Ghost Song (15 page)

‘Oh, every time.'

‘Do hush. Petrovnic's about to begin.'

‘I shall be as silent as a midnight grave. Lead me to your windowsill. Alicia, you're coming as well, aren't you? Do you prefer plain wood with a south-facing view or will you have tiles and an outlook over a dustbin yard? There appears to be a choice.'

To Toby's slight surprise Alicia appeared tolerant of the shabby room and the eclectic mix of people and sat down gracefully. It occurred to him that she was regarding the evening as a game and the people as curios who might provide her with an hour or two's amusement, and he realized with slight annoyance that he was doing more or less the same thing. Then he remembered his father's words about Tranz and the amusement gave way to unease. I shouldn't have come, he thought. But I want to know what this is about and why, according to Alicia, these people wanted to meet me.

The wooden windowsill might have become very uncomfortable in the hour that followed because Petrovnic held the floor for a remarkably long time, but Toby was so fascinated he forgot about being perched on a ledge barely six inches deep, and forgot that the room was overcrowded and too hot for comfort. He even forgot the presence of Sonja Kaplen on his left and Alicia Darke on his right which, as he admitted to himself later, was not like him.

It was a relief to discover that Petrovnic spoke in English, although he had a marked accent. He was a thin man, of perhaps fifty-four or -five, with hair the colour of polished mahogany, high cheekbones, and fiery, intelligent eyes. The women were regarding him almost adoringly and even Alicia was staring at him with relish. Oh my, oh my, thought Toby, glancing at her. What big eyes you have, my dear Alicia, and what a voracious appetite for gentlemen. I suppose you've marked Petrovnic for your next adventure. He's a bit old for you, I should have thought, but even I can see that he's attractive.

The men were almost as enraptured by Petrovnic as the women, although Petrovnic himself seemed unaware of any of it. Either he was so genuinely engrossed in his subject that his audience's devotion did not touch him, or he was so used to people gazing at him as if he were a god he no longer noticed it. Whichever it is, it's very effective, thought Toby, studying him critically. I wouldn't mind having a touch of it myself; it would be very useful on a rowdy Saturday night at the Tarleton.

Petrovnic had launched straight into an impassioned plea to the members of Tranz to gather their strength and stand fast to the cause. A number of the younger ones gave soft cheers at this, and when he said, ‘I need you all—I need
all
of you, body and soul,' two ladies sitting near to Toby sighed and hugged their arms round their upper bodies.

As they all knew, said Petrovnic, the old Austro-Hungarian Empire had been built by conquest and intrigues and above all by treacheries, and one of those treacheries was the annexing of Bosnia and Herzegovina a few years earlier.

‘It was an act of imperialistic greed at its worst. It was the arrogant high-handedness of the Habsburgs who feel the need to show they are still Europe's overlords.' He looked round the room. ‘They must not be permitted to behave in such a fashion any longer. We must make our protests—the Serb races, the people of Bosnia and of Herzegovina, must be allowed their independence.

‘His Imperial Highness, Franz-Ferdinand von Habsburg-Lothringen,' said Petrovnic, practically spitting the name and title out, ‘is to visit the capital of Bosnia at the end of June, to direct army manoeuvres in the neighbouring mountains. And, my dear friends, when Franz-Ferdinand gets there, Tranz will be there also. Tranz will seize its opportunity, and it will demonstrate its anger.'

Franz-Ferdinand, thought Toby, his eyes on the speaker. What do I know about him? Not very much—they're a complex family, those Habsburgs. But I think the Franz-Ferdinand Petrovnic's talking about is heir apparent to the Austro-Hungarian throne. I don't like this. I think there's something a bit sinister behind it.

But despite the sense of dark undercurrents, he was swept along by the allure of Tranz's ideals. Was it possible that his father had got them wrong? Everything Petrovnic was saying about the regaining of independence, the sweeping away of the old Austrian imperial rule, was finding a strong response in Toby. Why should Bosnia and Serbia not have their independence and their country? Why should Austria be allowed to arrogantly march in and take them over?

When Petrovnic, his voice rising to a near shout, cried that the Austro-Hungarian Empire was corrupt—that it had been built by conquest and intrigue and treachery—half the audience leapt to their feet, cheering their agreement, and Toby found himself on his feet with them.

‘A protest march!' cried Petrovnic, his hair dishevelled, his face flushed and his eyes blazing. ‘A protest such as no one has ever known before! That is what we shall stage for this decadent imperialist line! Our friends will come from other countries—the Czechs long to be independent of Austrian rule and the Romanians live under Hungarian administration in the protection of the Romanian crown. So we must make the voice of Tranz and the voice of the people heard. And the Archduke Franz-Ferdinand—' He stopped very deliberately and looked round the room. No one moved or spoke. ‘The Archduke,' said Petrovnic, almost in a whisper now, ‘will have no choice but to listen. Governments will have no choice but to listen. And if we are steadfast, the people of Bosnia and Herzegovina will be free.' He looked round the room. ‘Well, my friends? Who will accompany me on this quest for justice? For freedom? Who will come to Sarajevo for the twenty-eighth day of June? Who will be there? A show of hands, please! Volunteers!'

Toby was aware of five or six people raising their hands and of most of the others nodding and cheering. They won't all go, he thought. I don't suppose they can—most of them will have families and work, and the cost of the journey will probably be beyond their means. He saw that the straight-backed old lady was one of the people who had raised a hand, and that Sonja had done so as well. Her eyes were shining and her lips were parted with excitement, and as if sensing his regard she turned to look at him.

‘Not joining us, Mr Chance?' she said, challengingly. ‘Or don't you care about the oppressed nations of the world? Doesn't that kind of thing reach Kensington or the artificial world of the theatre?'

Toby was about to reply angrily that he was damned if he was going to go mad-rabbiting across an entire continent, simply to wave a few flags against imperialism and shout slogans at a Habsburg archduke, but Sonja was already saying, dismissively, that she supposed the journey would be too difficult for him.

‘Most of it's by train and the conditions won't be in the least what you're used to, anyway. No grand hotels or first-class railway compartments. Certainly not the Orient-Express.'

‘But,' said Toby, ‘I don't suppose there are many places in the world Thomas Cook's can't reach.'

He saw that he had disconcerted her, and was aware that Alicia had turned to look at him. Sonja said, ‘You surely don't mean you'd come with us to Sarajevo?'

She sounded so incredulous that Toby was furious with her. ‘If your friend with the gift for oratory will take me, I'll certainly come with you.'

H
E SAW ALICIA HOME,
but managed to avoid going into the elegant little house with her, pleading the extreme lateness of the hour and the demands of his performance earlier at the Tarleton. For once he could not have coped with Alicia's silken bedroom and her silken love-making; he needed to be alone, because he was starting to feel horrified at what he had done, although he was determined to show that scornful opinionated Sonja Kaplen that he cared just as deeply about oppression as anyone else.

As yet he had no idea what he would say to his father, but he would think of something. Preparing for bed in his own room, he made a mental review of his appearances at the Tarleton for the forthcoming month. There were only two and one was in four days' time, the other in two weeks'. After that, there was nothing that could not be postponed. In any case, the theatre put on very few shows at the end of June—‘People don't want to sit in hot theatres in the summer months,' Flora Chance always said. ‘So it's a good opportunity for us to give the old place a lick of paint and a bit of a spruce-up.'

He slept fitfully and woke at four. What had he done? Bosnia, for pity's sake! Half a world away. Unknown language, unfamiliar people, appalling travelling conditions, all in company with people he had only just met… And simply because that infuriating Sonja Kaplen had taunted him with being too wrapped in a soft Kensington life to care about suffering and deprivation! No, be fair, it was as much that he had been attracted by the idea of righting wrongs inflicted by a decadent Austrian Empire and helping an oppressed nation regain its independence and identity. At midnight in a roomful of eager people—some of them persuasive and attractive—this had been an alluring idea, the stuff dreams were made of and from which stirring adventures were woven. In the dawn of a stuffy bedroom by himself, it was annoying and even vaguely sinister.

By half past five he began to feel irritated with the whole thing. It ought not to be Tranz keeping him awake in this too-hot dawn; it ought to be the pleasing memory of how well the new song had been received, and of how he would sing it again that night.

At six he got up and found his old school atlas, turning the pages until he came to Bosnia. There it was, rather like an inverted triangle. South of Hungary, west of Romania. It was considerably further east than he had been thinking, in fact alarmingly so—you only had to cross the Aegean Sea to be in Turkey. Persian carpets and Scheherazade spinning stories, thought Toby. Caliphs and grand viziers and the Ottoman Empire. And if you went north, across the Black Sea, you would be in Russia: tzars and troikas and wolves in the forests and Fabergé eggs. He considered all of this and thought if he really did make this journey, then plainly he was madder than anyone had yet suspected.

He tried going back to bed but at seven o'clock gave up the attempt to sleep and got up again, splashing cold water on his face and pulling on the nearest clothes. As he slipped out of the house everywhere was silent, and Toby walked round the square, enjoying the early-morning quiet. Even at this hour, there was a haze across the park, suggesting insufferable heat would build up as the morning progressed.

He got back to the house in time to see Minnie setting out breakfast in the small morning room at the back. He smiled and said good morning to her, at which she grunted something unintelligible, and stumped out.

Toby helped himself to eggs and bacon and a large cup of coffee, and when his mother came in, he said, ‘It looks as if Minnie was in the Sailor's Retreat again last night.'

‘She was and she said they were singing “Tipsy Cake” in there by half past ten, and doing so with great relish,' said Flora, and Toby experienced a rush of undiluted delight. That's what my life really is, he thought. Writing songs and singing them, and trying to make the Tarleton as prosperous as possible. Not gadding off to bizarre countries to shout rude slogans at archdukes and annoy emperors. Yes, but I gave my word. How will I back out of it?

‘Some of the regulars at the Sailor's Retreat had been to the performance,' Flora was saying.

‘And they went back there afterwards to eat,' said Toby. ‘Mutton pie and ale. I keep telling you the Oyster Bar charges too much for at least half our audiences. Serve them jellied eels and stout or one of the old sixpenny ordinaries and they'd eat there.'

‘I'm certainly going to see if we can serve tipsy cake tomorrow night,' said Flora, pouring coffee, and Toby looked up quickly, pleased at the idea and annoyed for not having thought of it himself. ‘It's a fairly easy thing to assemble anyway,' said Flora. ‘Layers of sponge cake soaked in sherry, with jam and cream. But whatever we give them to eat, they like your song. It sounds as if it's one of your best yet.'

‘Moderately reasonable,' mumbled Toby. ‘It's going to the printers today to be engraved for the song sheets.'

‘It sounds as if it's a bit more than reasonable,' said Flora. ‘I thought I'd come in tomorrow to hear it.'

‘Did you? Good.'

‘Toby, are you really going to eat a second helping of eggs and bacon?'

‘I am,' said Toby and grinned at her with affection and approval. She must be approaching fifty and the slender girl who had plied that infamous fan for the delight of half the male population of London's halls had vanished beneath a degree of unashamed plumpness. But it was an attractive plumpness, satin-skinned and firm, and her hair was still glossy and becomingly dressed. She wore a discreet touch of rice powder on her nose, and her outfit that morning was a well-cut moss-green silk costume. Even after all these years, Toby had seen his father look at her with love and pride. He wondered if he would ever feel like that about someone himself. On present showing it did not seem very likely.

‘Are you working here today, or are you at the theatre?' enquired Flora.

‘What? Oh, I think I'll work here after I've seen the printers,' said Toby. ‘I've got an idea for a new song about a theatre ghost.'

‘The Tarleton's ghost?' There was an unusually sharp note in her voice.