Chapter Three #2
“Beautiful. Look, their stage is a boat half buried in the earth,
prow up so it makes a little arch. There’s a temple, too, complete
with firepit and stone benches.”
“Mm. Apparently people tramp all the way up the hill from Porth
Beach to see them, especially the surfer crowd in summer. Sounds
like fun. And it’s been a while since I did a charity
gig.”
“Do it, then.”
Leaning
an elbow on the table, Laurie looked at him, suddenly wistful.
“Could we, Sash? Just blow out of here and leave Arnold and his
machinations behind—Romeo, too? I know I’d be missing a hell of an
opportunity, but...”
“You should do whatever makes you happy.” Sasha paused to
examine Laurie’s face. “That was a long run for you, playing
Bertram the beast. Are you tired?”
Laurie
shrugged. “How can I be? I’ve only just begun my meteoric rise to
fame. You, though—you’d be better off in all that fresh air. Do you
like Cornwall?”
“I don’t know. I’ve never been.”
“Really? It’s only a few hours out of town.”
“Yeah, I know. Not a top holiday destination from the mahala,
though.”
The
quiet observation, smilingly delivered, stopped them both dead in
their tracks. Sasha sat motionless for a few seconds, then
distractedly gathered up the paperwork and put it out of range of
their coffee and marmalade. He couldn’t believe he’d said it. He
seldom referred to his past, least of all to Laurie, who had lifted
him so generously away from it. As for Laurie, he was pale with the
shock of having forgotten, even for a second, the differences
between them. “Sash...”
The
letterbox clattered in the hallway downstairs, making both of them
jump. A heavy slither followed, and a thud. “Papers,” Sasha said
cheerfully, getting up. “Want me to vet your reviews?”
***
There were several. The Guardian critic had written at some
length. Laurie listened while Sasha read out the salient points to
him. Paul Jacobs, the Rayne’s End director who had given him his
first break, had told him long ago not to read the things himself,
one of the best lessons Laurie had learned—the good ones made him
fret about how he could please his next audience in the same way,
and the bad ones, few though they were, could wipe out with two
words column after column of rapturous praise. Still, they were
useful, and Sasha knew which parts he would find instructive.
Laurie nodded, trying to follow attentively. Roiling around in his
brain was his stupid, unprecedented, upper-class-twit mistake of
thinking Sasha’s former life could have afforded him any
opportunity of popping over to enjoy cream teas and pasties in the
west.
A
headline on the next page caught his eye, and he reached to touch
Sasha’s hand, grateful for the distraction. “Wait a bit. Never mind
me—look at this.”
Sasha glanced at the article. He recognised the initials of
the London Youth Ballet, but it was the photo that made him smile:
a line of neat corps dancers, and, sweeping in front of them, barely more than a
blur and a scrap of tulle, a slender little figure he knew well.
“My God, that’s Clara.”
“Yep. Rocking the hell out of Jane
Eyre at the American Ballet Theatre in New
York. Wow, they love her, don’t they?” Drawing the paper across the
table, Laurie skimmed the review. A pang went through him. Ten
years his junior, still Clara had been his only real companion in
the glittering wasteland of his father’s house. She’d said she
would come home for the summer break between LYB’s tour dates, but
Laurie knew too well how difficult those promises were to keep. He
missed her. “Oof, look at what this guy says... The years were unkind to Miss Eyre, who grew up inexplicably
from the enchanting Clara Fitzroy into a rather dull and bovine
Rachel Pearce.”
“That’s cruel. Clara will hate it.”
“Er... Yes.” Laurie drank some coffee to disguise a slight
flinch. Sasha’s stern, quiet monosyllables always packed a punch.
He sounded at his most foreign then. Laurie could imagine him
facing down an awkward customs official, a nervous new immigrant
under his wing. “She will. Rachel’s her friend.”
Another
strange silence, once more terminated by a rattle and a slither
from downstairs. Laurie met Sasha’s eyes in wry acknowledgment of
the comedy. “Another paper?”
“I didn’t order one.”
“Not post on a Sunday, either... I’ll go get this
one.”
The paper was a red-top, to Laurie’s surprise. Not many of
those found their way into the Fitzroy-Petrica household. Sasha
despised them, and Laurie respected his tastes, though sometimes he
himself found inspiration in the rollicking, scandalous world
depicted there. Neither Dickens nor Trollope would have batted an
eyelid, Laurie thought, once brought up to speed on terminology...
“Slumming it today, are we?” he called back up the stairs. “It’s
the Sunday Star.”
Idly he glanced at the headline. It took him a moment to recognise
his own face. “Oh. Christ.”
Sasha
was with him in an instant. He found Laurie on the fifth step, the
one he’d hung on to the night before. He was huddled up, the paper
tightly folded in his lap. “Sasha. This never happened.”
Sasha
thought about all the news Laurie tried to protect him from.
Attacks on Romani travellers’ camps, stories of persecution,
racism, ethnic cleansing... Yes, he’d snap the TV off at least once
a week, frowning apologetically as if he’d set the vans on fire
himself. And Sasha would switch it back on, gently explaining that
he needed to know, if he was going to do his job properly; loving
him all the while for the attempt. “What never happened,
love?”
“This. I never touched her. I never would.”
With
some difficulty Sasha extracted the paper from his grasp. There
beneath the three-inch banner headline was a photo of his lover—not
a bad one at all, considering the tabloids’ usual delight in
capturing people at their humiliated ugliest. Then, it was tough to
take a bad shot of Laurie. “This is from last year’s Pride march,
isn’t it?”
“Yeah, but that has nothing to do with it.”
Sasha
rather thought it might. Sir Ian McLain had been there, elderly and
frail but very vociferous, using a lifetime of acting fame to lay
into a group of red-top reporters for their stance on gay marriage.
There’d been some pushing and shoving. Laurie had swung in, grabbed
a mic from the nearest journo, leapt onto a wall and taken up from
where the old man’s breath had failed him. Sasha smiled at these
memories, then finally recognised the other picture on the
sheet—much smaller, much less flattering. Wide eyes, their gaze
barely focussed. A bright, desperate grin, as if given on command.
“Laurie, that’s Alison Jones. What is she...”
“Read the fucking headline.”
Sasha did. Odd that it hadn’t sunk in with him yet: there was
enough height, ink and force behind it. He was a foreigner still,
he supposed, accustomed to seeking out images over English. But
there it was. He’s Not
Gay, the paper screamed on Alison’s
behalf. I Should Know.
Sasha took in a few more words. The byline,
My red-hot night with Laurence
Fitzroy, then kiss-and-tell, allegedly homosexual, and hypocrite.
He
folded the paper up. “Where’s Alison?”
“At the bottom of the bloody sea, I hope. Why the hell would
she do this?”
“I don’t know, but she looks awful in this shot. Drunk or high.
We should check she got home.”
“What? Can you see this stuff? Why aren’t you...” Laurie ruffled his hair in
frustration. He couldn’t even form the words for the way he thought
Sash should be reacting. “This is vile. She’s accusing me of things
even I haven’t got stamina for. Why aren’t you...”
Sasha took pity on him. “Outraged? Betrayed? Packing my bags
because you never did it for five hours non-stop to
me with your ten-inch
joystick?”
“Well, yeah. Why...” Suddenly Laurie heard the absurdity of it,
drew a deep breath and answered his own question. He sank his face
into his hands. “Because it’s fucking ridiculous. Because you’d
never believe such a thing in five thousand years.”
“Well, it is a nice joystick, if not quite—”
“Stop it.” Laurie looked up to find the sable gaze steady on
his, bright with compassion and amusement. “Okay. Thank God. But
it’s still not funny.”
“Let me see. They’re outing you... for being straight, right?
My, how times have changed.”
“For espousing gay values and causes whilst all the time having
secret rumpy-pumpy with a girl. That’s what burns me. And I don’t
get it—it’s not like I’m a TV actor or a Big Brother contestant or one of the
mob they normally pursue. I’m astounded they’d even heard of me,
let alone wanted to make me a headline.”
“That reporter you called a gutter-press bigot might have
remembered who you are.”
“The guy at Pride? Was he...”
“From the Star. I think so, yes. But I agree with you that it’s not funny.
Look at Allie’s picture. What state must she have been in, to say
those things? I imagine they were prompting her and she was just
agreeing, but still.”
Laurie
groaned. “All right. I’m sorry I sent her to the bottom of the sea.
Can we fish her up again? I’ll phone her and check
she’s—”
A rap at
the door startled them both. “No need,” Sasha said quietly. “I
think your fish is here.”
She was.
Paul Jacobs had her by the hand, less like a fish than a truculent
kid caught stealing sweeties from Woolworth’s. Laurie opened the
door wide and looked at them both. “Allie,” he said. “Mr Jacobs. I
don’t know what the bloody hell’s going on, but...”
Paul had his own copy of the Sunday
Star. He hadn’t taken time to shave, but he
was clean and reassuring in his summer tweed jacket and brogues.
The Rayne’s End theatre had been a tight-run family concern, he and
Mrs J informal parents to their shifting population of players and
staff. Clearly he hadn’t forgotten his old obligations. “There’s no
particular reason why you should let us in, Laurence. But you
always were a good-natured boy, and we were hoping you might
stretch a point.”
Laurie