protestations continued and Anna’s tearful assurances that she had got over it mingled with them. She was playing the scene for all it was worth.
Her unfinished antipasta was taken away and she calmed down sufficiently for the gentle questioning to begin again. ‘That must have been absolutely terrible for you. To be there and… oh, I’m sorry. And it wasn’t that you had been lovers? I mean, you still were right at the end?’
There was a long pause which Charles interpreted as Anna being thrown by the question and not knowing which way to jump. Eventually, the voice came back, quiet, but well projected. ‘Yes, right at the end.’
‘Good God.’ The shock sounded genuine. Gerald had played his part well too. ‘You’ve been thrown into almost exactly the same situation as the girl in this film. It’s amazing.’ Charles no longer felt guilty about the deceit. Guilt was being forced out of his mind by swelling anger as he listened to Gerald laying the next snare. ‘Bereavement is an awful thing. It’s so difficult to explain to anyone what you really feel, the true nature of your emotions.
‘And of course it’s even more complex for the girl in this film. Her lover is, as I said, not very loving. A real bastard, in fact, keeps doing crazy things, cruel things, criminal things. I think the character’s overdrawn. No woman would stay with a man like that.’
‘I don’t know…’ Again just a simple remark infused with all the art her considerable talent could muster.
‘But surely…’
‘What, all that not speaking ill of the dead business? Why should I worry? He’s dead, and when he was alive, it was not his goodness I loved him for. I knew his faults. He could be cruel, oh yes, and evil.’ She was warming to her performance. ‘He’d do crazy things. Wicked things, and he’d say he’d done them for me.’
Gerald had only to grunt interest; she needed no prompting. ‘I mean, take an example. Recently, he nearly killed someone for me. Yes.’ She let the drama of it sink in. ‘There was a girl in our group who would have been in the revue. She had the part I’m playing. And one day I must have said to Willy that I envied her. I don’t mean I was jealous; she was a sweet girl, I liked her-but I must have said what a super part she had or something. And do you know what Willy did?’
‘No,’ said Gerald, on cue.
‘He pushed her down some stone steps.’
‘Good God.’
‘Yes. It was so cruel. No, I’m sorry, you were wrong when you said I didn’t know what it was like to love a bastard. I do, to my cost.’
Charles rose suddenly and switched off the machine.
‘She really was very moving,’ said Gerald. ‘Very. And you reckon this is all significant information? Cherchez la femme, that’s what they always say in detective stories. Frailty, thy name is woman. Is it Raymond Chandler who calls them frails?’
‘Is there much more?’ Charles snapped.
‘A couple of courses. She did perk up a bit after that.’
‘After she’d finished her audition.’
‘Yes, I suppose you could say that.’
‘I’ll spool through and see if there’s anything relevant.’
‘No, I’ll do it, Charles,’ said Gerald hastily. ‘Incredibly pretty girl, I must say. Sort of navy blue eyes. Do you know her well?’
‘I thought I did.’
‘Oh.’ Understanding dawned. ‘Oh.’ Gerald busied himself spooling on and playing snatches of the tape. It was mostly general talk about films and the theatre. At one point Charles’ ears pricked up.
‘… had a lot of experience acting?’ asked Gerald’s voice.
‘Yes. Only at university level, of course.’
‘But you want to go into the professional theatre?’
‘Oh yes. I’ve had one or two offers.’
‘What sort of thing?’
‘Well, I’ve been asked to play Hedda Gabler at the Haymarket, Leicester…’
‘The cow!’ Charles shouted inadequately. With the unquestionable logic of the last piece of a jigsaw puzzle, his own role in the proceedings dropped into place. He was just a prop in the oldest theatrical scene of all-the casting couch.
Gerald spooled on and started playing another extract. ‘Well, as you know, from last night,’ said Anna’s voice, ‘the show comes down about twelve fifteen and-’ He stopped the tape abruptly.
‘What was that?’ asked Charles.
‘Nothing.’
‘Switch the damned thing on!’ Gerald was powerless against this outburst of fury and sheepishly pressed the button. Anna’s voice continued, ‘We could meet after that if you like.’
‘I’m at the North British down on Princes Street. If you meet me in the foyer, say twelve thirty…’ Gerald grinned weakly at the sound of his own voice.
‘O.K. See you then.’ Anna’s tone was poisonously familiar.
Charles switched off the recorder and turned to his friend. ‘Ah,’ said Gerald, ‘now don’t get the wrong impression. What I thought was, if you were planning a confrontation with her, you d want to know where she was, and I thought that’d be handy. I mean, for heaven’s sake, you didn’t think that I’d…? I mean, I’m a married man. Kate and I have a perfect relationship and…’
He was still mumbling apologetically as Charles stormed out of the room.
At first he just walked furiously without noticing where he was going, but eventually calmed down enough to think of what his next step should be. It was midnight and now a confrontation with Anna was unavoidable. All the delicate feelings which had held him back before had been driven out by anger.
He knew her movements well by now. At twelve fifteen the show came down; he could meet her then at the Masonic Hall. Or he could go back to her flat to wait. But a perverse masochism made him reject both possibilities. At twenty past twelve he took up his position outside the North British Hotel. He leant against the corner of the building, at the top of the steps down to Waverley Station, and prayed she would not come. That at least would spare him the final twist of the knife in his wound. The idea of her deceiving him with Gerald was the most intolerable of all the foul thoughts he was suffering. He would wait till a quarter to one and then go up to the flat.
At twelve thirty she came. He heard the clack of heels and saw the familiar figure walking purposefully along Princes Street towards him. She was wearing the pale yellow shirt with fox-trotting dancers on it and the velvet trousers she had worn when he first took her out to dinner. That made it worse.
As she came close, he shrugged his back off the wall and stepped forward to face her. The pain was too intense for him to find words. He just stood there, rocking on his heels.
Anna did a slight take on seeing him, but when she spoke, her voice was even. ‘Charles. Hello. I thought we’d arranged to meet up at the flat.’
He managed to grunt out, ‘Yes’.
‘It’s just as well I’ve seen you actually, because I won’t be there till later. I’ve got to meet someone in the North British.’
He almost felt respect for the directness of her explanation until the lie followed. ‘It’s an aunt of mine who’s up in Edinburgh very briefly.’
‘You’re visiting your aunt at twelve thirty a.m.?’
‘Yes. I’ve been rehearsing all day, so there hasn’t been another opportunity. I’ll get back to the flat as soon as I can.’ She smiled. It was the same smile, the one he had warmed to all week. He realised suddenly that Anna was a perfectly tuned machine. She had all the charm and skills of a human being and knew how to use them like a human being, but inside, controlling everything, was the cold computer of selfishness. Sex, emotions, other people were nothing but programmes to be fed in to produce correct results quickly. Charles knew that he could never again believe anything she said. She was not governed by ordinary principles of truth, but by the morality of advantage.
‘You’re lying,’ he said sharply. ‘You’re going to the North British to see Gerald Venables. You’re going to see him because you think he’s a big film producer and can help your career. In the same way that you slept with me because I direct plays, and with Willy Mariello because he was a pop star and might have useful contacts.’ He
