This silenced Sally for an unusual moment.
‘Tough luck,’ she said at length.
‘It was something of a blow.’
‘But how do you come to be able to attend rehearsals if you’re in an office?’
‘They let me out for the afternoon.’
‘I see. Do you like office work?’
‘Not much. It’s a living, but I wish I had all day to write in.’
‘Same here.’
‘How’s your writing coming along?’
‘Not too badly. But I’m supposed to be interviewing you.’
‘You’re the one I’d like to hear about.’
‘Oh, well, if you want the story of my life, you may as well have it. Clergyman’s daughter in Worcestershire. Broke away from the reservation. Got various jobs. Spent a long time as secretary-companion to Letitia Carberry. Ever hear of her?’
‘Not to my recollection.’
‘Very active in connection with the Anti-Tobacco League.’
‘Then I’m glad I never met her. I know the Car-berry type. Fat and bullying everyone she came across.’
‘On the contrary, slender and as sweet as pie. Not very intelligent.’
‘I should imagine not, if she fired you.’
‘What makes you think she fired me?’
‘Well, here you are, aren’t you, free from her evil influence.’
‘The work got too hard for me and she decided to engage a male secretary. I could have stayed on as companion, but she suddenly took it into her head to go and settle in South America, and I didn’t want to leave England. Why South America, you ask? Probably because she had heard that a lot of smoking went on there and she hoped to spread the light. We parted on the best of terms. It was rather like a mother bidding farewell to a daughter, or at least an aunt bidding farewell to a niece, not that I’ve ever seen an aunt bidding farewell to a niece.
‘Much the same as an uncle bidding farewell to a nephew, I expect.’
‘And I came to London and eventually landed my present job.’
‘Happy ending?’
‘Very. I love the little thing. And now for heaven’s sake let’s hear from you. I suppose this play means a lot to you—your first.’
‘It means everything.’
‘Well, good luck.’
‘Thanks. Have you ever written a play?’
‘Now don’t get on to me again,’ said Sally. ‘Correct this impression that I came here to give you material for my biography.’
When she had gone, far too soon in his opinion, it occurred to Joe that it would be as well to make his peace with Miss Dalrymple. He intercepted her as she was leaving the theatre and asked her to lunch. The invitation was well received, but it appeared that she already had a luncheon engagement, with a Mr Llewellyn, a prominent figure in the motion picture world.
Chapter Three
Enthroned in his box at the artists’ entrance of the Regal Theatre, Mac the stage-doorkeeper was conscious of a feeling of depression. This was not because he wanted to smoke and was not allowed to but for a more altruistic reason. Beyond the door to his left the comedy Cousin Angela by Joseph Pickering was concluding its brief career, and this saddened Mac.
Not that its failure to entertain affected him personally. As he often said, what took place on the other side of that door made no difference to him. Triumph or disaster, socko or flop, he went on for ever like one of those permanent officials at the Foreign Office. But in the course of their short acquaintance he had become fond of the author of Cousin Angela and regretted that he had not enjoyed better luck. When he thought of some of the stinkers whose plays had run a year and more at the Regal since he first took office there, he could not but feel that Fate in allowing only sixteen performances to deserving Joe Pickering’s brain child had shown poor judgement.
These thoughts were silent thoughts, for he had no one with whom to share them. His only companion was a middle-aged man who was propped up against the wall with his eyes closed and a dreamy smile on his face. One could not have said that the vine leaves were in this man’s hair, for he had practically no hair, but it would have been plain to a far less able diagnostician than the keeper of the stage door that he was under the influence of what is technically known as the sauce. American, Mac put him down as, and he marvelled, as he had often done before, at the ability of the citizens of that great country to hoist so many and still remain perpendicular.
Obviously an exchange of thought—what Shakespeare would have called the marriage of true minds —was not to be expected with one so far below the surface, and Mac’s meditations had turned to the prospects of a horse, shortly to run at Catterick Bridge, in whose prowess he had a financial interest, when there entered from the street someone younger and considerably more pleasing to the eye than his predecessor. He was indeed spectacularly good-looking —in the fragile ethereal Percy-Bysshe-Shelley way that goes straight to the hearts of women. His appeal to men was less marked, and Mac regarded him with a jaundiced eye.
He said:
‘Mr Pickering here tonight, Mac?’
To which Mac replied:
‘He’s round in front’—which would not have been a bad description of the visitor propped against the wall, who was noticeably stout. Julius Caesar would have liked him.
The ethereal young man withdrew, and Mac returned to his reverie. But he was soon to resume his social life. The door leading to the stage opened, to admit Joe Pickering.
Things being as they were on the other side of that door, Mac did not venture on his usual smile of welcome. His face was suitably grave as he greeted him.
‘Hullo, Mr Pickering.’
‘Hullo, Mac. Just came to say goodbye.’
‘Sorry to lose you, Mr Pickering. Too bad the show didn’t click.’
‘Yes, it was a disappointment.’
A snore proceeded from the man on the wall. Joe gave him a speculative glance.
‘Blotto?’ he said, lowering his voice.
‘Sozzled,’ said Mac with his Flaubert-like gift for finding the mot juste. ‘He’s waiting for Miss Dalrymple.’
‘He’ll be an entertaining playmate for her.’
‘Ah.’
‘Not that he hasn’t got the right idea. I am about to go and get into a similar condition myself.’
‘Now, Mr Pickering.’
‘You don’t approve of me drowning my sorrows?’
‘I think you’re taking this too hard, sir. Everyone has flops.’
‘I hoped I’d be an exception.’
‘Just got to make the best of it.’
‘You preach contentment, do you? Like the butterfly.’
‘Sir?’
‘The toad beneath the harrow knows exactly where each tooth point goes. The butterfly upon the road preaches contentment to the toad. Kipling. All very well for you to talk. You’re a happy rollicking stage-doorkeeper without a care in the world.’
‘Yes, sir, but don’t think I wouldn’t have liked something better, if I could have got it. When I came out of the army, there weren’t any cushy jobs going, only stage-doorkeeper, so I became a stage-doorkeeper. But you don’t find me beefing about my lot. I’d rather be top man at the Bank of England or run a nice little pub somewhere, but I know when I’m well off.’
His eloquence moved Joe. He nodded understandingly.
‘You’ve made your point, Mac, and I stand rebuked. I abandon the idea of drowning my sorrows. No more self-pity.’
‘That’s it. Stiff upper lip.’
A thoughtful silence fell. Mac broke it.
‘You going out front, Mr Pickering?’
‘No, I’ve seen all I want to of this particular drama. Why?’
‘I was thinking that if you were going out front, you might run into Sir Jaklyn Warner, Baronet. He was in here just now, asking for you, and you know what a cadger he is. He wants to make a touch. I could see it in his eye. I should say he’d touched everybody in the West End of London since he started hang
ing round there. He even stung me for a bit the other day. Made me feel like one of a great big family.’
‘One touch of Warner makes the whole world kin.
He’s certainly not one of our better baronets.’
‘You can say that again, Mr Pickering. Jak Warner!’ said Mac disgustedly, and the man supporting himself against the wall stirred like some Sleeping Beauty coming to life. ‘If you want to know what I think of Jak Warner, he’s a twister and a louse.’
The man detached himself from the wall. His eyes were now open and his face was stern. He spoke coldly.
‘I heard what you said.’
A sharp ‘Coo!’ escaped Mac. It was as if he had been addressed by a statue or a corpse after rigor mortis had set in. Joe was equally taken aback. The last thing he had expected from this pie-eyed person was coherent speech.
‘And,’ the speaker continued, ‘I am going to knock your block off. Jack Warner is a dear friend of mine. Well, when I say a dear friend, we haven’t spoken to each other for three years, but that makes no difference. Anyone I hear aspersing his name, I knock his block off. It is a name at the mention of which men from one end of Hollywood to the other, including Culver City, bare their heads. If,’ he added, ‘they’ve got hats on.’
‘He didn’t mean that Jack Warner,’ said Joe, the pacifist.
‘You keep out of this.’
Joe persevered.
‘You were speaking of hats and Hollywood,’ he said. ‘I suppose not many men wear hats there.’
‘Very few.’
‘The sun is never too hot. No danger of sunstroke.’
‘Practically none.’
‘But you get a nice tan.
‘Sure. Who’s to stop you?’
Joe was relieved. It seemed to him that by cunningly turning the conversation to the weather conditions in Southern California he had averted an unpleasant brawl. Tact, he was thinking, that was what you needed in an emergency; tact and presence of mind.
‘It must be wonderful in Hollywood,’ he said. ‘All those oranges and movie stars.’
With the best intentions he appeared to have chosen the wrong subject for his eulogy. The face of the inebriated friend of Jack Warner darkened, and his mouth twisted as if he had bitten into a bad oyster. His comment on Joe’s words could only have been called curt.
‘To hell with movie stars!’
‘Quite,’ said Joe hastily. ‘Quite, quite.’
‘The scum of the earth.’
‘You’re probably right.’
‘I’m always right.’
‘But the oranges. You like those?’
‘To hell with them, too. No time to talk about oranges now. I’ve got to knock this guy’s block off.’
And so saying the pie-eyed man approached the window of Mac’s box and started to climb through it.
The situation, Joe saw, was one of delicacy, calling for adroit handling by a third party anxious to make sure that neither of the two contending parties did anything for which he would be sorry later. Mac was liable to get into trouble if he indulged in personal strife with visitors, and his opposite number could not fail to regret it if he went about knocking people’s blocks off. With laudable promptitude he attached himself to the latter’s garments and pulled. To gather him up and escort him to the street door and push him through it was a simple task. It was, he noticed, raining outside, but no doubt his charge would find a taxi before he got too wet. He returned to Mac with something of the feeling of a Boy Scout who has done his good deed for the day.
‘Lord love a duck,’ said Mac.
‘Lord love a duck indeed.’
‘You get all sorts.’
‘You certainly do. Who was our guest?’
‘Couldn’t tell you. He gave his name, but I’ve forgotten it. Loo something.’
‘From Hollywood, I gathered.’
‘I don’t know where he came from, but I wish he’d stayed there. Much obliged to you, Mr Pickering, for acting so prompt.’
‘Don’t give it another thought. Well, goodbye, Mac.’
‘Goodbye, sir. Better luck next time.’
‘If there is a next time.’
‘Oh, there will be, Mr Pickering. One of these days the sun will come smiling through.’
‘Well, I hope it hurries,’ said Joe. ‘If you meet it, tell it to get a move on.’
He went out into the street and started to walk to the modest flat which he called his home. The rain had stopped, but there were puddles which had to be avoided, and he had just stepped round one of these when a solid object bumped into him, causing him to stagger.
He clasped it in his arms. Tonight appeared to be his night for clasping his fellow human beings in his arms. A brief while before it had been Mr Loo something from Hollywood; now it was Sally Fitch. Some days had passed since their former meeting, but he had no difficulty in recognising her.
2
‘Good Lord!’ he said. ‘You!’
‘Why, hullo,’ said Sally.
‘Pickering is the name, if you remember.’
‘I hadn’t forgotten. Thanks for catching me so adroitly.’
‘Don’t mention it. What were you doing? Practising rustic dances?’
‘Staggering. .My heel came off.’
‘Oh, was that it?’
‘I was walking peacefully along, minding my own business, and suddenly wham, no heel on right shoe. Interfered with navigation.’
‘I can imagine.’
‘There’ll be a cab along in a minute. Meanwhile, let’s have all your news. Been doing any boxing?’
‘Not lately. I did think of plugging Vera Dalrymple in the eye, but I let it go.’
‘I hope she hasn’t ruined your play. How’s it going?’
‘It’s gone.’
‘Oh, no!’
‘Came off tonight.’
‘Oh, I am sorry. You must be feeling frightful.’
‘I’ve been cheerier.’
‘You seem cheery enough.’
‘Just wearing the mask. I’ve sworn not to indulge in self-pity. After all, there have been lots of fellows worse off than me.’
‘I suppose that’s one way of looking at it.’
‘Take the boy who stood on the burning deck whence all but he had fled. Can’t have been pleasant for him.’
‘Not very.’
‘But I’ve never heard that he grumbled. And Napoleon. He suffered from chronic dyspepsia. Couldn’t digest a thing. Every time he got up from dinner he felt as if a couple of wild cats were fighting for the wild cat welterweight championship inside him. And Waterloo on top of that.’
‘And probably all he said was Oo la la.’
‘I shouldn’t wonder.’
‘Or Zut.’
‘Yes, possibly Zut.’
‘And we could go on kidding like this indefinitely, but that doesn’t alter the fact that I’m awfully sorry and think you’re taking this awfully well.’
‘Thanks. That means a lot to me.’
‘I hope everything will get better soon.’
‘I have it on excellent authority that the sun will shortly come smiling through. And now,’ said Joe, ‘I’ll get you that cab.’
The cab rolled off, and he resumed his homeward journey. There was a letter lying on the floor as he came into the flat, and picking it up he recognised the handwriting of his friend Jerry Nichols, who worked for his father’s legal firm of Nichols, Erridge and Trubshaw of 27 Bedford Row.
‘Dear Joe,’ wrote Jerry, ‘If you can get your Simon Legrees to let you off for half an hour on Tuesday morning, come and see me. I think I may be able to put you on to something good. I specify Tuesday because haste is of the essence and I shall be away all Monday. Don’t fail, as this good thing looks quite a good thing. Tuesday, remember, not Monday.’
Promising, Joe felt, very promising. Yet, oddly enough, his thoughts as he dropped off to sleep were not of Jerry Nichols but of Sally Fitch.
Chapter Four
Dotted about London in the less fashionable quarters of the town there loom here and there enormous houses which were built at a time when everybody had ten or eleven children, lots of money and vassals and serfs in comfortable profusion. No longer able to be used as private residences, principally because the serfs and vassals now know a thing or two and prefer to make their living elsewhere, some have become blocks of flats, others hostels for students and the younger wage-earners. Each of the latter has a communal living-room and dining-room and each resident his or her bedroom, and the general effect is of an informal and rather cosy club.
One of these younger wage-earners was Sally Fitch, and on the Sunday following the night on which her shoes had proved so untrustworthy she was in her room, discussing with her friend Mabel Potter the latter’s marital problems.
Mabel was the secretary of Edgar Sampson the theatrical manager, but leaving shortly to get married, unless she decided to stay on after the honeymoon, and she wanted Sally’s views on which course she ought to pursue. Charlie, it seemed, who made quite enough for two in a stockbroker’s office, wished her to retire and concentrate on the home, but she wavered because she liked being a secretary.
‘Sammy is awfully nice to work for, and you meet such interesting people in a place like that. There was a newspaper man in the day before yesterday who had delirium tremens right in front of my desk. Do you like your work, Sally?’
‘I love it.’
‘You must meet a lot of interesting people, too.’
‘All the time. Have you ever seen an existentialist poet? Well worth a glance. The one I did offered me absinthe, not to mention a weekend at Bognor Regis. And on Tuesday I’m doing Ivor Llewellyn, the motion picture man. He ought to be good. The trouble with the job is that it’s so ships-in-the-nightish.’
‘How do you mean?’
‘You meet someone you like, chat awhile, and part for ever. You never see them again.’
‘Well, you can’t expect celebrities to swear eternal friendship.’
‘A paper like mine doesn’t go in much for celebrities, though I suppose Ivor Llewellyn’s one. Never heard of him myself. We get the lesser lights. I was thinking of Joe Pickering.’