Riley, page 16
Riley was on his feet now and although he wanted to yell his answer, Yes, I slept with her; and I can’t forget I slept with her, but she forgot it, he said nothing.
‘Sit down. Sit down, man. I’ve got my answer. And look, believe this, I’m not blaming you or her, no; neither is Louise; but as for Nyrene, all she is worried about is that you should be free to continue your career without feeling responsible for anything. You’re so young compared—’
‘I am not so young, Fred, compared with her. I’ve told you before and you’ve said it yourself, I’ve never felt young. And what d’you mean, she wants me not to have the responsibility for what?’
‘Sit down. Sit down, will you?’
He sat down, and they looked at each other in complete silence while the word responsibility ran through Riley’s mind. Responsibility for what? Couldn’t be. But yet it was. He had hoped and hoped; but then there was this Charles. Yes, there was still this Charles, and now he said, ‘What responsibility should I have?’
‘Well, if you refuse to reckon, I can’t reckon for you. You know when you were together, and you know when the child was born.’
Riley again made to rise but Fred waved him down with a sharp motion of his hand.
‘But it was premature.’
‘Premature be damned!’
‘What…but what are you saying? What about this Charles, her boyfriend? Don’t tell me he was imaginary, because Louise said she spoke to him.’
‘No, no, he wasn’t imaginary, Riley; he was Charles all right, full name Charles Kingston; and she loved him very dearly, because he happened to be her godfather.’
‘What?’ The word was small, soft, but penetrating.
‘Yes’—Fred nodded his head slowly—‘her godfather. Her father and Charles Kingston had been in the war together, were great friends. He remained a bachelor all his life, and he was…well, very comfortably off, with a nice house on the outskirts of Peterculter, near Aberdeen. This, I understand, had been the family residence, but he was the only one left. Nyrene’s cousin Ivy and her husband Ken were also close friends of his; they were his nearest neighbours, I understand. These were the two, you know, from whom you tried to guide me the other night on instructions from Nyrene; but she had forgotten about Louise, and Louise later got the whole story over coffee. Not that they thought they had any story to tell, for they had nothing to hide, not like our dear Nyrene. And so Louise found out that Nyrene had spent every holiday possible with her godfather, and that after her parents died she became closer still to him and she spent every weekend possible up there with him, even…when she was on the bottle. In fact, it was he who helped her to recuperate after she was thrown over by the handsome slob. You used to wonder, didn’t you, where she got to at the weekends? We did, too, at least we understood she went up there to stay with her cousin. Anyway, our dear Nyrene not only has her own house but she now owns a much better one, in Scotland, as I understand it from the photographs; and she has enough money to keep her in considerable comfort for the rest of her life, even if she never wants to put a foot on the boards again. And he didn’t forget her cousin either, which they considered very kind of him.’
‘How old was he?’ His voice sounded dull.
‘Eighty, I think, one or two; not quite sure, but eightyish.’
‘Eighty!’
‘Yes, eighty. But that’s beside the point now. The question is, what are you going to do about it? From our side, I can say we are in her confidence, but on the promise that we didn’t tell you anything. Things were to remain the same. However, right from the beginning both of us knew it was a false promise, because we felt you were entitled to the truth, but this would depend on the path your career would take. By the way, do you now feel anything for the child?’
‘No, it’s been a bombshell. The only person I think about is her. She has burnt me up all along. And during these past few months it’s been hell. People talk about being burnt out by their feelings, their emotions, well, I know what it’s like, and believe me’—now he moved his head back and forth slowly before adding—‘it’s no boyish attachment. I’ve known her since I was sixteen, and from the beginning, right from the beginning when she was a star up on that stage and I, like all assistant stage managers, was only a dogsbody, a glorified tea-boy. And something else I’ve realised lately.’ He paused here and looked down at his hands before saying, ‘I had never experienced the falling-in-love stage; I was never excited or stirred by the girls I knew. My role in life seemed always to act the clown or play the big fella, be centre stage, as you well know’—he was nodding at Fred now—‘but what I have felt for her from the beginning, and what has grown seemingly daily, I feel will be with me till…well, I sound like my dad now or my mam, to the end of me days. But that’s how it is. I feel I could swear on it.’
Fred now lay back in his chair and sighed as he said, ‘I wouldn’t, Riley, I wouldn’t swear on it; but your emotions are high where she is concerned, and I can understand that. She’s a very attractive woman and doesn’t look her age. However, I’m not going to say I’m warning you, but the years play havoc with emotions, they change them in spite of all the good intentions. Well, if they don’t exactly change, they cool down, turn into something else: fondness, friendship, kindness, compassion, a mixture, which in the end, and I’m speaking from age now, is much more satisfying than the burning-up elements. But then, who am I to be talking like this? You’ve got to live your life before you come to that, and she’ll help you to meet it, that’s if she takes you on.’
‘What d’you mean, takes me on?’
‘Oh, you’ll have to convince her of a number of things: first, that you not only love her but that you want the child, because, let me tell you, that child at the present moment is number one in her life, probably because it’s partly you, but perhaps more so because it’s something she never thought to have. Would you hope to marry her?’
‘Yes, of course, of course. What else? What are we talking about?’
Riley’s voice had risen, as Fred’s did when he replied, ‘I know what we’re talking about, laddie, I know what we’re talking about, and I’m going to tell you, if you do marry her you’ll have to receive some flak, and not only from that little spitfire of a mother of yours but from the local public at large. This is a small town. You don’t live in it but you are known because of your acting. One has no private life when you take to the boards. Everything you do comes out illuminated in print.’ And with a forefinger he started to write imaginary words in the air: ‘The young man who played the imbecile boy so successfully in The Golden Mind at the Little Palace Theatre and who is not yet twenty’—there was great stress put on the word—is to marry Miss Nyrene Mason who is now forty years old—’
‘She’s not forty.’
The imaginary finger still went on writing: ‘He denies she is forty, so let that pass. However, Miss Mason has been one of the stars at the Little Palace for fifteen years, and has recently given birth to a son.’
Riley was again on his feet, but Fred, his hand dropping onto the arm of the chair, lay back again, saying, ‘And that’s being kind to you, laddie. It just wants your mother to come round intending to knock blazes out of this old woman who is corrupting her son, and there you have it. Now Nyrene is aware of all this, much more so than I am, and that’s what you’ve got to get over.’
‘With your help?’ There was bitterness in Riley’s tone, and Fred answered evenly, ‘Yes, with my help. In talking to you, as I have during the last ten minutes, I have acted as your best friend; and you’ll never have a better, let me tell you.’
On the opening of the door, Riley swung round and faced Louise. There was no hot water jug in her hand and she went straight to him, her arms outstretched, and hugged him to her, and felt his whole body crumbling and he muttered, ‘Oh, Louise. Louise. What am I to do?’
She took her arms from around him, put her hands on his face, then she kissed him, saying, ‘Now come and sit down here between us and we’ll think something out, because although I know he’ll already have thrown the whole barrelful at you, he’s done it for your own good.’ Then she pushed him down onto the couch as she added, ‘She’s not the only one who loves you, so just remember that. And you also, Mr Beardsley, don’t forget it was only because of Riley that I took you on.’
‘Shut up, woman, before I skelp you where it hurts most!’ And Fred pulled her gently down between them; then in a more serious voice, he addressed Riley again: ‘Listen to me for a moment. Put yourself in Nyrene’s place. You are over there in the house, you’ve got the child, you’re in love with a fellow half your age. As you see it, he’s got his life before him but you love him too dearly to check it in any way; but if, for instance, he were to come to you and tell you that he didn’t care a damn about age and let the future take care of itself, what would you do?’
Unhesitating, Louise turned from him and looking at Riley she said, ‘I’d fall on his neck.’
‘Oh, Louise. Louise.’ Riley was holding her hands, and his head was bowed as he muttered, ‘You really think she would?’
‘Why not put it to the test, and without any more hesitation? Go on; get on your pins. Then come back here and tell me straight you’re going to take your things. And you could say, “Do you mind, Louise?” Go on!’ And as she went to push him up, he turned to her and took her into his arms; but looking over her shoulder at his benefactor, as he had always been, first as Mr Beardsley and now as Fred, he said, ‘May I?’
‘Go ahead. Go ahead. Who am I to stop you?’
At this Riley leant forward and kissed Louise on the lips; then he swung himself up and hurried from the room.
‘What are you crying for?’ Fred pulled Louise tightly to him, adding, ‘I knew there was a gentleman in Riley somewhere, and that last act proved it. Another of his breed would have kissed you, and that would have been that, but not our Peter Riley.’
Mrs Atkins greeted him as Mrs Roberts had done, ‘So you’ve got back, then?’ and, not waiting for any answer whatsoever, she went on, ‘The miss is upstairs. By! His Lordship’s been at it today, divils fer garters he’s made. I told her not to worry, it’s wind, and not to pick him up every minute, either. Oh, he’s all right if you walk the floor with him. I bet you could do with a cup of tea.’
‘No thanks, Mrs Atkins; I’ve just had one at Mr Beardsley’s,’ and quickly he ran up the stairs.
At the nursery door, he hesitated before gently pushing it open, only to find Nyrene wasn’t there, and he paused before walking slowly to the cot to look down on what he was sure was his son.
A suffocating tightness gripped his throat, causing him to open his mouth wide and to gasp at the air; and not until the tears welled from his eyes could he close his mouth again and grope in his pocket for a handkerchief.
This was his son…his. He had created this baby, this child, this was his son. The enormity of it overwhelmed him: this child had been conceived in a rare passion of first love, even through drink-bemused senses. Yet, the drink hadn’t obliterated the essence of what had taken place; nor had there been a day since when he hadn’t thought about it. He should have known. He should have guessed. Did it matter now? Did it matter?
There was a sharp intake of breath behind him, and there she stood in the doorway looking at him. She did not move towards him, but he did to her. It was at a run and on tiptoe, and, grabbing her hand, he pulled her into the corridor and along to her bedroom.
Inside, he stood with his back to the door, and held her close.
She had not uttered a word, not even when he had said, ‘He’s mine, isn’t he? I should’ve known from the start. Oh, Nyrene, Nyrene.’ He was kissing her as he had done that first night and never since.
When at last she pressed herself from him she gasped, ‘They promised.’
‘Yes, I know they did; and if I’d got the part in London they would’ve kept their promise.’
‘You…you didn’t get it? I thought it was sure.’
‘Well now, darling,’ he now pressed her face tightly between his hands and placed his mouth on hers again before he said, ‘You above all people should know there’s nothing sure in this business unless you’re coming out of the wings to say your first line.’
‘Oh, my dear. My dear Riley.’
‘I am not just your dear Riley, from now on I am your dearest Riley.’
‘All right. All right, you’re my dearest Riley. Yes, you are. Oh yes, you are. But now look, nothing has really changed. We must be sensible about this. There’s the public to think of.’
‘Damn the public!’ His voice expressed the look on his face. ‘And I mean that: damn the public! Oh yes, I know what they’ll say: “Him not twenty and she near forty,” I’ve just had it rubbed into me, back there.’ He jerked his head. ‘But you’re not near forty; you don’t look thirty and I certainly don’t look nineteen-kicking-twenty. Beardsley didn’t even give me that; he stuck to the nineteen; but I’ve never been nineteen, I’ve never been eighteen, nor seventeen, nor sixteen. I felt like a man before I left school and my dear master’s questionable protection. If anybody made me into a man through my mind it was Fred himself; so let’s wipe age out of it.’
‘We might, dear, we might’—her voice was sober now—‘but David won’t. Nor will the Little Palace Theatre, nor will the people of Fellburn. And there is your family.’
‘Damn my family! Anyway, what family have I? I have no home there.’
‘You may not, but from what I understand, your mother will have a lot to say.’
‘She can say what she likes. Dad will be for us, as will Betty, and that’s all I care about.’
‘We must talk, dear, we really must, there’s so much at stake.’
‘Who for?’
‘You, of course. Oh, it’s all right, it’s all right saying you’ll love me till the day you die. In ten years’ time you won’t be thirty and I’ll be fifty. Let’s face it.’
‘And of course, in between that, you’ve forgotten to mention the seven year itch, haven’t you?’
She laughed outright now.
‘There’s only one more thing I want to ask you, Nyrene, and just give me a straight answer. Do you love me, I mean really love me?’
‘Oh, Riley! Oh, my dearest, dearest, Riley! If I live to be fifty’—she gave a smile now—‘I’ll never be able to tell you just how much. But wait, wait’—he had been about to kiss her again—‘listen to me. No matter what my feelings are for you, there is always the age gap, and we’ve got to live in the world, and the world is a cruel place. One can say “I don’t give a damn!” but one does. Not that I would really give a damn for being blamed for baby-snatching—and, mind, that’ll be the saying—but the fact that you have a career before you and that I am a hindrance and will continue to be so as the years go on. And I couldn’t bear that.’
‘Sit down here.’ He pulled her onto the side of the bed. ‘Now listen to me. I want to marry you. Not only that, I am going to marry you, and you are going to marry me; either sooner or later you’ll marry me. Now, until you do I am your lodger, because I’m bringing myself lock, stock and barrel into this house tomorrow. Fred and Louise want it that way too, they want rid of me. Seriously though, they want, above all, our happiness, and I can’t be happy without you, my dear, and you can’t be happy without me. I know that. You’re a very good actress and you’ve fooled me some of the time, but you’ll never fool me again. I can see you standing with that cup of tea by my bedside on that morning when I woke feeling glorious and there you were, turned back into Miss Mason, so much so that I had to believe you. Oh, I was an idiot. Now there it is. I have it all set out in my mind. I shall finish the tour, and this’ll give David time to get used to the idea of Mr and Mrs Riley being on the stage together once again.’
‘Oh no! No, my dear. Oh no, my dear! Never! I couldn’t bear that, not here.’
‘Well, that’s the only way I can see us being together all the time, and that’s the only way I want to live, being together all the time. And, also, I want to get to know my son. Oh yes.’
‘I must tell you something.’ Nyrene took hold of his hand now and pressed it to her breast. ‘There is nothing more that I would wish for than to act on the stage again with you, but since Charles died, I’ve already given up the idea of the stage. Oh, dear Charles!’ She smiled now. ‘You would have liked Charles. As you know so much, by now you’ll know who he was. Well, you’ll also know, I am sure, that he left me pretty well off, with a very nice house near Aberdeen. It’s a charming place; just a short run. Fred and Louise don’t know yet that I have already put up this house for sale and that I’m going to live up there.’
‘Wonderful! Wonderful! I don’t mind being a kept man.’
She shook him now as she said, ‘To me it’s like a script to a new life, but would you mind living there?’
‘From what you’ve said, it sounds marvellous to me, simply marvellous. And there’re bound to be theatres in Aberdeen…but I thought you loved this house so much.’
‘I do; but then I know Charles’s house too. I spent half my childhood at the Little Grange. It’s a lovely place, and not all that far from the actual Highlands.’
‘But what would you do with yourself while I was working?’
‘Oh my dear, the things I could do with myself happily. First of all, keep the home as beautiful as Charles always kept it; or at least as Old Sally Nolan kept it for him for years before she died. Then I’d have the joy of bringing up my’—she inclined her head towards him—‘our son; and lastly, the garden will require a lot of attention. It’s a very large—well, there are five acres of land around the house. Two have been cultivated into a garden; the rest is made up of a little woodland and meadows, looked after by one Hamish. Charles used to ride a lot in his younger days, and so there is stabling for a horse, and the meadowland for grazing. Can’t you see our life there?’
‘Sit down. Sit down, man. I’ve got my answer. And look, believe this, I’m not blaming you or her, no; neither is Louise; but as for Nyrene, all she is worried about is that you should be free to continue your career without feeling responsible for anything. You’re so young compared—’
‘I am not so young, Fred, compared with her. I’ve told you before and you’ve said it yourself, I’ve never felt young. And what d’you mean, she wants me not to have the responsibility for what?’
‘Sit down. Sit down, will you?’
He sat down, and they looked at each other in complete silence while the word responsibility ran through Riley’s mind. Responsibility for what? Couldn’t be. But yet it was. He had hoped and hoped; but then there was this Charles. Yes, there was still this Charles, and now he said, ‘What responsibility should I have?’
‘Well, if you refuse to reckon, I can’t reckon for you. You know when you were together, and you know when the child was born.’
Riley again made to rise but Fred waved him down with a sharp motion of his hand.
‘But it was premature.’
‘Premature be damned!’
‘What…but what are you saying? What about this Charles, her boyfriend? Don’t tell me he was imaginary, because Louise said she spoke to him.’
‘No, no, he wasn’t imaginary, Riley; he was Charles all right, full name Charles Kingston; and she loved him very dearly, because he happened to be her godfather.’
‘What?’ The word was small, soft, but penetrating.
‘Yes’—Fred nodded his head slowly—‘her godfather. Her father and Charles Kingston had been in the war together, were great friends. He remained a bachelor all his life, and he was…well, very comfortably off, with a nice house on the outskirts of Peterculter, near Aberdeen. This, I understand, had been the family residence, but he was the only one left. Nyrene’s cousin Ivy and her husband Ken were also close friends of his; they were his nearest neighbours, I understand. These were the two, you know, from whom you tried to guide me the other night on instructions from Nyrene; but she had forgotten about Louise, and Louise later got the whole story over coffee. Not that they thought they had any story to tell, for they had nothing to hide, not like our dear Nyrene. And so Louise found out that Nyrene had spent every holiday possible with her godfather, and that after her parents died she became closer still to him and she spent every weekend possible up there with him, even…when she was on the bottle. In fact, it was he who helped her to recuperate after she was thrown over by the handsome slob. You used to wonder, didn’t you, where she got to at the weekends? We did, too, at least we understood she went up there to stay with her cousin. Anyway, our dear Nyrene not only has her own house but she now owns a much better one, in Scotland, as I understand it from the photographs; and she has enough money to keep her in considerable comfort for the rest of her life, even if she never wants to put a foot on the boards again. And he didn’t forget her cousin either, which they considered very kind of him.’
‘How old was he?’ His voice sounded dull.
‘Eighty, I think, one or two; not quite sure, but eightyish.’
‘Eighty!’
‘Yes, eighty. But that’s beside the point now. The question is, what are you going to do about it? From our side, I can say we are in her confidence, but on the promise that we didn’t tell you anything. Things were to remain the same. However, right from the beginning both of us knew it was a false promise, because we felt you were entitled to the truth, but this would depend on the path your career would take. By the way, do you now feel anything for the child?’
‘No, it’s been a bombshell. The only person I think about is her. She has burnt me up all along. And during these past few months it’s been hell. People talk about being burnt out by their feelings, their emotions, well, I know what it’s like, and believe me’—now he moved his head back and forth slowly before adding—‘it’s no boyish attachment. I’ve known her since I was sixteen, and from the beginning, right from the beginning when she was a star up on that stage and I, like all assistant stage managers, was only a dogsbody, a glorified tea-boy. And something else I’ve realised lately.’ He paused here and looked down at his hands before saying, ‘I had never experienced the falling-in-love stage; I was never excited or stirred by the girls I knew. My role in life seemed always to act the clown or play the big fella, be centre stage, as you well know’—he was nodding at Fred now—‘but what I have felt for her from the beginning, and what has grown seemingly daily, I feel will be with me till…well, I sound like my dad now or my mam, to the end of me days. But that’s how it is. I feel I could swear on it.’
Fred now lay back in his chair and sighed as he said, ‘I wouldn’t, Riley, I wouldn’t swear on it; but your emotions are high where she is concerned, and I can understand that. She’s a very attractive woman and doesn’t look her age. However, I’m not going to say I’m warning you, but the years play havoc with emotions, they change them in spite of all the good intentions. Well, if they don’t exactly change, they cool down, turn into something else: fondness, friendship, kindness, compassion, a mixture, which in the end, and I’m speaking from age now, is much more satisfying than the burning-up elements. But then, who am I to be talking like this? You’ve got to live your life before you come to that, and she’ll help you to meet it, that’s if she takes you on.’
‘What d’you mean, takes me on?’
‘Oh, you’ll have to convince her of a number of things: first, that you not only love her but that you want the child, because, let me tell you, that child at the present moment is number one in her life, probably because it’s partly you, but perhaps more so because it’s something she never thought to have. Would you hope to marry her?’
‘Yes, of course, of course. What else? What are we talking about?’
Riley’s voice had risen, as Fred’s did when he replied, ‘I know what we’re talking about, laddie, I know what we’re talking about, and I’m going to tell you, if you do marry her you’ll have to receive some flak, and not only from that little spitfire of a mother of yours but from the local public at large. This is a small town. You don’t live in it but you are known because of your acting. One has no private life when you take to the boards. Everything you do comes out illuminated in print.’ And with a forefinger he started to write imaginary words in the air: ‘The young man who played the imbecile boy so successfully in The Golden Mind at the Little Palace Theatre and who is not yet twenty’—there was great stress put on the word—is to marry Miss Nyrene Mason who is now forty years old—’
‘She’s not forty.’
The imaginary finger still went on writing: ‘He denies she is forty, so let that pass. However, Miss Mason has been one of the stars at the Little Palace for fifteen years, and has recently given birth to a son.’
Riley was again on his feet, but Fred, his hand dropping onto the arm of the chair, lay back again, saying, ‘And that’s being kind to you, laddie. It just wants your mother to come round intending to knock blazes out of this old woman who is corrupting her son, and there you have it. Now Nyrene is aware of all this, much more so than I am, and that’s what you’ve got to get over.’
‘With your help?’ There was bitterness in Riley’s tone, and Fred answered evenly, ‘Yes, with my help. In talking to you, as I have during the last ten minutes, I have acted as your best friend; and you’ll never have a better, let me tell you.’
On the opening of the door, Riley swung round and faced Louise. There was no hot water jug in her hand and she went straight to him, her arms outstretched, and hugged him to her, and felt his whole body crumbling and he muttered, ‘Oh, Louise. Louise. What am I to do?’
She took her arms from around him, put her hands on his face, then she kissed him, saying, ‘Now come and sit down here between us and we’ll think something out, because although I know he’ll already have thrown the whole barrelful at you, he’s done it for your own good.’ Then she pushed him down onto the couch as she added, ‘She’s not the only one who loves you, so just remember that. And you also, Mr Beardsley, don’t forget it was only because of Riley that I took you on.’
‘Shut up, woman, before I skelp you where it hurts most!’ And Fred pulled her gently down between them; then in a more serious voice, he addressed Riley again: ‘Listen to me for a moment. Put yourself in Nyrene’s place. You are over there in the house, you’ve got the child, you’re in love with a fellow half your age. As you see it, he’s got his life before him but you love him too dearly to check it in any way; but if, for instance, he were to come to you and tell you that he didn’t care a damn about age and let the future take care of itself, what would you do?’
Unhesitating, Louise turned from him and looking at Riley she said, ‘I’d fall on his neck.’
‘Oh, Louise. Louise.’ Riley was holding her hands, and his head was bowed as he muttered, ‘You really think she would?’
‘Why not put it to the test, and without any more hesitation? Go on; get on your pins. Then come back here and tell me straight you’re going to take your things. And you could say, “Do you mind, Louise?” Go on!’ And as she went to push him up, he turned to her and took her into his arms; but looking over her shoulder at his benefactor, as he had always been, first as Mr Beardsley and now as Fred, he said, ‘May I?’
‘Go ahead. Go ahead. Who am I to stop you?’
At this Riley leant forward and kissed Louise on the lips; then he swung himself up and hurried from the room.
‘What are you crying for?’ Fred pulled Louise tightly to him, adding, ‘I knew there was a gentleman in Riley somewhere, and that last act proved it. Another of his breed would have kissed you, and that would have been that, but not our Peter Riley.’
Mrs Atkins greeted him as Mrs Roberts had done, ‘So you’ve got back, then?’ and, not waiting for any answer whatsoever, she went on, ‘The miss is upstairs. By! His Lordship’s been at it today, divils fer garters he’s made. I told her not to worry, it’s wind, and not to pick him up every minute, either. Oh, he’s all right if you walk the floor with him. I bet you could do with a cup of tea.’
‘No thanks, Mrs Atkins; I’ve just had one at Mr Beardsley’s,’ and quickly he ran up the stairs.
At the nursery door, he hesitated before gently pushing it open, only to find Nyrene wasn’t there, and he paused before walking slowly to the cot to look down on what he was sure was his son.
A suffocating tightness gripped his throat, causing him to open his mouth wide and to gasp at the air; and not until the tears welled from his eyes could he close his mouth again and grope in his pocket for a handkerchief.
This was his son…his. He had created this baby, this child, this was his son. The enormity of it overwhelmed him: this child had been conceived in a rare passion of first love, even through drink-bemused senses. Yet, the drink hadn’t obliterated the essence of what had taken place; nor had there been a day since when he hadn’t thought about it. He should have known. He should have guessed. Did it matter now? Did it matter?
There was a sharp intake of breath behind him, and there she stood in the doorway looking at him. She did not move towards him, but he did to her. It was at a run and on tiptoe, and, grabbing her hand, he pulled her into the corridor and along to her bedroom.
Inside, he stood with his back to the door, and held her close.
She had not uttered a word, not even when he had said, ‘He’s mine, isn’t he? I should’ve known from the start. Oh, Nyrene, Nyrene.’ He was kissing her as he had done that first night and never since.
When at last she pressed herself from him she gasped, ‘They promised.’
‘Yes, I know they did; and if I’d got the part in London they would’ve kept their promise.’
‘You…you didn’t get it? I thought it was sure.’
‘Well now, darling,’ he now pressed her face tightly between his hands and placed his mouth on hers again before he said, ‘You above all people should know there’s nothing sure in this business unless you’re coming out of the wings to say your first line.’
‘Oh, my dear. My dear Riley.’
‘I am not just your dear Riley, from now on I am your dearest Riley.’
‘All right. All right, you’re my dearest Riley. Yes, you are. Oh yes, you are. But now look, nothing has really changed. We must be sensible about this. There’s the public to think of.’
‘Damn the public!’ His voice expressed the look on his face. ‘And I mean that: damn the public! Oh yes, I know what they’ll say: “Him not twenty and she near forty,” I’ve just had it rubbed into me, back there.’ He jerked his head. ‘But you’re not near forty; you don’t look thirty and I certainly don’t look nineteen-kicking-twenty. Beardsley didn’t even give me that; he stuck to the nineteen; but I’ve never been nineteen, I’ve never been eighteen, nor seventeen, nor sixteen. I felt like a man before I left school and my dear master’s questionable protection. If anybody made me into a man through my mind it was Fred himself; so let’s wipe age out of it.’
‘We might, dear, we might’—her voice was sober now—‘but David won’t. Nor will the Little Palace Theatre, nor will the people of Fellburn. And there is your family.’
‘Damn my family! Anyway, what family have I? I have no home there.’
‘You may not, but from what I understand, your mother will have a lot to say.’
‘She can say what she likes. Dad will be for us, as will Betty, and that’s all I care about.’
‘We must talk, dear, we really must, there’s so much at stake.’
‘Who for?’
‘You, of course. Oh, it’s all right, it’s all right saying you’ll love me till the day you die. In ten years’ time you won’t be thirty and I’ll be fifty. Let’s face it.’
‘And of course, in between that, you’ve forgotten to mention the seven year itch, haven’t you?’
She laughed outright now.
‘There’s only one more thing I want to ask you, Nyrene, and just give me a straight answer. Do you love me, I mean really love me?’
‘Oh, Riley! Oh, my dearest, dearest, Riley! If I live to be fifty’—she gave a smile now—‘I’ll never be able to tell you just how much. But wait, wait’—he had been about to kiss her again—‘listen to me. No matter what my feelings are for you, there is always the age gap, and we’ve got to live in the world, and the world is a cruel place. One can say “I don’t give a damn!” but one does. Not that I would really give a damn for being blamed for baby-snatching—and, mind, that’ll be the saying—but the fact that you have a career before you and that I am a hindrance and will continue to be so as the years go on. And I couldn’t bear that.’
‘Sit down here.’ He pulled her onto the side of the bed. ‘Now listen to me. I want to marry you. Not only that, I am going to marry you, and you are going to marry me; either sooner or later you’ll marry me. Now, until you do I am your lodger, because I’m bringing myself lock, stock and barrel into this house tomorrow. Fred and Louise want it that way too, they want rid of me. Seriously though, they want, above all, our happiness, and I can’t be happy without you, my dear, and you can’t be happy without me. I know that. You’re a very good actress and you’ve fooled me some of the time, but you’ll never fool me again. I can see you standing with that cup of tea by my bedside on that morning when I woke feeling glorious and there you were, turned back into Miss Mason, so much so that I had to believe you. Oh, I was an idiot. Now there it is. I have it all set out in my mind. I shall finish the tour, and this’ll give David time to get used to the idea of Mr and Mrs Riley being on the stage together once again.’
‘Oh no! No, my dear. Oh no, my dear! Never! I couldn’t bear that, not here.’
‘Well, that’s the only way I can see us being together all the time, and that’s the only way I want to live, being together all the time. And, also, I want to get to know my son. Oh yes.’
‘I must tell you something.’ Nyrene took hold of his hand now and pressed it to her breast. ‘There is nothing more that I would wish for than to act on the stage again with you, but since Charles died, I’ve already given up the idea of the stage. Oh, dear Charles!’ She smiled now. ‘You would have liked Charles. As you know so much, by now you’ll know who he was. Well, you’ll also know, I am sure, that he left me pretty well off, with a very nice house near Aberdeen. It’s a charming place; just a short run. Fred and Louise don’t know yet that I have already put up this house for sale and that I’m going to live up there.’
‘Wonderful! Wonderful! I don’t mind being a kept man.’
She shook him now as she said, ‘To me it’s like a script to a new life, but would you mind living there?’
‘From what you’ve said, it sounds marvellous to me, simply marvellous. And there’re bound to be theatres in Aberdeen…but I thought you loved this house so much.’
‘I do; but then I know Charles’s house too. I spent half my childhood at the Little Grange. It’s a lovely place, and not all that far from the actual Highlands.’
‘But what would you do with yourself while I was working?’
‘Oh my dear, the things I could do with myself happily. First of all, keep the home as beautiful as Charles always kept it; or at least as Old Sally Nolan kept it for him for years before she died. Then I’d have the joy of bringing up my’—she inclined her head towards him—‘our son; and lastly, the garden will require a lot of attention. It’s a very large—well, there are five acres of land around the house. Two have been cultivated into a garden; the rest is made up of a little woodland and meadows, looked after by one Hamish. Charles used to ride a lot in his younger days, and so there is stabling for a horse, and the meadowland for grazing. Can’t you see our life there?’
