A Decent Interval

by Simon Brett

  Charles Paris was impressed. He hoped he would demonstrate the same physical robustness when he was Tibor Pincus’s age. The idea of continuing to live after he had lost the capacity to make love didn’t hold much appeal for Charles. And it had been a while, he reminded himself. Maybe it’d never happen again. Maybe he’d already made love to his last woman. Oh dear, another thing to worry about.

  The director gestured across the vista in front of him. ‘It doesn’t matter where we shoot this stuff. So the Battle of Naseby was fought on flat terrain and here we’re on hilly terrain? Makes no difference. Everything’s going to be shot in such tight close-up we could be filming it in a branch of Tesco’s.’

  ‘It’s funny,’ Charles mused, ‘I’d never really thought about how they get the footage for these documentaries. I imagined they’d do it all on the cheap. But it seems that they do have quite high production values.’

  ‘Where are the high production values?’ asked a bewildered Tibor.

  ‘Well, I mean, getting a director of your stature … It shows they really care what the footage looks like.’

  ‘Oh yes?’

  ‘A director like you can’t come cheap.’

  Tibor Pincus looked at him bleakly. Most of the colour had been washed out of his watery blue eyes. ‘You wouldn’t believe how cheap I come these days, Charles.’

  ‘But surely, someone with your track record …’

  ‘Who cares about my track record? You have to remember, television is now run by twelve year olds fresh out of Media Studies courses. What do they know about the past? What do they care about the past? Most of the people I used to work with have now retired. And the few who are left are now so high up the management structure they don’t even return my calls. It’s been decades since anyone would give me a proper job.

  ‘Do you think I’d be reconstructing the English Civil War with one actor if I had any alternative? Making television by the yard. The shots of you will be intercut with the odd castle ruin, stained glass window, faded document, out-of-focus sparkling water, sunlight through ferns. Visual pap, chewing gum for the eyes.’ The director shrugged. ‘But it’s work, Charles, and the only work I can get these days.’

  ‘Ah.’ There was a silence, then Charles said, ‘Well, thank you for booking me for today, Tibor.’

  ‘My pleasure. Why, is this the only work you can get too?’

  ‘Pretty much.’

  At that moment a Range Rover drove up to the van and the cameraman got out. He was a lugubrious soul who did as Tibor Pincus told him, talking minimally, offering no suggestions, just getting on with the job for which he was being paid.

  And that was it. The other film-set personnel Charles had been expecting didn’t appear. The girl whose name he still hadn’t been given – and wasn’t volunteered – did everything that the cameraman didn’t. She got Charles into his costume, did his make-up and acted as PA to Tibor, making a shot list as he filmed bits of their one actor. She also cooked a very good lunch on the Campingaz stove. Under the disapproving scrutiny of the cameraman, director and actor washed the food down with copious draughts of Teacher’s. (The first bottle had been long finished, but Tibor had a crate of them in the back of the van.)

  When it came to the point of filming his various deaths at the end of the day, particularly given the gradient of the Newlands Corner hill, Charles Paris didn’t have any problem with falling down a lot.

  THREE

  It was a night of many vows. As Charles Paris tossed about on his bed at Hereford Road, his body aching – and not just from the bruises he had suffered at Newlands Corner – he swore that he would finally give up the booze. The harm it must be doing to his liver, the harm it had already done to his liver, didn’t bear contemplating. Not just the liver, either. The papers were always full of gloomy prognostications about the long-term damage excessive drinking could do. Heart attacks, strokes, throat cancer … ugh.

  And think of the money he’d save if he gave up.

  Not just that. Think of the self-respect he’d regain. It was still possible to turn his life around, he tried to convince himself. He was only in his late fifties, after all. What career breaks might lie ahead for a completely sober Charles Paris?

  He might even get back into a permanent cohabiting relationship with his estranged wife Frances. After all, the booze was one of the main things she had against him. Well, that and his tendency to become over-involved with young actresses (he refused to think of them as ‘actors’ if he was going to bed with them). Anyway, a sober Charles Paris was less likely to get involved with young actresses. It was the breakdown of inhibition caused by alcohol which had frequently led him into unsuitable beds, late-night drinking sessions after performances, First Night parties, that kind of thing. A sober Charles Paris might be a more virtuous Charles Paris. And it wasn’t as if he’d ever stopped loving Frances.

  Yes, total abstinence was the only possible way forward.

  But even as he had this thought, he realized how much of his social life revolved around drinking. Total abstinence was a bit extreme … puritanical … po-faced, even. One thing he’d never wanted to be was a party-pooper. If he cut out the whisky … restricted himself to the occasional pint … the odd glass of wine …? He didn’t want to become a self-righteous prig about the whole business. Not a humourless Alcoholics Anonymous type, one of those people of whom it could be said: ‘Anyone who breaks a habit usually frames the pieces.’

  But then he changed position in bed and felt the tectonic plates of the hangover shifting in his head. Jagged shards of brain ground against each other. The pain was very physical, very local. He could have touched exactly where it hurt, all the places where it hurt.

  No, total abstinence was the only possible solution.

  He drank water to rehydrate his powdered brain cells. Then round six o’clock, just as the rosy fingers of dawn were beginning to tickle the Westbourne Grove area, he succumbed and downed what was left in the Bell’s bottle. Just so’s he could get a little sleep.

  It was a portentous moment, he knew it. His last ever drink of Bell’s. He would never buy another bottle. Never again would he experience the sensation of twisting the metal cap free with his fingers. Never again would he taste that welcome burning on his tongue, the warmth as it slipped down his throat. He had made a vow. No more Bell’s. No more Teacher’s. No more whisky of any kind. For ever and ever. Amen.

  Feeling almost impossibly virtuous, Charles Paris slipped into an uneasy sleep.

  He was woken at ten thirty-five by the telephone.

  For a moment he couldn’t decide whether it was his landline or his mobile. Not that it made a great deal of difference. He couldn’t see either in the chaos of clothes, bedding, books and old copies of The Times that littered his floor.

  Eventually, he uncovered the mobile. The moment he picked it up the ringing stopped.

  Now, Charles Paris wasn’t very good with mobiles. He’d resisted owning one for as long as possible. But finally, the disappearance of phone booths from the high street and, on the rare occasions when he was in work, the habit of stage managers sending out rehearsal calls by text made him realize that he had to succumb to the new technology.

  But even then Charles only wanted a mobile to make and receive phone calls. The other potentialities of the instrument – its ability to take photographs, receive emails and, for all he knew, make fresh pasta – were of no interest to him. He heard people talking about apps, but he had no idea what an app was. He had, however, managed to find out how to access the Call Log and from this he discovered that the person who had woken him was Maurice Skellern.

  Charles needed to assemble himself slightly before he actually conversed with anyone. He looked wistfully at the bottle of Bell’s, but it remained resolutely empty. He filled a large glass of water at the tiny sink in his tiny kitchen and downed as much of it as he could before he started choking.

  He scrabbled through the contents of his bathroom cabinet i
n search of paracetamol, but found only a fully-popped bubble sheet. Have to do some shopping soon, he thought. For paracetamol. And, of course, for a bottle of whisky, without which he wouldn’t need the paracetamol.

  Except he wasn’t going to buy any more whisky, was he? Ever again.

  He tried unsuccessfully to drink a little more water before he rang back.

  ‘Maurice Skellern Artistes.’

  ‘Maurice, it’s Charles. Sorry, I heard your call ringing just as I was coming back through the door.’ How easily, how instinctively the untruth slipped out.

  ‘Ah, Charles. Well, who’s the popular boy then?’

  ‘Presumably your wunderkind Edgar. As I’ve mentioned a few times before, Maurice, I don’t like hearing about your other—’

  ‘No, no, I wasn’t ringing about Edgar. I was ringing about you, Charles.’

  ‘Really?’

  ‘Yes, two enquiries about you in the same week. That has to be some kind of record, doesn’t it?’

  ‘What is it this—?’

  ‘How did the filming with Tibor go yesterday?’

  ‘Fine. It turned out to be just close-up shots of me representing the Battle of Naseby. Wallpaper for some historical documentary.’

  ‘Oh yes, I knew that.’

  If you knew it, then why the hell didn’t you mention it to me, thought Charles. Instead of letting me think I had a part in some major drama. But it wasn’t worth saying out loud. There were a lot of things it just wasn’t worth saying to Maurice.

  ‘I hear,’ the agent went on, ‘that Tibor Pincus has got a bit of a drink problem these days. Not so good in the afternoon, eh?’

  ‘I didn’t see any sign of it,’ Charles lied. ‘Anyway, what’s the new enquiry?’

  ‘Ned English.’

  ‘Really? Name from the past.’

  ‘Yes, totally buried in the mire of obscurity I’d have said. Though his profile has increased recently with this new telly he’s doing.’

  ‘StarHunt.’

  ‘Very good, Charles. I don’t normally expect you to be so up to date with all the new shows.’

  ‘Oh, I try to keep abreast,’ came the nonchalant reply. Wouldn’t do to mention that he hadn’t heard of StarHunt until randomly catching a repeat a couple of nights before.

  ‘Well, Ned wants to talk to you.’

  ‘Oh. About this Hamlet he’s doing?’ Why was it no actor could hear of the word ‘Hamlet’ without that little irrational surge of excitement, that thought: Have they finally seen the errors of their ways? Are they finally going to offer me the opportunity to show that I could be the defining Hamlet of my generation? A bit old for the part maybe, Charles reassured himself, but I can play younger. After all, the famous French tragedienne Sarah Bernhardt played Hamlet at the age of fifty-five. And she was a woman. And she had a wooden leg.

  ‘Well, I suppose it might be,’ Maurice Skellern conceded.

  ‘Come on, I can’t imagine there’s much else Ned’s doing at the moment.’

  ‘Oh, you never know. Now he’s a telly face he’ll be getting invited on to all kinds of tatty panel shows. Maybe he wants to talk to you about appearing as his gardener in one of those “Guess Which is the Real One” quizzes.’

  ‘Did he say that’s what it was?’

  ‘No.’

  ‘Then did he say it was for the Hamlet?’

  ‘No.’

  ‘Oh.’

  ‘What he did say was that he’d like to meet you for lunch today at the Ivy.’

  ‘Really?’ Charles was impressed. ‘I’ll just check my diary to see if I’m—’

  ‘Don’t bother with that,’ said his agent. ‘As I told Ned, one thing never changes about Charles Paris – he’s always free.’

  He had been to the Ivy before, but rarely. And that had been a while ago, before it became the canteen for the top people in the entertainment business.

  Charles was shown to Ned English’s table. In spite of the glossy chestnut hair, the director’s face looked old and worried. During their conversation, his dark brown eyes behind the round tortoiseshell glasses kept darting round the restaurant, his hand ever ready to wave at some celebrity who might recognize him.

  He also, in the voguish way which still always rather surprised Charles, greeted his guest in an enveloping bear hug.

  Ned’s manner to the bright young waiters was a bit too studiedly casual, as if their acquaintance went back years rather than the few months of his recent television fame. All in all, he was giving a very bad impression of a person who was entirely at ease in his environment.

  Charles Paris’s resolve not to have another drink that day lasted until Ned English, with the waiter hovering at his shoulder, demanded, ‘So what’ll you have as an aperitif?’

  His body craved an extremely large scotch on the rocks, but noticing that Ned was drinking a kir royale, Charles asked for one of those. Champagne and cassis was, after all, almost a soft drink. Nothing with bubbles in it, he reasoned, could really be regarded as alcoholic. He felt virtuous for avoiding the spirits.

  And he continued to feel virtuous as he and Ned worked through a bottle of Sauvignon Blanc and a Rioja Reserva during the meal.

  Their conversation began with a recap of what each had been doing during the twenty-seven years since they’d last met. Ned English did most of the talking. Charles’s life didn’t really seem to have changed a lot over that time. As ever, there had been long periods of ‘resting’, interrupted by occasional flurries of work. His marriage to Frances retained its continuity of rapprochements and partings. And, except for his involvement in solving the odd murder (which he wasn’t going to talk about), there was not a lot to tell.

  As Ned burbled on about his doings, Charles Paris suspected that the director didn’t really have a lot to tell either. But somehow in the intervening twenty-seven years he had transformed himself from enfant terrible to ‘a safe pair of hands’. Most of his recent work had been directing touring versions of reliable old plays with celebrity leads. And all of them had been done for Tony Copeland’s production company. Charles didn’t ask the question as to why Ned English had got the high-profile job of directing the StarHunt Hamlet, but he felt fairly sure it had something to do with his history of work with Tony Copeland. Also, having seen the television show, he knew why the producer wanted such a pliable punchbag as his sidekick.

  Some fifteen years seemed to have been edited out of the CV that Ned presented to Charles. Of the time between their last meeting in Hornchurch and when he had started working for Tony Copeland no mention at all was made. And after a bit of big name-dropping about the people he’d worked with on his touring productions, Ned English’s talk focused exclusively on StarHunt.

  Charles had found during his career that there were two sorts of directors – the ones who relished the limelight (and covertly thought that they could do the acting bit better than their actors), and those who just got on with the job, content to remain in the background. He infinitely preferred working with the second kind. And would indeed previously have put Ned English into that category. But the lure of the television camera was powerful. As his behaviour on StarHunt made clear, Ned had always wanted to be a ‘personality’.

  ‘It is quite boring, actually, Charles, being “on show” all the time,’ he complained (though clearly loving every minute of it). ‘I can’t even go down to the supermarket without someone starting an argument with me about one of the contestants who got eliminated in the previous night’s show. And you wouldn’t believe the number of tweets I get on a daily basis.’

  Charles, whose knowledge of what a tweet was might not have passed close scrutiny, agreed that he probably wouldn’t.

  ‘And then, of course, the number of calls I get for me to do media stuff … well, you just wouldn’t believe it. I’ve had to get a new ex-directory landline … and I’ve engaged a PR company to handle all that side. Mangetout Creative … do you know them?’

  ‘No,’ said Charles.


  ‘So who handles yours?’

  ‘My what?’

  ‘Well, your personal … No, no, it wouldn’t apply to you, of course. Anyway, believe me, the whole thing’s an absolute nightmare.’

  ‘Yes.’

  ‘Though it’s not without its compensations,’ Ned English added slyly.

  ‘Oh?’

  ‘Women are very attracted to men who’re on television.’

  ‘Really?’

  ‘Oh yes,’ said Ned with a roguish wink. ‘Particularly young women. You’d be surprised how many dishy young female actors –’ he had got his political correctness right – ‘are happy to spend the time of day – not to mention the time of night – with someone who’s a judge on StarHunt.’

  ‘Good for you. When we were in Hornchurch – have I got this right – you were married, weren’t you?’

  ‘Oh, that didn’t last,’ came the airy reply. ‘You still with …?’

  ‘Frances,’ Charles supplied.

  ‘Yes. You two still together?’

  ‘Well …’

  But he didn’t get a chance to describe his strangely semi-detached relationship with Frances, as the director ploughed on smugly: ‘I am currently squiring round London a female actor who’s younger than my daughter.’

  ‘Really?’

  ‘The sex is just amazing.’

  ‘Is it?’ Ned was clearly ready to give him more detail, but Charles didn’t think he could stand it. He’d nearly finished his Chicken Paillard with Tomato and Mint Chimichurri, and Ned still hadn’t mentioned the real reason for their lunch. ‘I did actually wonder what you wanted to talk to me about …?’

  ‘But, Charles, isn’t it wonderful for two old chums just to get together for old time’s sake?’

  ‘Well, yes, it is. Wonderful. Splendid. But, you know, after twenty-seven years … I mean, it’s very nice of you to take me out for lunch …’ A terrible shadow crossed over Charles Paris’s mind. He was, as ever, hideously overdrawn and on the run from the taxman. ‘I mean, that is, I assume this is on you …?’