House of Silence Read online

  He feigned surprise. ‘I thought a degree of familiarity was appropriate when addressing an attractive woman who’s already had her hand down my trousers.’

  ‘For professional purposes only.’

  He inclined his head and narrowed his eyes. ‘So - why the fixed gaze? The puzzled look?’

  ‘I thought I was being quite discreet.’

  ‘You were, but I’m observant. One of the tools of my tawdry trade.’

  Gwen had a moment to consider her reply as the waiter brought their drinks. When he retreated she said, ‘I was watching you and thinking you look familiar somehow. But I’m sure I’ve never met you. I think if I had, I’d have remembered.’

  Alfie waved a dismissive hand. ‘Oh, everyone thinks they know me. They do in a way. A version of me. A younger version.’

  ‘What do you mean? Were you a child actor?’

  ‘No, but a child actor has played me.’

  ‘I don’t understand. Are you famous then?’

  ‘No, unfortunately. But my alter ego is.’

  ‘You have a twin?’

  ‘No, though you’re getting close.’

  ‘Oh, Alfie, stop being mysterious! Please explain. Why do I feel as if I know you?’

  He sighed. ‘Probably because you’ve seen photos of me in magazines and newspapers. You might also have seen a documentary about my mother - who is famous. She was filmed explaining - at interminable length - how I was her muse. What she didn’t mention was that I’m also the well-spring of her considerable income. The goose that laid the golden egg. Or should that be gander?’ He shrugged and poured them both some mineral water. ‘A biological impossibility… But then so am I.’

  ‘Alfie, who the hell are you?’

  ‘Tom, Dick and Harry.’

  ‘What?’

  ‘I was the inspiration. The books were based on me. My mother created one of the great characters of twentieth-century children’s fiction and she based him on me.’

  ‘Oh! You mean Tom Dickon Harry!’

  ‘That’s what I said.’

  ‘So your mother is Rachael Holbrook?’

  ‘Yes. She married twice. Her second husband was called Alfred Donovan, after whom I had the misfortune to be named. I was the fifth and final child, the longed-for son after four disappointing daughters.’

  ‘So Tom Dickon Harry was a real boy?’

  ‘No, not really. But my mother claimed I was the inspiration for him and the media have pandered to that fantasy. It’s good copy. A feel-good family story about a gifted but long-neglected author making a comeback in middle-age with a new character who captures everyone’s imagination, appeals to boys, girls, parents, teachers, librarians, everyone. Everybody loves Tom Dickon Harry and many have profited from him. Booksellers love him because every year they can bank on shifting shed-loads of the new TDH, as it’s known in the trade. Publishers love him because he’s made children’s fiction fashionable and lucrative. Librarians and teachers love him because he doesn’t indulge in anti-social behaviour and talks in polysyllables. Boys love him because he’s the friend they’ve always wanted: reliable, resourceful, a good person to have around when you’re in a tight spot. And girls love him because he’s a hero in miniature: brave, kind, funny and not bad-looking for a twelve year-old. Tom Dickon Harry is human,’ said Alfie, shaking out his napkin as food was set before them, ‘But he’s not real.’

  ‘And… TDH is you?’

  ‘No, Gwen, I am TDH. In the minds of millions of readers. The documentary was made ten years ago but they repeat it now and again on daytime TV and every time Rae brings out another book, they run a picture of me alongside one of the illustrations in the new book, pointing out how I’ve aged while good old TDH stays forever young. It’s the reverse of Dorian Gray. I get older and more raddled, but my pen-portrait in the attic remains ever pure and youthful.’

  ‘You sound bitter.’

  ‘Do I? I shouldn’t be. TDH has paid for almost everything I own. But he’s also responsible for the non-event that has been my acting career. Maybe I’d have been a nonentity anyway, who knows? It’s hard to say. But some years ago I accepted that all the time I was perceived by casting directors as an ageing schoolboy, I wasn’t going to be offered Hamlet. Heroes of any kind, in fact. I’m TDH. I even look like TDH because he’s based on me. So I’m doomed to toil away in the theatrical ghetto of younger sons and heroes’ sidekicks. My destiny is to play Buttons to some taller guy’s Prince Charming.’

  ‘You are bitter.’

  ‘No, frustrated! I’m a better actor than people realise. But I can’t get anyone to take me seriously. I’m famous as Rae Holbrook’s son, as the inspiration for TDH. She’s Frankenstein and I’m her monster.’ He shook his head. ‘That’s a lot of baggage to carry into an audition.’

  ‘But I thought children of the famous got breaks because of their connections?’

  ‘We do. We get the breaks and we have impressive address books, but few of us make it big. People will talk to me at parties. TDH is an ice-breaker because everyone has read at least one of the books - Rae’s been writing them for twenty years. There’s now a generation of readers introducing them to their own children. But the thinking goes like this: TDH occupies a place in the popular mind as an archetypal boy hero. White, middle-class, rather old-fashioned. The product of a middle-aged mind struggling to get to grips with the gross materialism of the ‘80s and coming up with a boy hero who’s a refugee from the pages of John Buchan. Curiously dated, but also timeless. When the first book was published people described it as “an instant classic” and they were right. It was. Now when people meet me, they compare me with their idea of TDH. Whether I disappoint - and surely I must! - isn’t really the point. Casting directors decide that I’m so associated with TDH, no-one is going to believe me as Henry V or Heathcliff, because I’m TDH! It’s easier, safer, to cast someone else.’

  ‘But - well, forgive me if this sounds a bit harsh—’

  ‘No, go on. Put the boot in.’ He grinned. ‘I love it when you’re mean to me.’

  ‘Maybe you don’t get those parts because you just aren’t right for them.’

  ‘Good point. Do you know what one of my tutors said at drama school? She said I had a face more suited to radio.’

  ‘What a bitch!’

  ‘Not really. Just a hard-nosed professional. And as it happens, I like doing radio. I can be tall, dark and handsome on radio. My voice is flexible and versatile and I’m a good mimic. I can do any accent you care to name if you give me half an hour with a demo tape - Russian, Iranian, Cumbrian… The last one’s the hardest, by the way. Voice-overs and radio pay the bills, so I can’t complain. But the problem is, my voice doesn’t really go with my cheeky face, does it? Or the seven-stone weakling physique.’

  ‘Oh, come off it! Just because you’re not tall—’

  ‘You should have seen me before I joined the gym. They used to call me Tom Thumb. The thing about the casting game is, you never know why you don’t get parts. My agent used to call and say, “Sorry, Alfie love. No dice. They saw the part as older.” Or younger. Or taller. Or Asian. Or any of the things I’m not, that TDH is not. Now she just sends me for TDH parts.’

  ‘What are they exactly?’

  ‘Young Oxbridge dons, toffs in Agatha Christie, chick-flick eye candy, assorted younger sons and ne’er-do-well nephews. I am perennially puerile. My earning capacity depends on my continuing ability to play overgrown schoolboys and I’m thirty next year. God forbid I should ever lose my hair! The work would dry up altogether.’

  ‘I can see it must be very frustrating for you.’

  ‘Humiliating, frankly. Oh, Rae will see I’m all right for cash. Or my sister Vivien will - she holds the purse strings. But I really would prefer to be independent. Of all of them.’ Scowling, Alfie lifted his glass and swallowed a mouthful of wine. ‘I suppose I could always earn a crust on the after-dinner speaker circuit, talking about what it was like growing up as a childho
od icon.’

  ‘What was it like?’

  He laughed. ‘Don’t remember! I was too busy trying to be a normal boy. But I’m sure I could improvise something over the port. Anyway,’ he said, pushing his empty soup plate aside, ‘I was raised by my father. I didn’t even know all the TDH stuff was going on.’

  ‘Really?’

  ‘Oh yes. I didn’t have to contend with being a Living Legend until they made the documentary. I was eighteen.’

  ‘So your parents had divorced?’

  ‘Yes, a few years after I was born. Rae wasn’t the maternal type and she was pushing fifty. So I went to live with my father. Then I was packed off to boarding school and just saw my family in the holidays.’

  ‘So you’re saying your mother created a boy hero and based him on a child she didn’t actually know?’

  ‘Yes. That’s exactly what I’m saying. My dear mother’s a fraud. Being an impostor is one of the few things we have in common. TDH’s childhood was supposed to be based on mine, his character based on mine. But when Rae Holbrook wrote those books, I wasn’t actually around.’

  ‘So TDH is just a figment of her imagination?’

  ‘Precisely! And if, by common consent, I am TDH, what does that make me? A figment of a figment… More water?’

  ‘Thanks.’ She watched as he refilled her glass. ‘It’s quite a story.’

  ‘No happy ending, I’m afraid.’

  ‘Your mother sounds extraordinary. I’d be really interested to meet her.’

  Alfie shook his head and intoned solemnly, ‘Over my dead body.’

  Gwen

  Alfie appeared to have inherited his mother’s talent for words. One of his many verbal flights of fancy was The Short Life and Lamentable Death of Tom Dickon Harry, a theme he’d return to often and with relish. He’d pleaded with Rae to kill off her creation and when she’d refused, he’d devised his own story - several in fact - in which TDH met a variety of gruesome ends. There was to be no ambiguous tumbling over the Reichenbach Falls for TDH, no possibility of a comeback. Alfie murdered his alter ego in cold blood, sending him to a watery grave, tossing him into an erupting volcano, blowing him to bits with a bomb. Alfie’s disposal of TDH was vengeful and very final. I don’t doubt it was also therapeutic.

  He was right. He was a much better actor than anyone gave him credit for. But he knew how good he was and that knowledge contributed to his bitterness. He didn’t want fame. In a way he already had that. Minor celebrity status anyway. What he wanted was recognition. He wanted his talent to be recognised and he wanted to be appreciated for himself. He hated being thought of as someone’s son, or worse - an ageing Peter Pan, frozen in time, forever on the cusp between boyhood and adolescence. He used to say, if only his mother had allowed Tom Dickon Harry to grow up with the books, his life would have been more bearable.

  TDH was Alfie’s shadow, attached to him and a version of him, but a distorted one. The only way he could be rid of that shadow was to stay out of the limelight, keep a low profile - things an actor would find hard to do, even if they didn’t constitute professional suicide.

  On that first evening together we sat talking in the restaurant until it seemed too late for Alfie to think about returning to London. He insisted on paying for dinner, claiming the pittance he was paid was probably more than the pittance I was paid. He insisted too on waiting with me for a taxi. There was something oddly appealing about the way he coupled courteous behaviour with scurrilous talk.

  ‘You could stay, you know. I really don’t mind.’

  ‘Wouldn’t dream of imposing.’

  ‘It wouldn’t be an imposition. I mean… no strings. You could have the sofa. I wasn’t assuming that you’d want - I meant, I didn’t—’ As I ground to an embarrassed halt he leaned forward and kissed me.

  ‘My return to town should not be read as a reluctance to consummate our relationship. And if you were to put your hand down my trousers now, you’d perceive the truth of that.’ He kissed me again. ‘Another time. There will be another time, won’t there? I’ve got to be on the set at 9.00am tomorrow - costumed, made-up, coiffed and looking fresh as a daisy. Make-up will have to use industrial-strength concealer on the bags under my eyes.’

  ‘So stay over.’

  ‘No. I like to sleep in my own bed. Not necessarily alone, you understand. Will you be on the set tomorrow?’

  ‘Yes.’

  ‘And the day after?’

  ‘Yes.’

  ‘You’ll be around for a while, I hope?’

  ‘Yes.’

  ‘Good.’

  Alfie stepped out into the road suddenly and hailed a passing taxi. It slewed to a halt and he opened the door for me. I kissed him on the cheek and climbed in. By the time I’d given the driver my address and looked round to wave goodbye, Alfie was gone. As the taxi drove away we overtook him, his hands in his pockets, his head bowed. Pale-faced, pale-haired under the street-lights, he looked slight and insubstantial, like a ghost.

  I didn’t see much of Alfie in the next few weeks. We were sometimes on set together, but his filming schedule was punishing and my hours were long, so there wasn’t much time or energy left over for socialising. We had a tacit agreement that the friendship that might become a relationship was on hold until we could give it our full attention. At least, I think that’s what was going on. We flirted, touched, kissed in snatched moments of privacy, but Alfie put no pressure on me to go up to London with him and he never accepted my invitation to stay over in Brighton, even though it was pretty clear I was no longer offering him the sofa.

  It was an odd sort of courtship - and courtship is what it felt like, not just because he was in Regency get-up most of the time we spent together. Alfie’s verbal seduction of me left me in no doubt that his mind and feelings were engaged, even if for the moment his body wasn’t. I had a sense of his attention being lavished on me and I watched him to see if he treated everyone in this way. He didn’t. He was friendly, funny, respectful to the director and experienced members of the cast and crew, but with me he was more open, somehow vulnerable. I can’t think of a better word to describe it. I just had a sense of Alfie being himself with me. Except that he wasn’t really. It was so obviously a performance for my benefit: entertaining, endearing, apparently sincere but also self-consciously charming. The contradictions were what made him so intriguing. And so infuriating.

  When I look back now, it seems to me that the best and most convincing performance I ever saw Alfie give was off-camera. As himself.

  It was the performance of a lifetime.

  Chapter Two

  Gwen

  It probably sounds as if I was a pushover, besotted from the outset. Maybe I was. I was certainly pretending, to myself and to Alfie, that I wasn’t.

  When I said I didn’t have much experience with men, I wasn’t referring to a lack of interest in them, nor to an unprepossessing appearance. (I gather I’m attractive to men. Slim, but not skinny, with shiny, straight, dark hair, as featured in shampoo commercials.) My meagre love life was a result of caution on my part and cowardice on men’s. They found me challenging. I just wasn’t “girly”. I didn’t wear make-up. I didn’t wear fashionable clothes, preferring vintage and second-hand clothing. I didn’t wear heels. Not a feminist statement, or even a fashion statement. If you’re 5’ 9” and single, you’d have to be supermodel-confident to think you could wear heels and still have a good chance of pulling.

  To make matters worse, I was intelligent and articulate. Not exactly self-confident, but I was at least capable. A “coper”. With a family like mine you learn to cope at an early age. You accept that sometimes you are effectively the head of the household, or at least the most responsible member. I earned my own living and I was pursuing a career. I wasn’t killing time until I could bury myself alive with babies and soft furnishings. But nor was I a girl-about-town, clubbing, drinking, sexually adventurous. I liked sewing, reading, tending my houseplants, pottering about in flea mark
ets and Oxfam shops. I enjoyed old black and white movies and I listened to Radio 4. On the basis of all this, more than one ex-boyfriend had described me as “seriously weird”.

  The reasons for my eccentricity are not hard to fathom. I’d seen, in gruesome detail, where partying got you: drunk, diseased and dead. No wonder then if I chose to err on the side of caution. From my “weird” point of view, Alfie had a lot going for him. He drank very little. As far as I could tell, he didn’t do drugs. He seemed thoroughly heterosexual despite numerous, sometimes pressing invitations to widen his sexual horizons. But he wasn’t a womaniser. An incorrigible flirt maybe, but older women were more often favoured than young. The more senior the grande dame, the more likely she was to receive his attentions. I observed him at a party meeting Dame Judi Dench for the first time. When she moved on to the next group of guests, he turned back to me looking slightly dazed. He looked down at the hand she’d shaken and claimed he wouldn’t wash for a week. Was the reverence real? I think so, but you could never tell with Alfie.

  He wasn’t the slightest bit threatening, to me or anyone, nor did he seem to feel threatened by me. If anything, I think he found my foibles amusing. We were a couple of oddities. By the time we finally slept together - both stone cold sober - we were already friends. We felt safe with each other. I think we both realised that even if the sex was a disaster, we would try again because we liked each other.

  But sex wasn’t a disaster. Far from it. Alfie was as kind, attentive and funny in bed as out of it and, I have to say, he looked a good deal better with his kit off than on. I told him so and he said, ‘Damn. I’ve always suspected that. I look taller naked, don’t I?’ For some reason he did. His was a slender, wiry frame, more muscle than flesh, thanks to his assiduous working out at the gym. Naked, he put me in mind of one of Leonardo’s anatomical drawings, where you’re aware of the body as a machine, how it’s put together, how all the different bits work. When I was an art student we had to do a lot of drawing in our foundation year. Even though textiles were my first love, I enjoyed the challenge of figure drawing, trying to convey the body beneath the clothes, the structure that supported them. Although you couldn’t see much of the body in my sketches, I wanted the viewer to have a sense it was there.