Distant Music

by Charlotte Bingham

  Not quite flash enough in looks to be put straight into film, not quite mature enough to be cast in television or snapped up by the Royal Shakespeare, he found, to his chagrin, that he was not quite as marketable as he had hoped. He had quite set his heart on joining one of the permanent companies when Tad Protheroe stepped in and, with one eye on the slender profits to be made from Shakespearean apprenticeships, seemed determined to put Oliver off.

  ‘You can spend your whole life in one of these big companies,’ Tad had intoned, ‘you truly can, earning no more than seventy-five pounds a week, and that is top money. Oh yes, I know’ – he had held up one majestic hand – ‘you will play everything, you will be the talk of the town, here and there, but you will, finally, have played them all – and I mean all – you will finally find yourself cast aside as too old for this or that, and too young for the truly Senior roles. And so, panic-stricken, you will start to cast around for film and television parts, and having lost the whole of your youth to the pursuit of Shakespeare you will find that the parade has passed you by, old boy, just passed you by.’

  Here Tad had paused to hitch up the trousers of his pin-striped suit, which on account of his shape were very large, the legs appearing to Oliver as having been cut in such a way as to be slightly frightening to the younger members of the profession.

  Following the judicious heave to the Savile Row suiting, Tad gave Oliver the deep and admonishing look of the seasoned I’ve seen them all come and go West End agent.

  ‘No, what you want to do, old boy, at your age, is to get out to the provinces and play everything but Shakespeare. You have done Shakespeare at drama school. Now it’s time to get moving on the light comedies, get out of tights and into a suit, do modern plays. You don’t want to spend your life washing off body make-up after the performance, rinsing off the old bole before haring off to the Dirty Duck to discuss some poncy review in the Sunday Times, only to wake up years later to find you’re ninety, do you? No, you want to find out more about yourself, do everything, the Agatha Christies, the – well – you know – do the other things. So important, really. To move or not to move from the company, it becomes the obsession of the company actor, and in the end, when they do decide to move, it’s nearly always too late, poor dears.’

  Oliver had nodded, not believing Tad Protheroe at all, and what was more not wanting to believe him. He had every intention of playing all the great roles, and he did not see himself as being in any way the same as any other actor in the whole world. He was different. He would go straight to the top of any company. He had to, just to prove to his father that he was someone, not just Oliver, the youngest, unwanted son.

  Besides Tad Protheroe, Clifton too was coming to town to see him in his end of year production at Ramad, which was exciting. Oliver was looking forward to impressing his mentor. His only worry was that he had worked so hard with Melson on deepening his voice that he now felt that every time he opened his mouth it did not really match his bony body, but even so, he felt that Clifton would be impressed.

  ‘Hallo, Dad.’

  Oliver had already made an arrangement with Clifton to pose as his son, adding to the authenticity of his so-called Yorkshire background, something to which they had both agreed by letter.

  ‘Hallo, lad.’

  Actually it was not that difficult to pretend that Clifton was his father because in all reality, since he was very young, Clifton had been so encouraging to him, so interested in him, that the butler had in actuality assumed the role of, at the very least, Oliver’s artistic father.

  Clifton stood backstage at the little amateur theatre looking strangely un-Cliffie-like. His neatly pressed suit, perhaps newly bought, looked impressively modern and affluent. Narrow trousers, mohair and silk mix, it was so up to date it might have been made by Dougie Millings himself. Indeed everything about Cliffie at that moment gave off the aura of the prosperous northern father, come to see his son in his end of year production.

  ‘Yes, well, that was really very …’ he started to tell Oliver’s backside as Oliver bent down to wash the make-up from his legs, narrowly avoiding three other actors doing the same thing. He then added, ‘But we must discuss the whole thing over a pint, rather than here, wouldn’t you say?’

  He was cut short by the arrival of other visitors, including Tad Protheroe, who now pressed into the dressing room and boomed at Oliver, ‘Well done old boy,’ before backing out again with ‘Ring you in the morning.’

  Cliffie, with an evident feeling of relief, also now backed out of the dressing room and stood against the whitewashed wall outside, waiting. As he did so another party of relatives arrived and gave their names to the stage door keeper. As soon as he saw and heard them, Clifton fled down the corridor towards the stairs down to the theatre basement.

  Inside his crowded dressing room Oliver stared at himself with some satisfaction in the mirror. He did not think that he would ever really get to enjoy the toga parts, as he thought of them. For a start, he was sure that he had too much sense of humour, but for now, as far as he knew, he could honestly say he had not discredited himself.

  He had used his voice as Melson had taught him, he had commanded attention, he had even, he knew, elicited some jealousy from his fellow thespians – because someone had very sweetly, at some point before dress rehearsal, inserted pins in his jar of bole, the body make-up that he used to cover his all too skinny legs and arms. Happily, he had been warned by Cliffie, years ago, of such theatrical practices, and always paused before applying anything or plunging his fingers into a jar. Cliffie had said that the rule was always look first, make sure – and only then apply.

  Happily Oliver had seen the pins well before they could inflict any lasting injury. He had thrown the offending jar out and sent for another via the very sweet assistant stage manager who seemed to have an unending, and very boring, crush on him. Naturally, as is the way with assistant stage managers, she had subsequently quite forgotten the commission, and Oliver had been forced to borrow bole from another occupant of the already overcrowded dressing room – possibly, it had suddenly occurred to him, did he but know it, from the very person who had ruined Oliver’s make-up in the first place.

  All these thoughts flashed through his mind as he stared at his now togaless, fully dressed self, so much so that he did not hear the dressing room door open yet again. He turned at once to see who it was, only to freeze as suddenly. Worst of all worsts – it was his father.

  Oliver opened his mouth and shut it again, realising as he did that his reaction could not have been better had he been Hamlet seeing his father’s ghost. Making a mental note to remember this he turned to see whether his fellow performers, busy dealing with their own relatives and friends, had also seen his new visitor in his dark grey town suiting. Realising that they had, he managed to follow up his initial reaction with, ‘Oh, hallo, sir. I didn’t know you were up in London?’

  How happily this strangely Victorian form of address now sat on Oliver’s lips, and how relieved he now felt that his father was so stuffy. Coupled with the fact that they did not look even the slightest bit alike, it meant they could not be thought to be related in any way.

  ‘Hallo, Oliver.’

  John Plunkett’s blue eyes looked briefly into Oliver’s green ones, and then slid off in the direction of the other parents, all of whom had more in common with Cliffie than they had with Plunkett Senior in his well-worn but impeccable suiting, his Lobb shoes, his old, gold wrist watch, his signet ring, his carefully cut hair, and his hat and umbrella, both carried in a gloved hand at just the right angle.

  ‘Would you like to come for a drink, sir?’

  ‘No, as a matter of fact, I can’t come for a drink, Oliver.’ His father cleared his throat. ‘I have to go on to the Garrick for drinks and dinner with friends, whom I am meeting there. Very good matinée this, though, I must say. And I did want to come round and surprise you at your end of year performance. Tell you how good you are, that sort of thing.�
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  There was a small silence while both of them tried not to look as embarrassed as they felt.

  ‘Thank you very much, sir. And I am! Surprised, I mean.’ Oliver smiled happily, feeling even more relieved that his father was not able to come for a drink, and at the same time feeling massively guilty too. He should want his father to come for a drink with him. God, he was such a bad son, it was frightening.

  ‘Good. Well, that’s all. Well done.’ His father patted Oliver lightly on the arm. ‘Very good indeed. You came across very well, I thought.’

  He actually said ‘I thought’, which immediately gave rise to a ghastly suspicion in Oliver’s mind that he might have been with someone, or even several people, who did not share his opinion, but there was no time for Oliver to question him because he had already turned away and left the dressing room. Oliver stared after him, wondering, as he always did, why being with his father always left him with pangs of sorrow and regret, as if they were like two people crossing on a bridge, who, having met halfway, would merely nod as they passed each other, and despite their acquaintance would carry on walking in opposite directions, as if they had not really seen each other.

  Clifton returned to Oliver’s dressing room imagining that Oliver must by now have gone off for a drink with his father and some of his own friends, but on finding Oliver still waiting for him in the now empty dressing room he kept an admirably unsurprised face.

  ‘Right, Dad,’ Oliver said, teasing him and using his, he fondly imagined, impeccable northern accent, ‘coming for a pint?’

  Clifton nodded, wordlessly, still half expecting his employer to appear from behind a door, but the wide-eyed look of innocence on Oliver’s face reassured him that Mr Plunkett had paid his respects, and left.

  When they were seated opposite their pints in the back of the Salisbury pub, Oliver did not ask Cliffie what he thought of his performance. He was too canny for that. He knew, more than anyone, that Cliffie would come out with his comments in his own time. Instead they chatted about home, about Mrs Piglet, about his brothers, about his father’s surprise visit, about everything and anything, until, at last, Cliffie came out with his pronouncement.

  This time it had taken so long for Clifton to say anything that Oliver knew, for certain, that something about his performance had deeply worried his mentor. At last he spoke.

  ‘You said it as if you knew it, Master Oliver.’

  Clifton pulled his mouth down into an expression of such solemn and sad disapproval that it seemed to the astonished Oliver that he might have been a Roman emperor at some great game, and himself a poor gladiator being given the thumbs down.

  ‘Your voice is good, it has come on a bit, I mean it has deepened, I will say that for it,’ Clifton went on, ‘but you said it as if you knew it, and that will never do. After all, when we speak, we never really know what we’re going to come out with next, do we, Master Oliver? Something nice might be what we want to say, but what comes out, all too often, is something that hurts someone else, and all that. So, if I was you, next time you go at it, I should try and surprise yourself. Try not knowing it, take a risk. I mean, I thought that beauty loving way of spouting Shakespeare had long gone out of fashion, but doubtless they’re still teaching it in these drama school places. Or it might be that it’s old Arthur Melson’s fault, he’s always been a bit of an old ham. But, you know, what’s disappointing, Master Oliver, is – what we used to talk about at home, you seem to have forgotten it all.

  ‘I mean, if you take Hamlet for instance, Master Oliver. Take, well, take To be, or not to be: that is the question, for instance. That is not a speech that he is making, it is a question he is asking. Is it worth living, is it worth going through all this toil and moil only to die at the end? That is what the poor young man is asking himself, a question being asked by millions of people of themselves even as we sit here, but they’re not spouting that question, Master Oliver! They’re asking it, even murmuring it.’

  Oliver stared at Cliffie, and then he lit a cigarette with a shaking hand. Bloody hell, he had not expected this, far from it. He had expected something, but not this.

  Of a sudden he hated Cliffie with all his heart, and with all his soul. All of a sudden he was glad that Cliffie was not his proper dad, glad that his own father had come round and gone away, not given Oliver his opinion about everything. He was a million times gladder than he could say that Cliffie was not his real dad, saying tactless and hurtful things, coming to the Salisbury to make ill-timed criticisms just at a moment when Oliver truly, truly did not need it.

  And yet.

  ‘You’re right, Cliffie. You’re quite right,’ Oliver said finally, after a long silence, and he stubbed out his cigarette and promptly lit another one. ‘And I can’t blame old Melson for it, it is my fault. I did say everything as if I knew it, not as if it had only just occurred to me. I mean, really, what a twit. The basic mistake of a bad actor, and I made it.’

  Cliffie finished up his beer. He had been truly horrified by Oliver’s stilted performance. All that they had worked on while he was growing up had seemed to have disappeared out of the window, replaced by self-conscious drama school acting and a Victorian style of booming voice production.

  ‘And another thing, you came on so pleased with yourself, Master Oliver. You did not need us, really you did not. You had no vulnerability, no humility, nothing. It was terrible. Your performance was terrible. I was ashamed of you, really I was. All this way for me to see you like that, and your father out front too. Really, it was awful. You made a hash of it. Not that you were any worse than the rest of them, they were all awful, but you – you should know better, after all we have put in together, all we have worked on. I was ashamed, really I was, and I would be remiss if I did not tell you as much, really I would.’

  Oliver put his head on the pub table. ‘OK, OK, don’t kick an actor when he is down. It is only an end of year production, you know, Cliffie, it’s not Stratford or anything.’

  ‘All this time down here in London, and all you have done is regress. Backwards is all you have gone. Seems to me these drama schools are more about employing the teachers than creating any kind of artistry, if you ask me.’

  ‘Which I didn’t—’

  ‘Never mind. You will be fine now, I dare say, now that you’ve finished your time here.’

  ‘But I haven’t finished, Cliffie. I have another two years to go, you know that.’

  ‘Oh no you haven’t,’ Clifton told him. ‘You are not staying another week in this place. You’re going to get out there, into repertory, and start learning your craft, Master Oliver. One more week in that place and you will turn into a proper popinjay, and we wouldn’t want that, either of us.’

  Oliver started to say something, and stopped. It was true. Everything that Cliffie had said was true. He had become pleased with himself. He had already been signed up by a London agent. He should leave drama school. It was doing him no good at all. He was bored stiff in most of the classes, and the only real work he had done had been with Melson.

  ‘I don’t suppose anyone will have me, I mean any of these rep companies, will they? Not if I don’t finish.’

  ‘This one will.’ Clifton produced a card from his waistcoat. ‘A friend of mine telephoned me a few months ago. He’s very friendly with the man who owns it. It’s only a small place, mind, but it will give you plenty of the right kind of experience.’

  Clifton snorted lightly before going to fetch another couple of pints at the crowded bar, and returning with a satisfied look to him.

  ‘They should not be called drama schools, they should be called melodrama schools,’ he said, returning to his subject with some relish as he sat down again. ‘Anyway, now you have an agent. Next you have a run in repertory theatre, or in this case professionally sponsored theatre, and then we will see. But no more spouting and prancing, and I don’t know what.’

  Oliver had been taken down so many pegs in such a short time that he now co
uld do nothing but stare ahead of him, misery settling around him like a damp mist on a May morning. He had not thought that he could have been quite as bad as Clifton made out, but he now realised that he must have been, and it was shaming.

  For some reason, as he drank his pint, above the hubbub of the busy pub he could only hear his father’s cultured voice saying, ‘You came across very well, I thought.’

  That was the worst of it, really, that he had been bad in front of his real father. The man who was having a mass said for him each month had seen him spouting and prancing, as Clifton had put it. He had witnessed for himself his youngest son coming across as nothing more than a popinjay. It took Oliver back to the days when he was small, to acting in front of his family in the library, to a resounding sound of silence.

  He picked up his beer mug, but this time he did not savour the rest of his pint, he simply swallowed it, and after Clifton left him to return to his hotel, he swiftly followed the pints with a couple of whisky chasers. Little wonder that some time later when he returned to his landlady’s house he could not see to put his front door key in the lock. Finding it to be a feat all too far beyond him, he sank down on the doorstep, and putting his head in his hands, he cried his eyes out.

  Back at his hotel Clifton told the friend he was having dinner with, ‘Only just in time. I tell you, one more term in that place and we would have lost him for ever.’

  His dining companion listened appreciatively before agreeing.

  ‘We have to suffer or we cannot become anything, not anything at all.’

  ‘Your table’s ready—’