Tangier

an opening night, stand silent, listen to the house fill up. He looked at his watch. Twenty to eight. In a few minutes The Winslow Boy would go on, and then all the agony of rehearsal, the tantrums and the temperament, would fade before the magic of the play. He would marvel then, as he had so many times, at the power of performance-the way it could seize an audience, hold it in thrall.

But suppose, he thought, they all walk out?

He'd had that anxiety for over fifty years, ever since he'd first gone on the stage. He couldn't overcome it-at the age of seventy-five he still couldn't rid himself of the nightmare of an empty house. He didn't act anymore himself, but the fear had followed him to Tangier. Here he'd founded the Tangier Players, his gift to the city that had embraced him in old age.

Peter Barclay had put it another way. 'Thank God for Larry Luscombe and TP. They're something to talk about at our barren dinner parties, fill out our wasted afternoons.' Peter was being amusing, of course. He didn't think his dinner parties were barren, or that he wasted his afternoons. Still Laurence believed his remark had been well meant, and now Peter, 'pasha' of the Mountain, was a patron of TP and the club's most loyal fan.

It hadn't always been like that. The struggle had been lonely and hard. Laurence thought back as he stood on the empty set. At sixty-five he'd retired to Tangier with the dream of founding a theater club. He'd begun slowly, organizing readings in people's houses while he gathered the corps of loyal amateurs who shared his love for the stage. People had scoffed at first, Peter Barclay among them, but slowly the group had prospered and grown. Someone went to London and brought back lights. Someone else donated canvas and lumber. Gradually the productions grew more lavish and the ragged ends were smoothed. TP became a success, a permanent part of European life in the town.

But now, after all the struggles, the arduous climb to success, the club was facing its greatest crisis, a threat to its integrity and to Laurence's capacity to carry on. Kelly-that American swine, Joe Kelly-was trying to organize a putsch. He didn't yet have the backing, but if tonight's production failed there were people in the group who would take his side. The Drears, the Packwoods, the Calloways, Jack Whyte-that hard core of amateurs Luscombe had made into minor celebrities in the town-they'd turn on him sure as death, and TP would melt to mud.

Laurence knew what was going on, and what he hadn't overheard people made certain he found out. They were saying he was too old, losing his grip, that he couldn't control rehearsals, and that his tantrums were throwing everybody off. There was trouble in TP-no secret about that. People who'd accepted parts were doing the unpardonable and walking out. Others complained that Laurence got too much credit, while they were slighted in reviews. He wasn't disturbed-there was always temperament around a theater. What upset him was disloyalty-the disloyalty of the people he'd picked up along the way, plucked out of their mediocrity, straight out of the gutter in the case of the Drears, then taught and trained and made into stars.

For too long, he knew, he'd ignored the signs, and now he could smell resentment all around. How had it happened? He'd written the bylaws, made TP democratic. Everyone had an equal vote, though he'd always directed by consent. For years there'd never been a challenge or the slightest murmur of rebellion in the ranks. But now Joe Kelly had come to town, and it seemed all that might change.

Kelly! The man was a hack. He'd done years of radio soap opera in New York, played every kind of third-rate circuit in the States. Then he'd had an automobile accident and won himself a settlement in court, enough to come to Tangier, buy himself a little house, sniff around, and start giving little dinners at which he'd been clawing his way to popularity and trying to alienate Laurence's support. He even tried to ingratiate himself with the Mountain set. No chance of success, of course-he was far too grotty in his ways. But his mincing little efforts had caused confusion and, to Laurence, pain.

No sense brooding, he thought. Too much work to be done. He stroked the dusty curtains, then left the stage to check on things in back. Most of the cast was waiting in the wings. He went on to the dressing rooms to hurry the stragglers. In the men's section he found Jessamyn Drear watching Kelly apply powder to his ravaged face. They stopped whispering the moment he walked in. Jessamyn looked at him shyly. Kelly gave him a thumbs-up.

'Brings it all back, Luscombe,' he said. 'Smell of the greasepaint and all that. Never thought I'd troop the boards again, especially not in old Tangier. Not after the accident. Never thought I would.' He raised his hands to his face. 'Oh, the scars, Luscombe-the scars. I was a beautiful kid once. Can you believe it? But the years took their toll. Then the crackup in Connecticut, a year in traction, every damn thing broken and torn. They wrote me right out of Suburban Wife. I was in the hospital, listening to the radio one day, when one of the characters announced my demise. There were a few tears, and that was the end of that. No hope of work then. When you're sick they forget you soon enough. No pity. Not in show biz. Play's the thing. Course you know all that yourself.'

Laurence was thinking of some way to respond when Jill Packwood stormed in, out of breath.

'Place is filling up, Larry. Looks like a full house. Derik says we can start on time.'

He was about to answer her when Kelly interrupted. 'Jill, sweetie, your dress is crooked. Better find a safety pin and hitch it up.'

'Oh! Thanks, Joe. Wish me luck.'

'Yeah,' said Kelly, blowing her a kiss. 'Break a leg, sweetheart. Break a leg.'

When she was gone he put his arm around Jessamyn Drear, then leaned toward Laurence and stuck out his chin. 'Jill's got nice little tits,' he said. 'Course I don't want 'em. Ha! Ha! Ha!'

Jessamyn giggled, but Laurence turned away, offended by Kelly's humor and the scent of liquor on his breath.

He'd been impossible at rehearsals, always interrupting, trying to give his own directions to the cast. The man was unprofessional, the way he kept cutting Laurence off. But he was clever too, knew how to handle amateurs, call them 'sweetheart' and 'darling' and blame everything on Laurence when he turned his back. Kelly told long anecdotes that wasted time, boring stories about his experiences on the road-that charade game, for instance, the one he'd played in Kansas City, where he'd acted out 'He who steals my merkin steals trash.'

No one, including Laurence, knew what a 'merkin' was until Kelly smirked and then explained. 'It's a female pubic hair wig,' he said, then the vulgar, billowing laughter, the final 'Ha! Ha! Ha!' Laurence couldn't stand it, wanted to fire him right out of the cast. But Kelly was good, a professional among amateurs. When he felt like it he had no difficulty standing out. Of course, he wasn't really top class, the way Laurence had been in his prime. Kelly could never have made it on the West End, where Laurence had worked for years. He'd been an actor's actor, not a star but a master craftsman admired in the ranks. His enemies called him 'grand,' but he'd never stooped to soap opera at least.

Between the wars, when he'd had a little fling with society, he'd been invited to Lady Astor's, where he'd met T. E. Lawrence and Bernard Shaw. And he'd dined one summer at Villa Mauresque, with Noel Coward and Somerset Maugham. Willy Maugham had told a wonderful story that afternoon about the American writer Edna Millay. She'd come in uninvited, in the middle of a stag lunch, looked around at the house, the garden, and all the guests. 'This is fairyland, Mr. Maugham,' she'd said. He and Noel had chuckled through dessert.

Now that was funny. Real wit. Not like those vulgar nonsense things that Kelly came out with all the time. What had he said last night at dress rehearsal? Something obscene to Jessamyn Drear. Oh, yes, he remembered now-one of his vulgar 'knock knock' routines.

'Knock knock.'

'Who's there?'

'Fornication.'

'Fornication who?'

'Fornication like this you ought to wear black tie. Ha! Ha! Ha!'

Jessamyn had doubled up with laughter. It was ghastly the way Kelly was winning them all. They were so weak in their characters, so flabby in their souls, that they couldn't see through his simpering guile. One day he'd have it out with Kelly, force a showdown, expose him raw. But for the moment he mustn't think of that. The important thing was that The Winslow Boy go on.

He left the dressing room, walked back around the stage to a door where he could watch the audience unseen. Many of the seats were taken, but the ones reserved for Peter Barclay and his group were still empty in the front. The Lakes, the Manchesters, and the Whittles were seated in the Consul General's row. Behind them sat Joop and Claude de Hoag, along with Claude's father, General Gilbert Bresson, and de Hoag's assistant, Jean Tassigny.