The Girl From The Savoy. Hazel Gaynor

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       8

       Loretta

      ‘It isn’t my place to tell you when you’re dreadful, especially not on opening night.’

      A heavy fog smothers London by the time the show is over. Outside the door to Murray’s, the soot-tainted air catches in my chest, making me cough. It is sharp and painful. Far worse than anything I have experienced before.

      Perry looks worried. ‘You really should go to the doctor about that cough, Etta. It’s definitely getting worse.’

      When I’ve recovered and caught my breath I take a long drag of my cigarette and tell him to stop fussing. ‘Was I all right tonight, darling? Really?’

      He shivers, pulls his scarf around his neck, and claps his hands together for warmth. ‘You were fabulous, sister dear. Everybody said you were splendid.’

      I wrap my arms across my chest and sink the fingertips of my gloves into the deep pile of my squirrel-fur coat. ‘Of course they did. They always do. Anyway, you wouldn’t tell me even if I was beastly. Would you?’

      He says nothing. I pinch his arm.

      ‘Ow! That hurt.’

      ‘Good.’

      ‘Etta, I’m your favourite brother, and one of only a handful of people you deem worthy of calling your friend. It isn’t my place to tell you when you’re dreadful, especially not on opening night. There are plenty of people being paid perfectly good money to do that.’

      I pinch him again. ‘You’re a dreadful tease, Peregrine Clements. First-night notices are ghastly things. I’m nervous. What if the critics hate it? I really can’t bear to think about it.’

      He crushes his cigarette beneath his shoe. ‘Come on. Let’s get disgracefully drunk. By the time the notices are in, you’ll be too blotto to care.’

      But despite the cold and the lure of champagne cocktails, I’m reluctant to go inside. ‘Walk with me around the square?’

      ‘What? It’s freezing. You need a gin fizz, dear girl, not an evening constitutional.’

      ‘Please, Perry. Just once around. It was so dreadfully stuffy in the theatre tonight, and the club can be so suffocating at times.’

      He sighs and offers his arm. ‘Very well. I’ve lost most of the sensation in one leg. I might as well have a matching pair.’

      Looping my arm through his, I rest my head wearily on his shoulder as we stroll. I enjoy the sensation of his cashmere scarf against my cheek; the sensation of someone beside me. For a woman constantly surrounded by people, I so often feel desperately alone.

      We walk in comfortable silence. For a few rare moments we are nothing more remarkable than a brother and sister enjoying an evening stroll. Much as he frustrates me, I love Perry dearly, although I can never bring myself to tell him so. Even when he came back from the front I couldn’t say what I’d planned, couldn’t say the words I’d rehearsed in my head and written in dozens of unsent letters. Old habits die hard. Our privileged upbringing might have left us with proper manners and a love of Shakespeare, but it also left the scars of unspoken fondnesses and absent affection. We are as crippled by our emotions as Perry is by the shrapnel wound to his knee.

      ‘How did the meeting go with Charlot today? Did he like your piece?’ I hardly dare ask. Perry’s meetings with theatrical producers have been less than successful recently.

      He yawns. A habit of his when he isn’t telling the truth. ‘Not bad. He didn’t hate it. Didn’t love it either.’

      I stop walking. ‘You didn’t go, did you?’

      ‘Damn it, Etta. Are you having me trailed? How do you know everything about me?’

      ‘Because you are about as cryptic as a brick, darling. Anyway, it doesn’t matter how I know. But I would СКАЧАТЬ