Blue Door Venture Page 16

  We haven’t had a smell of Lucky, and don’t know how to go about it now. We dropped in at Nick’s the other night, and he told us that he had seen Lucky and told him that we were looking for him, describing us in detail. Of course, Lucky has not been in since then.

  So that’s one avenue closed. We’ve spent a long time standing at the end of Linden Grove, that charming residential neighbourhood, but—no Lucky. We’ve seen his mother going off to do her shopping, still in her curlers, but have not let her see us. We’re doing it in shifts but it’s very boring and cold. Don’t suppose he’ll turn up in Linden Grove—it will probably be somewhere quite unexpected. We were wondering whether to get some part-time work to tide us over, and look for Lucky in our spare time. Bulldog wants to be a sandwich-man, he says, because he’s doing so much standing about that he might as well get paid for it.

  We are doing our best—please believe that—and as soon as we can we shall stop living on your charity,

  So chin up,

  Cheerio,

  BULLDOG, NIGEL, JEREMY

  The Avenue

  Fenchester

  My dear Sandra,

  You are wicked, wicked children! You cannot imagine how worried we all were at your disappearance. I’ve been imagining the most terrible happenings, but your father, of course, just laughed and said that you’d fall on your feet. I was sure that Maddy knew where you were, but she was as close as an oyster. I’m glad you’ve found jobs, even though they don’t sound very good ones. I’m sorry to hear that you are so hungry and have made a couple of cakes which I will pack up tonight. Mrs Darwin is also doing some baking and Mrs Halford is sending a tuck-box to the boys. Not, of course, that you deserve it, for worrying us all like this.

  Oh, why don’t you give in and come home and take sensible jobs? I’ve told you before, we don’t mind even if you don’t work. There’s no need for it. You can be quite useful enough to me about the house. Maddy is quite obviously going to be the wage earner of the family. I don’t mean that unkindly, dear, but you are more of a home-bird than she is, aren’t you? I just don’t see why you should be doing such hard work for so little money, and living in discomfort when you could be having an easy time in your own home. You could keep up your acting as a hobby, and it would be far less worrying than trying to make a profession of it.

  But still, I know it’s no good trying to argue with you if your mind is made up, so I will just wish you good luck, and pray that the boys may have some success in their search, so that you will be home again soon. We miss you very much, and everyone in the town keeps asking me when you’re starting up again as they do miss your plays so much.

  Daddy insists on sending you the enclosed blank cheque, just in case you really get into difficulties. Only use it if you must, and don’t fill it in for too much, will you?

  Give my love to the others, and come home soon,

  Your affectionate

  MOTHER

  PS Do see that your beds are properly aired, won’t you? I’m sure you’ll catch cold and get really ill. If you should, come home at once.

  17

  THE VALLEY OF DESPOND

  The rain came down steadily, uncompromisingly, as if it were determined to continue throughout the day. Nigel and Jeremy, standing in a doorway with their eyes glued on Linden Grove, huddled themselves further into the upturned collars of their overcoats.

  ‘Gosh,’ groaned Jeremy. ‘Will it ever stop?’

  ‘Never,’ replied Nigel.

  They were silent for the next hour, each busy with their own bitter and despairing thoughts. Then a bedraggled dripping figure wearing a sodden green hat appeared round the corner, plodding towards them, head down, with the rain squelching in his down-at-heel shoes. It was Bulldog, who had arrived to do his shift and relieve Nigel.

  ‘Post come?’ was Nigel’s first question as his brother took shelter in the doorway beside him.

  ‘No,’ grunted Bulldog. ‘And I rang Maddy, but she’d heard nothing either.’

  They were anxiously awaiting a letter from the girls, hoping it might contain some more money.

  ‘Then we don’t eat tonight,’ observed Bulldog.

  ‘No. Not till we’ve got this week’s money. We mustn’t eat up the rent.’

  They stood in a hungry silence, then Jeremy said, ‘There’s half that cake of Mother’s—don’t eat it all before we get back, Nigel, if you’re going to the hostel.’

  ‘Yes, I’m going back. Look here, why don’t you two come too? It’s such a foul afternoon. I’m sure Lucky wouldn’t be about in it—’

  ‘But what can we do if we come back—eat a slice of cake and go to bed?’ Bulldog clasped his tummy suddenly, ‘Ooh!’ he groaned. ‘There’s that pain again.’

  Jeremy and Nigel exchanged worried glances. They had been on such short rations for the last few weeks that it was beginning to tell on Bulldog who, being on the podgy side, had more to sustain than they had. He had lost a bit of weight, and complained of cramp in his stomach.

  ‘Come on,’ said Nigel. ‘We’ll all go home and have a binge on the remains of the cake.’

  They plunged out into the rain. As they walked, Nigel wrestled with his thoughts, then he said quietly, ‘Look, we can’t go on like this, can we?’

  ‘The money will probably come tomorrow,’ said Jeremy.

  ‘It’s not only that,’ said Nigel. ‘Perhaps the girls are being hungry too.’

  There was an uncomfortable pause while they thought about this.

  ‘The way we’re going on, we shall be in no condition to deal with Lucky if we ever do find him—much less start rehearsing again.’

  ‘But what else can we do?’ demanded Jeremy. ‘You were talking about this on the train, and a few minutes later, we got a clue.’

  ‘And a lot of good it did us,’ said Nigel. ‘No, I think we must soon acknowledge ourselves beaten.’

  ‘And then what?’

  ‘I don’t know,’ said Nigel, ‘and I hardly care.’

  The trams and buses rattled and splashed beside them as they made their way up the Walworth Road. The future seemed as bleak as the present, and the old carefree days of the Academy and the Blue Door Theatre seemed as if in another life.

  ‘We’ll give it to the end of the week,’ said Nigel heavily, ‘then we’ll give up. I shall go home and let my father find me a job. And if you’re wise, you two will do the same.

  ‘Why don’t you go on with your music, Jeremy? Start studying seriously again.’

  ‘I should like to,’ said Jeremy thoughtfully. ‘But do you think that we shall ever be able to settle to anything again?’

  ‘No,’ said Bulldog. ‘I know I shan’t.’

  It seemed that whichever side of the road they walked, they were constantly passing food shops. Restaurants that cooked sausages and potatoes and onions in the window, and sent out an aroma that made their nostrils twitch and their mouths water; butcher’s shops displaying healthy sides of lamb and inviting steaks; an unattended stall filled with rosy apples and golden oranges made Bulldog dig his hands deeper into his macintosh pockets and say, ‘Now I know what starts people pilfering.’

  ‘We’ll take a tram when we get to the Elephant,’ said Nigel. ‘We can just afford it.’

  It was luxury to be able to get into the warm steaminess of the tram, and take the weight off their tired wet feet. They were glad the journey to Kingsway took a long time, and sat light-headed and dazed, half asleep in the uncomfortable seats.

  Once they were back in the dormitory of the hostel, they fell on the cake and demolished it.

  ‘Delicious,’ said Nigel.

  ‘Heavenly,’ murmured Jeremy, licking his lips.

  ‘Wish there was a bit more of it,’ grumbled Bulldog. ‘It’s reminded me what eating is like.’

  They looked round the deserted dormitory, with the rows of little beds that were all occupied by young men nearly as penniless as themselves. On the wall were drab-coloured pictures of ‘The Monarc
h of the Glen’ and vague Scottish lochs. The small windows let in only a filter of light from the heavy rain clouds outside.

  ‘I wish,’ said Bulldog, ‘that we were at home.’

  ‘We could be,’ said Nigel.

  Thoughts of roaring fires and large meals and loving parents filled the cold dormitory, and they huddled in misery on their beds, wrapped in the thin rugs, while the light faded. They soon decided that it was warmer in bed and before they had been long between the coarse sheets they were mercifully asleep, but restless and ill at ease. When the noise of the other occupants preparing for bed brought him to consciousness later in the evening, Nigel woke up and thought to himself very clearly, ‘This must stop. At the end of the week we shall go home.’ And then, comforted by the thought that his mind was now made up, he turned over and slept more easily.

  Next morning they rang Maddy at the Academy directly after breakfast.

  ‘Yes,’ she announced cheerily; ‘the letter’s come and I think it’s got some money in it. It feels lumpy. I’ll give it to you this evening. Can you last out till then?’

  ‘Well—er—no. Not really.’

  ‘O.K. then. I’ll meet you for lunch. Will you come to Raddler’s?’

  Raddler’s was the little café round the corner from the Academy where all the students congregated.

  ‘No, Maddy. We look too shabby—even for Raddler’s.’

  ‘Don’t be such stooges. Still, we’ll make it the Help Yourself, if that’s how you feel.’

  Breakfast at the hostel had been sparse and not at all filling, and they looked forward all the morning to the prospect of loading their lunch trays with everything that was going. They spent the time wandering round all the back streets of Soho with a weather eye open for Lucky. Although they passed coffee shops where they were sure he must sometimes drop in to meet a friend, and newsagents whom they were sure he must patronize for his sporting papers, he was as invisible as ever.

  Maddy was waiting for them at one o’clock and she gasped when she saw them. ‘What have you been up to? You look terrible. What have you been doing?’

  ‘Nothing. Not even eating much,’ confessed Jeremy. Purposefully Maddy walked away. ‘Hey! Where are you going?’

  ‘Come with me.’ She led them back into Soho, to Chez Bertrand, a tiny shabby restaurant, famous for its cooking.

  ‘You’re having lunch with me today.’ In spite of their protests she insisted on ordering an enormous and delicious meal, and the four of them fell on it with relish.

  ‘It’s an excuse for me to eat a lot too,’ she told them, as they got to the apple tart and ice cream.

  ‘But we can’t let you pay for this—’

  ‘Well, if you pay for it out of the little that the girls have sent you, you won’t have any left. So it looks as if you’ll have to let me pay, doesn’t it?’

  Over coffee Nigel suddenly said, ‘Maddy—you’d better know. We’re giving it up at the end of the week.’

  Maddy looked blank. ‘Giving what up?’

  ‘The search.’

  ‘You mean—for Lucky?’

  ‘Yes.’

  Maddy stared at each of them in turn as though she could not believe her ears. ‘You’re not serious?’

  ‘Yes. We’re killing ourselves like this. And the girls too. It’s getting us nowhere. Even if we did find Lucky now, we wouldn’t have the strength to deal with him.’

  Maddy’s blue eyes slowly filled with tears. ‘So—what will happen to Blue Door Theatre?’

  Nigel shrugged. ‘It belongs to the Town Council, you know. Not us. They’ll probably let it out for amateur shows.’

  ‘Mrs Potter-Smith prancing about on our stage…’

  Suddenly Maddy put her head down on the table and started to cry properly. The boys looked round the restaurant in embarrassment. ‘How can you let us be beaten like this?’ she sobbed; ‘after all that’s happened. We’ve done so much—and now…’

  The three boys patted her clumsily on the back and said, ‘Now, now,’ rather feebly, but they were feeling hardly more cheerful themselves.

  The waiter eyed Maddy questioningly, and asked if he could fetch her anything.

  ‘No, thanks,’ said Nigel. ‘She’ll be all right.’

  Soon Maddy’s despair turned to anger. ‘I always thought you were so marvellous,’ she told them bitterly. ‘I used to wish you were my brothers, not just friends, and I used to envy Vicky and Lynette for having brothers when I’d only got a sister, but now I’m glad. I couldn’t bear to hear any brother of mine talking like that—’

  ‘But Maddy, dear,’ said Nigel. ‘I don’t think you quite realize what these last few weeks have been like. It’s been all right for you at the Academy—you’ve been safe and warm and well fed—but it has been extremely hard for us, and I expect, for the girls. As a matter of fact, it won’t hit you so badly as us if the Blue Door Theatre never opens again. You’ve got all your film connections to fall back on when you leave the Academy.’

  Maddy looked at him steadily. ‘And you think that should make up for the loss of the Blue Door?’

  ‘No. Not make up for it—but you’ll be able to make a living.’

  ‘And that was all the Blue Door meant to you—a living?’

  Nigel shuffled in his chair. ‘No. It meant everything. And now we’ve lost everything, and we might as well admit it.’

  Maddy bounced with vehemence. ‘But we haven’t; we haven’t! While Lucky is alive we’ve still got a chance to get back our money. Oh, why am I tied up in this wretched Academy? I bet you if I were looking for him I’d find him.’

  ‘Don’t be a little silly,’ said Bulldog curtly. ‘Do you think you can do more than we have?’

  ‘Yes.’

  ‘What?’

  ‘Not give up.’

  ‘Maddy,’ said Jeremy quietly, ‘if you had not been good enough to buy this meal for us, I should throw the remains of this roll right in your stubborn little face.’

  ‘I’m glad I’m stubborn,’ shouted Maddy, going pink with feeling; ‘you’ve got to be stubborn. How else should we ever have done anything if we hadn’t been? And now is the time to be stubborner than ever.’

  ‘Yes,’ said Bulldog, ‘it’s all right to say that on a full stomach.’

  Maddy turned on him. ‘I wanted to come with you, you know I did, and risk an empty stomach, but you wouldn’t let me. And now you’re talking as though I never wanted to—’

  ‘Sh! Maddy! He doesn’t mean it like that,’ Nigel tried to calm her. ‘We’re glad you haven’t had to put up with anything.’

  ‘Well, you can be finished with the search if you like,’ said Maddy, ‘but I shall go on looking for Lucky till the end of my days.’

  Bulldog gave a shaky smile. ‘I can just imagine you a very tiny little old woman, livid with rage, hobbling up to a very seedy old man and saying, “Are you Lucky Green?” and going “Clonk” with her umbrella.’

  Maddy tried hard not to laugh, and looked very stern, but the corners of her mouth turned up and she laughed aloud with tears still in her eyes. ‘You are a fool, Bulldog. I’m sorry I made such a spectacle of you.’

  ‘That’s all right. But I think we’d better go now. The waiters are beginning to look a little uneasy as to what might happen next.’

  Outside, Maddy said, ‘But I mean all that. I think you’re being rotten to give up, and I never shall. You’ll be ashamed of yourselves when I capture Lucky single-handed.’

  The boys reflected. Yes, it would be rather shaming but totally impossible.

  ‘All right, Maddy. You keep up the search. But only in your spare time, mind. We’ll give it to the end of this week.’

  ‘But what about the girls?’ Maddy wanted to know. ‘Are you sure that they’re ready to give up?’

  ‘I think they will be when they realize just how bad things are with us.’

  Maddy shook her head regretfully. ‘This isn’t the gang I’ve been used to. What’s the matter with you? Hav
e you grown up, or something?’

  Nigel said sadly, ‘I think that must be it.’

  They walked back nearly to the Academy, but left Maddy before they reached the square, as they could not bear to see the building to which they had carried so many dreams and ambitions. When Maddy said goodbye, she added, ‘I bet you something will turn up during this week to make you change your minds. A clue, or something.’

  ‘It’s this being without any clue whatsoever that is so terrible,’ said Nigel. ‘That’s what made us see how hopeless it is.’

  ‘You’ll see,’ said Maddy. ‘Something will turn up. I’ll think of something.’

  Thinking had never been Maddy’s strong point, in fact her teachers had been used to saying, ‘Use a little thought Maddy, do…’ But for the next week she thought solidly and logically. She thought on the way to the Academy, so that buses and taxis had to swerve to avoid her blind crossing of streets. She thought all during lessons, so that her notes were always very brief and far from the point. She even thought during rehearsals, and missed her cues and entrances so that she had one of her best parts taken away from her. And she even thought during her meal-times, and merely toyed with her food, which was most unusual for Maddy. All her friends noticed it and teased her.

  ‘What’s the matter with Maddy?’ cried Buster. ‘Why the tragedy queen act?’

  ‘Shut up,’ Maddy said tersely. ‘I’m thinking. Can’t you see that?’

  ‘Oh, is that what it is! I knew you were in pain of some kind.’

  And this is how her train of thought went, ‘Lucky is a thief. He makes his living going round theatres, especially fairly new ones being run by not very experienced people, and gets friendly with whoever is in the box-office. Now, is that his usual method of making a living? Well, we know of his doing it twice, so there’s every chance of his doing it again. Now how does he know where to go? Well, he must read The Stage and find out where there are new companies. But could one trace him through that? No, he wouldn’t be a regular subscriber to the paper, he’d just buy it at any newspaper stand. But I might try inquiring at all the newspaper shops and stands that sell it—there aren’t so very many of them. But that’s no real clue. I must think of something to stop the boys giving up…’