An Awfully Big Adventure - Beryl Bainbridge [61]
Vernon went on the tram to the football match. He’d decided it was best to keep out of Stella’s way until he was actually at the field. With any luck she mightn’t even spot him. There was an awkward moment at the breakfast-table when she asked him why he was wearing his Sunday suit.
‘None of your business,’ he told her and, gritting his teeth, refrained from commenting on her own mode of dress.
‘And she’s ashamed of me,’ he fumed to Lily, when Stella had at last left the house. ‘It’s a wonder she’s not mistaken for a boilerman. If I had my way I’d set fire to those blasted overalls.’
‘It’s a phase,’ soothed Lily. ‘She’s trying to hide herself.’
O’Hara waited for Stella outside the theatre. A procession of Treasure Island pirates carrying cardboard boxes bulging with beer bottles were already noisily boarding the coach. Bunny, unshaven, stood at the kerb with the stage manager of the Empire. He said worriedly, ‘I hope you’re going to keep an eye on that lot. We don’t want any injuries.’
‘Don’t talk soft,’ said the manager. ‘They’re mostly chorus boys.’
The celebrated comedian who was playing Long John Silver made a brief appearance in a chauffeur-driven car.
‘I’m on my way, playmates,’ he called, winding down the window to show his melancholy face. He was eating a bacon sandwich and hurled the crusts into the gutter as the car drove off.
Stella came up the street with Geoffrey and walked straight past O’Hara. She hung on to Geoffrey’s coat as he hauled himself onto the coach. Just then Dotty turned the corner arm in arm with Desmond Fairchild. She stopped and jabbed at O’Hara’s machine with her umbrella. ‘That bloody bike,’ she said, although she knew it wasn’t the same one.
Ignoring her O’Hara ran up and down the pavement waving his arms, trying to attract Stella’s attention. He was fairly certain she had seen him. Humiliated, he returned to his motor-cycle and, mounting the saddle, stabbed the toe of his flying boot furiously against the starter pedal. Trailed by a cloud of exhaust fumes, he accelerated up the road.
All the way to the football ground he thought about her. Every evening since Boxing Night she had come to his basement-room and allowed him to make love to her.
‘You’re sure you like doing this, aren’t you?’ he had asked her in the darkness. ‘I’m not making you do something you don’t want to do?’
‘Nobody makes me do anything I don’t want to do,’ she assured him. Yet when he saw her the next day and attempted to speak to her she told him to leave her alone and ran off into the prop-room.
She had confided she was in love with someone else, but he didn’t believe her. It wasn’t possible she was attached to young Geoffrey – whenever she mentioned him her voice had an edge of contempt. He couldn’t fathom why she was so anxious that no one else should know of his interest in her. All the women he had ever known had wanted to flaunt their possession of him, however fleeting.
He had let slip he was married. He’d begun to tell her an anecdote about the time he’d been trying out some play in Brighton when he’d very nearly missed the curtain because he’d accidently locked himself in his hotel-room, and how if it hadn’t been for his wife – realising his blunder he broke off and wanted to know if she minded his being married. ‘Why should I?’ Stella had answered. ‘People of your age usually are.’
He had laughed, and felt unreasonably hurt. A short time later he couldn’t prevent himself from asking whether she didn’t love him just a little. ‘I’ve told you,’ she said. ‘I love someone else.’
‘But you don’t do this with him, do you?’ he demanded, straddling her on the lumpy bed and thrusting into her.
‘What’s that got to do with it,’ she had said, screwing up her face in concentration.
For all his worldliness he was shocked. He was afraid she was becoming corrupted. He had only to suggest she lift her hips a fraction higher or arch her back rather more sharply for her to comply at once. She began to add certain embellishments of her own. On their third night she ordered him quite roughly