If the Invader Comes. Derek Beaven

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СКАЧАТЬ Her pretty mouth, the nakedness of her neckline and arms … While she sang, while the music flowed, he could see her as if in a movie, briefly disentangled.

      ‘That’s more like it, Vic.’

      

      FEMININITY FLICKERED EVERYWHERE in the smoky club. Vic’s gaze wandered. There were more attractive women than he’d ever seen, wearing less. Out of his element, at home neither with his own class nor the posh one, he was wretchedly alert to them. The flash of one braceleted wrist caught him like a blow. Voices, laughing or languid, tempted at his ear; they underscored the chirruping of his wife. Everywhere he looked he mustn’t look, at the eyes he mustn’t meet. The place scandalised and fascinated him.

      ‘You’re a lucky bloke, Vic. You’ll want to hang on to a skirt like her. I should like to have one, just the same as that.’ Tony chanted softly as if all Phyllis’s melody wanted was a secret fight. ‘Where’er I go they’ll shout hallo where did you get that … tart.’ He grinned. Vic saw his hand under the table squeeze the thigh of the girl; he also saw the wince that crossed her face. He was momentarily excited. ‘She deserves better, Phyllis does,’ Tony said.

      Vic tried to smile. ‘Better than what? Better than the Coal Hole? Or better than I can give her? That what you mean?’

      ‘I don’t know what you’re playing at, Rabbit Warren, keeping a woman like that in the manner you do.’

      ‘Thanks.’

      But Tony compelled him, turning to his female companion. ‘Eh, Frankie? The boffin and the songbird. What do you think of that?’ The voice was level, the grin emotionless.

      Frances opened her mouth disbelievingly at Vic. The drinks arrived. She took hers and held it in front of her with her little finger raised. He looked back. Thickly made up, she might be about twenty, the same age as Clarice Pike when they’d met, and fallen in love. …‘Are you, though? A boffin?’ Frankie giggled.

      ‘So I heard.’ Tony’s grin became a sneer.

      ‘Evening classes,’ said Vic. She even looked a little like her, like Clarice, he thought.

      ‘Can’t you just see him, duckie, with his chemistry bottles and tubes?’

      ‘Marine engineering. I used to go up to Imperial College. On the bus. Three times a week after work. Trying to cram my physics,’ Vic said again, quietly. ‘It’s over now. It was daft anyway.’

      ‘Oh, physics, Frank. Only joking, Vic.’

      Frances looked blank for a second; and then she giggled again nervously. ‘I wouldn’t know what that was.’

      ‘The science of bodies,’ said Vic.

      ‘Really?’ She looked him full in the eye. ‘So what do you do now, then?’

      ‘Nothing. Can’t you tell?’

      The girl stared one moment longer. Then she complained that Tony hadn’t asked her up to dance.

      At the completion of her spot Phyllis made her way through the applause. Vic stood up to greet her just as Tony and Frankie arrived back from the floor. She was breathless, on the verge of tears. ‘Was it all right? Tell me honestly! I was terrible, wasn’t I?’

      ‘Knocked ’em cold,’ said Tony.

      ‘No, I was awful. I’ve spoilt everything. They’ll never ask me back. Vic?’

      He reassured her. ‘It was terrific, darling. You were superb.’ As he kissed the proffered cheek he heard Tony mimicking ‘darling’ to Frankie.

      But Phyllis hardened. ‘You’re lying,’ she said. Her ice-cold look was close up and intent.

      ‘Honestly,’ Vic said. ‘Look around. They’re still clapping. They loved you.’ He licked his lips.

      ‘I can’t look.’ Phyllis clenched her fists. ‘I was so nervous.’ She snatched her handbag from the table and sat down at the vacant seat, her back to the scene of her triumph. ‘So bloody nervous. Is that one for me?’

      ‘You deserve it,’ said Tony. The party resumed their places. ‘Doesn’t she, Vic?’

      ‘Was I really any good?’ Phyllis looked from one to the other, her garish eyes again childlike over the glass, the flutter of lashes too naïve. But she allowed herself to be persuaded. ‘Truly? I get positively sick. It is all right, isn’t it, Vic? You don’t mind?’

      ‘You were marvellous.’ Vic made himself smile. ‘Completely bowled me over. I’d no idea. And the voice. I mean, I hear it at home, but …’

      ‘My voice. I thought it was going to die on me. Did you hear that note in “Mexico Way”? I right muffed it, didn’t I?’

      ‘Never heard any such thing. It all sounded perfect.’

      ‘Really, Vic?’ She seemed winsome.

      He smiled more genuinely, relieved, off guard. ‘Perfectly perfect.’

      ‘You hear what the engineer says. Another round, then, shall we?’ Tony clicked his fingers at a waiter.

      Vic tried to insist. ‘Darling. I know this is boring of me …’

      The atmosphere changed again in an instant. She was fierce. ‘Vic, I told you. My sister said she’d look in on him.’

      ‘It’s incredibly late.’

      ‘This is my night, my chance. For Christ’s sake. This is my kind of place, for once. Jack’ll be fast asleep. He’s not a baby any more, you know.’ Crossly she took out her compact and opened it. ‘Oh, my God. Just look at me. Frankie, you’ll come with me if I go and put things right?’

      ‘All the same, if Tony wouldn’t mind I do think we really should …’

      Phyllis hit the table with her fist. ‘No!’ She shook her head, petulantly. ‘No! No! No!’

      ‘Darling, I …’

      Tony was decisive. ‘You spoil that kid. Come on. Drink up. You’re a smart girl, Phylly, and if you weren’t married to drearyface here …’

      ‘Tony, really!’ Once more Phyllis appeared the innocent. ‘Whatever will you think of saying next?’ Colour spread from her cheekbones and up across her forehead – the streaked powder could do nothing to contain it. Where the shaken wave of hair had worked loose from its kirby-grip, a bright little gash on her temple was visible. Her hand sprang up to touch it. Newly glazed, it reopened. A spot of blood appeared like a red pearl and fell to the table. And another. ‘Christ!’ It was on her fingers.

      Tony cooed in mock concern. ‘Now that’s a nasty one, isn’t it. How did you come by that, Phyllis?’

      Her eyes flashed and she fumbled in her bag for a handkerchief, holding it up to the cut. ‘This? Walked into a door, didn’t I.’ A stain spread under her varnished nails and into the cloth.

      ‘A door, was it?’

      ‘Yes. СКАЧАТЬ