Coffin on the Water. Gwendoline Butler

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СКАЧАТЬ these bubbles reappear, pushed out from the sodden lungs.

      The body newly arrived showed no such signs and Will Summers knew it as well as anyone. It was probably from him that the first stories came. He had an Irish mother and could tell a tale and usually did. Ginger McCaffey was a mate of his and distributed the news as well as the milk. He was certainly the agent by which the Delaneys and Stella Pinero and the rest heard the news at the Theatre Royal. Joan told the cast as she handed round mugs of coffee. They were doing J. B. Priestley’s An Inspector Calls and it seemed appropriate. Up at Angel House they were slower to hear the news because they were not on Ginger’s round, but Florrie heard when she called on her cousins the Padovanis for her meat. They supplied her with meat, butter, bacon and all interesting information. In their business you got to know a lot, and although taciturn Northern Italians, they were willing to talk to Florrie who was kin. Her mother had been English but they were willing to overlook that since Florrie was so totally in looks and spirit one of them. Only in her taste did she display her English mother; she rarely drank coffee but consumed quantities of sweet dark tea. The Padovanis called her their ‘English cousin’ and laughed at her when she was not there. But they respected her for living at Angel House, for her loyalty to Rachel Esthart, and for lending out money at interest, a good business woman.

      They told her about the body and Florrie told Rachel Esthart. She considered suppressing the news but decided, after thought, that she’d better say. She had a presentiment that it would be wise. Or so she claimed afterwards.

      The other great centre for the spread of news was the local library where Florrie went almost daily to change books for Rachel (she was at the moment reading Miss Heyer’s Faro’s Child and wondering if she should buy the film rights) and where the cast of the Theatre Royal went daily to read the newspapers which they could not afford to buy, so they said, and to steal the one copy of Vogue, which was rationed, if they could manage it. Someone usually could. At the end of the month they put it back, much battered, to the very great fury of the librarian. But in the library everything was told, and all items of news retailed like a good serial. As quite a lot of people changed their library books every day, including Will’s wife and Ginger’s mother, items of interest could be exchanged, added to and occasionally denied.

      Through these channels the news about the dead body spread rapidly with comment added. Very soon the murderer knew what his audience thought of him. He began to see his face reflected in the public mirror. This greatly interested him.

      The news was received by different people in different ways. The Padovanis had taken a frank and cheerful interest in the news, while at the library the elderly librarian had said girls should look after themselves better. She returned to her Elizabeth Goudge.

      Rachel Esthart took the news calmly. She was in one of her downbeat moods after the excitement of the last few days. If she still believed her son was close at hand, she seemed to care much less. Perhaps she no longer believed he was alive.

      She had, of course, been the victim of a filthy joke, and she had the card propped up on her desk to prove it, but she no longer seemed very interested, and if she was not, who else was left to mind?

      Deep inside her own personal castle, Rachel Esthart heard about the dead girl with distant politeness. Florrie was relieved; her premonitions of trouble were wrong. She was very glad not to have precognition or telepathy or whatever. Her grandmother had been a witch; or so her mother (who had not liked her mother-in-law) had always alleged.

      There was always the chance these powers had descended to her. In an Anglo-Saxon environment they would not be a comfortable attribute. But it would certainly show Ma Padovani.

      So she told Rachel, who listened carefully. ‘Poor girl,’ she said sadly. ‘I hate to hear of young creatures dying. There’s been too much of that already in the war.’

      Rachel had never closed her mind to the war, she had listened to all Churchill’s broadcasts. The progress of the war in North Africa and Italy, and then in France and Germany had been followed closely on war maps. She identified herself with the army as if she was a young soldier.

      ‘Florrie,’ she said suddenly, ‘I’m a bit scared. I feel death’s getting too close. Will it be my turn next? Do you think I’m going to die?’

      ‘No, love, no,’ said Florrie reassuringly. ‘When you are going to die, you don’t know. It’s unexpected.’ She wasn’t sure if this was true, but it was something to say.

      ‘Do you think it’s the war that produces a particular kind of murder – all those young men, seeing death, such violent and terrible deaths? No knowing what it might do to the mind. Not if they’re normal. But who is normal? And could you ever be normal again if you’d been blown up? Or blown a man up with a grenade?’ Her eyes wandered to the card promising her a present from her son. She still had it on her desk.

      ‘You ought to throw that away.’ Florrie was cross. ‘It’s rubbish.’

      ‘Is there any gin left?’

      ‘Right out.’ Florrie was regretful on her own account. ‘You finished it yesterday.’

      Rachel sat for a moment in silence, then she said: ‘I won’t drink any more. That’s it. Over.’

      One brick in the wall she had built around herself was gone.

      Stella heard the news as she sat doing her face in her dressing-room. There was a brick out of her wall too, but in her case it was a real one. A bomb blast had weakened an area of brick on the back wall of the dressing-room, and one brick had become dislodged so that a cold breeze played around her ankles. Someone had stuffed the hole full of newspaper but it did not suffice to keep out the air of that chill summer. She kicked at the paper with her foot; her hand decorating an eye with mascara slipped and marred her perfect cheek – the make-up there was just right, a delicate apricot. She swore softly. At such times she resembled a little cat.

      She was considering what she had heard. Joan and Albie had come straight out with the news and told everyone. It might affect audiences; it might affect everyone. One of the company had remarked that the dead girl reminded him of ‘l’inconnue de la Seine’.

      Stella had experienced a little shiver of alarm. She had had a brush with violence herself recently and knew how easily it could come about. It might even be one’s own fault. And now this poor girl.

      Edward poked his head round the door. ‘Hello, poppet, a call for you. Albie wants you in the office.’

      The war had cast a shadow over Stella’s youth and growing up. This separated her from someone like Edward Kelly who had been adult in a world where the lights had blazed all night with no blackout and no bombs. His young world had had no rationing and no clothes coupons. A leading lady in a smart West End production expected to have her clothes ordered from Molyneux and her hats from Reboux. It was a glittering stage which Stella had not known. On Edward Kelly’s nineteenth birthday, he had been appearing with Noel Coward and Noel had sent him round a small bottle of champagne, then invited him back to Gerald Road. On Stella’s nineteenth birthday she had been crouching in a cellar in the Theatre Royal, Bath, while German bombs fell around them, one of the so-called Baedeker raids.

      Edward was a creature from a different world, hence the glamour he had for her, but she was really closer in age and spirit to the two young policemen and Chris Mackenzie, the stage manager and musician.

      ‘What?’ She got up hurriedly. ‘Coming.’ Joan and Albie had no glamour (this was not their style) but they were management and paid the wages.

      She СКАЧАТЬ