So Much Blood (12 page)

Which accounted for the other reason why Martin's behaviour seemed unimportant. Charles was satisfyingly pissed.

After solitary refuelling at the pub, he had found Anna with the rest of the revue team at Coates Gardens. He had taken her out for a meal, to celebrate the opening of his show and keep her mind off the opening of hers. They went to the Casa Española in Rose Street and, since Anna was in a high state of nerves, he had to eat most of a large paella and drink all of the wine. A fate which he embraced with fortitude and which contributed to his present well-being.

It had also been encouraging to see Anna nervous. She was as jumpy as a kitten and it was the first time he had seen her lose her cool at all. Which made her seem more human. And even nicer.

Charles thought of her warmly as he sat in the Masonic Hail and fingered her key in his pocket. He had the drunkard's feeling of sexual omnicompetence and longed to be with her in the bed over the Lawnmarket. It would not be long. After the revue. He would go discreetly back to the flat and then, after the company giggles and congratulations, she would join him.

The lights dimmed. Not bad; the house was two-thirds full. He sat back in the right mood to enjoy
Brown Derby—
‘Simply the Funniest Late-Night Revue on the Fringe.'

If it was, it did not say a lot for the others. Brown Derby was a hotchpotch of styles. Decrepit jokes that should have been allowed quiet deaths were resuscitated and paraded as new. Dull irrelevant puns were presented as wit. The ill-digested influence of television comedy made for uncomfortable production. Though there were flashes of humour, the show was heavy going, and never heavier than in its topical material. The comments on the British political scene showed neither insight nor understanding and the piece on the American presidency was frankly embarrassing. Ten days after President Nixon's resignation was not the time for a naive and tasteless parody of Adolf Hitler in his bunker (including some pretty tired jokes about golf).

And it was not a case of a brilliant new team struggling valiantly against unworthy material. The cast was not good. If acting at its most basic is making oneself heard and not bumping into the furniture, they failed as actors on two counts. They were rarely audible and kept tripping over chairs (especially during the extended blackouts between sketches, with the result that the lights usually came up on some puzzled youth lying full length on the upturned furniture). They had almost no talent.

Except for Anna. She was extraordinarily good and, given the lack of competition, dominated the show completely. Singing, dancing, flashing through a variety of accents and costumes, she was the only person onstage with any concept of pace or comedy. The direness of the material she had to perform only highlighted her skill.

Charles was amazed. Anna was a beautiful girl, but onstage she was animated by an extra charge that intensified her beauty. A real stage presence. He could feel the men in the audience responding to her. When she came on for her last number
A Bunny Girl's Lament
(a reasonable idea, marred by flabby lyrics), dressed in full Playboy Club kit, showing her long brown legs, the audience broke into spontaneous applause. It was not just that she looked sexy; she managed to incorporate an archness which distanced her from her material and was also extremely funny. Anna Duncan was that rare creature, a woman who can be funny onstage without sacrificing either her dignity or her sex appeal.

It was late when she tapped on the door of the Lawnmarket flat. The first night junketings must have gone on a bit. Perhaps the Brown Derby cast had been drowning their sorrows. Or perhaps they were celebrating, thinking that the enthusiastic final applause for Anna was meant for all of them.

She looked him straight in the eye. ‘Well, what's your cool professional assessment?'

‘Can you take it?'

‘Yes.'

‘Well, I'm afraid I thought the show was terrible. The only constructive suggestions that I can make are that your writers should go and sell vacuum cleaners, your male cast should join the Army and your director should become a monk.'

‘Hmm.' The navy blue eyes kept their level gaze fixed on him. She knew there was more to come.

So he let it come. ‘I would also like to say that you are one of the most talented young actresses I have ever seen.

She smiled and allowed herself a slight relaxation of relief. ‘Charles, I asked for your cool professional assessment.'

‘That was my cool professional assessment.'

‘Hmm. Sounds biased.' But she was obviously delighted.

‘Biased nothing! I may also happen to think you are the best screw in the world, but I do genuinely believe that you are exceptionally talented as an actress. Now come and make love.'

She grinned suddenly. ‘You talked me into it.'

It was even better. They were completely together. He rolled apart from her and cradled the strong slender body in his arms. Her breasts were slack against his ribs, her breath soft on his shoulder. He recited gently into her hair.

‘“O, happy times! O happy rhymes!

For ever ye're gone by!

Few now—if any—are the lays

Can make me smile or sigh.” But you're one of them. You can make me smile and sigh.'

‘I don't think Thomas Hood meant “lay” that way,' she murmured lazily.

‘No, I don't think he did.'

‘Incidentally, I liked your show. I think I was too uptight over dinner to mention it.'

‘Thank you. Mutual admiration society.'

‘Hmm.' There was a long pause. He wondered if she had gone to sleep. But she spoke again. ‘Do you really think I'm good?'

‘Yes.'

‘Good enough to make it in the professional theatre?'

‘Yes.'

‘In spite of all you said about needing to be tough and calculating, and needing lots of help?'

‘I'll help you, Anna.'

Soon she was asleep. Charles lay thinking. He could help her. Get her work, maybe. Even cast her in plays he was directing. He felt useful and wanted to give to her. To give a lot. Was it so ridiculous for a man of nearly forty-eight to go round with a girl in her early twenties? His experience could help her. He felt something for Anna that he had not felt for a long, long time. Possibly even love.

CHAPTER EIGHT

TUESDAY 20TH AUGUST
was an unsettling day.

It started all right. Charles felt at one with Anna and at one with the world. She left the flat at about half-past nine. (Michael Vanderzee was champing at the bit to get his workshop sessions restarted after the layoff caused by the revue's opening.) Charles had a leisurely breakfast of floury bacon rolls at the Poppin and then, as a token gesture to detective work, he went back to the Scottish National Portrait Gallery to see if he could work out the reason for Martin's visit.

The Gallery was well laid out and should have been interesting, but he was not in the mood for inspecting the faces of people he had never heard of. The whole business of searching for clues and motives was beginning to bore him.

He was gazing at a wax model of William III when he remembered the newspapers. The day after a first night (or at least a first lunch) and he had not yet checked to see if there were any notices. The rest of the portraits could wait. He hurried out under the disapproving glare of the large nosed-faces of Scotland's heritage.

There was a big newsagents on Princes Street. Rather than behaving logically and starting with just the
Guardian,
he went mad and bought every available daily. Which meant a great deal of waste paper;
So Much Comic
. . . had so far failed to capture the interest of the nationals.

He stood in the street reading and dropped the inadequate newspapers one by one into a litter-bin. Nothing in the
Guardian
; so much for his conversation at the Fringe Reception. Charles realised he was being naively optimistic to expect to be noticed on the first day of the Festival, particularly with negative advertising.

Only the
Glasgow Herald
left. He opened it without hope, and on the review page, there it was.

Charles could not control an ebullient smile. What he held in his hands was a good old-fashioned rave.

Thanks to the review and a couple of large Bell's, he arrived at the Masonic Hall at a quarter to one in high spirits and totally devoid of nerves. He felt confident as he waited in the wings for the lights to go down.

From that point on the day deteriorated. For a start, the show did not go well. A second performance is always difficult, because of the feeling of anticlimax. And the size of the audience did not augur well for the circulation figures of the
Glasgow Herald
. There were about twenty, apparently under doctor's orders that laughter was injurious to health. Puns and wisecracks vanished into the spongy void of the hall.

And, to add to that, Frances was in the audience. The woman he had married, to whom he had given the unfortunate name of Frances Paris. He recognised her as soon as the show started from her loyal, and solitary, laughter. When he stopped to consider, it was quite logical that she should be in Edinburgh. She came up most summers to give a couple of her sixth formers a quick cultural immersion. There were two girls sitting with her, one black and one white.

Charles was very fond of Frances, but he wished she was not there. Since he had walked out on her twelve years before, they had remained friendly and he had even gone back to her from time to time. She made no demands on him, but her presence, just when he was feeling secure of his relationship with Anna, was embarrassing.

He tried not to be too off-hand when she came round backstage; he had no desire to hurt her. She looked harassed and was obviously having difficulty controlling her two charges outside the school context. The white girl was dumpy and called Candy; the black girl was splendidly tangible and called Jane; both regarded Edinburgh as an opportunity to be emancipated and
meet men
.

Husband and wife exchanged Edinburgh addresses and parted amicably with vague intentions to meet up again. The encounter brought a little cloud of depression into Charles' sunny outlook.

It was not until about half past six that the cloud started to look stormy. The Mary cast had been rehearsing all afternoon, but most of them were released for the evening, because Michael Vanderzee wanted to work on the Mary/Bothwell scenes for an hour until Anna had to go to the revue. After a cabbage supper at Coates Gardens, the actor playing John Knox (nicknamed ‘Opportunity Knox' by the rest of the cast) suggested a trip to the pub. Darnley, Ruthven and Cardinal Beaton thought it was a good idea. So did the new David Rizzio, Sam Wasserman. Charles decided that he too would like a drink.

In the Haymarket pub, he discovered that student unrest manifests itself in reluctance to be first to the bar, so he bought the round. Without conscious engineering, he found himself alone at a table with Sam.

The author of
Mary, Queen of Sots
was a young American with fine blond hair, a woffly ginger moustache and black-rimmed round glasses. He wore a thick check lumberjack shirt, the inevitable blue jeans and yellow-laced brown boots. He had arrived in Edinburgh that day, just in time to hear the boom of the one o'clock gun fired from the Castle and become immediately embroiled in one of Michael Vanderzee's workshops.

‘That was after two solid days' travelling. I got Mike's telegram from the Poste Restante in Brindisi, and I just dropped everything and came. I mean, my God. I really care about this show . . .'

As soon as Sam started speaking, Charles realised why the tête-a-tête had been so easily arranged. Sam Wasserman was a bore, one of those instantly identifiable bores who has the ability to make the most interesting anecdote tedious, who can destroy by endless detail. But as well as qualifying as one of this international type, Sam also demonstrated that refinement of the quality which is peculiar to earnest young American academics. A glaze crept over Charles' eyes as the monologue continued.

‘. . . In fact,
Mary, Queen of Sots
derives directly from the presentation techniques I developed in a show based on the Boston Tea Party for my Master's thesis at U.S.C . . . .'

‘U.S.C.?' Charles queried weakly.

‘University of Southern California. I did my Master's there before coming to Derby. In Drama and Creative Writing. When I say my project was based on the Boston Tea Party, I mean of course loosely based. It concentrated on the ethnico-political problems of the American Indians. Viewed of course from a Socialist standpoint. The central allegorical symbol was the fact that the Boston Tea Party was perpetrated by white men disguised as Indians. White usurping the place of red. Like corpuscles. I used the analogy of leukaemia.'

Charles concentrated and tried to nudge the conversation in the direction he wanted. ‘But you come to this show in rather macabre circumstances.'

The nudge was insufficient; Sam needed actual derailment. ‘The macabre is very much an integral part of my writing. And the bizarre. Another image I developed in the U.S.C. show,' he steamrollered on, ‘was the unusual ability of the Navajo Indians to walk along girders at great height as if they were on the ground. It's a different spatial concept. I related that to the myopic nature of the social services . . .'