by John Gardner
‘Any chance of what, Asher?’ Ronnie remembered Julia Philips and her dull Phebe in As You Like It. ‘We can probably let you have one of the small double flats we’ve got at the house if that’ll keep you happy and contented.’
Asher clenched his teeth. ‘There wouldn’t be anything going for her? For Julia? In the company I mean.’
Ronnie frowned, thinking for a few seconds. ‘We still have to fit in some supers. It would only be a walk on. I’ve got to be honest with you, Asher, I couldn’t recommend her for anything else.’
Asher nodded tightly. ‘I know. I couldn’t recommend her for anything else either, but if she doesn’t come down, and if she’s not working, I can’t promise that I’m going to be left in peace.’ He looked up. ‘Could you really fix that for me?’
‘Yes, I think I can do that. But she’ll have to behave and I think you should talk to Douglas about your personal situation before we start work.’
The journey back to Manchester seemed to take twice as long as the trip down, and, while Ronnie’s offer helped to quieten his fears, Asher still sensed a pre-battle dread, not knowing to what he would return, aware that, even if he had gone back with some plum role for her, nothing would be truly right or satisfactory for Julia.
The train was half an hour late into Manchester and it was almost midnight by the time he reached the bed sitting-room. It was in darkness and he left the door slightly ajar so that a crack of light would partially illuminate the room yet not disturb Julia. But when he reached the bed, Asher realized that Julia was not in it. He whirled in a moment of fear and apprehension, a flash in the mind that Julia might have boiled into real violence and was about to strike. But there was nothing except shadows and the wedge of light shafting in through the door.
Asher went over and switched on the main overhead light. The room was tidy, only the wardrobe doors swung open on their hinges showing him that Julia’s coats and dresses were gone. She had left only one trace: scrawled in crimson lipstick across the dressing table mirror two words: FUCK YOU.
By Monday morning Douglas Silver had made up his mind about Carol and the immediate steps he should take. On the previous evening she had pulled his mind back on to her problem and he was forced to talk gently to her, asking if she did not think he could get a better Juliet from her because of their more intimate knowledge of each other.
‘I would have thought it might have been better if I felt this way about the young man you’ve got to play Romeo,’ she retorted. ‘Anyway, you can start really worrying when Othello goes into rehearsal. What’s the tradition? All great Othellos sleep with their Desdemonas. What chance your beloved Jennifer, Doug?’
He bypassed that particular drop of venom and their conversation continued. In the end, Carol seemed more quiet and able to accept the situation, but desire again warmed, boiled and flooded. Douglas tried to resist, but he was no match for his own sensuality and they made love again: a hard, throbbing contest taking them up to the mutual peak of satisfaction where all problems were dissolved for a few leaping moments.
‘There’s only one thing, Douglas,’ Carol said as he was leaving. ‘Keep Jennifer as far away from me as you can. Please love, and I’m sorry this had to happen.’
After a night’s sleep, Douglas decided that the obvious and only course was the simple remedy. Keep Carol working as hard as possible once she got down to Shireston.
***
As soon as he arrived in the office, Douglas went over to the casting chart which covered almost one entire wall and showed at a glance who was already signed and to what roles; which roles were still available, and the names of possible actors and actresses free to join the festival company.
‘Who’s Julia Philips?’ he asked Ronnie Gregor after looking at the chart for a few seconds.
‘Court lady, servant, attendant, citizen. She’s Asher Grey’s bird. Plenty of experience: I thought you’d want to keep him happy, she’s playing middle roles at Stanthorpe with him. Okay?’
There was something about Ronnie’s manner which disturbed Douglas: just a feeling, nothing concrete, only those tiny emanations which carry coded messages and symbols. There was an unease coming from Ronnie, as though his action regarding Julia Philips was wrong and he knew it; but Douglas left the matter and returned to the board.
He looked for several minutes before tracing out exactly what he wanted; then he turned back to Ronnie and asked him to telephone Carol Evans’s agent to see if she would countenance playing Nerissa in The Merchant as well as Juliet.
‘Tell her it’s a personal request from me,’ he said, ‘I’ll call Carol tonight to talk about it.’
Veronica Turnbull, Asher Grey’s agent, came through during the morning and Ronnie Gregor quickly went over the details of the proposed contract with her. Naturally, she said that she needed twenty-four hours to think about it and talk with Asher, but she was a sensible woman, not pushy, knowing what was best for her client: there would be little argument from her.
Around noon Tony Holt called Douglas with his story about the Shireston bell and the news that he had spoken to the vicar and the diocesan authorities and there seemed to be no problem about the festival taking a copy of the original drawing and using it as a symbol. Douglas told him that he could not obviously commit them before he had seen a copy, and also he would have to discuss the matter with Adrian Rolfe. He did not dare leave Adrian out of a matter like this.
‘You’ll get copies in the morning,’ chuckled Tony, ‘I’ve already had it photostated.’
Douglas had to meet Maurice Kapstein for lunch, predictably at Jack Isow’s, the only place Kapstein ever lunched when he was in London: Soho’s famous Jewish restaurant where celebrities had chairs named in their honour — names emblazoned on the high backs.
Maurice Kapstein certainly had his own chair: Maurice Kapstein was undoubtedly a celebrity. For nearly fifty years Kapstein had been in show business, originally as a stand-up comedian, exploiting Jewish humour in the London music halls long before it became fashionable in the United States (for years, Maurice Kapstein’s catch-phrase was, ‘Don’t trust anyone: not even your own father, yet.’). He worked in radio and, for at least twenty years, played small solid supporting roles in British films, ranging from low comedy to high drama. In this way the public was ready to accept his face as a known commodity when he starred, as a wily prize fight promoter, in the pilot of a proposed television series titled The Game Game. The series took hold, and Solly Jacobs, the character played by Kapstein, became a household name, the scripts containing all the aspects that are supposed to appeal to the regular television fanatic: sport, crime, violence, a tincture of sex, big business, politics and a spray of humour. Kapstein’s success was total.
When Douglas arrived at the restaurant, Kapstein was already installed at a centre table, the sole attention of two waiters and the proprietor. Seated, one would take him for a short man, for Kapstein’s height was in his legs: in fact he was a strangely proportioned man: long legs, the short, stout body and a magnificent huge head with features which looked as though they had been moulded quickly with rough hands from clay, great dark eyes overhung with bushy brows, a large aquiline nose and sensuous lips, the whole topped with a mane of white hair. The impression was one of immense appetite and strength.
‘Douglas Silver.’ He called loudly. ‘I’m over here, come and join me.’ The voice had strong melody touched with a carefully fostered accent. Douglas smiled and went over to the table. Everything Kapstein did seemed to be orchestrated with extravagance. The actor rose and held out his arms in a wide gesture. ‘At last we are to work together. My boy I can’t tell you how long it is that I have wanted to work with Douglas Silver. It’s a happy day, hu?’
Douglas nodded, knowing that he would not get much of a chance to talk until Kapstein had winded himself. He extended his hand which was immediately taken in both of Kapstein’s paws, held with an unexpected gentleness.
‘Nice to see you, Morrie,’ murmured Douglas, e
xtricating himself from Kapstein’s grasp and taking his seat.
‘Good, hu?’ beamed Kapstein. ‘The menu you don’t need, I’ve already ordered. I arrange it all, yet: the herrings in sour cream with apple, okay? Then a little salt beef with a stuffed chicken neck, potato latke? Sauerkraut? That is good?’
Douglas nodded like a buddha, knowing that it would be churlish to snub Kapstein’s hospitality. ‘Good, but rich Morrie. Very rich.’
Kapstein nodded and leaned back. ‘Now you want to talk to me, hu?’
‘It’ll keep.’
‘No, we can eat and talk. No problem. What you want to know? You want me to tell you about the Shylock I’m going to give you? That will be a performance, Douglas, ah-ah.’ A loud guffaw before going into an absurdly overdrawn characterization. Ships are but boards, sailors but men. There be land-rats, land-thieves — I mean pirates...’ He pronounced it pie-rats and bellowed with laughter again. ‘Three thousand ducats...for three months...Antonio shall become bound...How about that Douglas? You like me to talk about Shylock?’
‘I think it’ll wait until we start rehearsals Morrie. I only thought it right we should meet.’ He shrugged. ‘So that I could make sure you’re happy about the season and the company. To make certain that you’re going to be there.’
The herrings arrived, Kapstein grinning between mouthfuls. ‘Happy? You ask if I am happy? Now your Ronnie Gregor, a smooth one, hu? That one’d have a Christian nun’s knickers off before she’d know it. A smart boy you got there, Douglas. Too damned smart. Had me signed, sealed and stamped before I could make any terms in my own favour.’
‘Your agent said you were happy.’ A twinge of alarm in the back of Douglas’s mind which must have shown on his face for Maurice Kapstein laughed loudly once more.
‘Don’t take me so seriously, Douglas. All the time I’m getting people around me who take me seriously. Television? On the set they take me seriously: I pretend to go into great rages, this is not right; that’s not right; the make-up is bad; the lighting’s wrong; the script is terrible. They all believe me and do everything I ask. People are strange, I think they must be a little frightened of me.’
‘I’m not frightened of you, Maurice.’ Douglas said it with gravity.
‘Ahh,’ as though it revealed much. ‘There is one thing though, Douglas.’
‘Yes.’ Wary.
‘At your Shireston Festival will there be room for my concubines?’
‘Your what?’
‘Don’t tell me Ronnie didn’t say anything? This is one of my conditions, Douglas. If I come to act for you, out there in the country, away from civilization, from all the niceties of life, then I need at least twenty concubines. Young, good ones, I don’t mind if they’re not all kosher, shiksas I don’t mind. Heey...’ he grumbled a long laugh, rising from the stomach. ‘Don’t worry, Douglas, I’ll provide my own concubines from whatever materials you’ve got down there. They all come flocking to Morrie. Boy, you’re looking at one of the great yentzers. You know what a yentzer is?’
‘A sexual performer I guess.’
‘You guess right. That’s me, Douglas. At my age. Sixty-five and still going strong: I am a great consolation to the middle-aged, because it is the young ones who come to me. The beautiful young ones, ripe as peaches, they come and enjoy or I spank their little tochas then they enjoy and go away happy. They say, “I have been with a man of sixty-five years and he’s more powerful than any young man; he is like a bull.” Bless their little hearts. That’s how I stay young, Douglas. Like a bull.’
Like an old ram, thought Douglas: like everybody else in the profession he had heard stories about Kapstein and knew the man’s reputation as a lecher, but he had never heard the actor boast about it.
Douglas suddenly felt swamped by other people’s problems. Why, in this particular profession, did they all become screwed up? He had once heard a psychiatrist say that you could not tell which were the worst, the so-called aristocracy or creative people. They gave so much yet they were like children and their private lives were a morass of difficulties. If it wasn’t women then it was men or boys, or pills, or drink, or, with women, women. Douglas knew also that he was within the reach of temptation. So much wasted time, worrying, fighting, mistrusting, hating, screwing, searching, guilt. Escaping? Yes, creative people lived for escape. Actors, directors and writers never escaped in their work, even in their fictions, because, strangely, their work brought them too close to reality and the pain of life. For an actor to really get inside a character was to bring himself hard up against life. One needed another form of escape; another tunnel: into the glass, the vagina, the rectum, the mouth, the ear, the armpits, the breasts, the hand, or the bottle-top leading to the capsules.
Douglas swung round towards the actor, face set in uncompromising severity. ‘Morrie, I’m the director of the Shireston Festival. By rights I should be able to say, “Treat me like a father. Bring all your troubles to me.” But it isn’t like that any more. I’m a young director and in many ways that’s tough on you older and more experienced people. My job is to form a company: a group of actors and actresses who are so welded together that they work as a unit for the whole season. I understand that the leading actors in that group are more talented, and more experienced than anyone else, but I’m in no position to pander to prima donas. Prima donas are yesterday.’
‘Prima donas: prima schmonas,’ smiled Kapstein, unbelievably glib.
‘No, I’m serious Maurice.’ Douglas held up a hand. ‘Things have changed. You will get the respect your position grants you, but you must be willing to work as a member of the ensemble. I can’t build that team if any one person is going to bug the works with temperamental or private demands.’
‘Douglas.’ Maurice Kapstein spread his fingers, the palm so his hands downwards, his face taking on a half smile, a hurt look. ‘Douglas, you don’t think I’m going to be difficult? I understand your problems. Any trouble, you just come to me. Okay? I know what a weight this must be. Forget it, Morrie Kapstein won’t let you down.’ He gave a great tensing movement, hunching his shoulders, then relaxing with the big smile which turned his lips up sharply at the corners. ‘Now we talk about my Shylock, hu?’
‘No, I think we talk about your Shylock when we’ve got the whole company together.’
Douglas felt more than usually depressed returning to the office: a depression spawned by the clash of personalities and the ensuing chaos that could result. Back in the office there was a message from Carol asking him to call her. As an act of defiant cowardice he postponed the call until the privacy of evening, telling Ronnie that he was out if she rang the office.
Eventually he got through to her around seven-thirty.
‘Douglas, what’re you playing at?’ Her voice faintly aggressive.
‘What do you mean, playing at? I don’t play at anything, love.’
‘Nerissa, that’s what I mean. I get these odd messages from my agent. Mr. Silver would take it as a personal favour if you would play Nerissa as well as Juliet.’
‘Didn’t you get a message that I’d call you tonight?’
Silence. Clicks on the line, the constant backdrop of the Post Office Telephone Service.
‘Yes,’ said Carol, ‘yes, I got that message.’
‘Then trust me. I’ve called you.’
‘And?’
‘And I’d like you to play Nerissa as well as Juliet. A lot of people are going to double up. Joe Thomas is going to play your papa in Romeo, Jennifer’s doing Lady Anne in Richard III as well as Desdemona. Many others. I thought you’d be pleased.’
Again silence. Then—
‘Come over and talk about it, Douglas. Please.’
‘I don’t really think...’
‘I know what you think, and I know it isn’t wise, darling, but I need...I want...Christ Douglas please come over.’
Jen’s voice whispering in his head, Doug sweetheart, it’s mine isn’t it? Only mine? nobody else. Please nobody
else. That was, oddly, a thing of desperate importance to her. Even Jen, with her liberated mind and large intellect, needed his sexuality to be hers alone. She would tenderly place a hand on him and whisper, It’s like owning some secret precious object, darling. Just knowing that nobody else can look, touch or have its pleasure helps keep away the evil spirits.
Jen was far away and this could not possibly hurt her. This was different, it was a question of the coming season and the foundation of the company. Jen need never know: need have no fears. He slid a curtain of darkness around the figure of Jen within him.
‘I’ll be around as soon as I can get a cab.’
He did not even hear Carol Evans’s harshly breathed ‘Thank you’.
They did not hesitate: going to her bed within seconds of his arrival, Carol’s body far more awake and aware than his, yet her skill swiftly goaded his passion and ability so that their sweating pleasure returned again and again: white on black, black on white, her body wet with him and his with her, drooping then erect, her nipples changing to his touch, her mouth around him encompassing his being, and his tongue within her belly: then, side by side, lips locked, bodies fastened close, mounting to a culmination again...to saturation point.
The light was still on and she was asleep, the need appeased, the sleep deep and rhythmic as their acts. Douglas saw the room in flashes as he moved his eyes: the paperbacked books on the shelf : Stalin. Mao T se-Tung. Going To The River. The Pillow Fight. Mountolive. The City Boy. Others whose titles he could not read at this distance, squashed as he was in the narrow clean sheeted bed. The lampshade, white, now cream where the nicotine of broken nights had changed its colour, the stand itself a single ionic column; near the base an ashtray, a heavy piece of stone with a smooth bowl, a filter of ash and a pile of ugly ends. He could see their last pair, smoked before the night’s final bout and, like a harsh sudden jagged cut, he remembered a blue ashtray and a pair of cigarette ends. In Paris? Rome? London? It did not matter because they belonged to Jen and himself, not long ago when the night had been as seething and splendidly wild as this, if not more so (he could not make comparisons: the man was wrong who said it was the same thing with different bodies). Guilt, as painful as fire, terrifying as a near miss, flooded home and he wanted to leave the sleeping girl. A sentimental lyric, half-heard, swung through his mind:
