function. So it would be possible to immobilise both by calling them to another floor and leaving them with their doors ajar. It would then be possible to linger in the gloomy corridor until Everard Austick staggered out of his flat, watch him call unsuccessfully for the lift and then help him on his way when he started downstairs. Unlikely, but possible.
‘Hello, Gerald, it’s Charles. I got your message at the rehearsal rooms and I’m afraid this is the first chance I’ve had to call.’
‘Okay. How’s it going?’
‘Nothing to report really. Nothing else has happened.’
‘No tension in the company?’
‘No more than in any show with Christopher Milton in it which starts its pre-London tour in a week.’
‘Hmm. Maybe I was being alarmist’
‘Maybe. Anyway, thanks for the job.’
‘Any time. Keep your eyes skinned.’
‘Okay. Though I don’t know what for. There’s nothing to see.’
‘Unless something else happens.’
‘Hello, is that Ruth?’
‘Yes. Who’s speaking?’
‘Charles Paris.’
‘Good God. I thought the earth had swallowed you up long ago.’
‘No. Still large as life and twice as seedy.’
‘Well, to what do I owe this pleasure? Tidying out your room and just found a seven-year-old diary?’
‘No.’
‘Joined Divorcees Anonymous have you, and they gave you my number?’
‘Actually I’m still not divorced.’
‘Separated though?’
‘Oh yes.’
‘And you just phoned for the Recipe-of-the-Day, did you? It’s stew.’
‘No, the fact is, I’m in a show that’s about to start a pre-London tour and our first week’s in Leeds and, with true actor’s instinct, I thought, well, before I fix up any digs, I’ll see if I’ve got any old friends in Leeds…’
‘You’ve got a nerve.’
‘Sorry, I shouldn’t have asked. I’ll — ’
‘No. It might be quite entertaining to see you after all these years. At least a change from the sort of men who hang around divorcees in Leeds. When do you arrive?’
‘Sunday.’
As Charles put the phone down, Ruth’s voice still rang, ominously familiar, in his ears and he had the feeling that he had done something stupid.
If all went well on the tour, Lumpkin! was to take over the King’s Theatre from a show called Sex of One and Half a Dozen of the Other, which had long outstayed its welcome. It had been put on in 1971 by Marius Steen and had celebrated a thousand performances just before the impresario’s mysterious death in which Charles Paris had become involved. As the Steen empire was slowly dismantled, the show had continued under different managements with increasingly diluted casts until even the coach party trade began to dwindle. It limped through the summer of 1975 on tourists, but had no chance of surviving the pre-Christmas slump. The theatre-going public had been too depressed by rising ticket prices and the fear that the terrorist bombs might return with the dark evenings to make the effort to see a tired old show. Sex of One… had made its London killing and was now off to pick up the residuals of national tours, the depredations of provincial theatre companies and finally the indignities perpetrated by amateur dramatic societies. On Saturday, October 25th, the last day of London rehearsals, the Lumpkin! cast assembled for a pre-tour run-through in the King’s. The idea was to gain familiarity with the place before the ceremonial entry on November 27th.
The call was for nine o’clock, so that everything should be ready when Christopher Milton arrived at his contractual ten-thirty. Time was tight. Sex of One… had a three o’clock matinee and their set (most of which had been dismantled and piled up against the naked brick walls at the back of the stage) had to be reassembled by two-thirty. This meant that an eleven o’clock start would just allow a full run, with only half an hour allowed for cock-ups.
The run was not to be with costume or props. Everything had been packed up into skips and was already on its way to Leeds. The set was in lorries on the Ml, scheduled to arrive for the get-in at ten-thirty that night when the current show at the Palace Theatre (a second-rate touring revival of When We Are Married) finished its run. Spike, the stage manager, was going to see the run-through, then leap on to the five-to-four train to Leeds and maybe grab a little sleep in anticipation of the all-night and all-day job of getting the set erected and dressed. The actors’ schedule was more leisurely. After the run, their next call was at seven o’clock on the Sunday evening for a technical rehearsal. At eleven the next morning there was a press conference in the bar of the Palace Theatre, a dress rehearsal at one, and at seven-thirty on Monday, October 27th, Lumpkin! was to meet a paying audience for the first time.
The audience in the King’s Theatre on the Saturday morning had not paid. They were all in the circle. David Meldrum, with a rare display of personality, had taken over all of the stalls and set up a little table in the middle. A Camping Gaz lamp was ready to illuminate his interleaved script and notes when the lights went down. Two chairs were set there, one for him and one for Gwyneth, ever efficient, never passing comment.
Up in the circle were some of the backers, who joked nervously like racehorse owners, frightened of coughs, lameness and nobbling. Dickie Peck was there, salivating over his cigar until it looked like a rope-end. There was a representative of Amulet Productions, who looked as if he had gone to a fancy-dress ball as a merchant banker. Gerald Venables was too cool to turn up himself and reveal his anxiety, but a junior member of the office was there representing the interests of Arthur Balcombe. Some other seats were occupied by press representatives and a few girl and boy friends who had been smuggled in.
The stage manager had imposed dress rehearsal discipline and the cast were not allowed out front. Nor were they encouraged to make themselves at home in the dressing-rooms, so there was a lot of hanging around in the green room and the wings. Charles decided that once the run started he would adjourn to the nearest pub. Even with a totally trouble-free run, Sir Charles Marlow could not possibly be required onstage until one o’clock. He knew he should really hang about the green room listening to the gossip and trying to cadge a lift up to Leeds. But he hated cadging and would rather actually spend the travel allowance he had received on a train ticket than try it.
He listened to the beginning of the run-through on the Tannoy. It sounded pretty pedestrian. He left a message as to his whereabouts with one of the stage management and started towards the pub.
But just as he was leaving the green room, he met Mark Spelthorne. ‘Good God, Charles, it’s pitch dark out there on the stage. There’s just some basic preset and no working lights on in the wings. I just tripped over something and went headlong.’
‘What did you trip over?’ he asked, suddenly alert.
‘Don’t know. Something just by the back exit from the stage.’ Charles moved quietly in the dark behind the black tabs which represented the limits of the Lumpkin! set. He had a chilly feeling that he was about to discover something unpleasant.
His foot touched a soft shape. Soft cloth. He knelt down in the dark and put his hands forward reluctantly to feel what it was.
Just at that moment someone became aware of the lack of light backstage and switched on working lights. Charles screwed up his eyes against the sudden brightness, then opened them and looked down.
It was a cushion. A large scatter cushion, part of the set dressing for Sex of One…, which had been dropped when the set was cleared. Charles felt sheepish and looked round, embarrassed. He was alone. He shut off the flow of melodramatic thoughts which had been building in his head.
Still, he was there in a watchdog capacity. Better safe than sorry, he argued in self-justification. To reinforce this illusion of purpose he went across to the pile of tall, heavy flats leant haphazardly against the brick wall. They did not look very safe, some nearly vertical, some almost overhanging. He inspected more closely. Oh, it was all right, there was a pair of thick ropes crossed over the flats, restraining them. They were fixed to rings at the top
