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There was a rumour spreading among the audience at the Palace of Varieties that the girls would actually be naked in the finale. As a result it was becoming increasingly difficult for the preceding acts to command the full attention of the house.
Julian watched from the orchestra pit as Professor Mangassarian, the spiritualist medium, who normally held all present spellbound, struggled to find anyone who would claim as their own ‘a grey bearded gent named William’, or ‘a fair haired child who died of the scarlatina’.
In fact, the girls would not be naked. Julian had seen them during dress rehearsal in the flesh-tone body stockings debuting tonight. They wouldn’t even be dancing, but striking dramatic poses in something called a tableau vivant. The London County Council did not deem any kind of movement respectable in the circumstances.Mangassarian came to the end of his patience and, in his doubtful Romanian accent, predicted the end of the world before the close of the century. He made a stiff bow before stalking off and, as the curtain fell, the Chairman stepped up from the audience to announce the next act.
Julian made his way backstage to meet Mr Fielding, or Lady Patricia, as he was known. He found him retying the laces on one of his high heeled boots.
Fielding greeted Julian with a warm smile. “Good evening, Mr Barratt. The crowd is lively tonight.” He smoothed the skirt of his gown. “We’re going to have our work cut out.”
Julian had been asked to step in as Fielding’s pianist for this week’s performances when his own had let him down. Normally he stayed away from the stage, keeping to his place in the pit with the rest of the house orchestra. He adjusted his bowtie and flattened his rigidly oiled hair, stumbling over his ‘good evening’.
“Don’t be nervous. You’ll do well enough,” Fielding said kindly, as if Julian was the one about to appear in a green silk gown and ribboned bonnet before hundreds of excitable Londoners.
The Chairman announced Lady Patricia with an abundance of effusive adjectives on the subject of her grace and beauty, and begged the audience to respect the delicacy of her feelings. The crowd responded with whistles and cheers as Julian followed Fielding on to the stage and took his seat at the piano.
He had seen the act before and it always began with Lady Patricia opening a parasol and strolling across the stage, back and forth, allowing the audience to appreciate the perfection of the impersonation. Mr Fielding was slightly built, he had large eyes and girlish lips, and these natural attributes aided the artifice. A corset under the gown sketched a feminine figure and a high wig and make up completed the striking picture of a woman.
The audience were silenced, the naked girls momentarily forgotten; they had never seen anything like Lady Patricia. They knew she was a he, of course; the play bill said so and there were enough clues in the broad architecture of Fielding’s face. But they were accustomed to female impersonators being comedy turns; gruff, stubbled dames or clumpy milk maids. They were not used to the confusion of a man with genuine feminine beauty. Julian knew he wasn’t.
“Forgive me if I seem agitated,” Fielding began, his voice a tone higher than his natural speaking voice, and smoothed soft. “But there is such an uproar back stage. You see, the ghosts the Professor conjured are refusing to leave.” The audience took a moment to realise he was referring back to the last act and then, delighted, cheered him on. “I could scarcely fight my way through them. They were dancing quadrilles for shillings scaring the performing collies, spilling tea on the Hindoo Princess. Dreadful.”Patricia turned to Julian. “My pianist, Mr Barratt, slipped in a puddle of ectoplasm. It took six burly stage hands to stand him on his feet.” The parasol twirled. “Of course, I was quite jealous.”
On impulse, Julian performed an elaborate mime of wiping ectoplasm from his eye. Fielding flashed him a smile and moved on, announcing the first musical number.
This brought more confusion for the audience. The song, accompanied only by Julian’s piano, was an old one called, ‘The boy I love is up in the gallery’. It was a pretty love song addressed to an imagined suitor watching from the royal circle, but rendered without the broad comedy for which it was known. He sang it to make the audience shed a tear, even though they could not quite forget this was a boy singing to a boy.
The act finished with another song; this one called ‘I don’t put myself forward too much’. It was delivered by Fielding, with unblinking innocence, even though the cheeky innuendo in almost every line had the crowd shrieking with laughter. There was, Julian realised, something subtle and instinctual about Fielding’s comic timing which kept the audience in his power from start to finish.
After the performance, they listened to the applause die away and Fielding thanked him. His voice fell to its natural pitch and dropped a social class as well. “That was nice work. I wish I’d had you at the last place. Will you be able to help me out for the rest of the week?”
“Of course.”
Fielding offered him a white gloved hand to shake. Then he loaded the parasol and sheet music into a carpet bag and hefted it on to his shoulder. It was not uncommon for artists to perform their act at three or four of the halls in an evening, and Julian assumed he was on his way to his next show.
“Are you going back to the pit?” Fielding asked.
“Aye, for the finale.”
The chorus girls were already gathering; for the moment modestly attired in robes.
“Oh God, yes,” Fielding whispered. “The girls without their drawers on. I’d better go, I can’t compete.”
Julian finished the night with the House orchestra. They were almost drowned out by the cheering and foot stomping that greeted, the tableau vivant. The audience were not deterred either by the girl’s strange motionless posing or by the subtle deception of the body stockings.
~*~
After the show Julian walked with some of the other musicians to the Crown in Charing Cross. The pub welcomed those finishing late at the halls and stayed open to accommodate them. He went to order drinks, while the others found a table with the Lyceum’s string section.
“Hello again.”
He turned to see Fielding leaning against the bar, a glass of brandy in front of him. The carpet bag was at his feet and a garment bag containing his costume, hung from a coat hook behind him.
If anything, he was more confusing to Julian out of his female apparel. He was in grey tailored trousers now, and a white, collarless shirt which hung loosely. He wore an embroidered waistcoat, a yellow silk scarf and he was the only man present who wore no hat. His hair, which was long in the manner of an aristocrat from two centuries ago, fell to his shoulders. Although he had removed his stage makeup, some dark stuff remained around his eyes, highlighting their vivid blue.“Hello,” Julian said. “Did you go on to another turn?”
“I finished at the Cabbage.” It was the name they all used for the Savoy Theatre, a few steps further down the Strand. It had taken a number of baffling conversations on his arrival from Yorkshire last year before Julian had understood that.
“Do you want another?” He asked, gesturing to Fielding’s drink which was still half full.
“No thanks.” He smiled tiredly. “My wife’s waiting for me at home.”
“Good night then,” Julian said, as he took his drinks. Fielding raised his glass to him, and he found a place on the bench with his colleagues.
Later the crowd in the pub thinned and Julian, glancing across, saw Fielding had not yet left. There was a man with him now and, although he could not hear them, it seemed to Julian they were arguing.
The scene went on without resolution and the second man, who was older than Fielding, took a step closer to him. There was something in his manner that made Julian concerned a fight was about to start. He put down his glass and made his way through the clusters of drinkers to the bar.
“Do as you like,” he heard Fielding murmur, as he arrived at his side. “You will anyway.”
“What is the trouble, sir?” Julian asked of the stranger. He was a large man in both height and physique, and dressed as a gentleman in a grey business suit and bowler hat.
The man did not respond to Julian’s quiet question, or even take his pale eyes from Fielding to acknowledge him. He raised his hand in a slow, deliberate movement and put it against the smaller man’s chest. Fielding gazed back at him with a mixture of fear and defiance but he made no answering move; it was almost as though the touch, light as it was, pinned him in his place.
“Your last chance, Noel,” the man said.
When Fielding still did not respond, the stranger removed his hand.
“Very well,” he said, as if a disputed matter had been settled. He turned and left the pub with an abrupt, ‘good night’.
Julian found himself disturbed by the incident. It was as though he had witnessed a physical fight which the younger man had unquestionably lost.
“Are you all right, Fielding?” He asked.
“Yes.” He dragged a hand through his hair. “Thank you.” He paused, as if momentarily lost, and then reached for his coat; a disreputable dark velvet affair, far too big for him, and shrugged it on. “I have to get home.”
He gathered his belongings and left, offering a dazed salute for a goodbye.
After he had gone, a slash of colour caught Julian’s eye and he saw Fielding’s scarf on the floor. He picked it up; the faintly patterned yellow, light as folding air in his hand. He followed Fielding from the pub, running to catch him up as he crossed the road.
“Excuse me,” he said. “You left this inside.”
At first Fielding stared at the piece of silk as if he did not recognise it. Then he nodded and finally took it, absently pushing it into his pocket. Julian became concerned at his vagueness.
“Shall I walk with you?” He asked.
“I’m sorry?”
“Um, shall I walk home with you? You seem a little -.”
Julian could see Fielding making an effort to regain his focus, and he finally looked up at him.
“I’m not a girl, you do understand?” He said.
“I didn’t - pardon me,” Julian stammered. “I didn’t mean to suggest-“
“Well. Perhaps a little.” He regarded Julian thoughtfully. “I don’t live far from here, and I would appreciate the company.”
It was a mild autumn night and the streets were still busy with people out for an evening’s entertainment. Julian noticed many glancing their way, but Fielding seemed oblivious to the interest his eccentric outfit attracted from passersby along Charing Cross Road“You haven’t asked what that performance was all about,” Fielding said.
“It’s not my business.”
“True.” He glanced back, again betraying his nervousness. “He was just trying to get me to work for him.”
Julian wondered why a job offer should be so distressing.
“I live near Soho Square,” Fielding went on. “How about you?”
“Brixton.”
“I’ve heard it smells of vinegar.”
“Yes.”
“You don’t talk much, do you?”
“No, I’m sorry.”
“No need to be,” he said, smiling at last. “I can usually do both sides of the conversation.”
They soon passed into the untidy tangle of streets that made up Soho. The district teemed with life at every hour. By day the factories, warehouses and shops ticked along industriously, while in the evening the flash houses and places of entertainment opened their doors; the foreign eating houses began to emit strange aromas, and the pubs filled with artists, musicians, scholars and anarchists.
Julian knew the area well; the Palace of Varieties, where he worked, stood on Cambridge Circus where Soho began and he often spent time here on matinee days between performances. He would have liked to have lived here; it was the place he had imagined when he used to imagine London. But even though the rents were kept relatively low by the area’s poor reputation he still could not afford it.
“Do you have a first name, Mr Barratt?” Fielding asked.
“Julian.”
“And you call me Noel, all right, Julian? Or Jude?”
“No-one ever called me Jude.”
“Would you be interested in being my pianist permanently, Jude? I paid seventeen shillings per night to my last. I know you have to give notice at the Palace but -”
Julian hesitated for only a moment. “Yes, all right,” he answered.
The use of his first name had persuaded him. No one else had since he left his father behind in Yorkshire all those months agoNoel smiled. “At last something good has happened. I’m glad, and I’ll try not to involve you in any more pub fights.”
They ignored the calls of the street whores, and the Italian roast chestnut merchants as they walked up Greek Street toward Soho Square and its lonely patch of green. There was a pub close to the square, its first floor reaching across a narrow road to form a crooked archway. Fielding turned here into Rose Street; a busy passageway leading back to Charing Cross Road.The house stood in a row of tall, narrow buildings across from a chapel and mission house. When he failed to locate the key in his multiple bags and pockets Noel knocked at the front door. The population of the house were evidently used to this and mobilised to wake his wife. She opened a top floor window and threw down a set of keys. Julian caught a glimpse of a young woman with sleep-tousled blonde curls wrapped in a floral shawl before the window closed again.
“That’s my Lizzy,” Noel said, sadly. “I’ll see you tomorrow at the Palace, Jude. We can talk business. Thank you for the escort.”
Julian wished him goodnight and began his walk back to Brixton.
~*~
The audience at the Palace were calmer that night, and consequently Professor Mangassarian was in a better mood. The visiting spirits were less interested in the apocalypse and more in finding lost pocket watches, stirring up family feuds and talking about the weather. There was no doubt they were English ghosts, Julian thought.
When the act finished, he went backstage to find Noel. He was there, but seemed to have just arrived and, worse, was not yet dressed or made up.
“I’m nearly ready,” Noel said in the face of all the evidence. It was clear he had been drinking, and his eyes were wide with panic.
To Julian, who admittedly had no experience of such matters, he seemed to be at a frighteningly early stage in the engineering miracle required to get a woman dressed. He wore a petticoat, hooped and shaped to give the skirt a fashionable silhouette. A stagehand tightened the ribbons of his corset, another adjusted his wig and held the gown ready for him to step into. Julian stared, it was disturbing to see Noel like this; somewhere between man and woman, and impossible to look away.
Julian could hear the Chairman rounding off Lady Patricia’s introduction, seemingly unaware of the need to delay, and suddenly the stage manager was at his shoulder.
“Barratt. You go on,” he ordered.
“What? No. I can’t.”
“Go and talk some nonsense or something.”
As the Chairman walked back to his table in the pit, Julian found himself propelled on to the stage. He stared at the miles of audience before him, and realised he was inhabiting one of his most anxious nightmares. He gripped the piano and slid onto the seat.
The applause died away into a questioning silence, and still Lady Patricia did not appear.
“Erm. Good evening. Ladies and gentleman,” he began. “I expect you’re wondering where she is. Lady Patricia, that is. Aye, well, she is not here yet. So sadly, you’ll have to wait.”
The audience were silent, evidently believing this to be part of the act.
“The Lady Patricia. My good lady wife. The missus.”
Laughter rippled across the stalls and galleries. Perhaps this was the variety of nonsense required. He had no idea what he was going to say, but he started talking anyway.
“I never know where she is, from one evening to the next. People tell me she strolls about town, twirling her parasol, flaunting her womanly attributes. It never used to be so. How fondly I remember when I was a dashing young sailor and she, a friend to all the seamen.” The laughter grew surer. “And I thought she liked nothing better than to spend her evenings at home with me and the younguns; the girl, Daisy, the boy, Lily Rose, all of us at the piano, singing the old songs.”
His mind went suddenly blank so he started a tune. A huge, dirty laugh went up from the crowd as he began an overly melancholic version of a famous comic song called, ‘what’s in this sausage?’
“You don’t want to know where I’ve been, husband.”
Lady Patricia made her entrance as the song came to an end. Noel was perfectly apparelled, and as composed as if he had been taking tea with a duchess.
“My mother warned me against marrying that Yorkshire pudding,” he said, taking his place at the centre of the stage. “A common sea dog, but I was taken in by his hornpipe. It was a sight to behold and no mistake.” He cut into the guffaw that went up from the audience. “That’s not innuendo! He really can dance.” Julian feared he would be called upon to demonstrate but Noel moved on.
“I regret it now, of course. You should see him, going about the house in nothing but his inexpressibles, frightening the servants. My mother always said, her girl could do better than that. And aren’t I everything you could want from a woman?” He paused. “With a little something extra.”
He waited out the whistles and calls, smiling and laughing along with the audience. “I can’t be expected to stay home each evening; the truth is, I’ve an eye elsewhere.” It was the cue for the first song and the act carried on to its original plan.
Afterwards Noel slumped against a wall, pulling off his hat and wig. His own hair escaped the pins restraining it, and fell messily loose. The girls in the next act, gathering for their cue, cast him worried glances.
“Sorry,” he said. He looked pale under the hastily applied make up. “Sorry.”
“What happened to you?” Julian asked.
“I missed my first two turns,” Noel answered. “I hope you still have your position here because there probably won’t be any work with me soon.”
“I’m going to give my notice now.”
You had to be reliable to survive in the halls. Something must have happened since he saw him last, to have caused this lapse.
Noel looked at him with an assessing gaze and then sighed, pushing himself away from the wall. “Then I had better get to the Cabbage.” He began to pack up his belongings, hastily pushed into a corner by the stagehands. “You were good on stage, Jude. It was sprung on you without warning and they really liked you. Sailors are always funny.”
Julian told the manager he was resigning before he went back down to the orchestra pit, agreeing to stay until they found a replacement.
~*~
Julian stopped outside the theatre after the show to adjust his cap and fasten his coat. There was a blustery wind at work, and it suddenly felt like winter. He turned at the sound of a familiar voice.
“Ahoy, Captain.”
Noel was waiting in the pale glow of an electric street light. He was out of costume but not burdened by bags and sundry as he had been last night. He held his blue velvet coat tightly around him against the weather, and what looked like an omnibus conductor’s cap was jammed down on his head.
“I thought you were going to call me Jude.”
“I am going to.” He saluted, drunker than he had been before. “Good evening, Captain Jude. Can I buy you a pint to apologise?”
“Buy me one to celebrate,” Julian said.
“Our new arrangement?”
He nodded. “What else?”
“True, what else is there?”
“Where’s your costume?” Julian asked, imagining it abandoned at the Crown or in a gutter.
“I went home. I wanted to see if –.” He waved a dismissive hand, making his sentence take an abrupt detour. “- if Lizzy might be home.”
They stopped at a nearby pub where there was space still to be found at the bar. Noel ordered a large brandy and water for himself and a dog’s nose for Julian; a half pint of ale with a penny worth of gin in it. Londoners were fond of this dangerous combination and, Julian reflected, they thought they were hard in Yorkshire.
“Cheers,” Julian said, raising his glass when Noel had only stared into his drink and not spoken.
“Forgive me,” Noel said. “I’m poor company tonight.”
He tapped glasses with Julian, and took a long swallow of drink, before subsiding into silence again.
“What happened, Fielding?”
“Noel,” he said. “Please.”
“Noel.”
“Lizzy’s gone.” He answered Julian’s questioning look. “She left me. This afternoon. I’ve lost a pianist and a wife in the space of two days. She always said I was careless.”
“Can’t you try and speak to her?”
“No, she made that clear enough.”
“Things are said in the heat of the moment that are later regretted.”
“You are wise, Captain. But not this time. Someone has told her about me. About my past, I mean.”
“I’m sorry,” Julian said. He took his pipe and tobacco pouch from his pocket, and went about the ritual of lighting up. Noel watched him.
“Aren’t you going to ask?”
“It’s your private business,” he replied.
“Always the gent,” Noel said. “Are you the only piano player not interested in gossip?”
Julian puffed on the pipe to get it going. “This is to do with the man who threatened you in the pub last night?”
“Yes, everything is about him.”
“Can he damage you further?”
“He doesn’t want to damage me. He thinks he’s in love with me.”
Julian felt his face redden. “You shouldn’t speak of these things,” he whispered.
“I’ve embarrassed you.” Noel picked up his glass and rolled the brandy around it slowly, before swallowing it down. “I should go, I’m too drunk. We’ll celebrate another time. If you still want to work with me, that is.”
Julian watched him go. It was not that he did not know these things went on; especially since coming to London, and living and working among the hall folk. But the glimpses he had caught and the coded comments he had heard, were all as tangible as one of Mangassarian’s spectres. Certainly no one had uttered such a careless, unambiguous declaration in his presence as he had heard from Fielding’s lips. It almost made it real.
He suddenly thought of his father, who viewed London as effectively a different planet. What would he make of Noel Fielding? What would he think of his son now, at home in this strange world?
But it was his own ignorance that frustrated him. There was a planet in the night sky he had no name for. This was not unusual; the whole universe was as unknowable. He believed he would never master sexual relations, just as he would never master so many parts of life others found ordinary and natural. An embarrassing encounter with a prostitute in Leeds when he was twenty had only confirmed this expectation.
Leaving the pub, he headed back toward Trafalgar Square and his omnibus. His way, as usual, was hindered by the crowds of young men and women out on the town. The factory workers and costermongers, noisy and boisterous; the courting couples, clinging to one another in the harsh wind in easy, laughing intimacy and he thought of the loneliness that seemed to travel with his new friend.
He wondered who he would rather pass his time with. He had left his home town because everything there had seemed so clearly defined. In the little fishing town at the ends of the Earth everyone had seemed so sure of themselves and what they should be doing. The boys and the girls, the men and the women; everyone knew their place.
He had never known his. Awkward and shy, all he could do was play the piano. Here in London, where the gentlemen mixed with the lower orders in the halls, the lines seemed so much less clear.
He began to understand how he belonged on the borders where the lines blurred; just as Noel did, with his boy’s body and pretty girl’s eyes. He let his bus pass by, and after a moment’s deliberation turned back toward Soho.
~*~
A pea soup and hot eel stall had opened up across from the house in Rose Street, and it drew a small crowd. The stall holder shouted his wares; his top hat, long white hair and weather hardened face deterring as many as the stall’s enticing scent attracted.
Further along, outside the old church organ factory, there was a coffee stall, and the smell of this was also strong and alluring. Customers from the Mission House and from the wider Soho street life, drank here from tin cups, and ate bread and butter and cake.
He found Noel on the step of his house, holding a cup from the stall. He seemed to be protecting himself from the chill with the floral-patterned shawl his wife had been wearing the night before.
“I was rude,” Julian said quietly. “You answered my question and I was rude.”
“You were right and I don’t think before I speak.” Noel smiled. “But I’m glad you’re here. Are you going to come in?”
He handed his cup back to the stall holder, and brought Julian inside with a hand on his shoulder.
“Of course,” he added. “If you come in, you can never leave.”
Julian nodded. “Aye, well, I haven’t much on.”
Fielding occupied two rooms on the top floor of the building. Following him into the first room, Julian felt as though he had wandered into the boudoir of an Arabian princess. Fabrics of every kind and colour draped across the furniture, swept across the windows and walls and nestled in baskets on every spare patch of floor. Noel lit an oil lamp and, as his eyes became accustomed to the light, Julian saw that a dozen bright coloured gowns hung from a line along one wall.
“Lizzy’s a dressmaker, she makes my stage costumes,” Noel said, nodding at a sewing machine in the corner of the room. “Or she did.”
“Why do you do it?” Julian asked, as he wandered the room taking in the exotic collections of curios; mementos of theatrical productions and a travelling life. “I mean why are you a female impersonator? Your voice is good enough on its own and you’re funny.“
“It’s how I began, I suppose. And I like to dress up.” He shrugged. “What about you? You’re talented; why are you playing piano in a music hall?”
“Because I can’t be a female impersonator with this moustache.”
Noel laughed. “Well you are a manly man, it’s true, but I’m sure we can do something with you. If I can do it with this horses’ face.”
“You look perfect,” Julian said, before realising and blushing profusely.
“Thank you, kind sir.” Noel adopted Lady Patricia’s purr while at the same time hunting in the sideboard. He found glasses and half a bottle of brandy, and they at last drank to their new arrangement.
“Here’s something to make you feel at home,” Noel said, beckoning Julian into the adjoining bedroom.
An iron bed at the centre of the room, wrought with climbing ivy, was adrift with blankets and sheets. Bottles, powders and creams covered a dressing table. Men’s and women’s clothes, under and over garments all made a scandalous jumble in an overflowing chest of drawers. Yet more clothes crowded onto chairs and packing chests, while several migrations to the floor were underway.
The wardrobe standing open and half empty was the only clear sign someone had recently moved out. Julian knew enough not to assume Lizzy would be back for all the feminine items.
In this room the walls were covered by a patchwork of unframed oil paintings in bold colours. Almost without exception the images were of animals, with large disturbing human eyes peering from tangles of jungle creepers, or crouching on city window sills looking in. The creatures were both real and imagined, but even the familiar ones such as the monkey or fox seemed hyper-real, as if at any moment they might mutate into something magical. There could be no question of who the artist was.
Julian whistled. “They’re like creatures from a dream.”
“Weird aren’t they,” Noel said dismissively. “Imagine what it’s like living inside my head. But never mind that, what of this?”
Julian soon saw the reason he had been brought here. A piano took up almost the whole of one wall, it was an upright but still disproportionately large for the room. Its top was evidently the epicentre of bag and parasol storage, but its lid was open, and its seat clear.
“It belonged to my parents. They couldn’t take it with them when they immigrated to the New World, so my uncle kept it for me until I had a place for it.”
Julian’s room in Brixton would have been too small for a piano even if he had been able to afford one. His landlord allowed him to use his when he was in a generous mood, but that wasn’t often.
“Look, your little eyes have lit up. You can come and play to your heart’s content whenever you like.”
“Only say it if you mean it.”
“I mean it,” Noel said, laughing. “I will like it.”
Julian looked at the half-empty wardrobe. “What about your wife? She will come back and not like it.”
“Lizzy won’t be back,” Noel said, his smile disappearing. “It was no marriage to be married to me, and she’ll realise it soon enough.”
“But weren’t you kind to her? Didn’t you share your wage with her? Care for her when she was sick?” Julian wondered how he was so certain Noel would have done all these things; wondered how he was no longer a stranger after barely a day of friendship. “Did you give her reason to be unhappy?”
“I loved her as I could, you’re right, but it wasn’t enough.” Noel chewed at a thumbnail. “Now, you play while I go and find us some food. I’ve had nothing but brandy since yesterday, and my landlady will be keeping a dish warm.”
Julian took his seat at the piano and picked out a scale, pleased with the tone and tuning of the instrument.
“If you hear swearing in German, stop,” Noel called as he left. “Heinrich’s got a gun.”
Conscious of the threat, Julian played a quiet piece he had been composing. It was so far nameless and wordless, but he thought its sentimental air might work well in the halls.
Noel returned with their supper and listened while Julian played. “What’s that?” he asked when he had finished.
“Just something I made up.”
“You compose as well? But that’s beautiful. You should do something with it.”
“If you like it, you can have it. I’m no use with lyrics -”
“I am! I can write some words.”
“Well then, the tune belongs to Lady Patricia.”
They made space at the cluttered living room table to share the bacon and greens the landlady had provided. Her white cat crept in and sat at their feet, waiting expectantly for scraps.It was good not to eat alone. The thought surprised him; he had always preferred his own company. His post-show suppers were normally bought from a street vendor, and taken in his room while the acrobat troupe who also lodged in the house, made alarmingly energetic noises in neighbouring rooms.
Noel was evidently still troubled by recent events, and his enthusiasm for the meal was short-lived. He ate some bread and butter before giving up and tearing strips of meat for the cat.
“The man in the pub yesterday –“ Julian started.
“Mallory.” Noel interrupted, pouring tea for them both from the pot he had brought upstairs with him. “His name’s John Mallory.”
Julian frowned; he thought the name familiar from music hall lore. “Is he the Mallory who used to own a club in High Holborn? The one the police closed for immorality.”
“Yes, that’s where his infamy lies. But that was eleven years ago. He manages acts these days, here and in Paris, though I don’t know if he is any more respectable. I doubt it.” Noel stabbed at some greens before putting his fork down without eating. “I’m going to talk to him. There’s no point trying to hide, I don’t know why I thought I could.”
“Shall I go with you?” Julian found himself asking.
Noel smiled. “Thank you, but I don’t think so. It would just make him angry.”
“If he’s likely to get angry –“
“When I knew him I was just a slip of a girl, he needs to know I don’t scare so easily now. But don’t worry, he won’t misbehave, he wants to be friends.”
“Who is he to you, Noel?”
“Oh Jude, that’s a long, nasty story which I don’t think you really want to hear.”
Julian fell silent. He suspected this was true.
“When I was seventeen, I might have starved on the street, or earned a shilling in ways you wouldn’t approve of. Mallory saved me from that. He’s not entirely the moustache-twirling villain you’re imagining.”
“Aye, but only because he’s clean shaven.”
Noel raised an eyebrow. “Is this you being a blunt Yorkshire man?”
“You’re right, it’s not my business.”
“No, I like that you’re honest. He wants to be my manager. I’ll just tell him I manage myself, and he’ll shove off and bother someone else.”
Noel seemed even less convinced of this than Julian was.
“I’d better go,” Julian said when he had finished his meal. He had missed the last bus and had more than an hour’s walk ahead.
“Don’t be a plank, stay here,” Noel said. He pointed to an unstable mountain of fabrics in the middle of the room. “There’s a sofa under there, I’m almost certain.”
“Thank you, I will.”
“Are you very tired?” Noel asked.
“Not at all.”
“Then will you play your tune again?” Julian didn’t have to be asked twice.
By the time Julian lay down on the sofa and closed his eyes, the brandy bottle was empty, the lamps extinguished and a pale daylight lit the room.
They had finished putting words to the music, and it had become a romance of wry humour and tenderness. Noel momentarily forgot his worries, and had laughed infectiously as they worked. He had a knack of creating pictures in words, but Julian surprised himself by contributing dark comedy to their lyrics.
Julian woke in the early afternoon, to the strange sight of Noel standing over him in what appeared to be a white lace-trimmed nightgown under a red velvet dressing gown.
“What in God’s name are you wearing?” He asked closing his eyes.
“Shut up. Have you got rehearsal?”
“No.”
“Go back to sleep then. I’m going out.”
Julian forced his eyes open again. “To see him?”
“Yes, it’s all right.” Noel examined a handful of his hair. “I’ve got to dress.”
“You do, I agree.”
“Oh what do you know of it.”
“Be careful, Noel.”
“I will.”
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