Seven Dials (15 page)

‘Right,’ she said and took her cigarette from her lips and ground it out on the cocoa-tin lid beside her on the table. ‘This is the first call for
Rising High
, the working title for a Benefit I’ve been asked to set up for Nellie’s - Queen Eleanor’s Hospital down the road. For your information, they badly need money for rebuilding a lump of the hospital that was bombed to a rubble and to reopen some wards they’ve had to close. They need at least ten thousand quid out of this effort which, even allowing for using the Stoll Theatre which has a capacity of two thousand two hundred and fifty seats and if filled to the roof at top prices can bring in a good deal, takes a lot of earning. There’s a committee of ladies from the hospital’ - and she nodded at someone who was sitting at the far end of the room, in a shadowy corner - ‘who will be organizing a brochure in which they’ll sell advertising space at no doubt vastly inflated prices’ - there was a little titter at that - ‘and they have other schemes for mulcting the audience of their cash. It’s a good cause and they’ll be working as hard as any of you. Right now, I want to thank all of you who are working for nothing. Your reward will be taking part in the best damned show I can devise for you, and the best quality audience you’re likely to get this side of Paradise. I’ll also make sure you get the highest level direction and music and all the rest of it. I’m producing and some of you will, I hope, remember the superb work of my old friend and colleague who also happens to be my cousin, Peter Lackland. He’s working on this show too. Altogether, you’ll be in good company. We’ve got David Crankshaw from the Opera House among our singers, James Fennel from the Guildhall School of Music to direct the orchestra, Irina Capelova from the Diaghilev company - and no need to be fearful of language
problems. She started life in Stepney as plain Irene Caplan, hey Irina? - and Katy Lackland, from the film side. Plenty of stars to share the limelight with you, you see, so I hope you’ll enjoy yourselves.

‘Now, I’ve set plenty of rehearsal time to accommodate those of you who are lucky enough to be in paying work, and we’ll fit in as best we can with all of you. This first call is just to let us all meet each other and to give you an idea of the shape of what we’re doing and to thank you all for your efforts.

‘Right. The show, as I say, is called at present
Rising High
. Can’t think of a better title, so there you are. It gets across the idea of a new hospital building going up, I hope. We want to do it as a revue knitted together with a story line - a bit different, you’ll agree. And Peter’s suggested we use the thread of the hospital’s history. It was founded back in 1811, so there’s plenty of history to use. He’ll be researching it for us, putting a script of sorts together, with the help of Daniel Burke - you’ll all remember the great hit he had with his play
Deborah
in ’39 - and Irina who will choreograph dances to tell some parts of the history, and there’ll be sketches and tableaux and songs; we’re hoping to get some specially written music from James and altogether we should be on to a lovely original presentation. Any questions?’

‘Yes - what time’s tea?’ someone called from the huddle of dancers and Letty grinned and turned her head to look into the shadows on the far side of the room and bawled, ‘Mrs Alf! Naafi!’ And there was an answering shout and then a clatter as a trolley was pushed out with a large and steaming tea urn on it as well as a number of thick white cups and plates of heavy sticky buns.

‘I should have known not to keep you waiting for that,’ Letty said and then, as they began to move with alacrity towards the trolley, raised her voice. ‘As soon as you’ve got your tea, come and check with me how you’re needed. Peter and I have our work sheets here and you’ll be given your numbers and your calls. Tell us any problems you have with the rehearsal schedules as soon as you possibly can - all right, all of you -’

They scattered and there was a happy babble over which the constantly scolding voice of Mrs Alf, busily wielding tea urn and milk jug, could be heard, and Katy got to her feet and
moved lazily and with apparent unconcern, yet for all that very directly, towards Peter who still sat at the table looking down at the papers that Letty was now showing him.

‘I’m not sure the original idea I had for her will work,’ Letty was saying as she came up to them. ‘I can’t see how that’ll fit into the theme. But I dare say I’ll find something out of Shakespeare we can use -’

‘I think we could still use the wooing scene, you know,’ Peter said. ‘It’s about one person getting his or her own way over another - the whole play is, isn’t it? Well, as I recall the history of Nellie’s - and I’ve heard only odd bits here and there - the old man who started it all was a bit of a battler. With the right piece of linking script we could make it stand up. And she’d do the scene well. Given the right Petruchio -’

‘Hello, Peter,’ Katy said, deliberately making her voice throaty, and he looked up at her and the shock came new again. At this close range his eyes were quite dead, and the translucent frailty of him even more apparent.

‘Katy,’ he said after a moment. ‘How are you? We were talking about you.’

‘Saying good things, I know. You were always generous to a fault. Remember? That incredible universities tour before the War?’

‘I remember,’ he said, after another perceptible pause.

‘We had a marvellous time. All those divine students, and the fuss about which plays they’d let us do, those ghastly Nazis - we had no idea why then, did we? And then we found out.’

‘Yes,’ Peter said woodenly, after the expected pause. ‘Yes. Now we’ve found out.’

He seemed to be shrinking away from her, though in fact he hadn’t moved, but Letty moved a little closer to him in an oddly protective fashion and said rather loudly, ‘The wooing scene in the
Shrew
, Katy. We’d like you to look at it, work it up. I’ll find you an attractive man to play opposite - could be good.’

‘You’ll direct it if I do it, Peter?’ Katy didn’t look at Letty.

‘We don’t know yet who’s doing what,’ Letty said shortly. ‘No promises. Might be me, might be Peter. Will you do the scene? It’s what we want. If you can’t, of course -’ And she left the implied threat hanging in the air and now Katy did glance at her and saw the watchfulness in her face and knew that Letty
wouldn’t hesitate to give her her congé.

And she didn’t want to go. What had seemed when she first heard of it a bore, and only worth doing because it filled in some of the interminable dead time still left in her hated contract, was now a highly desirable activity. It offered not only a renewal of her first love of real theatre, but the renewal of an old acquaintanceship as well; an acquaintanceship that could, with a little judicious care, he ripened into something much more interesting. When she compared the man now sitting in front of her with the one she had known all those years ago, when she had been a brand new and very young actress, there was a marvellous challenge implied. The two had to be merged, made into a whole and more interesting
today
sort of man, and she, Katy, was the woman to do it. It would be fun -

And she smiled as bewitchingly as she knew how at Peter who, after that moment of delay that she now realized was characteristic of him, actually managed to lift the corners of his lips a little in response.

‘If you’ll excuse us now, Katy,’ Letty said, loud again. ‘We really must get on. Look, Peter, here’s the basic story-board Danny worked out for me - you’ll see that -’ And she continued to turn her back to Katy so that Peter was hidden from her sight and she could no longer hear their conversation.

She stood still for a moment, gnawing her lower lip and then lifted her chin. She would walk round the table, talk to Peter again, in spite of Letty; and then as she raised her eyes she caught the direct gaze of the woman standing on the far side of the little group who had just emerged from the shadows.

‘Oh!’ she said, startled. ‘What are you doing here? I didn’t know you were a performer.’

‘I’m not,’ Lee said. ‘I’m representing the hospital. I’m on the Board of Governors. Looking after the brochure and so on. Letty suggested I should come this morning, to see what was going to happen, meet some of the people -’

‘How jolly for you,’ Katy said, letting her voice drawl, and she threw a glance at Lee’s neat suit and small dark hat that implied that they were exceedingly dull, though in fact they were chic in the extreme, and Lee flushed a little and looked away from her. Katy followed the line of her glance and saw
she was looking at Peter and flicked her own eyes back again to see on Lee’s face an expression that startled her a little. She looked - what was it? Anxious and concerned, certainly, but there was something else there; a tenderness and an odd excitement, and then, as Lee looked back at Katy she saw the rest of it. The woman was as interested in Peter as she, Katy, was, saw in him the same possibilities, and suddenly Katy wanted to laugh aloud.

To try and coax Peter out of his state of misery and into the interesting here and now would be fun enough; to do so in competition with this pretty and well-dressed but undoubtedly dull woman would add to the delight enormously. She could think of nothing she’d enjoy more and she moved across to Lee, slid her arm across her shoulders, and said heartily, ‘Well, those two are clearly
far
too busy to chat right now! Come and have some tea and we’ll have a jolly cosy prose, just us girls together. You shall tell me
all
about how dear Harry is, and your children -’ And she beamed at her, wanting to laugh aloud at the way the prospect of working on this show was improving by the moment.

‘Er - thank you,’ Lee said and let her lead her off to Mrs Alf’s tea urn, chattering all the way, and Letty, well aware in spite of her apparent absorption in her conversation of what had been going on, watched them go and frowned.

‘I hope I haven’t made a mistake including Katy in this. She can be so malicious, damn it. She was always a rather selfish minx, but Hollywood ruined her - I swear she’s up to something. I didn’t have her living with me as long as I did without getting to know her in all her moods -’

Peter wasn’t interested. He was still looking down at the call sheets on which they were working, absorbed and interested. He seemed to have come alive once more and the hesitancy in his speech had vanished.

‘Oh, she’ll do well enough,’ he said. ‘I can deal with her - I always did, and I can again. Look, Letty, if we aren’t careful, we’re going to overload the musicians. I know we’re going to need them most of all, but all the same we can’t call them as often as this. Look, what I suggest is this -’ And he pulled a sheet of clean paper towards him and began to scribble a new pattern of rehearsals, and Letty sat there beside him and nodded, well able to dismiss Katy and her machinations from
her mind while Peter was looking so much happier.

It’s going to be all right, she was telling herself. It’s going to be just fine.

She was sweating under her thin cotton theatre dress so much that there were trickles between her breasts and running down the centre of her back, and she turned her face to the nurse standing behind her so that she could reach out and mop her forehead for her, as though that would reduce her bodily discomfort too, and then returned her attention to the pair of retractors she was holding.

Her hands, smooth and glossy and amber-coloured in their sheaths of rubber gloves looked alien to her, though she could see her knuckles shining whitely through them above the glitter of the chrome instruments, matching their appearance to the strain she could feel in them, and she stared at them, thinking: that’s me, they’re my hands - but she didn’t really believe it.

On the far side of the pool of light in which those almost disembodied hands were so visible McIndoe’s own hands moved, swift and sure in their stubbiness, tying each minute bleeding point with stitches so fine she could hardly see the silk in his needle, and handling the instruments with such assurance it was as though they grew out of his fingers rather than being held in them.

‘Concentrate,’ McIndoe grunted. ‘Your hands are shaking and that’s a bloody nuisance. Concentrate, woman, and be still -’

Obediently she concentrated, consciously shifting the tension from the muscles in her hands to those in her wrists and forearms and her fingers, which had indeed begun to tremble with their efforts, steadied and held the retractors firm. The sheets of muscle she was keeping out of the way of McIndoe’s flashing needle remained just far apart enough for him to work easily and he grunted again, a sound she took to be approval this time, and moving in a gingerly fashion, she
straightened her shoulders. They were beginning to ache too, now, and she blinked the sweat out of her eyes again and thought - I’d never have dreamed plastic surgery could be so damned effortful. It’s as bad as dealing with an above-the-knee amputation -

‘Right,’ McIndoe said. ‘I’ll have those retractors now. That’s it - ease the muscles back and we’ll see where the tucks have to be taken. Got it - shave it here - and here - and a little here - and yes - I’ll have some number three catgut, Sister, unchromicized for this, and we’ll be out of here. Nice, very nice - if that doesn’t give the man better movement of the jaw, nothing will. Lucas, stitch that muscle there - yes, you. Time you had a go -’ And he stepped back and his eyes glinted at her over the upper edge of his mask as Sister pushed a pair of needle holders into her hand, and she was at last released from holding those hateful retractors.

She looked down at the operative field in front of her, trying to see it as just a technical problem, a piece of tissue to be sewn, the way it was in other forms of surgery. When she operated on bellies and chests and limbs there was no obvious presence of a human being there on the table; just the vivid colours of a piece of familiar work; the dark green of the towels that edged the wound, the acid yellow of the skin painted with acriflavine, the rich scarlet of the blood that streaked the whole; but this was different. There in front of her lay a human face, the eyes cotton-wool padded beneath the cap that was tied round the head and the gaping hole of the mouth filled with an endotracheal tube, but a recognizable face for all that. A face with its lower half flayed on one side, the skin folded back to reveal the torn muscles to which they were so painstakingly making their repairs, looking like so much meat on a butcher’s slab -