Curtain Call Read online

  ‘Here,’ said the old man, cuffing the page as he handed it over. Stephen looked – and breathed again. It was a society paragraph about himself, and his latest commission at the Nines Club in Mayfair. He had begun on the projected mural last week while the committee was still in heated debate as to who should figure in the portrait. Ludo Talman had already indicated that the original nine sitters would now be closer to fifteen.

  Stephen ran a cursory eye over the item, and looked up to find his father-in-law scrutinising him. He understood that look: it mingled a complete indifference to his painting with a puzzled irritation that it should merit a reference in the newspaper. ‘I’ve barely started on it,’ said Stephen in mild apology. ‘They’re still jockeying for position among the membership.’

  ‘Is it true what it says – about the King?’

  ‘I’m not sure he’ll agree to sit for a group portrait.’

  ‘Well, quite,’ said Mr Hamilton, as though he might have advised His Majesty on the subject himself.

  Cora, decanting a bottle of wine at the table, said over her shoulder, ‘They’re putting the bite on him all the same. Stephen’s been asked to write to him.’

  Mr Hamilton looked aghast. ‘You mean, you . . . know him?’

  ‘Very slightly. We met at a shoot some time ago – we’ve exchanged a few words now and then.’

  Freya, egged on by her grandfather’s disbelieving tone, said, ‘Dad, would you have to go to Buckingham Palace?’

  Stephen winked at her. ‘Probably.’

  ‘What a bleeding lark!’ she cried.

  A stunned pause followed. Cora put her hands on her hips and stared at her daughter. ‘Freya. What did I just say in the car? About language like that?’

  Freya, not at all abashed, said, ‘What’s wrong with that? It’s not “bloody” or “arsehole”.’

  Granny Hamilton, who had just set down the boeuf en daube, let out a peacock shriek of laughter. ‘I must say, that school of yours sounds a caution, darling!’

  Her husband was less amused. ‘Haven’t heard language like that since I was in the service. Well, as the book says, as ye sow, so shall ye reap . . .’

  From Mr Hamilton’s sour look it was clear he considered Freya’s father in some degree responsible for her verbal delinquency. Stephen felt the injustice of this, but said nothing. Protesting that the school was Cora’s idea would sound weak. He seemed to spend his life nowadays toeing the line, doing things he didn’t want to. That charity dinner for the Marquess Theatre, for instance. He had sensed the game was up when Cora mentioned it to him one evening.

  ‘Do you know this fellow Carmody?’

  ‘Hmm. From Oxford. I bumped into him a few weeks ago.’

  ‘Well, he’s being the most frightful pest. Says you agreed to attend some dinner – for a theatre fund? He rang twice yesterday and again this afternoon.’

  Stephen found himself cornered one morning a few days later. He usually didn’t answer the telephone at home, but both Cora and Mrs Ronson were out.

  ‘Wyley – at last!’ boomed a familiar voice.

  ‘Gerald, hullo,’ he said, and felt his shoulders slump.

  ‘You’re an elusive chap. I’ve rung your place a few times already – talked to your lady wife.’

  ‘She said something about you calling.’

  ‘Well, it’s this dinner for the Marquess – just rounding up the troops, as it were.’

  ‘To be honest, Gerald, I’m fearfully busy at present. I’ve just taken on a huge commission for a club in Mayfair –’

  ‘Yes, the Nines, I heard about that. Bully for you, old chap – but surely they give you the evenings orf!’ Carmody paused at this; when he spoke again his tone had changed. ‘Of course, in an ideal world I’d extend the invitation to a lady – your friend Miss Land, perhaps. Or would that privilege be reserved for your wife?’

  Stephen couldn’t fail to hear the insinuation. Carmody was loud and abrasive, but he was no fool. He must have guessed that Nina and he were somehow involved on more than a friendly footing; or else he had seen them coming out of the hotel lift that afternoon.

  ‘Perhaps I should ask both of them,’ Stephen replied coolly, though he knew that Carmody had the upper hand. He couldn’t risk making an enemy of him. ‘Put me down for a couple of places. I suppose a cheque will be –’

  ‘Oh, we can discuss that later. As a token of gratitude I’ll take you for lunch.’

  ‘Lunch?’ Stephen closed his eyes and pinched the bridge of his nose. He would much rather have paid up to Carmody’s charity and be done with it; now he was saddled with not one but two undesirable engagements. Cora was right – an infernal pest. Stephen decided that the most profitable use of his time would be to host Carmody at the Nines, where at least he could get straight back to work after lunch. A date the following week was settled, and he rang off.

  On the day of their meeting something odd happened. Carmody had telephoned to confirm, and on hearing that Stephen would be driving from Chelsea into the West End he had asked a favour – another one. ‘I’m at my headquarters just off Eaton Square. Would you mind picking me up there and we can drive straight to lunch?’ Stephen, wondering what he meant by ‘headquarters’, had taken down the address and agreed to call by just before one.

  The Carmody HQ turned out to be in a cul-de-sac at the south end of the square. The grey peeling stucco of the building’s facade and the dusty windows indicated a neglect unusual for this expensive neighbourhood. Stephen mounted the steps and tapped the brass knocker. Moments later the door opened, and a young man dressed head to toe in black stood at the threshold. Nonplussed, Stephen said, ‘I’m sorry, I was given this as Gerald Carmody’s address . . .’

  The youth nodded and invited him inside. The hallway was crammed with bundles of newspapers, while along one wall a giant poster proclaimed MIND BRITAIN’S BUSINESS. He escorted Stephen to a room just past the central staircase. ‘If you’d care to wait I’ll find Mr Carmody for you,’ he said, and trotted up the stairs. In the waiting room other posters adorned the wall – VOTE BRITISH PEOPLE’S BRIGADE the most prominent – and someone had framed the front page of the Daily Mail from January 1934, with its famous headline HURRAH FOR THE BLACKSHIRTS. On a long trestle was arranged a selection of pamplets; Stephen lit a cigarette and flicked through one entitled ‘The Future of National Socialism’. His eye skated over its declamatory paragraphs – ‘So many men and women are seeking leadership in a country whose government has been enfeebled . . . we live in a society ruled by alien Jewish financiers, who throttle our trade and menace the world’s peace . . . British people in the East End of London have received notice to quit from the Jews, but this time we are going to give the Jews notice to quit.’

  He suppressed a groan, and dropped the pamphlet back on to the pile. Minutes ticked by, and, assuming that he had been forgotten, he decided to seek out Carmody for himself. Hearing activity from the upper rooms he took the scuffed, uncarpeted stairs and wandered along a corridor. More posters blazoned the motto MIND BRITAIN’S BUSINESS and urged support for the British People’s Brigade. Following the sound of voices he found an office with the door ajar, and craned his head around. Standing at a desk, absorbed in discussion, were two more young men in blackshirt uniform. Both wore armbands with a lightning flash encircled in red. Stephen gave an apologetic cough and said, ‘Would you happen to know if Gerald Carmody’s around?’

  The older of the two, dark hair slicked back from his forehead, looked over at him. ‘Enter,’ he said, before resuming his conversation. Stephen sidled into the room, and plumped down on a desk chair against the wall. He took out another cigarette and lit it, at which the slick-haired one broke off from talking and approached him. Up close a pinkish scurf of acne bearded his jaw. He was perhaps no more than twenty.

  ‘Name?’ he said, hands behind his back and chest thrust forward.

  ‘Erm . . . Stephen Wyley,’ he said pleasantly.

  ‘Stand to attention whe
n you talk to me,’ he hissed, ‘and put that cigarette out.’

  Stephen, smiling, rose slowly to his feet. ‘I think there’s some mistake . . .’ The martinet’s expression darkened as he took in this nonchalance.

  ‘You find this amusing?’ he shouted in Stephen’s face. The other young man, with close-cropped hair and pinched features, looked in fear at his older comrade. Stephen felt it first as an involuntary giddiness in his lungs; then, unable to stop himself, he burst out laughing.

  ‘I’m so sorry,’ he said, between gasps, holding up his hands in a gesture of appeasement. He sensed the youth getting ready to take a swing at him, but before he could do so another voice cut in.

  ‘It’s all right, Franks, this chap’s with me,’ said Carmody, interposing himself. He was wearing a flannel suit, but with the same lightning-flash armband. Franks, lip curled in disgust, continued to glare at Stephen. ‘I’m afraid you’ve been misdirected to our recruiting office, Wyley. Young Franks here is rather zealous in the cause!’

  ‘So I see,’ said Stephen, slightly shamed by his laughter. ‘Well, I’m sorry not to oblige you and the, er, Brigade.’

  Carmody nodded, and with a hand on his shoulder eased Stephen out of the room and back towards the stairs. ‘My apologies,’ he said in a low voice. ‘These young fellows get carried away with all the clicked heels and saluting.’ There was in his tone something Stephen had not expected: it sounded like embarrassment. They were through the hall and descending the front steps just as a trio of blackshirts were coming up. Carmody hailed one of them, who detached himself from the others. He was a shortish man of about thirty with a pugilist’s stance and a long scar down one cheek. He greeted Carmody with a forearm salute, and they fell into a brief muttered discussion. Stephen, standing to one side, was evidently not to be introduced, though he had a vague memory of having seen the man before.

  Their encounter at an end, Carmody bid him farewell and the man, with a quick glance at Stephen, disappeared into the building.

  Carmody, beaming again, said, ‘Shall we proceed?’

  ‘My car’s just over there,’ said Stephen, who waited a moment before saying, ‘I thought you’d quit Mosley’s gang.’

  ‘Indeed. Tom and I have gone our separate ways.’

  ‘So what’s this British People’s Brigade? They look quite a lot like the Fascists to me.’

  Carmody stopped and looked back at his offices. ‘It’s our little piece of Britain, old chap. We’re going to create a new spirit in this country, and we won’t be asking Mussolini for any more handouts.’

  ‘By “we” you mean . . .’

  ‘Myself and the gentleman I was just talking to.’

  ‘Oh. The one who looked like a boxer?’

  Carmody smirked back. ‘He’s not scared of a fight, that’s for sure. But he’s also a formidable mind, and the best young orator I’ve ever heard. Joyce is his name – William Joyce.’

  They had reached the car. Stephen, who had never sought out Carmody’s company, even when they were at Oxford, now felt rather ill at ease with the man – he would really have preferred not to be seen with him. Too late now. He unlocked the passenger door, but before Carmody could duck inside he said to him, ‘One thing, Gerald. I don’t think the club will let you in wearing that.’

  Carmody glanced down at his side, and took in Stephen’s meaning. After a moment’s hesitation he removed the lightning-flash armband from his jacket.

  Stephen resurfaced in the present to find most of his boeuf en daube still uneaten. Freya was just concluding an account of the life of Ruskin. He seemed to have missed something.

  ‘. . . and though at first I would have chosen Nightingale, I’m quite pleased to be in Ruskin.’

  ‘What d’you mean, “in Ruskin”?’ asked Stephen, bewildered.

  Freya directed a puzzled look across the table at him. ‘Have you not been listening to me?’

  Stephen sought help from Cora, who gave him a forbidding frown. ‘Freya’s been telling us about the school houses at Tipton. They’re all named after – tell him, darling.’

  Freya raised her eyes heavenwards and sighed at her father as a teacher might at the class dunce. ‘The school’s got four houses, each named after a famous person – so there’s Mill, Pankhurst, Nightingale, which is Rowan’s house, and Ruskin, which is mine. He was a very distinguished man who wrote about painting and architecture, and he had a very great beard.’

  ‘Or was it just a grey beard?’ asked Stephen.

  ‘I think Mr Mulhall said it was “great”.’

  ‘Eminent Victorians,’ said Mr Hamilton, with a raised eyebrow that argued they were no such thing. Freya took the remark innocently.

  ‘Yes, you see, they all represent a different – er –’

  ‘Aspect?’ supplied Stephen.

  ‘– aspect of life. Medicine, philosophy, art and, um, politics.’

  Mr Hamilton stared into his wine glass. ‘I would have thought Gladstone a fitter representative of British politics than the Pankhurst woman.’

  ‘Which is why you were educated at Harrow and not Tipton, my dear,’ said his wife smoothly, then turned to Cora. ‘And talking of eminent Victorians, we went to see the revival of that play you recommended the other night – The Second Arrangement. Awfully good.’

  ‘Isn’t it!’ said Cora. Stephen kept very still as he listened, wondering which facial expression of his would be the least incriminating. He observed their back-and-forth discussion of the play, a Wimbledon of psychological torture. Just when it seemed about to end Cora said, ‘The woman who plays Hester I thought was marvellous.’

  ‘Hester – oh, was that the lover?’

  ‘Yes. Stephen actually met her a few weeks ago – what’s her name, darling?’

  ‘Nina Land. I met her at Henry’s show. She bought one of his paintings, I think. Must have quite a good eye.’ Why was he still talking? She had only asked for her name – just say it and shut up.

  ‘I got into quite a state during that scene with the letter,’ Cora continued. ‘I couldn’t help myself, could I?’

  Stephen, with a lift of his chin, agreed. ‘The waterworks, I’m afraid.’

  ‘Poor Ma!’ cried Freya.

  ‘Poor Stephen,’ said Cora with a giggle, ‘I think I embarrassed him.’

  Frantic for a diversion, Stephen looked over at Rowan’s plate, the meat untouched. ‘What’s wrong? Are you not well?’

  Rowan shook his head, and said quietly, ‘You said we should always leave a little on the plate for Mr Manners.’

  ‘Yes, a little. Not every last morsel of beef.’

  Freya, with a sidelong look, said, ‘He’s decided to be vegetarian. Mr Mulhall says that meat isn’t good for us.’

  ‘Good heavens,’ said Stephen, ‘this Mr Mulhall is quite the oracle. Does he ever have an opinion that you don’t instantly adopt?’

  ‘Rowan, darling,’ said Cora, ‘I think it would be very rude to Granny if you left all that food. And to Mrs Arkwright who’s gone to the trouble of cooking it.’

  With a forlorn glance up the table, Rowan said, ‘I’m sorry, Granny.’

  ‘That’s all right, poppet,’ said Mrs Hamilton, cheery to a fault. ‘I don’t much care for meat, either. Perhaps you’d come and help Mrs Arkwright with the pudding. It’s Grandpa’s favourite.’

  Mr Hamilton, recovering from the unsuspected presence of a vegetarian, seemed mollified. ‘Guards’ pudding,’ he said. ‘The delight of my boyhood.’

  ‘It sounds grand,’ said Stephen, looking at Freya. ‘Guards’ pudding, eh? Nothing there to offend Mr Mulhall.’

  ‘Don’t bank on it,’ said Mr Hamilton with a grimace. ‘The man’s probably a bloody pacifist as well.’

  They all laughed, and Freya, sensing the rarity of her grandfather rousing the table to mirth, joined in. Stephen watched his daughter, and felt a desperate squeeze on his heart. She was somewhat mysterious to him. In her fair complexion and long limbs he could see Cora; no doub
t her cheekbones would eventually follow suit. On the paternal side he wanted to believe he had passed on to her his equable temperament, and perhaps his watchful eye. But he wondered if he could claim that much credit – Freya’s personality seemed cut from a quite different cloth. Who was this dark-eyed sprite they had created? He supposed there was always an element of the child playing at the role of adult, most obviously in her recent adoption of swearing, though what he found far more disconcerting was her absolute self-possession. He didn’t have such poise as a twelve-year-old. He didn’t have it as a thirty-five-year-old, come to think of it.

  He sometimes considered what would happen if his affair with Nina were to be revealed, how Freya would react – how they all would react. Cora, he knew, would be hysterical. The irony of her sobbing at Nina’s stage performance as the lover had not escaped him; what bitter tears might follow once it were known that the very same woman now occupied the role in real life, with her own husband? As for Rowan, he couldn’t guess his reaction, having no idea what was going on in his head. He was an odd little boy, mopish, passive, neurotic, altogether lacking his sister’s vivacious spirit. In truth Stephen already felt guilty about him; he had never imagined finding so little of interest in his own flesh and blood. He loved him, of course – how could he not? – but it seemed to him a love born of anxiety, and duty, rather than a deep genetic affinity. His sense of having failed with Rowan was counterpointed by the tender shock of Freya suddenly becoming the centre of his life. He didn’t know how, or when, but there was no use denying it. Should it ever come out that he had betrayed them, he could imagine – no, he didn’t have to imagine, he had already been visited in a dream about it. Somehow his secret was out, and the shame of it burnt through Freya’s look of incomprehension, of disbelief, a look that said, You did this – to us? Nothing in the world could have pierced him as that look did.

  In the first few seconds after waking he felt so disturbed by the dream’s horrific unmasking that, even as relief flooded his nervous system, he vowed to himself that it must never happen – that he must end things with Nina, and quickly. Yet as the day wore on, he felt his panic subsiding, and he allowed that he may have been hasty in making resolutions. Cora had greeted him at breakfast with a face unclouded by the smallest suspicion. Freya was at school, in Hampshire, and a long way from uncovering the vault at the bottom of his heart. He was safe, still.