'In any case,' went on the man, 'it won't make much difference with business like it is now.'
The girl glanced at him as if she were surprised at his letting out something private, then looked at me again and said, 'Do come.' She said it in the friendliest, meltingest way, as if she really cared. What's more, she seemed to have some kind of foreign accent, which made her even more fascinating, if that were possible. She took a small sip of coffee.
'It's only that I might have another engagement that I couldn't get out of. I don't know right now.'
'We mustn't make you break another engagement,' said the girl, in her foreign accent, but sounding as if she meant just the opposite.
I managed a bit more candour. 'I might get out of my engagement,' I said, 'but the truth is, if you don't mind my saying so, that I didn't greatly care for some of the others in the audience last night.'
'I don't blame you,' said the man very dryly, and rather to my relief, as you can imagine. 'What would you say to a private show? A show just for you?' He spoke quite quietly, suggesting it as if it had been the most normal thing in the world, or as if I had been Charles Clore.
I was so taken by surprise that I blurted out, 'What! Just me in the tent?'
'In your own home, I meant,' said the man, still absolutely casually, and taking a noisy pull on his pink earthenware cup. As the man spoke, the girl shot a quick, devastating glance. It was exactly as if she softened everything inside me to water. And, absurdly enough, it was then that my silly pie arrived, with the bit of green salad, and the sauce. I had been a fool to ask for anything at all to eat, however much I might have needed it in theory.
'With or without the swords,' continued the man, lighting a cheap-looking cigarette. 'Madonna has been trained to do anything else you want. Anything you may happen to think of.' The girl was gazing into her teacup.
I dared to speak directly to her. 'Is your name really Madonna? It's nice.'
'No,' she said, speaking rather low. 'Not really. It's my working name.' She turned her head for a moment, and again our eyes met.
'There's no harm in it. We're not Catholics,' said the man, 'though Madonna was once.'
'I like it,' I said. I was wondering what to do about the pie. I could not possibly eat.
'Of course a private show would cost a bit more than two bob,' said the man. 'But it would be all to yourself, and, under those conditions, Madonna will do anything you feel like.' I noticed that he was speaking just as he had spoken in the tent: looking not at me or at anyone else, but straight ahead into the distance, and as if he were repeating words he had used again and again and was fed up with but compelled to make use of.
I was about to tell him I had no money, which was more or less the case, but didn't.
'When could it be?' I said.
'Tonight, if you like,' said the man. 'Immediately after the regular show, and that won't be very late, as we don't do a ten or eleven o'clock house at a date like this. Madonna could be with you at a quarter to ten, easy. And she wouldn't necessarily have to hurry away either, not when there's no late-night matinee. There'd be time for her to do a lot of her novelties if you'd care to see them. Items from her repertoire, as we call them. Got a good place for it, by the way? Madonna doesn't need much. Just a room with a lock on the door to keep out the non-paying patrons, and somewhere to wash her hands.'
'Yes,' I said. 'As a matter of fact, the place I'm stopping at should be quite suitable, though I wish it was brighter, and a bit quieter too.'
Madonna flashed another of her indescribably sweet glances at me. 'I shan't mind,' she said softly.
I wrote down the address on the corner of a paper I had found on my seat, and tore it off.
'Shall we call it ten pounds?' said the man, turning to look at me with his small eyes. 'I usually ask twenty and sometimes fifty, but this is Wolverhampton not the Costa Brava, and you belong to the refined type.'
'What makes you say that?' I asked; mainly in order to gain time for thinking what I could do about the money.
'I could tell by where you sat last night. At pretty well every show there's someone who picks that seat. It's a special seat for the refined types. I've learnt better now than to call them up, because it's not what they want. They're too refined to be called up, and I respect them for it. They often leave before the end, as you did. But I'm glad to have them in at any time. They raise the standard. Besides, they're the ones who are often interested in a private show, as you are, and willing to pay for it. I have to watch the business of the thing too.'
'I haven't got ten pounds ready in spare cash,' I said, 'but I expect I can find it, even if I have to fiddle it.'
'It's what you often have to do in this world,' said the man. 'Leastways if you like nice things.'
'You've still got most of the day,' said the girl, smiling encouragingly.
'Have another cup of tea?' said the man.
'No thanks very much.'
'Sure?'
'Sure.'
'Then we must move. We've an afternoon show, though it'll probably be only for a few kids. I'll tell Madonna to save herself as much as she can until the private affair tonight.'
As they were going through the door on to the street, the girl looked back to throw me a glance over her shoulder, warm and secret. But when she was moving about, her clothes looked much too big for her, the skirt too long, the jacket and blouse too loose and droopy, as if they were not really her clothes at all. On top of everything else, I felt sorry for her. Whatever the explanation of last night, her life could not be an easy one.
They'd both been too polite to mention my pie. I stuffed it into my attache case, of course without the salad, paid for it, and dragged off to my next call, which proved to be right across the town once more.
I didn't have to do anything dishonest to get the money.
It was hardly to be expected that my mind would be much on my work that afternoon, but I stuck to it as best I could, feeling that my life was getting into deep waters and that I had better keep land of some kind within sight, while it was still possible. It was as well that I did continue on my proper round of calls, because at one of the shops my immediate problem was solved for me without my having to lift a finger. The owner of the shop was a nice old gentleman with white hair, named Mr Edis, who seemed to take to me immediately I went through the door. He said at one point that I made a change from old Bantock with his attacks of asthma (I don't think I've so far mentioned Bantock's asthma, but I knew all about it), and that I seemed a good lad, with a light in my eyes. Those were his words, and I'm not likely to make a mistake about them just yet, seeing what he went on to. He asked me if I had anything to do that evening. Rather pleased with myself, because it was not an answer I should have been able to make often before, not if I had been speaking the truth, I told him Yes, I had a date with a girl.
'Do you mean with a Wolverhampton girl?' asked Mr Edis.
'Yes. I've only met her since I've been in the town.' I shouldn't have admitted that to most people, but there was something about Mr Edis that led me on and made me want to justify his good opinion of me.
'What's she like?' asked Mr Edis, half closing his eyes, so that I could see the red all round the edges of them.
'Gorgeous.' It was the sort of thing people said, and my real feelings couldn't possibly have been put into words.
'Got enough small change to treat her properly?'
I had to think quickly, being taken so much by surprise, but Mr Edis went on before I had time to speak.
'So that you can cuddle her as you want?'
I could see that he was getting more and more excited.
'Well, Mr Edis,' I said, 'as a matter of fact, not quite enough. I'm still a beginner in my job, as you know.'
I thought I might get a pound out of him, and quite likely only as a loan, the Midlands people being what we all know they are.
But on the instant he produced a whole fiver. He flapped it in front of my nose like a kipper.
'It's yours on one condition.'
'I'll fit in if I can, Mr Edis.'
'Come back tomorrow morning after my wife's gone out — she works as a traffic warden, and can't hardly
