by John Gardner
‘What did your agent tell you?’
‘Well, Bernie called and said you wanted to see me. I thought it was just the old....Well, you know...Malta. Then he told me that you were going to Shireston and wanted me to play Juliet.’
A waiter circled the table like a lone vulture. She took another deep breath. ‘It’s a gimmick isn’t it? You really want me for a tiny part — which would be great.’ The melodic laugh again. ‘Honestly, just to work would be terrific.’
‘There’s no gimmick unless you make one. Let’s order and then I’ll talk about it. One thing though...’ he laid his hand over hers, ‘The offer is not payment, for Malta or anything else. I want you down at Shireston as an actress. And that’s the one reason I want you down there: whatever else.’
The matter which, more than any other, nagged and worried in the back of Douglas’s mind was the question of the new publicity department.
It was now mid-September. Announcements would have to be made before the end of the following month and he wanted the whole deal handled from Shireston. That would set the pattern for the future.
The best Theatre public relations people were already at Stratford, or Chichester, or with the National. Outside that circle it meant going to one of the larger P.R. firms which would not suit the situation.
There was one name, however, that kept reasserting itself: Adrian Rolfe.
Rolfe had backed out of Theatre P.R. work about a year before, in order to join one of the big publicity houses that had been courting him for years. In this instance, the promise of fast promotion and an eventual seat on the board had been the carrots dangled and accepted.
With an impeccable army background, Rolfe had a genius for organization. His contacts were spread amazingly wide, and, having worked in the Theatre, and around actors, for fifteen years or so, he knew all the tricks: the sensitive areas; the ways of smooth-tongued diplomacy; the subtle bribes. He could take a mundane story and place it, with sniper’s accuracy, so that it would get maximum coverage. He was also gifted with impeccable good taste when it came to matters of style for the layout of programmes and advertising copy.
A brilliant gem, but with the flaw of a waspish tongue which made him occasional enemies within the profession. One was Douglas, with whom Adrian Rolfe had indulged himself in a stand-up public shouting match, over a minor error in the wording of a press release concerning the famed production of Peer Gynt.
Douglas, who had been in the wrong, lost the battle of words. Now he thought hard before attempting to woo Adrian Rolfe into the Shireston fold. Under normal circumstances it would be difficult enough, but, with old wounds still festering, the negotiations would have to include a humiliation which Douglas did not relish.
In the end Douglas became convinced that, if he could possibly be persuaded, Adrian Rolfe was the man for the job. He decided that the festival must come before his own pride and some approach had to be made. Yet, still side-stepping the issue he took Revill Sutcliffe into his confidence, asking the agent to start sounding out the ground. An actual meeting would have to wait, like a hundred other things, until he returned from America.
Slowly things were taking shape. Terms were agreed for Catchier and Kapstein, though Douglas still had to speak to the actors on a personal level.
Ronnie and Art worked steadily and were making a little progress. Each evening, Douglas met Carol. It became a kind of habit. The meeting of two people who could talk on a different level after Douglas had completed a day filled with telephone calls, lists and the interminable problem of dovetailing appointments into an ever-tightening schedule.
Basil Daley had loaned them an office, awaiting repair and decoration, above an Indian Restaurant in Rupert Street on the fringes of Soho.
When the day there was finally through, Douglas would walk up and meet Carol, usually outside the Swiss Centre gleaming with watches and posters of green slopes, chalet-backed and overhung by mountains.
They would dine and talk. He regularly kissed her good night on her doorstep, like some uncertain teenager; and there was nothing else until the night before he left for Vegas.
For once, Douglas went to pick her up from her flat off the Bayswater Road. At the top of the steps by the front door he pressed the buzzer next to the sliver of cardboard on which her name was written in careful, schoolgirl copper-plate. The intercom speaker crackled into life and her distorted voice asked who it was.
‘I’ll unlock the door, Douglas. Come straight up. Third floor. My name’s on that door as well. I’ll leave it open. Wait for me would you, I’m having a shower.’
Slowly he climbed the stairs and entered the flat. A large bed-sitting room, unspectacular, but clean and comfortable. Doors off to the kitchen and bathroom, from which he could hear the sound of the shower.
He called out, and she replied that she would only be a minute. Her dress was laid out on the bed next to her underwear.
The naked coffee body, beaded with water under the shower.
His instincts tweaked a quick and violent reaction from his loins, balls tingling and organ suddenly straining. He crossed to the bed and allowed his hand to touch her dress lightly, then the bra and pants. He felt hot, an intruder.
‘Pretty?’ she asked from the bathroom door, shrouded in a towel. ‘I’m sorry love, I’ve been rushing about all day. I’m terribly late.’
He walked to her and took hold of the towel. For a second she hesitated, pulling away with a half ‘No’ forming on her lips.
Then the damp cloth fell from her and there was the skinny figure again, arching towards him in all its glorious golden brown sleekness.
They made love for three hours, went out for a quick meal and returned to her flat.
Then, before he had time to think, Douglas was on a jet doing the long haul over the pole to San Francisco where he did not have time to call Jen, but did make time to cable Carol, before getting the local jet to Vegas: hot, sticky, a wild maelstrom of mass pleasure at one hell of a price. Gaudy, horrific in its pressures, yet slick as artificial silk in the manner of taking your money and making you feel good about it.
During the afternoon he spoke briefly to Tommy Carr, Thomas’s manager, giving away no details and concealing his dislike for the arrogance of the big man, ring-decorated and overdressed, acting as though he was St. Peter next to Joe Thomas’s God.
Thomas called later and it was obvious that the man did remember their one meeting in London. Somehow they had found themselves next to one another at a movie party, and for two hours they had knocked holes in the world and then put it back together. But that was in London. Here, Thomas was on his own ground and far from being alone, or even remotely lonely.
‘See you in my suite after tonight’s show, eh Doug?’
‘I’ll be there.’
‘Okay baby, I ain’t goin’ no place tonight.’
And here it was, the end of the show, with Joe Thomas curving the note up to a deep finish.
All I glean,
All to you.
Joe could feel the sweat dripping from him. Running into his eyes. He needed a drink and cigarette, but he still punched the energy from every pore because that was the way he always played it. Throttle full open, heading straight for that mountain into which, one day, he knew, he would crash. But the mountain was still a long way off.
Half opening his eyes he had to blink the sweat away. He dropped an arm and let the applause, the cheering and stomping of feet, flow into him, embracing him. It was food. Joe’s fix, the recharge. This was the payback and the payola for all the bad years, the hoofing and insults, the common indignities he shared with his black brothers.
He allowed his body to sway and his head to roll so that he saw the bowl of faces: smiling, laughing, a tear here and there near the surface, and the hands like a sea of acceptance swelling and bubbling around him.
He made a quick gesture with both hands, shaking his head, as though warding off praise. At last there was silence.
‘Thank you folks. Thank you. All good things must come to an end. I wish I could go on for another two hours.’ Applause. Quieten them again. ‘No. Really. Thank you. Thank you. I have a limited time here and it’s just not possible. I ain’t allowed no more time.’ Groans. Quieten those quickly and get ready to high tail it out but fast. It’s been a long night.
‘Quite sincerely folks, I want to say what a great thrill it’s been for me tonight. I mean that. You don’t know what a thrill and honour it is for me.’ A scatter of applause. ‘No, really. You’ve been the best audience this stay in Vegas. Hope you’ve enjoyed it. Come back again real soon, I’m here for another four weeks. God bless you and let’s live together in peace, hu?’
Jesus H Christ, he thought as the hands started again, every white bastard in this room I can take, and I can screw every and all of their plump little wives just by twitching my finger. Shit to you. Shit to you all.
The boys were at the exit to flank him and hustle him through and into the performers’ elevator and up to his suite on the sixth floor.
‘You were great tonight Joe.’
‘Really great, you knocked ‘em baby.’
There was another ring of applause as he entered the suite…
About thirty people were there, making little impression on the long wide drawing-room. Tommy Carr was smiling his wide insincere smile. Who else? Two or three folk he had taken to during the first couple of weeks in Vegas, and the ‘personal friends’: leeches, there to tell him what a great show it had been. Monro, the bartender, stood smiling and white jacketed. The whole place, furniture, junk art, expensive non-decor and all, thought Joe, looked like an airport departure lounge.
‘You want a massage, Joe?’ From Smiley, one of the boys on his right.
‘Nah. I’ll settle for a shower. Bring me a big, and I mean big, Bacardi and coke.’
Smiley nodded to Jones, the other boy. Smiley took his job seriously and rarely moved more than ten feet away from Thomas.
Joe summoned up the energy and began the dancing little walk across the pile to the bedroom. It was a question of running the gauntlet of approbation. The distant smiling faces down in the main room had nothing on this. These geeks wanted to touch you and fawn. It helped, but the same old routine began to pall after a time. Joe was ready for new kicks.
‘Joe I’ve never seen anything like it. You were a sensation.’ He was a heavy, pudgy-faced man in a lightweight tartan tux, armed with a blonde. Through the off-focus vision, the desire for a drink and other needs, Joe remembered that the blonde was the reason he had taken a liking to the guy, who was turning to fat and would not see forty-eight again. His young wife was meticulously bored and a good twenty-two.
Tommy Carr reached the bedroom door at about the same time as Joe.
‘I got four in tonight, Joe. Over by the bar.’
Joe inclined his head. Four girls and a couple of men chatted with the animation of basking lizards on a hot day.
‘You want now, baby?’ asked Tommy.
‘Not them.’ Joe’s head snapped round. ‘That. If you can prise it away from fat gut.’ He indicated the blonde with the man in the tartan tux. Tommy nodded.
‘No sweat though.’ Joe looked at him, almost a threat in his eyes.
‘I understand.’
‘Anything else I should know?’
‘I’ll join you in a minute.’ Tommy was away across the room and Joe, Smiley at his elbow, slipped through the door.
The cigarette tasted good. Smiley held it for him while he showered, then helped rub down his boss, sprinkling the friction lotion on the tough, hard body.
Dry and feeling more like himself, sensing the urge to continue, Joe took the drink that had been brought through, rinsing his mouth, throwing back his head and taking great gulps.
‘Shit man.’ He shook himself like a dazed boxer. ‘That’s been a rough couple of days.’
‘Mr. Carr is waiting.’ Smiley seldom smiled, hence his name:
‘Send him in and wait outside.’ Joe slipped into a towelling robe, crossed the room to the dressing table, looked broodingly at the single tape cassette lying there and nodded. Finally he picked it up, slid it into the machine, part of the built-in equipment of the bedroom, and pressed the key.
His own voice came gliding from the hidden speakers. A backing of muted strings and percussion. The lyric was sad, haunting, yet he would bet it would lay a few ghosts out there in the world of true love and romance. His voice dipped and swerved softly to the words: about a girl who was going away and how he knew that was the best thing that could happen, though he was still fighting it and would wait for ever. All the clichés, all the spiked darts to reach the emotions of the young, the desires of the middle-aged, and the memories of the old. He heard the door close.
‘I got Mrs. Delroy outside. Man has she got hot pants for you.’
‘Good track.’ Joe pointed to the tape machine. ‘Who’s Mrs. Delroy?’
‘The blonde broad with the gutsy husband. He’s drinking himself to death out there with some of the boys. He won’t know if his wife’s coming or going.’
‘She’ll be doing both before long.’ Joe nodded wisely. ‘Still a good track.’
‘It’s very good. Pete’s pleased with that one and seven more, but he wants another four for the album. We go to L.A. at six o’clock tomorrow morning. You do the session and Pete’s promised to get you back here by eight, in time to rest up before the show,’
‘Real nice of him. I get a rest. So what else is new?’
‘That British director’s here.’
‘British director?’
‘Douglas Silver, the one you got buddies with at some party. Remember? You spoke to him this afternoon.’
‘Yea. Yea, I spoke to him. He’s class, Tommy. Shakespeare, Ibsen, Chekhov. Legit. Find out what he wants?’
‘He wants to see you. Hush-hush.’ Tommy grinned his wide grin and put a finger to his lips.
Joe nodded again. ‘We’ll keep him waiting a while. Send Mrs. Delroy in, and I’m not to be disturbed. Not yet anyhow, and not by the husband.’
‘Anything you say, Joe.’
‘You got it. Anything I say.’
The track on the tape had changed to a bouncy soul number by the time the blonde tapped at the door and entered in answer to Joe’s call.
‘You come right in Mrs. Delroy and make yourself comfortable and at home.’ He did an Uncle Tom around her, realizing why he had been attracted to her a couple of nights before.
For a blonde the girl gave off flesh radiations, each move almost calculated to condition a man into trying to make her. And she does it all, thought Joe, without even trying. We’ll see.
‘You like a drink Mrs. Delroy?’
‘I’ve had a drink Joe. And the name’s Janice.’
‘Uh-hu.’ He stood in the centre of the room in front of the bed as though thinking. ‘Janice? You know why I invited you in here?’
She stood up and took two paces towards him.
‘Because you have a reputation to keep up. You need stimulating and you don’t use whores. You do the picking and you pick only the best.’
He grinned and let the robe slip from his shoulders. ‘So here I am white mama. Take me.’
There was a sharp hiss as she drew in her breath on seeing how magnificently he was endowed. Like a black stallion, gleaming and proud. A jet lance on which to impale herself.
Carefully she reached up behind her neck to the fastening of the little black dress, the inevitable evening uniform of vacationing wives. Her right hand pulled downwards on the zipper and the dress fell to the floor. She was naked underneath. White and unmarked where her bra and bikini pants usually were, a light reddish brown elsewhere, over the areas that had been exposed to the sun.
Joe stood quite still, looking at her with a touch of disgust on his face.
‘I’m ready Joe.’ She came towards the bed, but he caught her by one shoulder.
‘You want
a bit of Joe? You want to be able to go back to Cleveland or St. Paul or Buffalo, or wherever else home is, and whisper to the other adulterous wives at the coffee morning that you made Joe Thomas? You had that big black guy who’s so wonderful on TV? The star? You had him right here on that great trip to Las Vegas?’
‘No Joe.’ She whined, her brow creasing with incomprehension. ‘I just want to give you something in return for all you’ve given. Joe I’ve watched you. On television. The first time I saw you live was in New York and I’ve seen you every night here. While you’re on it’s like you’re doing it to me. To me personally. Give it to me now, Joe.’
He rested both hands on her shoulders. ‘It ain’t as easy as that lady. You want a bit of Joe then you’ve got to pray for it. On your knees. And you’ve got to eat it baby. If you want jungle juice you’ve got to drink at the fountain.’ His hands pressed harder on her shoulders.
She opened her eyes wide. For a moment his stomach turned over in a butterfly panic. He thought she was going to run straight out there among the others. It had happened once with a quickie like this and the aftermath had been unpleasant.
‘I...’ She tried. ‘I...don’t...’
‘You don’t do that kind of thing? Like hell darling.’
‘No. I do. I do it. See Joe.’
And she was on her knees. He encouraged her by sliding his hands over her breasts. Like hell she did it. Regularly and eagerly by the way she licked her tongue across him, taking him into her mouth and pulling like a famished baby at the breast. She even clung on as his body jerked in three fast spasms, only letting go and lunging sideways for the bedside table and the box of Kleenex when it was all through.
Joe sighed and sat down on the bed. The blonde was stretched out at his feet, her body going rigid and then relaxing in a quick regular motion.
Joe laughed quietly. ‘You get yours as well?’
She nodded violently, her face averted.
‘Well there you are. Another dream come true. Thanks baby.’
She got to her feet, making heavy weather of it, and started to dress, do her hair and repair the fractured make-up.
