“One has one’s pride.”
“More of a discussion,” said Tim. “I’m sorry I can’t tell you what it’s about.”
“We’re burning our boats.”
“Avery!”
“Well, if we can’t tell Nico, who can we tell?”
“No one.”
“After all, he’s our closest friend.”
Nicholas tactfully concealed his surprise at this revelation, and the silence lengthened. Avery was biting his bottom lip as he always did when excited. He kept darting beseeching little glances at Tim, and his fists opened and closed in purgatorial anguish. He looked like a child on Christmas morning denied permission to open its presents. Even his circle of curls danced with the thrill of it all.
Nicholas bent close to Avery’s ear. “I’ve got a secret as well. We could do a swap.”
“Ohhh … could we, Tim?”
“Honestly. You’re like a two-year-old.” Tim looked coolly at Nicholas. “What sort of secret?”
“An amazing secret.”
“Hm. And no one else knows?”
“Only two other people.”
“Well, it’s not a secret then, is it?”
“It’s the two other people that the secret’s about.”
“Ah.”
“Oh, go on, Tim,” urged Nicholas. “Fair exchange is no robbery.”
“Where do you find these ghastly little homilies?”
“Please …”
Tim hesitated. “You must promise not to breathe a word before the first night.”
“Promise.”
“He said that rather quickly. If you break it,” continued Avery, “you won’t get into Central.”
“Oh, God.”
“He’s gone quite pale.”
“That was a stupid thing to say. Since when have you had crystal balls?”
“Why the first night?” asked Nicholas, recovering his equilibrium.
“Because after then everyone will know. Do you promise?”
“Cut my throat and hope to die.”
“You’ve got to go first.”
Nicholas told them his secret, looking from face to face as he spoke. Avery’s mouth opened like a starfish in an ooo of astonishment and pleasure. Tim went scarlet, then white, then red again. He was the first to speak.
“In my box.” Nicholas nodded affirmation. “Of all the fucking cheek.”
“Ever the mot juste, ” chuckled Avery, practically rocking on his seat with satisfaction. Nicholas thought he was like one of those weighted Daruma dolls that, no matter how hard you pushed them down, sprang straight back up again. “But … if you couldn’t see the man, how do you know it was David?”
“There was no one else in the place. Just me, Kitty— who surfaced in the dressing room about ten minutes later—and David in the scene dock. I know he and his dad are often early. But they’re never that early.”
“I thought you always kept your box locked,” said Avery.
“I do. But there’s a spare key on the board in the prompt corner,” said Tim, adding, “I shall take it home with me in the future. I must say,” he continued, “he’s a bit … lumpen … David. For Kitty, I mean.”
“Constanze’s bit of rough.” Avery giggled. “Must have given you quite a thrill, Nico. If you like that sort of thing.”
“Oh,” Nicholas said pinkly, “not really.”
“Still, he’s a nice lad,” continued Tim, “and I should think almost anyone’d be a relief after Esslyn. It must be like going to bed with the Albert Memorial.” He pulled back his cuff. “Nearly the quarter. Better go and check the board.”
He picked up his bottle and moved quickly to the door, Avery scuttling after. Nicholas, in hot pursuit, cried, “But what about your secret?”
“Have to wait.”
“I’ve got time. I’m not on for twenty minutes.”
“And I’m not on,” echoed Avery, “at all. I can tell him.”
“We tell him together.” Tim tried the door of his box, then got out his key. “At least David locked up after himself.”
He opened the door, and just for a moment the three of them stood on the threshold, Avery quivering like the questing beast. His button nose pointed (as well as it was able), and he sniffed as if hoping to detect some faint residual flavor of wickedness in the stuffy air.
“For heaven’s sake, Avery.”
“Sorry.”
The image of Kitty rushed back to Nicholas so vividly that it seemed impossible that the tiny place could have remained unmarked by her presence. Then he saw faintly on the glass the now barely visible tracks made by her dragging shoulder blades.
Avery said, “I wonder what made them choose here?”
“Sheer perversity, I should think. Well … see you later, Nicholas.”
Dismissed, Nicholas was just turning away when a thought struck him. “Oh, Avery … you won’t repeat what I’ve told you to anyone?”
“Me?” Avery was outraged. “I like the way you ask me. What about him?”
Nicholas grinned. “Thanks.”
Downstairs he collided with Harold, who arrived as he did everything else, Napoleonically. He started shouting as he entered the foyer, and didn’t stop until he had seen some flurry of movement, however unnecessary, in every corner of the auditorium. He called it keeping them on their toes. “So who’s ahead of the game?” he cried, subsiding into row C, lighting a Davidoff, and removing his hat. Harold had quite a collection of fur hats. This one was black and cream and yellowish-gray, and definitely the product of more than one animal. It had a short tail, squatted on his head like a ring-tailed lemur, and was known throughout the company as Harold’s succubus.
“Come on, Deidre!” he roared. “Chop-chop!”
The play began. The Venticelli loped down to the footlights and stood, secretively entwined, like a pair of gossipy grasshoppers. They were an unattractive pair, with pasty, open-pored complexions and most peculiar hair. Flossy and flyaway, it was that strange color—dirty blond with a pinkish tinge—that hairdressers call champagne. Their eyelids drooped in the lizardlike manner of the old, although they were barely thirty. They invariably seemed to be on the verge of imparting some distasteful revelation, and spoke in a sort of sniggering whisper. Harold was always having to tell them to project. Seemingly secure under Esslyn’s patronage, they discussed anyone and everyone vindictively, and their breath smelled dank and malodorous, like a newly opened grave. Now, having finished their opening dialogue and wrapped their cloaks tightly about them, they pranced off.
Esslyn took the floor and Nicholas in the wings watched the tall figure with a certain degree of envy. For there was no denying that his rival cut a splendid figure onstage. Take his face, for a start. High cheekbones, rather thick but beautifully shaped lips, and that rare feature, truly black eyes. Hard and bright, the pupils glittered like tar chippings. His jowls were always a faint steely blue, like those of the villains in gangster cartoons.
Nicholas’s own face could not be more ordinary. It was an “ish” face. Brownish hair, grayish eyes, straightish nose. Only the fact that his even features were unevenly distributed gave it any distinction at all. Rather a lot of space between the tip of the nose and the top lip, which he thought made him look a trifle monkeyish, although Hazel at the checkout had pronounced it “very sexy.” A wide space also between his eyes, and a very wide one indeed after the eyebrows and before the hairline. So apart from being dwarfish and clumsy, with nondescript features, Nicholas reflected sourly, he would probably be completely bald before the age of twenty-one. He stared, aggrieved, at Esslyn’s crisp sloe-black hair. Not even a flake of dandruff.
“Cheer up,” whispered David Smy, arriving ready for his first entrance. “It might never happen.”