The Convenience of Lies Read Online Free Page A

be broken and they were young again and every dream might yet come true.
    They lay on the bed and as they did so, the afternoon sun caught a row of six brass bullet casings on the mantelpiece and cast their shadows across the wall till the moment passed.

 
    Four
     
    Lexie had flipped McCall’s life into the air on that morning of incalculable chance in Cambridge all those years ago. Heads or tails, someone wins, someone loses.
    Each waking hour since they first met, McCall thought of little else but finding her again. He’d loitered about the Arts Theatre that weekend. On the following Monday morning, he saw her coming down St Edward’s Passage in her camel-coloured duffel coat. And she wasn’t with Mr Gannex. McCall would have her to himself, if only for a moment.
    She immediately gave him that smile again – that leftward tilt of her slightly parted lips, the slight widening of those eyes which knew so much and promised more.
    ‘Hello, what are you doing here?’
    ‘I thought… well, I often come this way. My college, not far from here.’
    ‘Aren’t you terribly cold?’
    ‘No, not really.’
    ‘You look it. Want a coffee or are you going to a lecture?’
    ‘Coffee, yes. I’d like that.’
    She winked broadly at the elderly stage door keeper, part concierge, part spy, peering from behind the fug of Woodbine smoke clouding his sentry box.
    ‘Friend of yours, is he, Miss?’
    ‘My brother. Just want to show him around.’
    ‘’Course you do, dear.’
    It all smelt of sawn timber and fresh paint. Stagehands up ladders were finishing off flats of scenery. Here was a parallel reality which that night’s audience would pay to enter before disappearing back into lives from which there was no escape.
    A song called My Girl played on a transistor. McCall thought it an omen but that was an illusion, too. He followed her through an un-swept corridor and down a set of concrete steps to a storage area lit by a bare electric bulb. Somewhere on the stage above, a nasally hysterical Kenneth Williams was in a final run-through with the other actors.
    ‘It’s our big night, tonight. A premiere.’
    ‘What’s it about?’
    ‘These two thieves who rob a bank then hide their loot in a dead woman’s coffin.’
    ‘Sounds outrageous.’
    ‘Joe Orton’s written it so half the punters are bound to be offended and demand their money back but a bit of scandal is always good for the box office.’
    She filled a kettle from a tap above a dirty sink, put it on a gas ring, then found two cups and a bottle of Camp coffee in a cupboard.
    ‘So, are you going to tell me your name, funny man?’
    ‘Me? I’m McCall.’
    ‘McCall? Is that it?’
    ‘Well, it’s Francis but I’m usually called Mac.’
    ‘Saturday was great, wasn’t it? Meeting up like that.’
    ‘Yes… it was lovely.’
    ‘I hoped we’d bump into you again.’
    ‘Did you? Honestly?’
    ‘Yes. Why wouldn’t I?’
    He dried, couldn’t express what it was he so wanted to say. She smiled at his gaucheness. Everything was understood between them.
    The kettle whistled. She poured their drinks and apologised for having no milk or sugar or anywhere to sit.
    ‘You didn’t ask, but I’m Lexie.’
    ‘Sorry, that was rude. What’s Lexie short for?’
    ‘Alexandra.’
    ‘And you said you’re the dogsbody around here?’
    ‘’Fraid so but I start my first proper acting job next week.’
    ‘Really? I bet you’ll be brilliant.’
    ‘It’s hardly the West End, just touring round lots of schools putting on Shakespeare.’
    ‘But you’ll steal it. I just know you will.’
    ‘Flatterer.’
    ‘No, seriously you will and I shall come and watch every performance.’
    She laughed but wasn’t mocking him. Her eyes seemed to peer deep within him. McCall sensed she’d really like him to be there.
    ‘What about your studies? You can’t just walk away from them.’
    ‘I almost have already.’
    ‘But you told us you’re only in your first year.’
    ‘I