Authors: Charlotte Lamb
Five minutes later she was in the street and running to an underground station she spotted as she left the car park, getting a puzzled and suspicious stare from the attendant. It was only as she passed the massive entrance, with its marble pillars and towering glass windows, that she saw the name of the company whose offices were housed in the building.
She stopped in her tracks, white-faced and incredulous. Montgomery & Sons Ltd?
Montgomery and
sons
, she thought, wincing. He was married and had sons? Or was he one of the sons of an older Montgomery? The company name finally clicked home in her mind as she began to run again, putting as much space between herself and the man with whom she had spent the night as she could. She had seen the huge, glossy boards throughout the city every day without taking much notice of the name, nor had it even occurred to her to connect Laird with one of the biggest construction companies in the country.
No wonder he had a penthouse at the top of the headquarters of the firm! Was he the man who ran the company? Or just one of the family who owned most of the shares?
On the train she huddled in a corner, shivering as if she had 'flu, her eyes on her watch. She would just get to the theatre in time for rehearsals if she stopped off to have a cup of coffee somewhere first; a strong black cup of coffee. That might help her headache and the sick feeling in her stomach.
She tried not to think about last night, but images kept flashing through her head, a strange discordant video playing her memories of Laird filling her glass, smiling at her, talking to the old man, kissing her.
Kissing her. She shut her eyes, her throat burning with the shame and rage. She would not think about it. She would push it all out of her head and pretend it had never happened, and it did have a dreamlike shimmer when she remembered the candlelight, the roses, Laird's smiling grey eyes seen through the gentle, flickering flames. If it had ended there she would have had an exquisite dream to take away with her instead of this pain and anger.
There was a workman's cafe near the theatre, often frequented by the cast, although not usually at this early hour. The woman behind the counter gave her a nod and a friendly greeting.
'What can I do you for, ducks?'
'Coffee, please, Amy. Black and strong.'
'Dear me, morning after the night before? Don't tell me—you theatricals are all the same.' Amy pushed the coffee across to her, grinning. 'Don't I wish I had your luck? That'll be twenty-five pence, darling.'
Her teeth aching with the forced smile she had felt she had to give the other woman, Anna took her coffee to a far corner and sat down with it, brooding as she sipped. It was ironic that she had saved Patti at her own expense. That will teach me to think I can handle
anything,
she told herself bitterly. I couldn't handle Laird Montgomery, could I? I didn't even know where to start.
He
handled
me!
Her face burned as the words echoed in her head. She got up and went into the little washroom at the back of the cafe, used the lavatory and then washed and put on some make-up to hide her deathly pallor. Her green eyes had a hectic glitter as they stared back at her. She barely recognised herself, reading the new knowledge in her wan face and hating the man who had educated her last night. 'What sort of monster do you think I am?' he had asked her, and she had been fool enough to laugh and ask: 'What sort of monster are you?'
Well, now she knew, didn't she? He was a ruthless, unscrupulous bastard under his charm and his smiles and his teasing glances, and she had been bewitched by all that until she forgot her wary suspicions of him and walked headlong into his honeyed trap.
She walked out of the wings just as the director was asking where she was and received one of his cold stares when she slipped into her place.
'Have you got a watch, Anna? Well, can you remember in future that it tells the time, and make sure you aren't here at a quarter past ten when I've called the rehearsal for ten?'
'Sorry, Joey,' she said huskily, her head down.
She felt Patti looking sympathetically at her and couldn't meet her eyes. She was terrified of what other people might read in her own face. She felt that last night was indelibly stamped there for everyone to read.
After Joey had given them his usual brief chat, they discussed the scene they would be doing; where they had gone wrong yesterday, what changes they had to make, and then rehearsals began, but Anna found it hard to concentrate. For the first time, her own life intruded into her role, and by the end of the morning Joey was eyeing her with leashed impatience.
He suddenly burst out, 'Nine days, Anna! Nine days, that's all—and then we open. You're simply not giving this scene your whole mind. I know you're tired! We're all tired!
I'm
tired, my God, I'm tired!' He ran his hands through his curly hair, tearing at it. 'But I'll stay here until the crack of doom if necessary. I know we've gone over this a dozen times, but we'll do it once more, please, Anna, and this time make me feel it. Get into this, girl! Don't just mouth her words like a ventriloquist's dummy.'
Anna swallowed her words, her face very pale, and went through the scene again, but Joey was not satisfied.
'No, no, no!' he shouted half-way through. 'Anna, for God's sake! What's the matter with you? Somebody pinch her for me, make sure she's awake, because she's acting like a sleepwalker!'
Anna couldn't take any more, she burst into tears and ran off stage, taking refuge in one of the tiny, claustrophobic dressing-rooms where people put their coats. She sank down on a stool in front of the dressing-table and put her head on her hands, sobbing. The garish light of the unshaded bulbs around the mirror glittered down on her red hair, tipping each filament with gold.
She was quiet when Patti came to find her and sat down next to her, shyly watching Anna renewing her make-up with hands that had the slightest tremor in them.
'Are you OK?'
'I haven't cut my throat.' Anna ran a comb through her hair and patted it into place. Her brittle tone didn't fool Patti.
'We've broken for lunch. Joey has gone off for an hour to have lunch with the management and the others have voted to have a pub lunch. Coming?'
Anna shook her head. 'No, thanks.' She didn't have enough money but had no intention of saying so.
'Oh, do come, Anna—Dame Flossie is standing us lunch today, it's her birthday, she'll be hurt if you don't come.'
Anna couldn't say no when it was put like that. When she and Patti emerged from the theatre the others were already trooping into the pub across the road, Dame Flossie leading them like the Pied Piper with his flock of dancing children. Even at that distance Anna could hear her sweet piping.
'What did you think of Laird?' asked Patti, making her stiffen. At Anna's sideways glance Patti flushed, adding hurriedly, 'Laird Montgomery, you know, last night?'
'I know who you mean,' Anna said flatly, her own voice taking on colour. Patti's question had reminded her that the other girl had met Laird first. She hesitated, biting her inner lip, then plunged. She had to warn Patti; what had happened to her last night must not happen to Patti too.
'Look, I don't want to be too heavy about this,' she muttered, 'but don't accept any more lifts from him.'
Patti gave her a startled look: 'Why not? What do you mean?'
Anna found it hard to put into words; she didn't want to tell Patti the whole truth, but she couldn't let her walk blindly into Laird Montgomery's lair.
'You're not a kid,' she said. 'Do I have to draw diagrams?'
Patti gave her another quick look. 'Are you warning me off?'
'What do you think I'm doing?' asked Anna, then saw that there was a temporary lull in the flow of traffic, and darted across the road towards the Victorian public house into which the others had vanished. The previous landlord had mounted a gaudily painted ship's figurehead above the door and added windowboxes full of sad geraniums to the grimy facade, but nothing would make the Old Britannia look anything but what it was—a working man's pub once haunted by sailors in the days when London's river was crowded with ships, but now fallen like the river on hard times.
As they halted outside the swing doors, Anna was amazed to see Patti giggling. 'I never thought you'd ever be jealous of me!' she laughed and Anna went red.
'That wasn't what I meant! Look, I'm trying to warn you about him. The man's only got one thing on his mind, and I don't mean a kiss at the door when he takes you home. He plays adult games, and he means to get what he wants, he plays very rough. Don't accept any more lifts from him.' She paused, frowning at Patti. 'Unless, of course, that's OK with you. At least I've warned you.'
Patti looked as if she had been dipped in boiling oil.
'What did he ... ' she began, then broke off, biting her lip.
'How
old are you?' Anna asked her wearily.
Patti took the question at face value. 'Nineteen . . . nearly.'
Even younger than Anna had imagined, and she made a face. 'Well, use your imagination to fill in the gaps. I don't want to give a lecture on the subject, but you're lucky it was me who went on with him last night, not you.'
About to walk into the pub, she stopped, a new idea coming into her head. 'By the way, how did you meet him in the first place?'
'I . . . my father introduced us,' Patti stammered, still obviously very embarrassed. 'Well, not exactly that—but he was with my father when I came along and . . . '
'Your father?' Anna stared at her. 'So it wasn't at the theatre? I got the idea that Laird had something to do with the management.'
Patti looked confused. 'Well, in a way . . . '
in a way, what?'
'He . . . didn't tell you?'
'Tell me what?' demanded Anna, becoming even more irritated.
'He's one of the backers,' Patti said in a low voice. 'Don't tell anyone, will you?'
'Oh, no!' Anna exclaimed, her face appalled. 'He's backing the play? Our play?' If Laird Montgomery was one of the backers, there was no way she was going to be able to avoid him if she saw him at the theatre—or pretend they had never met! Not only could he walk in and out of the theatre as he chose, it might make her life very difficult if he was hostile to her.
'But you won't tell anyone, will you?' Patti said hurriedly. 'He doesn't want people to know. He has a phobia about getting his name in the newspapers, and he's afraid a gossip column would pick this up, and people would start hanging around the theatre, to pester him.'
'By people you mean journalists?'
'Yes.'
'A debatable point,' Anna said, grimacing.
Patti laughed uncertainly, too keen to get her message home to find that very funny. 'You won't tell anyone, promise, Anna?'
'Not a living soul,' Anna said absently. 'You know, I never have seen his name in a newspaper, now you mention it, and it's unusual enough, heaven knows. In fact, I'd still suspect he invented it if I hadn't seen the name of his company on that building.'
'What building?' asked Patti, looking understandably bewildered.
Anna gave her a dry look. 'The office block where he took me last night—you won't believe this, but he has a penthouse suite on the top of his company headquarters, just the perfect spot for a little candlelit dinner and seduction.'
Patti's lips parted and she stared, blushing. Anna could see she was at last beginning to get the point, so she didn't dwell on it any further. If Patti accepted a lift from him again, she would at least be doing it with her eyes open.
'Well, let's go and find the others,' she said, pushing open the swing doors of the pub, and at once hearing her name chorused by the rest of the cast who were sitting around two tables in a corner.
'There you are! Hurry up, we're ordering—shepherd's pie or curry?'
'Shepherd's pie,' Anna and Patti said in harmony, and the landlord grinned and asked what they'd like to drink before vanishing.
It was only as she was eating the minced beef with its golden crust of mashed potato topped with cheese
x
that Anna wondered how Patti's father knew Laird.
She looked sideways; Patti was watching Dame Flossie, who had launched into one of her hilarious anecdotes about a famous theatre knight from an earlier decade.
'Is your father in the theatre?' Anna asked casually, and Patti's head swung round, she looked startled, then laughed, her eyes dancing.
'Good lord, no! Daddy was a builder.'
'Is that how he met Laird Montgomery?'
Patti nodded. 'Yes, Daddy did some work for Laird's company. If you knew my father, you'd realise how funny it is . . . imagining he could be an actor, I mean! He's only interested in two things —roses and bees. He retired six years ago, he has had a bad heart and his firm got too much for him, so he started growing roses. He wins prizes with them and Mummy say she's sick of honey—the garden's full of hives and although they sell most of the honeycombs Daddy likes to see his own honey on the table.'
One of the cast tapped a knife hilt on the table. 'Quiet, everyone! I want to propose a toast. Dame Flossie, a happy birthday and many, many more of them!'
They all lifted their glasses and echoed the toast, then sang 'Happy Birthday to you . . . ' watched, smilingly, by everyone else in the pub, some of whom joined in with gusto. Dame Flossie was one of the best known, best loved faces in London's theatre, and people wanted to show how they felt about her.
She glowed happily as she rose to make a little speech. 'Thank you, darlings. You're very sweet and I love working with you—every morning I get up feeling old and tired and then I come to work and your enthusiasm and energy makes me young again; you charge up my failing old batteries! With your help I firmly intend to reach my century and get that telegram from the Queen.'
They clapped noisily and she sat down, flushed and excited—visibly delighting in having a receptive audience.
Ten minutes later they hurried back across the road, dodging cars, with cheerful grins at the irate drivers, and found Joey waiting for them, tapping his foot ominously, a smouldering volcano in his eyes, but Dame Flossie gave him her most enchanting smile and threw her arms around him.