House of Bells

by Chaz Brenchley

  ‘Actually,’ he said, ‘what everyone thinks is that you don’t care what you do now.’

  ‘That’s true, too. At least, that I’ll do anything for money. Why not?’ After these last years, why would she even hesitate? ‘But no, I do still care. I just try not to show it. You won’t give me away, will you, Tony?’

  ‘Never,’ he said. ‘Not give you away, and not sell you either. I will use you, though, if you’ll let me. If you’ll do anything for money, will you do a job for me?’

  That shrug was becoming harder every time. She really, really wanted to say no. Not for you, Tony love. Not you. Please don’t ask me.

  But it was too late, and so she managed to shrug at him with her poor overburdened shoulders, and she managed to say, ‘Yes, sure. Why not, if the money’s right?’

  ‘Money’s not an issue,’ he said.

  She snorted. ‘Speak for yourself, love.’

  ‘No, I’m serious. You can have all the resources of Fledgwood Enterprises at your back, if you need them.’

  She blinked, sipped, said, ‘What is it, then? This job?’ Not hat-check girl at one of his father’s parties, that was for sure.

  ‘It’s for the Messenger. Undercover work, an investigation.’

  ‘What? You’re bonkers. I’m no bloody journalist.’

  ‘No – but you are a girl who needs to hide. Or you could be. It’s the perfect cover, sweetheart. If you’re blown, it’s just all the more convincing. And you’d be out of London, a long way away from all of this. No one’s going to forget about you, I’m not saying that – but, well. Nine days’ wonder, you know?’

  ‘More like nine months,’ she said; and then heard herself, realized what she’d said, started to cry. It wasn’t at all what she’d meant; she was just trying to be bitterly clever, the way she did when she was trying to keep up with Tony. But that was a hopeless enterprise in any case, and it had led her to walk flat-footed into the heart of sorrow. Nothing new there. She despised herself for many reasons – every good reason, and quite a few that were no good at all but she used them anyway – and this was one of the best: that she tried to be slick and tripped herself every time.

  She wasn’t clever enough to be any use to Tony. She couldn’t save herself, let alone help anyone else. Or expose them. She wanted to say so, but talking was all manner of hard, too much to manage while she wept; and when he passed her a hankie that only made her more incoherent because she’d never been any good at gratitude.

  ‘Oh, keep the sodding thing,’ he snapped, when she tried absurdly to hand it back to him. Or maybe he’d said ‘sodden’; she really wasn’t sure. And then, ‘Keep it,’ he said, ‘and go home. Meet me for oysters at noon, and I’ll tell you what I want.’

  ‘I can’t,’ she said, gulping. ‘I can’t go home. Dr Barrett’s paying me to be here . . .’

  ‘How much?’

  ‘What?’

  ‘How much is he paying you? A hundred, did you say? Here.’ A sheaf of folded notes, thrust into her fingers, uncounted by either one of them. ‘Just go home, Grace. Or do I need to take you?’

  No. No, not that. Never that. He needed not to see where home was now; that was suddenly rather urgent.

  As she hurried downstairs, she realized that she’d left her coat behind, but never mind. Also that she hadn’t actually said thank you. Oddly – for someone who was no good at gratitude – that seemed to matter rather more.

  As she left, she heard her name called from across the street. Stupidly, she lifted her head to look, and the camera’s flash caught her full in the face like a blow. That would be Tony’s tame photographer; that would be her all over tomorrow’s front page, then. She’d meant to slip out the back way, and forgot.

  Tony never forgot anything, and never missed his chance. Whatever he asked for tomorrow, tonight he had just what he wanted: a notorious good-time girl with her mascara smeared down her cheeks, scuttling out of a trendsetter’s party unusually early and unusually alone. Of course there was a story in that. Rampant speculation was the same thing as news. Friendship was a tool like any other. He would lend her his handkerchief and offer her the hope of escape and still send her out of the front door looking like this, still use her face tonight to sell his paper in the morning. Of course he would. She would never expect anything else.

  It wasn’t even betrayal, when he was so upfront honest about it. Tony used people without a second thought; everyone knew. If he liked you he’d be kind about it, in person and in print, but he’d still tell the story. Sell the story. He’d use his own wife, if he had one. He’d use his child, if . . .

  Oh. Damn. Now she was crying again, and that photographer was still on her heels and flashing away. Tony would be seeing his own hankie on his own front page, then.

  The sound of her own footsteps underlay all her dreams these days. Walking and walking: sharp heels on city streets, rapid and determined, getting her there. It was all she knew how to do, to keep moving. She always walked when she could. Head down, hood up, on her way. Sometimes she would walk all night, sooner than go home.

  Home meant stopping, stillness, quiet. Bed. All of those were terrible to her. And no more than she deserved, her punishment. She always did have to go home in the end. Just as she always read the papers, sooner or later. They were her punishment too.

  Tony was her affliction, the one sorrow that she didn’t think she’d earned. There always had to be something extra, the free gift at the bottom of the cereal packet. She still dug her hand in to grope for those, like a little kid. He was like that, like the aching tooth that your tongue couldn’t keep away from.

  Oysters meant Soho. Soho meant putting on a face; you never knew who you might meet, only that you were sure to meet someone. Which would be why Tony had chosen it, to get more mileage out of her. Yet more. To some people she was poison, but it never did a young man any harm to be seen out and about with poison on his arm. Nor an editor, nor an heir. With Tony you never knew quite which game he was playing, which hat he wore beneath his trendy cap. Which face he was showing to the world, or why.

  Herself, she had only the one face to show. It took an hour to paint on, even after she’d done her hair; and then a headscarf went on to hide the hair, and she did what she could to hide her face too, head down and walking briskly, always moving, not even pausing at a light. If the traffic was against her she’d just carry on, miss her turn and go out of her way, walk further than she needed to. She’d cross three sides of a square rather than stand still and be trapped in the world’s stare, feel that moment of recognition happen, wait breathless for whatever might come next. The crow of triumph or the impertinent questions or the savage accusations, they were all equally unbearable, though she did in fact bear them all when she had to. Even the silent cold shoulder hurt, even while she welcomed it: the best of everything that’s awful.

  Mostly, people just stared. She’d been through the range of responses – she’d tried staring back; she’d tried, ‘What are you staring at?’; she’d tried a V-sign and a vicious tongue and a regal mocking wave – and nothing worked to her comfort. Now she ignored them stoutly, eyes on the middle distance once she’d been spotted. Hide until they found her, yes, head down and scuttle onward, but never let them see her try to hide thereafter. Never gift them an easy victory, never show her shame.

  In Soho, for oysters – well. No hope of hiding there. She’d just have to be brazen, the way everyone thought she was anyway. Shameless.

  She could hate Tony for doing this to her, except – well. He was Tony. What was the point?

  It was one of those days that London did so well, warm spring and a clear light; so of course the streets were busy, and the little park was full of lunchers and loafers, and she was sure they must all be watching her. Head up, then, girl; sunglasses on, eyes front and just keep moving. Dean Street, Frith Street, Greek Street: all in alphabetical order, the secret knowledge that helped her navigate the heart of Soho.

  Oysters was eas
y. There was only one oyster bar Tony deemed acceptable; she could find her way to Tarsier’s in the dark, in the rain, in extremis. And frequently had.

  Just as well, because gazing into the middle distance was useless for finding her way. Pretending to look stopped her actually looking to see where she was. She supposed that must be ironic or something.

  But here was Tarsier’s, all barrels and sawdust and bare wood. Here was Tony, perched as ever on a stool in the open window, exhibited to the street. Looking unfairly lovely, the dark tumble of his hair snaring the sunlight while the wide lapels of his jacket only showed off the breadth of his shoulders. Oozing self-content, that too. See me: here I am, the most fashionable man in London, waiting to eat oysters with the wickedest girl in England . . .

  ‘You’re late,’ he said as she hoisted herself on to the high stool he had somehow kept for her despite the crush.

  ‘Darling. Of course I’m late.’ Sorry, Tony, sorry. But it was a rule now, never to apologize to anyone. She’d done too much of that, and it didn’t help at all. People liked to see you grovel, but that was all about punishment, not forgiveness. She’d been punished enough. She had that in writing, from a lord. ‘So were you, I expect.’

  He grinned. ‘I was, but you win in the lateness stakes. I should know never to compete with a pro.’

  Damn. She’d flinched at that, which made him twitch a little in his turn. Sometimes they played sensitivities like ping-pong. ‘Just a talented amateur,’ she said quickly, as if it didn’t matter at all. Trying to cover up too late, as usual. ‘What shall we drink? Is it a Guinness day or a champagne day?’

  She had seldom felt less like celebrating, but that wasn’t the question. There were only the two alternatives with Tony, when oysters were in the case; and the choice hung somewhat on his mood, somewhat on the needs and intents of his day, but mostly on criteria that she’d never quite managed to pin down. She no longer tried to guess which way his choice would fall. Fifty-fifty gambles were no fun at all when you always, always lost.

  ‘Champagne, of course,’ he said, as though she should have known that. ‘Guinness is for workdays.’

  ‘Aren’t we working?’

  ‘Not at all. I’m seducing you. That was never work.’

  No, she thought wearily. I was always too easy, wasn’t I?

  This time she was careful not to let any of that show on her face. Wearing masks was second nature to her now, and she could swap one with another at a moment’s notice. She gave Tony her bright glad smile, and never mind if he saw clean through it; he wouldn’t say a word. He was a collaborator through and through, when it suited his convenience. He practically laced her masks up for her, caught them if they started to slip. They both conspired to keep raw emotion under wraps. Her pain embarrassed him, she thought. He shouldn’t have to deal with that.

  She said, ‘Seduce away. If you can keep your hands to yourself while you’re at it.’ That was their agreement: no touching now, or not with any serious intent. And being jocular about it, that was in the agreement too. Making like it didn’t matter. She could do that. ‘What’s this mysterious job of yours?’

  And why would you offer it to me? I’m not qualified.

  Except that she was, apparently, if having her cover blown was a part of her cover.

  He said, ‘There’s a house up in the north, border country. Old place, big grounds, you know the sort of thing.’

  She did. She said, ‘Tony, I’m hardly – what is it, persona grata? – on the country-house circuit any more.’ And never wanted to be, no, never again.

  ‘No, but that’s what I’m building up to.’ He gestured towards the waiter in his long apron. No need to order – just a flick of the thumb to suggest a cork removed from a bottle and all was understood. ‘This place isn’t on the circuit either, and it ought to be. For some reason your country-house set abandoned it way back, before the first war. It’s been half a dozen things since, but never a home.’

  ‘Never till now, are you going to tell me?’

  ‘Not even that, not quite. Someone’s making a commune there, unless it’s an ashram, unless it’s a cult. I don’t know; there’s no information. We sent a man in, and he hasn’t come out again.’

  ‘Oh, so now you want to send me in to be murdered as a spy? Thanks, Tony, but no thanks.’

  ‘Don’t be daft, love. I don’t think he was murdered. I think he was swallowed up by all the love and butterflies. I think he was converted. I think he’s chanting mantras and eating lentils, or making love and growing onions, or expanding his inner consciousness and waiting for the end of the world.’

  ‘Making love sounds nice,’ she said, because they both expected it of her. She could be as brittle as hard plastic, but she did still have to shine.

  The waiter came over with bucket, bottle, glasses. Tony poured. Little rituals: the touch of rim to rim, ‘Cheers, then,’ the first sip. Froth, chill, bite. Something seemed to have happened in her head since last night, so that just the taste and touch and tingle of it on her tongue made her want to cry again.

  She needed him to say something quickly, so he did. He was probably worried he might lose another hankie. Today’s was raw peach silk, peeping from behind that broad lapel, an exact match for his shirt.

  He said, ‘OK, Grace, it’s like this. You’ve had enough of London, way too much. You can’t leave your flat without being followed by photographers, you can’t go to a party without being cornered by hacks and gossipmongers, and you can’t walk down the street without being hissed at.’

  ‘Tony . . .’

  ‘Basically,’ he went on remorselessly, ‘you can’t live your life. Everything you see, everything you do reminds you of what you’ve done, what’s happened to you, what you’ve lost. You need to get away – and that doesn’t mean Biarritz or St Tropez; it doesn’t even mean Jamaica. Those are just London with better weather. Everyone there is someone you know, someone who knows all about you. What you want, what you’re desperate for is a whole new way to live. You want to be someone else, someone who doesn’t have a court case and a dead baby and a cruel kind of fame to live with.’

  She wasn’t going to cry, and she wasn’t going to interrupt again. He was telling her story entirely, but he thought it was a fiction, a cover story he was composing on her behalf. Or at least he was pretending that. She owed it to him to play along. She nodded solemnly, clung to the weight of her glass, looked around to see if oysters might be on their way yet.

  ‘Something you overheard at a party seemed to offer you the chance. The world’s full of retreats, of course it is, but this was the one you heard about just when you were desperate enough to do something about it. You were buzzed on dope at the time so you’re hazy on the details, but you remembered the name of the nearest station; so when you got home at dawn you just chucked some clothes into a suitcase and lit out. Maybe you were still stoned; maybe you made a conscious decision to be impulsive for once, after way too long trapped in the machine. You choose. Whatever, on the train you’re going to change your name. You get on at King’s Cross as Grace Harley, and you get off in Leeds as Georgie Hale. Same initials: people always do that, and it’s convenient, because I bet half your things have your initials on them.’

  Tony, you know half my things have my initials on them. Or are we pretending you don’t? Half my other things have your initials on them. Do I need to change your name too?

  ‘At Leeds you change on to the local line. Drop me a postcard while you’re waiting, so I know you’ve got that far at least. After that you’re on your own.’

  Tony, love, I’ve been on my own for a long time now – but here came the oysters, a great platter of ice and shells and lemons and shimmering flinching vulnerable flesh. Squeeze and swallow.

  TWO

  Sometimes Grace felt squeezed herself, squeezed like a lemon – all the juice wrung from her – and swallowed whole. Sometimes she felt the other thing: chewed up and spat out.

  Mostly, she
tried not to feel anything. Actually to be as remote and untouchable as she could seem, with her face perfect and her eyes on the far horizon, statuesque. Literally that, like a statue: heartless and bloodless, cold marble all through.

  Today – well, any day, really – she wasn’t doing so well at that. She tried, she did try, but it was never easy. Like making herself unhuman, by a simple effort of will. Today was harder yet, as wheezing clanking engines dragged her further and further into the north country.

  She should be glad, to be out of the Smoke. She was glad, in every way that counted. Almost every way. It was just . . . she had made and lived all her life in London, all her adult life, the one that mattered. Even when it had shattered between her hands like a glass bubble, lethal and gone in a moment: even then she had stayed, stubborn or determined or desperate. Living in the ruins, refusing to run away. Keeping her name in the papers, her face in the public eye, because anything else would have been an unthinkable surrender.

  This, now: she wasn’t surrendering, no. Nor running away. She was working. Which felt better on the inside, at least. If anyone – or everyone – else thought she’d slunk away from London in a funk, that was a part of the job, and she could feel good about it.

  She could try.

  Nothing was easy, but she didn’t expect that. She had no right to.

  She didn’t deserve even this much, this journey, and on the face of it this was no blessing. To sit hour after hour in uncomfortable trains, crowded shoulder to shoulder with strangers; to keep her headscarf and sunglasses firmly in place and her face averted, staring blindly out of the window; to endure the surge and suck of her thoughts, that constant tidal reach from unbearable guilt to dreary desolation. And to wait, of course. To wait and wait for that moment of recognition, the shrill voice, inescapable in these cruel closed carriages . . .

  But she waited and waited, and that moment never came. Probably nobody could actually believe that the actual Grace Harley – The Third Woman, they liked to call her in the press – would be travelling north out of London in a second-class carriage. She could have gone first class, Tony would have paid for that – money’s not an issue, he’d said, and he meant it. Only, if she wore these same dull clothes and sat in first class just like this, headscarf and sunglasses and all, everyone would look at her and see Grace Harley running away. Here in second class, they looked and saw Georgie Hale: a lookalike, perhaps, or an attention-seeker, a young woman who’d like to be mistaken for the infamous Third Woman if it wasn’t so ridiculous.