Chapter Thirty-Five

CHAPTER THIRTY-FIVE

I t took another week. A week of long days and evenings of sweat and sawdust, things fitting together and things refusing to fit, wires not quite reaching, fabric not cut to the right lengths, and doors rehung. The shop area was still almost entirely empty apart from the old booths and the beginning of the serving counter for teas and coffees, but Little Sam and his crew had done a magnificent job on the studio section. The box-like structure was built of double-layered pine, and Bridget had come up with the idea of placing all sorts of greenery and ferns on the roof between its ceiling and the double height ceiling of the restaurant. It gave it an almost tropical feel, and the deep greens of the foliage complemented the green and gold on the walls.

The box was divided into two, a smaller room for the recording lathe and Dixon, and a larger one for the musicians. In the musicians’ den, the interior walls were lined with curtains of heavy cotton to damp any reverberations, and the wires from the microphones led through narrow drilled holes in the connecting wall. The hatch had been designed and installed in the shared wall so Dixon could slide it open to confirm a performance had been successfully recorded, or interrupt the musicians if something had gone wrong.

Dixon was horribly nervous. The den felt too large, the hatch too small, and the air too thin. He felt Jack’s hand on his arm just as his vision began to darken round the edges.

‘Breathe, Dixon,’ he said softly. ‘We’re all friends here. Just let them know when you’re ready.’

Dixon checked everything one more time, studying voltage meters as the musicians warmed up next door. His earphone would not give him a perfect idea of what he had available to record, only a guide, but Josie’s warm laugh at something Jack had said seemed to ripple up the wires and enter directly into his bloodstream.

On the table in front of him was a postcard with a four-leaf clover, a horseshoe and a garish rainbow on it. On the back was written Good luck, Dixon! With all best wishes, Bridget. He set it straight on the board in front of him. He was ready.

He slid the hatch open and found himself peering into the den. Josie stood in the centre of the space, with Tom at the piano, and Mr Porter had his own microphone. Dixon frowned.

‘Where’s your music, Tom?’ he asked.

‘We’ve all learned it, Dixon,’ he replied cheerfully. ‘Don’t want any sounds of papers turning on our first day. And we’ve sent Jack out to wait in the shop. He couldn’t stop fidgeting.’ Dixon smiled. He glanced over at Ruby, Lillian and Grace and they smiled back at him.

‘When the red light goes on, we’re recording,’ he said, pointing at the dull bulb mounted on the wall just above his hatch, and began to close the slide again, then paused. ‘And thank you.’

He retreated back into his cubbyhole, breathed out through his nose, switched on the lathe and clicked on the red light. Tom struck the opening chord. They had become Dixon’s friends over the last few weeks; they had trusted him with their money, their time and their talent. It was the least he could do, to make them immortal.

They got it on the first take.

They all followed in procession to the factory, with Lillian tooting her horn and laughing, with Ruby, Josie and Nikolai crammed in beside her. Tom was driving with Jack, and Dixon was cradling the master on his lap. Jeremy Fossil had to ask him twice before he was willing to release his grip on it. It was treated with the reverence due to a communion wafer.

They watched the electroplating and pressing like nervous parents.

Miss James passed the finished record to Fossil, who handed it to Patterson, who passed it to Tom, and Tom finally put it into Jack’s hands. He held it lightly by the edges, watching the light beam across the grooves. EMPIRE RECORDS , the label said, gold on a deep green back-ground. ‘My Love Awaits Me’. (Treadwell/Rowntree) Josie Clarence and the Empire Musicians.

‘Can we listen to the bloody thing now?’ Josie asked after Jack had spent a good minute staring at it.

He placed the record on the turntable, clicked the switch and placed the stylus down.

The song began.

Josie’s shoulders had dropped; Grace had her arm through Ruby’s, and was smiling. Fossil and Tom were leaning forward towards the horn, like game dogs at attention, trying to hear any imperfections in the sound.

Mr Porter had his arms folded across his chest, and he was nodding. Lillian and Nikolai were holding hands. Jack put his arm around Dixon’s shoulders.

‘You’ve done it, Dixon. You’ve only gone and bloody done it.’

He inhaled; the factory smelt of vinegar and fresh paint, and everything in it seemed to shimmer. Heaven, he was sure, would feel something like this.

Lillian suggested taking the record to play to Agnes and Joe. They telephoned from the factory, and Agnes said she would meet them at Joe’s house, as he had the better gramophone. Ruby said she was a little tired, and Mr Porter and Josie volunteered to run her home, while the others went to hear judgement pronounced.

The house built by Joseph P. Allerdyce was acclaimed by the leading architects, aesthetes and modernists of the country to be a masterpiece, and his housekeeper spent half her days showing groups of awe-struck tourists of the intelligentsia around its white marble halls. Agnes loathed it, but Joe’s pride in the house had softened her attitude somewhat. It looked as if it had been fashioned out of chalk, almost dug out of the gentle slope which shielded it from the disapproving gaze of her own ramshackle farmhouse. Mature trees seemed to hold it in a gentle embrace from above and to the sides, while steep manicured lawns extended from its glass and concrete frontage to a perfectly rectangular lake which seemed to draw down the sky and lay it at the mansion’s feet.

Inside, Joe had ditched the rich flummery of Victorian decoration – a feature of his entertainment venues – and replaced it with walls of white, punctuated with large windows, so the house appeared to be decorated by nature. The cold effect was softened by honey-coloured floorboards, and a scattering of modern sculptures, which stood like attendants or guests in the corners of the rooms.

The main reception room was filled with sofas in green leather, glass tables artfully scattered with magazines, elegant card tables surrounded by chairs with straight backs, and green leather seats which were, Jack found to his surprise, remarkably comfortable.

Nikolai was entranced.

‘Mr Allerdyce, sir,’ he said, accepting a whisky from him. ‘This is a masterpiece. A triumph!’

Joe looked pleased. ‘Aye, well. I admit I like how it turned out. Once you are married, we’ll give you a dinner here. You’ll spend the evening here if we do that, won’t you, Agnes?’

‘As long as you keep your excellent cook,’ Agnes replied. She was standing by the gramophone with the record in her hand. ‘Now shall we listen? I fear Tom may have a stroke if we do not.’

‘Go ahead.’ Joe nodded, and Tom set the record on the turntable, released the brake and lowered the needle. It sounded, if anything, better here than it had done in the factory. Agnes nodded, and patted Tom on the shoulder.

As the chorus began for the second time, Agnes caught Lillian’s eye and, with a slight tip of her chin, indicated she would like a word in private. Lillian moved quietly to her side and they retreated a little way from the gramophone and the others.

‘I have made a few enquiries about the family of Mr Wells, Lillian.’

Lillian braced herself, looking across the empty marble space at her fiancé. ‘Go on.’

‘His father is Colonel Sir Gideon Wells. He does indeed work at the Foreign Office, and spent a little time in Marakovia. He married a rather stupid woman a cousin of mine was at school with, almost certainly for her money, and the general consensus is he treats her badly.’ Lillian glanced at her sharply. ‘The cruelty, I understand, has been mental rather than physical. They lead separate lives now, and she is active in her local church. They have a daughter, Dixon’s older sister, who seems likely to be a spinster. A rather mousey creature, but devoted to her mother.’

‘I see,’ Lillian said. ‘Did you find out anything else about him, Agnes?’

‘Come and admire the garden with me,’ Agnes said, moving closer to the window. ‘It looks its best in the evening.’ Lillian followed her and realised her friend had placed her so she could pretend to admire the view, but in the reflection of the glass, keep an eye on where everyone else was.

The garden did indeed look lovely; the pristine lawn was lined on both sides with wild borders of Queen Anne’s lace.

‘I found the following, Lillian. The old girl network was not complimentary. Sir Gideon has always had an unpleasant reputation with women. Maids were chaperoned when he stayed in the country houses of some women I know. Need I say more?’

‘You do not.’ Lillian’s mouth had become uncomfortably dry.

‘I also presumed to find out where he was in 1896.’ Agnes stared out into the gentle dusk. ‘He had been married two years by then. His wife’s parents made some efforts to get him away from their home, and sent him to manage some of their properties in Northumberland. He returned before he was expected, and they found him a sinecure at the Foreign Office.’

For a dark moment, Lillian was back in the private dining room of a squalid establishment near the centre of Newcastle, fighting her own grief and fear during the brief painful minutes of Jack’s conception. She looked at the reflections of Joe’s other guests in the dark glass: Dixon, receiving Joe’s praise with his shy and kindly smile; Jack and Grace, beaming with pride.

‘Lillian?’

‘I can’t be sure, Agnes. It was so long ago. And the man in question gave me a false name.’

Agnes pursed her lips, and sniffed. ‘But would you recognise the man who attacked you if you saw him again?’

‘Yes. But I was hoping I would never have to do so.’

‘No. I see that,’ her friend said with a sigh. ‘But you had better prepare yourself.’

Lillian darted an alarmed look at her, and Agnes drank her whisky. ‘My friendly network of informants extends quite a way, dear. I have a message for Nikolai from his cousin, the Crown Prince Stefan. With a little subterfuge, aided by the Prince of Wales, he hopes to add Highbridge to the tour he is undertaking with the prince later in the year. They will visit a factory or two, and take in a show, but of course the primary aim will be to meet with Nikolai.’ Lillian gasped. ‘You must say nothing, Lillian. Only you and Nikolai can know anything of this. I mention it because it is likely Colonel Sir Gideon Wells, as an old Marakovian hand, will be part of the Prince of Wales’s entourage. Then you will know if it was he who attacked you, or not.’

Lillian could not speak, but for a few minutes at least, she did not have to. The record was put on again and by the time it had finished a second time, Lillian was ready to face the room.

When the others had left, Joe walked Agnes back through the woods to her own house along the wide gravel track he had caused to be built for just this purpose. They walked arm in arm in easy silence, till, through the last trees and across the lawn, Agnes could make out the twinkling windows of her own ramshackle cottage.

‘You told her then?’ Joe asked.

‘I did. And I impressed on her the need to keep the secret of Prince Stefan’s visit from anyone but Nikolai.’

‘Good. They’re a pleasant bunch – Jack, Grace, Tom and the rest. But still young, like puppies. Too inclined to trust. Lil has had enough hard knocks, though.’ Agnes could feel rather than see his smile. ‘It was a fine thing to hear her sing again, though, wasn’t it? And now she’s going to release a recording. Things do change.’

The air was heavy with the scent of damp earth, a new spring to come. With each year that passed, Agnes valued that scent more deeply. ‘They do. I only hope their bad luck is over. They’ve had more than their fair share over the years since The Empire was rebuilt.’

‘They have!’ They crossed the lawn together, and Agnes opened the door with her latchkey, releasing the familiar smell of her house – baked bread and horse blanket. ‘I used Turnbull’s in my refurbishment and Hallam’s for the drains, and never had an issue—’ He stopped suddenly on the threshold. ‘Now then, I wonder . . .’

‘What is it, Joe?’

‘Might be I just have a nasty habit of thought. When do they mean to open the shop again?’

She pulled him gently into the hallway, crowded with galoshes and damp wool coats. ‘Towards the end of the month. Jack has some stunt planned. They’ll record the Sunrise Song in the morning, and have it on the shelves for the four o’clock opening.’ He was still lost in thought. ‘Come and have a nightcap and tell me what you are thinking.’

He shook himself. ‘I will.’

Agnes did not think that Joe, when he slowly unfolded his suspicions, was being foolish, or overly cynical, or alarmist. She had, after all, known the principles involved for many years. The next day she left her horses to call at the Empire and had a serious conversation with Tom at the factory, then with Jack, Grace and Lillian at the Empire.

She left Tom, to her disquiet, distressed, Jack angry and Lillian pale with shock. Before she left, Grace took her down to the shop and she tried a milk shake and admired the general industry of the workers getting the shop ready for its opening.

‘I wish you the very best of luck, Grace,’ she said as she left.

‘You and Joe must think we’re all very foolish not to have seen it,’ Grace said.

‘Not at all, dear,’ Agnes replied. ‘I think you’re a good person. That’s a very dangerous thing to be in a naughty world.’