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.He wasn’t, after all, immediately pleased to see her.He was a little tired of coaxing her into being friendly.Talking to her was like hacking a way through a jungle.‘Is your father all right?’ he asked.‘Is it a sprain or a break?’‘I haven’t been home,’ she said.‘And he isn’t my father.’She was vitriolic about Geoffrey.She couldn’t understand how he dared to show his face after what he had done to Mr Potter.Why, he was boasting about it in the prop-room.And after the curtain call, when he was going upstairs to the extras’ dressing-room and had bumped into Mr Potter – she wasn’t talking at second-hand but had actually witnessed the scene – far from showing remorse he had confronted him as though he was going to head-butt him for the second time.Mr Potter had flinched.His monocle had plopped from his eye.‘Geoffrey has his reasons,’ said O’Hara.You don’t know the full story.’‘He’s unbalanced,’ asserted Stella.‘He was drummed out of Sandhurst for shooting somebody.’‘Don’t talk rot.’She flared up, shouting that Geoffrey came from the privileged classes.He was a protected species.Mr Potter was a wronged man, a victim.‘You’re speaking through your hat,’ he said.‘Potter’s spent the last fifteen years harming people like Geoffrey.Hilary was eighteen when Meredith picked him up at the BBC Club.’‘Him.?’ she said, her face blank.‘He never stood a chance.And there’s been a string of others.Why do you suppose he got thrown out of Windsor?’‘You’re just jealous of him.’He laughed.She told him she was going and she wouldn’t be coming back.Not ever.‘Thank you for having me,’ she said, grotesquely enough.She had tears in her eyes.‘For God’s sake,’ he cried, exasperated, and was relieved when she left, slamming the door behind her.He had his letter to finish.Yet ten minutes later he felt he had treated her unkindly and regretted not having gone after her.Perhaps tomorrow, before the matinee performance, she would go with him to the news-theatre for a sandwich.She liked going there.He’d open up his heart to her, explain how much he cared.Trouble was, she’d probably refuse to go unless he trapped her into it.If he called at her house in the morning on the pretext of enquiring after Mr Bradshaw and asked her straight out, in front of her mother, to walk with him to the theatre, she’d have to accept.It would look odd otherwise.He was pacing back and forth, mulling over what he would say to her, when the biology student knocked at his door for the loan of a shilling for the gas-meter.He was so damned humble that O’Hara was obliged to offer him a cup of coffee.Afterwards he slept badly, his mind swilling with nightmares.He was drowning in the lagoon, sinking beneath the ticking belly of the crocodile.At midday he walked to the Aber House Hotel and rang the bell.A woman appeared in the area below holding a dustpan and brush.She asked what he was selling.‘My name’s O’Hara,’ he said.‘I’m from the theatre.I’m anxious to know how Mr Bradshaw is.’ He was down the basement steps before Lily could stop him.Flustered, she let him in.Vernon was sitting in his armchair by the fire, his injured ankle propped on a telephone book.He hadn’t shaved and was at a disadvantage.‘Nice of you to call,’ he said.‘Bring a chair to the fire.’ Hastily he popped in his teeth.‘It’s not broken, is it?’ asked O’Hara, studying the swollen foot.‘Merely a sprain,’ said Vernon.‘I shall be as right as rain in no time.’ He turned to tell Lily to put the kettle on, but she had fled into the scullery to tidy herself up.O’Hara was looking round the room, trying to see the imprint of Stella.He longed to know which chair she sat in, what space she occupied.He noticed the picture frames on the mantelpiece had been turned to the wall.Then he saw her shoes, scuffed with mud, placed together on a sheet of newspaper at the hearth, and his heart leapt.‘It was my own fault, you know,’ Vernon told him.‘I wasn’t watching where I was putting my feet.It’s Mr Potter I feel sorry for.Our Stella says the lad who butted him comes from a well-to-do family.’‘So I believe,’ said O’Hara.‘She thinks he ought to be given the sack, but Mr Potter won’t hear of it.He told me this morning that he thought the boy had been working too hard.’‘Potter’s been here this morning?’‘You’ve just missed him,’ said Vernon.‘Like you, he was bothered about my injury.But that’s the sort of man he is, isn’t he? One of nature’s gentlemen.He’s been very kind to me and Lily, as regards putting our minds at rest about Stella.She’s secretive, you see.She always has been, and me and Lily get worried about what she might get up to.Don’t misunderstand me.she’s a good girl and generous-hearted once you get to know her.Of course, you won’t know her very well, you being a newcomer.’‘No,’ O’Hara said.‘I haven’t been here very long.I suppose Stella told you I took over from Richard St Ives.’‘She didn’t tell us.Mr Potter did.Stella never tells us anything, or anybody else for that matter.She seems outgoing enough but she keeps things locked inside her.That was why I wanted her to go on the stage.to help get them out.’‘I would have thought she’s very close to her mother,’ O’Hara said.‘She’s always telephoning her, even if she’s only just left the house.’‘She’s having you on,’ said Vernon.He looked at O’Hara with something like reproach.‘She can’t ring her mother.’O’Hara remained silent.He had the curious feeling that the whole house had fallen silent too, as though listening.‘Lily,’ called Vernon, ‘Lily, get in here.’ He tried to stand up and fell back with a little snort of pain.‘What’s up?’ demanded Lily.She’d powered her face and put on a dab of lipstick.It had made her look older.‘Stella’s been ringing somebody,’ Vernon said.‘Two or three times a day.’‘Not as much as that,’ O’Hara said.‘She’s told him she’s ringing her mother.’‘She can’t be,’ Lily said, not looking at O’Hara.She began to tidy the room.She picked up the shoes from the hearth and put them under the table.‘Who the blazes is she ringing then?’ shouted Vernon.Suddenly he thumped the arm of his chair with his fist, remembering all the times he’d caught Stella on the stairs in the middle of the night, staring at the telephone.He asked O’Hara, ‘Has she told you anything else about her mother?’‘Only about the rose on her pillow at Christmas.with the pearls.’Vernon and Lily exchanged glances.If anything Vernon seemed more easy in his mind.‘I’d be very grateful, Mr O’Hara,’ he said, ‘if you tried to find out, discreetly, of course, who she’s calling.I have my reasons for asking.It’s not just nosiness by any means.I’ve as much respect for her privacy as the next man.’‘She can’t be ringing her mother,’ said Lily.‘She doesn’t know where she is.None of us do, except she’s in America somewhere.’Vernon fumbled with several beginnings.He wanted to confide in O’Hara, to get him on their side, but he didn’t want every Tom, Dick and Harry knowing their business.It wasn’t a story that put anyone in a good light [ Pobierz całość w formacie PDF ]