The Possessions of a Lady (24 page)

By the time I got out it was latish. The chances of meeting
Spoolie by ten were remote. I had no illusions. Spoolie had set me up. He'd be
going over his old films in his pit at Mistley, not in Birmingham at all. Now I
was really motoring.

Only one thing to do, make sure that Spoolie was home in his
cinematic heaven. If he was, I'd know I was being flushed out to track me all
the easier. I walked to the town's fly-by-night taxi rank outside Marks and
Spencer's. I checked that I didn't know the driver, and told him Birdbeck.

By ten-thirty I was struggling to hold the Braithwaite on the
Mistley road. I smiled as I drove, working out phrases for Spoolie when he saw
me. I was sure how it would turn out.

21

Spoolie's shop is on a slope in Mistley, between two
black-and-white Tudor taverns that lean together confiding, like they do. I
left the Braithwaite in a little square, otherwise empty, that opened to
workshops for potters and arty-crafty activities, and a pair of old almshouses
endowed these 600 years. Lights were on in The Ghool Spool, I could see from
the fanlight.

That really annoyed me, him so cool. Then I thought, oh, well, the
poor blighter was being bullied. If everybody kept to the truth, the world
wouldn't be in such a bloody mess, right? I rang the bell, a yank-and-clank
tugger. No answer. I peered in the letterbox flap, and grinned at a ghostly
flickering on the stairs. No hard feelings, Spoolie, I thought. Run your old
films. You'll gape when you see me—you think I'm in Birmingham.

Startle him? But I hate practical jokes. You need a sadistic
streak. But I mistrust humour. Even laughing at a comedian's jokes takes nerve.

I pulled the bell louder. No answer. I went round, found the back
gate open. There's a yard with slate walls.

The back door into his storeroom wasn't locked. This was a bit
unusual. I entered, calling, 'Spoolie?'

Maybe he'd just gone to answer his front door? I went through the
corridor curtain. No sign. Upstairs I could hear that clipped speech, grating
black-and-white films. Not sure whose voice, somebody once famous.

The front parlour is Spoolie's shop. Counter, stacked films,
posters, boxes of postcards, past claims to past fames. A loo off the corridor.
Spoolie always checked movies for props—guns, handbags, cigarette brands,
clothes. Two movies a night, fourteen a week, cross-checking cars, shoe styles,
jewellery, hats, anything to sell to film buffs. A barmy career, but fans are
nearly like real people.

'Spoolie?' I started up the stairs.

He lives upstairs, with his projector. I'd only been up once
before, three years back. He'd been looking for a partner in his money sink of
a trade. I'd listened politely while he brought out his prize possessions. I'd
thought him daft, and declined. The trouble was Spoolie always set his sights
too low—he'd wept when he'd been outbid for a dress allegedly worn by Marilyn
Monroe. Beats me. Addicts never listen.

On the landing, I knocked, the door slightly ajar. The projector
was whirring away on a cut-down bookcase. Before the window stood a screen. No
light otherwise. The projector did its muted clatter.

'Wotcher, Spoolie,' I called. Then I saw there was a gleam from
under the bathroom door. Very cramped, though with my cottage I should talk.

Sighing, I relaxed in his armchair, from where Spoolie watches
these grainy old films. He says it's from Casablanca, but it's not. I gave it
him, a throwout. He paid twenty-eight quid for forged sale certificates to back
up his preposterous claim. Derrin on the Walton marina churns them out for a
pint. Spoolie thinks he boxes clever. Like I say, Spoolie's no brain.

'Spoolie?' I yelled. 'Get a move on.'

Old films are great sometimes. When you're all of a do, and your
infant's playing up, feed and change him, pull the phone out, then watch some
old re-run. You'll laugh with scorn for two minutes. Then you'll be engrossed,
and wonder why you've wasted your life watching TV sitcoms. Like this,
Madonna of the Seven Moons
. I like Phyllis
Calvert. It was up to where the gypsy makes love to the elegant lady who
inexplicably appears in his encampment. Stewart Granger was doing his stuff.
Spoolie would start hunting the gypsy caravan in the morning.

By the armchair Halliwell's reference book, with a scatter of
notes.

'Spoolie? Jean Kent's doing her jealousy.' Tempestuous, sultry. T
once saw her in a stage rehearsal. She kicked over a chair in a temper. God's
truth.' I chuckled. 'Want to sell it? Personal True Star Reminiscence?' That's
Spoolie's own product, a typed tale. He charges a fortune, guarantees that
nobody else gets a P.T.S.R., but invariably betrays his guarantee. A real
trouper.

He'd scrawled,
See Halliwell
.
I hefted the book.
Novelettish balderdash
killed stone dead . . .
Halliwell'd written. 'Hey, Spoolie! See Halliwell's
judgement, the rotten sod? Nothing wrong with film romance.'

No answer. These old black-and-white films are lustrously lit.
Colour killed them, technology exterminating art. Colour films haven't quite
got it yet. I really hope they succeed. The bathroom was silent, except for
running water.

'Hey, Spoolie,' I bawled. 'List your top pre-colour pictures.
You're not allowed
Double Indemnity.
'
Everybody says that first, get crime out of the way.

No answer.

'I can't accept Anna Neagle, Spoolie,' I shouted. 'Nepotism. I'm
sick of her brave face.'

Not a word. Shouldn't Spoolie've been shouting that I was wrong
again? A
scatter
of notes. Spoolie
was obsessional about his jottings.

‘It's dawning on Stewart Granger now, Spoolie!'

Nothing. I cleared my throat. Voices aren't reliable, not when you
want.

'Produced in the wartime,' I said, two attempts.

Odd, how the armchair was placed. I had to lean over to get the
screen full face. Spoolie sits directly in front. Now, I don't really know
Spoolie, only as a pattern, the way you know somebody who's always on your bus,
the characteristics unalterable. I concentrated on Patricia Roc.

People don't change.

'Hey, Spoolie!' I called, higher pitched. 'The Yanks got upset
because Patricia Roc was too flagrant in that James Mason highwayman picture.'
I've loved Patricia Roc ever since
The
Wicked Lady
. I gave a falsetto laugh, unconvincing, my hands clammy.

'What was that song, Spoolie?' I hummed a few bars of
When Love Steals Your Heart.

Not a word. The film now could have been anything,
War and Peace
, the news,
Lawrence of Arabia
. I'd never had
difficulty concentrating on Patricia Roc's breasts before. Why had a bloke gone
for a bath in mid-obsession, leaving his watching chair askew and his notes
scattered?

Scattered
. Out of reach.

With a yelp I leapt up. The reel had ended. I hadn't even caught
the screen blob that signals the switch. The picture whitened out, clack,
clack.

'Spoolie?' I whimpered. Then I caught myself and smiled. Of
course! He wasn't even in! He'd had to rush out, maybe to the pub.

Spoolie didn't drink.

Then I chuckled. Of course! He'd had to phone!

He'd a phone right here.

'Spoolie?' I said. 'Hell of a bath you're having.'

Then thought how stupid I was being. For God's sake, I'd only to
try the bathroom door handle. It would be locked, which would prove he was
inside, hiding from me. I relaxed in relief. The explanation was there all the
time! Obvious! I chuckled at my own folly. I'd shout through the door—tell me
who'd put him up to luring me to Birmingham, and I'd know it all. Q., as they
say, E.D.!

He must have seen my arrival in the old Braithwaite. He'd guessed
I'd be disappointed in his betrayal, setting me up. Well, sure, who wouldn't be
narked? But I never really get mad, only sort of sad. And even God does that.

So he'd scarpered into the bathroom, was pretending not to hear.
Hence his leap from his chair.

'Heavens, Spoolie.' I crossed to the bathroom and tried the
handle. 'You had me going there.'

My scream deafened even me. I stood by the open door. Water
touched my shoes. The light was on. I was stupefied, but not enough to prevent
me seeing Spoolie lying in the bath that overflowed with reddish water, taps
fugging the place up with steam.

That noise was intolerable, making my mind spin, my senses
blanking out in the racket. I stopped screeching. The din ended. It'd been me,
recoiling and howling and going, 'U-u-u-ughhh' or something and being sick on
the carpet that was wetting as the bloodied bathwater followed me. I was
vomiting and trembling because I'd been talking over old pictures with a dead
thing, a corpse which was Spoolie.

For a horrible moment I found myself sitting in Spoolie's armchair
while the celluloid went clack clack and the white screen gleamed pallor all
about, perversely turning the whole room into a silent epic with shadow and
light shoving each other for attention.

On its own the bathroom door slowly closed on Spoolie, lying there
in his clothes in the red water. My non-brain went daft, asked, Hey, Lovejoy,
what old film ended like that, a door closing while the camera withdrew?
Spoolie once argued it was
Escape to
Happiness
, the hero's wife coming slowly downstairs saying, 'Welcome home,
John,' to Leslie Howard as the music swelled. I retched onto my shoes, realised
I was being sick in dead Spoolie's chair and leapt away with a cry that almost
choked me, my throat burning and my belly griping. I'm never cold, but found
myself shivering like a thrashed dog. I whimpered and keened, made a dash down
the stairs, falling on the second last like a fool.

The darkness was trouble, even though I wanted to be out there in
the cold. I wanted rain to wash my hand where I'd touched the door. I wanted to
splash in a gutter puddle, wash the bloody water from my soles, wet me all over
so the death would go from me.

Without a thought I ran to the motor, cursed it for stupidity when
it wouldn't start, groped for that weird pump thing without which it won't get
going. It boomed into thunderous life. I'd driven four crazed miles before some
motorist flashed me for no lights. I switched them on as his tail lights
dwindled to nil.

Some time later, I stopped trembling. I realised I was on the
Great North Road, by then coherent. I filled the Braithwaite up at a garage, I
think near Norman's Cross. An admiring motorist came over, said affably, 'I
expect you want to raise, eh? Need help?'

'Ta, mate,' I said. Reflexes can be useful.

'I'll do it!' Eagerly he raised the canopy. It was only then that
I realised it was teeming cats and dogs, and I was wet through. 'I once had an
Allard!' he said, like I was expected to kneel.

'Good heavens. You must be an expert.'

'Well . . .'

Other motorists came to poke around the old crate. Christ, I
thought, is the whole world off its trolley? I went to the loo, bought some
grub and swigged some tea, I think. Then I drove off in a chorus of admiring
shouts from yet more maniac motorists who sprouted in the night. I drove like
an automaton, thinking nothing. I must have been going a couple of hours when
road signs developed meaning. I played back the memory of those helpful
motorists. Different accents, slidey up-and-down, sentences ending in a falling
tone you don't get in East Anglia. Next sign, I made myself focus on the
lettering, spelled it out as I trundled past.

Birmingham? I put my foot down harder. You will wait for me, I
thought, you rotten swine. You won't let me lose the trail. If Lydia had stayed
loyal instead of listening to her mother, or if Aureole had seen sense, if
Thekla hadn't been vindictive just because I'd ruined her life's work, I'd have
had a woman along to help. They're more practical, and see the obvious quicker
because our male noddles are always chock-a-block with irrelevances. (Don't let
on that I think this. I wouldn't like it to get about.) I'd made Spoolie ... I
blotted out the verb to suffer, and changed emotional gear. I was sorry that
kindly motorist had put the car hood up. I deserved a cold drenching. That
bathroom stank. The hot water had discoloured his skin.

I pulled onto the hard shoulder, vomited a bit more for old times'
sake, then drove on. I wondered who it would be. Not Spoolie, that's for sure.

22

Nervousness can desert you, when it ought not. Suddenly you're too
calm, and don't care. I was like that. I parked the great engine at a hotel and
booked in. I walked to the station.

Normally, I like railways, even the new rehashed terminals. And
even at night, after the witching hour, when there's maybe the odd wino, and
one tired dad checking the platform where his daughter's express will come
batting in. Our main line stations always have a nosh bar, machines challenging
you to combat space invaders. I got tea and a cheese roll damp with mayonnaise
that stared me out and I chucked away.