by Simon Brett
‘Portie’s on the train from London as we speak,’ said Tibor Pincus. ‘He’s going to see his son Will in tonight’s performance of Hamlet at the Grand Theatre.’
‘Well, good luck to him. He’ll have a long wait. The Second Gravedigger doesn’t come on till Act Five.’
‘But Will Portlock is not playing the Second Gravedigger.’
‘Sorry to contradict you, Tibor, but he is.’
‘Not according to Portie. According to him, in tonight’s performance, Will Portlock will be playing Hamlet.’
‘Oh, my God!’ said Charles Paris.
TWENTY-FOUR
Though encumbered by the armour of the Ghost of Hamlet’s Father, Charles Paris sped up the stairs to the star dressing room. He now understood everything with remarkable clarity. He was caught up in that oldest of theatrical plots – the understudy putting the actor he’s understudying out of commission and thus gaining his moment of glory on the stage.
After Jared Root’s accident, Will Portlock had reckoned the part of Hamlet must be his. How much it must have hurt to have Sam Newton-Reid suddenly parachuted into the production. And, given the level of diplomatic skills displayed by Tony Copeland and Ned English, it was entirely possible that no one had even apologized to the understudy for his exclusion from the role.
Will had made one attempt to sabotage Sam by doctoring his mascara. That had gone horribly wrong, resulting in the death of Katrina Selsey. But he wasn’t going to risk another failure. He had actually paid to fly his father over from Baltimore to see him play Hamlet that evening. Whatever he’d lined up for Sam Newton-Reid must be something he knew would work.
Charles pulled open the door of the star dressing room and burst through. As he did so, he glimpsed something tall and heavy falling towards him.
Whatever it was struck him on the head.
Charles Paris fell, unconscious, on to the dressing room floor where Katrina Selsey had died.
TWENTY-FIVE
He didn’t know how long he was out, perhaps only a matter of seconds. Certainly, there was no one else in the room when he came round.
Gingerly, he pulled himself up on to the chair in front of the mirror. His head was still buzzing; he didn’t feel quite there.
Charles looked down to the stone floor to see what had hit him. It was a black-painted metal stand, robust enough to carry the weight of the heavy old-fashioned stage lights. The kind of kit that might easily be found lying around the scene-dock of a place like the Grand Theatre.
The stand had presumably been propped against the wall. A string ran from it to where it had been fixed to the dressing- room door. Charles’s opening the door had pulled it down on him. A very effective booby trap.
Thank God for the heavily padded helmet of the Ghost of Hamlet’s Father. That had taken the full force of the falling metal and protected him from more serious injury. What the stand’s effect might have been on the bare, blond head of Sam Newton-Reid when he returned at the interval Charles shuddered to contemplate. It would certainly have put him out of commission for the second half of the matinee. Would his understudy have been put in to play that second half, or would the rest of the performance be abandoned? Might Will Portlock’s triumph have had to wait till the evening performance?
Charles suddenly became aware of the low mumbling from the tannoy which relayed the onstage action to the dressing room. He heard Polonius saying, ‘Tell him his pranks have been too broad to bear with.’
Oh God! It was the start of the Closet Scene. In which the Ghost of Hamlet’s Father had to make an appearance. Maybe Charles had been unconscious for longer than he thought. He still felt a bit woozy.
Before he left the star dressing room, he climbed shakily on one of the chairs and removed the string that had been pinned to the top of the door. He untied the other end from the light-stand, which he propped safely in a corner where it was in no danger of falling on anyone.
Then he hurried down to the stage to haunt Hamlet.
The Ghost gets offstage before the end of the Closet Scene. The action ends with the exit of Hamlet, dragging off the body of Polonius, and that, in Ned English’s production, was the cue for the interval to start.
Charles Paris went straight up from the stage to the star dressing room and sat down, waiting for Sam Newton-Reid to appear. When he did, the boy looked puzzled to see the older actor there.
‘What’s this? Not a repeat of Katrina Selsey’s annexation of my dressing room, is it?’
‘No, Sam. But it is to do with her death.’
‘Oh?’
‘Look, if I try to explain, it’ll sound completely daft, but would you just trust me on this?’
‘OK …’ Sam responded cautiously.
‘Would you mind just not using this room during the interval?’
The boy thought about this, then nodded and said, ‘All right. I’ll go to Milly’s dressing room. I do quite often, anyway. Just get my mascara, that’s all I need.’ He stepped forward to pick up the tube from the table, just as Katrina had done the night she died. Then he moved to the door. ‘I’m not quite sure why you’re being so mysterious. You will explain this to me at some point, Charles?’
‘Promise.’
‘OK.’ And a slightly puzzled-looking Sam Newton-Reid left his dressing room.
Charles Paris sat and waited. He felt pretty sure the dressing room would be visited before the end of the interval, and he was right. The door was pulled open very gingerly and, as anticipated, he found himself facing Will Portlock, dressed in his Second Gravedigger tights and smock.
The scene that greeted the young actor was so far from his expectations that for a moment he was dumbstruck. Then he demanded, ‘What the hell are you doing here, Charles?’
‘Recovering from having a very heavy light stand falling on me.’
‘Ah.’
‘I know what happened, Will.’
‘Do you?’
‘Both times.’
‘Both? If you think I had anything to do with the accident to Jared Root, then—’
‘No, I don’t think you had anything to do with that. I’m talking about Katrina Selsey – here in this dressing room.’
‘That had nothing to do with me.’
‘No?’
‘I didn’t come in here that evening after Katrina staged her takeover.’
‘I’m not suggesting you did. But you came in before she took it over. You came in to plant the tube of mascara there. The tube that you had doctored with bleach. Or maybe to doctor with bleach the one that was already in here.’
Will Portlock hadn’t been expecting that. Once more he gaped dumbly as Charles continued, ‘You had no means of knowing that Katrina was going to come in here. The mascara was meant for Sam. You didn’t want to kill him, just injure him enough so that he couldn’t go on playing Hamlet. But your first attempt didn’t work.’ Charles pointed to the light stand in the corner. ‘So you tried again – with something that would cause an even more serious injury. But for a second time your booby-trap caught the wrong victim.’
‘Yes,’ Will Portlock agreed distractedly.
‘I know why you did it, incidentally, Will.’
‘Really? Well, it doesn’t take much brainpower to work that out, does it? I did it because I wanted to play Hamlet.’
‘Yes, but I know why that mattered to you so much.’
‘Oh?’
‘I had lunch yesterday with your father. With the famous Portie.’
That was a major shock to the young man, for which all previous ones had been mild and ineffective preparation.
‘Jeremy Portlock. I’ve known him so long as “Portie” that I’d forgotten his full name. Will, I know most of the details of what you did. I know that you paid for your father’s flight over from Baltimore so that he could witness you playing Hamlet. Which is why you had to get Sam out of the way.’
‘I’d play the part much better than he does,’ snapped the boy, suddenly young and
petulant.
‘That may or may not be the case, but it doesn’t justify the kind of violence you were planning.’
‘What do you know about it, Charles?’
‘All I know is that violence very rarely achieves its ends.’
‘Oh, really? What you don’t know is what it’s been like all these years growing up with my mother. With her going on about Portie all the time. Not that he stayed with her long. He’d upped and left before my first birthday. Fairly soon after that he moved to the States. And you’d have thought that would have made my mother hate him. But no, in her case absence certainly did make the heart grow fonder. She still thought “Portie” was wonderful.’ He put the name in ironic quotes.
‘And for over twenty years I’ve had to hear just how wonderful he was every bloody day of my life. With the implication, of course, that I was rather less wonderful, that I’d never match up to my father’s achievements. So now do you see why I’ve got to prove myself to him, why I’ve got to play Hamlet this evening?’
‘I can see why you think that, yes, Will, but you’ve got to face the facts. It’s not going to happen.’
‘What, you mean you’re going to shop me?’
‘I don’t think I’ll need to do that … so long as you give me a solemn promise that you’ll give up further attempts to injure Sam.’
‘But he’s got to be injured. Otherwise, how am I going to play Hamlet tonight?’ There was an obsessive note in his voice now, and Charles was made aware of just how long Will Portlock had been planning the coup de théâtre whose sole purpose was, for once in his life, to impress his father.
‘Will,’ said Charles patiently, ‘you are not going to play Hamlet tonight, and the sooner you come to terms with that fact, the better.’
‘Oh no?’ Suddenly, from underneath his smock, the younger actor produced a gun. Some kind of automatic pistol. God knows where he’d got it from, but it looked distressingly businesslike. And it was pointing straight at the centre of the Ghost of Hamlet’s Father’s breastplate. Which sadly, being only made of fibreglass, wouldn’t offer much protection from a bullet.
‘So what are you planning to do with that, Will?’ asked Charles, acting a coolness that he did not feel.
‘Whatever’s necessary. Silence you, for a start.’
The boy’s bravado, learned from action films he had watched, sounded mildly ridiculous, but Charles could see from his eyes that he was deadly serious. The way he was behaving was the product of many years of accumulating slights and frustration. Someone in Will Portlock’s mental state was profoundly dangerous.
‘Just a minute.’ Playing the part of someone cool wasn’t getting any easier for Charles. ‘You shoot me, yes, all right, that would have the effect of silencing me. But it would also have the effect of getting you charged with murder, and there’s no way you can play Hamlet when you’re in police custody, is there?’
‘I could hide your body,’ said Will defiantly.
‘Oh, like Hamlet does with Polonius? Yes, great. But it would be found.’
‘Not until after I’ve done tonight’s performance.’
‘And is that all you care about?’
‘Yes.’
‘Will, you’re not being very logical. For one thing, I might not tell anyone what I know about what you’ve been doing. I might be silent on the subject of my own accord. So silencing me by shooting me would be taking a completely unnecessary risk.’
The pointing gun wavered for a moment while the boy took this on board.
‘Then again –’ Charles pressed home his advantage – ‘shooting me is a diversion. It’s not bringing you any nearer to your primary ambition, which is to get Sam Newton-Reid out of the way.’
‘I could shoot him too.’
There was still something slightly comical about Will Portlock’s confrontational manner, but Charles wasn’t laughing. The more the boy talked, the more unhinged he sounded.
‘Double murder? Hiding two bodies? I think you’d be found out pretty quickly. And that would be the end of your career as an actor. The end of your career as anything except the inmate of a prison cell. I’m sure you don’t want to take that risk.’
‘I want to play Hamlet tonight,’ Will repeated doggedly, ‘so that my father can see that I’m as good an actor as he was.’
And Charles realized just how dissociated the boy was from reality. From the one performance he had done in the role at the Tech, it was evident that, though he might be an adequate actor, Will Portlock was never going to come near the volatile and sparkling genius of the young Portie. Which was probably the root of all his problems.
But the fact remained that Will was still pointing a gun at Charles and, in his manic state, was quite capable of using it. He needed talking down into a more manageable mood.
‘Listen, Will, I think you’re getting things a bit out of proportion. You must see that you can’t—’
The door suddenly opened to admit Sam Newton-Reid. ‘Sorry. I’ve just remembered I need my cloak for the Fortinbras scene.’ He moved to take it off the hook, not noticing the gun in Will Portlock’s hand. Until he turned round and found it pointing straight at him.
‘How very convenient, Sam,’ said his understudy. ‘I don’t have to come looking for you.’
‘What are you playing at, Will? Is this some kind of practical joke?’
‘No, by no means, Sam. I’ve never been more serious about anything in my life.’
‘Will,’ Charles remonstrated, ‘this has gone on quite long enough. Stop this charade before you do something stupid. Put the gun away and we’ll say no more about—’
‘Put it away? Just when I’ve been offered the opportunity of a lifetime?’ Will Portlock smiled at his intended victim. ‘I’m sorry about this, Sam. I’ve got nothing against you personally, but I’m afraid you have to be removed from the equation.’
‘Are you saying you’re going to shoot me?’ Sam asked in bewilderment.
‘’Fraid so.’
Suddenly, Sam Newton-Reid looked really terrified. Charles had seen him looking scared every night when they first met on the battlements of Elsinore and he shouted out, ‘Angels and ministers of grace defend us!’ but that was just acting. This was the real thing.
Aware of the fragility of Will’s mental health, Sam asked, ‘But why? Why do you want to shoot me?’
‘Because,’ came the predictable reply, ‘I have to play Hamlet in tonight’s performance.’
‘Well, fine. I’ll step aside. I’ll tell Ned I’ve got some gastric bug. I’ll—’
Will took a moment to assess this proposal, before twisting his lips wryly and shaking his head. ‘Shooting you would be more secure. Then I can play Hamlet for the rest of the tour. And in the West End.’
‘There’s no chance Tony Copeland’ll let—’
‘Shut up, Charles!’ Will Portlock screamed, before turning back to his proposed victim. ‘Sorry, Sam, but this is the way it’s got to be.’
‘You can’t! You mustn’t do it!’ Tears were now glinting through Sam Newton-Reid’s mascaraed eyelashes. ‘Think of the effect it’ll have on my parents! And on Milly!’
Will Portlock shook his head again with great seriousness. ‘Some things are more important than personal feelings. There are some things that just have to be done.’ And he lowered the gun to target Sam’s chest.
Charles Paris didn’t know what to do. He felt he should jump Will, knock the gun out of his hand. But, encumbered by the Ghost of Hamlet’s Father’s armour and still dizzy from the blow to his head, he knew he couldn’t move quickly enough to get away with it.
‘Goodbye, Sam,’ said Will.
At that moment the dressing room door was pulled open to reveal a slightly swaying Portie. Instantly, the pistol disappeared back under Will’s smock.
Portie ignored his son and Charles Paris. Instead, he addressed Sam Newton-Reid. ‘God, you don’t look a bit like your bloody mother.’
‘What?’ asked
Sam, still shaken by his recent jeopardy.
‘Still, I can see from your costume that you are actually playing Hamlet and you are in the star dressing room. That’s a step. I thought you might have made the whole thing up in some pathetic plea for attention.’
‘I think you’ve got it wrong, Portie.’
‘What have I got wrong? God, is that you, Charles, under the coal scuttle and the grotesque beard?’
‘Yes.’
‘I should be on stage,’ said Sam Newton-Reid. And clutching his cloak around him, he scuttled out of the dressing room.
‘I’m Will,’ said the boy. ‘I’m your son.’
‘Then why the hell is somebody else dressed as Hamlet?’
‘It’s rather complicated. This is just the matinee. You see, I—’
‘Oh, don’t bother me with explanations! Anyway, what is that costume you’re wearing? Who’re you playing in the bloody farrago?’
‘The Second Gravedigger,’ Will Portlock replied humbly.
‘Huh,’ said his father. ‘Bloody long way I’ve come to see a Second Gravedigger.’
TWENTY-SIX
There were a lot of empty seats for the matinee of Hamlet, and the Gravediggers’ scene didn’t get as many laughs as it usually did with a fuller house. There’s a tipping point in the number of people who have to be present for them to find Shakespeare’s groan-worthy puns funny, and that afternoon the Grand Theatre audience hadn’t reached it. When they came off stage at the end of the scene, without any discussion of the matter, a very subdued Will Portlock followed Charles Paris to the latter’s empty dressing room.
‘Have you still got the gun with you?’ asked Charles as he sat down wearily.
‘No, I put it back in my bag.’
Will sounded listless and defeated. Charles was struck, not for the first time, by how good actors are at hiding their real emotions when they’re on stage. A few minutes before Will had been mugging away in his customary Mummerset style as the Second Gravedigger. Now he looked as if he’d been run over by a truck.
