Fallout (28 page)

He pulled the covers round her to hug her so that she was wrapped up and she went gratefully into the warm place he made. He stroked her head and eased back against the head-board so he could better support her as she folded herself into him. She had never known such forgiveness.

They held each other like people taking shelter.

His skin was wet with her tears. There was quiet.

‘You should be happy,’ he said. ‘You’re not.’

‘I’m happy with you,’ she said quietly.

‘Then you have to—’

‘Please.’ She heard her weak, small voice, and didn’t know if the weakness was real or if it had come to save her from the spotlight of confrontation. ‘I can’t talk about it now.’

She waited. She could feel him thinking next to her, his pain and confusion. She rested on his shoulder. He didn’t move or say anything.
If I touch him
, she thought,
he’ll forget all about it. That’s what men are like.
And she couldn’t help despising him, just a little bit, for being taken in and hurt, for falling for her and being weak.

She pressed her cheek against his chest, and then slipped down the bed next to him. She moved down, feeling his stomach contract as her trailing hair and breath touched his skin, kissing him and knowing that she had won; he wasn’t thinking about anything now. She took him in her mouth.

In the wet heat of her mouth, her lips enclosing, taking him in, his thoughts were obliterated in the glare, starbursts in his head, and all he knew was gratitude for the blessing of her and, as she had meant him to, he lost himself.

Nina didn’t eat breakfast, so Luke went down alone and had eggs and bacon and coffee at one of the small yellow-clothed tables, staring at the doily under the cruets and making maths and faces out of the shapes cut into it. It was difficult to concentrate knowing Nina was lying naked upstairs under the bedcovers so he ate very quickly, trying not to think about her body. Then he went up, taking coffee for her, watched by the shy and curious young waitress as he went. They made love, while the clock-radio on the bedside table flicked through the minutes, filling them out with college bells and footsteps passing and time pushed into their bed, tightening the confines of their limited freedom.

When they left the hotel Luke wrote a cheque from his crumpled chequebook, the covers scoured with pencilled deductions. Nina stood outside on the pavement in her fur coat and looked the other way.

‘Thank you, Mr . . .
Kanowski
,’ said the hotel owner, his mouth clumsy around the word as if it were an unpleasant piece of foreign food.

They walked to the station slowly because of her heels on the uneven pavements and on the corner of George Street they stopped. A cold wind scattered specks of rain. He put his hand on her face and when she looked at him he felt still again. Calm.

‘Do you know what I think?’ he asked.

‘What?’ She smiled into the warm complication of his eyes.

‘I think that you can’t imagine what it’s like to be free.’

She was transfixed, adoring him; strong.

‘I don’t want to do anything except –’ the words faltered in daylight’s scorn ‘– except to love you.’

‘Me too,’ she said and touched his mouth with her fingertips, his brow, his cheek, and kissed him. ‘Me too.’

He had everything then. He was right to make her sure of him. She would be sure of him, and she would leave.

‘I love you,’ he said again.

‘I don’t deserve you,’ she answered.

He saw her onto the train, endured the pain as it pulled her away from him, then went to the theatre. Four hours’ sleep; burned and aching within and without from her imprint.

Paper Pieces
would run for three weeks in Oxford and then go on tour. Warwick Arts Centre, Harlow Playhouse, Swindon, Cambridge; it was done. Luke went back to London rejoicing in his tiny scale against the uncaring mass of the city.

‘Fuck me, the bright lights of Fulham,’ he said, as he came into the flat.

Paul was on the sofa. ‘They didn’t need you down there all the time anyway,’ he said.

‘Yeah, but I needed to be there,’ said Luke, going into his room. He dumped his stuff on the floor, hauling out the important things: typewriter, books, pens.

Leigh was in her bedroom changing, a wake of steam and scent following her from the bathroom about the flat. The smell of her was home.

‘You can come to this party with us if you want,’ called Paul. ‘Nag’s Head fifth-year birthday do.’

‘I’ve got work to do on
Diversion
,’ said Luke, coming back into the living room.

‘There are loads of people you should be meeting – there’s interest in it, Luke, and you’ve been stuck down there.’

‘My second act is like a car crash. Without the drama.’

‘Ever heard of commissions? Revolutionary idea: you could get paid to fix it.’

Luke shrugged and changed the subject. ‘Did you meet Michael Codron like you were going to?’

‘Not yet.’

Luke went to the window and watched the taxi-lights passing by below.

‘Front page of the
Standard
said, “Official:
total chaos
tonight,” he told Paul happily. ‘Thought they’d pressed the button. Turns out it’s just the trains.’

‘Yeah,’ said Paul, ‘business as usual.’

‘Oxford is mental. They live in another world down there, and the chips are rubbish. Did you hear Ken Tynan talking to Morecambe and Wise on the radio? It was surreal. And he
admired
them – the high priest of culture dignifying the taste of the masses for a bit of publicity –
plus ça
fucking
change
.’ He turned around. ‘I thought I’d move out,’ he said.

Paul was concentrating on his cigarettes, making a store for the evening. ‘That’s a good idea,’ he said.

‘Find myself somewhere Nina might want—’

Then Leigh came in, and Luke rushed her like a Labrador, picking her up and hugging her breathless. ‘Hello!’

‘Yes, hello,
drop
– I’m clean,’ she said.

‘I’m not dirty,’ he said, putting her down, pushing her cheek with his finger and grinning at her.

‘Congratulations, Luke,’ she said. ‘For the play. I’m so,
so
pleased for you.’

Luke was embarrassed, she was so formal about it.

Paul watched them, licking a Rizla edge before smoothing it down. ‘O brave new world, that has such notices in it,’ he said; ‘Leigh’s been scrapbooking.’

‘Well, someone has to,’ said Leigh.

‘You look a bit of all right,’ Paul said, looking at her dress and the curves of her body under it.

He stood up, tucked the cigarette into his shirt pocket, took her in his arms and kissed her. Luke put his hands in his pockets and looked away. It wasn’t the sort of kiss they would perform alone, he thought; Paul had kissed her for him, and he wondered why.

‘Now you’re wearing my lipstick and I’m not,’ she said. ‘I’ll be two minutes.’ And she left them.

Paul dragged the back of his hand across his mouth. ‘So, what’s your plan?’ he asked Luke.

‘I need to find somewhere, I suppose.’

‘You can afford to now,’ said Paul.

‘Yup.’ Luke took in the familiar room and his heart hurt at the speed of change, and at the loss, but Paul had gone back to rolling his cigarettes. After a moment, Leigh came back in.

‘Swine,’ she said to Paul. ‘You can’t kiss me again until midnight—’

‘Luke’s moving out,’ said Paul.

She paused, then, ‘Oh, all right then,’ she said, turning from him as if like Paul it meant nothing to her.

‘Who’ll do all the cooking?’ said Luke.

‘We manage fine without you,’ she answered.

The Nag’s Head party was in the pub itself and upstairs in the auditorium, with the theatre dark for the evening. Leigh, Paul and Luke left the car and walked towards the open doors. The crowd inside was noisy, blurred with light and smoke. As they forced their way into the crush Luke searched the faces for Nina, as if because she was in his mind she might magically appear.

‘Drink?’ said Paul.

‘I’ll see you in a minute,’ Luke turned back towards the door. He couldn’t stop himself.

Tony was in the bath when the phone rang.

Nina was getting dressed for the evening; she knew it was Luke immediately, and snatching up the receiver, craned her neck to check the bathroom door was closed.

‘Hello?’

‘
I’m at this party
. . .’

His voice transformed the moment, transformed her and made her smile.

‘This thing at the Nag’s Head,’ he said. ‘Will you come?’

‘We were invited, but we’re going somewhere else. Are you mad, calling now?’

‘Just come—’

‘Luke—’

‘
Come.
’

‘I’ll try.’

‘Who was that?’ called Tony as she put down the phone. She crossed the landing to the bathroom and opened the door a crack.

‘Terence Fowles. Wanted to know if we’d be there later,’ she lied, easily. ‘We should go.’

Terence was the artistic director at the Nag’s Head, he’d called before about the party and she knew Tony wouldn’t check. Still, her heart beat fast as he sighed and she heard bath water splashing.

‘Of course we
should
. But I really must get to the Globe – you know I want to talk to Michael.’

Nina held her breath. She felt a sexual thrill at the adrenalin of waiting. She said, ‘Let’s – I’d like to, for
Custody
.’

‘Fine. We’ll stop by,’ said Tony, unseen. She’d won.

As Luke came back into the pub he looked for Paul and Leigh—

‘Jonathan!’

A man was standing in front of him. He had thick, forward-brushed dark hair, glasses and a moustache.

‘Jonathan Bates? You were at my house in the summer.’

He stuck his hand out at Luke. BBC Jonathan. Shepherd’s Bush. The au pair on the spare-room bed . . .

Luke smiled. ‘Nice to see you. I’m Luke—’

‘I know
exactly
who you are; I’ve heard wonderful things about your play.’

They started talking, and very soon more people joined them. Paul Ellis from the Shaftesbury. Michael Stanmore, who was starring in something on its way to Broadway from the West End, and was puffed up with relief and conceit; Paul Elliott, who Luke had worked with in Sheffield . . . People he had read about or knew; who in the past had no interest in him. He hadn’t minded, had always been happy to observe and didn’t care what they thought of him, but now the attention was uncomfortable. It made him want to get away, wriggling helplessly inside, like a beetle speared onto a card. This was what Paul had meant – about
Paper Pieces
, about people being interested. He could see that it was good – for his work, that had lived so long in a vacuum – but it felt nothing but strange and threatening to him to be noticed like this. He liked people but he had become used to being reacted to in a certain way, and now it had changed. It didn’t interest him. It took him an hour to get to the bar, answering the same questions but not having a second to ask any, and then his drink was paid for by Lou Farthing – Lou Farthing who managed the Trafalgar, who had three hit plays on the go and who, according to the papers, was helping Olivier with the National Theatre’s agonising move to its new home at the South Bank – Lou Farthing, who put a hand on Luke’s restless shoulder and said, ‘I was talking to your friend Paul the other day. Says that second play we talked about is ready.’

‘
Diversion
? It isn’t,’ said Luke.

‘Six more under the bed, he says?’ said Lou, peering up at him, sweat sheening his forehead, aftershave coming off him in waves. He handed him a drink. A signet ring dwarfed the stumpy little finger of his hand.

‘Thanks,’ said Luke. ‘Most of them aren’t any good.’

He couldn’t keep his eyes on Lou’s button-like ones and looked around, wondering if Nina had managed to get away and what she would have told Tony, trying to keep his need for her in check.

‘Here, meet Johnny Marston – he’s in a fix,’ said Lou, reaching to put an arm around the shoulders of a skinny, tall man in a limp cheesecloth shirt. ‘And come and meet me next week, Luke. It’s great to see you.’ He clinked glasses with Luke and melted away.

Johnny Marston was quite drunk. He was a television producer at the BBC and had a ‘huge massive fucking hole’ in his schedule.

Luke fidgeted as he told a long and rambling story about how it had happened and all the people who’d let him down and how it was an honour to meet a writer of Luke’s calibre – although he hadn’t caught
Pieces
in Oxford yet. Luke felt sorry for him and told him he didn’t know how to write for television, but he had some radio material he’d been working on and Johnny introduced him to somebody else, who worked in radio. Then someone bumped into him – and he looked down to see Leigh.

‘Hello,’ he said.

‘I thought you’d gone.’ Her eyes were sleepy, her hair tumbling over one eye.

‘Sorry,’ said Luke, turning from the radio man whose name he hadn’t caught. He put his hand on Leigh’s arm. ‘No, I’m here. Are you all right?’

She didn’t answer, just pushed away from him through the people. Without knowing why, he felt concern for her and was going to follow, but then forgot because there in the doorway, across the dense crowd as if she were spotlit, was Nina. She was with Tony.

The radio man next to Luke said, ‘Tony and Nina Moore,’ like a footman announcing arrivals at a ball. ‘Listen, come in to Broadcasting House next week, I’ve—’

Luke hadn’t seen them together since the very first time he’d seen her at all, in Islington, and here it was, vicious proof of her marriage. Tony’s hand on her elbow instead of his own.

She hadn’t seen him yet. The crowd thickened with each moment; Luke, still and watching in the centre of it. They began to move in to the room, greeting people, smiling. Tony slipped Nina’s coat from her shoulders and gave her a cigarette.

Luke waited; he waited and watched and finally, her eyes drifted across the faces that surrounded her, and she met his gaze. She barely smiled. Her expression was cool. Luke nodded towards the back of the pub – the corridor to the toilets and the stairs up to the theatre – and, imperceptibly, she agreed. He was punched in the gut by desire and tried to stop it; her husband was at her side. That couldn’t be a thrill to him. But she was. She was.