The Ghost in the Electric Blue Suit (29 page)

“Is Terri up here with you?” I asked.

“Na.” He took a sip of beer and the foam printed a mustache on his upper lip.

“Where is she?”

“Dunno.”

We sat in silence for a minute. He scanned the room constantly. Then he volunteered some information. “I took her off to Marbella after last I seen you.”

“Marbella.”

“Yeh. It’s in Spain.”

I wanted to say I knew where Marbella was but I thought better of it.

“Thought that would suit her. We used to go there in the old days. We was all right for a while. Then she ran away.”

“Ran away where?”

“I’ve a good idea.”

“Oh?”

“With someone from ’ere.”

“I don’t believe it,” I said.

His eyes flared open and he tipped back his head. I saw the back of his upper fillings. “I nearly catched her at it. In that feater over there.”

“What,
this
theater?” I was incredulous.

“I followed her in one day. It wasn’t that Italian ’coz he was ’aving a smoke with Pinky. When I gets in there she’s in the dark with that scrote, your mate.”

“My mate?”

“That fuckin’ soft Mancunian. Whats’isname?”

“Nobby? Are you sure?”

“He was wearing that kit like you wear.”

“But are you certain it was him?”

“Less it was you, or that prat with the wig.” He flashed me a half smile. “Na, it was him all right. I know ’coz he disappeared off the scene straight after.”

“I don’t know, Colin,” I said helpfully. “Nobby? It doesn’t add up. He’s not her type.”

“Her type? Anyone with a hard cock is her type. Maybe I’ll go up to Manchester. See if I can’t find ’em both.”

It occurred to me that Colin might just do that. I don’t know what it was about Nobby but he always fitted the bill. I suddenly felt emboldened. “Colin. Why do this to yourself? Sometimes you have to let it go. Walk away.”

He sniffed. “Listen to you. Givin’ the advice out now, ain’cha?”

“I didn’t mean to—”

“It’s all right, son. I’ve heard it. It’s all right.”

It was impossible to tell if he was lying about Terri’s fate. I tried to look deep into his eyes. It was like looking down a mine shaft.

He drained his beer glass and stood up. “Might see you here next season, then?”

I got up off my stool. He dug his hands in his pockets, almost as if to tell me that he didn’t want any handshake ritual. “Might well do, Colin. Might well do.”

He nodded briefly, turned, and left. It wasn’t until he’d passed through the doors that I let out a big sigh.

I rejoined Eric at the bar. He was chatting with one of the bar staff and when the barman moved across to serve someone, Eric said to me, “I didn’t know he was a friend of yours.”

“He’s not,” I said.

THE SATURDAYS CAME and went, the sea turned the gray of gunmetal, and the infamous bracing east coast wind grew squally and bitter. Most people had gone back to work and for the last couple of weeks the resort was populated by special groups: disabled people, children from care homes, and the like. It was actually more fun to work with these groups but the numbers of holidaymakers were already well down on the peak season and I was aware that many of the staff had already left.

The performers were signed off and a rudimentary program was offered for the rump of the season. A goodbye party was held for the theater people. Luca Valletti made a brief appearance. He arrived late, had one drink, and then went round solemnly but punctiliously shaking hands with everyone equally.

When he came to me he blinked, smiled, and offered his hand. “I wish you every success with your studies.”

“Thank you, Luca. I learned a lot from you.”

He blinked and regarded me rather strangely, I thought. Then he offered me almost a bow and moved on to the next person.

Nikki meanwhile was already thinking about her next job. She had an audition in Coventry for a part in a Christmas pantomime production:
Puss in Boots
, where the chorus line wore leather boots up to the top of their thighs. I saw her off at the train station and went to meet her when she came
back. She didn’t know whether she’d got the part or not. We avoided discussing the future.

In the final week we had a party of disabled children from a special home arriving, and Nikki, Gail, and I threw ourselves into designing a fresh program suitable for kids in wheelchairs. Even Tony—yes, Tony the fascist—got enthusiastic about making it accessible and high energy, so that we could give the kids our very best.

And then it was all over. I said goodbye to Pinky and he made me promise that I would come back the following year. “Your face fits,” he said.

Tony shook my hand manfully and apologized for not being able to knock some political sense into me. He pointed at me with a big tanned, nicotine-stained index finger. “Don’t let them commie professors fill your head with nonsense, mind you. And don’t forget about us.”

They were all wonderful with the sweet wine.

I talked Nikki into shacking up with me in Nottingham. We scoured the classifieds in the local newspaper and found a flat near the town center. We bought paint and freshened the place up and she gave it some feminine touches. We were playing at being a couple. One day she came home with a little gift for me.

“What is it?”

“Open it.”

I unwrapped some tissue paper and found a heavy glass paperweight. The glass was red with black spots and bifurcated to look like the carapace of a ladybug.

“It’s to remind you. Of the summer.”

I weighed it in my hand. “It’s lovely.”

“It’s for your studies.”

Perhaps I looked confused. I don’t know what type of student Nikki thought I was; maybe she had a notion of me at a big desk with a brass telescope and a silver engraved pen and a huge blotter, with a pile of maps and scrolls.

“It’s a silly present, isn’t it?” she said, suddenly losing confidence.

“No it’s not. It’s beautiful.”

“Silly.”

“I’ll treasure it.” I weighed it in my hand for her to see. “Really.”

Nikki was entertained and amused at being part of the student scene. She met my friends, and we drank in the union bar. We even sneaked her into a few lectures, completely unnoticed, just so she could get a sense of what we did. She was three or four years older than my contemporaries, and though she never criticized them I could tell that their immaturity bored her. Nonetheless she became excited by the lectures; she always wanted to discuss what she’d heard; in fact she was more interested in learning than ninety percent of the student population. She hungered for learning.

She almost fell over backward when I explained that it cost nothing to be a student at university; that the government paid all fees and awarded a grant to students so that they could live and study in reasonable comfort; that education was a right to be claimed. No one had ever told her. We found out that she could apply as a mature student on reduced qualifications, and she immediately prepared to take an extra couple of O-level examinations in order to matriculate the following year.

ONE RAINY, MISTY Thursday evening we were on our way to the Old Angel Inn to meet up with some friends. We would always walk the short distance into town from the flat, and on the way we passed by a small theater, a place that staged both amateur theater and irregular concerts. One night you might see a rock band and another night a comedy act. Billboards outside the theater advertised these various shows and one particular billboard proclaimed that “for one night only” there would be a performance of “A Selection of Songs from
My Fair Lady
.”

The billboard caught Nikki’s eye. I was still walking when she summoned me back. The billboard indicated that this was the public’s “last chance” to catch this “amazing show” before it went on an “international tour.”

“What?”

“Look at the photos,” she said.

I saw it at once. His appearance hadn’t changed at all, but his name had. He was no longer called Luca Valletti. His new stage name was Dante Senatore. His duet partner was Shelly Diamante. To be precise she was billed as Shelly “The Nightingale” Diamante. I don’t think I would have recognized her from her photograph: It was a very professional and airbrushed Terri who gazed out from the billboard with tender eyes as she leaned her head against the breast of Dante Senatore’s tuxedo. Her hair had been restyled and her lips were painted with luscious red lipstick. She no longer looked like someone who mopped the floor after hours.

I remembered Pinky’s words, about whether telling someone they have a nice voice constitutes making a pass.
Sometimes it does, sometimes it doesn’t
.

We were way too early for the show but Nikki suggested we find out what time they finished and come back and say hello. I was reluctant, but she said it would be fun to surprise them. We went inside and asked at the box office about what time the performance ended.

After that we went on our way to the Old Angel Inn, where we drank with friends until about ten o’clock. I was comfortable and didn’t want to go, but Nikki was determined. She persuaded me that it would be rude not to say hello. When we got to the theater people were already spilling out of the doors, turning up their collars. Knowing that Luca’s professional habit was to get out quickly, I thought we might have left it too late. Nikki dived inside and asked someone where the stage door was. It was at the side of the building.

“Should we send a note? Say we’re here?”

“No!” Nikki said. “It will be more fun if we don’t.”

I really wasn’t sure about that.

Soon enough the stage door opened to reveal a rectangle of yellow light. The figures of a man and a woman carrying large prop bags and with polythene-wrapped costumes over their arms emerged into the shadows. As they joined the illuminated main street in front of the main doors of the theater we were able to intercept them.

“Luca!” Nikki said. “And Terri!”

They were both paralyzed by our sudden appearance. Their eyes flared wide in the light from the streetlamp. Traces of stage makeup remained at the corners of their eyes. They
looked pale, ghosts of the people I’d known at the holiday resort.

Terri looked at me without a trace of expression.

“Don’t you remember us?” Nikki said cheerfully.

Terri was the one who recovered first. I could almost feel the engine of her brain turning. “Nikki and David!” she said. “Look, it’s Nikki and David! From the resort,” she added, as if she needed to prompt Luca into remembering who we were.

Luca was still floundering. “Yes, of course! How amazing to see you! Simply amazing!”

I intuited all the thoughts processing in Terri’s mind. She stepped forward so that she could kiss me. She stood on tiptoe to reach me, a gesture that still burned.

“What a coincidence to see you both here!” I said.

“Yes,” he said, “a coincidence.”

“Actually,” I said, “we passed the billboard earlier. Nikki was the one who recognized you.”

They both looked at me, smiling, as if I were telling a truly fascinating story.

The hiatus was awkward so I said to Luca, “But you changed your name.”

Nikki said, “It’s just show biz, David.”

Luca said, “Yes, I changed my name. A different show. A new start, you know?” He put his hand in his pocket and fumbled with some loose change, then he brought out a set of car keys.

I stepped over to the billboard and examined the picture. I looked back at Terri, and then back at the picture. “It’s fantastic! I mean, we all said you should be onstage.”

“We formed a duet,” she said unnecessarily.

“What, after you left? You formed a duet?” I had Terri on the rack, and I wasn’t going to stop. You see, in that moment I understood with shining clarity that Luca and I had both been her lovers at the same time. I suspect Luca might have guessed, too. It meant of course that Colin’s initial suspicions were confirmed after all.

Luca looked up the street and then back at me with the same fixed smile. He wasn’t saying much at all. He shook the car keys in his hand.

“So is this where you are a student?” Terri asked me, swinging the spotlight in another direction. “What about you, Nikki? What are you up to these days?”