Perfect Gallows (28 page)

The rain-rehearsal on the Institute stage finished just before ten, and the cast dribbled out from the apparent midnight of the blacked-out hall into the bright dusk of double summer-time. A large flight of bombers was drumming its way south and Peter Boller was standing on the steps looking up at them with a just-lit cigarette between his lips, not caring that he was half-blocking everyone else's way. He had come out from Southampton that afternoon and would be staying for six more days of rehearsal and then the five performances. He glanced down at Andrew.

“Got your papers yet?” he said.

“Yes. The thirty-first. Warminster.”

“Same here. Fred Yates says that means tanks.”

“Basic first.”

“Anyone's fit will be tanks, he says. You'll be just what they're after—plenty of headroom.”

“They'll fit you in somehow. Curling up by numbers.”

As the bombers dwindled another wave could be heard throbbing from the north.

“Fred says it'll be Burma, once we're trained,” said Peter.

“The Ed. Sergeant at my medical told us they'd need replacements for the chaps they're losing in France.”

“Oh, that can't last that long. Look how the Russians are getting on. And with any luck the Japs will pack it in when Germany goes.”

Andrew shrugged. No, he thought. One in ten casualties would be nothing, Sergeant Stephens had said. What did he mean? One in two? Which two? Peter and Andrew, one of them? The toss of a coin? Then … Peter alive, posturing and strutting through his career, while everything that had been Andrew dissolved into the floor of some German wood? Obscene. A whisper rustled in his mind. Let it be him who's the one. Little god, let it be him.

He saw Jean waiting for him by the bikes. The pony-traps clopped towards the steps.

“You get a ride,” he told Peter. “Where's your bag? See you at the house.”

“Will we get something to eat?”

“Oh, I should think so.”

They pushed the bikes side by side up the dusty street while the traps climbed slightly faster, fifty yards ahead now. In front of the almshouses a woman in a yellow headscarf was pumping water into a bucket.

“Evening, Mrs Archer,” called Jean.

The woman looked up with a ferocious bright glare, small blue eyes in a million-wrinkled face. She said nothing and returned to pumping.

“She's the village witch,” whispered Jean. “Dolly told me always to say hello to her in case she turns the milk. In any case, we witches have to stick together. I'm going to get her to teach me to ride a broomstick soon as rationing's over.”

“What's rationing got to do with it?”

“You're supposed to rub them with baby-fat, but we modern witches use butter.”

Andrew grunted. He was getting a bit tired of the witch joke. Since the afternoon in the chalk-pit Jean had exploited it in various ways, not just as a joke but in a shifting, sometimes half-serious way, to remind him that their relationship had changed. He might have started absolute master, dominating her by his secret powers, but now she had found a weakness, so she had some say too.

“I'm sorry I winked,” she said. “I just wanted you to know what I thought of Peter. I didn't realize you'd be furious.”

“Just don't do anything like that again.”

“He really is pretty dreadful, isn't he?”

“Glad you think so.”

“What were you talking to him about just now? On the steps?”

“Nothing. Oh, call-up. He's in the same batch as me. We were guessing how long the war's going to last.”

“You made your Sir Arnold face.”

“Did I?”

“Don't pretend. I know you terribly well. Better than you do, some ways.”

They mounted when they reached the top of the hill and pedalled slowly through the cooling air. After a few minutes they overtook the traps and drew ahead. Jean seemed to have lost interest in his conversation with Peter. She hadn't really wanted to know, only to tell him she'd seen it had mattered.

“Isn't Mr Mkele terrific?” she said.

“That's the word.”

“Was I all right?”

“Charming, fresh, lively—
Sunday Times
.”

“Oh, good. I never imagined how much I'd be enjoying it. Still, I'm glad it's only a week. I don't understand how real actors keep it up for months—being Miranda, I mean, newborn each time, like a little calf staring at the world.”

“You've got Peter to stare at.”

“At least he's handsome. It's just everything else about him.”

Suppose he told her straight out … but he'd promised Cousin Brown a happy Miranda … you couldn't tell—there was so much more to her than he'd realized when they'd begun.

“Do you mind if I don't come to the lodge tonight?”

“Oh?”

“I've got to start concentrating.”

“I thought you were already.”

“Not enough. I think about you, I worry about call-up, I wonder what's for supper, I day-dream about when I'm on in the West End … Now until next Saturday all that's got to stop.”

“All right. Actually I'm due to tell you you can't come for a bit.”

“Bad luck.”

“My fault for being a woman.”

They reached the top of the drive. It was darker under the trees. A convoy coming from the other direction was swinging in through the gates. They waited, straddling their bikes. As each lorry took the turn its hooded headlights swept across them. Andrew imagined other endings. They wouldn't always be like this—the women would be different, for a start, stupider or cleverer, experienced, dreamy, tempestuous, childish; there would be stormings-out, chilly dismissals, champagne parties, fadings away; whole worlds of other endings.

In a gap in the convoy she reached towards him for a quick kiss. He let it happen, still thinking about endings.

“That wasn't much fun,” she said.

“I told you, we've got to concentrate.”

He was looking at her, clear and then dim and then clear again in the headlamps. Her face stiffened.

“I'm not going to let Miss Elspeth down, whatever happens. When I've started something I see it through. You ought to know that.”

“You're going to be very good.”

“You don't have to wait. See you in Fogg's Corner, after milking.”

“OK, good-night.”

“Good-night, darling.”

The last lorry churned in, followed by the tail-end jeep. As Andrew freewheeled down the fumy tunnel between the banked rhododendrons he discovered that something had happened inside him, new and strange. It was to do with breaking off with Jean, giving her up—more than just a sense of freedom or relief at having got it over. A pocket of energies he didn't know was there was welling out, feeding his powers, just at the right time. Anything was possible.

There was a hold-up at the camp entrance. Twenty lorries stood in a line down the drive, their engines drumming. They were all empty. Early next morning he would hear them leaving the camp on their regular run, taking another batch of young men off to the battlefields. Their bulk almost blocked the drive, but they had left just enough room down their off sides for him to whistle through.

SIX

“Today's the big day, then,” said Jack. “Quite like old times, eh, Mary? Got a spare egg for Master Andrew? He's going to need his strength.”

“Hens been off their lay,” said Mrs Mkele.

“Quite like old times, I say,” said Jack.

“Hardly that,” said Mrs Mkele. “Old times there'd have been forty in the house, and marquees for the suppers, and champagne and dancing till all hours after, and none of the upstairs out of their beds till twelve next morning, 'stead of which we've got poor Master Andrew gobbling his porridge crack of dawn and then off to the harvest.”

“What about poor old Jack, then? Same with me.”

“All you got to do is rattle that thunder-sheet. Funny to think nobody coming from London. Not a soul. We used to have hundreds.”

“Least we're doing one down on the right stage, even if it is only for a pack of Yanks.”

“Pearls before swine,” said Mrs Mkele.

General Odway and his staff had been gone six weeks now and she had her own kitchen back, besides several bits of equipment which the American cooks had simply abandoned, rather than bother to account for, but her enmity towards these allies had not lessened.

“There's some gets on with them well enough,” said Jack, winking at Andrew over his mug. The wink was a measure of the change below stairs. Mrs Mkele was still the dominant figure, but her command was not automatic. It was something to do with the rift between her and her husband, as though she had derived her authority from him in some mysterious way, and now could no longer claim it on that basis but had to assert it for herself. Jack's wink and its meaning would have been unthinkable two months back. Mrs Mkele paid no attention.

“I'm giving my Hazel a lie-in,” she said. “It's a lot for a child.”

The bell on the board jangled. She glanced up to see which disc was jiggling.

“Back door,” she said. “Who's that, this hour? Give Sambo a yell, Jack.”

“Sam! Oi! Sammy! Back door!”

“Finished your porridge, Master Andrew? Plenties more if you wanted it. Here's your fritters then. Sorry about the hens.”

Mrs Mkele waddled over with the plate. The fritters were potato cakes with onion and parsley fried into them, crisp outside, gooey in, full of taste. For some reason they made Andrew think of Mum, though anything she'd tried in that line would have been soggy, greasy, flavourless. He hadn't thought about Mum for weeks. Though in the old days his day-dreams had always included her, set up in comfort somewhere, at his first nights, pasting up the scrap-albums of his career, she was now part of the past. It was sad that she wouldn't be there for the performance, but it was right. The sadness was right, adding a necessary flavour to the event. If she'd still been alive, and coming today, the whole thing would have been different. The process of becoming Adrian Waring and ceasing to be Andrew Wragge would have been more difficult, messier, less definite. Dad must be dead too. Rotting in a grave in some jungle. Andrew had no way of knowing this, but he was sure it was true—it was the shape things were meant to be. The deaths were right. They fitted in. They gave him something he hadn't had before—just like the break with Jean. He didn't understand how, any more than you can understand why a scene in a play has to be the shape it is. All you can say is it must be, because it is art. His life, life as Adrian Waring, was going to be like that too.

Samuel came into the room, silently because out of habit he still went barefoot and didn't need his floor-polishing slippers at this time of year. He was carrying a small dark brown envelope.

“Telegram, then?” said Jack.

“For Miss Elspeth,” said Samuel.

“Florrie'll take it up on her tray,” said Mrs Mkele.

“Big day, then, Sam,” said Jack.

“Very big day.”

“Mr Charles get to bed all right?”

“He got to bed, same as usual,” said Samuel in a dead voice. Mrs Mkele swung from the cooker and slapped her palm on the table.

“Now, that's enough of that,” she said. “Sick and tired of it all, I am, and I'm not having it spoken of again, not in my kitchen. You got the horses to see to, han't you, Jack? You too, Sambo—there's plenties to get set, never mind there isn't forty in the house. Off you go, the both of you.”

For a moment it was almost as though the spirit of the permanently furious GI cooks had returned to haunt the kitchen. Jack winked at Andrew as he rose and left. Samuel looked at him too, gazing blank-eyed for several seconds before he turned for the door.

Lower Park—the area below the camp, with the dovecote at its centre—was the last to be reaped. It was barley, which was bad enough, but in addition there was a broad strip parallel to the camp fence that was mottled with thistles, whose fluffy seed-heads and dark green leaves stood proud of the level crop. And most of the south-east corner was laid flat by the down-draught from the woods. Three Italian POWs were helping, two of whom teamed up to stook with Dolly and a girl from the village, and since Brian would only work with Mrs Althorp, that left Andrew to pair with the third Italian, who sulked throughout the morning, listening to his friends having all the fun and sometimes going over and trying to persuade one of the others to swap places.

The work was hot and slow, painful along the thistly stretch, but for once the teams almost kept up with the reaper, which was delayed by the flattened patch on each circuit. Jean arrived quite early and took over on the rear seat from Jack, who went back up to the house. Around half past ten Cousin Brown came striding down across the stubble with a sheet of paper in her hand.

“I have some most promising news,” she said, and gave Andrew the paper. It was the telegram that had come that morning.

“MEET FOUR TWELVE PETERSFIELD STOP HAD BETTER BE WORTH IT SCREAMER LORD HOW WISH FILTHY WAR WOULD GO AWAY SCREAMER LONGING TO SEE DEAR OLD MIMMS STOP SORRY READ ABOUT YOUR DAD STOP B.”

“Barrie Oakley,” said Cousin Brown.

“Golly!”

“I wrote to him ten days ago asking him to come if he could. He always loved the Amphitheatre, so there was just a chance once we had decided to do a performance there. This is typical. He never makes up his mind about anything until the last possible minute. That is why I did not tell you sooner—I did not want to disappoint you.”

“That's marvellous!”

“It is quite a chance for you, Andrew. He will probably bring Jonny Price.”

“I'd love to meet him. Thank you very much. I say, did you tell him my name?”

She looked surprised.

“I think I just said ‘a young cousin'. Does it matter?”

“Well, I hope you don't think it's stupid … you see, I want people to think of me as Adrian Waring. Right from the start, I mean.