Night at the Vulcan Read Free Page A

bread…”
    He swung round and for the first time she saw his face. He was dark and thin and his eyes were brightly impertinent. Their expression changed as he stared at her.
    “ ’Ullo, ’ullo!” he said. “Who give
you
a tanner and borrowed ’alf-a-crahn? What’s up?”
    “I’m all right.”
    “
Are
you? Your looks don’t flatter you, then.”
    “I’m a bit tired and—” Her voice broke and she thought in terror that she was going to cry. “It’s nothing,” she said.
    “ ’Ere!” He dragged a box out from under the sink and not ungently pushed her down on it. “Where’s this remarkable tin of very pertikler meat? Give us a shine at it.”
    He shoved her suitcase over and while she fumbled at the lock busied himself with pouring out tea. “Nothin’ to touch a drop of the old char when you’re browned off,” he said. He put the reeking cup of dark fluid beside her and turned away.
    “With any luck,” Martyn thought, folding back the garments in her case, “I won’t have to sell these now.”
    She found the tin and gave it to him. “Coo!” he said. “Looks lovely, don’t it? Tongue and veal and a pitcher of sheep to show there’s no deception. Very tempting.”
    “Can you open it?”
    “Can I open it? Oh, dear.”
    She drank her scalding tea and watched him open the tin and turn its contents out on a more dubious plate. Using his clasp knife he perched chunks of meat on a slab of bread and held it out to her. “You’re in luck,” he said. “Eat it slow.”
    She urged him to join her but he said he would set his share aside for later. They could both, he suggested, take another cut at it to-morrow. He examined the tin with interest while Martyn consumed her portion. She had never before given such intense concentration to a physical act. She would never have believed that eating could bring so fierce a satisfaction.
    “Comes from Australia, don’t it?” her companion said, still contemplating the tin.
    “New Zealand.”
    “Same thing.”
    Martyn said: “Not really. There’s quite a big sea in between.”
    “Do you come from there?”
    “Where?”
    “Australia.”
    “No. I’m a New Zealander.”
    “Same thing.”
    She looked up and found him grinning at her. He made the gesture of wiping the smile off his face. “Oh, dear,” he said.
    Martyn finished her tea and stood up. “I must start my job,” she said.
    “Feel better?”
    “Much, much better.”
    “Would it be quite a spell since you ate anything?”
    “Yesterday.”
    “I never fancy drinkin’ on an empty stomach, myself.”
    Her face burnt against the palms of her hands. “But I don’t… I mean, I know. I mean I was a bit faint and somebody… a girl… she was terribly kind…”
    “Does yer mother know yer aht?” he asked ironically, and took a key from a collection hung on nails behind the door. “If you
must
work,” he said.
    “Please.”
    “Personally escorted tour abaht to commence. Follow in single file and don’t talk to the guide. I thank you.”
    She followed him to the stage and round the back of the set. He warned her of obstructions by bobbing his torchlight on them and, when she stumbled against a muffled table, took her hand. She was disquieted by the grip of his fingers, calloused and wooden, and by the warmth of his palm, which was unexpectedly soft. She was oppressed with renewed loneliness and fear.
    “End of the penny section,” he said, releasing her.
    He unlocked a door, reached inside and switched on a light
    “They call this the Greenroom,” he said. “That’s what it was in the old days. It’s been done up. Guv’nor’s idea.”
    It was a room without a window, newly painted in green. There were a number of armchairs in brown leather, a round table littered with magazines, a set of well-stocked bookshelves and a gas fire. Groups of framed Pollock’s prints decorated the walls: “Mr. Dale as Claude Amboine.” “Mr. T. Hicks as Richard I.” “Mr. S. French as