Martyn said in a voice that to herself sounded half-choked: ‘I’m perfectly trustworthy. You spoke of references. I have –’
‘Oh, yes, yes,’ he said. ‘Good. That’ll be OK then. I’m late. Will you be all right? You can go through the house. It’s raining outside. Through there, will you? Thank you. Goodnight.’
Taking up her suitcase, she went through the door he swung open and found herself in the theatre.
She was at the back of the stalls, standing on thick carpet at the top of the ramp and facing the centre aisle. It was not absolutely dark. The curtain was half-raised and a bluish light filtered in from off-stage through some opening – a faintly-discerned window – in the scenery. This light was dimly reflected on the shrouded boxes. The dome was invisible, lost in shadow, and so far above that the rain, hammering on the roof beyond it, sounded much as a rumour of drums to Martyn. The deadened air smelt of naphthalene and plush.
She started off cautiously down the aisle. ‘I forgot,’ said Mr Grantley’s voice behind her. She managed to choke back a yelp. ‘You’d better get some flowers for the dressing-room. She likes roses. Here’s another card.’
‘I don’t think I’ve –’
‘Florian’s at the corner,’ he shouted. ‘Show them the card.’
The door swung to behind him and, a moment later, she heard a more remote slam. She waited for a little while longer, to accustom herself to the dark. The shadows melted and the shape of the auditorium filtered through them like an image on a film in the darkroom. She thought it beautiful: the curve of the circle, the fan-like shell that enclosed it, the elegance of the proscenium and modesty of the ornament – all these seemed good to Martyn, and her growing sight of them refreshed her. Though this encouragement had an unreal, rather dream-like character, yet it did actually dispel something of her physical exhaustion so that it was with renewed heart that she climbed a little curved flight of steps on the prompt side of the proscenium, pushed open the pass-door at the top and arrived back-stage.
She was on her own ground. A single blue working-light, thick with dust, revealed a baize letter-rack and hinted at the baton and canvas backs of scenery fading upwards into yawning blackness. At her feet a litter of flex ran down into holes in the stage. There were vague, scarcely discernible shapes that she recognized as stacked flats, light bunches, the underside of perches, a wind machine and rain box. She smelt paint and glue-size. As she received the assurance of these familiar signs she heard a faint scuffling noise, a rattle of paper, she thought. She moved forward.
In the darkness ahead of her a door opened on an oblong of light which widened to admit the figure of a man in an overcoat. He stood with bent head, fumbled in his pocket and produced a torch. The beam shot out, hunted briefly about the set and walls and found her. She blinked into a dazzling white disc and said: ‘Mr Grantley sent me round. I’m the dresser.’
‘Dresser?’ the man said hoarsely. He kept his torchlight on her face and moved towards her. ‘I wasn’t told about no dresser,’ he said.
She held Mr Grantley’s card out. He came closer and flashed his light on it without touching it. ‘Ah,’ he said with a sort of grudging cheerfulness, ‘that’s different. Now I know where I am, don’t I?’
‘I hope so,’ she said, trying to make her voice friendly. ‘I’m sorry to bother you. Miss Hamilton’s dresser has been taken ill and I’ve got the job.’
‘Aren’t you lucky,’ he said with obvious relish and added: ‘Not but what she isn’t a lady when she takes the fit for it.’
He was eating something. The movement of his jaws, the succulent noises he made and the faint odour of food were an outrage. She could have screamed her hunger at him. Her mouth filled with saliva.
‘He says to open the star room,’ he said. ‘Come on froo while I get the keys. I was ’avin’ me bitter supper.’
She followed him into a tiny room choked with junk. A kettle stuttered on a gas-ring by a sink clotted with dregs of calcimine paint and tea leaves. His supper was laid out on a newspaper: bread and an open tin of jam. He explained that he was about to make a cup of tea and suggested she should wait while he did so. She leant against the door and watched him. The fragrance of freshly brewed tea rose above the reek of stale size and dust. She thought: ‘If he drinks it now I’ll have to go out.’
‘Like a drop of char?’ he said. His back was turned to her.
‘Very much.’
He rinsed out a stained cup under the tap.
Martyn said loudly: ‘I’ve got a tin of meat in my case. I was saving it. If you’d like to share it and could spare some of your bread …‘
He swung round and for the first time she saw his face. He was dark and thin and his eyes were brightly impertinent. Their expression changed as he stared at her.
‘’Allo, ’allo!’ he said. ‘Who gave you a tanner and borrowed ’alf a crahn? What’s up?’
‘I’m all right.’
‘Are you? Your looks don’t flatter, you, then.’
‘I’m a bit tired and –’ Her voice broke and she thought in terror that she was going to cry. ‘It’s nothing,’ she said.
‘’Ere!’ He dragged a box out from under the sink and not ungently pushed her down on it. ‘Where’s this remarkable tin of very perticerlar meat? Give us a shine at it?’
He shoved her suitcase over and while she fumbled at the lock busied himself with pouring out tea. ‘Nothing to touch a drop of the old char when you’re browned off,’ he said. He put the reeking cup of dark fluid beside her and turned away to the bench.
‘With any luck,’ Martyn thought folding back the garments in her case, ‘I won’t have to sell these now.’
She found the tin and gave it to him. ‘Coo!’ he said, ‘looks lovely, don’t it? Tongue and veal and a pitcher of sheep to show there’s no deception. Very tempting.’
‘Can you open it?’
‘Can I open it? Oh, dear.’
She drank her scalding tea and watched him open the tin and turn its contents out on a more than dubious plate. Using his clasp knife he perched chunks of meat on a slab of bread and held it out to her. ‘You’re in luck,’ he said. ‘Eat it slow.’
She urged him to join her but he said he would set his share aside for later. They could both, he suggested, take another cut at it tomorrow. He examined the tin with interest while Martyn consumed her portion. She had never before given such intense concentration to a physical act. She would never have believed that eating could bring so fierce a satisfaction.
‘Comes from Australia, don’t it?’ her companion said, still contemplating the tin.
‘New Zealand.’
‘Same thing.’
Martyn said: ‘Not really. There’s quite a big sea in between.’
‘Do you come from there?’
‘Where?’
‘Australia.’
‘No. I’m a New Zealander.’
‘Same thing.’
She looked up and found him grinning at her. He made the gesture of wiping the smile off his face. ‘Oh, dear,’ he said.
Martyn finished her tea and stood up. ‘I must start my job,’ she said.
‘Feel better?’
‘Much, much better.’
‘Would it be quite a spell