by Simon Brett
‘Now, Bernard . . .’ the playwright continued, turning his focus towards the star, ‘still not quite getting the boffo on “. . . got your hands full”, are we?’
‘No. Got a woofer at the last Saturday matinée in Bath, but then I did the face.’
‘Hm, I think we can get it just with the line, actually . . .’ said Bill Blunden.
‘Not with the current line, we can’t,’ was Bernard Walton’s tart response.
‘No, I agree. So I’ve got a suggestion which may sort it out. After Gilly’s cue: “No, Ted, of course it’s not inconvenient . . . try saying: “You weren’t working, were you? I’d hate to have arrived when you were on the job.” Try that.’
Bernard Walton grimaced. ‘Bit contrived, isn’t it? I mean, obviously I can get the laugh with an expression or a take, but I’d like to feel I was getting a bit more help from the line.’
‘Try it tonight,’ Bill Blunden wheedled. ‘See if it gets the boffo tonight, eh?’
‘Oh, all right,’ said Bernard Walton. ‘For want of anything better.’
‘Now,’ the playwright continued metronomically, ‘still not getting as big a laugh on the word “banging” as we should be getting, are we?’
Charles Paris had reviewed the circumstances of Mark Lear’s death on the train up to Norwich the Sunday afternoon after the Bath run finished. He’d talked a bit about it with Lisa Wilson during the preceding week, but they hadn’t had much opportunity for detailed discussion. At the studio their days had been full; they’d been deeply involved in recording yet more Thesaurus words and phrases; and then he’d had to rush off to do the show in the evenings. The one night he had organised a ticket for Lisa to see Not On Your Wife!, though she’d come for a drink afterwards, they’d been joined by Cookie Stone and some other company members, so they couldn’t talk about Mark’s death, except in general terms.
The after-show drink had, incidentally, been a mineral water for Charles. Though he had deeply regretted the bold pledge he had given to Lisa, he had stuck to it.
His reasons had been mixed. For a start, the abstinence was the result of a long-held conviction that his drinking was getting out of hand; considerations of health alone suggested a cutback was in order.
Then there was the fact of Mark Lear’s death. Whether he had died by accident or by murder, in either case alcohol had been a contributory factor. If he hadn’t been so drunk, he would have been in a better condition to protect himself. His example loomed like a dark shadow over Charles. Mark Lear’s death had been a warning, a final warning. Get your act together, Charles Paris, or you could be next.
Not drinking because of Mark’s death also presented a horizon, something to work towards. When I’ve found out the truth of how Mark died, Charles comforted himself, then I’ll allow myself to drink again. Somehow making the term of trial finite made it seem marginally more tolerable.
There was also Lisa, the fact that it was to Lisa that he had made his promise. The more Charles saw of her, the more he liked her. He didn’t exactly have sexual ambitions in her direction – or if he did, he managed to convince himself they were inappropriate. She was his friend’s girl, after all, currently traumatised by that friend’s death. Charles Paris was far too old for her, anyway. Given the shattered state of his relationship with Frances – not to mention the totally undefined nature of his relationship with Cookie Stone – he was in no position to be entertaining any kind of sexual ambitions.
But it was the little spark of desire that kept him off the booze. If he hadn’t fancied Lisa Wilson, he could never have done it. Because it was hard. God, it was hard,. That first Sunday had been awful, his hangover had screamed out for the relief of a little top-up. He’d survived the lunch-time – when Lisa was actually there, the danger of backsliding was very much less – but after they’d finished their recording session and he’d gone back alone to his digs, the pain had been almost intolerable. That Sunday evening had been one of the longest he had ever experienced.
The knowledge that there was a third of a bottle of Bell’s sitting in the bottom of his wardrobe made the pain all the more excruciating. Just a little sip was all he wanted. Just one little sip, and then he’d screw the cap on again and put the bottle away.
But something in him knew the sipping wouldn’t stop there. And something else in him managed to resist the urge. The reward for his abstinence was one of the best nights’ sleep Charles Paris had had for years. So, but for the dark shadow cast by Mark Lear’s death, Charles had faced the Monday ahead with more optimism than he could usually muster. He actually enjoyed – rather than just managing to get through – his landlady’s breakfast.
But the two major alcoholic pressure points of that day had occurred before and after the show. Before was not so difficult. The biorhythmic urge to have a drink between six and seven was diminished by the fact that he had a show to do. Though recently he had been slipping into the habit, the professional in Charles Paris knew that drinking before a performance was a bad thing. So getting through that night’s not on your wife! without alcohol had not been too arduous.
Not having any alcohol after the show, however, had been agonising. There was no righteous reason not to drink then. He’d just done a performance, for God’s sake! He’d given of himself in the role of Aubrey. He deserved a bloody drink! And everyone else in the company was going off to have a drink after the show. It would have been positively antisocial not to join them.
So he did join them and, somehow, with physical pain, he managed not to drink anything other than mineral water. Not wanting to admit the real reason for his abstinence, he invented a stomach upset to explain it away. The session in the pub was purgatory, but he managed to survive.
That wasn’t the cure, though. If he’d imagined that, having cracked one night, he’d broken the back of the problem, Charles Paris would have been wrong. It was still agony for him not to have a drink. The urge for a quick restorative injection of alcohol did not leave him. And, after that first blissful night, his old disrupted sleeping pattern reasserted itself. So it wasn’t just the booze that kept him awake.
Still, Charles Paris thought to himself on the train to Norwich, I am managing. My health and my wallet must be feeling the benefit of not drinking. Perhaps my mind’s clearer . . .? Possibly I’m even giving a better performance as Aubrey . . .
But he wasn’t entirely convinced. All he really knew about not drinking was the fact that he hated it.
It was to take his mind off the gnawing ache for a drink that Charles Paris had started reviewing the circumstances of Mark Lear’s death.
On his mental video he reran the tape of the Thursday in the recording studio. If the death had been murder, then there were two significant moments during that afternoon. The first had been his own doing. It had been he, Charles Paris, who had drawn attention to the stuffiness of the small dead room and perhaps inadvertently suggested part of a murder method to the perpetrator. Mark’s unlocking of the dead-bolts on the studio doors had supplied the other necessary element.
The other significant moment had arisen when Mark started on about the book he was going to write that would ‘take the lid off the BBC’. At the time Charles had put this down as drunken rambling, but with hindsight he realised that Mark’s words could have been seen as a challenge, and a challenge to one individual person in the studio. What was it he’d said exactly? ‘You’d be surprised the unlikely things unlikely people got involved in. Some they certainly wouldn’t want to be reminded of now, I’m sure.’ If someone present that afternoon, someone with a dark secret connected with the BBC, had recognised the challenge that was being thrown out, then it was entirely possible they might have contemplated silencing Mark Lear for good.
Charles again went through the list of people who’d been present when Mark issued his ultimatum (if that was indeed what it had been). The list ran: Bernard Walton, David J. Girton, Tony Delaunay, Ransome George, Cookie Stone and Pippa Trewin. Which one of them h
ad Mark Lear been threatening?
The person with the most obvious BBC connections had been David J. Girton – and Mark had mentioned some financial malpractice that concerned the director. On the other hand, David J. Girton was the one person who couldn’t have gone back to the studio to lock Mark Lear in the dead room. Any of the others might have done, but he had the perfect alibi: Charles Paris. He’d spent the afternoon drinking with Charles, and they’d shared a cab back to the Vanbrugh Theatre.
So it had to be one of the others. Once again, Charles concentrated on the list. Ransome George. Yes. As well as fingering David J. Girton, Mark had also implied that there was a skeleton in Ransome George’s cupboard.
And then of course there was the strange fragment of conversation Charles had overheard between Ran and Bernard Walton in the Green Room after the Bath technical rehearsal. ‘Your secret is absolutely safe with me.’ That’s what Ran had said. And then he’d gone on to imply that he’d be angry if anyone else knew about the secret.
There was something odd going on between Bernard Walton and Ransome George. And given the dearth of other candidates, perhaps they’d have to be promoted to prime suspect status.
But what was the ‘secret’ they had mentioned? How was Charles going to find out more about their murky pasts? Gossip was what he needed, good old-fashioned dirty theatrical gossip.
By the time his train had reached Norwich, Charles had made a decision. He needed to ring his agent.
Chapter Nine
‘MAURICE SKELLERN Artistes.’
‘Maurice, it’s Charles.’
‘Long time no hear.’
Charles bit back the instinctive response – And whose fault is that, Maurice?, as his agent went on, ‘So how you doing, Charles? Enjoying that tour I set up for you?’
‘You didn’t set it up for me. I was interviewed for it by Parrott Fashion Productions because Bernard Walton had mentioned my name. All you had to do was negotiate the contract. And then you accepted the first figures they mentioned without any argument. That is not my idea of “setting things up”.’
‘Don’t be picky, Charles. Anyway, how’s it going? It’s the Romeo and Juliet, isn’t it? And don’t tell me, don’t tell me – you’re playing Friar Tuck.’
‘I think Friar Lawrence is the character you have in mind, Maurice.’
‘Oh well, same difference.’
‘However, the show I’m in is not Romeo and Juliet. It’s the first run of a new farce by Bill Blunden, entitled not on your wife!’
‘Yes, I knew that, Charles. Of course I knew that. I was only having a little joke with you.’
‘Oh yes?’ That Charles certainly didn’t believe. ‘All right then – test question. Where am I calling you from? Where’ve we got to in the tour?’
‘Well, I . . . Look, honestly, Charles, without the contract in front of me, I’d find it very difficult to say. I mean, I suppose you imagine you’re the only client I have to worry about all the time – and in a way I’m flattered that you think that, because it’s a tribute to the kind of exclusive, personal service I’m giving you – but the fact remains that you’re only one amongst many highly respected, highly valued clients. And if I could give you the chapter and verse of where every one of them is at any given moment . . . well, I tell you, Maurice Skellern’s feats of memory would be in The Guinness Book of Records.’
The whole speech was so outrageously at odds with the truth that Charles Paris hadn’t got the energy to start arguing. ‘I’m in Norwich, Maurice,’ he said dully.
‘Yes, of course you are. Vanbrugh Theatre.’
‘That’s in Bath. That was last week. It’s the Palace Theatre in Norwich.’
“Course it is. You know, Charles, what a lot of my clients do . . .’
‘Hm.’
‘. . . when they’re on tour, they send me kind of itineraries . . . you know, week-by-week lists of digs where they’re staying, contact numbers, that kind of thing.’
‘Ah.’
‘Or a lot of them have mobile phones. Do you have a mobile phone, Charles?’
‘No, I don’t.’
‘Oh, you should. Wonderful invention, the mobile phone, for people in your profession, Charles. Means you need never be out of contact with your agent, never be out of the swim of the showbiz maelstrom.’
‘I see. But since you never ring me, Maurice, I’m not quite sure what would be the point of my sending you itineraries . . . or of having a mobile phone, come to that.’
‘No. No, well, right. For someone like you, Charles, I agree, it’s probably not so important.’ There was a silence, then the agent continued in an aggrieved voice, ‘Incidentally, I hope you’re not hassling me about more work, Charles. I’ve just set up this tour for you, there’s no need to be greedy.’
‘No, in fact, I wasn’t ringing about work, Maurice. I was after some gossip.’
‘Ooh.’ Maurice Skellern’s tone changed instantly. Its grudging note gave way to pure enthusiasm. ‘Who d’you want to know about? Young Kenneth and his latest dalliance with –?’
‘No, Maurice. It’s not current gossip. It’s very old gossip. Possibly going back more than twenty years. Don’t know if it’d be possible for you to track down something that long ago.’
‘Wouldn’t rule it out, Charles,’ said his agent with quiet pride. ‘I do have quite a network, you know.’
Though sadly not one to procure work for this particular client, Charles Paris thought.
‘Who is it?’ asked Maurice Skellern eagerly. ‘Who do you want me to get the dirt on?’
‘There are a couple of names – well, no, three, actually – and the connection is through the BBC – probably BBC radio – and, as I said, we could be talking twenty years ago . . .’
‘What makes you think there’s some dirt there?’
‘A few things a friend of mine said. Mark Lear – sadly dead now. He used to be a producer in Continuing Education at the Beeb.’
‘I remember the name.’ Maurice’s voice grew heavy with reproach. ‘I seem to recall you once worked for Mark Lear, and tried to keep the fact from me. Tried, in fact, to cut out my commission . . .’
The accusation was left hanging in the air and, to his fury, Charles found himself feeling guilty. ‘Yes, OK, well, it’s the same guy I’m talking about. And the two I want the dirt on are someone who’s now a television producer called David J. Girton . . .’
‘Oh, I know him. Does Neighbourhood Watch, doesn’t he?’
‘That’s right.’
‘Yes, I’ve put quite a few of my clients up for parts in that.’
But never me, thought Charles resentfully. You never put me up for a part in it, did you? Still, making that kind of point to Maurice had never been worth the effort, so all he said was, ‘I think we could be talking about when David was also working in radio. Some financial fiddle, maybe . . .’
‘Leave it with me. If there’s anything to find out, I’ll find it out. You said there were three names?’
‘One of the others is Ransome George.’
‘Ah, dear old Ran.’ Maurice Skellem let out the same affectionate chuckle that the actor’s name prompted throughout the business. ‘How is the old reprobate?’
‘Much as ever, I gather.’
‘Yes . . . The dirt you want on him isn’t just the fact that he borrows money from everyone and never pays it back, is it? Because he’s always had a reputation for that.’
‘No, no, I’m sure what I’m after is something more serious.’
Maurice Skellern chuckled again. ‘Ran’s always been incorrigible on the old dosh-borrowing front. You’d think his reputation in the business would have preceded him and everyone would be forewarned, but, oh no, apparently he still manages to find the odd sucker who’ll stump up a tenner.’
‘Does he?’ said Charles Paris shortly.
‘OK. Leave it with me, Charles. I’ll see what I can root out, and get back to you. Oh, you’d better give me a number where I c
an contact you in Bath.’
‘Norwich.’
‘In Norwich, right. You see, Charles, it would have helped if you’d given me a detailed itinerary . . . or had a mobile phone. Then I’d be able to get back to you whenever I wanted to.’
Yes, be nicer if you needed to do that because of work rather than gossip, thought Charles Paris. Then he remembered, ‘Oh, I haven’t told you the third name, have I, Maurice?’
‘No, that’s true.’
‘Still talking round the same time. About twenty years ago, and with a radio connection, possibly through Mark Lear. It’d be in the very early days of this guy’s career . . .’
‘Who’re we talking about?’
‘Bernard Walton,’ said Charles Paris.
‘Why aren’t you drinking?’ asked Cookie.
They were sitting in an Italian restaurant near the stage door of the Palace Theatre. It was the Wednesday. They were well into the Norwich run of not on your wife! They’d done a matinée that day as well as an evening performance. They deserved a treat.
‘Oh, you know . . .’ Charles replied casually, ‘just seeing if I can do without.’
‘And can you?’
‘So far.’ He grinned. Now he actually was alone again with Cookie Stone, it wasn’t nearly as bad as he’d feared. He’d built up all these images of her rounding on him, accusing him of having behaved appallingly to her in London, but there had been none of that. She just seemed pleased to be with him; and he found her company strangely relaxing.
‘Well, I hope you don’t mind if I do.’ She gave him a toothy grin and raised a glass of red. The candlelight from adjacent tables sparkled and refracted seductively through the wine.
‘No, no. I’m not a proselytising teetotaller or anything like that. I’m just having a rest from drinking myself.’
