years of nothing. And then I thought, stuff it, I’ll go into the stage management side.’
‘But didn’t Christopher Milton recognise you when you started on this show?’
‘I don’t know. I doubt it. He’s totally unaware of other people.’ There was another pause. The ambulance moved slowly through the Friday afternoon traffic.
Charles began again. ‘But, Spike, why? I can see that you hated him, I can see that you wanted revenge, but why do it this way?’
‘I had to show him up in public for what he was,’ Spike repeated doggedly.
‘But the things you had to do to achieve that… I mean, beating up Kevin McMahon, running Pete Masters over… It’s all so cruel, so mean.’
‘Exactly,’ said Spike as if this proved his point. ‘Christopher Milton is cruel and mean. That’s what I had to show the public. I have seen inside his mind. That’s what he would have wanted to happen to people.’
‘But he didn’t do it, Spike. You did it.’
‘He wanted to.’ The line came back insistently.
‘But, Spike, people got hurt. Mark Spelthorne got killed. That’s murder, Spike.’
‘It was suicide. I had nothing to do with that.’
‘Do you mean it?’
‘Christopher Milton drove him to suicide.’
‘And you didn’t help him on his way?’
‘No.’ The answer came back so casually that Charles believed it.
‘But, Spike, I still can’t understand why you did it.’
‘Perhaps you can’t, but then you didn’t grow up with him, you didn’t see him use people, destroy people, always. You didn’t see the smile of satisfaction on his face when someone was removed from his path. You didn’t feel him all the time undermining your confidence. You didn’t see him grinning with triumph every time he came out on top. He is a monster and the public should know it. Someone like that shouldn’t be allowed to win all the time.’
‘What do you think made him like that?’
‘Ambition for stardom, He wants to be the best. Oh, I know what it’s like. I was big in my teens. I was hailed as the great white hope of English theatre. I was going to get to the top. I understand the kind of pressure that puts you under. And I know that you’ve got to get out of it and love people, not treat them like dirt.’
‘Hmm.’ Charles was about to comment on how Spike had treated people but he went on on another tack. ‘Do you think he’s happy?’
‘Happy? So long as he’s on top, yes.’
So Charles told him what he had discovered that morning, how Christopher Milton could not face life without an hour of psychoanalysis a day, how he lived in fear of discovery of his weakness, how his life was split between public acclamation and private misery. ‘How can he be happy when he doesn’t even know who he is? His changes of mood are so violent because he has no real identity. That’s why he clings to his fictional self. Lionel Wilkins is more real to him than Christopher Milton and it is only when he is in that character, hearing the adulation of an audience, that he feels alive. You hate him, you can despise his behaviour, but don’t ever think he’s happy. His desperate concern for his career is only because he lives through it. Take it away and you kill him.’
There was another long silence. Then Spike grunted, ‘He’s a bastard.’ His mind couldn’t cope with an idea that challenged his long-held obsession.
The ambulance swung round into the gates of the hospital. Charles felt weak. The pain in his ankle was burning fiercely again. ‘The question now is,’ he said with effort, ‘what are we going to do about it.’
‘I suppose you’ll report me to the police.’ Spike’s voice was dull. ‘That’s presumably what the management put you into the company to do — find the wrong-doer and see him brought to justice.’
‘On the contrary, they brought me in to the company to find the wrong-doer and to hush up the whole affair.’
‘Ah.’
‘And I don’t see why I shouldn’t do just that. That is, if you’ve been persuaded of the pointlessness of your vendetta. You cannot do worse to him than he does to himself. You cannot destroy the real Christopher Milton, because it doesn’t exist.’
‘So in fact you’re letting me off?’
‘Yes, but, by God, if anything else happens in this show, you’ll have the entire police force descending on you from a great height.’
‘And if I actually strike at the star himself?’
‘I don’t think you will.’
‘Well, thanks.’ The ambulance came to a stop and the men got out to open the back door. ‘So you reckon he’s a real wreck?’
‘Yes. If that gives you any cause for satisfaction.’
‘Oh, it does, it does.’
‘What will you do — leave the show?’
‘I’ll have to, won’t I?’
Charles was pulled out and placed on a trolley. Spike still didn’t seem able to leave. He wanted to taste the last drop of news of his rival’s degradation. ‘So it’s driven him mad. That happens. There’s a danger of that with anyone who’s ever been even vaguely in contact with stardom. They lose all touch with reality.’
‘Yes,’ said Charles, but, locked in his own world, Gareth Warden seemed unaware of the irony.
PART V
CHAPTER EIGHTEEN
The first night of Lumpkin! at the King’s Theatre on Thursday, November 27th 1975 was a major social and theatrical event. Everyone was there.
Included in everyone, though less famous and glamorous than many of the rest of everyone, were Charles Paris and his wife Frances. She had somehow heard about his accident and come down to visit him in the Brighton hospital. His injuries were not too bad. Apart from extensive bruising, the only real damage was a broken ankle. In fact, the rather gloomy young doctor who dealt with him described it as a Pott’s fracture and said that with a fall like that, he was lucky not to have crushed a few vertebrae, fractured his calcaneum and broken his sternum. He was out within a week, complete with a cartoon plaster on his foot and a pair of authentic-looking tubular crutches. There was no chance of his appearing in the show and there was talk of compensation from the company. The wheel had come full circle; his identification with Everard Austick was now complete.
It was difficult to say where he stood with Frances. She had accepted his invitation to the first night and there had been no mention of Alec, the scout-master. And yet she seemed distant. Perhaps just making her point that she was no longer around whenever he needed picking up out of depression. It wasn’t a tangible change, but it made him feel that if really he did want her back, he’d have to work for her.
It was like going out with someone for the first time, not knowing which way the evening would turn out.
In the crowded foyer they met William Bartlemas and Kevin O’Rourke, a pair of indefatigable first-nighters resplendent in the Victorian evening dress they always affected for such occasions. Why, Charles…’ exclaimed Bartlemas.
‘Charles Paris…’ echoed O’Rourke.
‘What have you been doing to yourself…?’
‘You have been in the wars…’
