He switched from Pappy and Mama to Command Performances. Niall said nothing and let him ramble on. There was a photograph of Maria on the wall opposite. It was not in the least like the person who had gone to pray in St. Martin’s in the Fields, and who had clung to him in the taxi. The girl in the photograph had her head thrown back, she smiled seductively, and her lashes were much too long.
“You’re here to see your sister, of course,” said the commissionaire. “Proud of her I expect, aren’t you?”
“She’s not my sister. She’s no relation,” said Niall suddenly. The man stared at him, nonplussed.
“Well, stepsister, if you like,” said Niall. “We’re all mixed up. It’s rather difficult to explain.”
He wished the man would go away, he did not want to talk to him anymore. A taxi drove up and stopped. A very old lady got out trailing a feather fan. The commissionaire went to help her. They were beginning to arrive…
As he watched the hands travel round the clock and the foyer gradually fill with excited chattering people, a sense of claustrophobia came upon Niall and he felt trapped. They buzzed past him and about him, and he tried to flatten himself against the wall. Thank God nobody knew who he was, and he did not have to talk, but the sense of oppression was with him just the same. He was aware of a feeling of acute dislike, almost of hatred, towards all these unknown men and women who were filing past him to the stalls. They were like the spectators at an arena in ancient Rome. They had all dined well, and now they had come to watch Maria being torn to pieces by lions. Their eyes were avaricious, their hands were claws. All they wanted to do was to draw blood…
It grew hotter and hotter inside the foyer, and his stiff collar pierced the side of his neck, yet his hands and feet were icy; he was hot and cold in all the wrong places.
How appalling if he fainted. How absolutely frightful if his legs crumpled up under him, and he heard the girl who sold the programs say, “There’s a young gentleman taken bad—will someone come and give a hand?”
Ten minutes to eight… The curtain rang up at eight fifteen, Maria said, and her entrance was at eight thirty-five. He pulled out his handkerchief and wiped his forehead. Christ! That couple over there were staring at him. Did he know them? Were they friends of Pappy’s? Or was it just that they thought the pale-faced boy standing against the wall was going to die?
There was a photographer at the entrance with a flashlight. Every time he clicked the thing there was a fresh buzz of conversation, and a little murmur of laughter.
Suddenly Niall saw Pappy with Celia, in her white fur coat, pushing through the crowd towards him. Someone said, “There’s Delaney,” and people were turning to look at Pappy as they always did, and Pappy was smiling and nodding and waving his hand. He never seemed to be embarrassed. He never seemed to mind. He looked magnificent, towering above everybody else. Celia held Niall’s hand. She stared at him, her large eyes anxious.
“Are you all right?” she said. “You look as if you’re going to be sick.” Pappy came and gripped his shoulder.
“Come on,” he said. “Let’s go to our seats. What a mob. Hullo, how are you?” and he turned again, claimed by some friend, and then by someone else, and all the while the photographer was clicking in the background.
“You must go in alone with Pappy,” said Niall to Celia. “It’s no use. I can’t face it.”
Celia looked at him blankly.
“You must come,” she said. “Think of Maria. You must come.”
“No,” said Niall. “I’m going out in the street.”
And he pushed his way through the crowd and out into the street and began to walk up the Haymarket to Piccadilly. His shoes were thin and were soon soaked through with the slush, but he did not mind. He would keep walking all the evening, up and down and around the streets because he could not bear to watch the agony of Maria in the arena.
“I’m gutless,” he said to himself. “That will always be my trouble. I’m absolutely and entirely gutless.”
He stood a while in Piccadilly, looking at the flashing lights and the dark canopy of sky above his head and the dirty falling snow, for it began again, pale soft flakes onto the wet pavement. I remember this, he thought. This has happened before. And he was a child standing in the Place de la Concorde, holding Truda’s hand, and the snow was falling just like this, and the taxis swerved and hooted, swerving to right and to left, some making for the bridge across the Seine, the others turning left down the rue Royale. Frozen water gushed from the mouths of the women in the fountain
“Come back,” said Truda to Maria. “Come back.” And Maria was trying to dart across the Place de la Concorde. She looked back laughing, she wore no hat, and the snow was falling on her hair.
This was Piccadilly, though, and the lights ran up and down the London Pavilion. Eros had a little cap of snow. The snow kept falling. Then it started, the tune in Niall’s head. It was nothing to do with Paris or with London. It had nothing to do with lights, or with the Place de la Concorde or with Piccadilly. It just came, born from nothing and from no one, an echo from the unconscious.
“I could get it down if there was a piano,” he thought, “but there isn’t one. Everything’s shut. I can’t go bursting in to the Piccadilly Hotel or somewhere and ask if I can borrow a piano.”
He went on walking up and down the streets, getting colder and colder, and the tune was stronger in his head every moment. His head was bursting with the tune. He had forgotten all about Maria. He was not thinking of Maria anymore. It was not until he found himself in the Haymarket again, opposite the theater, that he remembered the play. He looked at his watch. It was a quarter past ten. The play had been running for two hours. The people standing there in the foyer smoking cigarettes must be waiting about during the second interval. The sick feeling of apprehension came upon him once again. If he went in and stood among them he might hear them say something terrible about Maria. He felt himself drawn irresistibly towards the theater. His laggard feet brought him to the doors. He saw the commissionaire standing just by the entrance. He turned his back, he did not want to be seen. It was too late. The commissionaire had recognized him and came forward.
“Your dad’s been looking for you,” he said. “He’s been looking everywhere. He’s gone back to his seat now. The curtain’s just going up on the third act.”
“How’s it going?” said Niall, his teeth chattering.
“Lovely,” said the commissionaire. “They’re just lapping it up. Why don’t you go in and join your dad?”
“No, it’s all right,” said Niall. “I like it outside.”
He went back again into the street. He could feel the commissionaire staring at him. He went on walking about in the street until five minutes to eleven, when he judged the play would be over. Then at five minutes to the hour he went and stood outside the doors that led direct onto the street. They were flung open, and he could hear the applause in the far distance. He could not judge the sound. It always seemed to him the same from any theater. A steady, breaking sound. A sort of roar. It had always sounded the same for as far back as he could remember. Once it had been for Pappy and Mama. Now, please God, it was for Maria. He wondered if always, throughout his life, there would be some part of him somewhere that listened to applause, and he would be part of it, bound up in it, and yet—as it were—outside, standing in the street the way he was standing now.
The applause died away. Someone must have come forward to make a speech, and then they were clapping again, and then the orchestra started to play “God Save the King.” He waited a moment longer. Then the clattering of footsteps began on the side stairs, and voices and laughter and the dark mass of people came swarming into the street.
“Heavens—it’s snowing again. We shall never find a taxi,” someone said, and a man bumped into him and another woman behind his shoulder, and the cars began moving in a steady stream with people jumping on the running boards, and he could not hear anyone say a word about Maria.<
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“Yes, I know,” a voice said. “That’s what I thought…” and more voices and more laughter. Niall found himself walking towards the main entrance. The mass of people were standing there waiting for the cars. Two men and a woman stood right on the edge of the pavement.
“I think she’s got a curious sort of fascination, but I wouldn’t call her lovely,” said the woman. “Look, isn’t that the car coming now? Wait for it to draw up. I don’t want to ruin my shoes.”
Silly bitch, thought Niall. Is she talking about Maria? She would be lucky if she had one-twentieth part of Maria’s looks.
They got into the car. They drove away. Maria could be dying in her dressing room for all they cared.
Two men climbed into the next taxi. They were middle-aged, and they looked tired and bored. They said nothing at all. They were probably critics.
“He’s aged rather, don’t you think?” said someone. Niall wondered who. Anyway, it did not matter. It was not Maria who had aged.
Still they came on and on, pouring out of the theater like rats from a sinking ship. And then he found himself clutched by Celia.
“At last,” she said. “Where have you been? We thought you must have found a taxi and gone home. Come on quickly. Pappy’s gone ahead.”
“Where to? What for?”
“Why, round to see Maria, of course. In the dressing room.”
“What happened? Was she all right?”
“What happened? Didn’t you see any of it then?”
“No.”
“Why, it’s wonderful. She’s made a huge success. I knew she would. Pappy’s in tremendous form. Come on.”
Celia was flushed and happy. She dragged at Niall’s sleeve. He followed her along the passages to Maria’s dressing room. But there were too many people. It was always the same. Far too many people.
“I don’t think I’ll come,” said Niall. “I’ll go and wait in the car.”
“Don’t be such a wet blanket,” said Celia. “There’s nothing to worry about now. Everything’s all right, and Maria will be so happy.”
Maria was standing in the doorway, and Pappy was there laughing, and several others. Niall did not know any of them, nor did he want to know them or speak to them. He just wanted to make certain that Maria was all right. She had a curious ragged frock on—of course, he remembered, that was the part in the play—and she was smiling up at the man who was talking to Pappy. Niall recognized him. He was laughing too. Everyone was laughing. Everyone was very pleased. Then Pappy turned to talk to someone else, and the man and Maria looked at each other and laughed. It was the laugh of two people who share a secret. The laugh of two people who stand on the brink of an adventure. The adventure had only just begun. Niall understood that look on Maria’s face, he understood the expression in her eyes. Although he had never seen her look at anyone in that way before, he knew why she did it, and what it meant, and why she was happy.
“She’ll always be like that,” he thought. “I can’t stop her. It’s all mixed up with her acting. I just have to let it happen.”
He looked down at her hand and he saw she was wearing the ring. She was twisting it round her finger as she talked. She did not take it off. She never would take it off, he knew that. She wanted to keep it and hold it, just as she wanted to keep Niall and hold him. We’re both of us young, thought Niall, and there may be years and years ahead of us, but she will always go on wearing that ring and we shall always be together. That man there will be dead and gone and forgotten, but we shall be together. This is just an evening that has to be gone through and endured. And there will be other days and other evenings… If he could find a piano somewhere and sit down and play the tune it would be easier. But there was the party at the Green Park, and more people to be faced, and the business of being polite and dancing. The party would get out of control, as Pappy’s parties always did, and Pappy would start to sing and no one would get to bed before about four in the morning. And at nine he, Niall, had to catch the train back to school, and still there would have been no time to play that tune on any piano.
Suddenly Maria was beside him, touching his hand.
“It’s over,” she said. “Oh, Niall, it’s over.”
The man had gone, but she was still twisting the ring round her finger.
“Part of it’s over,” said Niall, “and part of it’s just begun.”
She knew what he meant at once. Her eyes drifted away from him.
“Don’t say anything,” she said.
Then more people came along the passage, and she was caught up with them and hemmed in, laughing and talking, and Niall went on standing and waiting with his back against the wall wishing he could go away and find a piano, and forget everything but the tune.
They must have sat down about twenty-five to supper at the Green Park. Everyone was very gay and merry, and the supper was good, and the waiters kept opening more and more bottles of champagne.
“It’s like a wedding,” thought Niall. “Before long, Pappy will get up and propose the health of the bride. And the bride will be Maria.”
Maria was away down the other end of the table. Once or twice she looked down and waved at Niall, but she was not thinking about him. He danced with Celia once or twice, but nobody else. He did not ask Maria. The band was noisy and the fellow playing the sax thought he was funny, but he was not. You couldn’t hear the chap at the piano. The sax drowned him all the time. The very sight of the piano was an added irritant. Niall wanted to turn everybody out of the room and get to it.
“You look awfully cross. What’s the matter?”
There was a new woman sitting on his right who had not been there before. It was this woman who had spoken. Her face was familiar, the friendly brown eyes, the rather large mouth, and her hair with the square-cut fringe.
“Pappy sent me down to talk to you,” she said. “You don’t remember me. I’m Freada.”
“Why, yes,” he said. “Yes, of course.”
She used to live in Paris, she was a friend of Pappy’s and Mama’s, and she was funny and jolly and kind, and took them all to see the Concours Hippique, he remembered now, years ago. She looked the same. That was the queer thing that happened when you grew up. Pappy’s friends who had seemed once so old and tall and out of reach turned out to be just ordinary people like yourself.
“I haven’t seen any of you for about ten years,” she said. “You were a funny little chap and very shy. I was in front tonight. Maria was so good. What an attractive creature she’s grown into, but so have you all. It makes me feel very old.”
She put out her cigarette and lit another. Niall remembered that too. She was one of those people who were always smoking, and she had a long amber holder. She was nice and kind and much too tall.
“You never did like parties, did you?” she said. “I don’t blame you. But I like seeing my friends. You’ve grown very much like your mother, has anyone told you?”
“No,” said Niall. “Like Mama… How strange, how queer…”
“Pappy tells me you have one more term at school,” she said. “What are you going to do when you leave? Play the piano?”
“No,” he said, “I play very badly. I’m no good.”
“Really,” she said. “You surprise me.”
Maria had got up and was dancing with the man. She was away and out of sight among the other dancers. Niall felt suddenly that Freada who had been so kind years ago at the Concours Hippique was an ally and friend. He remembered how she had bought him a bag of macaroons that day and let him eat the lot, and that when he had wanted to go to the lavatory he had not minded asking her. She had taken it as a matter of course that he would want to go. Queer how you remembered those things through the years.
“I like music more than anything in the world, but I can’t play,” he said, “not properly, not the way I would want to play. I can only play the sort of stuff they’re playing now. I can only think of those sort of tunes. And it’s hell. It’s absolute hell.?
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“Why is it hell?” she said.
“Because it’s not what I want,” he said. “There’s a mass of sound in my head and it won’t come out. At least, it does come out and it’s nothing but a damn silly dance tune.”
“I don’t see that it should matter,” said Freada, “not if the tune is a good one.”
“Oh, but it’s such bilge,” he said. “Who wants to write a dance tune?”
“A lot of people would give their eyes to do it,” she said.
“Let them,” said Niall. “They can have all mine.”
She went on smoking through the long holder, and her eyes were kind. Niall felt she understood.
“As a matter of fact,” he said, “I’ve gone nearly crazy all this evening because of a tune in my head. I want a piano, and I can’t get to one because this party will go on half the night. I can’t go and turn that fellow off the stand over there.”
He laughed. It was such a ridiculous admission. Freada did not seem to think it ridiculous. She accepted it as something quite natural, like wanting to go to the lavatory when he was little, like eating a whole bag of macaroons.
“When did you think of the tune?” she said.
“I was walking round Piccadilly Circus,” he said. “I was too nervous to watch the play because of Maria. And suddenly it came, the tune, you know, because of the snow and those electric signs. It made me think of Paris and the fountains in the Place de la Concorde. Not that the tune has anything to do with it… I don’t know, I can’t explain.”
She did not say anything for a moment. The waiter put a plate of ice cream in front of her, but she waved it away. Niall was sorry. He could have eaten it himself.
“Do you remember your mother dancing?” she said suddenly.
“Yes, of course,” said Niall.
“Do you remember the dance of the beggar maid in the snow? The lights in the window of a house, and her footsteps in the snow, and the way her hands moved with the falling flakes?” she said.