Curtain Call (15 page)

‘I'll be two ticks – we're in plenty of time,' he said quickly, slinging the case over his shoulder. He got out of the car and took a few steps up the grassy verge. Behind him he heard the car door shutting; Freya had decided to accompany him. He walked on a little further, then stopped. Taking the black-and-silver Leica out of its case – it was cold to the touch – he began lining up a shot.

‘What picture are you taking?' asked Freya, just behind him.

‘Hmm? Oh, you see that stand of trees on the hill . . . I just need to, you know, remember the shape of them.' So saying, he peered through the viewfinder and, after a dithering pause, he clicked. ‘There. Let's go.'

As they turned back towards the car Freya said, ‘Are you going to paint those trees?'

‘I think I might.'

With a quizzical narrowing of her eyes she said, ‘But . . . if you have a photograph of something why do a painting as well?'

‘That's a very good question,' he said, with a half-laugh. ‘I suppose – it's nice to have both! I mean, you're right, a photograph shows us exactly what we've seen: in this case, those trees. A painting, on the other hand' – they were back at the car, and he held open the door for her to climb in – ‘well, that's a more personal view.'

‘What are you talking about?' said Cora brightly.

Stephen started the engine and, with a quick glance round, steered the car back onto the road. ‘Ah, Freya wants to know why we should paint when we have photographs.'

A smile dimpled Cora's cheek. ‘If we didn't have painting, Daddy wouldn't have anything to do.'

‘That's one way of looking at it,' said Stephen, feeling diminished. In the mirror he saw Freya's brow darken in disappointment – she wasn't being taken quite seriously. He cleared his throat. ‘The thing about painting, Freya, is that it's not just about what we see – it's also about what we feel. So, if I ever get round to painting those trees, I'll be thinking of how they looked
and
about the moment I saw them. I'll remember that it was the day we drove down to Granny's with our two lovely children, home for the weekend, and how we were all in such a good mood because of the fine weather –'

‘I'm not in a good mood,' said Rowan blankly.

‘Oh, will you shut your bloody arsehole?' said Freya in exasperation.

Cora gave a startled gasp. ‘I
beg
your pardon?'

‘Mr Mulhall says “bloody” all the time,' said Freya.

‘I don't care what Mr Mulhall says. It's not language I wish to hear from a young lady.'

‘Is Mr Mulhall your English teacher?' asked Stephen.

‘No, he teaches domestic science,' supplied Rowan.

‘Oh, right. So what's the name of the carpentry fellow?'

‘
Stephen
,' said Cora, in a tone that indicated he was altogether missing the point.

‘Yes, um, Freya – it's not nice to tell people to shut up, no matter how much we want them to. And I think using words like – well, it isn't really on, old girl.'

‘And you can apologise to Rowan,' added Cora.

A long beat followed, then Freya said, ‘Sorry.'

Stephen glanced at Cora, but received no supportive look in return. Tipton Hall, a grand country house in Hampshire, had recently been converted to a ‘community' school that valued practical skills over traditional learning. Under the supervision of its liberal-minded headmaster and founder, Mr Edwin Goode, the pupils did housework, studied carpentry and tended the large vegetable garden, growing their own food; Rowan had already told them about the number of potatoes he'd picked that week. Stephen had gone along with Cora's scheme – her own mother was quite the freethinker – and was hoping that the children had taken to it.

He worried, though, that Mr Goode's radical philosophy of education might be privileging the hand at the expense of the brain. Literacy, for example. Freya was not a concern on that score: her newly acquired taste for profanity aside, she had shown herself a quick learner, and at present was cracking through
Barchester Towers
. Rowan, however, seemed to care little for reading, and even less, to judge by his ill-formed efforts, for writing. Even the way he set down his own name in a jumble of lower- and upper-case letters struck him as faintly pathetic. He feared that the boy might not be altogether intelligent. And what about that name! How on earth had he consented to Cora's branding the boy
Rowan
? Why had he not pushed for something solid and sensible, like Jack, or Fred? He couldn't remember.

‘Look, there's Granny waving!' said Freya as Stephen parked the car. The Hamiltons, Cora's parents, lived in an imposing Georgian terrace on Richmond Hill, with a covetable view over the Thames. Freya and Rowan clambered out of the car and raced like hounds for the front door, Freya getting there first, as she did in most contests between them.

‘My darlings!' cooed Mrs Hamilton, as she bent to greet her grandchildren. ‘Brought the smashing weather with you, I see.' She embraced Cora and offered Stephen, last through, a feathery kiss – on his lips – which rather wrong-footed him. It was the sort of thing she did. Granny Hamilton belied her name, being hale and trim and girlishly good-looking, even at sixty. He suspected that she might have enjoyed a racy youth.

They made their way to the conservatory where a table for lunch had been laid and, on the far side, seated in a high-backed wicker chair, Mr Hamilton puffed on his pipe. He had been absorbed in
The Times
crossword. Older than his wife, though tall and lean like her, he met them with a slightly bemused air, as if their visit had been sprung on him at late notice. With Stephen he maintained a businesslike distance, possibly on the assumption that any duty of friendliness was his wife's domain.

‘Douglas,' Stephen said, with an ingratiating nod of respect. ‘How are you?'

Mr Hamilton gave a little groan of disappointment. ‘Keeping busy, you know. Round of golf a day . . .'

‘Keeps the doctor away?'

‘Hardly,' replied Mr Hamilton, frowning at this frivolity. ‘No need to ask what
you've
been doing,' he added, with an oddly accusing look.

Stephen was momentarily thrown. ‘Erm, I can't imagine . . .'

For answer Mr Hamilton picked up his
Times
and riffled through it, while Stephen's heart stuttered at the abyss.

‘Here,' said the old man, cuffing the page as he handed it over. Stephen looked – and breathed again. It was a society paragraph about himself, and his latest commission at the Nines Club in Mayfair. He had begun on the projected mural last week while the committee was still in heated debate as to who should figure in the portrait. Ludo Talman had already indicated that the original nine sitters would now be closer to fifteen.

Stephen ran a cursory eye over the item, and looked up to find his father-in-law scrutinising him. He understood that look: it mingled a complete indifference to his painting with a puzzled irritation that it should merit a reference in the newspaper. ‘I've barely started on it,' said Stephen in mild apology. ‘They're still jockeying for position among the membership.'

‘Is it true what it says – about the King?'

‘I'm not sure he'll agree to sit for a group portrait.'

‘Well, quite,' said Mr Hamilton, as though he might have advised His Majesty on the subject himself.

Cora, decanting a bottle of wine at the table, said over her shoulder, ‘They're putting the bite on him all the same. Stephen's been asked to write to him.'

Mr Hamilton looked aghast. ‘You mean, you . . .
know
him?'

‘Very slightly. We met at a shoot some time ago – we've exchanged a few words now and then.'

Freya, egged on by her grandfather's disbelieving tone, said, ‘Dad, would you have to go to Buckingham Palace?'

Stephen winked at her. ‘Probably.'

‘What a bleeding lark!' she cried.

A stunned pause followed. Cora put her hands on her hips and stared at her daughter. ‘Freya. What did I just say in the car? About language like that?'

Freya, not at all abashed, said, ‘What's wrong with that? It's not “bloody” or “arsehole”.'

Granny Hamilton, who had just set down the
boeuf en daube
, let out a peacock shriek of laughter. ‘I must say, that school of yours sounds a caution, darling!'

Her husband was less amused. ‘Haven't heard language like that since I was in the service. Well, as the book says, as ye sow, so shall ye reap . . .'

From Mr Hamilton's sour look it was clear he considered Freya's father in some degree responsible for her verbal delinquency. Stephen felt the injustice of this, but said nothing. Protesting that the school was Cora's idea would sound weak. He seemed to spend his life nowadays toeing the line, doing things he didn't want to. That charity dinner for the Marquess Theatre, for instance. He had sensed the game was up when Cora mentioned it to him one evening.

‘Do you know this fellow Carmody?'

‘Hmm. From Oxford. I bumped into him a few weeks ago.'

‘Well, he's being the most frightful pest. Says you agreed to attend some dinner – for a theatre fund? He rang twice yesterday and again this afternoon.'

Stephen found himself cornered one morning a few days later. He usually didn't answer the telephone at home, but both Cora and Mrs Ronson were out.

‘Wyley – at last!' boomed a familiar voice.

‘Gerald, hullo,' he said, and felt his shoulders slump.

‘You're an elusive chap. I've rung your place a few times already – talked to your lady wife.'

‘She said something about you calling.'

‘Well, it's this dinner for the Marquess – just rounding up the troops, as it were.'

‘To be honest, Gerald, I'm fearfully busy at present. I've just taken on a huge commission for a club in Mayfair –'

‘Yes, the Nines, I heard about that. Bully for you, old chap – but surely they give you the evenings orf!' Carmody paused at this; when he spoke again his tone had changed. ‘Of course, in an ideal world I'd extend the invitation to a lady – your friend Miss Land, perhaps. Or would that privilege be reserved for your wife?'

Stephen couldn't fail to hear the insinuation. Carmody was loud and abrasive, but he was no fool. He must have guessed that Nina and he were somehow involved on more than a friendly footing; or else he had seen them coming out of the hotel lift that afternoon.

‘Perhaps I should ask both of them,' Stephen replied coolly, though he knew that Carmody had the upper hand. He couldn't risk making an enemy of him. ‘Put me down for a couple of places. I suppose a cheque will be –'

‘Oh, we can discuss that later. As a token of gratitude I'll take you for lunch.'

‘Lunch?' Stephen closed his eyes and pinched the bridge of his nose. He would much rather have paid up to Carmody's charity and be done with it; now he was saddled with not one but two undesirable engagements. Cora was right – an infernal pest. Stephen decided that the most profitable use of his time would be to host Carmody at the Nines, where at least he could get straight back to work after lunch. A date the following week was settled, and he rang off.

On the day of their meeting something odd happened. Carmody had telephoned to confirm, and on hearing that Stephen would be driving from Chelsea into the West End he had asked a favour – another one. ‘I'm at my headquarters just off Eaton Square. Would you mind picking me up there and we can drive straight to lunch?' Stephen, wondering what he meant by ‘headquarters', had taken down the address and agreed to call by just before one.

The Carmody HQ turned out to be in a cul-de-sac at the south end of the square. The grey peeling stucco of the building's facade and the dusty windows indicated a neglect unusual for this expensive neighbourhood. Stephen mounted the steps and tapped the brass knocker. Moments later the door opened, and a young man dressed head to toe in black stood at the threshold. Nonplussed, Stephen said, ‘I'm sorry, I was given this as Gerald Carmody's address . . .'

The youth nodded and invited him inside. The hallway was crammed with bundles of newspapers, while along one wall a giant poster proclaimed
MIND BRITAIN
'
S BUSINESS
. He escorted Stephen to a room just past the central staircase. ‘If you'd care to wait I'll find Mr Carmody for you,' he said, and trotted up the stairs. In the waiting room other posters adorned the wall –
VOTE BRITISH PEOPLE'S BRIGADE
the most prominent – and someone had framed the front page of the
Daily Mail
from January 1934, with its famous headline
HURRAH FOR THE BLACKSHIRTS
. On a long trestle was arranged a selection of pamplets; Stephen lit a cigarette and flicked through one entitled ‘The Future of National Socialism'. His eye skated over its declamatory paragraphs – ‘So many men and women are seeking leadership in a country whose government has been enfeebled . . . we live in a society ruled by alien Jewish financiers, who throttle our trade and menace the world's peace . . . British people in the East End of London have received notice to quit from the Jews, but this time we are going to give the Jews notice to quit.'

He suppressed a groan, and dropped the pamphlet back on to the pile. Minutes ticked by, and, assuming that he had been forgotten, he decided to seek out Carmody for himself. Hearing activity from the upper rooms he took the scuffed, uncarpeted stairs and wandered along a corridor. More posters blazoned the motto
MIND BRITAIN'S BUSINESS
and urged support for the British People's Brigade. Following the sound of voices he found an office with the door ajar, and craned his head around. Standing at a desk, absorbed in discussion, were two more young men in blackshirt uniform. Both wore armbands with a lightning flash encircled in red. Stephen gave an apologetic cough and said, ‘Would you happen to know if Gerald Carmody's around?'