I Am Half-Sick Of Shadows

FIVE

 

 

I’D BEEN SPENDING SO much time sitting halfway down the stairs that I was beginning to feel like Christopher Robin.

 

That’s where I was now, looking out across the crowded foyer, where several dozen of the film crew were gathered in little knots, talking. The only one I recognized was the woman called Marion, who had led Bun Keats away in the afternoon. Since Bun was nowhere in sight, I guessed she was still resting in her room.

 

“Ladies and gentlemen!” someone called out, clapping their hands for attention. “Ladies and gentlemen!”

 

The buzz of conversation stopped as abruptly as if it had been cut off with scissors.

 

A pale young man with sandy hair had made his way to the bottom of the staircase, climbed up a couple of steps, and turned to face the others.

 

“Mr. Lampman will address you now.”

 

A few discreet lights were brought up to compensate for Buckshaw’s antiquated electrical system.

 

From somewhere in the shadows behind them, a tiny middle-aged man made his appearance and, like a boy on a country road, strolled slowly and casually across the foyer as if he had all the time in the world. He was dressed, from the top down, in a rather battered olive-green fedora hat, a black roll-neck sweater, and black slacks.

 

In a different costume, Val Lampman might have passed for a leprechaun.

 

He turned and faced the others. I noticed that he didn’t ascend even one of the stairs.

 

“It’s nice to see so many of the old familiar faces—and a few new ones as well,” he said. “Among the latter is Tom Christie, our assistant director—”

 

He stopped to put his hand on the shoulder of a curly-haired man who had now come over to join him.

 

“—who will be seeing that everyone is zipped up and that none of you walk into walls.”

 

A small but polite laugh went up.

 

“As most of you know by now, we’re embarking under a bit of a handicap. Pat McNulty has suffered an unfortunate injury, and although I’m assured that he’s going to be all right, we’re just going to have to get on without his benevolent mother hen tactics, at least for the time being.

 

“Ben Latshaw will be in charge of technical crew until further notice, and I know you’ll extend him every courtesy.”

 

Heads swiveled, but I couldn’t see who they were looking at.

 

“I’d hoped to have a read-through of the first scene with Miss Wyvern and Mr. Duncan, but as he’s not arrived yet, we’ll substitute scene forty-two with the maid and the postman. Where are the maid and the postman? Ah! Jeannette and Clifford—good show. See Miss Trodd, and we’ll meet upstairs as soon as we’re finished here.”

 

Jeannette and Clifford made their way across the foyer towards the horn-rimmed Marion, who waved a clipboard in the air to guide them through the throng.

 

Marion Trodd—so that was her name.

 

“Val, darling! Sorry I’m late.”

 

The voice rang out like a crystal trumpet, bouncing from the polished paneling of the foyer.

 

Everyone turned to watch Phyllis Wyvern begin her descent from the landing of the west staircase. And what a descent it was: She had changed into a Mexican dancer’s costume: white frilled blouse and a skirt like the canopy of a seaside roundabout.

 

The only thing missing was a banana in her hair.

 

There was a smattering of light applause and a single wolf whistle at which she pretended to blush, fanning her cheeks with her hand.

 

She must be freezing in those short sleeves, I thought. Perhaps working under hot lights had made her immune to the English winter.

 

She paused once, to give a helpless little shrug and point her chin to the upper reaches of the house.

 

“Poor, dear Bun,” she said, in a suddenly solemn voice—a voice meant to carry. “I tried to get some soup into her, but she couldn’t keep it down. I’ve given her something to help her sleep.”

 

Arriving at the bottom of the stairs, she floated across the foyer, seized Val Lampman’s forearms, as if to keep him from touching her, and pecked at his cheek.

 

Even from where I sat, I could see that she missed him by a mile. She looked a little peeved, I thought, that he had stolen her thunder.

 

As they held each other at arm’s length, the front door opened and Desmond Duncan made his entry.

 

“Sorry, all,” he said in that voice of his that was known round the world. “Last matinee at the pantos. Command performance. Simply couldn’t bear to tear myself away from the poor dears.”

 

He was bundled up in some kind of heavy fur coat—buffalo or yak, I thought. On his head was a wide-brimmed floppy hat of the sort worn by artists on the Continent.

 

“Ted!” he said, patting one of the electricians on the back. “How’s the missus? Still collecting matchbooks? I’ve got one she might like to have—straight from the Savoy.

 

“Only two matches missing,” he added with a broad pantomime wink.

 

I had seen Desmond Duncan in a film whose name I have forgotten: the one about the little girl who hires a failed barrister to force her estranged parents to reconcile. I had also seen pictures of him in some of the fan magazines Daffy kept hidden at the bottom of her undies drawer.

 

He had a sharp, beaked nose, and a projecting chin, which gave him the profile of a thunderbolt: a profile that was probably instantly recognizable from Greenland to New Guinea.

 

A sudden gasp from above and behind me caused me to crane my neck and look up. I should have known! Daffy and Feely were peering through the balusters. They must be flat on their bellies on the floor.

 

Feely made shooing motions with her hands, indicating that I wasn’t to give away their presence by staring at them.

 

I bounded up the stairs and lay down on the floor between them. Daffy tried to pinch me, but I rolled away.

 

“Do that again and I’ll scream your name and your brassiere size,” I hissed, and she shot me a villainous look. Daffy had only recently begun to develop and was still shy about trumpeting the details.

 

“Look at them!” Feely whispered. “Phyllis Wyvern and Desmond Duncan—actually together here—at Buckshaw!”

 

I peered down through the railings just in time to see them touch fingertips—like God and Adam on the ceiling of the Sistine Chapel, except that their respective clothing gave them the appearance, from above, of something more like a large bison coming face-to-face with a small pinwheel whirligig.

 

Desmond Duncan was now removing the bulky coat, which was taken instantly away by a little man who had been trailing him.

 

“Val!” he said loudly, looking round to take in the whole of the foyer. “You’ve done it again!”

 

By way of reply, Val Lampman smiled a tight smile and glanced almost too casually at his watch.

 

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