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"I'm going to Spain with you and Lenny Griffiths," Dave said.
"No, you're not," said Lloyd. "You're fifteen."
"Boys my age fought in the Great War."
"But they were no use--ask your father. Anyway, who says I'm going?"
"Your sister, Millie," Dave said, and he walked on.
Boy said: "What do people usually drink in this place, Williams?"
Lloyd thought Boy did not need any more alcohol, but he replied: "Pints of best bitter for the men and port-and-lemon for the girls."
"Port-and-lemon?"
"It's port diluted with lemonade."
"How perfectly ghastly." Boy disappeared.
The comedian reached the climax of the act. "I said to him, 'You fool, that's the wrong passage!'" She, or he, went off to gales of applause.
Millie appeared in front of Lloyd. "Hello," she said. She looked at Daisy. "Who's your friend?"
Lloyd was glad Millie looked so pretty, in her sophisticated black dress, with a row of fake pearls and a discreet touch of makeup. He said: "Miss Peshkov, allow me to present my sister, Miss Leckwith. Millie, this is Daisy."
They shook hands. Daisy said: "I'm very glad to meet Lloyd's sister."
"Half sister, to be exact," said Millie.
Lloyd explained: "My father was killed in the Great War. I never knew him. My mother married again when I was still a baby."
"Enjoy the show," Millie said, turning away; then, as she left, she murmured to Lloyd: "Now I see why Ruby Carter has no chance."
Lloyd groaned inwardly. His mother had obviously told the whole family that he was romancing Ruby.
Daisy said: "Who's Ruby Carter?"
"She's a maid at Chimbleigh. You gave her the money to see a dentist."
"I remember. So her name is being romantically linked with yours."
"In the imagination of my mother, yes."
Daisy laughed at his discomfiture. "So you're not going to marry a housemaid."
"I'm not going to marry Ruby."
"She might suit you very well."
Lloyd gave her a direct look. "We don't always fall in love with the most suitable people, do we?"
She looked at the stage. The show was approaching its end, and the entire cast was beginning a familiar song. The audience joined in enthusiastically. The standing customers at the back linked arms and swayed in time, and Boy's party did likewise.
When the curtain came down, Boy still had not reappeared. "I'll look for him," Lloyd said. "I think I know where he might be." The Gaiety had a ladies' toilet, but the men's was a backyard with an earth closet and several halved oil drums. Lloyd found Boy puking into one of the drums.
He gave Boy a handkerchief to wipe his mouth, then took his arm and led him through the emptying theater and outside to the Daimler limousine. The others were waiting. They all got in and Boy immediately fell asleep.
When they got back to the West End, Andy Fitzherbert told the driver to go first to the Murray house, in a modest street near Trafalgar Square. Getting out of the car with May, he said: "You lot go on. I'll see May to her door, then walk home." Lloyd presumed that Andy was planning a romantic good night on May's doorstep.
