15.

The Joke That Followed Him Home

Orbag — AGH 9

The door had no wall on either side of it. Edda Pell had pointed this out when the manager asked whether the lock could keep a determined man from entering.

“It only has to keep him out for a moment.”

“Then ask him to wait.”

The manager had found that less useful than she had intended. He wanted a door that would resist Bartholomew of the Valiant and then submit to him, at the proper time, without requiring anybody to notice how. He wanted it made by that evening. Edda had made it by the middle of the afternoon, and she had asked twice whether the twelve coppers included staying to work it.

They did. Her name would be on the next bill as well. Stage assistance, he had said, which she preferred to the description a bit of help he had used when first showing her the timber.

Now the room was filling. From behind the left upright she could see people bringing the long benches forward with their knees, claiming space for somebody who had not arrived. A woman put a cup on one of the door's braced feet. Edda stepped out and moved it to the floor.

“It won't spill.”

“I need that foot.”

The woman looked down at Edda's boots.

“The door's.”

Edda went back to her place. The bolt ran through two wooden guides into a socket on the frame. She had rubbed it smooth enough to move with one hand, provided the leaf sat square. Shut, settle, bolt; then, on the word, draw it back and pull the door. Three rehearsed entrances. Nothing needed to fall, smoke or turn into anything else. She liked the clean sound when the bolt entered its socket.

Bartholomew came round the back with his coat over one arm and his black fur brushed the wrong way along a shoulder. He put on the coat, discovered a fastening he had neglected, and offered the whole difficulty to her with his chin lifted.

“Would you?”

She fastened it. He was tall enough that the task required her to look up; she kept a hand against the cloth so he could not wander off before she had finished.

“When you say expected,” she told him.

“I remember.”

“And I need it shut between.”

He glanced at the door. “A severe condition.”

She let go of the coat.

He put two fingers against the fastening, tested it and looked down at her. “Edda, yes?”

“Pell.”

“Edda Pell. Shall we give them an entrance?”

She nodded. He went out round the right side of the frame, where absolutely nothing prevented a person from going.

The first entrance worked perfectly.

He announced that he was expected within. Edda drew the bolt; he passed through, his hat held before him as though the empty space beyond the frame contained somebody worth impressing. He emerged round the side wearing the expression of a man who had been insufficiently appreciated. On the second attempt he added his name, then the Valiant, then several qualifications of his own invention. He was a person of consequence, a person of distinction, a person who had already paid for supper.

The last qualification got a response he liked. He gave it room.

Edda shut the door after him and pulled it flush. Somebody on the front bench called that they had not had theirs yet. Bartholomew appeared at the other side of the frame to take up the complaint. He asked what they had ordered; the answer produced a discussion of whether a stew should be permitted to arrive before its potatoes. Edda waited with the bolt halfway drawn, listening. She had been given a potato that afternoon which would have benefited from this discussion.

“Nevertheless,” Bartholomew said, turning suddenly, “I am expected!”

She caught the edge of the leaf. It had shifted while she listened. The bolt would not draw clear of the socket.

Bartholomew put his hand to the latch and met her weight on the other side.

Edda raised her palm. Wait.

The front bench could see her now, broad shoulders set against the upright, the roll of her dark braid pressed between her neck and the wood. She shifted, pushed the door square with her hip and tapped the frame twice where the socket had slipped out of line. Her free hand reached for the bolt.

Bartholomew raised his own palm to the audience.

Wait.

He copied the careful taps. He bent to look at the place she was looking at, although there was nothing there for him to see. Then he put an ear to the panel.

“It hasn't finished deciding.”

Edda snorted. It came out before she could stop it. The bolt slid free, and Bartholomew stepped through with the delicacy of a guest entering a room where everybody had been talking about him.

He looked back at her.

“Did it say anything about me?”

“Go through.”

That got a bigger laugh. She felt it reach her from the benches and tried not to grin too visibly. She had lost the cue and he had made something of it, and there she was in the thing he had made.

For his next entrance he came to her first. This had not been rehearsed. He copied her planted feet, her bent head, the wide hand held upright while work was being done somewhere important. He tapped the frame and waited for an answer, nodded to himself, then tapped a second time as though the answer had been exceedingly complex.

“We are checking whether the door is a door.”

Somebody behind the front bench slapped a knee. Edda had the bolt ready. He had only to give the word.

He turned to her, waiting palm still raised, and made her wait instead.

The next laugh went on so long that she did not know where to put her eyes. She looked at the bolt, which needed no attention, then at him. He held the pose. She could see the pleasure in his face as the sound grew.

At last he dropped the hand and said, very politely, “Expected.”

She opened the door.

Afterward he took her hand and brought her out beside him. The manager was making a rolling motion with both arms from the back of the room: bow again, keep them, make them clap. Edda bowed. Bartholomew bowed so low that his hat nearly brushed the floor. On the way up he gave the waiting palm one last little turn, and the room recognized it at once.

She went back to lift the door off its bracing before anybody stood on it. Her hands were too warm. When she tried the bolt, it ran straight and clean.

“Leave that up,” the manager called. “We'll want it again.”

“About the twelve.”

“Tomorrow. Let me finish here.”

He was already talking to Bartholomew. Edda collected the two loose pegs from the floor, put them in her apron pocket and went to find the woman who had left her cup under the foot.

*   *   *

The next afternoon a customer brought a shutter to the yard and asked whether Edda could stop it scraping.

She set it on the bench, tested the hinge and showed him the loose screw. The hole had widened. Tightening the same screw would not hold; she would plug it and set it again.

He held up a hand.

Edda stopped.

He bent his head close to the shutter, tapped it twice and listened.

“Is it a shutter?”

The manager laughed from the doorway. The customer had been at the performance. He had a good seat, apparently, because he reproduced the spread of her fingers exactly.

“It'll be ready before the room opens,” she said.

“Only if it agrees.”

He looked past her to the manager. “Can she do it by then?”

“Of course. You heard how she talks to them.”

Edda laid the shutter flat. She chose a piece of dowel, tested it against the hole and cut it to length. The customer watched for a little while, waiting for something else to be funny. When nothing was, he went inside with the manager.

She kept the cut square. A slant would make the next screw pull sideways.

By the time the manager returned, she had set the plug and was clearing the shavings out of the hinge.

“The upstairs job,” she said. “What time do they want me?”

He glanced towards the other bench. “I've sent somebody.”

“You said I could cue it.”

“They wanted an assistant who could get through it quietly.”

Edda set down the knife.

The upstairs room was being hired by a small company for a single evening. They needed somebody to place their screens and work the entrances. She had gone up the day before to measure where the widest screen would turn. The performers had asked sensible questions. They had agreed to pay for the afternoon as well as the evening.

“I can get through it quietly.”

“I know. But we've got something for you down here.”

“Not tonight.”

“Tomorrow, then. With Bartholomew. The girl from the door.”

She pressed a shaving against the bench until it broke.

“Stage assistance.”

“If you like.”

“That's what you said you'd put on the bill.”

“Nobody reads the bottom of the bill, Edda. They saw you. You can't buy that.”

“You still owe me twelve coppers.”

He looked at the shutter, then at the shavings. “I haven't settled last night's takings.”

“You paid for the drink.”

“It wouldn't come otherwise.”

He said it without particular annoyance, as a piece of information she should find obvious. Edda picked up the hinge and fitted it into its old place.

“Will you have that done?” he asked.

“Yes.”

“Good girl.”

She drove the screw in and turned the shutter on the bench. It no longer scraped. She let the manager try it twice, gave him the loose old screw and washed her hands at the yard pump. The water ran over the side of her thumb where the knife had left a hard red groove. She had gripped it too tightly.

Bartholomew was due back that evening to collect a coat. She would speak to him before there was anything on tomorrow's bill.

*   *   *

He found her taking the door apart.

“Ah. An audience with the minister.”

He raised the hand, bent his head and gave the upright two confidential taps.

Edda went on loosening the brace. Without people in the room the taps sounded small. He waited for her to answer, then lowered his hand.

“It's good,” he said. “They were asking about you.”

“The manager sent someone else upstairs.”

“For what?”

“The company with the screens. I was going to set them and work the entrances. I'd measured it.”

She put the brace on the floor. She wanted her hands empty for this and disliked finding that she had to arrange it.

“Why did he send somebody else?”

“They wanted somebody who could get through it quietly.”

Bartholomew looked towards the door to the yard.

“And he wants you here?”

“The girl from the door.”

“You were very good last night.”

“At what?”

It came out sharply. She had meant to ask it more usefully than that, but he had stopped reaching for his coat.

“I made it. I worked it. I missed a cue. I wasn't meant to be the bit.”

He rubbed the cloth of the coat between two fingers. For a moment she thought he was going to explain how a room worked. She had already spent the afternoon hearing about that room.

“No,” he said. “You weren't.”

She bent to pick up a peg and immediately wished she had left it where it was.

“Has he paid you?”

“No.”

“What was agreed?”

“Twelve.”

He took out a purse. The coins made a little heap on the seat of the nearest bench. Edda watched him separate them with the side of his finger.

“I'm sorry,” he said. “I got the laugh and went back for more.”

She counted the money. Twelve. A copper had lodged in the shallow split along the bench; she pried it free with her nail and put it with the others.

“That doesn't get me the upstairs work.”

“No.”

“They're there now.”

Above them a screen scraped across a floorboard. She could tell which way they were moving it. They would have to turn it before the end of the room, and the person she had measured with knew where.

Bartholomew listened too. He did not call upstairs.

Edda put the coppers in her apron pocket, apart from the pegs.

“I could use you tomorrow,” he said.

“I know.”

“That's not what these are for.” He indicated the pocket. “Those are yesterday.”

She left the brace on the floor.

He looked at the door and walked once around it, trailing a hand along the unpainted back. “What if it were mine to make a fool of?”

“It's the room's.”

“I meant the fool.”

She almost smiled. He saw the beginning of it and, to his credit, did not try to finish it for her.

“You can make a door seem very important,” she said. “That's the part I liked.”

“I should hope so.”

“You don't have to make me stupid for it to be important.”

He nodded once. The whole coat hung loose from his other hand now.

“Show me what you would do.”

“Not tonight.”

“Tomorrow afternoon?”

“I haven't said I'll perform.”

“An afternoon, then. Paid whether we have a thing at the end of it or not.”

She considered the stripped frame. She could turn it round. With the bolt towards the benches, people would see exactly what she did. There would be no grand mystery about her hand fumbling behind a panel, and he would have to give them something else to watch.

“Four for the rehearsal.”

He took the purse out again.

“And leave the evening off the bill.”

“Until?”

“Until I've seen it.”

He laid four coins on the bench. “That seems an unusually practical way of choosing a performance.”

She took them, then picked up the brace.

“Hold this.”

He put the coat down and held the frame while she fastened it back on.

*   *   *

With the bolt facing the room, the door looked like a piece of furniture awaiting delivery. Edda liked it better that way. She had replaced the short pull with a broad wooden handle and moved her standing place beside the hinge. From the benches, both her hands were visible.

Bartholomew inspected the arrangement.

“They'll see you open it.”

“Yes.”

“Then why doesn't it open?”

“Because you haven't waited.”

She raised her hand. He stopped in the middle of a preparatory bow.

Edda tested the bolt. It caught; the left foot needed a wedge now that the whole frame faced the other way. She crouched, slid a thin scrap beneath it and pressed down on the brace. When she stood, he was still bowed, hat extended towards a door that had shown no interest in him.

She laughed.

He lifted his head a little. “Are you nearly ready?”

She laughed harder. The tip of his hat trembled with the effort of keeping his arm out.

“Don't ask that.”

“Why not?”

“Just look.”

He glanced at the door, then back at her.

“Like that.”

“I'd like to be upright while we discuss it.”

She dropped her hand. He straightened with great care and shook out the arm holding the hat.

“How long was I there?”

“Long enough.”

“For a marriage, possibly.”

She put the spare scraps in a cup at the base of the frame. He watched, still rubbing his shoulder.

“You don't need to do that each time.”

“I was fixing it.”

“It was very deliberate.”

“It was the wrong thickness.”

He sat on the front bench, studying the door. Edda let him look while she tried it. Shut, settle, bolt. Her palm could turn the whole motion into a visible piece of business; the other hand remained free to tell him what he could do. She opened the leaf and stood back.

“Try it from there.”

He approached wearing his most assured expression. Edda raised one finger as he bowed. He stopped, considered the instruction and, without straightening, turned his head towards the imaginary room. He made a small smile for the people whose sympathy he would be expecting.

That was much better. Edda drew the bolt and opened the leaf.

He swept his hat down in a magnificent acknowledgment, came up with a turn of the shoulders, and tried to pass through just as she shut it again.

“You missed it.”

“You shut it.”

“You bowed.”

“I was going through.”

“After the bow.”

He looked at the door. She could see him deciding how much more time he could obtain by making the turn differently.

“Again,” he said.

This time he added a hand to his chest before moving. It was only a little hand, he argued afterward, and could not reasonably have taken the whole available entrance. Edda repeated the movement without him, then with him. The hand, the bow, the turn: she had shut the leaf by the time he turned to enter.

“You're still thanking it.”

“A person must have manners.”

“Then stay there.”

He put the hand on his chest and stayed. Edda went round to the bench and watched him for a moment. He tried a look of injured patience.

She shook her head.

He made the patience more dignified.

“That's it,” she said. “You think we're keeping somebody very important waiting.”

“We are.”

“I know you think so.”

He looked down at her, and this time they both grinned.

They worked until the light through the yard door lay across the empty benches. He was good at remembering where she had laughed, which sometimes made him try too hard to return there. She was good at letting the opening come and go without apologizing for it. When his hat nearly caught the latch, they tried that again. Catching it on purpose looked clumsy. Letting him notice how nearly it had happened, and then place the hat well out of danger while neglecting the rest of himself, gave her a much better pause.

He wanted a speech before the final entrance. She listened to it with the door open. He had only to walk through, but by the time he finished she had closed it. He stood before it with his mouth still shaped for the last magnificent word.

Edda waited.

He took a breath, caught himself and knocked. A very small knock.

She opened the door.

“Keep that,” she said.

“The speech?”

“The knock.”

He went to get his coat. At the yard door he turned back.

“Well?”

She had already begun setting the bolt for the evening, but she made herself finish before answering.

“I'll do it.”

“I'll tell him.”

“I'll tell him what to put on the bill.”

Bartholomew held the yard door open for her. She took the chalk off the bench and went through.

*   *   *

The manager had found a smaller piece of chalk by the time Edda reached him. He was fitting her name under Bartholomew's, in a space formerly occupied by the price of drink.

“It's a long name.”

“Eight letters.”

He counted. She watched him discover that it was.

“I'll have to move the drink.”

She waited while he did.

That evening, as she tested the bolt for the last time, a man at the end of a bench held up his palm and bent towards an imaginary door.

“Are we permitted?” he called.

Edda's hand stopped on the handle. It was not the shutter customer. There had been plenty of people in the first room; she could not expect them all to arrive conveniently forgetful.

Bartholomew was halfway through removing his hat. He froze with it just above his ears and looked at the man.

The man kept his palm up.

Bartholomew waited.

At first people laughed at the gesture they knew. Then the hat stayed where it was. Bartholomew looked from the hand to the man's face, courteously awaiting the end of this remarkably prolonged instruction. The man's own wrist began to sink. Bartholomew lowered his hat a corresponding fraction, checked the hand, and stopped again.

Somebody beside the man grabbed his elbow and pushed it down.

“Thank you,” Bartholomew said, putting on the hat. “I had begun to fear I was improperly dressed.”

Edda drew the bolt once, closed it and put her hand at her side. He came to the door.

“I am expected.”

She looked at him.

He supplied his name. Then the Valiant. Then the fact that he had been here on two previous evenings, and must therefore be regarded as practically a tenant.

She raised one finger.

He was beginning the bow. He stopped halfway down, his hat extended, and turned his eyes very slowly towards the finger. Edda took the bolt out of its socket. She slid it back. She tried it once more, because it was a good bolt and she had made it. He watched her hand with the fixed courtesy of somebody whose neck was beginning to hurt.

At last she lowered the finger. Bartholomew straightened to thank her, remembered his manners and bowed again. Edda put the finger back up.

He remained bent. His eyes traveled from her finger to the place where he had just been allowed to stand. With immense caution, he tried moving only his eyebrows.

The woman with the cup put it down before she started laughing.

Edda had to keep her face steady. She was watching for the moment his false patience would become too familiar, while a man two benches back was making a choking sound into his sleeve. Bartholomew let the hat tilt. He corrected it with great dignity and looked at her.

She opened the door.

He came up from the bow, almost added the hand to his chest and stopped himself. The audience saw the arrested flourish. So did Edda. She left him room enough to decide.

He stepped through.

It was such a small, sensible action that the room objected to it. Somebody called that she should have kept him outside. She closed the door behind him while he came round the open side of the frame to protest the inadequacy of his reception.

He had an entrance to make, he explained. It involved a turn. It involved the coat. Several of those present had paid to see the coat, even if they had not known this at the time of purchase.

He showed them the turn. It was good. Edda enjoyed it too. The black fur, the sweep of cloth, the hat moving in the opposite direction: he could make a bare little room contain something much grander than its benches. Then he tried to take the turn through the door and found that the door had not been consulted.

He stopped short of the upright. She opened the leaf. He moved the hat out of the latch's way, turned back to demonstrate his good sense to the room and missed the opening.

“Again,” somebody said.

He looked at the closed door, then at Edda.

This was the place he had wanted the speech. He looked towards the benches. She could almost hear the first magnificent word, and knew that the room would give him time to finish. She kept the bolt under her palm.

He gave the little knock.

She waited.

It was longer than they had rehearsed. His mouth began the first shape of a word. He abandoned it. When she opened the door he tucked his hat firmly under an arm and went through without the smallest attempt to arrive impressively.

The room made more noise for that entrance than for any of the others.

He returned round the frame and stood beside her. She had been turning to reset the bolt; he waited until she had finished. Then he offered his hand, and this time she saw the whole front bench before she bowed.

“Edda Pell,” he said.

The manager waved for another bow. She gave one. When he waved a third time, Bartholomew put up a finger and looked earnestly at the door.

She laughed in front of them, unable to help it, and took her hand back so she could get the brace out of the path of the departing feet.

Afterward the manager counted twelve coppers into her palm. He wanted them again at the end of the week. Edda asked which afternoons were included and whether she would still be available for other assisting work. He said he could not keep changing the bill every time she found something else to do.

“Then ask me before you write it,” she said.

He looked at Bartholomew, who was trying to persuade a cup to balance on a narrow bench end and could clearly hear them.

“Friday afternoon and evening,” the manager said. “Twelve. Your name goes on.”

“I'll do Friday.”

He began counting the rest of the takings. She put her pay away and went to loosen the bracing. Most of the room had emptied; there were damp circles on the benches, and somebody had left half a piece of bread in the place where they had been sitting.

Bartholomew brought his cup over. “You kept me waiting.”

“You were going to speak.”

“I had thought of something.”

“I know.”

He took a mouthful and looked at the door. Edda held the loose brace against her leg.

“When I put the finger up the second time,” she said, “look a little higher.”

“At you?”

“Above me. Where your head was.”

He handed her the cup and bowed. She raised her finger. He tried to find the place with his eyes. His chin began to rise; she moved the finger and it sank again.

Edda laughed, and the brace slid down against her boot.

He stayed where he was.

She let him up.