Charles was tempted. There was in fact an unperformed play sitting in a drawer in his room in Hereford Road. He’d written it after his one successful play, The Ratepayer. A light comedy, called How’s Your Father? It would be quite gratifying to have it done under any circumstances.
But the patronizing tone in which Robert Chubb continued changed his mind. ‘It could do you a lot of good,
Charles. Lots of plays we’ve premiered here have gone on to do awfully well. It’s a real chance for an unknown playwright. I don’t know if you know George Walsh’s Doomwomb?’
Charles shook his head. Robert Chubb smiled indulgently at his ignorance. ‘That started here.’
‘Really?’ Suddenly he wanted to scream, wanted to do something appalling, be very rude to someone, break something, get the hell away from all these pretentious idiots.
Rescue came from an unexpected source. He felt an arm round his waist and a female body pressed close to his. ‘Dance with me.’
It was Vee Winter.
CHAPTER TWO
She was a strange woman. She clung to him tightly and he could feel the nervous excitement coursing through her body. In other circumstances, he would have interpreted this as a sexual message and responded in kind, but that somehow didn’t seem appropriate. The excitement had nothing to do with him.
He was being used for some purpose of her own. Certainly she was working to give the appearance of a sexual encounter, but it was for the benefit of the rest of the room, not for her partner.
Charles wondered at first if it was a ploy to make her husband jealous. Geoffrey was across the room, dancing with circumscribed abandon in front of yet another little dolly and Vee was very aware of his presence. But her behaviour did not seem designed to antagonize him; instead Charles received an inexplicable impression of complicity between husband and wife, as if their performances were co-ordinated parts of an overall plan and would later be laughed over when they were alone together.
This annoyed him. Again he was being used as a counter in a game he didn’t understand. The heavy beat of a rock number changed to a soupy ballad and Vee snuggled closer, pressing the contours of her body tightly against his. He realized with surprise that he didn’t find this arousing. Vee Winter was an attractive woman, but he didn’t fancy her. this gave him a perverse sense of righteousness, as if confirming that his randiness was not absolutely indiscriminate.
He commented rather coldly on her forwardness, ‘is this to give food for scandal to the gossip columnist of Backbite?’
‘Backbite?’
‘Your fortnightly magazine.
‘That’s called Backchat.’ She corrected him without humour. ‘Anyway, it doesn’t have a gossip columnist.’
Charles unwisely chose to continue in facetious vein. ‘So there’s no one to chronicle the backslidings of the Backstagers bopping to Burt Bacharach and their bacchanalian orgies?’
‘No.’ Vee’s reply was absolutely straight. Charles wouldn’t have minded if she had said it as a put-down (his attempt at humour had been pretty feeble), but for her not to notice even that the attempt had been made, that he found galling.
‘Do you act much here?’
She laughed with incredulity at his question, rather as if someone had asked the Queen if she had any jewelery. ‘Oh I have done a few things, yes.’
‘But not The Seagull?’
‘No.’ She stiffened slightly. ‘I really’ felt I needed a rest. Also I’ve played so many leads in the past year, I didn’t want it to look as if Geoff and I were monopolizing the entire society. Ought to give some of the newer members a chance. And then Shad, who directed, had this strange notion that Nina ought to have red hair. He’s a rather quirky director, if you know what I mean.’
Through the excuses, Charles knew exactly what she meant.
He took the end of a record as an opportunity to end their clinch. He looked over at the group round Hugo and couldn’t face it yet. He needed just to get out of the place for a moment. The sweet wine was making him feel sick. Pausing only to pick up someone’s full glass off a table, he left the rehearsal room.
The change was as welcome as he had anticipated. In spite of the summery days of that fall, October was nearing its end and the evenings were chilly. The slap of cold air was refreshing. He leaned against the inside of the porch and breathed deeply.
Then he heard the voices. Charlotte Mecken and Clive Steele. Arguing in fierce whispers. First Charlotte’s voice, the veneer of drama school thinned by emotion to reveal its Northern Irish origin. ‘I’m sorry, Clive, you’ve got it completely wrong. I never knew you were thinking that.’
‘Whit was I meant to think, after all those rehearsals, when you suddenly got all emotional and confided in me when I drove you home?’
‘I’m sorry. I shouldn’t have broken down. I just… it was all too much…’
‘Well, I made the perfectly natural assumption that — ’
‘It may have seemed perfectly natural to you, but — ’
‘It bloody well did. Look, if it’s your husband you’re worried about, forget it. It’s bloody obscene you being married to him anyway. Reminds me of all those jokes about young girls on their wedding nights feeling old age creeping all over them — ’
‘Clive. stop it. You’ve got the wrong end of the stick. So completely the wrong end. It’s all much more complicated than you can begin to imagine. Look, I’m sorry if you’ve been hurt, but I can assure you — ’
‘Oh, stuff that! All right, you’ve made your point. I see what’s been happening now. There is a word for women who lead men on you know.’
‘Clive, if I’d had any idea of what was going through you mind — ’
‘Oh shut up. I’m going.’
‘Be careful.’
‘Don’t worry, I will. I’m not like Konstantin — I’m not going to go off and shoot myself because some tart’s let me down. If I were to do anything, I can assure you it would be something a lot more practical. Goodbye!’
Charles heard a few brisk footsteps across the gravel, a car door open and slam, then a powerful sports car engine starting and tires screeching off down the road.
He assumed Charlotte was still there. He gave her two minutes, then, not being an actor for nothing, did his impression of someone coming noisily out of the rehearsal room.
He was aware of her perfume before he saw her. It was very expensive, very distinctive. Whatever Hugo’s relationship with his wife, he didn’t stint her expenses. Her clothes were also of the best. She was a trendy fashion plate amidst the pervading dowdiness of the Backstagers.
She was leaning against the bonnet of a Volvo in the car park and didn’t look as if she had moved for some time. Her face was infinitely miserable.
‘Hello, Charlotte. What’s up?’
‘I don’t know. Last night blues,’ she lied. ‘You should understand about that.’
‘Yes. What I usually do is get wildly pissed. Then I don’t notice. And the next morning I feel so bad physically that I forget about any emotional upset.’
‘Hmm. I’m rather off alcohol at the moment.’
Silence. She looked sensational in the bluish light shed from the rehearsal room. The pain of her expression increased rather than diminished her beauty. The face framed in red hair looked pale and peaky in the thin light. Very young, very vulnerable, a child being brave.
Charles found being with her a relief. She seemed more like a real person than the lot in the rehearsal room. He felt protective towards her. And that made him feel better. He didn’t like the boorish bloody-mindedness which the massed Backstagers kindled in him.
