by Laura Wilson
‘Yes.’
‘Let’s walk, then – it’s freezing out here. I’m going home, too, but I’ve got to go back to Design first.’
‘He was really good,’ said Monica, after they’d walked in silence for a moment. ‘Everyone thought so. And everyone liked him.’ Percival Addington, who wasn’t half so good as Carleton, had taken over the reins.
‘I know,’ said Mrs Carleton. ‘But these things happen.’ She sounded tired.
‘It wasn’t really his fault,’ said Monica. ‘The picture was behind schedule, but there were lots of other reasons—’
‘No, Monica. It’s very kind of you, but it isn’t true and we both know it isn’t. While we’re being honest,’ she smiled wistfully, ‘I don’t know how much longer I shall be working here myself. So I just wanted to say – in case I don’t see you again – that it was nice meeting you, and do please give my regards to your father, won’t you?’
‘Yes. It was nice meeting you, too.’ As she said this, they reached the turning for the Design department.
‘Goodbye, Monica,’ said Mrs Carleton, ‘and good luck.’
‘Good luck to you, too,’ said Monica, with more daring than she’d thought she possessed.
‘Thanks.’ Mrs Carleton walked off at a fast clip and Monica stood watching until she merged with the darkness.
Monica supposed that Mrs Carleton must be leaving because of Mr Carleton, which seemed pretty rotten. She hadn’t told Dad about what had been going on at Ashwood. Even though the incident at the Festival of Britain was almost two years ago, it was still, in her mind, excruciatingly vivid – the clumsy, fumbled handshake, the way his eyes had never left hers, the fact that his behaviour seemed to mirror, so exactly, the turmoil inside her … Just thinking about it made her squirm with embarrassment. But she ought to pass on Mrs Carleton’s regards, really, if she could bring herself to do it. It would be so much easier, she thought, if Dad had met somebody else, but his heart wasn’t in it, any more than hers was.
Still, there was time enough to worry about that. Now, she must put Mrs Carleton right out of her mind and concentrate on the evening ahead of her. Stomach churning with apprehension, she continued walking towards the main gate, and Raymond Benson.
Chapter Thirty-Seven
‘That’s the way to do it!’ Inside the red-and-white-striped booth, Punch, with his glazed pink face, hooked nose curving down to meet jutting chin, battered Judy about the head with his cosh.
We should be laughing, thought Diana, shoving her hands deeper into the pockets of her coat in an attempt to keep warm. The bright weather promised for the end of April had failed to materialise, and the Brighton sky and sea were the matching dull grey of old saucepans. It was mid afternoon and, but for a solitary child running aimlessly about while her mother stood by and a couple of scruffy-looking donkeys with drooping heads, the beach was deserted.
In front of the booth, deckchairs were scattered about at odd angles, some upside down, giving the al fresco auditorium a dismal, abandoned air. Apart from the attendant, who was lying in one, apparently asleep despite the puppets’ distorted shrieking, she and James were the only audience. It had been he who’d wanted to see the show, not her. He’d persuaded the Professor, a lugubrious individual who’d been packing up his wares when they’d arrived, to perform for them, with a story about scouting for a Punch and Judy show for his next film. Judging from the racket and the vigorous jerking of the figures, the man was giving his all, but there was, in fact, no next film to cast. Although James had made light of her reaction when he’d told her, all that time ago, that he was born several drinks behind the rest of the world and was doomed to spend his life trying to catch up, Diana knew now that it was no more and no less than the truth. No matter how much he drank, he never could catch up, and his intake had increased to such a degree that he was not only bankrupt but unemployable.
Shivering on the damp deckchair, Diana recalled, as she often had in the last six months, the demeanour of the barman at the studio when she’d gone to fetch the brandy in that first week. She’d assumed that the man’s comment about thinking the sobriety couldn’t last was aimed at Anthony Renwick, but now she knew that wasn’t wholly the case. After all, who would know better than a barman? It was certainly true that James had encouraged Renwick to drink because he needed to finish the film, but it was also because he was slipping off the waggon himself and wanted an excuse. She remembered, too, what Alex McPherson had said to her in the restaurant, about warning Mr Vernon. Now, she understood that what he – and probably others, too – had warned Mr Vernon about was putting two drunks on the same picture, but she hadn’t known that at the time. Or had she? Perhaps her subconscious had known it, but being in love, she’d failed to acknowledge that anything could be wrong. And it was certainly true that the highly visible nature of Renwick’s problem had masked James’s, because he held his drink well, and it was only in the last few months that he’d started slurring words and lurching unsteadily into the furniture. This, and the covert nature of his drinking, and the fact that, apart from that terrible last week at Ashwood, he’d never become aggressive – and, she had to admit, her own tendency to deny that the problem existed – were the reasons why it had taken her so long to face up to the extent of it. Anyone who’d worked at the studio for any length of time had known but, because James was well liked, they’d covered up for him repeatedly. And none of them had warned her. But then, she thought resignedly, I wouldn’t have listened even if they had.
Despite the initial appearances, a mocking chime in the back of her mind had been telling her for some time that this was history repeating itself. It was Guy, her first husband, and then Claude Ventriss, all over again. She’d been impetuous, rushing headlong into love, refusing to let her feet touch the ground and never stopping to reflect, and pain and shame had followed. How much, in the past year, had she hung onto the memory of her whirlwind romance with James, even as it had become – first slowly, and then with escalating speed – as destructive as a hurricane that raged about them both and would not set them free? Drying out had only resulted in shaking hands and hallucinations so bad that they’d led, at one stage, to a straightjacket. The doctors hadn’t let her see him then, but she remembered all too well his terror of the huge cockroaches that crawled over his skin and the hideous crippled lobster that followed him around, dragging one giant claw along the floor.
As Punch gleefully hurled the baby out of the window and massacred Judy in a rain of blows, Diana felt as though she was in one of those hallucinations now. Beside her, James was rapt as a child, revelling in the anarchy of the performance.
He’d been the one who suggested coming to the coast. A spot of sea air to blow away the cobwebs, he’d said. They’d arrived the previous day and spent the evening wandering up and down the promenade, too cold and dispirited to talk. Besides, what was there to talk about any more? They couldn’t even find refuge in a hotel bar, because James was in a ‘drying-out’ period, aided by some medicine that was supposed to make him sick if he so much as smelt alcohol. Diana found these times actually worse than when he was drinking – the wait for the inevitable fall off the waggon, hoping against hope and against experience, was agonising. She’d stayed because, in spite of everything, she still loved him – and even if she hadn’t, the burning shame of having to admit another failure at marriage was too terrible to contemplate – but she was beginning to wonder if she actually had any choice in the matter.
She knew, now, that the drinking wasn’t his fault. At first, she’d been angry – wasn’t she, on her own, with her gift of love, enough to make him stop? He had thought she would be. He’d told her that, but it seemed, after all, that the urge to drink was stronger. Then she’d tried drinking with him. It had seemed easier than the torment of watching, coldly sober, while he destroyed himself. That had been a disaster – she’d lost her wonderful job in the studio’s design department, and with it, their only income and the flat which ha
d been her pride and joy. She’d tried to get other work, but every time she declared this intention, James, sodden in the armchair in their pokey, chilly new home, a blanket round his heaving shoulders, had groped for her hand and sobbed, ‘Don’t go, darling, don’t leave me.’ If she did go out, he’d manage to scrape together enough to buy more to drink, and, in the end, she’d given up and they’d settled into a dreary, never-ending game of hide-and-seek as she searched the place for hidden bottles and emptied their contents down the sink, while James alternated between defiance and remorse.
She’d gradually lost touch with Lally and Jock and her other friends, so that they were now marooned, a wrecked island of two, afloat in a sea of alcohol. Lally and Jock had given her enough help already, and such pride as she had left would not allow her to call on them yet again.
How Evie would love this, she thought. She’d heard through the grapevine that Guy’s mother finally had the grandson she’d always wanted – the one Diana hadn’t been able to give her. If Evie could see her now, she’d think she’d got her come-uppance, all right.
The hangman was fixing the noose around Punch’s neck. ‘It’s the end for you, Mr Punch. Say your prayers.’
Punch ducked his head and, cackling in gleeful self-satisfaction, sent the hangman flying with one swipe of his cudgel. ‘That’s the way to do it!’
Diana closed her eyes to block out the sight of the malevolent doll as it twirled and flailed in a triumphant dance. The small amount of money raised by the sale of Hambeyn Hall and what she’d managed to save from the allowance Guy had given her – and which had stopped when she remarried – was gone, much of it on ‘cures’ for James, and such inheritance as she had, that she’d thought might buy a flat for them, had been plunged, instead, into a disastrous film that had never, in the end, been completed. Why the hell, she thought, didn’t I have the sense to hold onto it – or at least to keep some of it back? Now – she groaned at the thought – they were already weeks behind with the rent and the landlady was growing restive.
Diana clapped half-heartedly as the puppets took their bows. James did not join in, and when she turned to look at him she saw that he was sitting quite still with tears coursing down his cheeks.
‘What is it, darling?’
He shook his head. What had started him crying? The sausages, the policeman, the crocodile? Lost in the tangle of her own thoughts, she hadn’t noticed. The Punch professor, emerging from behind his booth, looked first mystified and then downright annoyed when James, noticing him, rose from his deckchair and walked hastily off down the beach. ‘What’s his game?’ he asked Diana. ‘He might have told me himself if he didn’t like it. I’ve gone to all this trouble …’
‘It’s not that,’ Diana assured him. ‘He’s always like this when he’s working. When he gets an idea he needs to think about it immediately. Doesn’t want to break his concentration. You’ve obviously given him an idea.’
‘Oh.’ The professor sniffed, but seemed to accept this. ‘I suppose that’s all right, then. Now,’ his tone became wheedling, ‘seeing as I did it special for you, shall we say—’
‘Two shillings,’ said Diana quickly, naming the smallest sum she felt would be acceptable. She’d thought that James’s story would suffice but the man clearly expected payment for the show and she didn’t feel she could refuse. She looked around for James, but he was heading down the beach towards the flight of steps that led up to the esplanade. The man stiffened, his doleful face becoming taut with angry disgust. She had no idea how much he usually got from holidaymakers, but he’d obviously hoped for a lot more from film people. He looked her up and down – the tight-fisted bitch in the fur coat. He wasn’t to know that nowadays the thing often did duty as a blanket as well as a garment.
‘I’m sorry,’ she said, ‘I—’ Unable to complete the explanation, she took her purse out of her handbag, scrabbled for the coins and pushed them into his hand saying, ‘Here you are,’ and walked away as fast as she could with her heels sinking into the pebbles.
She caught up with James at the bottom of the steps, grabbing hold of his arm and yanking on it to make him stop. She saw, as he turned to her, that his face was blurry and smudged with tears. ‘What are you doing, James? I had to give him two shillings, and I’m not sure we’ve got enough money to get home without—’
‘Diana!’ He took her by the shoulders, crushing her to him in an embrace. ‘I’m sorry. I’m so sorry. Please forgive me.’
As he drew her towards him, she became aware of a hard, flat shape bumping against her leg. Pushing him away from her, she said sharply, ‘What’s that in your pocket?’
‘Nothing, darling. You’re imagining it.’
‘No, I’m not.’
She made a grab for it and this time he shoved her away, hard, so that he lost his balance and sat down with a bump on the bottom step. Swiftly, Diana bent down and before he could stop her yanked the half-bottle out of his coat. It was whisky, and the seal was unbroken, which explained why she hadn’t smelt it on his breath. ‘When did you get this?’
‘This morning. When you were buying stamps.’
The postcard to Anthony Renwick, who was now in hospital, had been his idea. At the time, she’d been encouraged by the thoughtfulness of the gesture, but now she saw that it was merely a ruse to get her out of the way. It also meant that they had even less money than she’d thought.
‘I’m sorry, Diana.’ As he held out his hand for the bottle, she looked down at his face and saw the forlorn hope of the beggar. ‘Please. I can’t manage—’
‘You’ll have to bloody manage.’ Stepping backwards, she turned and, holding the bottle above her head, elbow bent, was about to hurl it away from her as far and as hard as she could, when she heard a crunch of pebbles behind her and felt something tugging at the hem of her coat. Looking down, she saw that James was stretched at full length on the ground, dragging himself on one arm in a horrible parody of a parched man in a desert, blood trickling down his wrist from a cut on a sharp stone and soaking into the exposed cuff of his shirt. He wasn’t looking at her: his eyes were fixed on the bottle.
‘I’ll walk into the sea,’ he said, quietly.
‘It would certainly be quicker than drinking yourself to death,’ said Diana, acidly. What was the point? If she threw the bottle and it shattered on the stones, there would only be another, and another, and another … ‘Oh, for God’s sake. Get up!’ She went back to sit down on the step and broke the seal on the bottle. Averting her eyes from James, who was half-walking, half-crawling, to join her, she thrust the whisky at him. Not wanting to see the abject expression and the relief on his face as he took a greedy pull on the bottle, she stared straight in front of her at the indistinct line of the horizon.
‘Bless you, darling.’
‘James …’ She couldn’t bring herself to look at him.
‘Wait.’ James took another drink. She heard him set the bottle down carefully on the far side of the step so that she could not reach it, and begin rooting in his pocket for cigarettes.
‘I can’t do this any more,’ she finished.
James fumbled with the matchbox, opening it upside down so that the matches fell out, scattering around their feet. He scrabbled after them with trembling hands, dropping as many as he collected. She watched him with growing impatience and then, unable to bear it any longer, bent down to help. They grovelled about in silence until all the matches were restored to the box, then James, leaning his elbows on his knees to steady himself, managed to light two cigarettes.
‘You should go,’ he said, handing one over. Beneath the red blotches his face was a sickly greenish-white. ‘Go home.’
‘And leave you here to kill yourself? Anyway, what home? In case you’ve forgotten, we haven’t paid the rent in over a month.’
‘I know. I’m sorry.’
‘Stop saying that!’
‘It’s all I can say.’ James turned his head away, as if he couldn’t bear to look at
her, either. ‘I’ve dragged you down far enough, Diana. We both know it’s hopeless. You said so yourself – that you couldn’t do it any more. If it’s any consolation, you can’t be half as sick of me as I am of myself.’
Wearily, Diana got to her feet. ‘It isn’t.’
James didn’t look up at her. His shoulders sagged, and she wanted to bend down and put her arms around him. This charming, intelligent, talented man who had such appetite for all that life had to offer … No, said a small, cold voice inside her head. She must recognise, as he did, that there was, quite simply, no more to be said or done. She stood for a moment, staring down at James’s bowed head, and then, very slowly, began to walk up the steps to the esplanade.
‘I love you,’ he murmured. Diana turned, but he wasn’t looking at her – the words were addressed to the sea.
As she reached the top, a torn newspaper borne on the light wind slithered round her ankles like a cat, so that she had to shake it off. Apart from a couple of spivs, jacket shoulders as wide as yokes, talking together, there was no-one around. From one of the peeling shopfronts, their garish colours faded by seaspray and long neglect, she could hear the rumble of distant, placid voices intoning numbers after the bingo caller, like responses in church.
Standing on the top step, she heard a retching sound from below and, turning, she looked down and saw James, still sitting where she’d left him, bent forwards from the waist. Her last sight of him was a heaving back and vomit splattering the cold, grey stones of the beach.
Chapter Thirty-Eight
A battered chocolate box with grey ash scattered across the empty waxed paper casings; a bottle of powdery aspirins; a cup of cold tea, scummy white on the surface; an open pot of face cream; a plaster model of an Alsatian dog with its tail snapped off; a broken carriage clock, and a lot of dust: Iris Manning’s mantelpiece. The rest of the room was no less depressing – dingy wallpaper, filthy windows, and shoddy, chipped furniture. It stank of stale cigarette smoke and unwashed clothing. Standing on the stained rug and trying not to breathe too deeply, Stratton stared down at the tangle of grimy blankets on the bed. On the off-chance, he knelt down to look beneath the sagging frame, but found nothing except an enamel chamber pot lined with a foul-smelling crust of dried urine.
