‘Yes. How did you . . .’

  ‘I recognised the name. I’m Sam Collins, by the way. I was visiting Rex.’

  ‘Heidi Horton. I came because . . . well, because I think I’m the reason Rex is in here.’

  ‘Did you call on him a couple of weeks ago?’

  ‘Yes. He took one look at me and fell to the floor. I used his telephone to call an ambulance but I was too scared to go to the hospital with him. I rang and they said he was all right. I’ve been getting up the courage to visit. I don’t get a lot of time off.’ She gestured at the uniform.

  ‘Are you a waitress?’

  ‘Only part time. I’m at teacher training college. Maria Assumpta. This is just to earn pocket money. Things are tough at home with Dad . . . well, with Dad away.’

  Tommy’s nursing home fees must be expensive, thought Sam. She remembered Rex describing the dodgy-­sounding act Pal and Grace had performed together. God, I remember the outfit she had . . . Some sort of French maid’s uniform. Enough to raise your blood pressure to boiling point. And I was young then. It would probably kill me now. She also remembered that Tommy’s second wife had supposedly looked very like his first.

  The nurses had pulled the curtains back, apparently satisfied that Rex wasn’t about to die. Heidi approached.

  ‘I’m Tommy’s daughter. I’m sorry. I think I gave you a shock the other day.’

  ‘I thought you were Grace,’ said Rex, with a faint attempt at ‘ha ha’.

  ‘Dad’s first wife? Someone else told me I looked like her. There’s a photo at home somewhere but I can’t see it myself.’

  ‘The uniform,’ said Rex. ‘She wore a uniform like that on stage.’

  ‘It’s Lyons’ Corner House,’ said Heidi, tweaking the apron. ‘Too hot in this weather.’

  ‘Did you call on Pal that day too?’ Sam asked Heidi. ‘Gordon Palgrave?’

  ‘How did you know?’ Heidi looked rather scared now. In truth, she didn’t look much like the only photograph Sam had ever seen of Grace Fanshaw, a glamour shot in black and white: black lips, white face, whiter hair. Heidi was fresh-­faced and her hair was more golden than silver. There really was something of the Alpine goatherd about her.

  ‘Did you call on Pal?’ Sam asked again.

  ‘I was going to,’ said Heidi. ‘I walked round his house to see if he was in and I saw him sitting on the sofa. Just the back of his head. But I didn’t go in. I lost my nerve.’

  But Pal had seen her somehow, thought Sam. But then she remembered the glass-­fronted cabinet. Pal would have seen a blonde woman reflected there, amongst his trophies and humanitarian awards. Had he thought that Grace had returned, to drag him to the underworld, to the prizes that he really deserved? Verity told me some pretty horrible things about Pal. Sleeping with fourteen-­year-­old girls, for one thing.

  Sam found a chair for Heidi (‘only two per bed’, Matron reminded her), and poured Rex some water. His colour was almost back to normal.

  ‘Why did you call on Rex and Pal that day?’ she asked Heidi.

  ‘Sam’s a reporter,’ Rex (half) explained.

  ‘I don’t want anything in the papers,’ said Heidi, sounding scared again.

  ‘Don’t worry,’ said Sam. ‘I’m not working on a story.’

  ‘Pal came to see Mum and me about five years ago,’ said Heidi. ‘I would have been about fifteen. Dad had just had his first stroke and Pal said he wanted to see how we were, if we needed money, that sort of thing. Mum thought it was kind but I thought he was creepy. When Mum was out of the room, Pal sat too close to me and put his arm round me. I jumped away and he said, “Don’t worry, I won’t kiss you, I could be your father.” I said he couldn’t be and he said, “You don’t think old Tommy’s your dad, do you?” Then he said it was either Ted English, him or you.’

  Rex made an angry exclamation, but Heidi continued. ‘I didn’t think about it for years. I loved Dad and I knew he loved me. Even when I visited him in the home, we went for walks, looked at flowers. It was lovely. But, then, a few months ago, Dad asked Mum and me to stop visiting him. I thought: maybe it’s true then. I went to see Pal but lost my nerve. I called on you and, well, that was a disaster. Yesterday, I went down to Brighton to see if I could find Ted. I found his lodgings but he had left. Just as well really.’

  Heidi wiped her eyes on her sleeve. Rex leant forward. ‘Heidi, my dear, listen. Pal couldn’t be your father. He was impotent. No, that’s not the word. Infertile. He always joked that it gave him a free pass with women. And I’m not your dad either, honoured though I’d be. I only met your mother once and that was when you were a baby. I’m pretty sure Ted’s never met her. Tommy’s your dad, all right.’

  ‘Thank you,’ said Heidi, wiping away more tears. ‘I feel so stupid. It’s just I miss seeing Dad. Everyone at the home is very nice, especially Elsie, the manager, and Ringo, one of the orderlies. We call him that because of the rings. Ringo says that Dad misses us too, but I just started to think, maybe he’s not my dad . . .’

  ‘He is,’ said Rex. ‘It was a wicked thing for Pal to imply.’

  Finally, thought Sam, Rex was beginning to realise the truth about his golfing partner.

  Meg spent a pleasant hour and a half watching Born Free, a film about a woman who raises three lion cubs in Africa. It made Meg want to travel and/or devote herself to animals. She wished they could have a cat at home but maybe it would eat Padre Pio. At any rate, the tale of Elsa the lioness distracted Meg from her impending doom. It was only afterwards, when she was finishing her cheese on toast in Lyons, that she thought about ‘Me and My Shadow’ and the long walk across the stage. Then she felt such a jolt of fear that she almost doubled over. Meg had never known a feeling like it. She’d been nervous before her eleven plus, which she’d failed, and her driving test, which she’d passed. But that had been an inner dread, a gnawing doubt in her own abilities. This was physical, making her pulse quicken and her heart pump. Breathe, she told herself. Her hands and feet were freezing as if blood were no longer flowing to the extremities. Perhaps this was why it was called getting cold feet?

  After a few minutes’ strenuous breathing, Meg felt a bit better, although the waitresses were looking at her oddly. She stood up on her frozen feet, paid her bill and went back to the hostel. There was no sign of the two nurses or of Miss Marsh. Meg was admitted by a man in a boiler suit who looked at her with undisguised interest. She swapped her jumper for a smarter blouse and brushed her hair. In a few hours, she’d be wearing a man’s suit, starched white shirt and a bow tie. Meg loved her suit. It made her feel tall and thin and, for the first time in her life, she liked being those things. She looked at her watch. Three o’clock. She might as well head to the theatre.

  Of course she was far too early. ‘Curtain up’, as Max called it, was at seven-­thirty and the artistes were meant to arrive at four for the musical rehearsal. Fred looked up from the Racing Post.

  ‘You’re keen, Samantha.’

  ‘Nervous, more likely.’

  ‘Nothing to be nervous about. I used to be on the boards myself. Lion-­taming act.’

  ‘Really?’ Meg thought about Elsa and her cubs. The film had convinced her that wild animals should be free. She looked at Fred and he seemed to feel the reproach in her gaze.

  ‘Never hurt an animal in my life,’ he said. ‘But one of them attacked my partner, Beryl. Took her arm off. Thought it was time to quit.’

  ‘What happened to Beryl?’

  ‘I married her. As if she hadn’t suffered enough, eh?’ He went back to his paper and Meg made her way along the corridor, which now smelt comfortingly familiar. Should she go to her dressing room, which was tiny and windowless but, to Meg, the height of glamour, not least because it had the name ‘Samantha’ on the door? But she knew that, as soon as she sat in front of the mirror, which was surrounded by lights (just like the movies!), the Fear would return.

  Maybe if she stood on the stage she’d feel better. She remembered the first time that she’d entered the enchanted space with Max, the sudden feeling of wanting to entertain. At the moment all she felt like doing was curling up in a ball, which wasn’t quite the spectacle a paying audience expected. Meg made her way through the painted flats – as she now called them – past the prompt corner and the lighting rig and stepped out, stage left.

  The spirit lamp glowed in front of her, the light that kept the ghosts company when the theatre was empty. Meg walked across the boards, trying to remember how to put one foot in front of the other. Then she stopped. The theatre wasn’t completely empty. A man was sitting in the back row of the stalls; she could just make out a white face and a grey jacket. Meg heard Max’s voice, the upper-­class drawl that she could never quite imitate. There’s the man in grey, he’s another one who just sits in the audience, watching actors rehearse . . .

  ‘Who’s there?’ said Meg, her voice echoing shakily around the empty auditorium.

  ‘It’s me. Geoff.’ Geoffrey Bigg stood up. He was wearing the grey check suit that he wore on stage. ‘Sorry. Did I scare you?’

  ‘No,’ said Meg. ‘I’m fine.’ It was only afterwards that she wondered why the comic had been sitting there, one half of a double act, watching the empty stage.

  Emma was prepared to enjoy the train journey. While Edgar was buying the tickets, she went into the station shop to buy sweets and magazines. She was looking longingly at Film Frolics (one of her weaknesses) when the top copy was picked up by a tall girl with long hair that almost reached the hem of her orange miniskirt. The girl scanned the pages and then put the magazine down with obvious reluctance. Her eyes met Emma’s and she smiled. The face and smile suddenly looked very familiar.

  ‘Excuse me,’ said Emma. ‘Are you Meg Connolly’s sister?’

  The girl blushed in a way that was very reminiscent of Meg. ‘Yes. I’m Aisling.’

  ‘I’m Emma Holmes. I went to Liverpool with Meg last year.’

  ‘Oh my goodness,’ said Aisling. ‘Ma!’ She turned to a woman weighing sweets at the pick and mix. ‘Ma. This is Emma. The private detective.’

  A woman with Meg’s brown hair, threaded with grey, came over. She looked very like her daughters, but her face was sharper, less trusting. A tall man hovered beside her, looking too big for the small shop.

  ‘I’m Mary, Meg’s mother. And this is Pat, her dad. Are you going to London for the show?’

  ‘Yes,’ said Emma. ‘Isn’t it exciting?’

  By the time they left the shop, Emma was fast friends with the whole family. She introduced them to Edgar, who was waiting by the platform.

  ‘Will you sit with us?’ asked Aisling.

  Emma knew that Edgar would have bought first class tickets but she loved the alacrity with which he said, ‘We’d be delighted to,’ and followed the Connollys into the second class compartment.

  Emma tried to remember what Meg had told her about her family. She’d said Aisling was the clever one and the girl certainly seemed articulate and confident, her accent far more middle class than Meg’s. But Emma thought that Meg was brighter than she knew. She had something of her mother’s quick wit (‘The super, are you? Well that’s a bold claim to make.’) combined with her father’s sweetness.

  ‘I can’t believe Meg will be performing on stage,’ said Aisling. ‘I’ve never even seen her in a school play.’

  ‘She was one of the three kings once,’ said Mary. ‘At St John the Baptist. It was a beautiful nativity. Maybe you were too young to be in it. Patrick was in the choir.’

  Her husband and daughter both laughed.

  ‘Patrick had a beautiful singing voice as a boy,’ Mary protested. ‘He’s my third eldest and second boy,’ she explained to Emma and Edgar. Emma had the family sorted in her head now (Marie, Declan, Patrick, Meg, Aisling, Collette and Connor) but she thought Edgar looked rather confused.

  ‘Who’s babysitting Collette and Connor tonight?’ she asked, partly to show off her specialist knowledge.

  ‘Declan,’ said Mary. ‘He’s so fond of the little ones.’

  Emma had met Declan once, she’d even ridden behind him on his Lambretta. It had been a rather traumatic day but, from the little she’d seen of Meg’s oldest brother, he didn’t exactly strike her as the babysitting type.

  ‘Mum,’ said Aisling. ‘Dec just wanted to bring his girlfriend. That Sandra.’

  ‘Sandra’s a nice girl,’ said Mary. ‘They won’t be getting up to anything.’

  Aisling exchanged a look with her father but said nothing. Mary had turned to Edgar. ‘You’re a friend of this magician’s, aren’t you? This Max Mephisto.’ She said the name with suspicion, as if it wasn’t real. Which it wasn’t.

  ‘Yes,’ said Edgar. ‘We served together in the war.’

  This seemed to satisfy the Connollys and Pat vouchsafed that, as a trained mechanic, he’d been seconded to an armoured division.

  ‘Didn’t see much action but I suppose we had our uses.’

  ‘I saw action in Norway,’ said Edgar, ‘and that was enough for me. I was seconded to a . . . to an espionage group . . . and that’s when I met Max.’

  ‘Golly,’ said Aisling. ‘Like Dick Barton.’

  ‘Not quite,’ said Edgar with a smile.

  ‘Is he a respectable man, this Max?’ asked Mary. ‘Aisling tells me that he’s getting divorced. That I can’t like.’

  ‘It was his wife’s fault,’ said Aisling. ‘She ran off with Seth Billington.’

  ‘Marriage is for life,’ said Mary.

  ‘Max is very respectable,’ said Edgar. ‘In fact, although he doesn’t like to mention it, he’s actually a lord.’

  This kept the conversation going until the train pulled into Victoria.

  Chapter 32

  It was better when Max arrived. He’d even brought Meg a sandwich from one of his favourite cafés. It had brown bread, gherkins and spiced meat that Max said was ‘pastrami’. It was delicious. Max had a paper cup of coffee. Meg didn’t think she’d ever seen him eat.

  It was the first time Meg had rehearsed with an orchestra. She was surprised how ordinary they looked, men and women in jeans and T-­shirts, carrying battered instrument cases and dry-­cleaning bags containing evening clothes. Tony, the conductor, grinned at Meg and said, ‘Hallo again, Samantha.’ This made her feel more confident and having the real music helped too. Max came on to his signature tune of the ‘Danse Macabre’, which segued into ‘Me and My Shadow’ for the routine with Meg. The orchestra played quietly for the build-­up, ‘underscoring’ Max said it was called, and then crashed into life for the reveal. At the end, someone said ‘Bravo’, which cheered Meg a good deal.

  Meg and Max were last on the bill but they rehearsed first. Max then retreated to his dressing room (‘Patience doesn’t play itself’) but Meg stayed on to watch the other acts. Most just walked through their routines, but the dancers and gymnasts went through all the movements, although often stopping in the middle to ask for changes to what they called the ‘tempo’. Ida Lupin performed to ‘A Hard Day’s Night’, which got a few laughs. At his request, she also lifted Billy, one of the stage hands, up over her head. Mario Fontana announced that he was going to sing ‘half voice’, which was still loud enough for Meg. Ben Beddow fell off his unicycle several times. Bigg and Small were professional, almost curt. ‘We say something funny here,’ they’d announce, straight-­faced. Or, ‘Here’s our famous soft-­shoe shuffle.’ Their music was ‘Happy Days Are Here Again’, which sounded almost sinister played ‘adagio’ by the yawning orchestra.

  After the rehearsal, the theatre started to wake up. The stage was swept and the fire curtain fell into place. The musicians wandered away to get changed, and front of house started to open up the box office, bar and gift shop. The stage manager, a man called Dick Branstone, appeared wearing a dinner jacket, slightly green with age. Meg took refuge in her dressing room, where she changed into trousers, shirt and tailcoat. The top hat had a concealed veil that would drop to cover her face and allow Meg to melt into the black curtain for her disappearance. She looked at herself in the mirror. Her dad used to talk about a woman called Vesta Tilley who had an act where she dressed as a man and sang songs like ‘Burlington Bertie’. Did Meg look a bit Burlington Bertie? Well, if she did, it was too late to do anything about it now.

  Meg’s next problem was that she couldn’t do up her white bow tie. After straining to see her reflection and getting her right and left hands mixed up, she thought she should ask for assistance. The white satin already looked a bit the worse for wear. She was too embarrassed to ask Max but maybe one of the dancers or gymnasts could help. Meg stepped out into the corridor. It was empty, all the doors shut. The silence felt almost expectant. Meg remembered the first time she’d seen the theatre, when she’d stared out at the deserted auditorium and imagined she heard the noise of the crowd. She thought of all the performers who had walked up and down this passageway, returning from triumphs and disasters. Suddenly, Meg needed to speak to someone very badly. She knocked on the door that said, ‘Sonya and Vanda’.

  Sonya was wearing a fur coat over her costume.

  ‘Hallo, Meg,’ she said. ‘You’re looking very smart. Like a city gent.’

  ‘Can you help me with my tie please?’ said Meg.

  ‘I am expert at ties,’ said Vanda. ‘I have had many lovers.’

  Meg was used to this sort of thing by now. ‘Tell me some of them,’ she said as Vanda leant forward to tie the bow. Meg could see the top of her head, which had a few grey hairs amongst the black.

  ‘Your hair would curl,’ said Vanda. ‘Some of them are royalty. Crowned heads of Europe.’

  ‘Come off it, dear,’ said Sonya.

  Meg’s tie was now a perfect white butterfly. She looked at herself in the mirror and saw the gymnasts exchanging glances.

 

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