The Watchers on the Shore (15 page)

Conroy and I go towards the end of the first week. 'Give 'em a day or two to play themselves in,'he says. 'They're always better then.'

He looks at me with a little smile.'She'll keep.'

'Who?'

'Fleur.'

'Oh. Is she in it?'

'She's playing the young bloke's girl friend.'

'Oh,'I say again; then, 'Will she keep, though?'

'What d'you mean?'

'Well
she
might. She might even get better. But you sometimes
do see birds of about twenty who are right bang in their prime. Another twelve months and they start going to seed.'

'What about it?'

'Well then you think it's a rotten shame if nobody's having the benefit of something that'll never be as good again.'

'What makes you think nobody is with Fleur?'

'I don't know. I'm just speculating. You're the one who knows that crowd.'

'D'you make any wonder mothers used to turn pale when their daughters suggested going on the stage? Here's a modern enligh
tened young feller like yourself thinking that theatrical circles are
hotbeds of vice and depravity.'

'I never said any such thing. Only there's a bishop spouting in the paper this morning about the country's morals going to pot and I just wonder where it's happening.'

'All round you. Where've you been?'

'Leading my clean wholesome life.'

'Aye, in clean wholesome Cressley, where nobody ever has a bit
on the side and there are no bairns born out of wedlock.'

Well this could be a pretty accurate shot at me if I thought he
meant it like that. And it confirms that he doesn't know enough to
mean it or he'd hardly be tactless enough to say it. So I decide to get it out of the way.

'You know Ingrid was pregnant when we got married.'

'I wasn't sure. I believe somebody once did say they thought so.
I'm sorry, I shouldn't have made that crack.'

'That's all right.'

'What happened to the baby?'

'Ingrid fell downstairs and brought on a miscarriage.'

'Bad luck.'

Bad luck what? That she lost the kid or that I needn't have
married her after all? Though if I hadn't it might not have happened. Not that I'm saying I'd have been glad for it to happen and let me off the hook. What I can't get away from is knowing that I'd never have married her in the normal way. That's one clear thing among the rest of the circumstances, which are so mixed and entwined together that you can't say 'if only' about any of them because they all affect one another.

But Ingrid became a statistic: another bird pregnant on her wedding day; symptomatic of the breakdown in morality. Except she's never had it with anybody else before or since, and neither have I. So what's that symptomatic of? And what is morality anyway?

I want to ask Conroy about his marriage but though we're
talking round this kind of topic I don't feel it's just the right time.
He doesn't volunteer any information and I don't say anything
else to him. So now he knows that Ingrid was having a kid when we
got married; but that happens in a lot of cases and there's no more
to it than simply the fact.

It's none of Albert's business that in my case a little bit of rank lousy luck led to something that wouldn't have happened otherwise, and that I've got something niggling me about my marriage. A sense of grievance, of knowing I've taken a wrong turning through force of circumstances and not through choice. A tendency to ask myself 'Is this all?'in the quiet moments of the night.

But still, I've accepted it on a practical level. This is it and make the best of it. (After all, I did walk out once for a few days and then come back.) And when I look outside it isn't for a cure. I'm not even looking seriously. Just with an academic interest in the tempting runners in the adultery stakes; of which there are plenty, but who's bothering and what the hell? You know this is no cure for anything anyway, because this is the last thing bothering you, the last thing you can't find at home, with satisfaction given on both sides.

But when you see somebody like Fleur you speculate in an idle
sort of way, along with every other man who's ever seen her and is
normal in his instincts. She's gorgeous. You reckon every man
should have somebody like her just once in his life and it's a crying
shame she isn't for you. Then you wonder if she couldn't just
possibly be in certain circumstances - wondering all this without
stress or strain, and that maybe you'd muff it if the chance did offer itself on a plate with no bill underneath. All this a favourite pastime of the male mind. And then something sneaks up from one side and
gives you a one-two clout that knocks all idle speculation about
bed right out of your mind and leaves you so dizzy you don't know
whether it's Ash Wednesday or Pancake Tuesday ...

The theatre's small and old-fashioned, like a music hall, with
shabby red plush and peeling gilt. I reckon there isn't much money
holding it together. Well, none to spare, anyway, though the
audiences, are apparently good enough to let them change their plays fortnightly instead of every week, and this night, although
it's Thursday and not the week-end, the house is about three-
quarters full.

It's on this night that I first get some idea of what people are
on about when they talk about the excitement of the theatre. Oh,
I've felt the little flutter in my stomach when a pit orchestra strikes
up and the lights dim before the curtain rises; but that was variety.
What few plays I've seen, though, were either full of french
windows and people with terribly posh accents who had nothing
at all to do with me, or else they were thrillers that I think come off
much better on the pictures. I wouldn't have reckoned I'd find much common ground with a bunch of rum customers in New
Orleans, come to that, but they seem to me like real people even if
most of them are oddballs with more steam rattling the kettle-lids
than in a season of chapel faith-teas.

I have to look again to see that the bloke playing Kowalski
is our tall cravated friend from the Mitre, and playing him very well with an accent that doesn't turn me up and a performance that's his own and not a scratching, mumbling fourth carbon of Brando. I look him up in the programme and find he's called
Leonard Reeve. I can't see him being a hit with a name like that,
but maybe he loves his mother, and how was she to know her little
lump of squealing, mewling baby flesh was going to strike out for
fame and fortune on the stage. And if it comes to that I suppose a
doubt or two must have crossed Albert Finney's mind in times past.

Fleur hasn't much to do but she does it well enough. Donna
comes on, looking smaller and frailer than I remember her in the
pub, in a wispy flowered chiffon dress, all great dark eyes and high-
strung movements of her hands and arms. The regulars know the actors and give them little rounds of applause as they .appear for
the first time. Donna wrings their hearts. Perhaps she brings out the
fallen woman in all the women there. A lady next to me feels for her
handkerchief and sniffs as she touches it to her nose. My pulse
rate is up for some reason as Conroy and I make for the bar in the
first interval.

Sitting on the aisle lets us be first in there. Albert passes me a
bottle of beer and a glass and we edge into a corner out of the
crowd that's followed us in.

'How're you liking it?'

'They're very good, aren't they?'

'You didn't think they were amateurs, did you?'

'No, but professional standards vary, don't they?'

Conroy nods. 'Yes ... Yes, they are good. I can't see Donna
being here for very long. She'll get her break or I'm a Dutchman.'

'Oh, but they're all good.'

Conroy quizzes me with his eyes.

'Don't let your new-found enthusiasm for the theatre run away with you. Donna's really exceptional.'

I don't get what he's driving at for a second, then the penny
drops. I think of setting him straight, then decide that protests from
me will only convince him more. He's so sure I've got a lech for
Fleur and I can't think what I've done particularly to make him
think so.

'What about Fleur?'I say, wondering if there's a tell-tale gleam in my eye.

He looks away from me and round the bar.

'Oh, with looks like hers she doesn't need to be able to act, does she?'

It's all just that bit too casual. Oh,
but you're a deep boyo, Conroy, I think. How long have you been trying to climb hi beside her yourself? Is that why you keep bringing her name up?

We're in the Mitre for twenty minutes before they come in, in a group, some I've seen before and some I haven't. Conroy turns to the bar to get some drinks and I join him.

'Let me help you with this lot, Albert.'

'You can hand some glasses round.'

'No, I mean share the round.'

'Go on with you.'

'Look there's only time for one and you don't want to be saddled with the lot.'

'Are you insisting?'

'Aye, I am.'

I've got two half-crowns in my hand and I plonk them down in
front of him and pick up the first two glasses. I hand one to a bloke
I've never seen before except on the stage tonight and the other
one to Donna who's standing nearest. I reach for my own half-
drunk pint as the bod lifts his glass.

'Cheers.'

'Astonishing good luck, mate, and thanks for a nice evening's
entertainment.'

Donna turns her enormous eyes on me. Funny I didn't notice
before how big they are.

'Have you been to the show tonight?'

'Yes, we have. I told you we'd come.'

She says nothing. I don't suppose she can ask how it was.

'I thought you were marvellous.'

'Oh, really!'

'Yes, really.'

'You'll have me suspecting your judgement.'

Somebody's started talking to the bloke on the other side and he's not listening to all this.

'No, honest, I'm relieved I can tell the truth.'

'You mean I might have been dreadful?'

'Well I didn't know, did I?'

She laughs suddenly, a really amused laugh that comes from
deep in her throat.

'That's true.'She looks directly at me. 'And I don't think blarney
would be one of your weapons.'

'Weapons? I'm just telling you I liked you in the play, love, that's all.'

'Luv,'she says, mimicking me; but there's good humour in her eyes and I suddenly know she likes me.

A middle-aged woman touches her on the elbow. I've noticed her and the man she's standing with eyeing Donna and obviously
talking about her.

'Excuse me, Miss Pennyman.'

'Yes?'

'Forgive me interrupting your conversation but my husband
and I enjoyed your performance so much I felt I had to tell you.'

Donna excuses herself with me and politely turns to talk to the
woman.