Play to the End (40 page)

"That was quick," said Syd as I climbed back into his car.

"Eunice wasn't there," I explained.

"We can wait, if you like."

"No need."

"Had a bellyful of goodbyes, have you, Toby?"

"Yes. I think I have."

"Understood." He started away. "I'll keep ours short and sweet."

"Thanks. In return, I won't take you to task for playing fast and loose with the facts during our sessions at the Cricketers."

"I never told you any out-and-out porkies, Toby."

"Didn't you?"

"Well, maybe just the one. And it didn't amount to anything."

"Which one was that?"

"When we first bumped into each other in the Cricketers last Sunday, I told you I'd met Joe Orton there on a Sunday night in the summer of

'sixty-seven. Not strictly true, I have to admit. In fact, not true at all."

"You made it up?"

"Fraid so."

"Why?"

"Sensed our chance encounter was slipping through my fingers. Needed something to get your attention. Keep us talking. Simple as that."

"But how did you know you could get away with it? I've read Orton's diaries. He was in Brighton the last weekend of July, nineteen sixty-seven. And he was out on the town, alone, on the Sunday night.

So, theoretically, you could have met him. I can't believe you just got lucky with your choice of day."

"Ah, well .. ." Syd treated me to a sly, sidelong grimace. "Truth is, there was this dwarf lodging in the same house as me back then. Used to perform on the pier. Made up in personality what he lacked in height. After Orton's murder was splashed all over the papers, he told me he'd '

"It's OK," I interrupted, recalling Orton's matter-of-fact account of oral sex in a Brighton public convenience on Sunday, 30 July 1967. "I get the picture."

"You do?"

"In Cinemascope. Besides .. ." We'd passed the Royal Pavilion by now.

It wasn't much further to the station. "You don't have time to do justice to the story, Syd. Leave me to imagine the details."

Fifteen minutes later, I was sitting alone at a table outside Bonaparte's Bar at the edge of the station concourse, sipping a whisky to while away the half-hour I had to wait for the next train to London.

I'd pulled my copy of The Orton Diaries out of my bag to double-check Syd's story. Orton's encounter with Syd's neighbour, the cottaging dwarf, was much as I remembered it.

What I'd forgotten, though, was that afterwards Orton had gone into the station for a cup of tea. The cafe he'd used had presumably transmogrified itself since into Bonaparte's Bar. Selling whisky on a Sunday afternoon back then would have been inconceivable as well as illegal, of course. But that and most of the other changes were largely superficial. Thirty-five years, four months and one week ago, Orton could have been sitting exactly where I was sitting today.

"I had a cup of tea at the station' he wrote. "I thought a lot about Prick Up Your Ears." (The next play he was planning to write, but, in the event, never did.) "And things in general."

Ah yes. Things in general. "They can be a bugger, can't they, Joe?" I murmured.

The train was announced. I went through the barrier and boarded one of the front carriages, hoping that would mean no-one would sit next to me. I'd bought an Observer to hide behind if I needed to.

I looked out of the window. There was a view across the platforms of the station car park, washed with rain, and, beyond that, the soaring flank of St. Bartholomew's Church. I checked my watch. We'd be under way in a few minutes. I was taking my leave of Brighton. My week was over. My time was up. In so many more ways than one.

Then I saw something I couldn't quite believe. A woman was hurrying across the car park towards the station: a woman in jeans and a short waterproof; a woman I recognized very well.

I watched, transfixed, as she moved out of the rain into the shelter of the station canopy and headed along the far platform towards the concourse, her pace quickening as she went.

Then I too started moving.

I forced a passage to the barrier through a ruck of London-bound passengers. Jenny was standing beyond them on the concourse, staring at me between their shoulders and hoisted bags. They were there, jostling past me. But, in another sense, they weren't there at all.

My ticket wouldn't operate the exit gate. I kept looking at Jenny as I moved to the manned barrier, mumbled a request to be let out and was ushered through.

"I didn't expect to see you," was all I could manage to say when I finally reached her.

"I didn't expect you would either," she said softly.

"How did you know which train I was catching?"

"I didn't. I went to the Sea Air first. Eunice had just got back and found your note. She hadn't been out long, though, so we reckoned it was worth me coming on here. I very much wanted ... not to leave things as they were."

"How do you want to leave them, then?"

She shrugged. "I'm not really sure."

I went back to Bonaparte's Bar. This time, I wasn't alone. I bought Jenny a cup of coffee. And myself another whisky. We sat at the table I'd only recently vacated. The London train pulled out. The hubbub it had generated died. The concourse grew quiet enough for me to hear the cooing of a pigeon from some perch above us in the station roof.

"I don't know what to say," I admitted.

"Neither do I," said Jenny.

"Shall we just sit here, then?" I suggested. "Until we think of something."

We looked at each other. Several seconds passed. Then Jenny smiled hesitantly. "Yes," she said. "Let's do that." And we did.

End of transcription

Lodger in the Throat by Joe Orton ran for five months on the London stage. The part of James Elliott was played throughout the run by Toby Flood. He never missed a performance.

The High Court upheld a claim by a group of twelve former employees of Colbonite Ltd to the estate of Roger Colborn, who was found to have died intestate. Under the rules of intestacy, his estate devolved upon his half-brother, Derek Oswin, who had died with him, but, being the younger of the two, was deemed to have died second. Derek Oswin had on the other hand made a will, the terms of which were therefore held to apply to Roger Colborn's estate. Derek Oswin's property was left to be shared among any former employees of Colbonite Ltd in need of financial assistance. Gavin Colborn, Roger Colborn's uncle and only surviving blood relative, appealed against this decision, but died before the appeal could be heard. An inquest subsequently found that he had suffered a fatal head injury in a fall down a steep flight of stairs at his home in Brighton while under the influence of alcohol.

Jennifer Flood never made the necessary application to the High Court for her divorce from Toby Flood to be declared final and absolute. The couple remain married.

I am indebted to the following for the help they generously gave me in the writing of this book. My dear friend Georgina James plied me with invaluable information about Brighton as well as various nuggets of legal advice. Peter Wilkins, David Bownes and the great man himself, Duncan Weldon, ensured my portrait of an actor did not stray too far from the reality with which they are so familiar. Veronica Hamilton-Deeley provided a diligent coroner's perspective on events.

And Renee-Jean and Tim Wilkin ensured that those fictional events took place in genuine Brighton weather. Thank you, all.

THE NOVELS OF ROBERT GOD DARD

Past Caring (19S6)

In Pale Battalions (1988)

Painting the Darkness (1989)

Into the Blue (1990)

(Winner of the first WH Smith Thumping Good Read Award and dramatized for TV in 1997, starring John Thaw)

Take No Farewell (1991)

Hand in Glove (1992)

Closed Circle (1993)

Borrowed Time (1995)

Out of the Sun (1996) (a sequel to Into the Blue) Beyond Recall (1997)

Caught in the Light (1998)

Set in Stone (1999)

Sea Change (2000)

Dying to Tell (2001)

Days Without Number (2002)