Fallout (20 page)

‘You’re not,’ said Paul, ‘you never are.’ And he stroked her hair and her back, soothing her, resolute, and not asking himself the questions he already knew the answers to.

John Wisdom’s office was up three shabby flights, the walls covered in posters and the floors and desk with piles of plays. He was a small, wrinkled man of fifty who smoked cigars and didn’t empty his ashtrays. Paul waited in a coffee shop across the street while Luke went up alone. Seeing
Paper Pieces
on the desk between them put him at a disadvantage and the chair he was in was half-broken so the swivel seat wobbled, adding to his insecurity. But John Wisdom had met a million writers and took Luke’s nerves for granted. Most of them couldn’t string a sentence together in conversation.

‘How old are you, Luke?’ he said immediately.

‘Twenty-five.’

‘You’ve had nothing produced yet?’

‘No.’

‘You were at Graft? I saw
Cartwright’s Army
– one or two other things. Paul Driscoll was the artistic director there, Jack Payne – what about you?’

‘I read. Bit of design. Helped out. I did some editing – with the writers. We all worked together.’

‘George Myers hasn’t had any more success since
Cartwright
. I’ve read his latest play.
Cartwright’s Army
is the best by a very long chalk. Was that you?’

‘No,’ said Luke, ‘it was all George. I didn’t have that much to do with it – except defending it. I learned a lot at Graft. What works, you know. Me and Paul worked in rep for about four years before that. I read for The Majority when Layton Lewis was artistic director. Stage crew. Bit of everything. And small parts here and there.’

‘An actor?’

‘I’m not an actor, but it was helpful to put someone else’s dialogue in my mouth—’

‘Then?’ John interrupted him.

‘I mean I’m a terrible actor,’ Luke went on, looking out of the window, round the room. ‘I’m not an actor-writer. Not like Pinter, I mean really God-awful.’ It had always amused him what a bad actor he had been. He knew he should stop talking. He fixed his eyes on John Wisdom’s desk for focus. ‘Then, after The Majority I worked with Tom Leeson as a reader, in Sheffield.’

‘It’s the only way to learn. Being at the sharp end.’

‘Yes. And working.’

Paper Pieces
sat between them, waiting its turn. Luke glanced at it. John Wisdom shoved his cigar in his mouth and picked up the manuscript. He flicked through the pages, squinting. Luke wanted to tell him not to touch it and began to bounce in his wobbly chair, biting his lip, hitching up his ankle, rubbing it.

‘I fucking love this play,’ said John, and set it on the desk, patting it. ‘It’s fucking marvellous. I woke up my wife laughing.’

‘Good,’ said Luke. But it wasn’t enough. ‘Why?’ he said. ‘Why do you like it, anyway? What is it you liked about it? I mean, did you laugh at them for being so blind or did you see Eric didn’t want to be like he was?’ He stopped himself.

John Wisdom stared at him.

‘You know it better than I do. What do you want me to tell you? You can tell me something, though. You’re twenty-five, Luke. It’s your first play. Where are you from?’

Luke thought of Seston – and that Luke Last wasn’t from there.

‘What do you mean?’

‘I mean, how did you do it? Where did it come from?’

‘Well, it took a while, didn’t it? And it’s not my first. I’ve written a lot. It’s the best so far. I don’t like it that much any more. I’m writing another.
Pieces
isn’t like a play, even, it’s just long sketches and needs tying together but I never know how to do it. And it’s dead derivative. Too much bloody Kafka or Stoppard or Buñuel flicks or something. I need to get under the bonnet, it’s not finished.’

‘Luke, I want to take it to Oxford, try not to talk me out of it.’

‘All right,’ said Luke, biting the side of his nail, ‘and Archery will co-produce with Paul?’

John looked at him sharply. ‘He and I talked about it.’

‘Good. That’s important,’ said Luke. ‘But the play needs work.’

‘We’ll have to get on with casting before the end of the month. What do you think it needs?’

Paul was on his third coffee when Luke came in; he was lit up and couldn’t sit still, so they walked.

‘Fuck,’ said Luke. ‘Fuck. Fuck. He wants to take
Pieces
to Oxford. He thinks we should triple cast. Partly for money, partly because the sections work best like that. I never saw it, but it’s so obvious – they’re all the same person!’

‘Good idea.’

‘He said he’d call you.’

‘Good.’

They talked and walked, not seeing where they were going, just the future rolling out in front of them like the wide-open sea. They were nearly late for Lou Farthing and had to hurry back, pacing along Long Acre with Paul smoking and talking at speed and Luke even faster.

At Farthing’s office they stopped and Luke said, ‘Paul Driscoll Management, mate.
You bloody did it
. I hope you’ve still got the writing paper.’ And Paul grinned at him.

‘Jesus,’ he said, and they hugged, unembarrassed, delighted with themselves, then broke apart and laughed, hitting one another’s shoulders and getting in the way of the people trying to pass them.

‘Shit,’ said Luke. ‘Shit. Oxford.’

‘I knew it,’ said Paul. ‘You’re a fucking genius,’ and then, ‘Now we can find you an agent. The recalcitrant bastards – they’ll all want you now. And I’d better find another play, too. Most of the stuff I read is bollocks.’

Luke went into the hotel to meet Lou Farthing. Lou was in his seventies, had a secretary, a hand-made suit and ran on power. He was flattering and patronising and said he wanted to read Luke’s new play when it was done. Luke told him he’d get Paul to send it and went away with his smile stuck on his face like a wild, untroubled inmate at Seston Asylum, delighted by the possibility his life had given him. He bought a postcard with a picture of the Queen on it for his mother and wrote his day out, all through – fast, in tiny writing – in the pub while he and Paul had a drink to celebrate. They parted on the street in the late afternoon.

‘You not coming back, then?’ said Paul, remembering what Leigh had said.

‘No, I’m meeting someone,’ said Luke.

‘Well, be good. See you later.’ And left him there.

This time, when Nina got out of her taxi – and when he was quite sure she was alone – he went to her and took both her arms, feeling the thinness of them under her coat.

‘I think you’re lovely,’ he said, and he kissed her mouth.

The kiss was very short and just as he had known it would be. She pulled back and looked around, panicking.

‘What are you doing!’ she said. Then seeing his smile she laughed. ‘What is it?’

They hurried past the stage door into a shadowed archway that smelled strongly of piss; fire-doors, over-spilling cardboard boxes.

‘I want to see you; this is stupid,’ said Luke.

She went into his arms as if it was what she always did. He folded himself around her and held her there. They stood in elemental joy with their feet in the filth and then she went into the theatre to work. That night he didn’t watch the play because he didn’t need to.

Chrissie Southey and Alexander Talbot were getting married at the Brompton Oratory that Sunday. The wedding was at eleven, then the party, just for close friends, was to begin at lunchtime at Alexander’s house in the Boltons. His ex-wife had been a rich woman, an American heiress, and with her money and his film career he had kept the house after she had gone back to Los Angeles to stop drinking and live with her new lover. Alexander hadn’t stopped drinking, he’d found Chrissie to drink with him instead.

Nina had promised to leave the party early and meet Luke. She couldn’t tell him what time, only that she would be in a pub over the river in Battersea, where neither of them knew anyone, as soon as she could.

Tony and she got out of the taxi on the Brompton Road and went into the vast, crowded church, decked with waxy, hothouse flowers, photographers – invited and uninvited – mixing with the guests. The organ underscored the laughter with solemn discord.

Tony held Nina’s hand tightly as they found their places. He had been busily generous towards her since the night of her birthday, and not touched her at all in bed or out of it since. Now he sensed something in her that alarmed him. She did not seem as unhappy as she had done. That pleased him – he didn’t like her unhappiness – but there was a barrier to his observation of her heart. She had something on her mind that was not him; she gleamed with youth and secrecy.

‘What fun,’ he whispered in her ear, ‘Chrissie Southey in a white dress. Whatever next?’

Nina smiled. ‘She never had boyfriends at drama school,’ she said. ‘Not real ones.’

‘Well, Alexander’s been rogering her silly for two years.’

‘It doesn’t count if you’re engaged,’ said Nina, vaguely, looking around at their friends and the glowering artistry of the vaulted ceiling. Her chin was so delicate, her throat so fine and naked.

‘Darling,’ he said, ‘can you forgive your silly husband?’

‘For what?’ she said, facing him. Her expression was unreadable. He felt a chill.

‘Good,’ he said. ‘I hope you know you’re the only important creature in my life.’

She did not answer and he felt panic so stifling that he had to swallow not to reveal it to her, bending down to fiddle with the laces on his narrow leather shoes.

Alexander Talbot, broad and smiling, stood before the altar, turning to wink at friends as he waited for the wedding to begin, his famously blue eyes blurred only slightly around their crinkled edges with drink and his fortieth year approaching.

‘Here comes the bride,’ sang Tony in an undertone as the organ surged. ‘
She’s all dressed in white, drunk in a taxi, fell out the other side . . .
’

Nina ignored him.

Cars queued around the Boltons dropping people at the door. It had started to snow and nobody wanted to walk the last few yards and get their shoes wet so the party was slow to begin. Waitresses with trays of champagne shivered by the door, gas-fires roared inside in peace. Nina had hurried Tony along because she wanted to get it over with. She checked her watch. It was half past two. Chrissie and Alexander hadn’t arrived yet, or changed into their party clothes. She drank two glasses of champagne and went to the bathroom upstairs to take a Valium because she was shaking with nerves and couldn’t stand the thought of Tony noticing it. He was very alert because the party was full of people he wanted to cultivate. The house filled. Voices rose. Diana Martin was persuaded to sing, accompanied by the pianist on the baby grand. She sang Sondheim, holding her glass up to them all, a stage legend, charging the room with febrile charisma. Nina stopped on the landing to look at Alexander’s film posters in their splendid parade along the snow-white walls.

Luke. Luke.

The piano and Diana Martin’s cracked, trembling voice came up the stairs.
Don’t you love farce? My fault, I fear.

Nina knew too many people to leave while so many of them were sober. She would wait until Tony was absorbed in conversation and didn’t seem to be wondering what she was up to.

And where are the clowns – quick, send in the clowns.

It was no good. The toasts. The canapés. She waited. She waited. The snow stopped in the pitch-black night outside. She found Tony.

‘I’m going home,’ she said. ‘I have a headache.’

‘You never have headaches,’ he said sharply.

‘I’ve got one now.’

‘Do whatever you want,’ he snapped, and she turned and left. It was the first time she had not appeased him.

Running down the icy steps in her coat she felt delight. She caught a taxi on the Old Brompton Road.

‘Battersea,’ she said, ‘Latchmere Road,’ and slammed the door.

She ate three Polos to sweeten her breath and checked her face in her compact mirror, terrified of what she was doing and the reckless delight in it.

It was half past six. Luke had been there since three and was sure she wasn’t coming. He had been watching the people at the bar and in the corner playing darts; all men, regulars. He would wait until last orders, whatever happened. And then Nina walked in – absurdly glamorous, incongruous – gold and beige. She looked frightened. Saw him. He stood up. She came over.

They didn’t kiss or touch. He was at a corner table and they both sat down – Nina backed into the corner and him next to her, half-turned from the room.

‘Do you want to play some darts?’ he said.

She didn’t smile.

‘I’m sorry. I couldn’t get away.’

‘How was it?’

‘Pretty ghastly,’ said Nina quickly. Her voice was constrained in her throat. ‘I was at drama school with Chrissie. She’s practically my oldest friend but I don’t really know her at all. Alexander and she met filming in France. She had a bit part and there was no air-conditioning for the extras so he let them into his trailer or onto his bus or something and probably slept with most of them and one of them was Chrissie. I’m so sorry I was late.’

‘It’s fine,’ said Luke, studying her. ‘It’s all right. Do you want a drink?’

‘I’ve had lots.’

She looked around the room self-consciously but the men at the bar weren’t taking much notice of them. Luke put his hand on top of hers on the seat and she pulled away.

‘What are we doing?’ she said, rigidly.

‘People do this all the time. Are you leaving him?’ said Luke.

‘
Tony?
’ said Nina, in comical surprise. ‘Did you just ask if I’m leaving him?’

Luke nodded. She was jittery but he felt calm. He was focused only on her.

‘Do you love him?’ he asked.

Again she was surprised, as if it wasn’t his place to ask.

‘I don’t, I can’t . . .’ She looked down. ‘Can we not talk about this?’

‘Well, what is it that you want?’ he said, frowning.

‘What is it that
you
want?’ she asked back, quick as a flash.

There was a silence.