Charles woke in an excellent mood. The events of the previous night were very clear to him. It was as if he had found the instant cure-all he had always dreamed must exist somewhere. All his problems had been resolved at once. He now had evidence of the wrong-doing of the driver and just to make his job easier, the driver himself was temporarily removed from the scene. There was still the minor question of what he should do about it — confront the villain and threaten police proceedings, go direct to the police or send them an anonymous deposition advising investigation — but that would keep. The warm completed-Times-crossword sensation had developed into an even better feeling, as if his solution to the puzzle had won a prize.
Helen Paddon cooked him an enormous breakfast, which he consumed with that relish which only a fulfilled mind can give. She was pleased to have something to do. The last heavy weeks of pregnancy were dragging interminably.
He finished breakfast about nine and took the unusual expedient of ringing Gerald at home. After pleasantries and must-see-you-soons from Kate Venables, the solicitor came on the line. ‘What gives?’ he asked in his B-film gangster style.
‘It’s sorted out.’
‘Really?’
‘Uhuh.’ Charles found himself slipping into the same idiom.
‘You know who’s been doing it all?’
‘I know and I’ve got evidence.’
‘Who?’ The curiosity was immediate and childlike.
‘Never mind.’ Charles was deliberately circumspect and infuriating. ‘Suffice to say that I’ll see nothing else happens to threaten the show, at least from the point of view of crime or sabotage. If it fails on artistic grounds, I’m afraid I can’t be held responsible.’
‘Is that all you’re going to tell me?’
‘Yes.’
‘Damn your eyes.’ Charles chuckled. ‘But you’re sure that Christopher Milton is in no danger?’
‘I don’t think he ever has been in any danger from anyone but himself.’ On that cryptic note he put the phone down, knowing exactly the expression he had left on Gerald’s face.
There was a ten-thirty call for the entire company to hear what Desmond Porton of Amulet Productions had thought of Lumpkin! and what changes he had ordered before the show could come into London. Charles ambled through the streets of Bristol towards the theatre, his mood matched by the bright November sun. The people of the city bustled about their business and he felt a universal benevolence towards them. His route went past the Holiday Inn and he could hardly repress a smile at the memory of what had happened the night before. It was strange. He felt no guilt, no fear that the driver might have been seriously hurt. That would have spoiled the rounded perfection of the crime’s solution.
The people of Bristol looked much healthier than those of Leeds. His mind propounded some vague theory about the freedom of living near the sea as against the claustrophobia of a land-locked city, but it was let down when the sun went in. Anyway, the people didn’t look that different. In fact, there was a man on the opposite side of the street who looked exactly like the bald man with big ears whom he’d idly followed in Leeds. He kicked himself for once again trying to impose theories on everything. Why could he never just accept the continuous variety of life without trying to force events into generalisations?
There was a lot of tension at the theatre. The entire company sat in the stalls, exchanging irrelevant chatter or coughing with self-pity to show that they’d got The Cold. There were three chairs on the stage and, as Charles slumped into a stalls seat, they were filled by the company manager, David Meldrum and Christopher Milton.
David Meldrum stood up first as if he were the director and clapped his hands to draw attention. The chatter and coughing faded untidily. ‘Well, as you all know, we had a distinguished visitor in our audience last night, Desmond Porton of Amulet, who, you don’t need reminding, are putting up a lot of the money for this show. So for that reason, if no other, we should listen with interest to his comments and maybe make certain changes accordingly.’
‘Otherwise the show will never make it to London,’ added the company manager cynically.
‘Yes.’ David Meldrum paused, having lost his thread. ‘Um, well, first let me give you the good news. He liked a lot of the show a lot and he said there is no question of the London opening being delayed. So it’s all systems go for November 27th, folks!’ The slang bonhomie of the last sentence did not suit the prissy voice in which it was said.
‘And now the bad news…’ For this line he dropped into a cod German accent which suited him even less. ‘We were up quite a lot of the night with Desmond Porton going through the script and there are quite a lot of changes that we’re going to have to make. Now you probably all realise that over the past few weeks the show has been getting longer and longer. Our actual playing time is now three hours and eight minutes. Add two intervals at fifteen minutes each and that’s well over three and a half.’
A derisive clap greeted this earnestly presented calculation. David Meldrum appeared not to hear it and went on. ‘So that means cuts, quite a lot of cuts. We can reduce the intervals to one, which would give us a bit of time, and the King’s Theatre management won’t mind that because it saves on bar staff. But we’ve still got half an hour to come out of the show. Now some of it we can lose by just shortening a few of the numbers, cutting a verse and chorus here and there. We can probably pick up ten minutes that way. But otherwise we’re going to have to lose whole numbers and take considerable cuts in some of the dialogue scenes.
‘Now I’m sorry. I know you’ve all put a lot of work into this show and I know whatever cuts we make are going to mean big disappointments for individuals among you. But Amulet Productions are footing most of the wage bill and so, as I say, we have to listen carefully to their views. And after all, we have a common aim. All of us here, and Amulet, we all just want the show to be a success, don’t we?’
The conclusion of the speech was delivered like Henry V’s ‘Cry God for Harry, England and St George!’ but was not greeted with the shouts of enthusiasm which follow Shakespeare’s line in every production. There was an apathetic silence punctuated by small coughs until one of the dancers drawled, ‘All right, tell us what’s left, dear.’
David Meldrum reached round for his script, opened it and was about to speak when Christopher Milton rose and said, ‘There was another point that Desmond made, and that was that a lot of the show lacked animation. Not enough action, not enough laughs. So as well as these cuts, there will be a certain amount of rewriting of the script, which Wally Wilson will be doing. It’s all too sedate at the moment, like some bloody eighteenth-century play.’
‘But it is a bloody eighteenth-century play.’ Charles kept the thought to himself and nobody else murmured. They were all resigned — indeed, when they thought about it, amazed that the major reshaping of the show hadn’t come earlier. They sat in silence and waited to hear the worst.
David Meldrum went through the cuts slowly and deliberately. They were predictable. Oliver Goldsmith, whose revolutions in his grave must by this time have been violent enough to put him into orbit, was left with almost nothing of his original play. The trouble with most musicals based on other works is that the songs are not used to advance the action. A musical number is merely a break in the continuity and, when it’s over, you’re four minutes further into the show and only two lines further into the plot. Carl Anthony and Micky Gorton’s songs, written with an eye to the Top Ten and continuing profitable appearances on LPs, were particularly susceptible to this criticism. But because the songs were the set-pieces and the items on which most rehearsal time and money had been spent, they had to survive at the expense of the text. Charles, who remembered Goldsmith’s play well from his own Cardiff production, saw the plot vanishing twist by twist, as one of the most beautiful and simple comic mechanisms in English literature was dismantled and reassembled without many of its working parts.
But the cuts were selective. It was clear that Christopher Milton had been up through the night with David Meldrum and Desmond Porton, watching each projected excision with a careful eye. Tony Lumpkin’s part came through the massacre almost unscathed. One rather dull number was cut completely and a verse and chorus came out of another. And that was it. While all the other characters had their parts decimated.
The one who suffered most was the one who Goldsmith, in his innocence, had intended to be the hero, Young Marlow. Cut after cut shredded Mark Spelthorne’s part, until he had about half the lines he had started the day with.
For some time he took it pretty well, but when the proposal to cut his second act love duet with Lizzie Dark was put forward, his reserve broke. ‘But that’s nonsense,’ he croaked. (He was suffering from The Cold and was determined that no one should miss the fact.)
‘Sorry?’ asked David Meldrum mildly, but the word was swamped by a sharp ‘What?’ from Christopher Milton.
‘Well, putting on one side for a moment the fact that the play no longer has a plot, if you cut the love duet, there is absolutely no romantic content from beginning to end.’
‘Yes, there is. There’s my song to Betty Bouncer.’
‘But that song has nothing to do with the plot. Betty Bouncer doesn’t even appear in the original play.’
‘Sod the original play! We aren’t doing the original play.’
‘You can say that again. We’re doing a shapeless hotch-potch whose only raison d’etre is as a massive trip for your over-inflated ego.’
‘Oh, I see. You think I’m doing all this work just to give myself cheap thrills.’
‘I can’t see any other reason for you to bugger up a plot that’s survived intact for two hundred years. Let’s face it, it doesn’t matter to you what the show is. We might as well be performing a musical of the telephone directory for all you care. Just so long as you’ve got all the lines and all the jokes and all the songs. Good God, you just don’t know what theatre’s about.’
‘I don’t?’ Christopher Milton’s voice was ominously quiet. ‘Then please tell me, since I am so ill-informed on the matter, what the theatre is about.’
‘It’s about team-work, ensemble acting, people working together to produce a good show — ’
‘Bullshit! It’s about getting audiences and keeping in work. You go off and do your shows, your “ensemble theatre” and you’ll get nobody coming to see them. People want to see stars, not bloody ensembles. I’m the reason that they’ll come and see this show and don’t you kid yourself otherwise. Let me tell you, none of you would be in line for a long run in the West End if this show hadn’t got my name above the title. So don’t you start whining about your precious lines, Mark Spelthorne. Just think yourself lucky you’ve got a job. You’re not going to find them so easy to come by now they’ve dropped that bloody awful Fighter Pilots.’
That got Mark on the raw. ‘How the hell did you know that?’
‘I have contacts, sonny. As a matter of fact, the Head of London Weekend Television was down this week trying to get me to do a series for them. He told me.’
‘It’s not definite yet,’ said Mark defensively. ‘They’re still considering it. The producer told me.’
‘It’s definite. The producer just hasn’t got the guts to tell you the truth. No, your brief taste of telly stardom is over and let me tell you, no one’s too anxious to pick up the failed star of a failed series that didn’t make the ratings. So if I were you, I’d keep very quiet in this show, take what you’re given and start writing round the reps.’
The public savagery of the attack gave Mark no alternative but to leave the theatre, which he did. What made the denunciation so cruel was that it was true. Mark Spelthorne had risen to public notice in advance of his talents on the strength of one series and without it he wasn’t much of a prospect.
As usual the star continued addressing his audience as if nothing had happened. ‘Now the next scene we come to is the Chase, the Lead ’em Astray sequence. I don’t think we need cuts in this one. In fact I don’t think we’ve begun to develop that scene yet. I discussed this with Desmond Porton and he agrees that we can add a whole lot more business and make it a really funny slapstick sequence. We’re going to do it in a sort of silent film style, with a lot more special effects. And I think we can pep up the choreography a bit in that scene. Really get the girls jumping about.’
‘You try jumping about in eighteenth-century costume,’ complained an anonymous female dancer’s voice.
Christopher Milton did not object to the interruption; he continued as if it were part of his own train of thought. ‘Yes, we’ve got to change the girl’s costumes there. Get more of an up-to-date feel. Like go-go dancers. Really get the audience going.’
‘Why not have them topless?’ drawled one of the dancing queens.
‘Yes, we could — no.’ His objection was, needless to say, not on grounds of anachronism. ‘We’ve got to think of the family audience. I think this Chase Scene can be terrific. Wally Wilson’s working on it now and we can make it into something really exciting. Going to mean a lot more work, but it will be worth while. Oh, that reminds me, we’re going to need flying equipment for it…’
‘What?’ asked David Meldrum weakly.
‘Flying equipment for the Chase Scene. I’m going to be flown in on a Kirby wire. Have we got the stuff?’
‘No, I don’t think so. We’d have to get it from London.’
‘Well, get it. Who organises that?’
‘I suppose the stage manager.’
‘Is he about?’
‘Yes, I think he’s backstage somewhere.’
‘Then get him to organise that straight away. I want to start rehearsing with it as soon as possible.’ As if under hypnosis, the man whose title was ‘director’ wandered offstage to find Spike.
‘Now, in that sequence, we’re also going to be making a lot more use of the trap-doors and doubles for me… Okay. It’s going to make that bit longer, but I think it’ll give the show a great lift towards the end…’
Charles’ part was so small that, short of cutting it completely (and in the current climate, that did not seem impossible), the management could not do it much harm. As it was he lost four lines and left the theatre for the pub feeling that it could have been a lot worse. Just as he went through the stage door, he met Spike coming in. ‘Oh, they were looking for you. Something about a Kirby wire.’
Spike’s papier-mache face crumpled into a sardonic grin. ‘They found me. Yes, so now his Lordship wants to fly as well as everything else. It’ll be walking on the water next.’
Charles chuckled. ‘I wonder if he’s always been like this.’
‘What do you mean?’
‘Always ordering everyone about. I mean, he couldn’t have done it when he started in the business, could he?’
‘With him anything’s possible.’
‘Where did he start? Any idea?’
‘Came out of stage school, didn’t he? Suppose he went straight into rep.’
‘You’ve met lots of people in the business, Spike. Ever come across anyone who knew him before he became the big star?’
There was a pause. ‘I don’t know. I’m trying to think.’ Spike wrinkled his face; when the acne scars were in shadow, he looked almost babylike. ‘There was an actor I once met who I think had been with him a long time back. Now what was his name…? Seddon… Madden, something like that. Paddon, that’s right.’
‘Not Julian Paddon?’
‘Yes, I think that was the name. Why, do you know him?’
‘I’m only staying with him here in Bristol.’
Mark Spelthorne was sitting in the corner of the pub. It was only eleven-thirty and there weren’t many people about. Charles felt he couldn’t ignore him. ‘Can I get you a drink?’
‘Brandy, please. Medicinal. For the cold.’ He looked frail. His nose was comically red, the lines of his face were deeply etched and for the first time Charles realised that the hair was dyed. Mark Spelthorne was older than the parts he played. As Christopher Milton had said, overcoming the current setback in his career wouldn’t be easy.
Charles ordered the brandy and a pint of bitter for himself. That meant he was in a good mood. He drank Scotch when he was drinking to change his mood or delay a bad one and beer when he wanted to enjoy the one he was in.
‘Cheers.’ They drank. Charles felt he could not ignore what had happened. ‘Sorry about all that this morning. Must’ve been pretty nasty for you.’
‘Not the most pleasant few minutes of my life.’
‘That I believe. Still, he says things like that in the heat of the moment. He doesn’t mean them.’
‘Oh, he means them.’
Though he agreed, Charles didn’t think he should say so. He made do with a grunt.
‘Yes, he means them, Charles, and what’s more, he’s right.’
‘What do you mean?’
‘They aren’t going to do any more Fighter Pilots.’
‘Well, so what? Something else will come up.’
‘You reckon? No, he’s right about that too. They launched that series to see if it caught on. If it had, I’d have been made, got star billing from now on. But now it’s failed, nobody’ll touch me.’
‘Oh, come on. You’ll keep in work.’
‘Work, yes. Supports, but not star billing. My career’s ruined.’ Charles tried to remember if he’d ever thought like that. So far as he could recollect, his aim in the theatre had always been for variety rather than stardom. Still, it obviously mattered to Mark. He tried another optimistic tack. ‘But there’ll be other chances. I mean, you made this pilot for your own radio show…’
‘Yes. They don’t want it. It’s been heard and they don’t want to make a series.’
‘Ah, ah well.’ Charles searched through his store of comforts for such situations and could only come up with cliche ‘Never mind, one door closes, another one opens.’ It was patently untrue. In his own experience life’s doors worked like linked traffic lights — one closed and all the others closed just before you got to them. Mark treated the platitude to the contemptuous grunt it deserved. ‘My God, he’s such a sod. I feel so angry, just so angry.’
‘Yes,’ Charles said, inadequately soothing.
‘And the world loves him. Lovable Christopher Milton. Every time he’s mentioned in the press, there it is, lovable Christopher Milton. Doesn’t it make you puke? If only his precious public could see him as he was this morning, could see all the meanness that goes to make up his lovability. My God, do people have to be that unpleasant to appear lovable?’
‘He works hard at his public image. It’s all very calculated.’
‘Yes, calculated and untrue. He has no integrity, his whole life is a masquerade.’ Mark Spelthorne spoke from a position of extreme righteousness, as if his own life had never been sullied by a shadow of affection. ‘You know, I think I’d give anything to expose him, show him to the public for what he really is — a mean-minded, egotistical, insensitive bastard.’
‘But talented.’
‘Oh yes. Talented.’ Even in the violence of his anger Mark could not deny the facts.
Charles thought a lot about what Mark had said. Because possibly he held in his hands the power to expose the star. If the series of accidents which had happened to Lumpkin! and been perpetrated by his driver could ever be traced back to Christopher Milton, that would be exactly the sort of scandal to bring the star down in the public estimation.
And yet Charles did not believe that Christopher Milton was directly involved. True, all the crimes turned out to the star’s advantage, but Charles was convinced that the driver had either been acting off his own bat or on the orders of Dickie Peck. Either way, the motive had been a protective instinct, to keep the star from the harsh realities of life (like people disagreeing with him). Somehow Christopher Milton himself, in spite of all his verbal viciousness, retained a certain naivete. He assumed that everything should go his way and was not surprised to find obstacles removed from his path, but his was more the confidence of a divine mission than the gangster’s confidence in his ability to rub out anyone who threatened him. The star might have his suspicions as to how he was being protected, but he was too sensible to ask any questions about such matters. And far too sensible to take direct action. For a person so fiercely conscious of his public image it would be insane and, when it came to his career, Christopher Milton seemed to have his head very firmly screwed on.
The Friday performance was scrappy. The cuts had been only partly assimilated and the show was full of sudden pauses, glazed expressions and untidy musical passages where some of the band remembered the cut and some didn’t. With that perversity which makes it impossible for actors ever to know what will or won’t work onstage, the audience loved it…
Charles was taking his make-up off at speed — even with the cuts, it was still a close call to the pub — when there was a discreet knock on his door. Assuming that someone must have got the wrong dressing-room, he opened it and was amazed to be confronted by his daughter Juliet and her husband Miles. What amazed him more was that Juliet, who had a trim figure and was not in the ordinary way prone to smocks, was obviously pregnant.
‘Good heavens. Come. Sit down,’ he added hastily, over-conscious of Juliet’s condition. It confused him. He knew that everything about having children is a continual process of growing apart and could remember, when Frances first brought the tiny baby home, the shock of its separateness, but seeing his daughter pregnant seemed to double the already considerable gulf between them.
‘Enjoyed the show very much,’ Juliet volunteered.
‘Oh good,’ Charles replied, feeling that he should have kissed her on her arrival, but that he’d been too surprised and now he had missed the opportunity (and that the whole history of his relationship with his daughter had been missed opportunities to show affection and draw close to her). ‘I didn’t know you were coming. You should have let me know. I could have organised tickets,’ he concluded feebly, as if free seats could compensate for a life-time of non-communication.
‘I didn’t know I was coming till today. Miles had to come to a dinner in Bristol and then I was talking to Mummy yesterday and she said you were in this show and I thought I’d come and see it.’
That gave him a frisson too. He had not told Frances about Lumpkin! How had she found out? At least that meant she was still interested in his activities. He couldn’t work out whether the thought elated or depressed him.
‘I didn’t see the show, of course,’ Miles stated in the plonking, consciously-mature manner he had. ‘I had to attend this dinner of my professional body.’
Charles nodded. He could never begin to relate to his son-in-law. Miles Taylerson did very well in insurance, which was a conversation-stopper for Charles before they started. Miles was only about twenty-five, but had obviously sprung middle-aged from his mother’s womb (though, when Charles reflected on Miles’ mother, it was unlikely that she had a womb — she must have devised some other more hygienic and socially acceptable method of producing children). Miles and Juliet lived in a neat circumscribed executive estate in Pangbourne and did everything right. They bought every possession (including the right opinions) that the young executive should have and their lives were organised with a degree of foresight that made the average Soviet Five-Year-Plan look impetuous.
When Miles spoke, Charles took him in properly for the first time. He was dressed exactly as a young executive should be for a dinner of his professional body. Dinner jacket, but not the old double-breasted or now-dated rolled-lapel style. It was cut like an ordinary suit, in very dark blue rather than black, with a discreet braiding of silk ribbon. Conventional enough not to offend any senior members of the professional body, but sufficiently modern to imply that here was a potential pace-setter for that professional body. The bow tie was velvet, large enough to maintain the image of restrained panache, but not so large as to invite disturbing comparisons with anything flamboyant or artistic. The shirt was discreetly frilled, like the paper decoration on a leg of lamb. In fact, as he thought of the image, Charles realised that that was exactly what Miles looked like — a well-dressed joint of meat.
Recalling a conversation that Miles and he had had two years previously on the subject of breeding intentions, he could not resist a dig. ‘When’s the baby due?’ he asked ingenuously.
‘Mid-April.’ Juliet supplied the information.
‘You’ve changed your plans, Miles. I thought you were going to wait a couple more years until you were more established financially.’
‘Well, yes…’ Miles launched into his prepared arguments. ‘When we discussed it, I was thinking that we would need Juliet’s income to keep going comfortably, but of course, I’ve had one or two rises since then and a recent promotion, so the mortgage isn’t taking such a big bite as it was, and I think the general recession picture may be clearing a little with the Government’s anti-inflation package really beginning to work and so we decided that we could advance our plans a little.’
He paused for breath and Juliet said, ‘Actually it was a mistake.’ Charles could have hugged her. He spoke quickly to stop himself laughing. ‘I’m sorry I can’t offer you anything to drink… I don’t keep anything here.’ With a last act entrance and an adjacent pub, there didn’t seem any need.
‘Don’t worry, I’m not drinking much, because of the baby.’
‘And I had up to my limit at the dinner. Don’t want to get nabbed on the M4.’ The image came of Miles sitting at the dinner of his professional body, measuring out his drinks drop by drop (and no doubt working out their alcoholic content with his pocket calculator).
‘You say you heard from your mother yesterday,’ said Charles, with what attempted (and failed) to be the insouciance of a practitioner of modem marriage, unmoved by considerations of fidelity and jealousy.
‘Yes.’
‘How was she?’
‘Fine.’
‘How’s the new boy friend?’ He brought in the question with the subtlety of a sledge-hammer.
‘Oh, what do you…?’ Juliet was flustered. ‘Oh, Alec. Well, I don’t know that you’d quite call him a boy friend. I mean, he just teaches at the same school as Mummy and, you know, they see each other. But Alec’s very busy, doesn’t have much time. He’s a scout-master and tends to be off camping or climbing or doing arduous training most weekends.’
Good God. A scout-master. Frances must have changed if she’d found a scout-master to console her. Perhaps she’d deliberately looked for someone as different as possible from her husband.
Juliet tactfully redirected the conversation, a skill no doubt refined by many Pangbourne coffee mornings. ‘It must be marvellous working in a show with Christopher Milton.’
‘In what way marvellous?’
‘Well, he must be such fun. I mean, he comes across as so… nice. Is he just the same off stage?’
‘Not exactly.’ Charles could also be tactful.
But apparently Christopher Milton united the Taylersons in admiration. Miles thought the television show was ‘damn funny’ and he was also glad, ‘that you’re getting into this sort of theatre, Pop. I mean, it must be quite a fillip, career-wise.’
‘What do you mean?’
‘Well, being in proper commercial theatre, you know, West End, chance of a good long run, that sort of thing. I mean, it’s almost like having a regular job.’
‘Miles, I have done quite a few shows in the West End before, and if I have spent a lot of my life going round the reps, it’s at least partly because I have found more variety of work there, more interest.’
‘But the West End must be the top.’
‘Not necessarily. If you want to be a star, I suppose it might be, but if you want to be an actor, it certainly isn’t.’
‘Oh, come on, surely everyone in acting wants to be a star.’
‘No, actors are different. Some want to open supermarkets, some just want to act.’
‘But they must want to be stars. I mean, it’s the only way up. Just as everyone in a company wants to be managing director.’
‘That principle is certainly not true in acting, and I doubt if it’s true in the average company.’
‘Of course it is. Oh, people cover up and pretend they haven’t got ambitions just because they see them dashed or realise they haven’t got a chance, but that’s what everyone wants. And it must be the same in the theatre, except that the West End stars are the managing directors.’
‘If that’s the case, where do I come on the promotion scale?’
‘I suppose you’d be at a sort of… lower clerical grade.’ And then, realising that that might be construed as criticism, Miles added, ‘I mean, doing the job frightfully well and all that, but sort of not recognised as executive material.’
They were fortunate in meeting the managing director on the stairs. Christopher Milton was leaving alone and, suddenly in one of his charming moods, he greeted Charles profusely. Miles and Juliet were introduced and the star made a great fuss of them, asking about the baby, even pretending to be interested when Miles talked about insurance. They left, delighted with him, and Charles reflected wryly that if he’d wanted to organise a treat, he couldn’t have come up with anything better.
Christopher Milton’s mood of affability remained after they’d gone. ‘Fancy a drink?’
‘Too late. The pubs have closed.’
‘No, I meant back at the hotel.’
‘Yes. Thank you very much.’ Charles accepted slowly, but his mind was racing. The offer was so unexpected. If Christopher Milton were behind the accidents which had been happening over the past weeks and if he knew that Charles had been inspecting his car the night before, then it could be a trap. Or it could be an innocent whim. Acceptance was the only way of finding out which. And Charles certainly felt like a drink.
‘Good. I’ve got a cab waiting at the stage door.’
‘I thought you usually had your car.’
‘Yes. Unfortunately my driver had an accident last night.’
The intonation did not sound pointed and Charles tried to speak equally casually. ‘Anything serious?’
‘Got a bang on the head. Don’t know how it happened. He’ll be in hospital under observation the next couple of days, but then he should be okay.’
‘Do you drive yourself?’
‘I do, but I don’t like to have that to think about when I’m on my way to the theatre. I do quite a big mental build-up for the show.’ Again the reply did not appear to have hidden layers of meaning. No suspicion that Charles was mildly investigating the accident to Pete Masters.
In his suite at the hotel Christopher Milton found out Charles’ predilections and rang for a bottle of Bell’s. It arrived on a tray with a bowl of cocktail biscuits. The star himself drank Perrier water. ‘… but you just tuck into that’
Charles did as he was told and after a long welcome swallow he offered the biscuits to his host.
‘I don’t know. Are they cheese?’
Charles tried one. ‘Yes.’
‘Then I won’t, thanks.’
There was a long pause. Charles, who had the feeling he was there for a purpose, did not like to initiate a topic of conversation. Christopher Milton broke the silence. ‘Well, how do you think it’s going?’
‘The show? Oh, not too bad. A lot of work still to be done.’ Cliches seemed safer than detailed opinions.
‘Yes. This is the ugliest part.’ Christopher Milton paced the room to use up some of his nervous energy. ‘This is where the real work has to happen.’ He stopped suddenly. ‘What do you think of the cuts?’
‘Cuts were needed.’
‘That tells me nothing. We both know cuts were needed. I’m asking what you thought of the cuts that were made.’
‘Well, it depends. If you’re thinking of how much sense we’re now making of Goldsmith’s play — ’
‘We’re not. We’re thinking of the audience. That’s what theatre’s about — the people who watch the stuff, not the people who write it.’
‘I agree with you up to a point, but — ’
‘What you’re trying to say is that the cuts could have been spread more evenly, that I myself got off pretty lightly. Is that it?’
‘To an extent, yes.’ Asked a direct question, Charles felt bound to give his real opinion.
‘I thought you’d think that. I bet they all think that, that it’s me just indulging my oversized ego.’ Charles didn’t confirm or deny. ‘Go on. That’s what they think. That’s what you think, isn’t it?’
The sudden realisation came that all the star wanted that evening was someone to whom he could justify himself. The fact that it was Charles Paris was irrelevant. Christopher Milton was aware of the bad feeling in the cast and he wanted to explain his actions to someone, to make him feel better. Obviously he had more sensitivity to atmosphere than Charles had given him credit for. ‘All right,’ Charles owned up, ‘I did think other cuts would have been fairer.’
Christopher Milton seemed relieved that he’d now got a point of view against which to deliver his prepared arguments. ‘Yes, and I bet every member of the cast is sitting in his digs tonight saying what a bastard I am. Well, let me tell you, all I think is whether or not this show is going to be a success, and I’m going to do my damnedest to see that it is. That’s my responsibility.
‘You see, Lumpkin! just wouldn’t be on if I weren’t in it. She Stoops to Conquer’s been around for years. No commercial management’s likely to revive it unless they suddenly get an all-star cast lined up. I suppose the National or the RSC might do a definitive version for the A-level trade, but basically there’s no particular reason to do it now. But I said I was interested in the project and the whole band-wagon started.
‘Now we come to the point that I know you’re thinking — that we’re buggering up a fine old English play. No, don’t deny it, you’re a kind of intellectual, you’re the sort who likes literature for its own sake. What I’m trying to tell you, to tell everyone, is to forget what the play was. We’re doing a show for an audience in 1975. And that, in your terms, is probably a debased audience, an audience force-fed on television. Their ideal night out at the theatre would probably be to see ‘live’ some soap opera which they see twice a week in the privacy of their sitting-rooms. Okay, that’s the situation. I’m not saying it’s a good situation, it’s just the way things are, and that’s the audience I’m aiming for.
‘Because of television, I’m one of the people they want to see. And they want to see a lot of me. They don’t give a bugger about the twists and turns of Goldsmith’s quaint old plot They want to see Lionel Wilkins of Straight Up, Guv, simply because he’s something familiar. I’ve only realised this since we started playing the show in front of audiences. That’s why I stopped playing Lumpkin rustic — oh, yes, I saw the expression of disapproval on your face when I did that. But I am right. Give the audience what they want.’
‘All right, I agree they want to see you, but surely they’d be even more impressed if they saw your range of abilities, if they saw that you could play a very funny rustic as well as Lionel Wilkins.’
‘No, there you’re wrong. They want what they recognise. Popular entertainment has got to be familiar. This is a mistake that a lot of young comedians make. They think the audience wants to hear new jokes. Not true, the average audience wants to hear jokes it recognises. No, in this show they see sufficient variety in me, they see me sing and dance — most of them probably didn’t know I could do that — but they never lose sight of Lionel Wilkins, and it’s him they came for. And it’s my business to give them Lionel Wilkins.
‘So, when I said to Mark Spelthorne this morning that I felt responsible for the entire company, I meant it. It’s up to me to hold this company together and if that looks like just ego-tripping, well, I’m sorry.’
Charles couldn’t think of anything to say. He had been surprised to hear such a cogently reasoned justification and, although he could not agree with all the arguments, he could respect it as a point of view. Christopher Milton himself obviously believed passionately in what he said. He broke from the unnatural stillness he had maintained throughout his exposition and started his restless pacing again. He stopped by a sofa and began rearranging the cushions. ‘And it’s the same reason, my duty to the audience, which makes me so concerned about my public image. I just can’t afford to do anything that lowers me in their estimation.
‘Oh, don’t look so innocent, as if you don’t know why I’ve moved on to this subject. People think I’m blind, but I see all the little looks, the raised eyebrows, the remarks about me putting on the charm. Listen, my talent, wherever it came from, is all I’ve got. It’s a commodity and, like any other commodity, it has to be attractively packaged. I have to be what the public wants me to be.’
‘Even if at times that means not being yourself?’
‘Even if that means most of the time not being myself. That’s the way of life I’ve chosen.’
‘It must put you under incredible strain.’
‘It does, but it’s what I’ve elected to do and so I must do it.’ This messianic conviction seemed almost laughable when related to the triviality of Lumpkin! but it was clear that this was what made Christopher Milton tick. And though the strength of his conviction might easily overrule conventional morality, he was never going to commit any crime whose discovery might alienate the precious audience whom he saw, almost obsessively, as the arbiters of his every action.
Charles left the Holiday Inn, slightly unsteady from the whisky, but with the beginnings of an understanding of Christopher Milton.