Bryant & May 01; Full Dark House

“I’m sure of it. Go on, ask her. She’ll be glad to get out of here.” The blackout made houses stuffy and airless at night. Even in a building as large as the Palace, the still atmosphere weighed heavily in the lungs.

“All right,” vowed Bryant, grinning bravely, “I will. I’ll go and ask her right now.” And he did.

She turned him down. It didn’t take her long either. He was gone for only two minutes.

“She has to look after a sick relative,” said Bryant on his return. “I wasn’t convinced.” He grumpily kicked at the ground. “Here’s your bit of fluff.”

Betty had rouged her cheeks and changed into a fox-fur coat. Divested of her blond wig, she was revealed as a mousy brunette. She waltzed into the company office and seized May’s arm as though it was a lifebelt. “Are we going for a drink, then?” she asked cheerfully, pinching May’s cheek.

May was almost pulled through the doorway. “I’ll see you in the morning, Arthur,” he volunteered. “Stay out of the light.”

“Yes, you go and have fun. I still have a police investigation to run.” Bryant shoved his trilby onto his head. “I think I’ll go back to Bow Street and ruin Biddle’s evening.”

¦

By the next morning, the mood of the company had become morose and belligerent. To have a member of the cast killed by a stage prop was not unheard of, but after a long night of bombing raids that frayed the nerves and lasted until dawn the idea of it panicked everyone. Performers were at the mercy of stagehands when there were a large number of scene changes to incorporate in the action. Three years earlier, two members of a Belgian dance troupe had been fatally injured at the Albert Hall when a vast steel wheel had collapsed on them. The scenery at the Covent Garden Opera House, with its newly overhauled hydraulic system, had nearly decapitated one of its principal players in front of a horrified firstnight audience. Recently, a trapdoor in the Palladium stage had opened without warning, dropping a chorus girl down a dozen steps, breaking both her ankles. Players were superstitious and productions easily made bad reputations for themselves.

Helena Parole was aware of the cast’s sensibilities, but hoped they would be cheered by today’s arrival. Their Orpheus was landing, fresh from a triumphant American tour of The Tales of Hoffmann, the opera wrongly regarded as Offenbach’s only serious work. Miles Stone had hit the big time, but his Orpheus contract pre-dated his rise in stock, and he had not managed to wriggle out of the agreement in time to seize his Hollywood break. MGM was offering him a role in a screwball comedy that would help to cement his image as the smart girl’s sex symbol, but unless something went wrong with Orpheus and the production was cancelled, Miles knew that he would be forced to remain in bomb-strewn London throughout the winter. The film would be recast with someone else, and his window of opportunity would slam firmly shut.

Consequently, the company’s leading player found himself in an ambivalent mood when he arrived to find that Jupiter was dead. It was a tragic loss, of course, but if the cast were so demoralized that the production could not continue, he would be freed.

“Everybody back to their positions and we’ll take it from Eurydice’s invocation to death.” Helena Parole rubbed her eyes. The cast was nervy and out of sorts. Anton Varisich, the conductor, was particularly bad- tempered, and seemed unable to control his orchestra, who were coming in late on their cues. On stage, Eurydice lay in the cornfield as Aristaeus stood over her, feeling her pulse.

“La mort m’apparait souriante, qui vient me frapper pres de toi,” sang Eve Noriac.

Helena threw her script over the seat in front of her. “For Christ’s sake!” she shouted. “What the hell do you think you’re doing?”

“I’m sorry,” called Eve, rising on one elbow and squinting down at her. “I’m used to singing in French. It’s easier for me to remember my lines this way.”

“The management has decreed we’re to use our sovereign nation’s native tongue,” snapped Helena. “They want a popular hit. The only people who can speak another language in England are foreigners. Let’s go again from the top.”

“Death appears to me smiling, coming to strike me while I’m near you…”

Helena sat back and listened. Eurydice had a remarkable soprano range. The plot was of no consequence to a modern audience, a once-saucy parody of classicism that held little meaning for anyone now, and yet Eve invested her words with such conviction that you would listen if she sang addresses from a telephone directory.

Helena was suddenly aware that the music had stopped. “What now?” she cried, sitting up.

“Someone’s taken my fork,” complained Aristaeus. “It was here a minute ago.”

“Will somebody find his bloody fork?” called Helena. “Harry, go and look for it, would you?”

“Can he just mime it for now, Helena?”

“Helena?” Aristaeus had walked to the front of the stage and was shielding his eyes from the key lights. “Is this a practical?”

“You know it’s not. I told you that earlier.”

“So the trapdoor’s not going to open when I reach ‘Off to the realm of darkness?’”

“No,” she replied wearily. “We won’t start using the drops and lifts until the end of the week. No sense in wishing more accidents on us, is there?”

“I can see you’re busy,” said John May quietly. “I’ll wait here until you’re ready for me.”

Helena checked her watch in alarm. “I’m sorry, I didn’t realize it was time for our meeting, Mr May. We’re running behind this morning.”

“That’s quite all right,” said May. “I’m enjoying the rehearsal.” He felt like sitting in the dark for a while. Betty had kept him out later than he had intended, and the AA guns stationed in Regent’s Park had been booming for most of the night. On top of this, he had now spent his entire first week’s wages on a girl, and he hadn’t been paid yet.

“We’re still interviewing everyone who was with Miss Capistrania and Mr Senechal on the days of their deaths,” May reminded her as they seated themselves in Helena’s arched office above the balcony. “I need to talk to your assistant.”

“Harry, yes, he was there when Charles was killed.”

“And Corinne Betts, who I’m told actually saw the globe fall.”

“She’s not on today’s call sheet but Harry has her landlady’s telephone number.”

“Mr Bryant reckons that casts grow into extended families during the run of a production,” said May. “Is that true?”

“For better or worse, yes.” Helena opened the window behind her chair and lit a cigarette, waving the smoke out. The management had asked the company to reduce their daytime smoking because the new auditorium upholstery absorbed the smell. Nobody had bothered to point out to them that the whole of the city stank of burning varnish and brick dust. “We’ve got a cast of real troupers. Normally a deranged German sniper could burst in and machinegun the audience, and they wouldn’t miss a line. I know many of the boys and girls from previous productions. They’ve been doing scenes in groups for a while. They’ve received musical direction and attended rehearsals with the same choreographer. Now it’s just a matter of keeping them calm.”

“So it’s still going smoothly?” May felt as though he should be taking notes, but wasn’t sure what to write.

“I wouldn’t say that. The thing never fits perfectly from the outset. Steps get in the way of recitative, cues come in the wrong places and have to be rearranged. You get a lot of masking and scissoring, but nothing that can’t be worked out.”

“Scissoring?”

“Actors crossing each other’s paths onstage. We’re over the worst. I shout at them, but it doesn’t mean anything. By opening night we’ll be a big happy family.”

“Then why do Mr Bryant and I feel shut out?” asked May.

“Because you’re outsiders, darling,” laughed Helena. “You expect backstage to be a hotbed of gossip and intrigue, but this one’s not. There’s too much riding on the production for anyone to behave in an unprofessional manner.”

“Perhaps you’re right,” May admitted. “I suppose I was expecting histrionics. Highly strung actors, the usual cliches.”

“So long as you realize that they are only cliches,” said Helena reproachfully.