HIS OTHER SON (15 page)

           
She
busied herself unpacking her suitcase, making use of the rather basic furniture
in the room. The wardrobe, like the dressing table and the chest of drawers,
was made from plywood and seemed flimsy, the hanging rail creaking ominously
under the weight of her small amount of clothes. She tested the bed and found
it hard and unyielding, though the bedding seemed clean enough, and there were
no signs of bed bugs. She’d heard some horror stories from other actors about
the atrocious conditions of some boarding houses, and so on balance she felt
she’d not done too badly with
Gafney’s
Guesthouse

           
By
the time she finished unpacking it was still only mid-afternoon and she thought
she might like to take a walk through the town to the promenade. The sea held a
fascination for her. Ever since her mother and father took her to
Cliftonville
for a holiday as a small child she’d loved the
power and implacability of such a great body of water. Standing at the water’s
edge, letting the waves lap over her feet and staring out at the horizon, was a
magical, almost humbling experience.

           
She
was walking along the first floor landing towards the staircase when a door
ahead of her opened and Gareth stepped out.

           
‘Oh,
hullo,’ he said when he noticed her. ‘I’m going out to explore the town.’

           
‘Me
too,’ she said.

           
‘Well,
if you could stand the company we could always explore together.’

           
‘Yes,’
she said. ‘I’d like that.’

           
As
they descended the stairs to the front door, Mrs
Gafney
appeared. ‘Thought I heard movement,’ she said. ‘Off out then?’ She was
speaking to both of them but skewering Meg with an almost accusatory stare.

           
‘Yes,’
Gareth said. ‘Thought we’d go down to the sea front for
a
ice cream.’

           
‘An
ice cream?’ said Mrs
Gafney
. ‘I like ice cream
myself,’ She’d turned her attentions to Gareth now and was looking at him,
almost coquettishly. ‘Perhaps...’ She stopped and shook her head, dismissing
the thought to which she’d almost given voice.
‘No, silly
idea.’

           
Meg
stared at the woman. Dressed in a floral cotton shift a size too small for her,
with rather tatty black suede shoes at the end of a pair of lumpy, varicose
veined legs, the woman was no beauty. She’d gone heavy on the lipstick and
rouge, trying to disguise the ravages of age, but it had the effect of making
her face look almost clown-like, an effect compounded by her hair colour, which
was ginger, and out of a bottle.
All in all a rather blowsy,
unattractive woman, old enough to be their mother.
Yet the woman was
blatantly flirting with Gareth. It made Meg’s skin crawl.

           
As
they left the house and walked down the six stone steps to the street Meg said,
‘She was flirting with you,’

           
‘Was
she?’ Gareth said.
‘Can’t say I noticed.’

           
‘But
it was obvious.’

           
‘Not
to me. I’ve learned to ignore amorous landladies. It’s an occupational hazard
in this trade. Come on, let’s get that ice cream.’ He took her by the arm and
escorted her along the street.

It
was still early in the season and the weather hadn’t yet got into its stride. A
chilly wind was blowing in from the sea, cancelling out the warming effects of
the watery sun overhead.

           
They
walked along the promenade licking their ice cream cones. In a shelter just
along from the penny arcade an elderly couple were enjoying a picnic of
tinned-salmon sandwiches and hard-boiled eggs, washed down with milky tea from
a thermos flask. Meg smiled at them as they passed but the couple ignored her,
the woman sprinkling more salt onto her egg.

           
On
a stanchion of the bandstand ahead they could see a poster advertising
Showstoppers
of ‘58
. Gareth nudged her as they passed. ‘See that?
Full
Supporting Cast and Chorus
.
That’s us.’

           
‘Our
name in lights,’ she said ironically.

           
‘One
day.’ He checked his watch. ‘I have to be getting back.’

           
‘So soon?
You haven’t even finished your ice cream.’

           
He
glanced down at the cone that was gradually getting soggier. He tossed it into
a litterbin. ‘To tell you the truth, I don’t really like ice cream.’

           
‘Really?’

           
‘It’s
a bit like life. It looks so enticing and delicious when you first hold the
cone in your hand, and at first it tastes as good as it looks, but then the
enjoyment goes out of it, and it starts to taste bland and unappetising.’

           
‘And
that’s how you see life? Full of promise and excitement, but in reality dull
and uninteresting?’

           
‘Sometimes, yes.
But I live in hope. This show holds great
promise, and if the rest of the cast are as amenable and as delightful as you,
then I think it should be a lot of fun.’

           
She
leaned against the railings, staring out to sea. On the horizon a ship was
making lazy progress, silhouetted against a lowering sun.

           
‘You
can come with me if you like,’ Gareth said.

           
‘Come
with you where?’

           
‘To the party.
That’s why I’ve got to get back
–
to
get myself ready. You really should come. It’s at Clifford Stein’s house. He
has a holiday home a few miles along the coast from here. I’ll be getting a
taxi, so transport’s not a problem. I’m sure he wouldn’t mind if I brought you
along.’

           
She’d
heard of Clifford Stein. He was a famous figure in the West End of London.
An impresario and a noted director.
She found the idea of
attending a party at such a luminary’s house daunting. This was compounded by
Gareth’s next pronouncement. ‘I have it on good authority that
Finlay
Crawford is going to be there. It will be the chance
of a lifetime to meet him.’

           
If
the name of Clifford Stein made her apprehensive, the mere mention of
Finlay
Crawford made her feel slightly faint. ‘I don’t
believe it,’ she said. ‘I think you’re pulling my leg. How on earth did you get
an invitation to Clifford Stein’s house? You’re just chorus, like me.’

           
Gareth
smiled. ‘I also went to Charterhouse with Clifford Stein’s son, Martin. We
became very good friends at school and we’ve stayed in touch. Martin wanted to
become an actor as well, but his father put his foot down. He said that being
an actor is no job for an adult; he insisted that Martin go to Cambridge and
then follow him into the business side of show business rather than the show
part of it. I don’t think Martin’s ever forgiven him for it, but they rub along
fairly well despite that.’

           
‘He’s
probably right,’ Meg said.
‘About acting not being a job for
adults.
It’s all about dressing up and pretending to be somebody else. I
used to love doing that as a child, and I suppose I’ve never really grown out
of it.’

           
‘Me
neither,’ Gareth said. ‘Say you’ll come.’

           
They
started to walk back to the guesthouse. ‘If I do, you must promise me that if
you see me floundering you’ll leap in and rescue me.’

           
‘You
have my word as a gentleman.’

           
‘And
are you a...’ She looked him closely, nodding slowly. ‘Yes, I think you are.
All right, I’ll come.’

           
They
reached the guesthouse and started to climb the steps for the front door.
‘Oh, great Heavens!’
Meg said.

           
‘What?’

           
‘What
on earth am I going to wear?’

 
          
Gareth started to laugh, and he was
still laughing when she left him at his room and took the torturous route up to
her own.

She pursed her lips and applied her
lipstick, red but not too obvious. She blotted her mouth with a handkerchief
and studied the effect in the mirror. She was always critical of her own
appearance. She considered her nose too long, her mouth too wide and her eyes
too close together, but tonight even she had to admit that she looked quite
presentable. She’d given her hair a rinse with a bottle of beer to bring out
the chestnut highlights of the otherwise ordinary brown, and put it up in a
french
pleat, which combined with the simple black dress
she wore, gave her an almost sophisticated appearance.

           
She
could not believe how nervous she felt.
Finlay
Crawford!
The name kept repeating over and over in her mind like a jukebox
record with the needle stuck.
Finlay
Crawford was
probably Britain’s most famous and best loved figures in musical theatre. Even
now, in his fifties, he could still pack in the crowds and treat them to a
magical performance. She’d only seen him once on stage, in a touring version of
Rogers and Hammerstein’s
Oklahoma
, and in the version she saw he took
the part of Jud Fry, rather than the lead role of Curly, but his interpretation
of the part was astonishing. He stalked the stage with a virility that had many
of the women in the audience in a swoon. It was certainly the most powerful
performance by an actor she’d ever seen. And his voice! A rich baritone with a
slight Scottish burr that sent shivers down her spine.

           
She
shook her head in wonder. There were a hundred butterflies doing a May dance in
her stomach, and her knees were trembling. ‘Pull
yourself
together, girl,’ she chided herself. A persistent little voice nagged at her
from the back of her mind, reminding her of all the times in her life when
she’d either embarrassed or made a fool of
herself
. It
was a very thorough little voice, dragging up moments from her distant
childhood she’d thought forgotten.

           
‘Oh,
for goodness’s sake, Meg!’ she said to her reflection. ‘You’ll be fine. You’re
an actress.
Just
act
– cool and sophisticated.
Think Audrey Hepburn.’ She grinned at herself as the excitement bubbled up
inside her again. Whatever happened, this would be a night to remember.

           
She
was still grinning and thinking Audrey Hepburn when her image in the mirror
began to change. At first she thought it was her breath, steaming up the glass,
and then it appeared that there were fine lines, thin as cobwebs covering her
face, aging her, greying and wrinkling her skin. Gradually the greyness became
more solid and she could see another face, thin and gauze-like, overlaying her
own. As the image gained substance it completely covered her own until it
appeared she was looking through the eyes of the superimposed face.

           
It
was the face of a young woman, pretty, but thin, gaunt and indescribably sad.
Meg was suddenly overwhelmed by a devastating sense of melancholy, and she felt
tears welling up in her eyes and a constricting of her throat as she fought
back the urge to cry.

There
was a tap at her door. She started and glanced around; when she looked back the
grey face was gone. She went to answer the door. She paused with her hand on
the knob, convincing herself that the face in the mirror was nothing more than
an illusion, a hallucination brought about by an over-active imagination. When
she finally opened the door she was smiling but not convinced.

Gareth
stood there looking handsome in a dark lounge suit, crisp white shirt and
burgundy tie. He’d brushed his unruly, curly hair and flattened it to his head
with pomade.

           
‘Very
smart,’ Meg said, and then glanced down at her dress, which to her felt dowdy.
‘Will I do?’

           
‘You’ll
do very nicely. Black suits you.’

           
‘Not
too funereal, then?’

           
‘Not
as you’d notice. The taxi will be here in five minutes. If you’re ready we
might as well wait downstairs.’

           
‘Whatever you say.’
She gathered up her coat from where
she’d laid it on the bed, took one last look at the mirror, and closed the door
behind her, twisting the key in the lock and slipping it into her clutch bag.