Star Trap (14 page)

‘Isn't that likely to lead to selfishness?' Suzanne interposed with studied professionalism.

‘Inevitably. Bound to. Hence, presumably, all the stories that one hears of stars hating competition and being temperamental and slamming dressing-room doors and that sort of thing.'

He realised that it could get a little awkward if Suzanne asked him to relate his last observation to the star of
Lumpkin!
, and hurried on before she had the chance. ‘I think there's also something about the way the entertainment industry works, certainly for actors. Being an actor is, potentially, the most passive function on earth. Most actors are completely dependent on directors, because it's directors who control the jobs. Some manage to assert themselves by deep commitment to their work, or by directing or writing and devising shows. Some do it by political affiliations . . . starting street theatres, workshop communes, even – in cases of extreme lunacy – joining the Workers' Revolutionary Party. Some do it by forming their own companies, that kind of thing. But what I'm getting at is, that, given this lack of autonomy, when an actor becomes very much in demand, as a star might be, he wants to dictate his own terms. It's years of frustration at living on someone else's terms. It's also a self-preservation thing – once someone's got to the top, he tries to do everything to ensure that he stays there, and that may involve being careful about the people he works with, seeing that none of them are too good. I mean, often when you see a show with one big star name above the title and the rest of the cast nonentities, it's not just because the star's fee has exhausted the budget, it's also so that he shows up in such mediocre company. The Whale among Sprats syndrome.

‘Then there's management, which is very important. Choosing work, not doing anything that's beneath the star's dignity, or anything in which he's not going to shine. Can't take a risk, everything that is done has to be right, even at the expense of turning work down. For that reason you often find that a real star won't do anyone a favour, won't step in if someone's ill. It's not just bloody-mindedness, it's self-preservation. When someone's at the top, there are any number of people sniping, ready to read the signs of a decline, so it never does to be too available.'

‘Do you think a star has
magic
?' asked Suzanne, with awe-struck italics.

‘I don't know. I –'

‘Oh, Mr Paris, there you are.' Gwyneth of the stage management stood before him, her customary calm ruffled by anxiety. ‘You should have been back in the theatre half an hour ago.'

On the Wednesday morning they were rehearsing the first act finale,
Ooh, What a Turn-up
, which had been rearranged by Leon Schultz. Pete Masters, the M.D., was not in the best of moods. Having seen his own arrangements thrown out of the window, he found it galling to have to teach the new ones to the impassive band. The musicians had long since lost any spark of interest that they may have had for the show and sat mentally sorting out their VAT returns, eyes occasionally straying to their watches to see if the rehearsal would spread over into another session at M.U. rates. Christopher Milton was onstage directing, while David Meldrum sat at the back of the stalls reading
The Stage
.

The rehearsal had reached an impasse. Leon Schultz's new arrangement introduced a short violin figure which bridged from the verse into the chorus and there was no dancing to cover it. The cast tried freezing for the relevant three seconds, but that lost the pace of the number. A couple of the dancers improvised a little jig, which looked alien and messy. There was a long pause while Christopher Milton stood centre stage, the ominous faraway expression in his eyes.

Suddenly he was galvanised into action. ‘Where's the sodding choreographer?'

‘She wasn't called for this rehearsal,' said the musical director smugly, ‘following assurances that the new arrangements would not involve any major changes in the choreography.'

Christopher Milton seemed not to hear the dig. It was as if his mind could only focus slowly. ‘Then what can we do?' He enunciated the words very clearly and without emotion.

‘No idea.' Pete Masters shrugged. ‘Unless we cut the meaningless little bit of schmaltz altogether.' His tone was calculated to provoke, but produced no reaction. Emboldened, he pressed on:

‘Or go back to the original arrangements, which were quite as good and a darned sight less fussy.'

‘What, your arrangements?' Christopher Milton asked slowly.

‘Yes.'

‘Your sodding arrangements.' The build to anger was slow, but now it had started it built to a frightening intensity. ‘Your little tuppenny-ha'penny amateur tea-shop quartet arrangements. This is the bloody professional theatre, sonny, not some half-baked student revue. Your arrangements! This isn't Penge Amateur Operatic Society, you know.'

Pete Masters' face had gone very red, but he fought to keep his voice calm and give a dignified reply. ‘There's no need for you to speak to me like that. You may prefer the new arrangements to mine, but there's no need to be offensive about it.'

‘Oh, I'm sorry, was I being offensive?' The last word was pronounced with savage mimicry that exactly echoed Pete's public school tone. ‘How foolish of me. I had forgotten that I was speaking to someone who has a degree in music and therefore knows everything about the subject. What a silly-billy I am.'

The impersonation was funny and, though Charles cringed in the wings and the musicians continued to stare impassively, it did produce an unidentified laugh from somewhere up in the flies where the stage crew were invisibly watching the proceedings. It gave Christopher Milton a stimulus and he continued to vent his lacerating irony on Pete.

Eventually the M.D. struck back. Still he tried to sound in control, but his wavering voice let him down. ‘Listen, if you're going to speak to me like that, I'm going.'

‘Go. See if anyone cares. Just don't think you can treat me like that. You've got to get it straight, boy, what matters in this show. You don't. You go, there are a hundred second-rate musicians can take over tomorrow. I go, there just isn't a show. Get your priorities right, boy.'

Pete Masters mouthed, but couldn't produce any words. He did the only possible thing in the circumstances and walked off stage. The musicians looked at their watches with satisfaction. A row like this made it almost certain that they'd go into another session. The atmosphere in the theatre was heavy with embarrassment.

It blew over. Of course it blew over. That sort of row can't go on for long. The pressures of keeping the show going don't allow it. Pete and Christopher Milton were working together again within a quarter of an hour, with neither apologising or commenting on the scene. All the same, Charles Paris was relieved that Dickie Peck had not been present to witness the latest challenge to his protégé.

It wasn't just the clash at rehearsals that morning, but something changed the company mood on the Wednesday afternoon. Perhaps it was a small and silent house at the matinée. Perhaps it was Desmond Porton's impending visit and the fear of having the show assessed. Or perhaps it was The Cold.

Actors, whose working tools are their voices, are naturally terrified of colds, sore throats, 'flus and other infections which threaten their precious vocal cords. They all have their own favourite remedies and preventative methods when germs are in the air, or, in some cases, even when they aren't. Large doses of Vitamin C are swallowed, dissolved or crunched. (So are most other vitamins of the alphabet, with a kind of pagan awe.) Strange elixirs of lemon and honey (with bizarre variations involving onions) are poured down tender throats. Aspirin, codeine, paracetamol, Anadin, Veganin and others are swilled down, discussed and compared as connoisseurs speak of malt whiskies. Names of doctors who can ‘do wonders for throats' (as well as others who deal with backs and nervous twinges) are exchanged like rare stamps. It is all taken very seriously.

When a show involves singing, the panic and precautions are doubled. Vocal sprays are brought into play. Little tins and envelopes of pills are ostentatiously produced and their various merits extolled. Some favour Nigroids, small pills which ‘blow your head off, dear, but really do wonders for my cords'; others will not stir without ‘The Fisherman's Friend' – ‘quite strong, darling, but they really relax the throat'; there are Friar's Balsam, Vocalzones, Sanderson's Throat Specific and a whole gallery of other patent medicines available, all of which have their staunch adherents.

The Cold started with one of the dancers, who had difficulty in preventing his sneeze during the matinée. Then Mark Spelthorne, quick to seize any opportunity for self-dramatisation, thought he might have one of his throats coming on. During the evening performance many of the cast were walking round backstage massaging their throats, talking in whispers (‘conserving the voice, dear – may have a touch of 'flu coming on') and generally putting on expressions of private suffering which they had learnt when rehearsing Chekhov. It helped to make the atmosphere around
Lumpkin!
suddenly spiky.

Charles just made it to the pub as time was being called after a sedate Bristol house had given its qualified support to the evening performance. He was the only one of the company who went. Most went straight home to nurse themselves in anticipation of The Cold.

He managed to get in an order for a pint of bitter (performing always made him thirsty) and was letting the first mouthful wash down when the girl came up to him. The American voice twanged. ‘Did you ask him?'

‘Who? What?' He pretended innocence, but knew full well what she meant.

‘Christopher Milton. You were going to ask him about the interview.'

‘Oh yes, of course. I hadn't forgotten. Trouble is, today was very busy, what with the two shows. And we were rehearsing some new arrangements this morning.' It sounded pretty feeble.

But she didn't seem to notice. ‘Never mind. You'll do it sometime.' Surprisingly benign. He'd expected her to tear him apart for his omission. ‘Some time,' she repeated and he realised that she was drunk.

‘Can I get you a drink?'

‘Haven't they closed?'

‘Nooo. Never. Barman. What is it, Suzanne?'

‘Vodka tonic.'

‘One of those, please.'

She took the drink and gulped it down like water. She stood close to him and swayed so that they almost touched. ‘How'd the show go?'

‘Not world-shattering.'

‘'Smy birthday today.'

‘Ah.'

‘Had a few drinks to celebrate. Alone in a foreign country.'

‘Ah.'

She leant against him. ‘Give me a birthday kiss. Back in the States I never go without a birthday kiss.'

He kissed her dryly on the lips as if she were a child, but he felt uncomfortably aware of how unchildlike she was. Her breasts exercised a magnetic attraction as she swayed towards him. He drained his beer. ‘Well, better be off. They'll be turfing us out shortly.'

‘You going to see me home?' she asked kookily. Miss Suzanne Horst with a few drinks inside her was a very different proposition from the hyper-efficient lady who was about to set British journalism afire.

‘Is it far?'

‘Not far. Staying at a hotel.'

‘Ah.' Charles found he said a lot of ‘Ahs' in conversation with Suzanne. Because he couldn't think of anything else to say.

They hadn't got far from the pub when she stopped and rolled round into his arms. ‘Kiss me properly,' she mumbled. Light filtered across the road from the lamp over the stage door.

He held her warm and cosy in his arms. He didn't kiss her. Thoughts moved slowly, but with great clarity through his mind. The girl was drunk. He was nearly fifty. He should keep away from women; it always hurt one way or the other. The silent resentment of Ruth was too recent a memory. And before that there had been Anna in Edinburgh. And others. A wave of tiredness swept over him at the eternal predictability of lust.

He felt a shock of depression, as if the pavement in front of him had suddenly fallen away. What was the point of anything? Women could alleviate the awareness of the approach of death, but they could not delay it. He was cold, cold as though someone was walking over his grave. The intensity and speed of the emotion frightened him. Age, it must be age, time trickling away. He thought of Frances and wanted her comforting touch.

The girl in his arms was still, half dozing. He took her elbow and detached her from him. ‘Come on. I'll get you back to your hotel.' Gently.

At that moment he heard the clunk of the stage door closing and looked across to see Pete Masters emerge with a brief-case under his arm. The M.D. didn't see him, but started to cross the road, going away from him.

The Mini must have been parked near by, but Charles wasn't aware of it until it flashed past. He turned sharply, seemed dumb for a moment, then found his voice, too late, to shout, ‘Look out!'

Pete Masters half-turned as the wing of the Mini caught him. He was spun round on his feet and flung sprawling against a parked car. From there he slid down to lie still in the road. The Mini turned right at the end of the street and disappeared.

CHAPTER TEN

AND DICKIE PECK had not been in Bristol at the time of the accident. Charles tried to reason round it, but the fact was incontrovertible. According to Christopher Milton, the agent was not expected to come and see
Lumpkin!
again until Brighton. In case that information wasn't reliable, Charles went to the extreme of phoning Creative Artists to check it. He used a disguised voice and pretended to be a policeman investigating the accident to Pete Masters. It was a risky expedient, one that had turned sour on him before, but he couldn't think of another. As soon as he put the phone down, he realised that if Dickie Peck had anything to hide, he was now going to be a hundred times more careful. And he could well have been lying about his movements anyway.