Curtain Call (24 page)

A couple of bruisers from the hotel's security staff hurried past them towards the ballroom, from where shouts and imprecations still carried.

‘Might be for the best if I call you a taxi,' said Carmody, clapping a hand on Stephen's shoulder. Stephen brushed him off.

‘What is this, Carmody? I thought you were raising money for a theatre –'

‘So we are, my dear fellow.'

‘I didn't see much charity back in there. And I didn't realise that Jews weren't welcome.'

Carmody returned a look from under his brow. ‘We should save this discussion for another time,' he said coldly, and nodded over Stephen's shoulder to where Jimmy and László were collecting their coats. ‘In the meantime, you ought to be careful about those you pick a fight with. They won't all be gentlemen like our Mr Joyce.'

‘If he's your definition of a gentleman then God help us.'

Carmody's jaw tightened, and he was shaping to make some hostile retort when he stopped himself. He only said, ‘Thank you, again, for your support. Goodnight.' He turned on his heel and left Stephen there.

Jimmy and László were hovering by the door, waiting for him. Their looks of concern were so solemn he felt himself begin to laugh. ‘I believe we were about to have a nightcap before that little . . . interruption. If you're both still game I know just the place. Shall we?'

MADELEINE, WHO THOUGHT
herself too dull to have many friends, was fortunate in being able to attract friendliness in others. People felt protective towards her, and would go out of their way to help her. Why this should be she had no firm idea; whenever she stopped to think about it she supposed it was because they felt sorry for her. It couldn't have been because she told jokes, or said witty things, because she hardly ever did. Even certain punters seemed to have a tenderness for her. She sometimes caught a glance from one of them – across a dinner table, or in a taxi, or while he was putting his trousers back on – that seemed, pityingly, to ask,
How on earth did you end up doing this?
It was a question she still asked herself.

She didn't care about the punters. But she was glad to have the affection, and perhaps the trust, of some of the girls. Working at the Elysian, she had got to know a handful of them quite well. Some had been on the game for years and rented their own rooms, down squalid little alleys, or tucked away on the upper floors of a pub or a shop. There were no names under the bell to indicate who lived there: you just had to know which door to knock. She still remembered her surprise the first time Rita, one of the older girls, invited her ‘home' for a cup of tea, and they had entered a grimy terraced building on Berwick Street she had thought long abandoned; in fact, beyond the reeking doorway was a honeycomb of rooms covering five floors, reached via a narrow staircase that dog-legged on each landing.

Rita was sitting opposite her now, absently filing her nails. She was an amply proportioned woman in her early thirties, full-lipped and auburn-haired, with a laugh that tended towards the raucous. Tonight she was on duty, which meant wearing what she called ‘full battledress', a rabbit-fur coat over a tight silk dress, sheer stockings and shoes with large witchy buckles. Her powdered face was offset by dark, thickly lashed eyes that roved busily around the room. They were in the front bar of the Blue Posts on Rupert Street, round the corner from the club. A lot of the girls drank there, as did their ponces; sometimes Roddy would call in, usually to check that nobody from the club was skiving. Rita had put away the nail file and was inspecting her face in a compact.

‘God, I've got lovely eyes. Reckon they're me best feature, don't you?'

Madeleine smiled her agreement. It was true, she thought, they were lovely, almond-shaped and coloured a sort of underwater green. They had slid from the mirror and narrowed on her. ‘You got nice eyes, too,' said Rita, a little resentfully, as though she had just noticed the competition. ‘They're so clear! J'ever put drops in 'em?'

‘No . . . that's just the way they are,' she replied, then added, ‘I like the way you've done your hair.' She knew Rita liked to be complimented on her hair.

‘One of Doreen's girls did it for me,' she cooed, giving the back of it a little primp. ‘Arthur's always sayin' how much he likes my hair.' Arthur was her ponce, and for the last couple of years also her ‘feller'. Madeleine gathered it was quite common for the personal and professional to merge in the life of a working girl.

‘How is Arthur?' she said, calling to mind a dumpy, twinkling man of about forty-five who displayed a hound-like devotion to Rita.

‘Oh, you know . . .' A smirk played on her lips as she pondered her next words. ‘Did I tell you what happened last week? Had me laughin' fit to bust.' Rita loved to tell a story, and Madeleine made an attentive audience. ‘I'd had one of them days, you know – got through about thirty punters in an afternoon, one in, one out. Best take in ages. By the time I got home I was nearly dead on me feet! So I get into bed next to Arthur and tell him the day's take – and he was ever so pleased.
More
than pleased. It gets him all frisky, hands runnin' all over me, sayin'
ooh you're a clever gel
, and this, that and the other . . . 'nuff to make you blush. I told him to give over and let me get some kip. D'you know what the twit said?'

Madeleine tipped her head slightly, not daring to guess.

‘He props hisself on his elbow and switches on the bedside light. Then he stares at me, all solemn like, and says, “What's the matter? Are you seein' another feller, then?”' At this she threw her head back and let loose a throaty cackle. Madeleine couldn't help joining in, though it wasn't the story that tickled her so much as Rita's exuberant delight in telling it.

‘So 'ow's things at the Elysian?' said Rita, recovering herself.

‘Oh, you know,' said Madeleine, picking up Rita's own shorthand.

‘Roddy keepin' you busy, I s'pose. How long you been an escort now?'

‘Um, a little while. Since April.'

Rita looked searchingly at her. ‘You mind my askin', Maddy – j'ever do one of 'em at home? A punter, I mean.'

Madeleine shook her head. ‘No. I wouldn't want to.'

‘Roddy don't mention it, then? Could make y'self a lot more bunce if you did.'

Madeleine thought carefully before replying. The thought of punters at her own place appalled her, but she didn't want to say as much for fear of giving offence to her friend. If Rita wanted to do thirty men in an evening that was her business – but it wasn't something she could do herself, and she didn't want Roddy or anyone else telling her that she should.

‘I don't have your energy, Rita,' she said, which was at least true.

Rita responded with a sardonic chuckle, and took a sip of her port and lemon. Madeleine was on gin. Some moments passed in silence, then Rita said, ‘You know Alice, don'tcha?'

‘Alice . . . you mean the girl with the odd –?'

Rita nodded at Madeleine's uncertain look. ‘Yeah, that one.'

‘D'you know what's wrong with her?'

‘Apart from bein' half crazed on drugs, nothin' a miracle wouldn't cure.'

‘Drugs?'

‘Wakey-wakey pills. Amphetamines, they're called. You think I've got energy – that one can do forty, fifty, in a night!'

Madeleine pictured Alice now, a rake-thin blonde about her own age whose jokey, high-pitched chatter, amusing for a few minutes, would then wear the listener down. It was like having to deal with a clever but restless child; a little of her company went a long way.

‘Anyway, she wanted to talk to you,' Rita added.

‘To me? Why?'

‘I could hardly tell – you know what she's like. Gabbled through some story about a punter she was out with. Seems this feller was askin' after a girl called
Madeleine
. . .'

Her immediate thought was: Tom. She'd been feeling guilty about him ever since she left the party that night with Nina. She ought to have offered an apology at least, even if she couldn't explain to him why she had to go. He was a nice fellow, gentle, possibly a bit lonely – one of those queers who didn't really get on with other queers and preferred female friendship. In the end she had rung his office number, but instead of him answering it was another man – the famous ‘Jimmy', she presumed – whose tone was loud and brusque, and she rang off without leaving a message.

Rita was looking over her shoulder at someone, and muttered, ‘Talk of the devil . . .' Madeleine turned, expecting to see Alice, but it was only Roddy, who plumped himself down at their table.

‘Ladies,' he said by way of greeting.

‘What do you want?' said Rita, with a slight curl to her lip.

‘Just keeping an eye out,' he said. He was always keeping an eye out. With his cowlick oiled back and a paisley tie that didn't match his shirt, Roddy looked very much the spiv this evening. He gave Madeleine a little pat on the knee. She had noticed him making a greater effort at friendliness towards her recently – a look, a wink of complicity – which she found rather unnerving. He was now holding his cigarette case out to her.

‘I don't, thanks,' she said.

‘I will,' said Rita, plucking one from under the metal band. She then turned pointedly back to Madeleine. ‘Anyway, as I was sayin' –
before
we were interrupted – it's prob'ly some wild story Alice has got into her head. It may not even be you he was askin' after . . .'

‘Who was asking after?' said Roddy, frowning his suspicion.

‘Seems as Maddy's got an admirer. Popular girl, see.'

Roddy gave Madeleine a smirking look. ‘I know that. They all love Maddy the moocher. She's a sweetheart.'

Rita, with her nose for an opportunity, added, ‘Then you ought to treat her nice, else some punter's gonna steal her away.'

Roddy returned an unillusioned stare. ‘She knows what side her bread's buttered – don't you? By the way, I've got one for you later.' He took out a card and handed it across the table to Madeleine.

‘The Mirabelle – what's that?'

‘New place, not far from here. I'll drive you there.' Again, a note of solicitude chimed in his tone. It was unlike him to drive her to a job. He rose from the table, glancing at his watch. ‘I'll be back here at ten.'

With him gone she felt able to relax once more, and Rita's lively company would beguile the time until she was back on the clock. The pub filled up with Soho's restless flotsam, the air drowning in smoke and perfume. They had just been served more drinks when Rita's gaze was distracted.

‘There she is,' she muttered, and gave a little beckoning gesture with her eyes. Madeleine looked round to see Alice shouldering through the crowd. Even from this distance you could see her gaze unsteady with chemicals. She gave Rita a swooning kiss in greeting, then to Madeleine, whom she didn't know well, a girlish wave. As soon as she sat down her foot started to beat out a jerky pattering rhythm.

‘My, you wouldn't believe what I've been through today –' and for the next few minutes she embarked on a detailed and uninterruptible account of her most recent job, rehearsing not only what she had said, but what the punter had said in reply, to the point where she was almost acting out a two-hander for the stage. With no end in sight Madeleine slipped off to the lavatory, returning in time to hear Alice finally winding up the story, whose point all of them had by now forgotten.

Rita let a polite pause settle before she changed the subject. ‘Here, Alice, I was just telling Maddy 'bout that punter you mentioned the other night – you remember?'

Alice's face went blank, momentarily stunned by the effort of recall, and then of a sudden cleared. ‘Yeah, yeah . . .' She narrowed her eyes, as if she were lining up a pistol shot. ‘Oh, he was a strange one, all right.'

Rita glanced at Madeleine, who read in her eyes the same thing she was thinking. But they kept quiet, encouraging Alice to go on. It transpired this man had picked her up in the lobby of a hotel in Piccadilly; smart, dark-haired, nicely spoken, plenty of money – she thought he was a salesman or something – expensive clobber and whatnot. But there was definitely something odd about him . . .

‘What d'you mean, “odd”?' said Rita.

‘Well, we'd gone up to his room – a suite he had! – and he just sat there, not taking off his clothes.' She paused at that. ‘Well, he did, he took off his tie, and sort of, I dunno, played around making knots with it. An' all the time he's talking about the sort of girls he likes, which I thought was a bit rude, with me sitting right there in front of him. I mean, what sort of feller does that –?'

‘Yes, yes,' Rita cut in, trying to keep Alice's story on course. ‘But what did he say about Maddy?'

‘I was
coming
to that,' said Alice, with a petulant jerk of her neck. She composed herself for a moment, refusing to be hurried. ‘So I start to undress, but he's still not moved from his chair – just staring, miles away, like he's in a world of his own. And then, out of the blue, he asks me do I know a girl called Madeleine, 'bout so tall, dark hair? – he obviously knew you from somewhere.'

Madeleine's throat had gone dry. She swallowed hard and said, ‘How did he know me?'

Alice looked vague. ‘Said he met you once, that's all. And that he's been looking for you since.'

Rita, staring at Madeleine, said, ‘Are you all right, love? Maddy?'

Yes, they had met, beyond question. The description fitted, as did the detail of his playing with the tie, the one he had tried to strangle her with. And she had told him her name. Stupid, stupid. She remembered now – when he had first approached her in Russell Square, before she had realised the danger, he had asked her . . . His face, the dark pupils sliding like mercury in his eyes, the eerie purr of his voice, the meaty hands pinning her down . . .