Sicken and So Die

by Simon Brett

  The information came, anyway. ‘I’m referring of course to Alexandru Radulescu. He had been due to return to Romania shortly, but when he heard of our problems, he very graciously deferred his plans. Alexandru will be starting work with you tomorrow morning, and I think it’s extremely exciting news.’

  From the expressions around the room, a lot of the cast shared this opinion. In particular, Russ Lavery, Vasile Bogdan and Tottie Roundwood were positively ecstatic at the news. The name had impressed Talya Northcott and Benzo Ritter too. Sally Luther, Charles noticed, looked considerably less keen.

  ‘So, though of course we at Asphodel are very sorry about Gavin Scholes’ illness, I feel that this particular ill wind is going to blow us all a great deal of good. Alexandru Radulescu is the sort of director whose productions really put a company on the map. And, when I talked to him about the project this morning, he was already full of ideas. He’s as excited about the whole thing as all of us at Asphodel are. He says he’s been dying to get his hands on Shakespeare for years.’

  Oh no, Charles Paris inwardly groaned. Anything but that.

  Chapter Five

  ‘THAT’S NOT the point, Charles.’

  ‘But I’d have thought –’

  ‘No,’ Frances steamrollered on. ‘I am not criticising you for coming back late. You’re a grown man, for God’s sake. It’s up to you how you spend your time, who you drink with – that’s your business. What I am objecting to is you coming back late to my flat.’

  ‘If you’re trying to get rid of me . . .’

  ‘I am not trying to get rid of you. All I’m saying is that if you’re going to be staying here with me . . .’ Charles noticed that she hadn’t said ‘living here with me,’ ‘. . . then we have to have certain ground rules. It’s just a matter of information. All I’m asking is that you let me know when you’re likely to be in, if you’re likely to be in. All you have to do is pick up a phone.’

  Frances caught the expression in Charles’s eye and pursed her lips ruefully. ‘Yes, yes, yes. I know I’m sounding just like a nagging wife, but I’m afraid once we put ourselves into a cohabiting situation I’m going to come back with all the things wives usually nag about. It’s not what I want, Charles. I don’t want to be forced into a stereotype.’

  ‘No, no, I can see that.’

  ‘Look, my life is actually very well sorted at the moment. I’ve got used to living on my own. I’ve actually got quite efficient at it. And I don’t want to be taken back to square one.’

  ‘I don’t want to take you back to square one. Honestly, Frances.’ He took her hand, comforted by the familiar ridge of the old kitchen-knife scar. ‘I’m thinking in terms of square five at least. Maybe even square six.’

  She shook her head wryly.

  ‘And then, who knows, we might find that there’s a ladder on square six leading straight up to square seventy-four.’

  ‘More likely a snake to send us thumping down to square one again.’ But at least she smiled as she said it.

  Charles tightened the pressure on her hand. ‘Look, Frances, I really mean what I’m saying now. This last couple of weeks has been the best thing that’s happened for years. For me, nothing has ever replaced what there is between us.’

  ‘Though you’ve tested out a good few options on the way to that conclusion, haven’t you, Charles?’ said Frances with a beady look.

  He shook his head in exasperation. ‘Yes, all right. But that’s over now. That part of my life’s behind me.’

  ‘Oh yes?’

  ‘Yes. Other women . . . All that other women have ever shown me is that you’re the only woman who’s right for me. You’re what I want, Frances.’

  ‘Are you talking permanence here, Charles?’

  ‘Yes. Well, possibly . . . Maybe . . . I mean, obviously not in the short term.’

  ‘Oh, no. Obviously not.’

  ‘Nothing’s going to happen quickly. I just feel that there’s such a bond between us we should test it out, see how strong it really is. Try and get back together.’

  Frances was silent, but her expression didn’t show wholehearted conviction about what he was saying.

  ‘Look, I know there’ve been times in the past when I’ve been inconsiderate, when I’ve hurt you . . .’

  He let the pause lengthen. Then Frances said suddenly, ‘I’m sorry. You’re not expecting me to disagree, are you?’

  ‘No, of course I’m not.’ Mind you, some token contradiction wouldn’t have hurt. ‘But this time I am really determined to make it work. We’ve got so much to give each other, and I think we should try to make the best of the time we have left, and make the best of that time . . . together.’

  ‘The trouble with actors,’ said Frances, removing her hand, ‘is that they’re all full of shit, and full of half-remembered lines from shows they’ve been in. Go on, tell me, where did that last line you said come from?’

  Charles looked shamefaced. ‘Comedy called The Twang of a Heartstring. Hornchurch in the early seventies. Can still remember quite a lot of the lines from it, actually.’

  He could also still remember the review that the Hornchurch Herald had given his performance. ‘If Charles Paris was meant to be Love’s Young Dream, it suggested Love had been eating rather too much toasted cheese before going to bed.’

  He took her hand again. ‘All right, what I said was garbage, but the intention wasn’t garbage. I’m really determined to make this work, Frances.’

  Her face was still a conviction-free zone. ‘Even if it means making concessions?’

  ‘Of course.’

  ‘Living by the rules I dictate?’

  ‘Sure.’

  ‘Allowing me to continue having a life of my own? To have parts of my life that are not your business?’

  ‘Yes, all that.’

  ‘Mm.’ Frances was pensive for a moment, then came to a decision. ‘OK, let’s give it a whirl.’

  ‘Great.’ Charles squeezed her hand.

  ‘Right,’ she went on briskly. ‘Tonight I don’t want you here.’

  ‘Oh?’

  ‘Till after midnight. You can come back then.’

  ‘Thank you.’ A silence. ‘May I ask . . .?’

  ‘I thought you’d just agreed to allow me to have parts of my life that’re not your business.’

  ‘Well, yes, but –’

  ‘All right then. I’ve got a friend coming round.’

  ‘Oh. Anyone I know?’

  ‘No, Charles. Nobody you know.’

  After Frances had gone to school, Charles was left with a little niggle of disquiet. Not jealousy, surely? No, she’d just been playing a game with him. It was a small revenge for her. You come back late and pissed, I’ll be mysterious about some unnamed friend I’ve got. Tit for tat.

  What worried him more was that the niggle might presage a shift in his mood. He’d been so positive the last few weeks. Everything had been going so well. Now, suddenly, there was the professional threat of the unknown in the form of Alexandru Radulescu, and, privately, a new edginess in his relationship with Frances.

  Oh well, if I’m going to go down, I may as well go down properly. To compound his mood, he rang his agent, Maurice Skellern.

  ‘Yes, I had heard. I do keep my ear to the ground on my clients’ behalf, you know, Charles.’ Maurice’s voice was full of reproach at the idea that he wasn’t aware of Twelfth Night’s change of Director.

  ‘And do you know anything about him?’

  ‘Not a lot. Hasn’t been in this country long. Comes from Bulgaria, doesn’t he?’

  ‘Romania.’

  ‘Same difference. And he’s done a couple of productions over here that’ve got the chattering classes very excited. Gets all those reviews which use words like “radical” and “mould-breaking”.’

  ‘Yes,’ said Charles gloomily. ‘And “Radulescu’s production made one feel one was seeing an entirely different play.”’

  ‘That’s right. Now what paper was that
in?’

  ‘I just made it up.’

  ‘Really? I could have sworn I’ve read it somewhere quite recently.’

  ‘You probably have.’ Charles groaned. Might as well lower his mood even further. ‘Anything on the horizon . . . you know, workwise . . .?’

  The reproach in Maurice Skellern’s voice was now ladled on with a towel. ‘Greedy, Charles, greedy. Let me get my breath back. After all, I’ve got you a five-month contract with Asphodel.’

  ‘Gavin Scholes rang me direct and offered me that, Maurice. I told you about it.’

  ‘Ah, maybe, but I was the one who sorted out the deal.’

  ‘You accepted the first offer they made.’

  ‘Charles, Charles, when will you realise? What I do is a very finely tuned business. Involves a lot of very delicate decisions. Sometimes you have to push like mad, scrabble for more and more money from them. Other times you have to be subtle – sit back, hold your fire, live to fight another day.’

  ‘Funny it’s always other clients you do the scrabbling for. When it comes to me, on the other hand, you always seem to be holding your fire.’

  ‘Charles, that’s very cruel. If I didn’t know you so well, I’d find that extremely hurtful. You’ve no idea how much I do behind the scenes on your behalf.’

  ‘I’ve a nasty feeling I have, Maurice.’

  ‘Charles, trust me . . .’ How many times must Maurice have said that over the years. And every time Charles’d heard the words, they had prompted the identical reaction. ‘I assume you’re joking.’ And yet, in all their long associations, he’d never once vocalised the thought.

  ‘If I didn’t know what I was doing,’ Maurice went on, ‘ask yourself – would you still be one of my clients after all these years?’

  Yes, thought Charles Paris, savage with self-contempt, I would.

  “‘Approach, Sir Andrew. Not to be abed after midnight, is to be up betimes, and diluculo surgere, thou knowest –”’

  “‘Nay, by my troth, I know not; but I know that to be up late is to be up late.”’

  “‘A false conclusion!”’ Charles bellowed, wishing he hadn’t been up quite so late the night before. It had been stupid to engage Frances in conversation about how she’d spent her evening. The sensible course would have been to take the hint of her closed bedroom door and go off to sleep in the spare room. And that’s what he would have done if he hadn’t drunk so much. Still, he told himself with the wounded logic of someone who knows he’s in the wrong, it was her fault. If she turfs me out and I’m not allowed back in till after midnight, how does she imagine I’m going to spend the evening?

  “‘I hate it as an unfilled can,”’ Charles continued, thinking how much he’d welcome a filled can to irrigate his desiccated brain. He felt a bit gutty too; that really meant he’d had too much the night before. “‘To be up after midnight and to go to bed then is early; so that to go to bed after midnight is to go to bed betimes. Does not our life consist of the four elements?”’

  “‘Faith, so they say,”’ John B. Murgatroyd’s Sir Andrew Aguecheek weedily agreed, “‘but, I think, it rather consists of eating and drinking.’”

  And sex, thought Charles wistfully. He shouldn’t have put his hand on Frances’s shoulder the night before. He should have respected her privacy rather than trying it on. His behaviour had been juvenile and crass and she’d been absolutely right to tell him to leave her alone. Oh God. He hoped he hadn’t cast a permanent blight over his prospects of making love to Frances again. Why was he capable of such total idiocy?

  “‘Thou art a scholar,”’ Sir Toby Belch went on. ‘“Let us therefore eat and drink. Marian, I say! A stoup of wine!”’

  The assistant director stopped them there. He was still in charge of the first part of the morning’s rehearsal. Alexandru Radulescu had a meeting at the National Theatre and wouldn’t be with them till about twelve.

  ‘Just like to take it from the top again . . .’ the assistant director suggested nervously.

  ‘Anything specific wrong?’ asked Charles, hoping that the hangover wasn’t spoiling his performance.

  ‘No, not really. Just need a bit more contrast between you, I think. Sir Andrew really is knackered. All he wants to do is go to bed. So we need more of Sir Toby jollying him along. Be more of a party animal, Charles.’

  ‘Right, OK.’ It was a good point. In fact, the assistant director’s ideas were all good; he just didn’t have the personality to put them across with sufficient definition.

  Even through his hangover, Charles knew that the double act with John B. was going well. They looked good together. A long willowy Sir Andrew Aguecheek and a more substantial – thanks to the padding, Charles kept reassuring himself – Sir Toby Belch. A kind of Don Quixote and Sancho Panza in reverse. Then of course Charles would have his ruddied face, and John B. would make his as pale as milk. Yes, they’d look great.

  It was so good to be working on a classic. The relationship between Sir Toby and Sir Andrew had a kind of mythic quality. The crafty drunkard and the ineffectual dupe. The parts Shakespeare wrote were so solid, almost tactile, and yet with infinite nuances to be explored. Even the lines were easy to learn because they felt so right. Charles was really going to enjoy Sir Toby Belch – or at least he was as soon as he’d got rid of his hangover. His guts felt distinctly squittery. He had a nasty feeling he was going to have to rush to the Gents before too long.

  They pressed on through Act Two, Scene Three. Chad Pearson joined them and his rendering of another of Feste’s songs again reduced the rehearsal room to silence.

  “ ‘O mistress mine! Where are you roaming?

  O! stay and hear: your true love’s coming,

  That can sing both high and low.

  Trip no further, pretty sweeting;

  Journeys end in lovers meeting,

  Every wise man’s son doth know.”’

  They worked through to the end of the scene, though the cement-mixer rumbling of Charles’s stomach was getting louder and louder. He felt sure everyone could hear it. Thank God I’m not doing a radio, he thought.

  He just made it to the end. “‘Come, come, I’ll go burn some sack; ’tis too late to go to bed now. Come, knight; come, knight.”’

  ‘Very nice,’ said the assistant director. ‘Very nice indeed. Erm, I’d just like to –’

  ‘Sorry, must dash,’ panted Charles Paris.

  It was a close call getting to the Gents in time and, as he squatted back exhausted on the lavatory, he swore he’d never touch another drop of alcohol. It was insane, putting his body through this kind of punishment.

  Charles was pulling up his trousers when he heard the sound of two men coming in to use the urinals. Instinctively, as everyone does in that situation, he froze, embarrassed to give away his presence in the cubicle.

  The men were talking, but in a language Charles had never heard before. One of the voices was familiar, though. Yes, in spite of the words, the deep tones were recognizable as those of Vasile Bogdan.

  It seemed reasonable to assume that he was talking Romanian; and that the man he was talking to was Alexandru Radulescu.

  Charles couldn’t be sure, but in amongst the strange words, he thought he heard the director mention Gavin Scholes. There was a sound of zipping-up, then the footsteps and voices moved away.

  Vasile Bogdan let out a harsh laugh as the door was opened. Then, in English, he said, ‘I told you it would be all right, Alex. Gavin’s out of the way, and you’ve got the job.’

  Chapter Six

  ‘OK.’ ALEXANDRU Radulescu moved his spread hands outwards in a that’s-enough-of-that gesture. ‘Twelfth Night is a play about sex.’

  Well, only partly, thought Charles. It’s more a play about romance, romantic ideals and how they frequently mismatch with reality.

  ‘All plays are about sex,’ the director continued in his heavily accented voice. ‘All life is about sex, if you like, and so of course Shakespeare, who reflected life, writ
es only about sex . . .’

  Now just a minute, hang on there. In Charles’s view, Shakespeare wrote about everything. That included sex, sure, but to call sex his overriding obsession seemed an unnecessarily simplistic and Freudian interpretation.

  ‘. . . and nowhere is that more true than in Twelfth Night. When I first read the play . . .’

  Which was probably last night, was Charles’s instant reaction. He was having no difficulty being uncharitable to this small, wiry, dark-eyed Romanian. It wasn’t just from suspicion raised by what he’d overheard in the Gents. Alexandru Radulescu had a deliberately provocative manner. He seemed to enjoy putting people’s backs up. As yet none of the company had raised any objections to what he was saying, but when that did happen, Charles felt the director would enjoy slapping them down.

  ‘When I first read the play, I thought, sex, sex, sex – that’s what’s happening here. Exciting young sex with Sebastian.’ He flashed a smile at Russ Lavery, who grinned back knowingly. ‘Sebastian and Olivia, yes, but also Sebastian and Antonio.’

  Charles groaned inwardly. He hated productions that imposed twentieth-century values on the society of Shakespeare’s time. In the sixteenth century there had been a strong tradition of masculine friendship and loyalty. A line like Antonio’s to Sebastian, ‘If you will not murder me for my love, let me be your servant’, did not imply a full-blown homosexual affair, though Charles had a nasty feeling that’s how a director like Alexandru Radulescu would interpret it – no doubt with lots of gratuitous male kissing and mime of sexual congress. The good burghers of Great Wensham weren’t going to like that.

  ‘There is also old sex: disgusting geriatric groping between Sir Toby Belch and Maria.’

  Now just a minute . . . Charles had always thought there was something rather heartwarming in the relationship between Sir Toby and Maria. He tried to assess how old Alexandru Radulescu was. Early thirties, perhaps. Certainly of the age that reckoned sex was turned off like a bathtap at the age of fifty. Huh, he’s got a thing or two to learn. But that thought brought a pang of unease, reminding Charles of the previous evening’s scene with Frances.