What Bloody Man Is That (20 page)

But of course on that particular day, Charles Paris had an engagement to bridge the gap. Detective Inspector Dowling. It was not an engagement he looked forward to.

‘It does seem pretty callous scheduling,' he observed, ‘to put in a Schools Matinée on the second day of the run.'

‘Bums on seats, love.' John B. Murgatroyd's voice had now taken on Gavin Scholes' slightly ineffectual tone. ‘Need the money, I'm afraid. Being a set text, you know, we can really cram them in for this show.'

None of the cast had thought much of the prospect of doing two shows on the Wednesday. Indeed, the Equity representative in the company had got quite heavy about it, citing any number of rules and regulations against the scheduling. But of course it had been billed for a long time, the seats had been sold to schools from a wide area, and there was very little that could be done about it.

Charles looked with dissatisfaction at the scar on his face and applied another trickle of blood. Not really very good. But the best he could do if he was going to have to whip it off and appear as an unwounded Sewer in Act One Scene Seven. Hmm, maybe if someone in the company was going up to London, they could buy him a stick-on rubber scar. Trouble with those is you have to match the make-up around them so carefully.

‘Ping-ping-ping,' said John B. Murgatroyd suddenly.

‘What's that for?'

Back into Felicia's voice for the reply. ‘Sorry, just the alarm on the old body-clock. Telling me I need a little sustenance.' John B. reached into his shoulder bag which lay on the floor, and produced a pewter hip-flask. He unscrewed it and proffered the bottle to Charles.

The head was nobly shaken. A saint, not an ordinary man, thought Charles in wry self-congratulation.

‘Well, please yourself,' said John B. in his own voice. ‘I don't think I could get through a Schools Matinée without a few shots of this.'

Charles watched in a long pang of envy as his friend raised the bottle to his lips and swallowed.

‘Sounds fairly rowdy already,' Charles observed, referring to the noise which came from the dressing room Tannoy. Actors all know the familiar buzz of a pre-performance audience, indistinguishable conversations and muffled movements from the stage microphones by the curtain. But the noise from a Schools Matinée is completely different in quality, much higher in pitch and with more giggling and movement. Most of the movement is caused by last-minute changes of seating arrangements, as boys jockey for positions next to the girls they would most like to sit in the dark with, and every child tries to avoid the awful ignominy of sitting next to the teacher.

The lot who were filling the Pinero auditorium that afternoon sounded louder than the average, and that did not augur well for the company.

‘What lines do you reckon are going to get them going?' asked Charles.

‘The giggles? Hmm.' John B. gave the question serious consideration. ‘Well, the Witches'll certainly get a few titters. I'm still not sure Gavin's right to be playing them with lesbian overtones . . . And when George and Felicia kiss in Act One Scene Five, that'll start the usual whistles and catcalls. Individual lines . . .? Well, the obvious words'll trigger reactions. “Come to my woman's breasts . . .” Ooh, and if they're paying attention, George should get a boffo when he sees the line of kings in the Apparition Scene.'

Charles supplied the relevant quotation. ‘“And some I see That two-fold balls and treble sceptres carry”.'

‘Exactly. They'll like “two-fold balls”. And George should get a goody on “The devil damn thee black, thou cream-faced loon!”'

‘Do you think I'm going to get anything on the Drunken Porter?'

John B. shook his head firmly. ‘No chance. What, on a Shakespearean comic character, with school kids? Forget it. Well,' he then conceded generously, ‘suppose you might get a tickle on the word “urine”, but that's all. Mind you, could get something on your first entrance . . .'

‘As the Porter?'

‘No, Bleeding Sergeant. “What bloody man is that?” Should be good for a giggle.'

‘Hmm. I think Felicia's going to get the biggest laugh. Wonder how she'll cope with it . . .?' Charles mused.

‘Which line?'

‘“I have given suck.”'

‘Ooh, yes.' John B. giggled with relish. ‘Yes, particularly the way she delivers it. With that long pause afterwards, I don't think even the slowest schoolboy mind could miss the ambiguity.'

Charles felt a moment of conscience. ‘Do you think we should tip her off? Then she could hurry the line through.'

‘No way.' John B. looked professionally affronted. ‘Don't be such a wet blanket.'

‘Trouble is, John B., I know what I'm like. Once we start getting those sort of laughs, I begin to break up. Giggle through the whole show.'

‘Of course. But that's what matinées are
for
, aren't they?'

‘Later in the run, maybe.'

‘No, right from the start.' John B. Murgatroyd shook his head like a parent whose son has just been caught smoking cannabis behind the school cycle-sheds. ‘Honestly, Charles, since you've given up the booze, you've got really prissy.'

To reinforce his point, he took another infuriatingly slow swig from the hip-flask.

At that moment the dressing-room door opened to admit Gavin Scholes. As if by magic, the hip-flask disappeared into the folds of Lennox's brocaded gown.

‘Oh, Charles,' said the director. ‘Just a note I forgot to give you yesterday.'

Was it imagination, or did Gavin really seem to be avoiding his eye?

‘Yes? Which character is this a note for?'

‘Apparition of an Armed Head.'

‘Right, I'm now thinking Apparition of an Armed Head.'

‘Last night from out front it looked as if you had been waiting in the cauldron all evening.'

‘What do you mean?'

‘Well, your head sort of came up tentatively.'

‘You try not being tentative on that trap-door platform. It's very unstable. Particularly when you're not allowed to show your torso, because that's still dressed as the Third Murderer.'

‘But it looked as if you were holding on to the sides.'

‘You bet I was holding on to the sides. Bloody dangerous with that thing if you don't.'

‘Well, could you try it not holding on?' Charles looked dubious.

‘Oh, go on, just for this afternoon. Please. Must dash.'

As the director hurried out of the dressing room, Charles felt a little cold tremor run down his back.

It was a riotous performance, for the audience at least. Every line John B. Murgatroyd had predicted got its laugh, and a good few others did as well. The audience of schoolchildren, confident that their teachers could not identify them individually in the dark, settled down to have a good time. Having early on decided that the cause of that good time was not going to be Shakespeare's great drama, they enjoyed every ambiguity the text offered.

The company could not be immune to what was happening in the auditorium and, again as John B. had predicted, they became very giggly and undisciplined. George Birkitt seemed unworried by all this; perhaps all his years of television sit corns had led him to expect laughs in whatever role he played. But, for Felicia Chatterton, to judge from the tight scribble of lines between her brows, it was a very trying experience.

Charles Paris didn't enjoy the performance, either. Two anxieties preoccupied him as he ran through his repertoire of parts.

First, he was worried about the imminent interview with Detective Inspector Dowling.

And, second, he was worried that Gavin Scholes wanted to ensure that that interview did not take place.

Charles reasoned it thus. If, as he was coming increasingly to believe, the director had killed Warnock Belvedere, and if, as their conversation of the previous evening suggested, Gavin was afraid Charles had witnessed that crime, then the obvious course was to eliminate the witness before his follow-up interview with Detective Inspector Dowling. Which logic did nothing to put Charles at his ease.

So he was very wary throughout the Schools Matinée. He was uncomfortably aware of the number of potential murder methods a theatre offered. Scenery could fall on people. They could be ‘assisted' down flights of stairs. And of course Macbeth demanded a whole armoury of swords and daggers. With so much lethal hardware around, and with much of the action played in half-light, it was no surprise that ugly stories of fatal accidents had built up around the play.

And then there was the trap-door. In rehearsal John B. Murgatroyd had demonstrated that the apparatus could at least give someone a nasty jolt. Charles wondered uneasily whether it could be doctored to cause more permanent damage.

There was no sign of Gavin as Charles, in his coal-scuttle helmet, moved cautiously towards the wooden framework under the stage. The usual Assistant Stage Manager stood by to operate the mechanism, and looked curious as Charles inspected the ropework.

‘What's the matter?' the boy hissed.

‘Just double-checking,' Charles hissed back.

‘It's okay.'

‘Did Gavin give you any notes on the trap-door?'

‘Said I should bring you up faster.'

‘Well, ignore the note. I'm quite happy with the speed I have been going.'

‘Look, if Gavin said –'

But above them the three Witches were chanting,

‘Come high or low, Thyself and office deftly show.' With a silent prayer. Charles mounted the platform. He took a firm hold on the sides of the cradle, and closed his eyes as he felt the platform surge beneath him.

There was a sudden sharp pain in his knuckles as he broke through the stage and they were barked against the edge of the trap's opening.

In the moment of pain he forgot to crouch.

The Apparition of an Armed Head burst through the bubbling dry ice vapour in the cauldron, with its helmet askew, and rose to reveal its Third Murderer costume underneath. One agonised hand was clutched in its armpit, and from its lips emerged the involuntary word ‘Shit!'

The Schools Matinée audience were loud in their appreciation of the best bit of Shakespeare they'd ever seen.

He didn't know. Certainly he'd never held on so tight to the cradle before, so maybe that was why he had barked his knuckles. Alternatively, the apparatus might have been booby-trapped (though, fortunately, inadequately booby-trapped).

All he did know was that he was going to keep his eyes skinned for the rest of the performance.

And he would be very relieved when the fights were over.

Charles had more costumes than the other actors in his dressing room, and, since some of his changes were so quick they had to take place in the wings, it took him a little while to collect up all his belongings after the performance. This was a chore that should have been done by Wardrobe, but he didn't have much confidence in the girl with orange-streaked hair, and preferred to be responsible for his own stuff. Nothing worse for an actor than suddenly to find he hasn't got the right pair of trousers in the middle of a quick change.

So, by the time he got back to his dressing room after the Schools Matinée, its other residents had already doffed their armour and rushed to get out of the theatre for a break before the evening show.

Charles was hanging up his costumes on a long, wheeled rack, when he heard the door open behind him.

He turned sharply to see Gavin Scholes. The director was breathing heavily, and looked flustered and upset.

‘Oh, Charles. Others all gone?'

‘Yes.'

It was then that Charles noticed Gavin was carrying the sword used by Macbeth in his final fight.

STILL, GAVIN SCHOLES seemed to be avoiding Charles's eye. ‘Charles, I have something to ask you . . .'

‘Yes?' He spoke casually, but he was carefully assessing the distance between him and the sword which he had so recently seen carried in the service of both Malcolm and Macbeth.

‘I don't like doing it, but I'm afraid I've made a ghastly cock-up . . .'

‘Oh yes? What?'

The tension was great, but the bathos was greater.

‘Look, I'd completely forgotten, but when I set up this matinée, I agreed with one of the teachers that I'd lead a discussion of the play afterwards. With the cast.'

‘Oh.'

‘And I've just bumped into the bloke and he's reminded me about it, and I've dashed back here and everyone else seems to have gone. So I'm sorry, Charles, but would you mind coming and talking to them?'

‘No. No problem. Have I got time to get out of costume?'

Gavin grimaced. ‘Sorry. I've kept them waiting some time already.'

‘Okay. Don't worry. Just one thing, Gavin,' Charles asked, ‘why have you got that sword?'

‘Oh, give them something to look at. There's sure to be a question about whether or not the swords are real.'

Charles felt relieved. But he still kept his distance from Gavin as they left the dressing room.

In the passage outside, another shock awaited him. The door to the liquor storeroom, on which a new padlock had been fixed, was open. Inside, Norman Phipps could be seen, piling up crates of bottles.

Outside, watching him, stood Detective Inspector Dowling.

The policeman turned at the sound of the dressing-room door. ‘Ah, Mr Paris. I was just having another look at the scene of the . . . er, accident. Are you ready for our little chat?'

Charles explained about the discussion. Gavin endorsed how important it was that Charles should participate.

‘Fine,' said the Detective Inspector blandly. ‘It'll keep for half an hour. May I use your office again, Mr Scholes?'

‘Of course.'

‘See you up there when you're ready, Mr Paris.'

The discussion was predictable. The boys of only one school had stayed to talk about the play, and clearly they had done so not of their own volition, but because their teacher had told them to.