TEN
1968
A brisk wind blew along the promenade. The full-skirted frocks of the women crowded in the entrance to the West Pier billowed and fluttered. A couple of bonnets flew into the air and off into the sea. The soldiers in their puttees and tin helmets milled around, smoking and flirting with a gang of suffragettes.
A short, rotund man with long sideburns stood beside a camera talking earnestly to the man peering through its lens. He was wearing white slip-on shoes, a flat cap and black, shiny PVC coat. The entrance to the pier had ‘World War One’ written in neon in an arc over it. A sign below it read: ‘Songs, battles and a few jokes’.
The Avalons were clustered together in their American uniforms near a bunch of students in period costumes, who were to cheer them on as they entered the First World War by marching along the pier into the main theatre. A cricket ground scoreboard had been set up partway along the pier to provide the war’s results – lives lost and yards gained.
Charlie was scratching underneath his helmet.
‘This bloody thing is making my head itch.’
‘Did you ever see that anti-war film John Lennon did?’ Billy said.
They all shook their heads.
‘It was good,’ Billy said, looking down.
‘So that’s Big X,’ Dan said, looking over at Richard Attenborough in his PVC coat.
‘Brilliant in Brighton Rock when he was our age,’ Hathaway said. ‘Really chilling.’
As he spoke, he was straining to catch sight of Elaine among the other extras. His father was trying hard to get her a speaking part, but in the meantime she was playing one of dozens of Vanessa Redgrave’s suffragettes.
‘Oh, oh, oh, what a lovely war,’ Dan sang under his breath.
A month or so earlier, Hathaway had visited Elaine on campus sporting his new look, inspired by Steve McQueen in The Thomas Crown Affair. Inevitably, her room door was open and, equally inevitably, a gang of people were lounging there listening to The Beatles’ White Album.
Hathaway in his three-piece herringbone suit looked around for Elaine. Everyone was barefoot, wearing T- shirts and sitting cross-legged, some sprawled on the cushions scattered over the floor. A couple of joints were being passed haphazardly around. A boy with a goatee beard and a long scarf twirled round his head offered one to Hathaway.
Hathaway shook his head. He was feeling like Thomas Crown dropped into an episode of The Monkees.
‘Is Elaine here?’
‘Is anybody really here?’ the man said drowsily. ‘We’re just figments of your imagination, man.’
‘Yeah, right.’ Hathaway raised his voice. ‘Anyone know where Elaine is?’
Silence. Hathaway repeated the question. A voice from behind him, lazy, slurred:
‘Who’s Elaine? And who the fuck are you, Mister Three-Piece Suit?’
‘Steve McQueen in that movie – he wishes.’
‘Who’s anybody?’ the guy who’d offered Hathaway the joint said, and Hathaway thought about decking him. The whole doped-up lot of them, actually. Though that seemed mean as one of his guys had probably sold them the dope.
‘This is Elaine’s room,’ he said, adjusting his waistcoat. ‘She lives here.’
‘Oh, that Elaine.’
‘That Elaine.’
One man looked round the room, waved his arms slowly but expansively.
‘She’s not here.’
Hathaway chewed his lip.
He found Elaine sitting straight-backed on the steep grassy incline behind the hall of residence.
‘Big sky,’ he said, looking up and around at the blue flecked with white vapour.
‘Hey, you.’
She scrabbled to her feet and grabbed his face. He put his arms round her waist and lifted her clear of the ground.
‘I’ve got some good news for you,’ Hathaway said.
She ran her fingers down the edges of his lapels and gave him a questioning look.
‘You’re coming to the ashram with me?’
Her breath smelt of tangerines, her skin of patchouli.
‘You’ve got an audition for a part in the film they’re making on the pier.’
‘This is no time for films. There’s a lot going on.’
‘What do you mean there’s a lot going on?’
‘Benny burned the American flag outside the senate house and Dave threw a pot of paint over the guy from the American embassy.’
‘Because?’
‘Because? Because those who defend US policy in Vietnam are stained with the blood of thousands. The flag of the United States was burnt because every day napalm dropped by US planes burns Vietnamese people to death or inflicts the most dreadful wounds on them.’
‘OK. Thanks for explaining. What’s going to happen to Benny and Dave?’
‘They’ll be kicked out. Rusticated.’
Hathaway composed a solemn expression.
‘Serious times, indeed. But, look, this is an anti-war film. Oh! What A Lovely War.’
‘I’ve seen the play! It’s a musical – I saw it at the Wyndham, though Joan Littlewood did it years earlier in the East End.’
‘Well, they’re filming on the seafront all the way from Madeira Drive down to the West Pier. And planting sixteen thousand burial crosses on the Downs over Ovendean way.’
‘So how can you get me an audition?’
Hathaway was hot in his three-piece but he liked pressing against her.
‘Well, they’re doing a lot of shooting on the West Pier. In fact, it’s closing down from April to August to accommodate the shooting. Which will affect Dad’s business. And Dad’s providing security. So he can have a word. No promises, mind. But if worst comes to worst, they’re looking for loads of local extras. All The Avalons are going to try to get on it.’
She looked up at him and he couldn’t figure out exactly what thoughts were passing in quick succession behind her eyes.
‘Your dad’s got that kind of clout?’
Hathaway shrugged.
‘We’ll see.’
She tilted her head.
‘OK,’ she said.
He disentangled himself and reached into his jacket pocket.
‘I know you get disgustingly long holidays, so I wondered if before that, during your Easter break, you might want to go away for a couple of weeks.’
‘Of course,’ she said, taking the proffered plane tickets. Her eyes widened as she read them. ‘Greece!’ she said, trying not to squeal.
Hathaway had been thinking a lot about the things Reilly had said that night on the balcony. He’d thought
