Ghost Song Read online

  As he went into the auditorium, he realized that after all he was not on his own in the theatre. Going up the steps to the stage, he heard a sound somewhere in the shadows. In the stalls, had it been? Perhaps it was Minnie Bean—she sometimes liked to prowl around the theatre, remembering the days when she had been dresser to Toby’s mother. But Minnie had been on door-opening duty at the Kensington house when Toby left, and she did not prowl—she was four-square as to build and inclined to clump. If she had taken a nip of gin in the Sailor’s Rest (‘Just two nips for a little bit of comfort, Mr Toby’), she clumped a wildly erratic path. For years Toby had longed to write a song about Minnie and the gin-nipping, but she was sharp enough to recognize herself and he was too fond of her to upset her.

  But when he looked out into the darkness nothing moved, and when he called out to ask if anyone was there, there was only the echo of his own voice. Probably it had just been one of the inexplicable sounds old buildings sometimes made. Or it could have been rain pattering down on a section of roof somewhere—thunder had been sulking its way in from the east since lunchtime and thunder-rain was usually very heavy.

  It might even be one of the theatre’s ghosts he had heard. When he was fourteen he had read A Tale of Two Cities and been entranced by Dickens’s concept of London having corners where there were resonances from the past and where footsteps echoed down the years. He thought Dickens might easily have been writing about Platt’s Alley and Burbage Street and Candle Square.

  But although Toby believed in the echoes and sometimes thought he heard them for himself, he was inclined to be cynical about the existence of actual ghosts. Still, most theatres were supposed to be a bit haunted—you had only to look at Drury Lane with its famous eighteenth-century gentleman who had been seen quite a few times over the years. The Tarleton was certainly old enough to have one or two spooks. There was a persistent legend of a man wearing a long cloak or coat and a wide-brimmed hat who was supposed to be occasionally glimpsed in Platt’s Alley. He was said to hide his face as he slunk through the darkness and to hum snatches of song to himself occasionally, although the legend did not tell why he did either of these things. Toby had no idea when the legend had begun; he had never seen the ghost and he did not know anyone who had, but the story was part of the Tarleton’s folklore.

  But even if there were ghosts he did not mind. There might even be a song to be written about them—something spooky but comic. Something about the ghost walking? Would the audiences recognize that as a theatre expression? Would they know that when actors talked about the ghost walking, they meant wages were being paid? It could be written as part of the lyrics and Frank could create eerie music that sounded like tiptoeing footsteps.

  Tiptoeing footsteps… The sound came again, exactly as if someone was walking stealthily through the darkness. He looked about him, but there was nothing to be seen. Imagination or creaking timbers. Yes, but supposing it really was the ghost walking again? Don’t be absurd! But the phrase and the idea had lodged firmly in his mind and he was already trying out lyrics.

  On Friday nights the ghost walks

  Rattling its chains to itself;

  Because that’s the night the ghost hands out the pelf.

  Not W. S. Gilbert’s standards by any means, but not bad as a starting point and presumably Gilbert did not write The Pirates of Penzance in five minutes.

  Toby, his mind full of this promising new idea, went into the green room to write it down, so absorbed that he did not hear the footsteps start up again. Nor did he see the figure that stood unseen in a corner of the auditorium, watching him through the darkness.

  CHAPTER TWO

  The Present

  HILARY BRYANT HAD worked for the Harlequin Society for four years, and she still found every day a delight. The society was listed in most reference books as being specialists and consultants on early-nineteenth-century theatre—people said this was a massive generalization, but Hilary thought it described their work as well as anything could. She loved everything to do with Edwardian theatre and she enjoyed tracking down freelancers who would work with television set designers, and getting involved in research for early-nineteenth-century plays or documentaries. Last year they had helped set up a series of lectures for Open University summer schools, and after that had been an exhibition of music-hall memorabilia which The Sunday Times had told its readers was original and well worth seeing.

  Shona Seymour, Hilary’s boss, was pretty good to work for. She was practical and crisply efficient, and she dealt with the administration and budgeting for the society, and inveigled money or grants out of obscure government departments and arts councils. Nobody knew much about her private life, but it was part of the office folklore that she had started out as a lowly receptionist twenty-odd years ago and worked her way up to executive manager.

  ‘She’s like those exaggerated success stories about people starting in the post room and ending as chairman of the board,’ said Judy Randall, who was a freelance nineteenth-century food expert, regularly used by the Harlequin. Judy wore hand-woven cloaks like a psychedelic version of Margaret Rutherford playing Miss Marple, and rode through London on a bicycle, with long striped scarves trailing behind her like flattened rainbows. She had once invited Hilary to a meal at her flat and had served a complete five-course menu from 1880. Hilary and two of the other guests had had to walk all the way along the Embankment afterwards to work off the apple and mutton pudding and meringue glacé.

  ‘And you know, of course,’ said Judy, who on this occasion had called at the office to collect a brief for a TV programme and stayed to talk, ‘that she’s got a bit of a thing for young men. You’ve only got to see the glint if anyone under thirty comes into the office. In fact, I’ll bet she glinted at that surveyor who managed to get inside the mysterious Tarleton. Was he worth glinting at?’

  ‘I only spoke to him over the phone. He sounded rather nice though.’

  ‘Whatever he sounded like, I’ll bet Shona didn’t like him borrowing the keys to the Tarleton,’ said Judy. ‘She doesn’t like anyone going in there, does she?’

  ‘No, but to be fair that’s because the owner wants it kept firmly closed.’

  ‘Who is the owner?’

  ‘I don’t know. I don’t think anyone does. There isn’t even a name in the file,’ said Hilary. ‘That’s one of the mysteries.’

  ‘I bet Shona knows who it is.’

  ‘If she does, she isn’t saying.’

  The mysterious Tarleton Music Hall was a bit of an on-going joke at the Harlequin. Every so often somebody came across a new reference to it and started up a line of speculation as to why it had been closed for more than ninety years and who the owner might be. Hilary was always meaning to borrow the keys when no one was around and take a look inside on her own account, but she had never got round to it.

  Judy wandered round the office inquisitively, keeping up a running commentary, mostly about the TV programme called The Edwardians’ Dining Table, which the Harlequin had helped research.

  ‘They’re just recording the episode on puddings. Tansy pudding and tipsy cake— Oh, that sheet music you found was terrific, by the way. Exactly right, and they’ll definitely use it as backing for that particular episode. Where on earth did you find it?’

  ‘“All Because of Too Much Tipsy Cake”,’ said Hilary, remembering. ‘Toby Chance wrote it in the early 1900s. He had some connection with the Tarleton, although I don’t know exactly what. I picked the music up in an old book-shop just off St Martins Lane.’ In odd moments when there was nothing else going on she was assembling a folder of pre–first world war songs in case they could interest a publisher in bringing out a collection. ‘It didn’t look as if it had been performed for about a hundred years.’

  ‘I don’t think it has, but it sounds marvellous when it’s played and sung,’ said Judy. ‘Saucy, but in a very subtle way. Oh, and they’re definitely going ahead with one of those TV-tie-in books for the programme as
well. I’ll make sure the Harlequin gets a credit, of course.’ She found her gloves which were in one corner of the office and her scarf which was over the back of Hilary’s chair. ‘See you soon, Hilary. Don’t let Seymour get her hands on that surveyor and if he vanishes into the Tarleton’s mists, send in the SAS.’

  Hilary thought about the Tarleton on the way home that evening. It was a place that got under your skin if you wondered about it for too long, it made you want to find out what had plunged it into its long twilight. A violent death? A plot to overthrow the government? Somebody with a sleeping beauty fixation? The real reason was probably that the owner had gone mundanely bankrupt and the bailiffs had moved in.

  Her flat was warm and welcoming after the rush hour. It was the upper floor of an old house which had been divided up quite imaginatively, although the plumbing was sometimes a bit peculiar and if two people in the house had a shower at the same time the water was apt to run icily cold without warning. Occasionally they all said they would have to draw up a rota for showering and hair-washing, but they never did.

  As she switched on the lights and turned up the heating, she considered whether to phone Gil to see if he would like to share a pizza. It was not a very appealing idea; they had been a bit lukewarm lately and Hilary found herself remembering with annoyance his habit of finding an excuse not to go out if the weather was unfriendly. So instead she made herself a large and substantial sandwich, added a glass of wine, and carried the tray up to the tiny study and the laptop.

  One of the things she liked best about her flat was the little twist of six stairs just off the main bedroom which led to an unexpected half-attic room. The shape was too awkward to house a bed so she had all her books up here and a desk with the laptop. It was sufficiently removed from the rest of the house to be a small island of silence and isolation which was great if she brought work home from the office or had the occasional freelance project to deal with. At the moment she did not have any freelance work on, but if she was going to delve into the Tarleton’s past tonight—and she thought she was—it would be better to do so out of Shona Seymour’s sight and hearing. She would probably not find anything new, but it would be a lot more interesting than listening to Gil’s reasons why he could not make the one-stop Tube journey to Hilary’s flat and why Hilary need not make her own journey to his house.

  The desk lamp cast a soft pool of light over her desk and as the computer screen flickered, Hilary had the sudden feeling she was about to step out of the modern world for a while and reach back into the past. It was a good feeling; it was how research ought to feel and rarely did.

  She typed in a search request for ‘Tarleton’ and ‘Southwark’ and ‘music halls’ altogether, which yielded a few pages of more or less standard entries. Hilary worked her way diligently through them, but most were references to music-hall luminaries who had appeared there. This was not really what she was looking for although it was interesting in itself. Marie Lloyd had apparently given a couple of performances on the Tarleton’s stage, and several lesser-known names had appeared there over the years. A lady who had been known as the Flowered Fan caught Hilary’s attention: she had, it seemed, been one of the Tarleton’s stalwarts and had performed a dance involving a very large, feathered, flower-embossed fan and not much else. There was part of a review written about her in 1886 which referred to her dimpled charms and exuberant dancing. It also slyly mentioned that the Fan’s admirers had recently expanded to include an eminent Foreign Office official, and the writer wondered, a bit coyly, what Mr Gladstone might think of this.

  There was a rather arid reference from a dull-sounding catalogue of London’s theatres, saying that the Tarleton was one of the oldest theatres in Bankside, dating back to the late 1700s. It had, however, been closed at the outbreak of the first world war and never reopened.

  Hilary, who knew most of this already, was aware of vague disappointment, but she checked the last result, which merely said, ‘Theatrical memoirs published circa 1930. CDF, folio 210, University of Durham.’ It was probably another dull-as-ditchwater library catalogue with incomprehensible index numbers and no more than a half-line reference to the Tarleton, but it was worth looking at.

  The entry was not dull at all. It was a brief extract from memoirs of an unidentified actor and Hilary thought the estimated publication date of 1930 was probably accurate. Whoever the writer had been and whatever his talents as an actor, his writing was very dramatic indeed, and after the first sentence Hilary began to enjoy it very much.

  During the years immediately after the Great War, a theatre I often played in was the old Roscius on the Surrey side—a noble house and named for a noble tradition. One piece was The Suspicious Husband—a revival, but none the worse for that, and very good it was with My Public cheering me every night.

  The touch of unashamed egotism was rather endearing. Hilary, visualizing a fruity-voiced, dear-laddie gentleman whose heyday had been the florid 1890s, grinned and read on.

  But the piece closed after two weeks—we could have run longer but the money-grubbing Management had Bunstable [the Cockney Comic from Hoxton] booked to appear—to my mind a shocking waste of money for Bunstable had been past his best for years by then, and I always thought his notorious act with the kippers rather near the bone.

  There was the impression of the writer dismissing the ageing, near-the-bone Mr Bunstable with a gesture of superb and immense indifference.

  However, on the night after our final performance at the Roscius, some of the company suggested we go along to the Pickled Lobster Pot tavern in Southwark. I was still a comparatively young man in those days and always ready for a roistering night out, so I spruced myself up and joined them.

  Readers familiar with that part of London will realize that our way took us past the Tarleton Music Hall. A strange old place, that one, although I played there several times before the War (my Monologues), and always found it a welcoming and happy house. Mr Toby Chance was in management, I recall—my word, he was one who attracted the ladies—bees drawn to a honeycomb had nothing in it when Toby Chance turned on the charm! Still, I think it fair to say I gave him a run for his money on a couple of occasions! The ladies do not always want these pale young men; they often prefer the older, more experienced man and find a well-fleshed, well-tailored, well-groomed figure attractive. But I will allow that Mr Chance, though at times resembling a toff in need of a haircut [see photograph on facing page], was a talented young man, albeit given to booking the likes of Bunstable and the kippers for Saturday nights.

  It was after the Roscius company had supped, that the talk turned to the Tarleton itself. Several people speculated as to its continuing closure, and old Bob Shilling who was doorman there for many years, and who was somewhat flown on stout by this time, boasted he still had a key to the stage door, but said he would not go inside the place by night for a hundred pounds.

  ‘Why not?’ demanded several voices at once.

  ‘Because of the ghost, that’s why not,’ says Shilling. ‘Have none of you heard of the ghost?’

  Nobody had although several people pretended they had.

  ‘They say he creeps through the darkness, still clothed in the long overcoat and muffler he always wore in life,’ said Shilling, lowering his voice thrillingly. ‘Wearing a wide-brimmed hat pulled well down to hide his face. He’s not been seen for a while now, but he used to prowl the streets round the Tarleton regularly. He liked the dark and he specially liked the fog.’

  ‘Pea-soupers,’ said someone and there was a general groan.

  ‘London Particulars we called them in those days,’ said Shilling. ‘And there was nothing like a London Particular for hiding folks as didn’t want to be seen. People living in the streets around the Tarleton would warn their children not to go there. Misbehave and the ghost will get you, they’d say. I knew all about it for I lived nearby, just off Candle Street, and I saw the ghost— Oh yes, several times I saw him.’

  Well! From the
re, Shilling got firmly into his stride and it became difficult to separate fact from fantasy, and fantasy from the ale that was flowing (although not freely; I had paid for two rounds myself). But Shilling said some people maintained the ghost was a real man—maybe a soldier mutilated in the Great War who dared not show his face for fear of people running screaming from him.

  This was received with respectful, if incredulous silence.

  ‘But,’ says Shilling, clearly playing to the gallery by this time, ‘there were others who said he was a bastard of royalty—one of old Edward VII’s most like and the spit image of him, so that they’d paid him to keep his face forever masked, in case he might be used in a plot against the throne.’

  This time there were murmurs of ‘rubbish’ and one or two remarks about Dumas’ books and men in iron masks.

  ‘You may well laugh,’ says Shilling (several of the younger ones were doing so, very ill-mannered). ‘But I’ve always maintained he’ll be seen again one day.’ Here he nodded to himself, supped the dregs of his stout and set the empty glass down rather ostentatiously. ‘People in these streets have long memories and Candle Street has the longest memory of all,’ said Shilling. ‘And I saw him for myself several times, that gentleman in the dark overcoat. I saw him stealing through the streets after dark and each time I heard him humming quietly as he went—almost as if he was using a snatch of music to keep himself company. They say he liked to sing to himself, that ghost.’

  ‘Ghost song,’ said someone thoughtfully.

  ‘Whatever you call it, I heard it,’ said Shilling. ‘Although whether it was a ghost or a flesh and blood man I could no more tell than the man in the moon.’