Vic,’ Nick answered, and went on, ‘I got the impression Francesca is terrified of you.’
Victor gave him a baffled look and said, ‘Terrified of me! You gotta be kidding, kid. What the hell do you mean?’
‘Oh, I don’t think she’s afraid of you the way most women are, you know, of your fatal charm. Far from it. I think she’s quite a cool customer, very self-possessed. But when we were talking the other night, she said she came from Yorkshire. I asked her what she thought of Wuthering Heights, and she told me you had forbidden her to discuss it with me. Then she closed up like a clam and didn’t open her mouth for ages.’ He gave him a quizzical look and asked, ‘Did you forbid her to talk to me about it?’
Victor couldn’t help laughing. ‘No, of course not. I made some joking remark about keeping her away from you. Because she has strong opinions, Lady Francesca does. She told me, and in no uncertain terms, that it wasn’t a love story at all, but a novel about revenge.’
‘She’s right.’
‘She is?’ Vic said, sounding a bit doubtful.
‘Sure. But it is a love story as well, and a rather touching and heart-breaking one at that.’ Nick grinned. ‘Intelligent as well, eh? Lethal combination, as far as you’re concerned. You’d better watch yourself there, old sport.’
‘Go to hell,’ Victor exclaimed, and then laughed. ‘I’m too preoccupied with the picture to start any romantic relationships, particularly with a teenager who has stardust in her eyes.’
Nick made no comment and the two of them walked on in silence, pushing through the shoppers milling around Oxford Street. They cut back, down North Audley Street, to escape the flood of humanity and roaring traffic on the main thoroughfare, and approached the more gracious and tranquil streets of Mayfair with relief. Nick glanced about, his eyes scanning the charming old houses and elegant edifices that dated back to another century. He thought fondly of his father, who had first brought him and his sister Marcia to London when they were children, and had lovingly imparted so much of his own considerable knowledge about the history of this city. He and his father had been inseparable then. He now wondered how he had ever lived through the terrible years of his father’s monumental anger with him, after he had announced he wanted to be a writer, did not want to join him in the bank. He had not enjoyed being on the receiving end of his father’s thunderous silence. They were on better terms of late, and for that Nicky was thankful. He had always loved his father. The terrible things parents do to their children, he thought with a stab of sadness. And children are equally bad.
Victor suddenly stopped in his tracks, staring ahead. They were drawing close to a construction site where a high building was rising slowly, its skeletal frame soaring into the sky like the fleshless bones of some gargantuan prehistoric monster.
‘What’s up, Vic?’
‘Nothing.’ Victor took a step backwards and raised his head, craning to see the highest point of the towering steel girders, where two solitary workmen were perched like ants, finishing up at the end of the day. Memories flooded through him. He brought his gaze to meet Nick’s puzzled eyes.
A pained smile played around Victor’s mouth. ‘You don’t know what fear is, sport, until you’ve dangled up there in the sky, with nothing between you and the ground but a narrow edge of metal and lots of yawning air. And then seen one of your friends slip and go plunging down, crumpling like a rag doll on the way. If you’re ever going to freeze, that’s when you freeze, when you know you can’t go up, can’t hit the sky ever again. The freeze, when you get it, is paralysing. Later come the shakes. Shakes like a dypsomaniac never knew existed.’
Nick was silent, observing the grimness on Victor’s face, the anguish in his eyes. But the expression passed, and Nick asked gently, ‘Did that happen to you, Vic?’
‘Sure as hell it did. But the funny thing was, I didn’t get the freeze when Jack actually fell. I was too concerned about him that day, I guess. It hit me forty-eight hours later.’ He shook his head. ‘Every construction worker dreads the freeze, because, for ever after, your days on the job are numbered. Of course you try to conceal it, bury it, because you need the work, but it gets to you in the end. The fear becomes impossible to live with, and there is no way of faking, because as the building goes up, you’ve got to go up. And up and up and up. If you don’t, you get thrown off the job. And pronto. Anyway, your buddies always smell it on you … the fear.’
‘Is that when you got out?’
‘Yes, after a few weeks. Ellie smelled the fear on me, Nick. Her father and her brothers were construction workers. That’s how I met her, through Jack. He was her youngest brother. Just a kid when he fell. Hell, she knew, Nicky, really knew. From past experience … with them. And she begged me to quit. I wouldn’t at first. I had to be different. Naturally. I had to conquer the fear. And I did. A week after Jack had slipped, another young kid got stuck on the girders at the top of a sixty-storey building. It had started to rain and a wind had blown up. A terrific gale. The kid remembered Jack’s accident, and he froze. He was unable to come down. I went up and got him. About a week later I left the construction business for good, much to Ellie’s relief. That’s when we packed up and left Ohio for California. The twins weren’t even a year old. We bought an old pick-up and drove it across the country. The four of us and the luggage, what little there was of it, packed in like sardines. But I’ll tell you something, Nicky, they were the good days. I had Ellie and the boys, and that’s all that mattered to me.’ Victor chuckled. ‘Jesus, and I wasn’t even twenty.’
‘And Ellie’s brother Jack? Was he killed when he fell?’
‘No, he was paralysed. He’s been in a wheelchair ever since. Thank God I eventually made it, and have been able to look after him properly over the years.’
Nick was unable to speak for a moment, a lump constricting his throat. He thought: There’s nobody in this world quite like Vic. At least that I know of. That makes eight people he supports, to my knowledge, quite apart from the friends he helps out all the time. He’s got a heart the size of a goddamn mountain.
Victor had thrown back his head and was surveying the soaring girders for a second time, his lips compressed, his expression unreadable. When he lowered his head he half smiled at Nick. And then he said slowly, and with great care, ‘So you see, I know what real fear is, Nicky. And I’ve conquered it. Believe me, I ain’t afraid of Mike Lazarus.’
‘I believe you, Vic.’
Norman Rook, Terry’s dresser, was walking so rapidly he was almost running, and Katharine was finding it hard to keep pace. Finally, when they neared the top of the Haymarket, she caught up with him and tugged him to a standstill.
Breathlessly, she said, ‘Please, Norman, can’t you slow down a bit? I’m really puffed.’
‘Oh, sorry, ducks,’ he muttered apologetically. ‘I’m anxious to get back to Albany as quickly as possible.’ He set off walking again, and if his steps were not exactly leisurely, at least they were more measured. Katharine was now able to keep abreast of him, and several times she stole a look at his face, conscious he was plunged in gloom. But fortunately, now that they were away from the theatre, his agitation seemed to have lessened. When Norman had appeared in her dressing room fifteen
