Death and the Chaste Apprentice

by Robert Barnard

The first interruption came when they were just five minutes into their chat and hardly beginning to disentangle the marital and extramarital affairs of the Galloways. The girl who had gone up to Gunter Gottlieb’s room came prancing out again.

  “Good-bye,” she called, waving.

  “Well, she didn’t take long,” said Bob.

  “They never do,” said Frank. “It’s in and out.”

  “Perhaps he pays them by the minute.”

  “And perhaps he doesn’t pay them at all. We’ll come to Mr.—I beg his pardon, Herr—Gottlieb in a minute. But as I was saying . . .”

  • • •

  In the Town Hall concert the Mexican baritone was giving the audience his Iago. It was a part to which he was suited, if you regarded Iago as a snarling, spitting, teeth-baring villain who could never have convinced anyone for two minutes that he was a good chap. But his enunciation of belief in eternal nothingness was getting through to Brad Mallory. At any rate, he was sweating. Sitting there in his aisle seat, he was sweating profusely. What was next? The march from The Trojans. Then little Natalya in the letter scene from Onegin. After that would be the time to slip out. Anyone who knew him would assume he had gone backstage to congratulate her. Or to spur on Singh, who was on soon after. There was that phone box just outside the Town Hall. Please God it would not be occupied.

  Brad Mallory sat on and sweated. Never had the Trojan March seemed so long.

  • • •

  Frank and Bob had a long, uninterrupted chat during which few of the performers staying at the Saracen came off unscathed. It was only at a quarter past eight that Frank looked at his watch and shook his head.

  “Blimey. Quarter past eight. Interval in fifteen minutes or so, I should guess. Better get back to my post.”

  He looked around him, like a diver coming up for air. Approaching along the High Street was Bradford Mallory, clutching his cloak about him, though the evening was still warm.

  “Concert over, Mr. Mallory?” Frank asked, back at his post at the entrance. Brad Mallory fluttered.

  “The first half. That was all I’m interested in. Singh sang divinely! He had a phenomenal success!”

  “I’m glad about that, Mr. Mallory.” The romantic figure, having poked his head into the Shakespeare and then come out again, disappeared up the stairs. Frank repeated sardonically under his breath: “I’m very glad about that!” Then he went outside again and made a gesture to Bob at the ticket door which said, as plainly as talking, “These artists!”

  • • •

  Behind the stage, in the screened-off part of the kitchen that was the men’s dressing room, the members of the cast that were not onstage sat in dim light, listening to the performance.

  “It’s going well,” said Gillian Soames.

  “Very well,” said Ronnie Wimsett. “They’re laughing at the jokes.”

  “And at a lot of things that aren’t jokes at all.”

  “That’s natural,” said Jason Thark pedantically. “We get further and further away from the Elizabethan language. I sat through a performance of Macbeth last year and realized I understood less than I did when I saw it as a teenager.”

  “That’s because nowadays we play the Bard complete and gabble him,” Connie Geary pointed out. “In the past they cut him and spoke him properly.”

  “At least no one seems to have taken offense at the chaste apprentice,” said Ronnie. “That’s a relief.”

  “That’s because we made him so far out he was a parody of a parody of a homosexual,” said Jason, still with his schoolmasterly manner, which was perhaps a sign of nerves. “That was my intention all along.”

  “The amazing thing is, they’re even laughing at Peter Patterwit,” said Connie Geary in her rich, throaty tones. “He’s the sort of Elizabethan character who makes me groan and switch off the moment he sets foot onstage.”

  They were silent, listening to Peter Fortnum, who was doing his stuff onstage.

  PETER PATTERWIT: Why, sure my blood gives me I am noble; sure I am of noble kind, for I find myself possessed with all their qualities: love dogs, dice and drabs, scorn wit in stuff-clothes, have beat my shoemaker, knocked my seamstress, cockolded my pothecary, and undone my tailor. Noble? Why not?

  “He’s doing a good job, that lad,” said Carston Galloway. “He’s got the projection for it, so he gets the meaning across, however feeble it is.”

  “Oh, God,” said Connie Geary suddenly and loudly.

  “Shhh,” said Jason.

  Connie was rummaging frantically in her bag, which she carried around with her everywhere.

  “Darlings, I’ve never done that before. I’ve run out of gin. Somehow or other I’ve forgotten to put my second half bottle in my bag. I was sure—”

  “Do you want me to get some more for you?” asked Peter Fortnum, who had just come offstage and was beaming with pleasure at the experience of an audience that was with him. “I’m not on again before Interval.”

  “But can you?”

  “Of course. I can go through the kitchen and dining room and into the Shakespeare Bar. Or shall I go up to your room and get you a half bottle?”

  “Darling, could you? You angel. Because we have hours to go yet, and bar measures go very little distance. The halves are all set up on my dressing table like a line of soldiers. Here’s my key. It’s the first floor.”

  “I’ll find it,” said Peter.

  But the Saracen has ways of defeating people who say that. At any rate, he seemed to be away an awful long time, and when he returned, Connie was wailing that she felt like the Sahara Desert at the height of the season. Peter was out of breath and explained that he had got utterly and completely lost. By then Carston Galloway was onstage, with Mistress Greatheart, Alison, and Sir Pecunius Slackwater in a tremendous quarrel scene that concluded the first half. The Interval was upon them, and the audience sounded good-humored and nicely thirsty as they hotfooted it to the bars.

  • • •

  In the Shakespeare Bar tension had been rising as the Interval approached.

  “Well, the glasses are all ready,” said Win Capper, looking at her watch. “Interval’s supposed to be at half past. Fifteen minutes to go, if they stick to their times. Which they won’t, knowing these artistic people. No consideration, as a general rule. Still, I think you could go and get the snacks from the kitchen. Here, take this tray.”

  Dawn, roped in as the best of the dining-room staff, trotted off to get the little plates of savory this-and-thats which were to be set out on bar and tables in celebration of The Chaste Apprentice’s first night. When she got back, she found that Win had poured out a large number of red and white wines and some gins and whiskeys.

  “They’re the staples,” she said. “You can’t go wrong pouring them in advance. And we’ll be rushed even with Des here. If they want ice, they’ll have to serve themselves with it. Now let’s put the snacks out.”

  In the event, Interval started only three or four minutes late. “I expect Des is watching from the window,” Win said, “and he’ll dash through when it starts.” But when the great mass of the audience from the courtyard began to stream into the Shakespeare, saying things like “It’s awfully funny, isn’t it?” and “I never expected to understand so much,” Des still hadn’t arrived. Win and Dawn had no option but to begin taking orders and serving them in double quick time, seeming at times to have four hands each, and needing six, and taking the next orders while giving change from the previous one and totting up prices in their heads and being at both ends of the bar at once. And when they collided over the red wines or the whiskeys, Win would mutter to Dawn: “Where is Des? He promised faithfully he’d come. There’s much too many of them for the two of us to cope with. Where is Des?”

  Chapter 7

  Reception

  THEY DIDN’T find Des until long after the play was over. As soon as the audience had been summoned by bell back to the courtyard, Win sent Dawn off with two trays of glasses, to pile them i
nto the dishwasher in the kitchen. There wouldn’t be time to do all of them by hand, she said, and she was right. The concert ended at nine-fifteen, and as the Town Hall was only five minutes away, it was not long before some members of the orchestra staying at the Saracen drifted in, and then soloists. Natalya had walked back with Singh. They had not been able to communicate very much, but since Singh was wrapped in a cloud of self-approbation brought on by a gaggle of critics, arts administrators, and early music enthusiasts who had fawned over him at Interval, and since even Natalya was quietly hugging herself at the warmth of her reception, they had been companionably quiet.

  Singh had gone straight to the rooms en suite that he shared with Brad, but they soon joined Natalya in the Shakespeare. Now they were both positively purring with delight, though Natalya thought she had never seen Brad’s hands flap more nervously. Singh had been offered a prestigious engagement for the next Bach Festival and had been urgently pressed to take the role of Idamante in a new Welsh National Opera production of Idomeneo. Natalya congratulated them but would have been more interested in offers that would display her own talents. After a time, she left them to their delighted self-absorption and watched the closing stages of the play from the window. The second half of the play was shorter, being mainly Deptford and whores and rollicking fun, but it ended with a great scene of reconciliation and matrimony, which was guaranteed to send audiences out with a warm glow. By five to ten it was all over, and the actors, with Jason, were receiving delighted acclamation from the audience. The great gates were opened, and critics scurried away to telephone in their reviews for the later editions. Then the Shakespeare was bustling once more.

  “I suppose we can cope,” said Win to Dawn, “since we did at Interval. There’s not the same rush now. There’s over an hour to closing time.”

  It was always pleasant at the Saracen after the play was over. Some of the actors, still in costume, usually mingled with the audience, as Peter Fortnum did now, though he confined his attentions to Natalya Radilova, going off with her into a corner and having a long and serious conversation. Constance Geary was in the Shakespeare, too, letting longtime admirers buy her drinks. Before long Krister Kroll arrived—the general public being admitted after the play was over—wanting to talk about the concert. He had changed into casuals and looked very handsome, but after trying to break into the rapt little duo of Mallory and Singh, he gave up and went over to join Peter and Natalya. He was welcome, because he was the sort of person who always was welcome.

  In another corner Gillian, Ronnie Wimsett, and Jason Thark were going over the performance blow by blow. Gillian was just deciding that they were doing this mainly as a boost to Jason’s ego, rather than with any thought of revising or strengthening the production, when a thought struck her.

  “I say, the Great Australian Blight’s not here. I’d have expected him to be worming his way around, calling Stanislavski to our attention or telling us to speak up and speak out.”

  “Probably got other fish to fry,” said Ronnie Wimsett. “Some agreeable little piece of blackmail or something.”

  “I suppose it’s too much to hope that he’s had a heart attack while executing some particularly problematic yoga exercise?” hazarded Jason Thark.

  Gillian suddenly noticed that Win Capper was collecting glasses and ashtrays at the next table, and she kicked the other two. When Win turned around, she smiled and said: “I’d have thought your husband would have been here, Mrs. Capper, to tell us how we’d done.”

  She had nothing against Win Capper, but the faint spark of malice in the last words was irresistible. It eluded Win Capper.

  “I’d have thought he would’ve myself. I was expecting him at Interval, but he never showed. Rushed off our feet we were. I expect he’s got something on.”

  “I expect so,” said Gillian.

  Win had spotted the great bulk of Frank, the commissionaire, standing proprietorially by the door of the bar.

  “Frank, you seen Des?”

  Frank’s forehead creased. “Saw him during the first half, Mrs. C. He went in and watched the play for a bit.”

  “Haven’t you seen him since then?”

  “Only when he came out. He went into Reception, said he’d either be there or up in the flat if he was wanted. He said he might look in on the second half, but he didn’t. He’s not in Reception now. Want me to call up the stairs?”

  Win considered. “No. Better not. He’ll have something on. He hates being disturbed when he’s got something on.”

  “I bet he does,” muttered Ronnie Wimsett as Win moved away.

  At eleven o’clock Win called “Time,” and at ten past she flicked the light switch two or three times. The townspeople and festival-goers had drifted away, but the performers were reluctant for the evening to end.

  “Don’t they have any all-night bars in this place?” demanded Krister Kroll.

  At the bar Win contemplated the second mountain of dirty glasses and ashtrays.

  “It really is too much,” she said to Dawn. “I think we should count this as a special night and leave everything till morning. I’ll ring Des and tell him.”

  But when she dialed the flat number on the telephone behind the bar, she got no reply.

  “But if he’s not in the flat, where is he?” she said in bewilderment to Frank, who had just come into the bar again. “I just hope he’s not ill—but Des is never ill. He’s so conscious of health things.”

  “That sort’s sometimes the first to go,” said Frank with gloomy tactlessness. “Would you like me to go up and have a look.”

  “Oh, dear . . . Well, I think I’d better go. You know how Des is—But if he’s not in the flat, I don’t know where to look. . . .”

  She bustled off, distractedly poking at a stray strand of hair. Everyone left in the bar had been pushing back their chairs, preparatory to going to bed or continuing the parties in their rooms. Something made them wait. It was odd that Des had not been around after the show—his show, or so he had often seemed to believe. From his table in the corner with Natalya and Krister Kroll, Peter could see through the glass door of the Shakespeare Bar. He saw Win go out, saw her cross the hotel entrance lobby, saw her go around the reception desk and into the manager’s room behind. Then he could see no more, but could only wait. It was not a long wait—less than a minute—before he heard clattering footsteps falling over themselves on the stairs and cries, cries that continued as Win stumbled through the manager’s room and out into Reception, her face twisted in horror, her hands bloodstained.

  “Oh! Oh, my God! He’s dead! He’s been killed! Frank! Frank! Call the doctor. No. Call the police. Someone’s killed my Des!”

  Chapter 8

  The Manager’s Office

  IN THE CAR from the Police Station, coming from the other side of town, Superintendent Iain Dundy gazed gloomily out over the dark, nearly deserted streets of Ketterick. He was a man in his mid-thirties, with a broken marriage behind him, a reputation for fairness, and a long fuse to his temper. He was already possessed by the conviction that on this case he was going to need it.

  “I’ve always thought of myself as an unprejudiced man,” he said apropos of nothing to Sergeant Nettles, who was driving. “I’ve never had any sort of a ‘thing’ against homosexuals, never hated blacks or Indians. Most of the Japanese I’ve met seemed perfectly charming, though I’ve never been able to understand a word they’ve said. I’ve had a holiday in Germany and quite like the people, and most of the American tourists we get here seem pleasanter than you’re led to expect. I even once had a friend who was a Northern Ireland Protestant. . . . But I do hate arty people. I admit it. I can’t stand them. They touch a nerve in me. I’ve had a feeling ever since this festival started up that one day I was going to get stuck with a case chock-a-block full of arty people. And I wouldn’t mind betting this is it!”

  His expression became positively dyspeptic as the police car drew up outside the main entrance to the Saracen’
s Head.

  • • •

  It was difficult, the Saracen residents found, to know what to do after Win’s spine-chilling reappearance. Of course, she had to be seen to first. While Frank made an imperative phone call to the police from the reception desk, Gillian helped Dawn, the stand-in barmaid, to get Win into the Shakespeare and settle her onto the sofa. But when Frank came back with a portentous expression on his face, as if the world’s cares were now on his shoulders, and when he had announced that the police were on their way and had peremptorily forced on Win a stiff neat brandy, there really seemed nothing left for the rest of them to do. Actors do not commonly feel themselves de trop, but that was how they felt now. Win, after all, had never seemed particularly to take to their company, and she obviously would be more at ease with her own kind, whatever that was. She was moaning, “Oh, it was horrible,” and crying intermittently, but she was calming down. To leave might seem like copping out, but to stay and gawp would surely be vulgar—since Sir Henry Irving, the British actor, has above all things eschewed vulgarity. They cleared their throats awkwardly and skulked off.

  “We’ll be in our rooms,” said Jason, “if we should be wanted,” and Frank nodded importantly.

  That wasn’t how it worked out, though. Singh certainly went to his room; he said to Brad that he wanted to see the late-night movie, which was The Texas Chain-Saw Massacre. Gillian went rather green at that, but Brad Mallory murmured fondly: “Oh—the young! They have such wonderful powers of recuperation.” Though in fact Singh had given no sign of having anything to recuperate from. The rest of them seemed instinctively to cling together. The thought of solitary bedrooms was uninviting. They lingered in one of the large, open spaces on the first floor, which had a window looking out onto the High Street. From there, silent, they saw the police arrive—first the detectives, then a uniformed constable, who took up position outside the main entrance, then several more from the uniformed lower ranks. The actors had an odd sense of passing almost imperceptibly from one drama into another. This second one was certainly not going to be amusing.