1951 - But a Short Time to Live (19 page)

Lehmann pushed back his chair.

"What now?" he asked with an amiable smile.

"See what we've bought'

He went to the window.

"My word! Is that yours?" he asked, looking down at the glittering Jaguar that was parked in the alley behind the theatre.

"Just got it. It's a beaut, isn't it?" Clair said enthusiastically. "It'll do ninety and the radio's bang on."

When she had gone, Lehmann glanced at Harry and raised his eyebrows.

"No wonder you want a rise," he said. "That must have cost you a packet."

Harry felt himself go red.

"Well, she wanted a car," he muttered, and was glad when the door opened at this moment and Allan Simpson came in.

“Have you shown Ricks the photo montage idea yet?" Simpson asked abruptly.

"Haven't got round to it yet, A.S.," Lehmann said. "He's only just come in."

"Morning, Ricks," Simpson said, nodding to Harry. "How do you like your wife working for a living? She's damned clever. If ever you go broke she can always pick pockets, can't she, Val?"

The two men laughed as if Simpson had made the funniest joke in the world. Harry turned away, afraid they'd see how embarrassed he was. He pretended to examine one of the sketches.

"It was good of you to give her the chance," he said, feeling Simpson expected him to say something.

"With her looks and talent, she might make a hit," Simpson said, lighting a cigarette. "Anyway, we'll try her out at the 22nd and see how she shapes. Oman working with her?" he asked Lehmann.

"She's with him now."

"Right; well, let's get to work. We'll go over the number Ricks is to work on, and then he can get on with it." Simpson sat at Lehmann's desk. "We want life-size enlargements of twenty girls, Ricks. They're to be framed and used as a back-cloth. The girls will be ready to be photographed this afternoon. Val will show you how we want them to pose. You'd better get the necessary bromide paper, and whatever else you need. I suppose you can tackle a job as big as that?"

"Oh, yes," Harry said, thinking if he wasn't on contract the job would be worth a great deal of money.

"Then we want a four times larger than life-size photograph of Jenny Rand. We'd better give that to Kodaks to do. It's too big for you to handle. Get some good portraits of her and let me see them. We'll select the one to enlarge. She'll sit for you tomorrow morning. You might have a word with Kodaks and get an estimate." He glanced at Lehmann. "That's all for the moment, isn't it?"

Lehmann nodded.

"All right, Ricks, you get off. Be on the stage at two o'clock this afternoon."

Harry badly wanted to ask Simpson if he wouldn't reconsider the monopoly clause, but his nerve failed at the last moment and he left the office.

"Just my luck!" he thought as he walked down the stairs to the theatre foyer. "I daren't give up this steady job. I might never get another. I'll have to get rid of Mooney. That'll save me five pounds a week, and perhaps I can persuade Lehmann to pay Doris instead of leaving it to me."

He went back stage where he found Mooney lolling in a chair talking to one of the stage hands.

"I'd like a word, Alf," Harry said. He had been on "Alf terms with Mooney since they had exchanged places as employer and employee. Even now, it made Harry feel embarrassed to call Mooney by his first name.

"What's biting you, kid?" Mooney asked, chewing his dead cigar. He waved the stage hand away with a lordly hand.

Harry leaned against the wings and looked at Mooney unhappily.

"The fact is, Alf. I can't afford to pay you out of my own pocket any more, I'm sorry, but getting married makes a difference."

Mooney's eyes hardened.

"Does it?" he asked. "What's this about Clair getting a job and earning thirty quid a week? I should have thought it would have made it easier."

Harry reddened.

"What Clair earns has nothing to do with it," he said. "I have to keep my end up, and I want every penny I earn now. I'm sorry, but you'll either have to accept the fiver Lehmann pays or look for something else. I can't afford any more to make up your money."

"What do I do — starve?" Mooney asked politely.

"You won't starve on five pounds a week, and — and . . ." Harry broke off uneasily.

"Does Clair know about this?"

"Leave Clair out of it! It's nothing to do with her. The fact is, Alf, you don't really pull your weight, and you know it. If I could get outside work I'd keep you on, but Simpson won't let me and won't give me a raise, so I have to cut somewhere."

"I wonder why it is," Mooney said gloomily, "that as soon as there's a crisis I'm the poor bastard to suffer. Don't forget, Harry, if it wasn't for me, you wouldn't have this job. I won't believe you are so damned mean as to pass me up after all I've done for you."

Harry floundered miserably. He hated this, and Mooney knew it. Mooney knew if he kept on long enough Harry would change his mind. He wasn't going to lose five pounds a week because Harry had been fool enough to marry an expensive wife.

"It's not as if you need the money," he went on. "Clair'll be earning soon, and you'll have more than you know what to do with. You're not going to tell me you're going to make nearly fifty quid a week and are going to begrudge me a miserable fiver. I just don't believe it."

Put like that it did seem petty and mean, and Harry felt ashamed of himself.

"No, you're right, Alf," he said wearily. "Forget it, will you? It's just I hate the thought of Clair earning more than I do. I'm sorry. I shouldn't have said it."

Mooney relaxed back into his chair.

"That's okay, kid," he said. "Think nothing of it. I knew I had only to point out where you were going off the rails. And that stuff about me not pulling my weight. That isn't true, you know. I'm plugging you every minute of the day. Why only just now I was telling that punk electrician what a smart guy you are. It pays to get talked about."

"I suppose it does," Harry said, not caring if he were talked about or not. "Well, forget it, Alf. Now we've got to get busy. They're putting on a new show. I wonder if you'd run down to Kodaks and get an estimate for me. Mr. Simpson wants it. I'll write down the details."

"What — me?" Mooney said, horrified.

chapter twenty-three

A
s Harry had foreseen, Clair made an immediate hit at the 22nd Club. She had insisted on doing her act in a mask and had been billed as The Masked Pickpocket. Only Harry knew why anonymity was necessary.

She was taking no risk of being recognised by any of the men she had stolen from in the past who might happen to visit the night club.

The mask added to her success. She became a subject for discussion and speculation, and the members of the club continually worried the maître d 'hotel to find out if she was as beautiful as her figure suggested she might be.

Harry was astonished how at home she was on the stage. Her act wasn't an easy one. She had to move about the restaurant, pausing at tables, talking to the guests and picking their pockets. Then she would return the articles she had taken to the amusement of the onlookers. But the club members soon caught on to what she was up to, and were on their guard. In spite of that she invariably managed to take something belonging to them, and the act developed into a battle of wits which was another reason for its success.

A month after her opening night, Clair returned to the flat at her usual time: a few minutes after one o'clock in the morning, and instead of undressing in the bathroom and creeping into bed as she usually did, she came bursting into the bedroom and woke Harry up.

"Wake up, darling!" she exclaimed, sitting on the bed and turning on the bedside lamp. I've wonderful news!"

Harry grunted, blinked and sat up.

"You have — what?" he asked sleepily.

"You'll never guess. I'm going into the new revue at the Regent!"

"The Regent!" Harry exclaimed, now wide awake. "But Clair, do you want it? As well as the night club?"

"Of course as well as the night club," she said, kissing him. "I shall be on at eight-thirty at the Regent, and I don't have to be at the 22nd until eleven o'clock. I can easily do it."

"I suppose you can," Harry said, and dropped back on his pillow. "Well, darling, if it's what you want then I'm very glad for you."

"It's what I want for both of us. We're really going places now, Harry! I've signed a contract. A hundred and fifty a week for the two jobs! Think of it! And Val says I can claim at least thirty a week expenses, and that'll be tax free of course. Isn't it marvellous?"

Well, of course it was marvellous, but Harry felt stunned and dismayed, although he made an effort to appear enthusiastic as he watched her undress and listened to her plans.

She danced around the room, shedding her clothes, looking radiant and happy: happier than he had ever seen her, and it grieved him that it was through her own efforts and not his that this had happened.

"We'll see about another flat right away," she said as she slipped into her nightdress. We're not going to live in this pokey hole another week. Allan says there's a flat in Park Lane that might suit us. They only want fifteen pounds a week for it, and it's furnished."

Allan? So she was now on Christian name terms with Simpson. A girl could get on so much faster than a man if she played her cards properly, Harry thought dejectedly. He had worked for Simpson for nearly a year and was still just an employee.

"And we're going to get rid of the Jaguar," Clair went on as she put cold cream on her face.

"Maurice told me this afternoon he has a 1950 Cadillac just come in. He wants fifteen hundred for it, but I know I can beat him down. Think, Harry, a Cad! Won't it make Allan sit up? I just can't wait to get it," and she came running across the room to jump into bed and hug him.

By now Harry was in despair. The gap between their incomes was a yawning chasm. It was hopeless to think of catching her up. A hundred and fifty against fifteen!

"We must be sensible about this, Harry," she said, her head on his shoulder. "I know how you feel about it. I know you hate me making money. You've never used a penny of mine, and you've just got to change your ideas. You've got to make up your mind to use it until you get on your feet I've been talking to Val about you. He thinks you would do better if you worked on your own. And that's what I want you to do. Don't renew your contract. Val says they'll give you the same amount of work anyway, and they'll have to pay you more. You'll be able to do other work too. What do you think, darling? Don't you think it would be sensible not to renew?"

"But I mightn't make a go of it," Harry said, doubtfully. "Simpson might get someone else on contract. It's cheaper that way. After all, I renewed I'd be sure of fifteen pounds a week."

"But what's fifteen pounds?" Clair asked impatiently. "On your own you might make hundreds."

"But I might not. One of us has to be a bit cautious."

"Oh, but you're too cautious. For a whole year we can be independent on my money. It's your chance to experiment. Can't you see that? I want you to set up a studio in the West End. I'll finance you, Harry. Then by the time my act's stale, you'll be in a position to take over. Isn't that the sensible thing to do?"

Well, put like that, it was, of course, but Harry was reluctant to take the risk, and still more reluctant to accept Clair's money.

"I have to think of Mooney," he said, groping for an excuse to refuse her help without hurting her.

"If I give up my contract he won't be paid by the theatre, and I couldn't afford to pay him ten pounds a week out of my own money."

"Mooney?" Clair was scornful. "He's absolutely useless. It's about time you got rid of him. I've been watching him. He doesn't do a thing to help you. He just lolls around and pinches the chorus's bottoms. You've put up with him long enough, Harry. It's time he went'

"But I can't do that," Harry said, shocked. He visualised Mooney's hurt expression and the endless arguments. "After all, it was through him — "

"Oh, bosh! He didn't even know you were taking his photograph. He has no claim on you whatsoever. You leave him to me. I know how to handle him. And Harry, will you look for a likely studio? I'll help you, of course. I'm sure Jenny Rand will recommend you if you ask her. And Val will too. I'm sure you'll make a go of it."

"I don't think I had better," Harry said, torn between the desire to set up on his own and the safety of another year's contract. "Something might happen. You might get ill or something, and then we'd be thankful to have a steady income."

"Oh, Harry, you're impossible! But I do love you so," Clair said. "I do want things to go right for you. Please don't be so cautious. We'll never get anywhere at this rate. We haven't much time. We'll be old before we know where we are. If we don't do something now, it'll be too late. I may not want to go on with my act for years and years, and think how wonderful it would be if you were established in business, and we had nothing to worry about. Now is the time. We can afford to take risks. I have a year's contract. In that time you can get thoroughly established. It's the only thing to do. You've got to do it."

"Well, all right," Harry said, still doubtful. "Anyway, I'll think about it."

But while he was thinking about it Clair acted. A few days later she told him she had found a studio in Grafton Street, and they were going to look at it right away. She had also seen and approved of the flat in Park Lane. In spite of the high rents of both places, she bullied and bustled Harry into signing the agreements.

The studio was just his idea of what a studio should be, but the rent appalled him.

“What does it matter!" Clair said. "It's worth it. What's seventeen pounds a week when you have an address like this? We can afford it, and before long you'll be making ten times that amount."

"But there's the flat as well," Harry said, distracted. "Do you realise we'll be paying out over thirty pounds a week on rents alone? We'll have to earn more than sixty a week to pay it with income tax as it is. We shouldn't take the flat, Clair. We should stay in Kensington."