MASQUES OF SATAN (41 page)

I told them that Rex is seeing his agent about a film contract. (Why do I say this?) Would this involve closing the season at the Grand Pavilion early? Possibly. Was Rex going to get back with Roxanne? I said that this will happen, but I doubt if the reunion would last for long. How do I know? I shake my head and smile.

Billy and Joey look at me in astonishment. I smooth my face into a mask of innocence.

Joey says: ‘I tell you. The boy’s got the second sight. Here, you wouldn’t know what’s going to win the Marlesford Plate at Arundown tomorrow, would you?’

‘Moonjacket,’ I say. The word had formed in my head. It seems a delightful word. I have said it. (Perhaps I have seen the name in Rex’s copy of
The Sporting Times
which is always lying about in his room; I don’t know.)

At the end of the last show I sometimes like to stand outside the Grand Pavilion stage door, watching the theatre people as they come out, and the little group of fans and friends that wait for them. To me it is yet another piece of theatre, as stylised in its way as the one that has just taken place on stage. This is accentuated by the fact that the stage door is above the street level, and is reached by a flight of stone steps going up the side of the building at right angles to the stage door, leading to a balustraded platform in front of it. That night after the show I notice Mort, Rex’s chauffeur, standing beside the Rolls, waiting for Rex, who is always the last to emerge. I cannot see Mort’s face because it is dark and he is in the shadow of the theatre. He is talking to a short, stout man, also in shadow. The man is wearing a Homburg hat and a coat with an Astrakhan collar, rather old-fashioned. Of course, I am talking about fifty years ago, aren’t I? I mean old-fashioned for then. I can’t hear what they’re talking about, but I guess that the man in the Homburg is Rex’s agent. There is an odd thing about their conversation, though. I expect to see some obsequiousness in Mort’s manner — he is, after all, a servant — but the two appear to be talking as equals.

The cast and theatre staff are coming out of the stage door in dribbles, and there is a crowd of young girls with autograph books waiting, mainly for Rex, of course. I notice that both Billy Wilshire and Joey King make their exits from the theatre at the same time in a rather deliberate fashion, as if they were expecting to be asked for their autographs. One girl asks for Billy’s signature, which he provides with a flourish and a quick glance of triumph at Joey, who slinks away unasked into the night. The dancers are coming out now in little giggling knots. Mort and the Agent stop their conversation and look towards the stage door. They seem to be studying the dancers intently. Mephisto, the Great Illusionist, comes out, closely followed by his wife who, as usual, is nagging at him about something. He pretends not to notice her, but when he sees Mort and the Agent he raises a hand in greeting to them. They salute back, but their minds are clearly concentrated on some other object.

Roxanne comes out. She is alone and preoccupied. I see Mort stiffen. The agent grasps his arm and impels him forward. When Roxanne reaches the bottom of the steps Mort begins to move in her direction. He follows her, but for a while makes no move to catch up with her. Just on the edge of the piece of waste ground behind the theatre he comes up behind her and puts his hand on her shoulder. His grey uniformed back is to me, and when she turns I can see her startled white face in the glare of the street lamp. While he talks to her she says nothing, but once or twice I see her shake her head. She looks at him as if mesmerised. There is a pause. Then I see Mort slowly raise his two hands to his temples. As far as I can make out he is lifting his cap from his head. Roxanne’s eyes become alive with fear, and what looks like intense pain.

Just then I hear screams and shouts behind me. Involuntarily I turn. Rex has come out of the stage door and stands serenely on the little platform, waving to his fans. There is a rush for the steps, but with a little gesture of his hand he indicates that he wishes to descend them unmolested. When he reaches the bottom he is engulfed in girls waving their little oblong books, many of them bound in pale pink or blue plastic and decorated with hearts and flowers.

He is followed by Sarson, who has surveyed the scene with a look of boredom and contempt. Only I know that his manner is studied, and assumed to disguise other thoughts beneath.

A part of me wants to look back to the episode between Roxanne and Mort, and when I do he is coming towards the crowd while Roxanne is nowhere to be seen. I notice that the agent, too, has gone. When Rex has satisfied his worshippers, Mort drives us all back to the Metropole.

The following day we are going to Arundown races. Roxanne is with us and she sits in front with Rex, who is driving. It occurs to me that, for a chauffeur, Mort does very little driving. It is good to have Roxanne back, but she is subdued. Rex has one arm on the steering wheel, the other round her shrinking form. Sarson is telling jokes on the back seat, and once or twice Roxanne laughs. They are pretty rotten jokes too.

We arrived at Arundown races on a sunny, windy morning. Flags flapped, bookies shouted, crowds wore their loudest, most cheerful clothes and manners. Rex gave us cherry brandy out of a flask. After a sandwich at the bar we strolled out into the sunshine for the main race of the day, the Marlesford Plate. We were met by Joey King and Billy Wilshire, dressed exactly as they had been when I saw them on Seabourne pier the day before. It was then that I began to see that life makes patterns for you, and, if you have the knowledge, you are presented with a choice. You may enter in and simply become part of that pattern, or you may take hold of the threads and weave a new pattern out of your material. I know from my dreams that I am going to take the second course.

‘All right, son?’ says Joey to me. ‘I’m relying on you. I’ve just put my best shirt on Moonjacket. Even Billy here’s had a little punt.’

‘I don’t hold with this gambling, but I made an exception,’ said Billy.

‘You’d better be right,’ says Joey to me. ‘You tell the ladies and gentlemen, Billy boy. How much did you put on Moonjacket?’ They have fallen into their involuntary cross-talk routine.

‘Ten shillings each way,’

‘Ten shillings each way! Ho, yes. The last of the big spenders! You’re tighter than an Aberdonian’s arse, you are!’

‘What is all this?’ said Rex irritably. It was the irritation of the boy who has been excluded from the game in which he considers himself the team captain. The position was explained.

‘Moonjacket? I know he’s running, but what is all this?’ He turns to me. ‘And what do you know about the gee-gees?’

‘Nothing,’ I say.

‘Then how do you know about Moonjacket?’

‘It just came to me,’ I say.

‘He has the voices,’ says Billy very seriously. ‘My Auntie Rita was like that. She saw exactly how my Dad was going to die.’

‘Anyone could have seen that,’ says Joey, ‘what with that bloody knife throwing act he did, and the amount of Milk Stout he and your mum put away before a show.’

Rex says resentfully to me: ‘You never told me about these voices. Well, I suppose we’d better put our money on Moonjacket. I was going to anyway,’ he adds, and strides away from the rest of us. I look round and notice for the first time that Sarson and Roxanne are surreptitiously holding hands. They are not looking at each other; their expressions are still and blank, as if they are too astonished to move or react. They detach hands, but before they do so Joey has noticed, and he winks at me.

‘Come along, Aberdeen Angus,’ he says to Billy Wilshire, ‘let’s go and see if young Gypsy Rose Lee here has lost you your sporran.’ He guides Billy off in the direction of the grandstand.

Sarson asks me if I am going to watch the race. I know that they want to be left alone, so I say yes and begin to wander in the direction of the rails. But, of course, the last thing I want to do is watch the race. A part of me — the part which rules the world — knows the outcome of the Marlesford Plate already; the other part is terrified in case my godlike insight is all illusion. What I want to do is watch over Roxanne, because I have seen she is in great danger, body and soul.

Sarson and Roxanne have vanished in the crowd, but I will see them soon, as everyone is crowding to the rails to watch the Marlesford Plate. Behind this there are little knots of people, dubiously engaged in something other than the big race: the drinkers, the lovers, the criminals. I see Sarson and Roxanne making for the car park, as I expected.

By the time the race crowd is roaring in the distance I am in the car park standing a few feet from Rex’s Rolls. I can see enough and know enough to guess what is happening on the back seat. What I cannot understand is the pain that suddenly passes through me, turning my guts to water and making my brain hot with rage.

Moonjacket won the Marlesford Plate. Of course it did. I told you it would. On the way back from the races, full of cash and wine, Rex runs some old lady in a Morris Oxford off the road. He is swigging from a champagne bottle at the time, and I am riding in front in honour of my great prediction. As the car swerves I look behind me and see that Sarson’s hand is hidden somewhere in Roxanne’s skirt. Her pallor reddens suddenly, and the look she gives me pleads. I turn my attention to the road again and we drive on. We do not stop for the old lady.

Late that night in our hotel room I am asleep, when I am awakened by a weight on my chest. Sarson is lying on top of me and staring into my face.

‘Get off!’

‘You know about me and Roxanne, don’t you?’

 ‘Get off!’

‘We saw you sneaking about. You can’t deny it.’

‘I wasn’t going to. Get off!’

‘If you peach on us, I will kill you. I can. I will. You’ll be dead, Sternfield.’

I said: ‘I don’t care. You can try and kill me, Sarson, but you won’t succeed, because I have the gift of eternal life.’

‘Don’t talk the most utter bilgewater.’

‘It’s true. I was right about Moonjacket wasn’t I? God has told me. I am the life everlasting.’

Sarson climbs off me, disconcerted because he doesn’t know if I am joking or not, you see. This conversation has not gone the way he wanted. Usually he manages to hide his own fears by creating fear in others, but this time he has come up against the wall of faith. ‘You’re mental,’ he says petulantly. ‘Do you know that, Sternfield? You’re completely and utterly mental. They ought to lock you in a loony bin.’

‘Keep your hair on, Sarson,’ I say. ‘Your secret is safe with me.’ Then after a pause, ‘Sarson . . . What’s it like — you know — doing it?’

‘You’re still a eunuch. You wouldn’t understand even if I told you.’

His words do not hurt me because I am pretty sure I do understand, rather better than he does. I know about love, which is more than he’ll ever do, and that’s what makes me angry. I am angry for Roxanne as much as for me, because we were meant for each other.

V

‘You are the Lord’s anointed; you are the chosen vessel of His wrath when He comes in the last days to judge the living and the dead.’

My ears do not deceive me. This is what I heard Dr Emmanuel Bocock say that Sunday in the Conventicle of God. He was speaking to the congregation, but his eyes were fixed on me. I can see he is a sincere man, but he is only there to pass on the message. I wonder, in the event, if that was really necessary. They tell me that ‘Christ’ means anointed:  so that means that I am the Christ. This is information you have to keep to yourself, I know that, because it can so easily be misinterpreted and mocked at.

In any case, I have been confirmed by my dreams. Once more I am flying high above the flattened landscape of the estuary, grey, green, and silver below me. Below me the six children are running from me up the river. The seventh child is lying in the wet sand far behind us now. The running feet of the six splash in the shallows. One, a girl, I think, is slower than the rest. I am ready to descend on her.

The following evening between the shows I go to knock on the door of the girls’ dressing room to see if Roxanne is there. I feel I must save her. I cannot tell Sarson that he is doing wrong, because he doesn’t understand the meaning of the word, but she does. There is no answer. I look in. The dancers’ dressing room is unoccupied, but all the mirror lights are on and the room smells heavily of powder and perfume. Sparkling costumes, fragments of underwear are draped over chairs. The great orange ostrich plume head-dresses of the girls’ finale costumes nod lazily from the tops of wardrobes; everything is in dazzling disarray. Someone has scrawled a red heart in red lipstick on Roxanne’s section of mirror. It is a cavern of pleasure and beauty, but an empty one.