The Death of Lucy Kyte (36 page)

An ash tree had fallen across the pond, and the surface of the water was now a mangle of moss and twisted branches. Josephine walked over to the gate to have a look, relieved that the flooding had not reached the garage and orchard as it had threatened to do. Something caught her eye among the branches – a dark shape floating on the water, close to the trunk of the fallen tree, and she could see that it was the body of an animal. She went closer, hoping that something would tell her she was looking at a fox or even a badger, but foxes did not wear collars and she had never seen a badger with a rope around its neck. The rope was frayed, and it was impossible to tell whether it had once been a makeshift leash or something more sinister, but she knew in her heart that the body was Hester's dog, and he had obviously been in the water for some time. Josephine had no idea how to retrieve him. She only knew that she must manage it somehow, and bury the dog properly in the earth that had been his. With a heavy heart, she fetched a spade from the garage and found one of the old sheets that had covered Hester's stage sets. She decided to dig the hole first, then worry about how to move the body, and she chose a patch of ground close to the old iron bench, where the dog must have sat in the sun with his mistress, but even that part of the task seemed beyond her. The soil was soaked through and unbelievably heavy, and she was exhausted before she had dug a foot down. There was only an hour or so of proper daylight left; at this rate, she would never get the job done in time, but it seemed irrationally important that Hester's beloved collie should not spend a night in the open air, exposed to predators, and it was all she could do not to weep with anger and frustration.

‘Miss Tey? Is there something I can help you with?'

‘Bert! Thank God.' Josephine was so pleased to see him in her garden that she didn't care why he was there. ‘It's Hester's dog – at least I think it is. His body was in the pond, and the rain has brought it to the surface. I can't . . .'

‘In the pond?' Bert repeated, interrupting her. ‘What the hell was he doing in there?'

‘I don't know, but I can't get him out on my own and he's got to be buried before it gets too dark to see what we're doing.'

He put a hand on her shoulder, and spoke in a gentle voice. ‘Leave him to me. I'll take care of it. You go into the house and make yourself a cup of tea.'

For once, Josephine didn't argue about a woman's place: she had no wish to make a point by insisting on helping with Benjamin's body. Instead, she went inside and watched from the window as Bert made short work of finishing the grave; he disappeared with the sheet, then returned ten minutes later, soaked to the waist and carrying a bundle in his arms. As he placed the dog carefully in the ground, Josephine was struck by the combination of strength and sensitivity in his manner; no wonder Hester had appreciated his friendship during the years following Walter's death. He picked up the spade, but she remembered something and hurried out to stop him. ‘Bert – wait a minute.' She went into the garage and fetched the ball and blanket that she had found on her first day at the cottage. ‘I didn't have the heart to get rid of them,' she explained, and put them on top of the dog's pitiful body. She waited quietly while Bert filled the grave in, then asked: ‘What do you think happened to him?'

He shook his head. ‘I don't know, Miss. It's just another thing that isn't quite right.'

Josephine could not have put it better herself. ‘Did Hester keep him on a leash like that?'

‘Not as far as I know. Mind you, I never saw much of him. She had to shut him in the next room when I called round. He hated visitors.' The expression on his face suggested that he knew what she was thinking, and that he shared her concern. ‘I don't suppose we'll ever know what happened now.'

It was hard to tell if he was talking about the dog or about the end of Hester's life in general, but she felt his sadness keenly. ‘No, probably not. But thank you, Bert. I don't know how I would have managed that on my own.'

‘It's no trouble. Happy to help when I can.'

‘Would you like some tea?'

‘I won't, thank you, Miss, if you don't mind. I'd best be getting back to the house and change out of these wet clothes.'

‘Yes, of course.'

‘Nice to see you back, though. And you've got the place looking lovely – really shipshape. Anyone would think you were staying.'

Josephine smiled, and let him go. Only later, when her gratitude for what he had done had subsided a little, did it occur to her to question Bert's parting comment. He hadn't been over the threshold since she moved in, and she always kept the curtains drawn while she was away; the cottage might look shipshape – but unless he had been inside without telling her, how could he possibly have known that?

21

‘
What a beautiful throat for a razor!
'

The poster outside the Little Theatre showed Tod Slaughter in his most famous role, the Demon Barber of Fleet Street, and announced that the King of Blood and Thunder was back on stage for a limited season. ‘It's a shame they're not doing
Maria Marten
this week,' Josephine said. ‘I'd love to see it on stage.'

Marta threw her a cynical smile. ‘
Maria Marten
,
Sweeney Todd
– do you honestly think there's much difference? I'll say this for Mr Slaughter – he's excellent value for money. At least six performances for the price of one. Or do I mean that the other way round?'

A group of friends peeled off from the Saturday afternoon shoppers in John Street to climb the steps to the theatre's foyer, and Josephine fell in behind them. ‘You can scoff now, but you know you'll enjoy it once it starts.'

‘Of course I will – it's not the play I'm here for.' Marta nudged her, and pointed to a crowd by the sweet kiosk. ‘Obviously I'm in the minority there.' Several theatregoers had gone to the trouble of wearing mock Victorian garb in the spirit of the production – at least, Josephine assumed it was mock rather than an unconscious hangover from the music hall era – and all seemed ready to enjoy themselves. Slaughter's fans knew exactly what they were getting, and the idea that they might be disappointed had never crossed their minds; the faint air of challenge and scepticism that always radiated from a West End audience was entirely absent here, and for Josephine – whose own plays had enjoyed varying levels of popularity and criticism – it was a refreshing change.

The Little Theatre had been converted from a derelict banking hall between the Strand and the Thames, and it maintained a feeling of solidity in the face of uncertainty that seemed appropriate to its new life. Bombed during the war, the interiors had been carefully reconstructed along the original lines and the auditorium still lived up to its name, seating only a modest three hundred or so. The venue was unusual in that there were no seats or boxes at the side, only rows of chairs in straight lines – more like a church hall with delusions of grandeur than a conventional theatre, but steeply raked to ensure a good view of the stage all round. The room's simple, classical lines were emphasised by fresh, clean decor: walls of Wedgwood blue with white medallions, and no heavy drapes or rich colours except for a deep red stage curtain which stopped the overall effect from being too austere.

‘This is nice,' Marta said, when they had found their row. Thanks to Slaughter's recent successes on screen, the entire run was a sell-out, but he had insisted on giving them his house seats, pleased that Josephine wanted to see the performance. ‘Have you been here before?'

Josephine shook her head. ‘No, never. Hester played here in the early twenties, though, so it's nice to see it.' She opened a box of chocolate gingers and passed it over. ‘She was in one of the Grand Guignol seasons here.'

‘As in the Paris idea? All horror, blood and sex?'

‘Something like that – a whole evening of horrible little plays, as someone described it to me recently. Actually, it's probably not an exaggeration. I looked it up when I found out Hester was in it, and apparently they had nurses on standby in case it got too much for the audience.'

‘She was quite a girl, your Hester, wasn't she?'

‘Yes, she was. I believe she gouged Sybil Thorndike's eyes out in one of the plays.'

‘Lydia's been wanting to do that for years.' Marta glanced through the programme and found a paragraph on the history of the theatre. ‘This is interesting. The woman who started it – Gertrude Kingston?' Josephine shrugged. ‘No, I've never heard of her either. It says here that she was a suffragette, and she insisted on withholding the name of a playwright until after the first night so that female authors stood a chance with the critics.'

‘Now that
is
a bloody good idea. If everywhere did that, I might never have had to call myself Gordon.'

‘Oh, I don't know,' Marta said with a wink. ‘I quite like it.'

The house lights dimmed before Josephine could think of a suitable response. When the curtain went up, she was surprised to see that the stage itself was actually bigger than many West End theatres', and it rather dwarfed Slaughter's sets. The scenery was crude stuff – a few second-hand flats, an old backcloth, a lick of paint and a moderate lighting set – and it took her back instantly to the theatre of her childhood and to the pantomime she had seen Hester in. The whole thing had probably been done for less than twenty pounds, but it was exactly what was needed: pieces of frayed cloth, suspended from the roof and carelessly touching the walls of an interior set, did well enough for a ceiling and equally well for a sky; and a vaguely painted backdrop of buildings would be easily transformed next week from Sweeney Todd's London to Burke and Hare's Edinburgh. The audience seemed perfectly happy to help the play along with its imagination, and in any case it was the performers who mattered: from the moment Slaughter stepped on stage, wearing his barber's apron and a villainous grin, the peeling paint and crumpled curtains were forgotten. ‘Not a single customer today,' he announced to the audience, his delivery timed to squeeze every nuance out of the phrase. ‘I pine for something exciting to happen, so I'll just put a
beautiful
edge on my
beautiful
razor in case someone comes in.' An evil, throaty chuckle rolled out across the footlights, the first of many that afternoon, and Slaughter moved about the stage with a dancing, sinister step, graceful and precise for a man of his size. Everything about his performance was exaggerated, a reminder that melodrama had its origins in mime, but it held the attention of an audience that was considerably less reserved than the ones Josephine was used to, and it occurred to her that – as delicious as his performance in the film of
Maria Marten
had been – live theatre was where he really came into his own. He was the consummate showman, always working the crowd: if someone called out a wisecrack, Slaughter fixed the culprit with a wicked stare, stroking his razor across his hand and purring ‘Oh, I'd love to polish you off!' – and every time the trademark catchphrase was a cue for booing and cheering in equal measure.

‘At least we won't have to bother with a pantomime this year,' Marta muttered as they got up for the interval, but she had hissed and clapped with the best of them and Josephine knew she was enjoying herself. ‘Let's go and get a drink.' Their aisle seats gave them a head start to the tearoom. Like the rest of the theatre, it was tastefully decorated with pale yellow walls, Japanese prints and an Angelica Kauffman painting salvaged from the original ceiling, but the effect was confused by the temporary conversion of the room into Mrs Lovett's Pie Shop. A table at the far end promised pies ‘to last you to Aldgate pump and back', and Marta shook her head in admiration. ‘No one can accuse them of taking themselves too seriously,' she said. ‘I bet the regulars who come here every week have had the shock of their lives.'

‘Mm. Especially if they're vegetarian. What's it to be? Pork or chicken and ham?'

‘Assuming that
is
what's in them, why don't we try one of each?' They found a table in the corner, and Marta ordered tea. ‘Before you say anything, I give in – he's very, very good. Much better than I expected.'

‘Thank God. There's nothing worse than going backstage after a performance and having to lie. “Darling, you were wonderful!” doesn't trip easily off my tongue, even when it's true.'

‘That's a shocking admission. You'll never be a proper playwright. But I was thinking about the Hollywood lot when I was watching him, and he's just as convincing as Karloff or Lugosi. All right, so he milks it for all it's worth, but you do genuinely believe he could dispatch someone without breaking a sweat, and that's what you want from a villain.'

‘And the actual plays are brave, too, when you cut through the stereotypes. They might be period pieces to us, but they were dealing in their own time with crime and class and gender, and I suppose that was quite progressive.'

Marta looked doubtful. ‘I'm not sure about that. The next time I pinch your cheek and say “upon my soul, you're a delightful little baggage”, you'll have to remind me of how liberated we're being.'

Josephine laughed. ‘I wasn't trying to claim it as a feminist classic. I just meant that the scenarios must have seemed far more shocking to a contemporary audience than they do to us.' Before she could explain herself further, Tod Slaughter himself appeared in the bar, still in his bloodstained apron, and called everyone back in for the second half. The barber's crimes escalated as the play romped through to its conclusion, and Josephine watched in admiration as the audience was drawn along by the power of the company and by good, honest dialogue; if anyone had come to sneer at a second-rate drama, they were wrong-footed. Marta was right about Slaughter's villainous credentials: the laughter dwindled in the second half, and he played his character's growing insanity completely straight, never once allowing himself to lapse into burlesque. There was an integrity to the performance that equalled anything Josephine had seen on stage at the New or the Garrick, as if the actor really believed in good and evil, in a morality that had a thousand years of history behind it. Melodrama was not unlike detective fiction in that sense, she thought: a dream world with dream justice, ordered as it
should
be, not as it was, and peopled with characters who behaved exactly as they were expected to and got what they deserved. Hester had lived most of her life in that world, and Josephine wished with all her heart that the illusion had not been shattered before her death.