The Complete Symphonies of Adolf Hitler (24 page)

But it was only a moment. When the dialogue was resumed the play went flat again. At the end, however, there was much gratifying applause. All the actors, with the exception of Alec Crowden who had played Guibourg, were beaming and basking in the public approval. Then Ron Titlow came on and took a bow. He smirked exultantly and winked at Pinson. When he calmed the audience to make his little speech Pinson was afraid that he might be mentioned, but he wasn’t. Titlow was too full of himself to leave much credit for anyone else.

Pinson had been aware of Titlow’s complacency during their conversation, but this address to the audience displayed another level of arrogance altogether. He spoke as if he and his actors were high priests and the audience their acolytes, privileged to breathe in the perfume of culture which the Players had wafted in their direction. Pinson thought that the audience took this condescension with remarkable tolerance; whether this was out of amusement or incomprehension he could not tell.

When they met again in the foyer, Pinson, who liked to push people who annoyed him to their extremes, complimented Titlow on his speech. Titlow who was obviously in one of those exalted states where praise seems commonplace said:

‘I don’t think these people fully realise quite what we do for them. And all for love. That’s what “amateur” means, you know.’

‘Thanks for not mentioning me in your speech.’

‘Oh, I wouldn’t spoil my little surprise on the boys and girls for anything.’

The back stage area in the Jubilee Hall had only two large communal dressing rooms, one for each sex. Titlow led him to the door of the women’s dressing room where the bottles of Asti and sparkling Chardonnay were being popped and the well-wishers were gathered. Pinson could see that the female members of the cast, having removed their costumes but not their make-up, were gleaming in gaudy dressing gowns in front of the mirror lights. Titlow clapped his hands for silence to make an announcement.

‘A little surprise for you, boys and girls. Allow me to present a special guest of honour who has come all the way down from London for the last night of our West of England Amateur Première.’

Titlow turned and winked at Pinson.

‘Our author and my friend, Dan Pinson.’

A burst of delighted applause drowned any objections Pinson might have to being called ‘Dan’—it was always either Daniel, or Danny to his intimates—or to the implication that he was here in an other than accidental capacity. He was immediately engulfed in unqualified approval and admiration, both of which, in small, controlled doses, can be very pleasant, even beneficial. Pinson could remember very little of the first twenty minutes in that dressing room. The heat and bright lights made him drink more sparkling Chardonnay than he should have; the adulation was equally intoxicating. He noticed how when the thin young woman who had played the Duchesse de Fontanges was talking excitedly to him, her husband (or boyfriend), an athletic, rugby-playing type, had his arm round her shoulder in a firm grip. Pinson’s smile in his direction was greeted with stony vacancy.

Most of the time Pinson had Titlow at his side, steering the conversation, performing introductions. Then he was being guided slowly towards one corner of the dressing room where Jean Crowden, who had played Montespan, was holding court. When Titlow had manoeuvred Pinson to within speaking distance of Jean Crowden, he performed the introductions with the air of a man presenting one head of state to another.

‘Now, Dan, I want you to meet our leading lady, Jean. I sometimes say that our Jean
is
the Bidmouth Players. Without her it simply would not exist? Isn’t that right, Jean?’

‘If you say so, Ron,’ said Jean placidly. Pinson, who prided himself on a sensitivity to such things, thought he could detect a long history of antagonism and power struggle behind their badinage.

Jean was sitting in a wicker basket chair at an angle to her dressing room mirror which was festooned with cards. She wore a scarlet silk dressing gown decorated with Chinese dragons, the belt of which was tied tightly so that her ample curves showed. Her hair was bound up in a bright green silk scarf, and the stage make-up that she still wore was equally violent. No beauty perhaps; but there was something magnetic about those small dark eyes that glittered like shards of jet.

She was surrounded by a group of attendant admirers. For a moment or two she stared at Pinson, then she said:

‘So you are the great author. You are naughty, Ron, not to tell us that the famous Daniel Pinson was in front. Oh, forgive me! Allow me to introduce you to some of my friends.’ She indicated first a small, almost dwarfish old clergyman dressed in clerical black with a dog collar. ‘This is Canon Doker. Retired Canon now. He’s a great stalwart of the Players. He’s the one who found our lovely costumes.’

Canon Doker nodded and smiled. Pinson was able to compliment him sincerely and asked him how he had managed to get hold of such magnificent and authentic garments. The Canon grinned and rubbed his bony little hands together.

‘Oh, I have my methods. I have my methods!’ he said.

Jean then introduced Pinson to others in her entourage, but she kept to the last the tall, bloated man who was standing behind her, the man who had played Guibourg.

‘And this is my husband Alec,’ she said. Alec extended his hand and Pinson shook something cold, slick and flabby, like a reptile’s corpse. Close-to, the age difference between the husband and wife was even more evident: at a guess late sixties to mid-forties. A brief pause followed before Pinson steeled himself to the obligatory compliment.

‘I was very impressed by the performance,’ he said, making his remark as general as possible. It was a relief to find that no further assessment of the production was required of him. Jean’s acolytes were anxious to offer praise which she accepted with languid pleasure while, from time to time, her eyes strayed towards Pinson. Whenever she did so, he looked away.

‘So, Daniel,’ she said eventually. ‘How long are you going to be with us in Bidmouth?’

‘I’m leaving the day after tomorrow,’ he said.

Jean gave a little cry: ‘But you can’t! We must keep you a while longer. Where are you staying?’ Pinson reluctantly told her. ‘Oh, I know. Not bad as those sort of little places go. Now Daniel, leave this all to me. I’ll fix you up with a proper place of your own where you can stay for at least another week. It’ll hardly cost you a thing. I just
know
that you’re struggling with a new play at the moment. Am I right?’

Pinson murmured something faintly affirmative.

‘There, you see! I knew it. And Bidmouth is just the place where you can get a little inspiration in peace and quiet. Don’t you agree everyone?’

Everyone agreed. On Jean’s instructions Pinson was driven back to his bed and breakfast by Canon Doker in a car almost as small as he was. Doker told Pinson that he had been a Canon of Truro Cathedral, but had retired early, to ‘devote myself to my interests’. Pinson did not know you could retire early from the Church, but he took little interest in the Canon’s chatter because his long legs were aching from the cramped conditions of the car. The Canon was a great name dropper and seemed to know almost everyone there was to know in the theatrical world. He repeated several pieces of scabrous show-business gossip which Pinson had thought were known only to himself and a very few others.

Pinson hated being given lifts, especially when they were unnecessary, so he was relieved when the journey was over, but even when he was back in his own room at the bed and breakfast the unease remained. For a while it prohibited sleep, which, when it eventually came, was plagued by dreams of being driven in Canon Doker’s car towards an uncertain and unwanted destination. With every mile the car became smaller, his legs and arms more constricted. Several times he burst out of his imprisonment into wakefulness, but when sleep returned, so did the dream.

Pinson’s landlady was called Mrs Bread, a solid phlegmatic woman who rather resembled a loaf of the stuff. The next morning at breakfast she remarked, as she was bringing him the toast, that she had heard that he was at the Jubilee Hall last night. Pinson did not ask her how she knew, but it made him feel better about returning to London the next day. In response he told her that he was the author of the play that had been performed there. Mrs Bread shook her head, unimpressed.

‘Those amateur dramatics people,’ she said. ‘I don’t hold with all that.’

‘Why not?’ asked Pinson who found resolute philistinism intensely irritating.

‘They’re a click; that’s what they are. A click.’

It took a few moments for Pinson to realise that she meant ‘clique’, by which time Mrs Bread had quitted the room in a marked manner. He lingered over his toast, musing on the nature of clicks and listening to the distant squeal of gulls. It was a pleasant morning; he might even get some writing done. Then the doorbell rang.

Pinson listened idly through the half-open door of the front parlour where he was breakfasting as Mrs Bread and another female with an oddly familiar voice appeared to be having a mild altercation. He recognised the soft but insistent tones in which women vie with each other for supremacy. Then the struggle was over and, followed by Mrs Bread, the winner entered the room. It was Jean Crowden in a lime green trouser suit.

Something about the moment—it may even have been the trouser suit—filled Pinson with alarm. In the background Mrs Bread was apologising for Jean’s intrusion and, as she did so, Pinson felt a moment of decision pass from him. Dismissing Mrs Bread with a nod, he offered Jean a cup of tea. She shook her head and sat down.

‘It’s all arranged,’ she said. ‘We’ve found the perfect spot for you to do some writing. Spyhole Cottage. You’ll just love it, I know. Very oldy-worldy.’ Pinson opened his mouth. ‘Now don’t argue. The rent’s going to be peanuts. It’s owned by some old friends, Adela and Jim. You met them last night. Jim was the one with the withered arm, remember?’ Pinson did not. ‘Now I’m going to take you out and show you the sights of old Bidmouth. Then some of the gang are joining us for lunch at the Saracen’s Head which is
the
place to eat round here. Then Jim and Adela’ll show you Spyhole which you can move into tomorrow. How about that?’

By this time, Pinson told himself, the moment for resistance had long passed. Jean watched him intently while he finished his tea. He glanced over her head to the doorway in which Mrs Bread appeared for a second. She looked at him, shook her head, then disappeared.

Reluctantly at first, Pinson found himself enjoying his tour of Bidmouth in Jean’s car, a comfortable, air-conditioned Mercedes. In her presence he felt free of restraint and obligation, even the obligation to like her. She told him all about Bidmouth’s scandals and controversies, in many of which she and her coterie of friends—‘the gang’—played the roles of heroic victims who finally triumphed over the forces of reaction and obscurantism. Pinson recognised an embryonic talent for fiction in her gift for mythologising events.

Having seen the sights of the town, mostly from the comfortable interior of the car, Jean said: ‘There is one place I must show you before we go to lunch. It is rather special. The most wonderful views. You will love it.’

They drove out of Bidmouth and then along a coastal road that swooped and swung through the Devon countryside. The sky was clear but for a few high white clouds; the scenery was idyllic. Through gaps in the trees and dips in the fields Pinson caught flashes of sunlit sea. The dazzle of light and beauty put Pinson into a trance from which Jean suddenly aroused him.

She said: ‘Of course, it’s a marvellous play and all that, but you’re quite wrong, you know.’

‘What?’

‘Your play about the Poisons Affair. You got my character, Madame de Montespan, the King’s mistress, all wrong.’

‘Ah. You think she was an innocent victim of rumour, then? All that stuff about black magic ceremonies was made up? Yes. Many historians think that.’

‘Oh, no! She did it all right. What you got wrong was that she just made use of the magical ceremonies to keep the King in her bed. No. She was far deeper into all that stuff than you make out. The Abbé Guibourg was one of her people. She was Queen of the Witches.’

This was a novel theory which Pinson had never heard before, obviously culled from some trashy book on the occult.

‘Oh, really?’ he said, gently condescending. ‘And how do you know that?’

‘Canon Doker told me. He’s an expert on that sort of thing. You know who you ought to write a play about next?’

‘No,’ said Pinson in what he hoped was a discouraging voice. If there was one thing he hated more than anything it was to be told by a non writer what he should write about.

‘Joan of Arc,’ said Jean who seemed oblivious to his tone.

‘Done already, I believe.’ Sarcasm was not disguised.

‘I know. I know. But not properly. All that saint rubbish. She was actually a top witch, you know. Canon Doker told me all about it. I mean, her best friend was this bloke who was actually executed for black magic and all sorts. Jill, something or other.’

‘Gilles de Rais. The original Bluebeard. Sorcerer and sodomite.’

‘Exactly. There you are. She must have been a witch.’

‘That is to assume guilt by association.’

‘Who said anything about guilt?’

‘You might just as well say that because Gilles de Rais was a friend of Joan’s he must have been a saint like her.’

‘Well, I think it’s a fascinating idea. I’ve even thought of a title.
Joan the Witch
. Don’t you think that’s
the
most brilliant idea?’

At that moment Jean suddenly swerved off the road and onto a dirt track that wound towards the sea. Pinson noted that a white signpost at the beginning of the track had pointed the way to a place called DODMAN’S POINT. Having reached a flat open space over which a few sheep grazed Jean stopped the car and said:

‘We’ll walk from here.’

They got out of the Mercedes, which she had parked in the lee of a dry stone wall. Pinson followed Jean along a chalky little path towards a narrow grass-covered promontory. Its sides were steep granite cliffs which fell fifty or sixty feet into the sea. Screaming gulls wheeled about the cliffs and nested in their crevices.