‘It looks as though Charlie is still in bed,’ she told John, feeling guilty on her boyfriend’s behalf when she saw the disapproval in John’s honest hazel eyes. Quickly she came to her Charlie’s defence. ‘Charlie is a night owl. He simply can’t sleep if he goes to bed too early.’
It was the truth. Even when they weren’t out somewhere partying with his friends, he preferred to stay up late playing his records until the early hours of the morning. He would then sleep well into the day, sometimes missing important casting auditions because he hadn’t woken up, and then complaining when, as he saw it, other far less talented actors than he got work whilst he didn’t.
‘He’s very talented,’ Janey felt compelled to add, even though John hadn’t made any further comments. ‘He does a lot of modelling, but what he really wants is to get into acting, especially in modern plays. Charlie wants to focus on modern drama. He says that it’s immoral to keep on doing plays by someone who’s been dead for four hundred years and that theatres should be producing works by young playwrights.’
John nodded. Privately he thought there was nothing more rousing than a bit of Shakespeare. At least a chap could understand what was happening, and feel his heart swell when he heard the familiar lines. Not like the modern stuff. What was it they were called? Kitchen sink dramas? He hadn’t met Janey’s boyfriend but he had heard Jay talking about him, and although Jay hadn’t said so in so many words, John had gained the impression that he wasn’t too impressed. It hadn’t been said outright, but John had also gained the impression that Janey was dipping into her own money to help fund her boyfriend. John couldn’t imagine a situation in which it would ever be acceptable for a chap to expect to be financed by a young woman, especially a decent young woman like Janey. A very nice young woman. He’d always liked her. Liked her a lot, in fact.
Janey noticed the young musician from the flat above Charlie’s looking in derision at John as they crossed the narrow hallway. With his long hair, jeans and floral shirt, the musician was the epitome of the King’s Road scene, whilst John, who was wearing grey slacks, a navy-blue blazer, and a white shirt with a modestly spotted tie, his hair cut short back and sides, looked more like someone of Janey’s father’s generation.
She removed her key to Charlie’s room from her handbag and opened the door.
Charlie’s bedsit had a small section curtained off to provide a kitchen, the rest of the space taken up by a bed settee, which was more or less always left in the ‘bed’ position, a camping table, a couple of bentwood dining chairs and a huge old wardrobe with a broken door that that to be wedged closed with a piece of cardboard and had one foot missing. A television was perched precariously on a too-small stand, whilst the bookshelves either side of the ancient gas fire groaned under the combined weight of, amongst other things, an old Dansette record player, some books, a guitar, which Charlie had insisted he wanted and then had never played, and over a year’s worth of dust.
The heavy velvet curtains that hung at the window had come via the Walton Street shop, having been thrown out by a client for whom the shop was making new ones.
Janey knew the interior of the flat so well, right down to the threadbare place in the ancient Turkey carpet covering the lino, and which had to be avoided when one was wearing heels, and so didn’t need to hesitate as John did in the gloom.
The room smelled of pot, and as usual Charlie’s clothes were heaped on top of one of the bentwood chairs, but not just Charlie’s clothes. Janey could see the bright colours of a girl’s dress poking out from the legs of Charlie’s jeans. It was one of her own designs, she recognised absently, as her brain and her heart raced to analyse what the fact that the dress was there meant. She looked towards the bed where, through the gloom, she could now see that there were two heads sharing the pillow. Her heart won, thudding into her ribs with a mixture of shock, betrayal and pain. John, who had come into the room behind Janey, looked from Janey’s white face towards the bed, and realised immediately what was happening. Instinctively he stepped between Janey and the bed’s occupants, but it was too late. Disturbed by their entrance, the girl had woken and was now sitting up, dragging the coverlet around her as she did so.
‘Cindy!’ Janey knew that her lips had formed her partner’s name; she could hear the sound of it exploding inside her head.
Charlie was awake now as well, the pair of them huddling together in the untidy bed, Charlie scowling and looking defiant in the way that he always did when he had done something wrong and wasn’t going to admit it. Cindy, meanwhile, was looking almost amused. Neither of them, it seemed, was the least bit repentant.
‘Come on, Janey, let me take you home.’
She had almost forgotten that John was there, but now it was a wonderful relief to be able to turn to him and let him take charge, ushering her solicitously back out into the early afternoon sunshine, whilst patting her hand tenderly.
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sp; She knew that he had flagged down a taxi and was helping her into it, but it was as though she was distanced from it, as though a part of her wasn’t really there and had been left behind in the Edgware Road flat. Images flashed through her head. Charlie had been sleeping with his arm round Cindy, and facing her, something he had never ever done with her. In fact, she had never actually spent a whole night with him. Cindy had looked so beautiful, with the subdued light giving her skin a soft lustrous gleam. She’d had that heavy-eyed look of a woman who had enjoyed good sex. Pain speared Janey as keenly as any knife as she realised just how long it was since she and Charlie had actually had sex.
When they arrived back at Cheyne Walk, to Janey’s relief John took charge of everything, putting on the kettle and making them both a cup of tea.
‘Would you like me to telephone your parents?’
‘Oh, no,’ Janey said immediately. ‘There’s no point in worrying them.’
‘You should have someone with you.’
Janey managed a small smile. John really was so sweetly old-fashioned and chivalrous.
‘I’m not on my own,’ she pointed out. ‘You’re here with me–not that I want to delay you. You’ve done so much already. Besides, Rose will be back later, I expect.’
‘I’m not leaving you here on your own,’ John told her firmly.
‘Oh, John…’ Somehow this evidence of his kindness brought her closer to tears than Charlie’s betrayal had. ‘I can’t let you do that. You must have things to do.’
‘Nothing that can’t wait. Now, you drink that tea whilst it’s still hot.’
‘You sound just like my father,’ Janey told her with a shaky smile.
‘He’s a fine man.’
‘Yes.’ A tear rolled down her face.
‘Don’t, Janey. He’s not worth it.’
John took the cup of tea from her and folded her into his arms, comfortingly patting her back, much as though she was still the same little girl she had been when they had all played together, Janey recognised. It felt like the safest place on earth.