out some abrupt nods and deterrent smiles to acquaintances, but seemed anxious to stay with Charles. It was reminiscent of parties in their first terms at Oxford, staying together shy against the wall until they had had enough to drink to risk a social foray.
A young man in jeans and a denim shirt came over to them. His face still glowed with the scrubbing it had taken to remove the make-up and there were streaks of greasepaint behind his ears. Charles recognized him from the stage, where less than half an hour before he had gone out to shoot himself in the character of Konstantin. In his own character, he didn’t look suicidal. Cocky would be a better word. A handsome young face, pulled out of true by lines of arrogance around the mouth.
‘Hugo! How’d you like it?’ He must have been nearly thirty years younger, but the tone was patronizing.
‘Fine.’ Hugo was unexpansive.
‘Little lady did well.’
Hugo flicked a one-frame smile across his face.
Konstantin looked speculatively at Charles. Then, deciding that Hugo was not going to introduce them, he reached out a man-of-the-world hand. ‘I’m Clive Steele.’
‘Charles Paris.’
‘Thought you must be. Charlie said the old man was bringing you.’ Charles felt Hugo stiffen. Difficult to tell whether it was at his wife’s nickname or his own designation. The boy continued with a self-deprecating smile. ‘Well, how did it seem to you, Charles? How did the stumbling efforts of the amateurs seem to you as a professional theatre man?’
The boy was not really asking his opinion; he was fishing for compliments. Charles didn’t know whether to give a vague reassurance as he would to any professional actor after a performance or to do exactly as he had been asked and give professional criticism. It was something he was going to have to sort out before the Critics’ Circle on the Tuesday.
He made some trimming remark about the show with an ambiguous comment on Clive’s performance. It was a waste of ambiguity; Clive took it as a straight compliment.
The conversation eddied. Clive, unprompted, but assuming its unfailing interest, provided his life story. He was becoming an accountant. The next week he had to go to Melton Mowbray on an audit. All bloody week. He had done a lot of productions with the Breckton Backstagers, mostly leads.
Charles couldn’t resist it. ‘Yes, amateur dramatic societies are always hard-up for young men.
But Clive was well armoured with self-opinion. ‘Certainly for ones who can act and are anything like decent- looking.’
Charles didn’t bother any more. The conversation was nearly dead, now he had withdrawn. But the boy kept talking. Like Hugo, Clive didn’t seem to want to leave this particular corner. They both seemed to be waiting for something. Charles. wondered if it was Charlotte.
A new couple came over and gave the conversation the kiss of life. This time Hugo remembered his social graces. ‘This is Charles Paris. Charles, Denis and Mary Hobbs.’
‘Oh dear,’ Mary giggled, ‘you’re the one who’s going to pass judgment on our performance. Now I do hope you’ll treat us just like professionals.’
It took him a minute or two to place her. She looked so different in the turquoise trouser suit, orange silk blouse and rainbow lame slippers. And the blonded hair and too-young make-up. But when he added a rust-coloured pre-Revolutionary Russian dress and a high-piled black wig… ‘Of course. Madame Arkadina. I’m so sorry. I just didn’t recognize you.’
Yes, he was full of admiration for her make-up. On her performance he hoped he wouldn’t be drawn. That kind of criticism could well wait till the Tuesday. In spite of himself, he found he was forming phrases of his real critical opinion. Such a pity that amateurs are always tempted by classic plays. Just because they’re classics, it doesn’t mean they’re easy to do. In fact, often just the reverse. Arkadina is one of the great roles of the theatre and not to be handed out at random to anyone who happened to have’ recited nicely at the Women’s Institute Concert. Amateurs should stick to what’s within their range — Agatha Christies, frothy West End comedies, nothing that involves too much subtlety of characterization. Leave Chekhov to the professionals.
Good God, there were only two people in that cast tonight who got within a mile of what it was about — Charlotte as Nina and the guy who played Trigorin. The rest should take up something else to fill their evenings — like stamp-collecting.
Even as he framed the thoughts, he knew he was overreacting. It was the irrational but instinctive response of anyone who made his living by acting. The very existence of amateur dramatic societies seemed to cast doubt on the seriousness of his profession.
Mary Hobbs was in full theatrical spate. ‘Oh God, there was a terrible moment in the first act, when we were meant to be watching Konstantin’s play and I had ‘this line about there being a smell of sulphur, and I think one of the stage managers had brought some fish and chips into the wings, because suddenly we all got this amazing whiff of vinegar across the stage, and I caught Geoff’s eye and I’m afraid I just went. Total, absolute corpse. I turned upstage. I don’t know if anyone noticed in the audience…’
Charles had noticed. Any experienced actor would have been aware of the tell-tale snort and sudden movement. And how typical of the Backstagers that they should have: all the theatrical slang. A ‘corpse’ was a breakdown into laughter on stage.
Mary Hobbs appealed to her husband. ‘Did you notice it, Den?’
‘Blimey, no. Couldn’t take my eyes off your missus, Hugo, I didn’t see much else, eh?’
He erupted with laughter. Not particularly amused laughter, just the sort that some ‘hearty people use around their speech like quotation marks.
The reactions to his remark were interesting. Hugo grimaced in an irritated way, as if he didn’t want to be reminded of Charlotte’s existence. Mary Hobbs flashed a look of reproof which quelled her husband. He looked like a schoolboy who had spoken out of turn., gauche as if he shouldn’t have said anything in his rough voice while his wife was present to elocute for the two of them.
Mary’s admonition was over in a second and she resumed her theatrical reminiscence. ‘Of course, Geoffrey didn’t break up. He is marvellous. Didn’t you think he was marvellous, Charles? Geoffrey Winter, our Trigorin. He’s so clever. We really all think he ought to go on the stage professionally. He’s so much better than most professional actors you see on the telly-box.’
Charles didn’t know whether this was meant to be deliberately rude, but let it pass. Mary Hobbs didn’t seem to need reaction to impel her dialogue. She sighed dramatically, ‘Oh, It’s all over. Quelle tristesse.’
‘Till the next one.’ Denis supplied her cue promptly, as if to make up for his earlier faux pas.
‘Till the next one. Winter’s Tale. Dear old Shakespeare. Start rehearsing next week.’
There was a moment of silence and Hugo seemed to wake up to some sort of social duty. But his question showed he had not been listening to the conversation. ‘Now the show’s over, Denis, will you be able to get some weekends down at the cottage?’
Denis gave his punctuation of laughter. ‘Yes, not before time. I must say we’ve been living Chekhov this last couple of months. And what with all the Sunday afternoon rehearsals, we only got away one weekend since August.’
‘Still we are going away this weekend.’ Again the edge of reproof in his wife’s voice.
Denis compensated quickly. ‘Oh yes. It’s just one of the penalties of marrying talent, eh?’ Another unmotivated eruption. Mary smiled and he reckoned he could risk a little joke. ‘She’s spent so much time here recently I kept saying why didn’t she move in? After all, we’re only next door.’ This too was apparently very funny.
Mary graciously allowed him this little indulgence and then felt it was time to draw attention to her magnanimity. ‘Still, this weekend I’m going to make it all up to you, aren’t I?’ She took her husband’s hand and patted it with a coquettishness which Charles found unattractive in a woman in her fifties. ‘First thing in the morning, when all the rest of the naughty Backstagers are sleeping off their hangovers; we’ll be in the new Rover sweeping off down to the cottage for a little delayed weekend. All tomorrow, and all Monday — well, till nine or so when we’ll drive back. Just the two of us. A second honeymoon — or is it a third?’
‘Three hundredth,’ said Denis, which was the cue for another explosion of merriment.
Charles escaped to get more drinks. Soon the wine would cease to taste of anything and his bad temper would begin to dissipate.
