the once.’ Another shovel of taramasalata.

  How can he keep eating? Maddy asked herself. But she maintained her control admirably. ‘Why did you pretend you saw it so many times?’ she queried, a steely edge to her voice.

  ‘I didn’t. I just sent the flowers.’ Douglas seemed blissfully unaware of the danger signs.

  ‘And why did you send the flowers?’ Maddy’s teeth were firmly clenched by now. She felt that she might scream at any moment.

  ‘I had to go out of town on business for a few weeks and I wanted to make sure you’d know who I was when I came back and introduced myself.’

  ‘I see.’ She was confused again. His manner was so ingenuous she wasn’t sure whether she was insulted or not.

  ‘You probably get flowers from different admirers every night,’ he continued, ‘so I thought I’d better compete. I’m really not sure of the correct procedure—I don’t go to the theatre much.’

  ‘Why did you go this time? What attracted you?’

  ‘Oh.’ Douglas grinned. That was an easy one. ‘Those lifesize pictures of you doing the cancan.’ He shook his head in genuine admiration. ‘Fantastic.’

  ‘All that leg in fishnet tights and garters, you liked that did you?’ Douglas nodded. ‘Thought you were in for a girlie show perhaps?’ The glint in Maddy’s eye was now positively dangerous.

  ‘Possibly. I didn’t really know what to expect. But I must say I wasn’t disappointed.’

  ‘Well, I bloody well am.’ Maddy rose from the table. ‘If you don’t know the difference between a Soho strip act and a Feydeau farce then I don’t see much point in continuing the conversation.’ It wasn’t the perfect exit line, she thought, but it would have to do and she turned to leave.

  His hand flashed out and she was seated again before she knew it. He hadn’t hurt her, at least she didn’t think so. Her wrist smarted a little bit. How the hell had he managed to do that? He hadn’t even moved from his chair. Maddy’s anger abated momentarily as she tried to figure it out.

  ‘Stop taking yourself so seriously,’ he said. Then, before she could protest further, ‘You were wonderful. You fascinated and beguiled me. I’ll come to the play twelve times if you want me to but I don’t see the point. It’s not the performance I want to get to
know. It’s you. If you’ll let me.’

  Maddy was at a loss for words. What on earth could she say in reply to that? Finally she laughed. ‘I give up,’ she said. ‘Let’s have another retsina.’

  ‘Do you mind if I order a bottle of red?’ he asked, topping up her glass. ‘Retsina’s a taste I’ve never quite acquired.’

  Later that night Maddy found herself equally delighted and confused. Although sex on first dates normally went against her better judgement, it seemed the perfectly natural thing to go to bed with Douglas. Their attraction to each other had been eminently readable from the outset and she would have felt hypocritical and prudish if she’d said no. Well, that’s what she told herself. The truth was, for the first time in years Maddy was aching for a man to touch her. Not just any man. This man.

  And as she gave herself to him, she felt him respond in kind. As her desire grew, so did his. As her passion grew, so did his. And finally, as their cries and their sweat and their bodies mingled, they climaxed together in what seemed to Maddy a perfect culmination.

  It shocked her. She had somehow assumed she would never experience all-consuming sex again. Not the way she had known it with Alex. Alex had played her to such perfection that surely sex could never be as good again, she’d told herself. Now she realised with a shock it could not only be ‘as good’, it could be better. It could be better when it wasn’t a case of one person ‘playing’ another at all. It could be better when it was a case of responding, of giving and taking and, damn it, maybe loving.

  Maddy looked at the face on the pillow beside her. Douglas was still gently caressing the small of her back but his eyes were closed and he was on the verge of sleep. Surely one couldn’t fall in love this quickly, Maddy thought. Surely not. It was all so confusing.

  A month later it was still all so confusing. She saw Douglas at least three times a week. He continued to delight and exasperate her with his combination of boyish charm and male chauvinism, but he avoided any intimate discussion, which meant she did too. The only time she ever felt she knew him was when they made love.

  Whether their lovemaking was languid or frenzied, exploratory or explosive, Douglas always seemed vulnerable and Maddy often had to stifle her desire to tell him she loved him.

  Afterwards, she was always glad she’d held back. Besides, she wasn’t sure she loved him at all. How could you love someone you didn’t know? It was just infatuation, she told herself impatiently. Hell, he never even asked her back to his place—it was always assumed they would go to her flat.

  Then it occurred to Maddy that he might be married. Good God! A wave of horror swept over her. Why hadn’t she thought of it before? That was it! He was married! Oh shit!

  ‘Why don’t we go to your place?’ It was a Saturday night and they were walking up Charing Cross Road, heading automatically for Great Titchfield Street, when she blurted it out.

  ‘Your place is nicer,’ he answered.

  ‘I don’t care. Why don’t we go there tonight? Now.’

  ‘Go where?’

  ‘Your place!’ She was determined to find out the truth.

  ‘It’s a bit messy.’ He shrugged. ‘Some other night maybe.’

  ‘No, tonight. I want to go there tonight.’ She sounded like a petulent ten-year-old and she knew it.

  His look was enigmatic: part amusement, part irritation, but finally he nodded. ‘All right, come on.’

  He hailed a cab. ‘Hampstead,’ he told the driver.

  It was a basement flat. Douglas had been quite right—it was nowhere near as nice as her apartment.

  Nonplussed, Maddy looked about the sparse, characterless room.

  ‘I’m not married,’ Douglas said, but she didn’t answer. ‘You thought I was married, didn’t you? I’m not.’

  ‘It’s not messy. It’s not messy at all.’

  ‘Did you hear me, Madeleine? I’m not married. I never have been.’

  ‘Why did you tell me it was messy?’

  ‘What the hell does that matter?’ He was becoming irritated.

  ‘It matters because you lied. Why did you lie?’

  ‘Because I didn’t want you here, that’s why,’ he snapped. ‘It’s just a place where I live—it has nothing to do with us.’

  Maddy continued to gaze around at the empty bookcase and mantelpiece, at the lone coffee cup on the bare table. A dinner table was at one end of the room and a lounge suite at the other. An open-plan living area, she thought, but nobody seems to live here. Weird. It made her uneasy.

  ‘I think I’d like it better messy,’ she said. ‘Where’s the kitchen?’

  He led her through the arch in the dining area. The kitchen was the same, untouched.

  ‘I eat out,’ he explained as he took a bottle of Scotch and two glasses from a cupboard. ‘Nightcap? Only Scotch I’m afraid,’ and he started pouring without waiting for an answer. ‘If I’d known you were coming I’d have laid on the Bollinger.’

  For some strange reason Maddy started to feel guilty. Like an intruder. She’d barged into an area of this man’s life he didn’t want to share. But surely she had a right? They were sharing their bodies, after all, how intimate could one get?

  Nevertheless she felt guilty. ‘I’m sorry,’ she said. ‘I shouldn’t have …’

  ‘Sit down, Madeleine.’ There was that edge to his voice again. That edge which seemed to demand obedience and she found herself seated at the kitchen table before she could analyse whether she was annoyed or not.

  ‘I travel a lot on business and I don’t like hotels, so I keep this flat as a London base. Does that suffice?’ He continued in the same brusque tone. ‘I care a great deal for you. Probably more than I have for any woman before and it’s happened so fast I’m not sure what I’m supposed to do about it.’

  ‘Nothing, Douglas,’ Maddy interrupted. She felt as self-conscious and uncomfortable as he appeared to be and she was wishing she hadn’t forced this confrontation.

  But he cut her short. ‘I’m thirty-five years old, I’ve never married, I’ve led a selfish life and I doubt whether I can change. In fact I doubt whether I want to change. But right now I know that I don’t want to lose you, Madeleine, and I’m not sure how—’

  ‘You won’t,’ she interrupted gently. ‘I’m happy with things as they are, I don’t want to change you, and my friends call me Maddy.’

  Then they sat and talked and Maddy told him all about herself. She was Australian, her name wasn’t Frances but McLaughlan, she had a ten year old daughter. ‘Well, she will be soon. She’s coming to stay with me for her school holidays. I can’t wait for you to meet her.’

  From the outset Maddy had been reticent about telling Douglas of Jenny, but now she was sure it was all right. She loved him, and despite the fact that he was too inhibited to tell her, she was sure he loved her too.

  True to style, his reaction to the news of Jenny was enigmatic. ‘Yes, I’ll look forward to meeting her,’ was all he said. But Maddy refused to let it worry her.

  Then it was Douglas’s turn. He came from Glasgow, he said. The tough part of town, not far from the Gorbals. ‘About as tough as you get. Dad a boxer, two tough little brothers and Mum the toughest one of the lot of us,’ he laughed. ‘It was a good childhood.’

  There wasn’t much more detail Maddy managed to get out of him but she didn’t try too hard. It would all happen in time, she told herself, as the familiarity grew between them.

  That night in his spartan bedroom, as their bodies merged into one, Maddy clung to him and whispered, ‘I love you’. And she meant it.

  She woke to the smell of eggs and bacon and freshly brewed coffee.

  She pulled on one of Douglas’s T-shirts and joined him in the kitchen where he was transferring bacon from a frypan to a plate.

  ‘Morning,’ he said. ‘I was going to surprise you.’ He returned her kiss and put the bacon in the oven.

  ‘You have.’ She smiled. ‘I thought you ate out.’

  ‘Normally I do.
But then normally I don’t have visitors.’ He deftly cracked two eggs into the sizzling pan and dropped the shells into the bin.

  ‘I’m impressed,’ she said.

  ‘Hoped you might be. I’m quite good at the basic stuff.’

  He was right. The breakfast was good. The coffee was good, the company was good, everything was good, Maddy thought as she chatted happily away.

  Then suddenly everything went sour. She had just said, ‘We’ll have to have a birthday party for Jenny when she comes to London.’ His reply was so casual that at first she thought she hadn’t heard correctly.

  ‘Won’t be here, I’m afraid. I have to leave on Monday. I’ll be away for two months.’

  ‘Monday? You mean tomorrow?’ She could hardly take it in.

  He nodded. ‘Bit of a bugger, isn’t it, but business is business.’

  ‘But …’ Maddy stared back at him … ‘last night … when I was talking about Jenny and you two meeting each other …’ She stopped, confused.

  ‘Yes?’

  ‘Well … you didn’t say anything … You didn’t …’

  ‘I didn’t know till this morning.’ His smile was charming. ‘It is midday, you realise. I was on the phone for a good two hours before doing the shopping and cooking up a storm.’ He stood to clear the table. ‘It’s only for a couple of months.’

  She continued to stare at him in disbelief.

  ‘Oh, come on, Madeleine,’ he said a trifle impatiently as he took her plate. Then, ‘Maddy …’ He paused thoughtfully.

  ‘Maddy, Madeleine … that’s going to take some getting used to. I’m not sure if I don’t actually prefer Madeleine.’ The phone rang. ‘See? That’s been happening all morning.’

  As he disappeared into the lounge room Maddy realised her day had just crashed down around her. It wasn’t the fact that he had to go away for two months, disappointing as that was. It was his offhand attitude. What sort of game was he playing with her?

  She was just getting over the hurt and starting to fume when Douglas returned.

  ‘I have to go out, I’m afraid. I should only be an hour or two; do you want to hang around here or do you want to go home?’