Had it been his left hand it would have been worse. He was left-handed, as most first-rate artists were. It took him an hour to stem the bleeding and, even then, a little blood seeped through the bandages.
The remainder of the shortened afternoon was spent in unpacking a crate of oriental oils. It wasn't easy one-handed. Curiously, in the chest of fifty there were half a dozen that caught his eye. By a different artist, signed Dyson, they were good. Landscapes in a darker, subtle key; wild clouds and gentle hills, wind blown and heathery, with just a post in the foreground, or a single spindly tree. But the composition was excellent and the detail finely observed.
He put the six aside, leaving the mystery for another time, for time had flown and it was opening time. But there was something more than that tonight and Mr Lawrence was quite excited. He'd invited Laura to the theatre. They were meeting in The British.
Laura said, “What on earth have you done?”
“A little accident in the shop. Nothing much.”
“Such a big bandage for nothing much.”
“Does it really show?”
“The red does, Mr Lawrence. If you keep your hand bent down, then it won't show so much.”
“Yes, I'll do that.”
“How awful about the colonel,” Laura said but she didn't seem too upset. She was dressed in a very short navy-blue pleated skirt that drew the eyes of the men in the room away from the bargirls, a white T-shirt with Michael Winner's face on the front and a denim jacket. Unusually for Laura there was plenty of navel on show, surprisingly flat navel at that, for Luscious Laura was a shapely girl. Her hair was tied back skullcap tight and a hint of make-up lightened her skin.
She pointed to Michael Winner's red face whose ears flapped Charles-like on her breasts. “It's the only thing I've got with a theatre connection,” she said. “What do you think?”
“I think he's a film director, or was. Now he writes about the restaurants he's visited and he stars in silly advertisements. I've not seen his films.”
Roger overheard, couldn't help himself, and cut in, “Best thing about him was the bird he used to live with. But she left him. Can't think of her name. But tasty. Although, having said that, one could argue that I’ll Never Forget What’s’Isname was his best film. In fact it was just short of a great film.”
The barber said, “I suppose you could, if you wanted to argue. Frankly, whether you like that or Death Wish, he is now a has-been. He hasn’t done a thing for years.”
Sid the Nerve showed up and put in, “At least he’s a has-been. We – we’re a bunch of hasn’t-beens.”
“Mr Lawrence isn’t a hasn’t-been,” Laura said. “He’s a painter.” Roger glanced at Mr Lawrence. “So is Bill Richards up the road who paints the double-yellow lines on the road outside. But we’re getting away from the point. Death Wish was a good film. I'm a great believer in old-fashioned retribution. There's nothing finer than revenge served on an empty stomach. It should be a basic human right. Leave forgiveness to the sacrament of Penance – for you heathens, that’s the confession. In that respect the Arabs have got it right.” Mr Lawrence looked a treat in his best clothes. Apart from the bandage. It tended to draw the eye.
Roger asked, “What happened to you?”
“A little accident with the guillotine. Nothing to worry about.” “I'm not worried, mate. Just curious.”
In the corner Rasher's minders looked glum with nothing to do, their half-empty pints looked flat, their cigarettes in the ashtray had burned away leaving lengths of wasted ash.
Mr Lawrence glanced at his watch and said to Laura, “It's time to go.”
And Luscious Laura put her arm through his and sashayed to the door letting all and sundry know that she was going up in the world. The art world. The theatre. She was on her way. So there. They joined a chattering crowd passing beneath the life-size cut-out greeting from Anthea Palmer into the theatre's optimistic foyer where the smell of fresh paint still lingered.
Mr Lawrence hadn't been to the theatre since the 1971 revival of Showboat, and it was an altogether new experience for Laura. Once they ’ d settled in the darkened auditorium and the curtain went up she sat transfixed, as though not believing her own eyes.
The people next to them glanced at the bandage and eased slightly away.
After the show-stopping hits ‘We Need More Female Gynaecologists’ and ‘This isn't what Nye Bevan had in Mind’, about an hour into the show, the routine which led to the intermission took place.
Anthea Palmer looked radiant in her underwear and high heels, just as she'd done in a thousand newspaper photographs, snapped on the beach in tiny bikini briefs, topless if possible and, if not, then a shot of her behind. Behinds were definitely the thing, nowadays. She had a passable voice too. She sang the song, the song from the show that seemed to be heading for the Christmas number-one slot. It was played non-stop on the radio.
Laura had been singing it as they made their way up the
Carrington's majestic steps.
Oh, Mr Lawrence, I think I love you
Oh, Mr Lawrence, I think you care…
Oh, Mr Lawrence, I think I love you
Oh, Mr Lawrence, we’re almost there…
The act finished and people moved to the various bars but Mr Lawrence remained rooted to his seat. Laura shook him.
“What?”
“It's half-time, Mr Lawrence. It's time for a burger and a beverage.” “My goodness, my dear. I was totally carried away.”
“They were singing about you, Mr Lawrence. Wasn't it good? It's the best thing I've ever seen. All that cross-dressing. Just as well Paul didn't come. It might have put ideas in his head.”
“Indeed,” Mr Lawrence said. “And he's got enough of those already.”
What they didn't know as they sat enjoying the show, was that Paul was in the audience too. Up in the gods, two rows from the back, he sat utterly mesmerized, not knowing what time or day it was. He found the idea of men in women's clothing more than just a little exciting. There was an easiness about the paid for evening. A candle flickered from an old bottle, the neck of which was gobbed with wax. Over her crisp fried-prawn jhuri she told him that she was saving her money to go to America and that her mother had found out about her 'sideline' and had gone 'ape', threatening her with all kinds of harm, including kicking her out of the house. None of it seemed to bother her for her soft looks seldom hardened. That is not to say that her looks were anything other than luscious but they maintained a gentle, yielding – even compassionate – quality which all men, everywhere, found utterly captivating. She was quite perfect, an Eve among Adams, at home and at ease in this Indian Eden.
“You should be like me. Then you wouldn't worry so much. You wouldn't have all those worry lines on your face.”
He laughed at her suggestion. “As the bard would have told you, my dear, in words that are not as good as these: youth, like a poor man’s plonk, has an end-date and to try for an extension is one of the most ludicrous things that men and women, can do. It makes for a pretty pathetic show. And as for me, I was born with these grooves.” “What about the white hair?”
“You're getting personal.”
“That is part of my job. And I do know Shakespeare. He was the guy who said a good wine needs no bush. Maybe that if you drink too much you can’t get it on. See? I’m not just a pretty face.” Behind her the pastel colours of the wall mural flickered in the candlelight. One of the less gymnastic positions of the ancient Sanskrit treatise caught his eye and gave him an idea for later. She began on her shahi beagun and wiped a fleck of sweet coconut from her painted lips. “Do you believe in God, Mr Lawrence?”
“My goodness. That's an odd question.”
“I know, but even so…”
“It’s a difficult one, my dear, and it’s a question that’s crossed my mind once or twice, particularly during those times when the socialists have been in power.”
She frowned.
He went on, “I believe in the theory of chaos, my dear, and then the theory of simplicity, that nature will always find the simple way.” She pulled a face.
“Do you really think an almighty presence could produce so many defects and dysfunctions – not to mention
