‘I prefer to think that I protect them from some of the sharks and exploiters in the agency business. But after the year, I heard nothing of Garry or Prudence. Of course, I heard a great deal about Christopher. Everywhere these days, one hears about Christopher. Did you see this in the local paper?’ She opened one of the blue ledgers and pointed to the cutting from the previous day’s edition. It was already neatly glued in. Charles found the promptness of its filing sad. It opened a little window on to the great emptiness of the old lady’s life. He told her that he had seen the article and rose to leave.
Now she seemed anxious to detain him. ‘Did you notice, he said in the interview that he’d try to come and see me while the show’s down here?’
‘Yes. Well, I believe that the company are doing a great deal of rehearsal at the moment.’
‘Oh yes, I fully understand.’ She reclined elegantly in her chair, the High Priestess of the Cult, prepared to wait forever for her Mystic Experience.
CHAPTER FOURTEEN
Charles rang Julian Paddon from a phone-booth on the front. ‘Hello, how’s the family?’
‘Sensationally well. Damian has inherited my own innate sense of the theatre. I went to see them yesterday and he shat all over the nurse who was changing him. What timing. I think he’ll grow up to be a critic.’
‘And Helen?’
‘Fine. Uncomfortable, which is I believe a feature of the condition, but extremely cheerful. Normal cervix, I understand, will be resumed as soon as possible. No hint of purple depression or whatever it is. Can’t wait to get home.’
‘When will that be?’
‘Monday, I hope.’
‘Listen, Julian, I wanted to pick your brains again. You remember we were talking last week about the old Cheltenham company you were in with Christopher Milton.’
‘Oh yes.’
‘You did say that an actor called Gareth Warden was also in the company?’
‘Yes.’
‘Seen anything of him since?’
‘No. Why do you ask?’
‘Oh, it’s just something I’m trying to work out You’ve no idea what happened to him?’
‘Vanished off the face of the earth so far as I know.’ Julian’s words gave substance to a thought which had been forming in Charles’ mind. Christopher Milton tended to make people who challenged him ‘vanish off the face of the earth’. Was the key to the current set of crimes in a crime which had been committed long before?
‘Hmm. I see. Another thing — you don’t remember by any chance what Christopher Milton’s sex-life was like at the time?’
‘Good God. What do you want — times, dates, with whom, number of orgasms achieved? It was twenty years ago, Charles. It’s hard enough to remember what my own sex life was like.’
‘I mean just in general terms.’
‘Blimey. Well, let me think — I don’t remember him being gay, though I could be wrong. I don’t remember him taking up with anyone in the company — mind you, there wasn’t much spare there, they tended to get snapped up pretty quickly. I don’t even recall a sort of regular popsie coming down for weekends. Oh, it’s a long time ago. I honestly don’t know, Charles. I mean, keeping a track of actors’ love-lives is like doing a National Census of rabbits. Sorry, I just can’t remember.’
‘Oh well, never mind. And you can’t ever recall hearing him speak of a girl called Prudence Carr?’
‘Nope.’
‘Does the name mean anything to you?’
‘Nope.’
‘Oh. Well, I — ooh, one last thing — when he had his breakdown, was it caused by anything personal, you know, a girl who’d chucked him or…’
‘I don’t think so, Charles. I think it was solely due to the fact that the world did not at that time share his inflated opinion of himself. As I remember him, sex was a long way down his list of priorities. In fact everything was a long way down his list of priorities — except for his career and becoming a star.’
The strain of the extra rehearsals and the difficulties of remembering a continuously changing text began to show on the Wednesday evening performance. Perhaps the matinee was the last straw which made the cast suddenly realise how tired they were. Whatever the reason, the mood of united endeavour was replaced in a moment by an atmosphere of bad temper and imminent disintegration.
It was small things that went wrong. Lines were missed and lighting cues were slow. As the show progressed, the contagion spread and by the end everyone felt they were doing everything wrong. There weren’t any major errors of the sort that an audience is likely to notice, but they worried the cast and undermined the communal confidence.
The Chase Scene was all over the place. Entrances were missed and special effects failed to function. The Star Trap didn’t work. Because of other stage management crises, the crew forgot about it completely and Christopher Milton rushed down to the cellar to find the locking bar which held the wooden platform firmly in position and no sign of the four members of the crew who were meant to man the ropes and eject him on to the stage. As a result he had to rush back up on stage mouthing obscenities at everyone and make a very tame entrance from the wings. The comic timing of the scene’s slapstick was ruined.
Even Charles didn’t escape the epidemic of cack-handedness. He actually fell over in his first scene. To give him his due, it wasn’t his fault. Because of the general panic of the stage management, including some local help who’d only been brought in that day, the rostrum on to which he had to move at a given point had not been anchored to the ground and was free-moving on its wheels. So, as soon as he put his foot on it, it sped away, forcing an ungainly splits movement which deposited him flat on his face. It got a good laugh from the audience, but, since it took place in the course of Tony Lumpkin’s romantic song to Bet Bouncer, it was perhaps not the sort of laugh the show wanted.
The only person who came through the performance unscathed was Lizzie Dark. In fact, she was at her very best. She had an advantage. She was only eighteen months out of Sussex University and still had a lot of friends there who had come en masse to see her. They were wildly partisan and applauded her every action. The general mediocrity of the performance made her seem even better and the reaction grew increasingly fulsome. It was only a small group in the audience, but they were noisy. At the curtain call, they screamed and shouted ‘Bravos!’ and ‘Encores!’ at her. It was an elaborate private joke, recapturing no doubt the heady atmosphere of a campus first night, and it was out of place in a professional theatre. But Lizzie seemed to be carried along by it, to be instantly transported back to amateur night. She played to her gallery shamelessly.
Christopher Milton exploded as soon as the curtain was down. Surprisingly he didn’t turn on Lizzie or any other of the cast who had miscued him or let him down. He let the stage management have it. Of all the errors of the show, it was his ignominious return to the stage from the Star Trap which really rankled. He bawled them all out. Four-letter words flew around as he lambasted their incompetence, called them amateurs, provided a few choice images of things he wouldn’t trust them with and some equally vivid ones of fates that would be too good for them. This display of temper was the most violent Charles had witnessed from the star and it made him uncomfortable. The great hiss of anger came like steam from a pressure cooker and before long the pressure cooker was going to explode and scald everyone in sight. Charles couldn’t keep his knowledge to himself and do nothing much longer.
The inefficiency which had characterised the performance continued. While the star was unleashing his diatribe onstage, a group of schoolkids had somehow eluded Len the stage doorman’s vigilance and invaded the dressing-rooms. They had only been driven by enthusiasm and were in fact fans of Christopher Milton, but he was in no mood for one of his sudden switches to charm. He added a few lacerating sentences against Len and said he’d remain on stage until the fans had been cleared. The rest of the cast shuffled sheepishly off to get changed.
Charles started to follow them. He was in a bad mood; the limping performance and the ensuing row had
