Fallout (29 page)

He pushed his way across the pub and when he reached the scruffy vestibule and corridor – stuck with posters and half-filled with another little crowd – he stopped. Some women were waiting for the toilet and talking about the government, unemployment, foreign crises . . . He stood by the bottom of the stairs and waited.

He saw Nina go from one person to the next. It was like a chess game: Tony following her; her separating herself, carefully; Tony introducing her to someone; her moving away again, closer and closer to Luke until he could see the details of her – her lashes, the silk of her hair tucked behind her ears. But it was Tony who caught his eye and smiled, Tony who reached him first.

He held out his hand rather high to shake Luke’s. His eyes were pale, Luke noticed, never having been as close to him before.

‘You’re Luke Last,’ he said. ‘I’m Tony Moore. Congratulations.’

Luke had nothing to say. He wanted to hit him. He’d never wanted to hit anyone in his life before and part of him was calmly interested by this atavistic maleness surging up through the unremembered centuries.

‘Ken Tynan thinks you’re a genius,’ said Tony.

‘I’m not.’

Tony laughed. ‘Dearest, if Tynan says you are you may as well surrender. You know my wife, Nina, of course?’ He turned to Nina.

She wanted to pretend she hadn’t noticed but Tony was in her eye-line. She came over to them. Luke, in the grip of unaccustomed rage, couldn’t move.

‘What a terrible crush,’ said Tony.

‘Hello,’ said Nina. ‘We’ve met, I think.’ And the bland way she said it made Luke almost believe he didn’t know the feel of her skin, the things they had done.

‘Yes, Luke Last,’ said Tony. ‘What would you rather be, Luke?
Enfant terrible
or great white hope?’

‘I’m twenty-five,’ said Luke, feeling silly. ‘Hope for what?’

‘Theatre, my dear—’

‘It’s done all right without me for two thousand years,’ said Luke.

‘Better with you, I hear. It’s a comedy, your play.’ He didn’t ask, he told him.

‘Yes,’ said Luke.

‘Light as a feather.’

Luke couldn’t work out if he was insulting him. Tony laughed.

‘I wouldn’t call it lightweight,’ said Luke, thinking of his play and what it had cost him to get it right.

‘I’ve nothing against lightweight,’ said Tony; ‘I’m married to Nina.’

‘What do you mean?’ Luke heard himself say and felt a warning from her though she wasn’t looking at him. ‘How was
In Custody
light?’

‘You saw it?’ said Tony.

‘Yes. A few times,’ said Luke and Nina stared quickly at him, then abruptly down to the floor.

‘How flattering, darling,’ said Tony to her. ‘You’ve got a fan. I’ll leave you two together.’

And with that, he was gone.

‘Why did you
say
that?’ hissed Nina close to his ear, her mask falling away all at once.

Luke was too angry to speak.

‘Do you think he knows it’s you?’ she was saying, panicking.

‘I don’t care,’ said Luke. ‘He’s a prick.’

‘Shh – stop it – don’t. Oh, for God’s sake! Here.’

She put her hand on his stomach and pushed him backwards until they were by the stairs. The women by the toilets glanced at them.

There was another door, behind him, and Nina shoved him through it into a dark space, a cupboard or storeroom, he couldn’t tell. His back was to a wall. She kissed him. Her soft, lip-gloss mouth pressed against his. He sensed her excitement was fuelled by Tony in the crowd so near them, and the lovely thrill of her was corrupted. Carefully, he pushed her away from him.

‘What?’ she said, tearful, excited, half-laughing. ‘You wanted us to come, didn’t you?’

She came close and lifted her face to him.

‘Not him,’ he said.

The room smelled of bleach. They were inches apart in the shadows. Nina reached out and opened the door a little. The light came in so she could see his face clearly.

‘I just needed you,’ he said. ‘I shouldn’t have called. I’m sorry.’

‘Oh,’ she said bitterly, ‘just like that.’

Luke frowned at the quickness of the change in her, the hardness in her.

‘I suppose it’s enough for you,’ she said. ‘You called; I came.’

‘Do you want me to reassure you? What do you want me to say?’

‘Nothing. I don’t want anything.’

Without another word, giving him no chance to defend himself, she left. Luke stood alone – ridiculous – shaking at being misunderstood so completely.

Shutting the door he felt for the light switch. It was a storeroom, he saw now, not a cupboard. The single bulb lit toilet-roll, cleaning fluid, collapsing cardboard boxes of ragged costumes. The gritty walls were damp and cobwebbed. She had gone. He came back to himself. The thought struck him that even as he stood there, debased, six actors were performing
Paper Pieces
on the Playhouse stage with a thousand people watching.

Luke knocked the naked bulb with his finger. It swung back and forth so that the shadows leapt and everything violently tip-tilted. He waited as the changing perspective settled.

Tony and Nina left very soon. The party didn’t stop. Speeches were made. Glasses were raised to Terence Fowles, the artistic director, to Victor Calgary who had raised finance, to the writers – listed, applauded – whose stories had found homes on the stage upstairs; the directors, actors, transferred shows; the work, the fight, the commitment that had kept the place alive for five years. They drank to five years more. In-house politics were made light of, conflicts dusted down and celebrated.

The close group of fifty or so who belonged and the fifty more who knew or loved them stayed. A man and a woman started to play guitars, and people grouped around to listen. Leigh had not been with Paul all evening. She found him in a corner talking to a producer called Maggie O’Hanlan, a skinny, redheaded divorcee in a rag-tag velvet coat, drinking whisky and telling stories about her time on Broadway with her ex-husband. The three men listening were either enraptured or alarmed by her, or both.

Paul didn’t look up at Leigh at all. They were smoking a joint and Leigh took it, and some of Paul’s whisky, which went down a little oddly on top of the wine and beer she’d drunk earlier. The grass was very strong and settling though, and she forgot to give the joint back, enjoying the burning wet Scotch and the hot dry smoke taking turns going into her. She leaned her forehead on Paul’s shoulder so she could enjoy the swoops and dives her head was taking without trying to stay sensible-looking.

‘. . . and take his money, and, for Christ’s sake,
my
money from
Glitter
,’ Maggie was saying, ‘and do something that isn’t bloody Eugene O’Neill, bloody Arthur Miller. Christ, I’m tired of those
great – big – heavy –
American – trudging-along plays . . .’

Paul moved his arm away so Leigh’s head dropped down and knocked on the top edge of the chair.

‘Ow,’ she said, not really feeling it.

‘Sorry,’ said Paul but didn’t look round.

Leigh stood up slowly, going more sideways than she’d meant. She pressed her cheek against Paul’s head as she righted herself. Still he ignored her. She walked away carefully. The heating – if there had been any – had long since been turned off and Leigh was shivering with the slow-blood, late-night beginnings of a hangover. She still had the joint. She finished it, and held the smoke in her lungs for as long as she could because it was the last of it, thinking she might find the loo. She saw the doorway and went to it.

Luke was sitting in his coat, alone on the bottom stair in the deserted vestibule. Leigh stopped in the doorway on seeing him. He had his head down in his hands. She could not see his face. Leigh noticed she was swaying. She tried to decide whether to go past him to the loo, or leave. She didn’t want to talk to him but she felt, she realised, a little slow on the uptake, and didn’t manage to move her feet before he looked up and saw her.

‘Hello,’ he said.

His face made her smile; automatic happiness she couldn’t summon or deny.

‘Hello,’ she said. ‘I was . . .’ She gestured the toilet door and then back into the pub and forgot what she had been going to say. The tiny cardboard end of the joint was stuck between her fingers. Her mouth felt horrible.

‘You wouldn’t want any of this,’ she said.

‘Any of what?’ said Luke.

Leigh held up her hand, but the roach wasn’t there. ‘That’s weird,’ she said.

‘Here,’ said Luke, moving along the bottom step, ‘sit down.’

She went and sat next to him, crossing her arms against the cold. He took off his coat and put it round her. She put it on, getting in a muddle with the sleeves and he helped her. The coat was big and olive-green, warm from his body.

Luke put his arm around her, as if that were all right, and normal. She didn’t want to remember why it wasn’t; she leaned into him.

‘Better?’ he said.

She nodded. ‘This isn’t your old one.’

‘The old one went.’

‘It was nice.’

‘It was my father’s.’

‘Greatcoat.’

‘Yep.’

‘Great. Coat,’ said Leigh. She giggled a bit. ‘It was a great coat,’ she said.

‘Yeah, I get it.’

‘Did he fly in it?’

‘Jacket.’

‘Mm. It would probably tangle up the pedals. Do Spitfires have pedals?’

‘I don’t know, Leigh.’ He sounded kind.

She closed her eyes. He was very warm. He was always warm, she thought, always warm and never wore sweaters. Always moving. Never there.

‘Where’s your girlfriend?’ she asked, through the safety of closed eyes.

‘With her husband,’ said Luke.

‘Oh,’ she said. ‘Yes.’

Leigh allowed the weight of her body to take her closer to him and felt his other arm go around her. He hugged her quite tightly. Her face was against his shirt, one of the buttons pressing on her temple.

‘I was feeling much worse before,’ she said.

‘Me too,’ said Luke.

‘What worse about?’

‘My girlfriend,’ he said. ‘Because she isn’t.’

Leigh looked up at him when he said that because she knew him very well, and that he was in pain.

Looking up from the position her head was in their faces were close, as if they were lovers and they were going to kiss. His mouth was close to hers. The cold air touched her neck below her lifted chin.

‘What?’ he asked.

‘You don’t protect yourself from her. Or anything. Aren’t you scared she’ll hurt you?’

‘She does hurt me,’ said Luke.

They were both murmuring because they were so close.

‘You shouldn’t let her.’

‘She doesn’t mean to.’

‘Maybe she does,’ said Leigh.

Luke smiled. But he wasn’t smiling at Leigh, he was smiling because he was thinking about Nina. It was as if Leigh weren’t there.

‘No,’ he said. ‘She just needs something. If I can give it to her, she’ll—’

‘Be your girlfriend? Leave Tony Moore?’

He nodded, not smiling any longer, and closed his eyes for a second. Leigh began to hurt just from looking at him.

‘She doesn’t trust me yet,’ he said.

‘Why would she?’

‘What do you mean?’ He was unafraid, wanting to know her thoughts.

‘Do you think you’d be faithful to her?’

Luke frowned. ‘There aren’t any other girls any more,’ he said.

‘In the world?’

‘In the world. Except you, of course.’

‘Can you not?’ she said.

‘Not what?’

‘Not say stupid charm things like that.’

‘Sorry. It was just because we’re like this.’

‘You noticed?’

He smiled.

‘I noticed,’ he said. ‘And there
are
girls. There are beautiful girls.’ He said it not because he meant it, but to be comforting.

‘You’re only saying it to be polite, and that’s just rude,’ she whispered.

Then he stroked her cheek. Leigh closed her eyes. He stroked her cheek with the back of his hand, then a finger – two fingers – along her eyebrow, and her temple.

‘It’s just that I don’t want them. I love her,’ he said.

‘I know that you do,’ she answered him.

‘What the fuck is going on?’

Paul was standing in the doorway. Leigh jerked away, overcome by shame as if they had kissed, all the things that were in her mind.

‘What are you doing?’ said Paul. He was speaking to Luke, not to her. ‘What the fuck are you doing?’

‘Nothing,’ said Luke – sweet and not defensive at all.

‘Paul! God’s sake,’ started Leigh, trying to get up, but he turned on her.

‘You’re completely pissed.’ Paul was angry, unlike himself.

‘Paul,’ said Luke, and he got up. ‘We were just sitting there.’

‘You were about to—’

‘No. We weren’t.’ Luke stepped towards him, pacifying.

Paul rushed him. He shoved him backwards into the wall. ‘What is your problem? Can’t you leave
anyone
alone? Are the rest of us too small to bother with?’

She’d never known violence in Paul, never sensed it. He was trembling with rage. Luke didn’t move, just stayed against the wall. Leigh was behind Paul, the too-big coat falling down over her hands.

‘Take that off,’ said Paul, over his shoulder.

Leigh took off the heavy coat and held it out, past him, to Luke, who took it, holding the other hand up to Paul, palm facing.

‘There’s nothing going on,’ he said.

Leigh noticed people in the pub watching. She saw how they must look – a bar brawl, ludicrous.

‘Paul,’ she said, ‘we should go.’

‘
We?
Really, Leigh?’ His voice was breaking. ‘You and me?’

The three of them made a triangle in the small space, as far as they could be from one another.

Paul was halfway to the car, walking fast with his shoulders hunched.

‘Paul!’ Leigh caught up. ‘Paul!’

He reached the car. He looked in his pockets, realised she had the keys and he couldn’t get away from her.

‘For God’s sake!’ she said. ‘Me and Luke? You’re mad.’

‘Don’t do that! Don’t you tell me I’m making it up.’

‘I love
you
.’

He stopped moving suddenly and stood against the car, covering his face. She didn’t know if he was crying or not, feeling the tearing between them.