The Disappearance Boy (16 page)

‘Just a minute!’

She gestured, and Reg threw her her dressing gown. She caught it, wrapped it on over her bra and licked her lips.

‘Come in!’

‘Sorry to bother you, Pamela,’ said Mr Brookes, leaning in through the door with his hand still on the door handle, and still in his full make-up, as if the idea of visiting Pam upstairs had struck him all of a sudden. ‘But I was just wondering if you fancied going out for a drink after the show tomorrow night. Nothing too posh, just the Queen’s Hotel for last orders.’

He leaned forward.

‘Well?’

‘Well, I –’

The smile flicked on like an illuminated sign.

‘Lovely! I’ve got a little proposition I want to put to you. Sorry about the lipstick on that glove, Reg –’ his eyes flicked towards the offending article – ‘but you know what I’m like when I’m in the presence of a lady, eh? Just can’t help myself.’

The painted smile broadened a little for Reggie’s benefit, and, of course, an eyebrow rose.

‘If you say so, Mr Brookes,’ said Reg, picking up pins off her dressing table. If the boss had suddenly decided to present himself as a cheeky chappie straight out of a front-cloth sketch, Reg was keeping well out of it. He wasn’t paid to do dialogue.

‘I’m sure you can’t,’ said Pam, finally coming back on Mr Brookes’s last line. ‘And in that case I’m sure you won’t want to intrude while this particular lady finishes getting dressed. And by the way, the answer’s yes. I’d love to go out for a Friday-night drink.’

‘Good. No need to dress right up …’ He flicked his eyes from Pam to Reg, and then back to Pam.

‘See you tomorrow!’

The door clicked smartly shut behind him – right on the button, as they say.

‘Well, blow me down with a feather,’ said Pam, more or less to herself, and after a suitable pause. ‘Anyone would think he’d rehearsed that.’

She looked at Reg in the mirror; he’d turned his back, and one hand was reaching for the burgundy satin again.

‘The Queen’s Hotel. I’m not sure if that counts as pushing the boat out or not. What d’you reckon? Reg?’

Reggie was making a proper meal of rearranging the dress. For some reason, he couldn’t get it to drape straight on the hanger.

‘Oh come on Reg …’

Pam started attacking her hair again, tugging the pins out of the matted curls rather harder than she needed to. She was getting angry with the boy now. Did he think she couldn’t look after herself?

‘Look,’ she said, ‘I’ve said this before, but I’ll say it again so there’s no mistake. You don’t have to worry about me tomorrow night, you really don’t. With any luck, he just wants to buy me a drink and tell me he’s got us a ten-week tour at double the money. You do want us to keep on working together, don’t you? Reg?’

Her hands stopped. A hairpin fell on the floor.

‘Reg?’

His voice was thicker than usual – choked. As if he had a stone in his throat.

‘I just think you ought to remember –’

It was her turn to snap.

‘What?’

Reggie’s hands stopped whatever it was they were doing. One of them clenched and unclenched under the satin, an organ beating under skin, and there was a very full beat of silence.

‘That he probably did rehearse it. He rehearses every bloody thing he does.’

Pam’s hands seemed undecided about their next action too, but then they made up their mind. She wasn’t taking lessons in how to deal with a man in a dinner jacket from a kid of Reggie’s age, that was for sure, and certainly not from one of his persuasion. The plucking fingers flew back into action, slamming pins down onto the dressing table.

‘Oh, for Christ’s sake, Reg! Do you think I can’t spot a fibber when I see one? Trust me, I’ve heard them all before.’

Pam tugged and slammed until the pins were all out; Reg said nothing. Then she took a deep breath, and stared at her hands, and laid them flat on the dressing table. Deciding that it was time to change the subject before somebody said something they shouldn’t, she looked up at her clippings, thrust her hands up into her now-released hair and turned her head first to the left and then to the right, inspecting the lines of her neck and jaw, chin up and imaginary diamond-chandelier earrings swinging in the lights. She was damned if she was going to let this nonsense come between them.

‘Right,’ she said, all determination. ‘On to more important matters. Do you think I should get it chopped? Nothing drastic, just a couple of inches. Reg? Come on.’

Reggie felt the same as she did – the last thing he wanted was to have to row, or to have to explain why he’d snapped at her so hard – but it was still an effort to wipe his feelings out of his face before he turned and looked into the mirror over her shoulder.

‘How d’you mean?’ he said.

‘Oh, I don’t know,’ Pam said, adjusting the angle of her neck again, satisfied that she was getting things back under control between the two of them. ‘I just feel like going for something a bit different for a change. Something a bit more … you know; royal. What d’you reckon?’

14

He’d got wet, and the sky was threatening more, and it was a Friday morning, not a Sunday like it was supposed to be – but he didn’t bloody care. This needed sorting out straight away.

‘He always has to get them just where he wants them, doesn’t he?’

He wiped his mouth with the back of his hand.

‘Doesn’t he? – the dressed-up, greased-up, made-up bastard … Every time.
Every
time. The hand in the small of her back first, then the word in her ear, then the kiss on the glove, then the
Fancy a quick drink after work?
– it’s a bloody routine. She may think she’s seen and heard it all before, but I actually bloody have, remember. And the time before that …’

Now that he was alone, he badly wanted to thump someone. His fist was clenching again, but all there was to hit up here was stones.

‘And she deserves …’

His foot stabbed down into the turf. It wasn’t the lump in his throat that was stopping him this time; this time, it was blood, rising to his face.

‘She deserves a good one, this one, not someone who’ll just …’

The boot kicked; the mouth twisted; the throat swallowed.

‘She deserves …’

He stopped, reaching out to touch the gravestone, but then pulled his hand away. He kicked for one last time, forcing the word out between his teeth.

‘… a lover.’

He wiped his hand across his face again, and tried to make his peace.

‘Sorry. No – no, you’re right,’ he said after a bit, sniffing and straightening up and sticking his hands back in his pockets. ‘I shouldn’t say a thing. I should trust her to look after her bloody self. No, thank you, that’s right. Might put her off her stride for the act, if I did. And who am I, eh? Who am I to be giving her advice? Who am I …?’

The question seemed to exhaust him. He wiped some rain away from the stone with his handkerchief, dabbing at it apologetically.

‘Sorry to be bothering you on a Friday morning,’ he said, ‘and this early. I just needed to … I needed … I needed to talk.’

The handkerchief went back into the pocket, cold and wet.

‘See you Sunday, I expect. Thank you for listening.’

He hovered, then gave up.

‘Sleep well then.’

The whole thing had taken less than five minutes – less time than it had taken the clouds to gather and get ready to soak him properly this time.

Where had Reggie got that word from? I wonder – the one it had cost him so much effort to throw out at Doreen’s stone.
Lover
– it isn’t a word that crops much up in casual conversation, is it, in shops or queues or on buses and suchlike? Possibly somebody had used it in the film he’d watched with Pam last Sunday at the Essoldo, or perhaps someone had sung it on the radio that stood on the shelf behind the till in his cafe. Connie Francis, maybe – dropping it into his mind like a coin in the slot of a jukebox. Like a copper in a collecting box. The way it made him blush makes me wonder if Reggie had ever used it before.

He stuck to the advice his mother had given him, and didn’t say a word. In fact the only sort of conversation that he and Pam had before or after work that Friday night was when Pam kissed him a quick thank-you for her present – a spare pair of white satin gloves which Reg had stopped off and bought on his way back to work from the cemetery, detouring specially. When she tried them on, he told her that they were to make sure she stayed snow white, kisses or not. She’d laughed when he said that, and wiped the lipstick off his cheek with a handkerchief from her bag.

Those gloves had cost Reggie the best part of two guineas, which was a great deal more than he could really afford. Normally he was expert at ferreting out the cheapest of everything, but not today; as he’d reached the middle of town that afternoon he kept on going through the rain until he reached Hanningtons, which was the priciest department store in the town, all mock-Tudor panelling and staff with ideas above their station. As she took his money, the lady behind the counter kept her eyes averted from his water-stained jacket, and made a point of telling sir how fortunate it was that he’d come in when he had; they’d had quite a run on the white satin line lately, what with people wanting to look their very best for the forthcoming celebrations, as she was sure sir appreciated. Reggie bit back his smile, and said that sir certainly did.

15

Now that it was time to actually get dressed for her date, Pam was feeling slightly peculiar. It had been a while, after all, and although the Queen’s certainly wasn’t the Dorchester, it wasn’t too shabby either – she’d taken the precaution of popping down to the seafront at lunchtime to have a quick look. In the end she’d decided to keep things simple and smart, and instead of getting her hair done had splashed out on a new pair of 12-denier stockings. They’d been pricey, but they were going to look lovely, and they were going to make her feel
right
. Make her feel herself.

Now she just had to get her mouth to work – and it was giving her trouble. She’d already had to wipe it off and start again twice. She flicked her eyes back up to the most recent picture in the collection on her mirror, added one more stroke of red, and decided that that would have to do. She blotted, wiped her fingers and then carefully opened the flat white cardboard box that was lying on her dressing table. They’d never really been her best feature, her legs, she thought, but still …

The 12-denier nylon did its expert job at once, turning her calves and thighs into well-turned ivory. She stopped to assess herself full-length; a suspender needed adjusting. She’d decided against all-over black for the date – too like work, she thought – and now she reached up under the ball gown on the back of the door and got the yellow-checked tweed skirt from her best suit off its hanger. Professional as always, she rolled on her sweater, high-stepped into the skirt, reached round for the zipper, cinched her belt as tight as it would go, clasped on her pearls and ran her fingers through her hair for one last time, only then letting herself smile.
Not bad; not bad, for the grand old age of twenty-seven
, she mouthed to herself quietly. Clipping on the soft jangle of her charm bracelet, she crossed herself with the four cold pennies of Elizabeth Arden’s Blue Grass that were always her finishing touch – wrists first, then the sides of her neck just below her ears. Sugar, talc, that big bunch of roses … Making her final check, she tilted her head, widened her eyes and then – taking herself by surprise with the gesture, and almost making herself laugh – misted herself across both black lambswool-and-cashmere-mix breasts with an impromptu sweep of the little gilt-and-glass bottle and its sage-green atomiser. She put the bottle down and cupped her breasts in her hands, pushing them up and out under the soft black fabric, showing them to the mirror.

‘And tonight at the London Palladium, ladies and gentlemen …’

She dipped the suggestion of a royal-box curtsy to a newspaper clipping, and matched her smile to Margaret’s.

‘… your Royal Highness – tonight, a very special treat; will you put your hands together please for the very lovely Miss Pamela Rose and her pair of performing beauties …’

You had to laugh – and she did, right out loud this time. As her head went back, the double rap on the door came right on cue.

Timing – remember?

‘Just a minute!’

She didn’t rush. Cigarettes, lipstick, compact, precautions, front-door key – it never hurt to settle yourself and check your bag before they got their first good look … She gave herself one last spray behind each ear, and then slipped on her shoes – not brand new, but the black suede had come up nicely under the nail brush – and ran her hands up her stockings for one last time, feeling the slight friction of their grip. Right. Last but not least, she checked the catch on her charm bracelet – it sometimes didn’t quite close, but tonight her fingers seemed to have got it in one.

‘Nearly there!’ she called through the door, her voice going up the scale a notch, and flicking her hair in the mirror one last time. Then she took a deep breath, picked up her coat and opened the door.

Mr Brookes had clearly gone to quite a bit of trouble himself. He’d got on a beautifully cut dark blue suit that Pam hadn’t seen before, his coat draped over his arm and a dark grey homburg in his right hand. The hair was impeccable, and the shirt dazzling.

‘Good evening,’ he said, in a voice almost as scrubbed-up as hers. ‘Are we ready for the off then?’

Clattering down the concrete stairs two steps ahead of him, Pamela could feel her feet slipping slightly inside her shoes; the sensation of her thighs just brushing together under her skirt was also heightened by the gloss of the brand-new nylon. It always made you feel better when you’d got something good on underneath, didn’t it? She promised herself she wouldn’t let them get laddered, not on their very first outing.

As they got to the end of the alley, she stopped to turn up her collar. The rain was over, thank God, but it was still chilly.

‘Well then,’ she said. ‘What’s this proposition you’ve got to make to me, Mr Brookes? Or do you want to get a drink inside you before we get down to business?’