Ghost Song (14 page)

He thanked her profusely when she said they would add him to their register, and if he was free he could come in at the end of the month to help with setting up a small display they were having of Edwardian theatre posters. She had seemed faintly amused at his gratitude and Caley had realized, too late, that as usual he had been apologetic and humble.

It had always been the way. ‘You're too apologetic,' he had been told as a child. ‘Too easily put off. You should be more pushy—you'll never get anywhere if you don't develop a bit of push.'

But he never had. When, at seventeen, he went to work at Southwark Council, his bosses said much the same thing. ‘Promotion for young Merrick?' they said. ‘Oh, he's much too quiet. Far too meek.' And the promotion or the salary rise or the training opportunity always went to someone else.

Later, they changed it to: ‘Old Merrick? Bit of a has-been now. Better go for somebody younger. Somebody with a bit more go.' None of this was ever said in Caley's hearing, but he knew.

In an odd way the asthma he had suffered since he was eighteen had rescued him. It had meant semi-retirement in his mid-forties and then full retirement when he was just fifty. How sad, people said, but to Caley it had provided him with excuses. He could say that but for his asthma he might have done so much more with his life: he might have achieved promotion at work, afforded a smart car, exotic foreign holidays, a nicer house perhaps, although he would not have wanted to leave this area. Mary had not wanted to leave it either; she had always been nervous at the thought of moving away from the familiar streets. She had liked being married and having her own house, but Caley had known from the first night that she did not like the physical side of marriage. She endured it patiently though, because it was what you had to do in marriage. They never talked about the fact that the years slid by without children being born to them; Caley supposed it was a sadness to her, but she did not refer to it and he found it difficult to broach the subject.

And then, entirely without warning and certainly without intention, had come the pregnancy when Mary was thirty-eight. Oh dear, not an ideal age, the doctors had said, pursing their lips. There could be all kinds of difficulties with such an elderly birth. Mary's sister said it was a downright disgrace and Caley ought to have had more self-control. Caley did not, of course, tell her their sex life had been practically non-existent for years, but that there had been an isolated incident after that year's office Christmas party. He did not much like Mary's sister and she did not like him. She had once told Mary she thought him very la-di-da. Who did he think he was, coming on so toffee-nosed, when he was only a council clerk?

When Mary died giving birth to the baby who died with her, her sister said it was entirely Caley's fault and she would never forgive him. She would be polite to him if they happened to meet in the street, but that was all.

It was all very sad, but one of the really sad things—the thing that caused Caley so much guilt—was the discovery that Mary's death was rather a relief. He was free of the gentle nagging, the preoccupation with domesticity to the exclusion of all else, and he could do whatever he wanted—he could read all day and all night if he wished. With a thump of excitement it occurred to him that he could take up the threads of an old dream—a dream he had reluctantly put aside years earlier.

The dream centred on the Tarleton, the ugly old music hall that had been locked and silent ever since anyone in this part of London could remember. Caley had grown up in the streets surrounding it and had walked past it hundreds—probably thousands—of times. Its facade was peeling and the stonework was grimy with years of London dirt, but it was a bit of a legend in this part of Southwark. People referring to an empty building said, ‘It's as empty as the Tarleton.' Or, talking about something that no longer had any application in the modern age, ‘As redundant as the Tarleton.'

But by the time he went to work for the Harlequin Society, Caley Merrick thought he knew as much about the Tarleton as anyone living. This was not being conceited; it was simply that he had read almost everything there was about it—not absolutely everything, because nobody could read absolutely everything about any subject, but a very great deal. The people who had worked and performed on its stage were familiar to him—they were sometimes more real than the people he met on buses or the underground or in shops.

Walking along Burbage Street, turning into Candle Square, over the years it often seemed to Caley that his mind was opening up to receive the colour and light those long-ago people had carried with them and the music that surrounded them like cloaks. Once or twice, moving from bookshop to library, and from library to archive departments and back again in his beloved quest for information, he wondered if he might be becoming just a bit unbalanced about the Tarleton. This worried him for a while, but then he thought that a lot of people had an area in their minds that was very slightly out of kilter with the normal world.

Sometimes, when he was on his own, he caught himself murmuring those performers' names to himself like a litany. The Flowered Fan with her incorrigibly saucy dancing—Caley had vowed to one day find out her real name and discover what had happened to her. And there was Marie Lloyd, of course, who had been so famous she was still remembered today. Bunstable the Cockney comic who sang songs and performed sketches. There were lesser names as well: dancers and jugglers and strong men; Shilling, the doorkeeper, and Rinaldi, the stage manager.

And there was a hammy-sounding actor called Prospero Garrick, who had apparently performed monologues and Shakespearean speeches. Caley had found Prospero's memoirs years earlier in the small library near Candle Square. ‘Prospero Garrick' would be a made-up name, of course—theatre people used all kinds of flowery names, and the Victorians and Edwardians had been particularly flamboyant on that count. Even so, Caley rather liked the sound of Prospero, who came over as having been outrageously vain and unquenchably conceited, but very amiable. He visualized the old boy wearing a swirling opera cloak and a silk hat, carrying a silver-topped cane and eyeing the ladies with a knowing wink. What used to be called, in the vernacular of the day, a howling swell.

But above all of these people was the most memorable one. The charismatic young man who, according to everything Caley had read, had been able to light up the entire theatre purely by walking out onto the stage and smiling at his audiences.

Toby Chance.

As the hansom jolted across the river and turned towards Bloomsbury, Toby was already starting to question the wisdom of what he was doing. This secret society, this Tranz, might turn out to be nothing but a group of people genuinely working towards peace in Austria and Serbia—which was no doubt very worthy, but which Toby would probably find extremely boring.

But it might be something quite different, and if so, that might be a bit more exciting. It might even be what his father suspected: a gang of agitators and ruffians, hell-bent on stirring up a European war. Toby glanced at the figure seated beside him and revised this last opinion slightly, because it was impossible to imagine Alicia Darke associating with ruffians. If Tranz did turn out to be a bunch of war-mongers they would be gentlemanly war-mongers. The kind who apologized courteously before they let slip the dogs of war. According to his father, those particular war dogs would rampage across most of Europe, and Britain would be up to her neck in the fight.

The thunder had stopped, but the air was not any fresher for the small storm. We'll remember this hot summer, thought Toby. If war does come as my father thinks it must, we'll all say, afterwards, that we felt its approach in this stifling heat. We'll tell each other it was a portent.

He glanced out of the window. They were in Bloomsbury now—he caught a glimpse of the British Museum, but then the hansom took two or three turns into side streets and across a couple of small squares and Toby's sense of direction became confused, although he could see that the houses no longer looked quite so smart and well cared for. But presumably Bloomsbury had its seedier pockets like anywhere else. One of the fascinations of London was that just when you thought you had identified an area as being prosperous, you turned a corner and within a dozen steps found yourself among shabbiness or outright poverty.

The cab came to a halt and Toby got out and helped Alicia down. They were in front of a dingy house whose facade had once been white but was now a leprous-looking grey. The house was not precisely dilapidated but it was certainly a bit shabby, although shabbiness did not automatically mean shadiness—you had only to look at a lot of theatre people on the morning after a performance, in fact you had only to look at Toby himself on some mornings. And the man who opened the door to them looked completely ordinary. He nodded to Alicia, considered Toby for a moment, and then indicated to them to follow him.

‘No secret password?' murmured Toby to Alicia as they were led through to the back of the house.

‘Not even a series of pre-arranged knocks on the door,' she said.

They were shown into a long room which Toby thought might originally have been two separate rooms—or even three. An assortment of wooden chairs had been set in rows and there was a small dais at the far end. The room was filled with people, most of whom were seated, with the rest standing in groups, all of them talking excitedly and with an air of expectancy. Toby, pausing in the doorway and looking about him, thought their eager anticipation was so strong it was almost visible. There were probably thirty or so people present, with about the same number of men as women. Most of them were quite young, although there were three patriarchal-looking gentlemen, two with beards of almost biblical length and one who had several weighty-looking books under his arm and looked like a Jewish scholar. In a corner, a straight-backed old lady wearing a diamond choker that needed cleaning and imperious but rusty-looking black draperies, sat on the only chair with cushions, and held court to half a dozen avid young men who sat cross-legged on the floor in front of her.

Apart from the black-clad lady who might have been a duchess, the women were rather sloppily dressed. Most of them sounded English, but some spoke a language Toby could not recognize; it certainly had no relationship to the smattering of German and Italian he had himself. Russian? Romanian? They had the distinctive slanting cheekbones and dark eyes he associated with those parts of the world. They might be Russian, or they might be Middle European—perhaps from Czechoslovakia or Bosnia or Herzegovina. The places his father had called a seething cauldron.

A young woman pushed her way through the crowd, eyed Toby with aggressive curiosity, and said, ‘Alicia, is this the guest you promised us?'

‘It is. Mr Toby Chance,' said Alicia smoothly. ‘Toby, may I present the Honourable Sonja Kaplen.'

‘No honourables,' said the young woman at once. ‘Plain Sonja Kaplen,' and Alicia stared at her coldly, as if thinking anyone disassociating herself from a title—even a mere honourable—must be a little mad.

‘How do you do,' said Toby.

‘Oh, God, a gentlemanly one,' said Miss Kaplen with a faint air of exasperation. Toby noticed she was one of the better-dressed females, although her clothes had an impatient look about them, as if she had merely grabbed whatever had been nearest to hand in her wardrobe and put it on. She had dark glossy hair and a slightly too wide mouth which either made her strikingly beautiful or very nearly plain; Toby found this rather intriguing. ‘Alicia, I do wish you'd bring us people likely to be of use to the cause,' said this unusual-looking young woman, glaring at Toby.

He said, ‘But looks are deceptive, Miss Kaplen. Given the right circumstances I can be very useful indeed.'

‘Are you trying to
flirt
with me?' demanded Miss Kaplen. ‘Because if so, I should warn you I never—'

‘Heaven forefend that I should stoop so low,' said Toby, starting to enjoy himself. ‘A very bourgeois convention, flirting.'

She looked at him suspiciously, then said, ‘I suppose since you are here… And if Alicia vouches for you…' She made a brisk gesture, indicating the crowded room. ‘All the seats have been taken by this time. If you'd got here half an hour ago you might have got one.' There was a faint air of reproach. ‘They're all here early because Petrovnic is coming. If you don't mind a windowsill there are a couple left.'

‘Never let it be said that I disdained a humble windowsill,' said Toby. ‘And it's entirely my fault we're late; I had to entertain a few people for a while. If that's wine in that jug being offered round, I hope it's going to be offered over here.'

‘It isn't wine,' said Sonja Kaplen scornfully. ‘We can't afford to give wine to our members. All the money we have goes towards the cause. It's lemonade.'

‘What could be better on a hot summer's night?' said Toby. ‘As a matter of fact—' He broke off as a stir went through the assembly, and people who were still standing moved back to allow someone to walk up to the dais.

‘That's Petrovnic arriving now,' said Sonja, turning to look at the newcomer, a touch of reverence in her voice.

‘A striking-looking gentleman,' said Toby.

‘Looks do not matter,' said Sonja scornfully. ‘It's personality that counts.'