Fallen Skies Read online

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  Lily did not get up for breakfast, although Stephen ensured that she was awake by briskly drawing the bedroom curtains and stamping around the room, his shoes very noisy on the bare floorboards, looking for his cufflinks.

  Lily lay back on the pillows and watched him. She made no effort to get out of bed and help him look for them. When he found them left in the bathroom she showed no interest.

  “I’m going down for breakfast,” he prompted.

  Lily did not move. “Ask Sally to bring me up some coffee and a slice of toast,” she said. “I’ll get dressed later.”

  Stephen hesitated. He wanted to tell her that breakfast in bed was a luxury which had been offered to her yesterday as a treat, as part of their honeymoon. Today was a working day when she should be dressed before him, and downstairs in the dining room ready to pour his cup of tea while they breakfasted together.

  “Are you not having breakfast with me?” he asked pointedly.

  Lily smiled at him pleasantly. “No,” she said simply. “I don’t have any work to go to, I don’t have any friends to meet. There is nothing for me to get up for. I’ll have a bath and get dressed later.”

  “If you’re still sulking . . .”

  Lily shook her fair head. Her smile was imperturbable. “No,” she said. “I’m not sulking. But if I am to be a lady of leisure I might as well enjoy it.”

  Stephen crossed the room and pecked her cheek. “I’ll see you this afternoon then,” he said. He was still dissatisfied but he could find no reasonable grounds for complaint.

  Lily nodded. She sat up in bed and smoothed the covers to her liking. “Have a nice day at work,” she said.

  Muriel poured Stephen’s tea and sat at the opposite end of the table while he ate his breakfast and read The Times. If she expected Lily to come downstairs and have breakfast with her new husband and see him off to work, she did not say. She heard Stephen order Sally to take a tray upstairs to Mrs. Winters and she said nothing. When Stephen went to work Muriel sat in the drawing room on the window seat, watching the children playing at the Canoe Lake for a long time. The swans, which had been banished during the war to prevent people wasting bread on them, sailed serenely on the glassy water, breast to breast with their own reflections.

  Muriel did not want to go upstairs to see if Lily were ill, if she needed anything. She did not want to invite Lily’s confidences. She found that she had no inclination to advise, to intervene into Stephen’s marriage. She found that she wanted to know nothing about it at all.

  There was not a sound from Lily’s room until eleven when the bedroom door banged open and Lily pattered down the stairs. She called in to Rory’s sickroom to say good morning and then she came downstairs. Muriel, emerging from the drawing room, met her in the hall and saw with some alarm that she had on her hat and gloves.

  “Are you going out?”

  Lily smiled. “Just for a little walk, along the front, perhaps up to the shops.”

  “Coventry will drive you. He is in the garden, but I can send for him in a moment.”

  Lily shook her head. “No need. I want a walk. It’s a lovely day.”

  “I am going for tea to Mrs. Frost. Her daughter will be there and some other people. Will you come too, Lily?”

  “Lovely!” Lily said. “What time?”

  “We’ll leave here at half past three,” Muriel said. “Coventry can drop us and then fetch Stephen. We can all come home together.”

  “Lovely,” Lily said again. “See you later.”

  She opened the door herself and stepped outside. “Lunch at twelve,” Muriel called.

  Lily opened the door again and stuck her head round. “Not for me,” she said cheerily. “I’ll be back in time for tea.” And then she was gone before Muriel could protest.

  She walked along the seafront until she was out of sight of the house. It was a surprisingly long way. The house was tall, three storeys high, and the octagonal tower commanded a wide view of the promenade. Lily glanced over her shoulder. When all she could see was the red tiled roof of the tower she crossed the council flower gardens and walked briskly towards Palmerston Road until she came to a tram stop. She waited for a little while and then the tram came, half-empty on a weekday morning.

  Lily looked in her purse when she paid for her ticket. She had a few shillings and some coppers but she had spent her last pound on the telegram to tell Charlie that she was marrying. Stephen had spoken of giving her an allowance but, as yet, he had given her no money. Lily grimaced. It would be embarrassing to ask him for money when he bought all her clothes and had opened accounts for her in the major Portsmouth stores, but without money in her pocket she might as well have stayed Lily Pears with at least a weekly wage to spend.

  She leaned forward to see out of the front window. The boat-like prow of the Kings Theatre was ahead of them. There were posters up for the summer variety shows. There was a sticker pasted over the posters: “And the Kings Orchestra,” it said. “Conductor Charles Smith.” Lily beamed.

  The tram stopped and she jumped down from the wooden slatted steps. The glass swing doors of the theatre were shut, except for one entrance where you could go in to buy advance tickets. A cleaning woman was laboriously washing the marble floor of the foyer. A thick green carpet ran up the steps leading from the foyer into the heart of the theatre.

  Lily had been to shows at the Kings with her mother ever since it had opened in 1907, but they had sat in the gods, the highest seats in the theatre, which had a separate entrance and separate box office at the side of the theatre. They had been strictly segregated from the ladies and gentlemen who entered by the front entrance and walked on carpet. Lily smiled. She was Mrs. Winters now. If she came to the theatre it would be through those doors and up those stairs and into the deep green and gilt and cream auditorium to sit in comfortable cushioned seats. She turned from the front entrance. She would rather be Lily Valance and enter at the stage door.

  The theatre had been squeezed into a block of land tucked between terraced houses. Lily had to walk along the white-painted side of the building and then turn the corner and walk along the street at the back of the theatre to the stage door. On the other side of the road were small two-storey terraced houses. Children played in the street and one, spotting her hat and her expensive yellow dress and jacket, came running up to her with his hands out asking for a penny for sweets. Lily scowled at him, fearing his dirty hands on her skirt. “Shove off,” she said abruptly.

  She paused before the stage door and pulled a hand mirror from her purse. Her hair was smooth, the little slice of straw and flowers which served as her hat was on straight. Her lipstick was discreet. She looked as pretty as she had when Charlie had first seen her, but now, shadowed with sadness, her face had a new maturity which was growing towards beauty. Lily smiled at herself with absolute satisfaction. She raised her hand and tapped on the door.

  A man opened it. “Lily Valance,” Lily said, waving the letter from the theatre. “For an audition.” She was gambling that he would not read it and see that the date was wrong and that she was a day early.

  “All right,” he said. He pushed the door towards her and Lily slipped inside. On her left was the little glass-fronted office, like a booking office, where the doorman sat and brewed tea for the actors and crew, and ran a good business taking bets, selling newspapers, carrying messages and spreading gossip. Ahead of her was a flight of concrete steps which led directly to the stage. Dressing rooms ran off to the left, and there was another floor of dressing rooms up the flight of steps on the next level. The largest room, up a few steps and to the right, convenient for the door and the doorman, was the star dressing room.

  “D’you know your way?” the doorman asked. “Who d’you have to see?”

  “Charlie Smith,” Lily said. She found she was breathless.

  “He’s rehearsing the band,” the man said. He nodded towards the steps which led upward to the darkness. “Go on up.”