Read Online The Disappearance Boy by Neil Bartlett - Free Book Online Page B
Authors: Neil Bartlett
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professional standards in the theatre had to be kept up at all times.
‘Anything nice Sunday, Reg?’ he barked, opening his window and accepting the proffered dressing-room keys. His eyes briefly strayed back down to the photograph in his paper as he turned to find their places on his board of numbered hooks. Reggie tried not to smile. The woman in the photograph looked a bit like Sandra, he thought – blonde, with a big white fur.
‘Nothing special, Mr Gardiner. Might take myself off for a nice walk somewhere I thought. The river at Richmond or something. You know.’
‘Oh, very nice, Richmond,’ said Mr Gardiner, finally dropping the keys over their allotted hooks. Order had been restored. ‘Do give it my regards.’
‘I certainly will,’ said Reggie, crossing his jacket over his chest against the night and pushing open the stage door. ‘Well …’
It was always odd, saying goodnight at the end of an engagement.
‘Well, take care then, Mr Gardiner. Until next time.’
‘Take care, young man,’ barked Mr Gardiner, as the door swung closed and the cold air brushed his face for a moment. He congratulated himself quietly for not having alluded to the young man’s imminent lack of an engagement – that had been rather nicely handled, he thought – and then, as he put on his brown dustcoat and collected his bunch of locking-up keys, he found his eye caught by the folded paper once again. For a young lady who’d just had her jewels stolen, he thought, she didn’t look too put out at all, and since there was now finally no one left hanging about to hear him, he felt free to offer her his pennyworth of advice out loud.
‘Locks and keys, miss,’ said Mr Gardiner, doing up his last three buttons in time to his phrasing. ‘Locks … And … Keys. I think you’ll find that’s the motto of this particular story.’
As Mr Gardiner sets off on his nightly round, preparing once again to seal up his theatre in its own particular darkness and put it to bed with another week of sweat and laughs and deceptions all done, I think it’s only fair to tell you that Reggie’s statement about where he was thinking of heading the next day was a lie. Misdirection – you see, it really is that easy when you know how. It helps, of course, if your subject’s attention is already halfway up the garden path with a young lady at the Savoy, as Mr Gardiner’s had undoubtedly been at the time. Reggie’s sum-total experience of The River at Richmond was limited to having once seen that phrase stretched across the bottom of an old London Transport poster, revealed when he’d been watching a young workman clearing a hoarding before slapping up an advertisement; he’d no more actually been there than Mr Gardiner ever had. But he’d guessed correctly from the tone of their nightly goodbyes that a bracing walk along the Thames was exactly what an old stickler like Mr Gardiner would think was the proper way for a semi-unfortunate like himself to work off his surplus energies on a Sunday afternoon. It conformed to his views about what an otherwise nice young lad like Reggie ought to be getting up to in his spare time.
Funny, what people assume.
Reggie’s real plan for his Sunday is something quite different. Just like he did last Sunday, and the Sunday before that – ever since he discovered the place, in fact – he is going to get the first bus that comes along that will take him up to Clapham, and then on Clapham High Street he’s going to change onto a number 28, and then onto a number 3 to Dulwich. Getting off at the bombsite at the bottom of Gipsy Hill, he’ll then take the steep walk up to the gates of the Dulwich and Sydenham Municipal Cemetery, only stopping twice to lean on the wooden handrail to the right of the path and catch his breath.
7
He stands still, listening to the bell of a nearby church tolling for the service. Then he listens to it stop. He’s quite warm after his climb up the hill, but the day
‘Anything nice Sunday, Reg?’ he barked, opening his window and accepting the proffered dressing-room keys. His eyes briefly strayed back down to the photograph in his paper as he turned to find their places on his board of numbered hooks. Reggie tried not to smile. The woman in the photograph looked a bit like Sandra, he thought – blonde, with a big white fur.
‘Nothing special, Mr Gardiner. Might take myself off for a nice walk somewhere I thought. The river at Richmond or something. You know.’
‘Oh, very nice, Richmond,’ said Mr Gardiner, finally dropping the keys over their allotted hooks. Order had been restored. ‘Do give it my regards.’
‘I certainly will,’ said Reggie, crossing his jacket over his chest against the night and pushing open the stage door. ‘Well …’
It was always odd, saying goodnight at the end of an engagement.
‘Well, take care then, Mr Gardiner. Until next time.’
‘Take care, young man,’ barked Mr Gardiner, as the door swung closed and the cold air brushed his face for a moment. He congratulated himself quietly for not having alluded to the young man’s imminent lack of an engagement – that had been rather nicely handled, he thought – and then, as he put on his brown dustcoat and collected his bunch of locking-up keys, he found his eye caught by the folded paper once again. For a young lady who’d just had her jewels stolen, he thought, she didn’t look too put out at all, and since there was now finally no one left hanging about to hear him, he felt free to offer her his pennyworth of advice out loud.
‘Locks and keys, miss,’ said Mr Gardiner, doing up his last three buttons in time to his phrasing. ‘Locks … And … Keys. I think you’ll find that’s the motto of this particular story.’
As Mr Gardiner sets off on his nightly round, preparing once again to seal up his theatre in its own particular darkness and put it to bed with another week of sweat and laughs and deceptions all done, I think it’s only fair to tell you that Reggie’s statement about where he was thinking of heading the next day was a lie. Misdirection – you see, it really is that easy when you know how. It helps, of course, if your subject’s attention is already halfway up the garden path with a young lady at the Savoy, as Mr Gardiner’s had undoubtedly been at the time. Reggie’s sum-total experience of The River at Richmond was limited to having once seen that phrase stretched across the bottom of an old London Transport poster, revealed when he’d been watching a young workman clearing a hoarding before slapping up an advertisement; he’d no more actually been there than Mr Gardiner ever had. But he’d guessed correctly from the tone of their nightly goodbyes that a bracing walk along the Thames was exactly what an old stickler like Mr Gardiner would think was the proper way for a semi-unfortunate like himself to work off his surplus energies on a Sunday afternoon. It conformed to his views about what an otherwise nice young lad like Reggie ought to be getting up to in his spare time.
Funny, what people assume.
Reggie’s real plan for his Sunday is something quite different. Just like he did last Sunday, and the Sunday before that – ever since he discovered the place, in fact – he is going to get the first bus that comes along that will take him up to Clapham, and then on Clapham High Street he’s going to change onto a number 28, and then onto a number 3 to Dulwich. Getting off at the bombsite at the bottom of Gipsy Hill, he’ll then take the steep walk up to the gates of the Dulwich and Sydenham Municipal Cemetery, only stopping twice to lean on the wooden handrail to the right of the path and catch his breath.
7
He stands still, listening to the bell of a nearby church tolling for the service. Then he listens to it stop. He’s quite warm after his climb up the hill, but the day
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