‘I’ll be all right.’
‘Yes. I suppose that’s the end of it, isn’t it?’
‘I wouldn’t count on that.’
‘What do you mean?’ Charles had an unpleasant feeling he was about to sacrifice his recently-won calm.
‘Do you think he died of a heart attack, Charles?’
‘Yes.’
There was a grunt from the other end of the line, a sound between exasperation and despair. ‘Charles, I can’t talk about it now. I’m too
… I’ll talk when-’
‘Tomorrow?’
‘Yes, if I feel OK. Come round when you… Evening. Eight or
…’
‘OK. I’ll be there. Archer Street. You’ll be all right now?’
‘Like hell.’ The phone went dead.
Before Charles left the house in Pangbourne, he took the envelope of photographs out of his inside pocket and looked at them. With Steen’s death they had changed. Already they had the air of curios or souvenirs-oddities from another age. The erotic quality had drained from them and they seemed like sepia prints in an album of someone else’s relations. Mildly interesting, but ultimately irrelevant.
He looked around for somewhere to destroy them. The trouble with architect-designed houses on estates is that they have nothing like an open fire. The central heating was fired by oil. (Miles had already spoken gloomily of the inevitable price rises which the Middle East situation must precipitate. As he said portentously, ‘You know, Pop, the days of cheap fuel are over.’) The cooker was electric. There was no convenient stove to consume the evidence.
Charles took a giant box of matches from the kitchen and went out into the garden. The forty-foot long area was neatly organised. A potting shed of conspicuous new timber, a patio area protected by a screen of latticework bricks, a path of very sane crazy paving winding diagonally across the lawn, a meticulous row of cloches. Only the winter shagginess of the grass gave any hint of rampant nature or humanity.
It had started to rain. Big heavy drops that were cold as they fell, penetrating, on his head and shoulders. In the far corner of the garden Charles saw what he was looking for. Neatly screened by another low wall of lattice- work bricks were a compost heap, bound in by wooden slats, and an empty metal incinerator. He lit the photographs one by one and let the flimsy black rectangles of ash drop into the bin. Finally he burnt the envelope, then stirred the dampening fragments into a black unrecognisable mash.
X
The obituary appeared in The Times the next day, Tuesday 11th December.
MR MARIUS STEEN
Impresario and Showman
Mr Marius Steen, CBE. the impresario, died on Sunday. He was 68. Born in Warsaw in 1905, his full name was Marius Ladislas Steniatowski, but he shortened it for convenience when his parents came to England in 1921. His father was a tailor and for some years the young Steen helped him in his business. But already the attraction of entertainment was strong; Steen spent most of his limited pocket-money on tickets for the music hall and in 1923 launched himself as Mario, the Melodic Whistler. In spite of changes in name and act, he was never a success as a performer, but became increasingly interested in the business of promotion and management. The first act he managed was Herbert and his Horrible Dogs in 1924.
Soon he was progressing from individual acts to the presentation of complete shows. Though he started with wrestling and all-girl revues, by 1930 he was presenting variety bills at music halls all over the country. Through the Thirties he centralised his activities on London and, in 1935, had his first major success with the spectacular revue Go With The Girls. None of these early productions had a great deal to recommend them artistically, but Steen always maintained that success must be measured by public reaction alone. And by that criterion his shows were highly successful.
Steen continued presenting revues, with an increasing reliance on scripted comedy rather than just dancing girls, until the outbreak of war. Then he moved into the cinema and, with his customary unflagging energy, set up a series of films in keeping with the jingoistic spirit of the times. Of these the most memorable was Brothers in Battledress, directed by William Hankin.
After the war Marius Steen continued to put on shows and gradually he forsook revue for musicals and light comedies. What’s in the Box? was one of the greatest successes of 1953, and in 1960 Steen’s purchase of the King’s Theatre off Shaftesbury Avenue heralded a string of commercial triumphs, including One Thing After Another, which ran for three years, and, currently, Sex of One and Haifa Dozen of the Other.
Steen maintained his interest in the cinema and put money into many ventures including the highly successful Steenway Productions, which make horror films. He was also a major shareholder in three commercial television companies, and was at the time of his death interesting himself in the production of programmes for network on the new commercial radio station.
Marius Steen was often criticised for his healthy disrespect for ‘Art’ and there are many stories of this supposed philistinism which he loved to tell against himself. (On first hearing of Michelangelo, he is reputed to have asked ‘Michael who?’ His alleged description of opera as ‘fat gits singing’ is probably apocryphal.) He was a forthright man who made enemies, but was loved and respected by his friends. He had no hobbies, maintaining that if a person needed hobbies, then there was something wrong with his work. He divided his time between his houses in London and Streatley and a villa in the South of France. In 1969 he was awarded the CBE for services to the theatre.
Marius Steen married Rose Whittle in 1934. She died in 1949 and he never remarried. He leaves a son.
Charles was impressed. It was quite an achievement for anyone in the theatre to command that many column inches in The Times. The obituary seemed like a washing of the body. It cleaned Steen up. The existence of the photographs, all the sordid aspects of the man’s life were rinsed away by the formalised prose. The Western ritual of death was observed-the obligation to remember the most dignified image of the deceased. Like those ghastly American mausoleums where the embalmed corpse is presented at its best, dressed and smiling, prior to burial. But Charles had a nagging feeling that, however Marius Steen was tarted up in death, his corpse would not lie down.
Charles arrived at the Archer Street flat with a two-litre bottle of Valpolicella from Oddbins and a determination to be very slow on the uptake in any discussion of Steen’s death. Jacqui looked ghastly when she opened the door. Her face was pale and her eyes were puffy red slits.
‘Are you all right?’
‘I will be, Charles. I’ll just sit down for a moment.’
‘Can I get you a drink?’
‘No. It’d make me sick. But help yourself.’
The events of the last few days had made Charles forget about Jacqui’s flat being done over, but inside it the evidence was all too clear. She had obviously made some attempt to tidy up. There were two cardboard boxes in the middle of the room full of bits of glass and torn clothes. But the curtains were still hanging shredded from their rails, and the bed smelt of oil from the smashed lamp. The little room looked sad and crippled.
He didn’t make any comment, but found an unbroken glass and filled it with Valpolicella. ‘Do you want to go out to eat, Jacqui?’
‘No, I couldn’t.’
‘Hmm.’ The silence was obtrusive. Feebly he repeated himself. ‘Do you feel all right?’
‘Charles, the bloke I loved and whose kid I’ve got has just been murdered.’
‘I’m sorry.’ He stolidly avoided reacting to the word ‘murdered’. Jacqui softened. ‘I’ll get you some food later.
