Fallout (31 page)

Maggie had
divorced well
, as she herself put it. Her passion was for the dangerous fragility of new work and she was unashamedly bankrolled by the fat returns of Broadway melodies and high-kicks. She bought a long lease on a warehouse below Covent Garden, saving it from demolition, and building work had already begun. With his slice of the producers’ split with Archery from
Paper Pieces
and a loan Paul bought a portion of the building from Maggie. He called it his
Papercuts
. He would shout to Leigh as he left the flat – ‘Off to Papercuts’ – and never forgot that he wouldn’t have been able to make his true start without it, or without Luke. The theatre would be ready to open with a new play in June – if they were lucky.

He and Leigh were working at opposite ends of the day; he office hours, she theatre. The new show at the Duke of York’s was a bedroom farce; the light, fluffy opposite of its predecessor
In Custody
, uninteresting to Leigh in everything but that it was written by a woman. Given that, it was disappointing there was no alteration to the age-old tradition of men chasing reluctant women about the stage – except for the addition of a nymphomaniac, just to spice things up. It was like an upmarket
Not Married
?
!
and her feeling of treading old ground, revisiting old foes, was wearying.

‘Sweetie, you should get the hell out of that theatre,’ Maggie said, one Sunday when Paul had brought his work, and her, home with him. ‘Move on. There are
amazing
things happening out there, my love . . .’

Leigh knew there were, but she and Paul needed the money. She didn’t have Maggie’s freedom to indulge in grand gestures. She said nothing.

She was cooking lunch while Paul and Maggie went over the contractor’s invoices and argued about a proper name for their new theatre.

‘We have to stop calling it Papercuts. It was the O’Hanlan until you showed up.’

‘Thank God for me showing up. O’Hanlan sounds like a pub,’ said Paul.

‘We could call it the New.’

‘Been done.’

‘The Factory.’

‘Andy Warhol. And not our ethos.’

Leigh made a heap of her potatoes, carrots, cabbage; chopping calmly, soothing herself, trying not to interfere. She had too many opinions, she ought to leave them to it.

‘It’s getting ridiculous. The slab is laid,’ said Maggie. ‘Is the wine in the fridge?’

‘Help yourself,’ said Leigh.

‘Thanks, love.’

‘The Union,’ said Paul.

‘Awful.’ Maggie poured her wine, and a glass for Leigh. ‘The Directive.’

‘Stalinesque,’ said Paul.

‘The Rose?’

‘Pretentious.’

Leigh scooped a double handful of vegetables into the seething water on the stove and then she turned to face them.

‘The Depot,’ she said. ‘It was a fruit and veg depot for Covent Garden. Call it the Depot.’ And as she spoke, creating something even so very small as a name, she could feel herself light up.

Maggie and Paul looked at her.

‘The Depot,’ said Maggie. ‘Genius.’

‘That’s my girl,’ said Paul. ‘Done.’

Leigh blushed and turned back to the stove. ‘Paul,’ she said, ‘Gerry asked me to read some of the submissions at the theatre, and pass on the ones I like. He won’t pay me. I said I would.’

But they hadn’t heard.

Maggie lived in a house in Notting Hill. The back door was always open to the bramble-filled communal gardens and she had a child and a nanny, neither of whom she referred to by name. The Nanny. The Child. Everyone else was similarly
love
or
darling
or
sweetie
and she owned a St Bernard called Marigold –
the dog
– that Paul suspected she loved more than her daughter. The great wet-mouthed dog lay on the landing, or under her desk, and barked boomingly at the out-of-breath writers and directors who climbed the six flights for meetings. The important ones were met in the coffee bar downstairs, or at restaurants. The hungry and the hopeful made the climb.

Paul didn’t know when he’d ever have even a veneer of the ballsy confidence Maggie displayed, and assumed she thought of him as a boy. He would hear her voice on the phone talking to prospective backers, sharp-carrying across the space between them,
Look, love, I’m not moving on this one.

Maggie was deceptively kittenish in her looks, had a lewd turn of phrase and drank like a man. She scorned Paul’s caution but he suspected she was more afraid than she looked.

‘Are you going to post me the manuscript?’ said Paul to Luke on the phone when he told him
Diversion
was finished, Maggie watching him shrewdly across the desk.

‘Luke?’ prompted Paul.

‘I’ll bring it in to you there, if that’s okay,’ said Luke. ‘The post is rubbish.’

He couldn’t let it leave his hands so easily.

He had never promised
Diversion
to Paul, but there had always been an assumption he would have first refusal. Now, with things the way they were between them, it was the one bond upon which they could rely.

‘We could always talk about opening the Depot with it instead of the Denton,’ said Maggie, when Paul had put the phone down. ‘We haven’t absolutely committed yet. The new Luke Last might be perfect. If it’s any good.’

‘It’ll be good, Mags,’ said Paul.

Archery Productions had gone into partnership with the Arts Theatre, and
Paper Pieces
was opening there in May.

‘
Paper Pieces
with a West End transfer, Paul: all the more papercuts for you, you clever boy,’ Maggie had said when they heard. ‘I’ll drink to that.’

Luke ran the six flights up to the Depot’s offices with the manuscript tucked safe inside his jacket.

‘Here,’ he said, and put it on the desk in front of Paul, regretting the few bent corners it had suffered when he put it in the envelope.

‘Will you stay for a bit? I can read it tonight,’ said Paul.

‘Hello,’ said Maggie, eyeing Luke like a sailor on a dock watching prostitutes.

‘Hi,’ said Luke, with Marigold sniffing at his crotch.

‘Coffee, then?’ said Paul. ‘We can go downstairs.’

‘I’ve got to meet that Lou Farthing,’ said Luke. ‘But later?’

‘What does my old mucker Mr Farthing want with you?’ asked Maggie, getting up.

She hauled the dog off him and dragged her back to the desk, fondling her ears and kissing her.

‘I don’t know. He said to meet a while ago but I wasn’t around,’ said Luke.

‘Watch out for him,’ said Maggie, ‘he bites.’

Paul picked up the play. ‘Is this the only copy?’

‘I made another down the road. It’s at home.’

‘All right. Well, then, shall I call you when I’ve finished?’

Luke hated to leave. He fidgeted about, glancing at it.

‘Luke?’ said Paul. ‘I’ll call when I’ve read it, okay?’

‘Yeah, yeah,’ said Luke. ‘It needs work, though.’

He turned to Maggie. ‘Nice to see you,’ he said. ‘How’s the Depot coming?’

‘We’re getting there.’ She looked at Paul. ‘Aren’t we, love? We’re getting there.’

Paul nodded.

‘Great,’ said Luke with a last quick look at his play in Paul’s hands. ‘Let me know, then? . . . See ya.’ And he went.

‘Odd fish, your attractive friend, isn’t he? Does he ever keep still?’ said Maggie when he’d gone. ‘Show me it immediately you’ve done, love.’

‘If he lets me,’ said Paul. ‘Attractive?’

‘Sweetie, everyone says it.’

Everyone did say it, but Paul didn’t like to hear it from Maggie and didn’t exactly know why. He didn’t mind usually that she talked about men the same way men talked about girls, but her noticing Luke grated on him.

Luke walked the twenty minutes to Lou’s office above the Trafalgar. He hadn’t thought about the meeting and didn’t much want to go, but he had said he would be there.

Lou Farthing liked to make an impression. Not for him the tatty posters and coffee rings, the shabby stairs and ashtrays. He had a vestibule to his office where his secretary sat at a walnut desk, and the whole place had something of the air of small-scale, nineteen-thirties Hollywood about it – including Lou himself, whose cravat and immaculate hair and nails spoke loudly of his success.

He made Luke wait. Luke had made him wait first, after all; it was the currency of power.

‘My boy,’ he said on greeting him, standing up and swelling to his full five feet five. ‘What took you so long?’

‘Work and things,’ said Luke. ‘How are you?’

Lou didn’t tell people how he was. It didn’t interest him.

They talked about the play. Lou was full of flattery. He said he had been excited to see how Luke would follow up
Paper Pieces
and he hoped he hadn’t been seduced by television.

‘No – I’ve been doing a bit of radio. But mainly finishing the play.’

‘
Finishing
it? I wanted to talk to you about a commission. What is it? And, more to the point, who is it for? Luke Last’s second play; I had hopes.’

‘Of what?’ asked Luke, thinking that when he was writing he never thought of his work as
for
anyone, and wondering if that made it worse.

Lou smiled. ‘Have a drink,’ he said. He took a bottle from the cabinet behind him. ‘Melanie!’ he barked. ‘Ice!’

Luke heard a mewing response from the vestibule. ‘No, thanks,’ he said, ‘not for me.’

‘Nonsense,’ said Lou. ‘Have a drink.’

So they drank Scotch and soda at four in the afternoon, and Luke told him about the play.

‘
Diversion
,’ said Lou, trying it out. ‘
Diversion
. . . Where will it land? Ben Greene’s your agent, isn’t he?’ He looked as if he might call him then and there. He tapped his signet ring on the telephone next to him like a metronome, a habit he was known for when he scented a deal.

‘Yes, but it’s on Paul Driscoll’s desk,’ said Luke, trying to be clear but still not knowing what that meant exactly.

‘For the Depot?’ asked Lou. ‘If they ever finish the build. That’s taking a punt, isn’t it? Ben must have told you, you could take your pick.’

‘I don’t know. I’m not sure. I haven’t spoken to Ben. I’ve only just done it.’

Lou’s telephone rang. He answered it. It was a well-known director and Lou talked, in a leisurely fashion, for several minutes before he turned his attention back to Luke.

‘So, Luke, tell me, you’ve
sold
this piece to the Depot? Have they optioned it?’

‘I’ve just given it to Paul,’ repeated Luke.

The telephone rang again. Lou covered the mouthpiece –
excuse me
– he mouthed.

Luke left him. He stood about outside the door with the secretary at her desk and read the framed, glassed-in posters on the walls. They were all hits – varying genres and uneven quality, but all hits. Melanie typed and glanced, typed and glanced, and eventually said, ‘He won’t be long. When Lord Olivier calls he likes his privacy.’

Luke nodded. He’d read about all of this; the jostling at the top, but from the inside it was just one person talking to another and interested him less than overheard conversation in the street, the weather changing in the sky.

‘You wouldn’t believe the gossip,’ said Melanie.

‘I would,’ said Luke, and rocked back and forth on his heels for a while.

‘My boy!’ barked Lou from within and when Luke went back into his office he seemed to have grown two inches since his negotiation with greatness.

‘Now this play,’ he said, grinning, ‘I’d like to see it, if I may.’

‘Yeah, of course,’ said Luke, beginning to wonder how soon he could leave.

‘I’m booking the new season for the Trafalgar. What do you think?’

‘Of the Trafalgar?’

Lou laughed, as if he were joking. ‘I’m
interested
. Send it to me.’

They shook hands.

The next morning he ran off another copy of
Diversion
in the back of the undertaker’s down the road, sent it off to Farthing’s office and thought no more about it; Paul had called him at midnight and told him he loved his play and Luke had no other question in his mind about it than that.

Nina had been out with Chrissie. She came into the house with shopping bags and hair done, running up to the living room to spread out her new things and drape them on the furniture. She poured a drink – vodka over ice, and a brief squirt of the soda siphon – and lit a cigarette standing by the mantelpiece, her arm resting close to her award. She surveyed all the prettiness of the colours laid out.

‘Darling?’ came Tony’s voice from the study, ‘Darling!’

She went to him and pushed the door open.

Tony was at his desk, a cigarette in a holder resting in the square glass ashtray, a manuscript in front of him. He leaned back in his chair.

‘Good day?’ he asked.

‘Yes, lovely,’ said Nina.

‘With . . . ?’

‘Chrissie.’

‘. . . Chrissie,’ said Tony, slowly.

He left a pause, in which she began to feel nervous, and then he pushed the manuscript across the desk towards her.

His name stood out as if swelling from the page:
Luke Last
. Black typescript, the name, and above it –
Diversion
. Nina didn’t move; she didn’t breathe.

‘There might be a very nice part in this for you,’ said Tony.

‘Oh?’ said Nina. ‘Where did it come from?’

‘You remember our friend, the writer, don’t you?’ said Tony.

Nina met his eye.

‘Vaguely,’ she said.

‘He was rather memorable, I thought, in that Jewish way. Good-looking.’

In that Jewish way. Nina realised that Tony knew all about it. All about her. All about everything.

‘I’d be very interested to know what you think of it,’ he said. ‘You know me, I don’t give out praise cheaply. It’s the best thing I’ve read in years. Absolutely riveting. And very sad.’

‘Why does it matter what I think?’ asked Nina.

‘I told you, darling, there’s a nice part in it—’

‘You know I hate reading all the way through things and finding someone else is doing it, or it will never see the light of day,’ said Nina.