was only matched by his failure as a human being.
It wasn’t that cynicism struck no chord. He himself tended to attribute the worst motives to everyone and was distrustful of optimists. But like all practitioners of an art, he liked to feel that his version of it was a definitive one. His cynicism could still be unexpectedly erased by the sight of a child or the shock of a sudden kindness or a moment of desire, while Ruth’s blanket coverage seemed to debase the currency of cynicism.
It wasn’t that she’d had a particularly bad life. True, its emotional path had been a bit rocky. In her twenties she had had a series of affairs which never stood a chance of going the distance (Charles would have put himself in that category) and eventually at the age of thirty married a central heating systems salesman five years her senior. The marriage lasted three years until he went off with a croupier and they got a divorce. The fatalism with which Ruth accepted this reverse suggested that she had never had much faith in the marriage and had been undermining it for some time.
‘So you came.’ She spoke with that exactness of enunciation which is more revealing than an accent.
‘Yes, I said I would.’
‘Oh yes.’ The disbelief in her tone instantly put the clock beck seven years. ‘And how are you, Mr Charles Paris?’
‘Fine, fine.’
‘Good. And your lady wife?’
‘I don’t know. Well, when I last saw her. It’s a few months back now. I believe she has a boy friend, someone from the school where she teaches.’
‘Good for her. Not going to wait forever on your filing system, is she? Can I get you a cup of tea or a drink or something? Or should I show you up to your room in true landlady fashion?’ She leant against the kitchen table in a way that could have been meant to be provocative. It was always difficult to know with Ruth. But seeing her, Charles remembered how much he had fancied her. That was really all there ever had been to the relationship. If there were nothing to life except bed, they’d still have been together. He felt a warm trickle of desire in spite of all the gloom which she had generated inside him.
He overcompensated by the heartiness of his reply. ‘A cup of tea would be really… grand.’ Her flash of suspicion made him wish he had chosen another word. He’d forgotten how sensitive she was to anything that could be construed as criticism of her Yorkshireness.
She made the tea and Charles kept up a relentless flow of banter to stop himself from making a pass at her. ‘How are things in Headingley then?’
‘They don’t change. I’ve lived here thirty-four years and lost hope that they ever will.’
‘Still in the same job?’
‘Oh yes. I think Perkis and Levy, Solicitors and Commissioners for Oaths, would cease to function without my secretarial assistance.’
‘Enjoy it?’
She spread open her hands in a gesture which showed up the pointlessness of the question.
‘And socially?’
‘Socially life here is okay if you’re a teenybopper going down the discos or an elegant blue-rinse who likes bridge and golf. I’m neither.’
‘No.’ The little gusts of interest which had been propelling the conversation along died down to silence. Charles was morbidly aware of the outline of Ruth’s nipples through the cotton of her patterned blouse.
She broke the silence. ‘This show you’re doing, is it the one at the Palace?’
‘Yes.’
‘With Christopher Milton in it?’
‘Yes.’
‘He’s good,’ she said with more enthusiasm than usual. What’s he like?’
The classic question, as asked by every member of the public about every star. And virtually unanswerable. No reply can possibly satisfy the questioner, who usually has only thought as far as the question. Charles tried. ‘Well, he’s…’ And then realised he could not even answer to his own satisfaction. ‘I don’t know.’
He was glad of the seven o’clock call at the Palace Theatre, as it temporarily took off the pressure of Ruth’s presence.
After David Meldrum’s tentative notes on the Saturday run-through (interrupted by less tentative ones from Christopher Milton), Charles sorted out a later call with the stage management and set off to investigate the adjacent pub.
It was small and dingy, one of the few old buildings which had survived the extensive modernization of Leeds city centre. A few regulars sat around in despairing huddles while a younger group played silent, grim darts. Charles ordered a large Bell’s, which they didn’t have, and got a large Haig. As he turned to find a space on one of the railway waiting-room benches, he recognised a figure in a blue donkey jacket hunched against the bar. ‘Hello, Kevin.’
The bleary eyes showed that the writer had been there since opening time. Charles received an indifferent drunken greeting.
‘Not a bad theatre, is it?’
‘Not a bad theatre? Huh. Are you telling me about the Palace Theatre? That’s good. I’ve been seeing shows at the Palace since I was six. Pantomimes, all sorts. I was brought up here. Meanwood. Went to the grammar school. We were always brought on outings to the Palace, when there was anything cultural on, touring companies, all that. Always came to the Palace. It was my ambition, when I was in my teens, to have something of mine done, performed at the Palace. That and losing my virginity.’
‘And now I assume you’ve managed both.’
‘One happened, near as dammit, in the back row of the Cottage Road Cinema.’ He let out an abrupt, dirty laugh. Then his face darkened. ‘But the other…’
‘The other you achieve tomorrow. First night.’
Kevin looked him straight in the eyes for a moment before he spoke. ‘Oh yes. Tomorrow. First night. But first night of what? Do you think I’ll feel any pride in that?’
‘Don’t worry. It’s going to be a good show. It’s inevitable that everyone’s a bit jumpy just before it starts.’ Charles had not decided yet what he really thought of the show, but he thought reassurance was required.
As it turned out, he was wrong. ‘That’s not what I mean. I mean that what’ll go on at that theatre tomorrow will have nothing to do with me.’
‘Oh, I know it’s changed a bit from the original production, but that’s inevitable when — ’
‘Changed a bit — huh! There’s almost nothing in that show that I put there.’
‘I’m sure a lot of it’s still quite close to the original.’
‘Balls. I should never have agreed. If I’d known what a total cock-up they were going to make of it… okay, they wanted to get in somebody else to do the music… all right, maybe Joe Coatley’s music wasn’t that commercial, but I thought at least they’d leave my text alone. I felt bad about dropping Joe at the time, but now I bloody envy him. I’d give anything to be out of it.’
Deliberately crude, Charles mentioned the money.
‘Oh yes, there’ll be plenty of money. Run forever, a show like this, or at least until his Lordship gets bored with it. You know, I used to think I’d do anything for money — that was when I hadn’t got any — thought I’d write anything, pornography, all sorts. I did, I wrote a real hard-core porn book — filth, all about whips and Alsatians, real muck. I got a hundred pounds for that, but I tell you, I’m more proud of that than I will be when this load of shit’s running in the West End and bringing me in my so many per cent a week.’ He was in full flow, spurred on by the drink. ‘Look, I’m a writer, a writer. If I didn’t want to be a writer, I’d be some other bloody thing, an accountant, a clerk in the Town Hall, I don’t care what. But that’s not what I wanted to be. I wanted to be a writer. And why does someone want to be a writer?’
Charles had his own views on the subject, but didn’t volunteer them. Anyway, Kevin’s question turned out to be rhetorical. ‘I’ll tell you why someone wants to be a writer. Because what he writes is his own, it may be rubbish, but it’s his own rubbish. No one can take that away from him. He wrote it.’ He seemed to realise he was becoming almost incoherently repetitive and paused to collect his thoughts before continuing. He swayed slightly.
‘And that is why I don’t like my work being destroyed by some jumped-up idiot of an actor, who couldn’t even write his own name.’
