Coffin’s Game. Gwendoline Butler

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      ‘Stella?’ He stood at the bottom of the staircase, looking up. ‘Stella?’

      There was no answer. Instead a kind of deadness as if no one really lived here any more.

      Coffin sat on the bottom step, Augustus leaned against him, and they communed with each other on the misery of those left behind.

      But life had to go on, as Augustus presently reminded Coffin by letting out a low, hungry growl. It was his asking growl, and said, ‘Food.’

      ‘All right, boy.’ Coffin got up. ‘Don’t know what I’ve got for you, but if all else fails we will go to eat at Max’s.’ Max had started with a small simple eating place not far from the old St Luke’s church, but skill and hard work from him and his family of pretty daughters had given it great success, to which he added a restaurant and bar in the Stella Pinero theatre.

      Max had, however, helped Stella to fill a deep freeze with meat and fish dishes so Augustus and Coffin shared a warmed-up chicken casserole. Then Coffin made coffee while Augustus retired to bed.

      In the silence of the living room, Coffin took out the packets of Stella’s letters. He opened first the collection which dated back to their earliest days together. Stella was a good, gossipy letter writer.

      Will I find someone here, Stella, who is your dangerous friend? – Friend? I should not use that word.

      He read quickly, seeking likely names: here were Ferdy Chase, Sidney Mells, Petra Land. These names came up frequently, not surprising really, he reflected, because in those days Stella had been a member of the Greenwich Repertory Company as had these performers.

      One or two names, not to be associated with that group, but of whom Stella had gossipy stories to tell, came in: a man called Alex Barnet … a journalist, Coffin decided, and a woman referred to simply as Sallie, someone with the surname Eton, probably adopted. Actors always invented good names.

      The letters were full of theatrical stories and jokes. The story of Marcia Meldrum at the height of her powers, screaming in fury when the bit of moveable scenery (Norman Arden was famous for his moveable scenery) rose up and took her wig with it. All right, she was famous for her thin hair, and her scalp had shone through, but her furious speech had gone down in theatrical history. And the tale of Edith Evans, her youngish lover and the staircase, yes that had a wicked twist to it.

      Was this why I kept them? he asked himself. No, it was because when I had them, I hung on to a bit of Stella, and I always had this feeling that she meant more to me than I ever did to her.

      Where was I when Stella wrote to me? The letters had various London addresses, so from that he knew they came during the restless period when he was moving around from lodgings to lodgings. All in various parts of South London, he noticed. Not the best part of his life.

      Then a long gap when the two did not meet – let’s not go into that now, I am depressed enough – but it had been marriage, death and disaster for him. Stella had swum on the top of the water much better, making a success of her career, a short marriage but bearing a daughter, now a success in her own right, living far away and not much seen but in loving communication with Stella. Stella was better at human relations than he was, he reflected.

      Another batch of letters. They were married now, but she still wrote when in New York or Edinburgh or on an Australian tour.

      New names, but that was understandable because in the theatre you were friendly with the people in the play with you and then you all moved on.

      Josie Evans, Bipper Stoney (what a name to choose, but a well-known singer), Heloise Divan. Marilyn and Henry Calan … yes, he remembered those, nice people.

      One or two names hung around with Stella saying, And do you remember? Ferdy Chase, was one. Also Sallie … sex of the latter not clear. Coffin had assumed a woman, but now wondered if Sallie was not a man.

      Stella just briefly mentioned names and meetings. Coffin knew he could run a check on these names.

      Sylvia Soonest, Arthur Cornelian. Some of the names he remembered and could put a face to. Eton again.

      Then he folded all these letters away and turned his mind to the photograph.

      He knew he dreaded picking up anything of these latter letters but it had to be admitted that the doctored photograph did not show a very young Stella.

      He forced himself to think about the photograph again: you could not see her face except in profile, and the curve of her back.

      Fake, fake, fake, he said to himself. Come back home and tell me so, Stella.

      The door bell rang, loudly, twice. It was Phoebe on the doorstep with a bottle under her arm.

      ‘Came to see how you are. Had anything to eat?’

      ‘I think so.’ He tried to remember. ‘Yes, the dog and I found something in the freezer.’

      ‘Have a drink then. Not a bad wine, not the best claret in the world, but that would be hard to find round here. And this is, so my worldly friends tell me, drinkable.’ She rolled the word round on her tongue as if she found it a bit of a joke. She looked towards him to see if he found it a joke, too. No, no laugh. ‘We will drink this together and get really sozzled.’ At least you will, if I can manage it.

      They sat down together at the kitchen table in front of the big window which looked across the road to the old burying place now secularized into a little park. It was seldom used, too many ghosts for most people. The cats of the neighbourhood found it a good hunting ground.

      The bottle of wine was opened and, after the first glass, Phoebe decided her old friend looked better.

      ‘Now what would you do,’ she said, ‘if this was not Stella but another woman who was missing?’

      ‘Oh, send people like you to find her.’

      ‘And how would they know where to look?’ She filled his glass again. They drank in silence for a moment or two.

      ‘I suppose I’d search for an address book, or a diary. Take a note of bills, anything that might give a hint.’

      She just looked at him.

      ‘But it’s Stella,’ he protested. Stella’s privacy, how could he invade it?

      ‘If Stella is in danger – and I think that photograph on the dead man suggests she is – you have to find her.’ She filled both glasses again, almost emptying the bottle. ‘Can I help? Want me to do it?’

      ‘No. Thanks, Phoebe, but no.’ He stood up. ‘I am probably going to hate myself for what I am going to do.’ He held out a hand. ‘Thanks for coming.’

      In the bedroom, Stella had a pretty white painted desk, very small, where she kept her private letters, as opposed to the professional ones which her secretary at the theatre kept on file. Very few letters, but he put them aside to be studied. A postcard with a view of the Tower of London, a scrawl on the back which said: ‘See you, love and remembrance, A.’

      There was a blue leather diary with notes and reminders of engagements, mere initials which he could make nothing much of at the moment.

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