and Lenny struggled to help her from the box. Hugh’s Bluntschli turned sulky and then perfunctory, while Fergus and Alan as Petkoff and Saranoff battled on with weary determination.
The final curtain came as a release for everyone. The applause was no more than a dry patter, extinguished by the banging of seats. John Douglas limped away without saying a word, and Sheila fled to her dressing room with her handkerchief pressed to her face.
I’ve seen worse performances, Mattie thought philosophically. Why the fuss? I wonder. She did her clearing up with the mechanical ease of familiarity, then went round the dressing rooms for the last time to turn off the lights. She was on her way down to the stage door, imagining she was the last person in the building, when she saw threads of light framing the closed door of the office. She tapped on the door, and when no answer came she opened it.
John was there, alone, although there were two other glasses on the table beside his.
‘I’m sorry,’ Mattie mumbled. ‘I was just doing the lights.’
He waved his arms at her, beckoning her in with a big, ironically florid gesture. The knuckles of his hand cracked against the wall of the poky room, but he didn’t seem to notice.
‘Come in, come in. I’m drowning. Oh, don’t look so fucking nervous. Just my sorrows. Nothing more dramatic than that. Oh, shit. Dramatic’s not the best bloody word this evening, is it? Here, come and join me.’ He held up one of the two empty glasses. ‘Don’t mind a dirty one, do you? That stupid bloody bastard had it first, but I don’t suppose that’s catching. Here.’ He pushed the drink across to Mattie and turned back to his own. He drank the three fingers of it in one gulp.
‘What’s the matter?’ Mattie asked. ‘Not Sheila, surely?’
‘Silly pre-menstrual bitch.’ He chuckled sourly. ‘If I could personally ensure that she never works again, I’d do it with the greatest pleasure. No, not Sheila specifically although she contributed in her special way.’ He poured himself another measure and drank again. ‘We both have our ridiculous ambitions, Mattie, you see. No, I don’t mean that. Yours is less risible than mine. After all, we have Miss Firth as our leading lady, don’t we? Why not Miss … ah, Miss …?’
‘Banner.’
‘Exactly. Well, since you asked what’s wrong, I’ll tell you. My little dream is to start up a company of my own. No more Welcome Home. No more pig-ignorant Willoughby. To this magnificent end I have been saving up my hard-won wages, and looking around for some financial backing. Tonight, two dear old theatre cronies of mine, who have been more successful in lining their pockets than I, travelled all the way up here from Town to see my show. My Shaw. Miss Firth’s shitty Shaw show, ha ha. I’m sure you can guess the rest?’
There have been worse performances, Mattie thought again. But not very many.
‘No money?’
‘Quite right. And not only no money, but suddenly no time either. Not even for an hour or so of food and wine and conversation. A pressing need to drive back to Town developed after just one small whisky apiece. As if I smelled bad. But nothing stinks quite like failure, does it? What am I doing here, to take your own question from you?’
Mattie went over and stood by him, looking down into the thin patch in the hair at the top of his head. She had never noticed it before. She thought, he’s lonely too; how cut off we all are, living so close together.
She leaned down, very gently, and let her cheek rest against the top of his head for a second. He didn’t move, either to shake her off or draw her closer, and Mattie’s courage deserted her. She was hardly in a position to comfort John Douglas as if he was Ricky or Sam. She went back round the table and picked up her drink.
John drank in silence for another moment or two, and then he roused himself. ‘Come and have some dinner,’ he boomed at her. ‘Would you like that?’
‘Yes, please,’ Mattie said simply.
He looked surprised, but he heaved himself out of his chair and shuffled around with his stick. He put on an outsized overcoat and a khaki muffler, and a hat pulled down over his eyebrows. Immediately he looked like an old man.
They went down the stairs to the stage door. Mattie turned the lights off behind them and John produced a bunch of keys from his inner pocket and locked the door. Outside in the street, with the wind slicing off the sea, into their faces, he asked her, ‘Where are your outdoor things?’
‘I’m wearing them.’
It was much colder in the bleak northern towns than in the cocoon of London streets. Mattie had discovered that very early on. But she needed every penny of her wages to keep herself sheltered and fed, and there was nothing left over for thick winter coats.
John Douglas exhaled, and Mattie saw his cloudy breath dispelled by the wind. ‘You’d better see Vera at the end of the week, then. Get a loan before you get pneumonia.’
Mattie raised her eyebrows, but he was already walking away and she had to move quickly to keep pace with his fast, lopsided steps.
They went to a little French restaurant, tucked away in the angle of two streets behind the sea-front. It was the kind of place that Mattie and Lenny and Vera would have passed without a second glance, knowing that it was out of their league. The head waiter showed them to a table laid for three. The third setting was quickly removed and Mattie pretended not to have noticed it. She looked round instead at the red flocked wallpaper and the little wall lamps with pink-fringed shades. The handful of other diners, red-faced men and permed women, were already finishing their meals. A waiter brought the menus. They were bound in red leather and hung with gold tassels.
‘What do you want to eat?’ John asked her.
‘Steak,’ Mattie said at once. ‘And chips. And soup to start with.’ She was always hungry, and she wasn’t going to hold back in ordering a free meal in a place like this.
John frowned. ‘And ice-cream to follow, I suppose.’ He ordered the food rapidly. ‘And bring me the best bottle of burgundy you’ve got. Do you like wine, Mattie?’
She thought of Felix and his careful bottles of Beaujolais and Chianti stored under the kitchen sink. ‘I love wine.’
It wasn’t an easy meal, to begin with.
Mattie was sharply conscious that her company failed to compensate for John’s missing friends. He leaned back in his chair, watching her without seeing her, turning his glass in his fingers in between draughts of wine.
‘Tell me about yourself,’ he ordered. ‘Isn’t that what usually happens on these occasions?’
‘I haven’t experienced an occasion quite like this,’ Mattie said. She wouldn’t let John Douglas browbeat her. But she talked anyway, to fill the silence, to distract him. She glossed over her childhood, but she embroidered her escapades with Julia and she described Jessie and Felix in lengthy detail. The bottle of burgundy was emptied and John called for another. Once or twice he laughed, the loudness of it making the other diners peer covertly at him.
Their food came. John barely touched the cutlets he had ordered, but he drank steadily. Mattie ate because she was ravenous, but she thought privately that this food was nothing like as good as the meals that Felix cooked at home.
‘It’s
