A Decent Interval

by Simon Brett

  ‘Where did you get it?’

  ‘The gun? Through a friend at drama school. It was a prop one.’

  ‘You mean it didn’t work?’ Charles asked with some annoyance. ‘You mean I’ve just been in a blue funk about a gun that was a dummy?’

  ‘No. My friend knew something about guns. He converted it back. It works all right.’

  Charles felt rather relieved that at least his recent panic had been justified.

  ‘It’s no good, is it?’ said Will Portlock moodily.

  ‘What’s no good?’

  ‘Everything. But mostly me trying to get some kind of relationship going with my father. He doesn’t care about me. He never has cared about me.’

  ‘I don’t think Portie’s ever been great at facing up to his responsibilities,’ said Charles tactfully. ‘Or caring for people.’

  ‘No. He’s a bastard. He’s always been a bastard. I should have recognized that a long time ago.’

  Charles couldn’t think of anything to say. So he just shrugged.

  ‘The basic thing a father should do for his child is actually to be there when the kid’s growing up.’ A pang of guilt ran through Charles as he recalled how remiss he’d been in fulfilling that parental duty to his daughter Juliet. But it wasn’t the moment to beat himself up about that. Will Portlock was still talking.

  ‘If I’d accepted early on that I was never going to see him, that he would never be a part of my life, I think I’d be less screwed up than I am now. And with my mother constantly putting him on a pedestal, I always had this pressure to be like him, to see if I could match his talent … And I should have accepted long ago that I was never going to do that either. My talent is a very modest one.’ Charles didn’t contradict him. ‘I’ve learnt that since I’ve actually been working in the theatre. I’ve seen lots of people with more talent than me. But I suppose I can go on in the business, never hitting the heights, never getting the big break.’

  ‘Lots of actors do,’ said Charles gently.

  ‘Like you, you mean?’ Which wasn’t actually precisely what Charles Paris had meant. But Will was too preoccupied to realize the rudeness of what he had just said. He sighed and went on, ‘I don’t know that I’ve got the energy. I only went into the theatre because of him. To try and emulate his achievements. I should have known I hadn’t got a snowball’s chance in hell of doing that.’

  There was a silence, then Charles asked, ‘Did Portie say anything helpful, you know, when I left the two of you in Sam’s dressing room to change my costume?’

  ‘Did he hell? The bastard only tried to touch me for some cash. And the minute I’d given him a twenty, he announced that he was going straight back to London.’ Poor Tibor Pincus, thought Charles. ‘Didn’t even wait to see me as Second Gravedigger. Just went on about the “bloody inconvenience” I’d caused him by dragging him down to “bloody Marlborough”.’

  ‘Ah. So you have no plans to meet again?’

  ‘Never!’ said Will Portlock with great vehemence. ‘I’m going to work hard on forgetting that I ever had a father!’ Then in a softer tone, he asked, ‘The thing is, Charles, what are you going to do about it?’

  ‘How d’you mean?’

  ‘You know what I’ve done. You know about the bleach in the mascara, the light stand booby trap. I’ve threatened you with a gun. And I threatened Sam too.’

  ‘Mm.’

  ‘And the awful part of it is … that I probably caused Katrina Selsey’s death.’

  ‘You didn’t intend to.’

  ‘No. So it wouldn’t be murder. Murder has to involve intention.’

  ‘You’ve been reading up on the subject?’

  ‘I have. I’ve been in such a terrible state since it happened. Feeling the most awful guilt.’

  ‘And yet, in spite of that, a short while ago you were pointing a gun at Sam and saying you were going to kill him.’

  ‘Yes,’ Will agreed in a bewildered tone.

  ‘And if you’d done that, there’d have been no question about your intention. And, of course, you threatened me too.’

  Will Portlock nodded and then pressed his fingers against his forehead as if trying to rub away some memories. ‘I’ve been in a most peculiar state since I started working on this production.’

  ‘Yes, I think you have.’

  ‘But going back to Katrina, all right, it’s not murder, but I think I could possibly be done for manslaughter.’

  ‘I’m certain that you could.’

  ‘So that’s why I want to know what you’re going to do. Some people in your situation would feel they’d have to go to the police and tell them what they knew.’

  ‘Yes, some people would,’ said Charles judiciously. ‘And, of course, there’s another possibility …’

  ‘Oh?’

  ‘That the police’s own investigations might find out what really happened to Katrina and how you were involved in it.’

  ‘Yes. Obviously, I’ve thought of that.’

  Charles Paris was silent for a moment. Then he said, ‘My instinct is to leave the police to it. Let them do their job. I don’t feel particularly inclined to help them. What you were trying to do to Sam was pretty shabby, but I do understand your reasons for doing it. And yes, you probably did cause Katrina Selsey’s death, but that was a tragic accident. There is no way you could have foreseen it happening. So, as I say, my instinct is to leave well enough alone. And I’ll have a word with Sam. Tell him you’ve been under a lot of strain. Ask him to keep quiet about what happened this afternoon in his dressing room.’

  ‘Is he likely to agree to that?’

  ‘I think I can persuade him to do so.’

  Will Portlock slumped in his chair with relief. He looked totally drained.

  ‘But one thing I would say, Will, is that you’re not well. The way you’ve been behaving suggests that you need help. You’ve been under a hell of a lot of pressure for a long time. I think one of the conditions for my silence might be that you go and see a doctor, try to get some psychiatric help.’

  ‘It’s something I have considered.’

  ‘Then why haven’t you done anything about it?’

  ‘My mother …’ He winced, as if under renewed strain. ‘My mother says only weaklings believe in mental illness. She says Portie would never have gone to a doctor if he’d been feeling out of sorts. He’d just get on with things.’

  ‘Yes,’ said Charles softly. ‘Portie’d just have another drink and get on with things. But what he might do is not your concern. You’re not Portie. For the rest of your life, Will, you’re not going to care about what Portie might do.’

  ‘You’re right.’ A weak smile crossed the boy’s features. ‘I’m not.’

  There was an air of tension in the cavernous auditorium of the Theatre Royal, Newcastle. It was the Tuesday, the day of the first public performance of Hamlet in the final venue of their tour, and the entire company had been called at two o’clock to be addressed by Tony Copeland. They hadn’t seen the producer since Marlborough, though his assistant, Doug Haye, had attended the First Nights in Malvern and Wilmslow. Charles Paris and Doug had not spoken, perhaps both unwilling to remember their encounter in a Marlborough alley.

  Charles looked around at his fellow actors. Dennis Demetriades, he noticed, had shaved parallel lines in his sideburns to give a striped effect. In spite of his tigerish facial hair, the young actor looked as anxious as the rest of the company.

  Charles himself didn’t feel tense that afternoon. His default setting was the anticipation of bad news and, as the tour progressed, he had become less and less optimistic about the chances of this Hamlet transferring to the West End. In Malvern and Wilmslow they’d had pretty good houses and some enthusiastic reviews – particularly for Sam Newton-Reid – in the local press. But, having been in a similar situation many times before, Charles didn’t feel the momentum that accompanies an inevitable transfer. There had also been ominously little publicity for a show which was suppos
ed to be on its way to the Richardson Theatre. According to the Twitterati in the company, the only story ‘trending’ about anything to do with their production of Hamlet was a constant stream of bulletins from Jared Root saying how quickly he was recovering from his injuries and how good his new album was going to be. (And Charles now knew those messages were probably emanating from Tony Copeland.)

  He had talked to Geraldine Romelle about his gloomy prognostications, and she had seemed to share them. But he hadn’t expressed doubts to anyone else in the company, not wishing to dampen the youthful enthusiasm of people like Sam and Milly, excited about what they believed would be the next step in their glittering careers.

  On the dot of two, Tony Copeland and Doug Haye appeared onstage. There were no chairs there for them. They had travelled up on a morning train and would be going straight back to London after Tony had made his announcement. As ever, he looked more accountant than impresario.

  The actors’ chatting dwindled to silence at his appearance and he went straight into his statement.

  ‘Ladies and gentlemen, thank you for coming and I hope you have a good performance tonight. Thanks for all the hard work you have put into this production and congratulations on a very successful tour. After the early disruptions in Marlborough, this Hamlet has turned into a very good show.

  ‘As you all know, there was a possibility of the production transferring to the Richardson Theatre in London. The factors governing my decision about the transfer are mainly financial. I don’t need to spell out to you the costs of opening any show in the West End, and Tony Copeland Productions are not in the business of losing money.

  ‘The planning of this production from the start has depended on publicity generated by the StarHunt television programme and the casting of Jared Root from Top Pop. With neither him nor Katrina Selsey in the cast, we’ve lost that publicity boost. This, may I say, is no reflection on the talents of the actors who have taken on their roles, both of whom have done an excellent job, which has been recognized by some very positive notices on the tour.

  ‘However –’ Charles knew there was going to be a ‘however’ – ‘the financial prospects for this production do not justify the expense of taking the show into the West End.’ There, he’d said it. ‘So the West End options in your contracts will not be taken up, and the production will close at the end of this week here in Newcastle.

  ‘I realize some of you will be very disappointed by this news, but you can’t argue with hard financial facts. I’d like to thank you all once again for your talent and hard work and wish you good luck with wherever your careers take you next.’

  With that Tony Copeland and Doug Haye left to catch their train back to London.

  On his return from Newcastle Charles Paris reverted to the half-life of an unemployed actor in Hereford Road. He didn’t keep in touch with anyone from the Hamlet company. An actor’s social life is like that. During a production you see the same people every day for months. You eat with them, drink with them and (if you get lucky, which Charles hadn’t this time) sleep with them. Then, the minute the production ends, that tight social group instantly unravels. There’s nothing callous or unpleasant about this parting of the ways; it’s just the way it is.

  If you were to meet one of the company by chance somewhere, you’d have a drink and reminisce about what fun it had all been. But, unless you’d contrived to get involved emotionally or just sexually, you wouldn’t make any effort to arrange further meetings. Then you’d meet some of them on other productions, where new intense exclusive social groupings would form.

  Through theatre friends and acquaintances Charles did hear news of some members of the Hamlet company. And through a major publicity campaign of newspaper and television ads, not to mention huge posters on the sides of buses, he heard about the show that Tony Copeland Productions took into the Richardson Theatre. As the producer had threatened in Marlborough, he brought in a programme of music featuring the winners of the recent series of Top Pop. Headlining was the previous year’s winner, Jared Root, who had made a remarkably quick recovery from his onstage injuries and whose ‘accident’ was milked shamelessly for publicity. The coincidence of the production’s First Night with the release of Jared’s new album was a PR man’s dream.

  The show was full every night with television viewers, many of whom had never been inside a theatre before. Thus yet another West End venue failed to find space for a straight play.

  And nobody would ever know at what point during the production of Hamlet Tony Copeland had made the decision that the show wouldn’t transfer to the Richardson Theatre. Or if that had been his plan right from the start.

  Charles Paris never reported back to Tony on the conclusions he had reached about the death of Katrina Selsey. To do so seemed pointless, somehow. And Charles felt increasingly convinced that the responsibility he had supposedly been given was an aspect of yet another of Tony Copeland’s power games.

  Another television series of StarHunt was set up, this time eschewing the dangerous area of stage plays and going for the safer option of finding a new star to play the lead in a revival of a popular musical. Needless to say, Ned English wasn’t required as a judge for that. His brief period of television celebrity was over and, Charles heard from a mutual acquaintance, Billie-Louise very quickly dumped him in favour of a producer who could do more for her career.

  One day, a few months after Hamlet closed in Newcastle, Charles Paris opened his Times to see a photograph of Tibor Pincus looking out at him from the obituary page. The text was lavish in its praise for the director’s groundbreaking work in the early days of television drama. There were fulsome tributes to his talent and skill on radio and television, many of them from the very broadcasting executives who had failed to give him any work for the final two decades of his life, or even to answer his calls.

  A friend passed on to Charles the details of the arrangements for Tibor’s funeral. He intended to go, but somehow didn’t get around to it.

  A few months later Charles Paris was mooching around Hereford Road, trying to engage with a particularly intransigent Times crossword, when he had a call on his mobile.

  ‘Hello?’

  ‘Hi, Charles. This is Will Portlock.’

  ‘Oh. Good to hear you. To what do I owe this pleasure?’

  ‘Well, partly … all right, I’ll come straight out with it. I just wanted to check that you hadn’t changed your mind.’

  ‘About what?’

  ‘About what we talked about in your dressing room in Marlborough … that time …’

  ‘About shopping you to the police?’

  ‘Yes.’

  Charles chuckled. ‘That’s not the kind of thing I’d change my mind about.’

  ‘I’m glad to hear it. Sorry, I should have trusted you, but you know how worries and mad ideas go round in your head.’

  ‘Yes,’ said Charles, remembering some of the mad ideas that had gone round in Will Portlock’s head. ‘And you haven’t heard anything from the police, either in Marlborough or anywhere else?’

  ‘No.’

  ‘Then I reckon, Will, that you’ve got away with it.’

  ‘Bloody hope so.’

  ‘Anyway, what’re you doing? Got any work?’

  ‘Not theatre work, no. I’ve given it up.’

  Charles thought that was probably good news. ‘Oh?’ he said.

  ‘I never really liked it that much. Nor was I very good at it. I only went into the theatre because … well, you know the reasons.’

  ‘Yes. So what are you doing?’

  ‘I’m starting an accountancy course next month.’

  ‘Really? What does your mother think about that?’

  ‘I don’t give a shit what my mother thinks. I don’t see her now. She really is a profoundly silly woman.’

  ‘Oh. Well, you sound a lot better than you did in Marlborough.’

  ‘I took your advice, Charles. Went to my doctor. He reckoned I was very near a
breakdown and put me on some medication which seemed to work. And now I’m having some cognitive behavioural therapy – it’s really getting me sorted out.’

  ‘That’s good to hear.’

  ‘How about you, Charles?’

  ‘What?’

  ‘Any work?’

  The ‘No’ was instinctive. But also accurate. ‘Heard anything from anyone else in the Hamlet company, Will?’

  ‘Not much. Oh, I ran into Sam in the West End last week.’

  ‘How’s he doing?’

  ‘Back in telesales.’

  ‘Oh dear.’

  ‘But his big news was – Milly’s pregnant.’

  ‘Really?’

  After Will ended the call Charles tried not to feel depressed by the news about Sam. But the young man’s likely future was far too clear to him. Telesales had been meant as a short-term fix, but with a baby on the way, the demands of bourgeois responsibility could all too easily lock him into that or some similar job with a regular salary. And so another great acting talent would remain unfulfilled. The enduring unfairness of the theatrical life asserted itself once again.

  Not that that surprised Charles Paris under his carapace of cynicism in Hereford Road.

  ‘So there never was a murder?’

  ‘No, Frances, there wasn’t.’

  They were sitting in a Hampstead Italian restaurant. In happier times it had been one of their regular haunts. In happier times they had often drunk too much there and stumbled back to the family house, then fallen giggling into bed together with carnal intentions. But that evening, with Frances looking at her most headmistressy, those happier times seemed a long while ago.

  ‘Freak accident,’ Charles went on. ‘The girl tripped over the chair backwards, didn’t have a chance to cushion her fall, fell straight down on the stone floor.’

  ‘Hm.’ Frances nodded and toyed with her tagliatelle. It seemed inconceivable after all these years, but there was an awkwardness between them, as if neither could think of what to say next, as if they were making conversation. Maybe there were just too many subjects which, over the years, had moved off limits.

  ‘Juliet OK?’ asked Charles.