Murder Unprompted cp-8

by Simon Brett

  Slowly, slowly, the pace started to pick up. Alex spoke more quickly and Michael Banks lost the flow less often.

  It was a cooperative effort between the two. It had to be. Alex’s task of dictating the pace was quite as difficult as Michael’s of delivering the lines. And Charles noted with relief how Alex was rising to the challenge. Whatever resentments he might feel, whatever threats he might have voiced against the star, the understudy was now totally caught up in his task, spacing the lines with total concentration, caught up in the communal will for the subterfuge to work.

  They staggered through the second act. It was half-past two, and the minutes were ticking away till Bobby Anscombe’s appearance. The tension in the room built up, the concentration of the entire company focusing on Michael Banks, living every effort with him.

  He was approaching the big speech about the Hooded Owl, the speech which Malcolm Harris had rightly claimed to be the centre of his play, the speech that the star had not once got through since he had abandoned his script. All was silent in the rehearsal room, except for the actors speaking their lines.

  The big speech was the climax of a scene between Michael and Lesley-Jane, playing his daughter. The dialogue which ran up to it showed good pace, and the strength of the star’s performance, absent in recent days, began again to show through.

  The speech was partly addressed to the Hooded Owl of the title and ended with the bird in its glass case being smashed on the floor. Though this was to happen every night in the run, the Stage Management had requested that, to save on glass cases, the action should be mimed during rehearsal.

  Lesley-Jane cued the big speech, and no one breathed. ‘But, Father,’ she said, ‘you will never be forgotten.’

  ‘Oh yes,’ said Michael Banks with new authority. ‘Oh yes, I will.

  ‘Three generations of us have lived in this house. Three generations have passed through this room, slept here, argued here, made love here, even died here. And the only marks of their passage have been obliterated by the next generation. New wallpaper, new furniture, new window frames. . the past is forgotten. Gone with no record. Unless you believe in some supernatural being, taking notes on our progress. A God, maybe — or, if you’d rather, a Hooded Owl. .

  ‘Why not? This stuffed bird has always been in the room. Imagine it had perception, a memory to retain our follies. Oh God, the weakness that these walls have witnessed! And this bird has lived through it all, has seen it all, impassively, in silence.’

  He picked up the glass case and looked at the bird reflectively. Then, with a sudden change of mood, he shouted, ‘Well, I’m not going to be spied on any longer!’ and dashed it to the ground.

  They all burst into applause. Lesley-Jane threw her arms round Michael Banks’s neck. The sense of achievement was felt by every one of them. Not only had he mastered the lines, he had also delivered the speech with greater power than it had ever received, either by him in rehearsal, or by Alex in performance. And yet Alex had contributed. Something of his timing, something of his delivery had come into Michael Banks’s performance, giving it new depth and stature. The applause was for the joint effort.

  It was five to three. Paul Lexington held up his hands for silence. His glowing face showed that he was aware of the breakthrough. ‘I think we’re going to be all right. We’ll stop it there. Thank you all for your hard work. Bobby’ll be here in a minute, and I want you all to give him a performance that’ll blast him out of his seat!’

  The run was not perfect, but it was good. Occasionally the timing between Alex and Michael went and the star lost his lines, but for most of the play the flow was maintained. Bobby Anscombe, who had reacted badly when he had first heard of the deaf-aid idea, was forced to admit at the end that it might work. Like everyone else, he recognised that there was no alternative.

  ‘O.K.,’ he announced to everyone in his usual grudging style. ‘We’re still in business. Just. But you’re all going to have to work a darned sight harder. The last week’s rehearsal has been a virtual write-off, and you’re meant to be facing a preview audience on Monday.’

  ‘You think we go ahead with that?’ asked Paul Lexington. Clearly cancelling the previews had been one option the producers had discussed.

  ‘We’ll go ahead. The show needs the run-in, and even if it’s bad, there won’t be too much word-of-mouth outside the business. And any word-of-mouth’d be better than what we’ve got at the moment. What the hell’s happening on the publicity front?’ He rounded on his co-producer as he asked the question.

  ‘Show-Off say it’s all in hand.’

  ‘A bit late to have it in hand. It should be out of hand and all over the bloody media by now. Is anything happening?’

  ‘Micky’s doing Parkinson tonight — the Beeb’s sending a car about six, Micky. .’

  The star acknowledged this information with an exhausted nod.

  ‘. . and then there’s supposed to be an interview in Atticus in The Sunday Times tomorrow.’

  ‘Better than nothing, but where are the bloody posters?’

  ‘Apparently some delay about those. You know, the people who put them up are quite difficult to organise.’

  ‘I know that. .’

  ‘But it’s supposed to be sorted out now.’

  ‘I should bloody well hope so. We open on Thursday and at the moment we’ve made about as much noise as a fart in a hurricane.’ Bobby Anscombe turned to Peter Hickton. ‘All set for the get-in at the Variety tonight?’

  The Director nodded with relish at the prospect of a sleepless night of hard work.

  ‘Tech. run tomorrow night and D.R. Monday afternoon?’

  ‘That’s it,’ Peter Hickton confirmed.

  ‘Hmm. Well, for God’s sake see that Micky and Alex get some practice with that bloody walkie-talkie tomorrow afternoon. There’s a long way to go before it sounds natural.’

  ‘Don’t worry,’ said Paul Lexington diplomatically. ‘We’ll sort it out. This is going to be a show you’ll be proud to be associated with, Bobby.’

  The investor barked a short, cynical laugh. ‘Bloody well better be. Don’t forget, Paul, we still haven’t got a contract. I can still pull out if I don’t like it.’

  ‘Yes, sorry about that. There’s been so much on this week I just haven’t had time to get the details of the contract finalised.’

  Charles wondered whether this was true or whether Paul Lexington was once again using delaying tactics for devious reasons of his own. Distrust of the producer was now instinctive.

  Bobby Anscombe gave an evil grin. ‘I don’t mind having no contract if you don’t. Gives me the freedom to walk out at will.’

  But nobody believed his threat. They all knew that The Hooded Owl had just survived a great crisis. For the first time that week, they all dared to feel confident that the show would open the following Thursday, as planned.

  CHAPTER EIGHT

  There’s nothing like a long Technical Run to dissipate any euphoria attached to a theatrical production, and that was the effect of the one held for The Hooded Owl on the evening of Sunday, 26th October, 1980.

  As is often the case with such events, it started late. Peter Hickton had had trouble with the resident stage crew at the Variety over the Saturday night. He was used to working with crews who knew him and who, like his casts, were prepared to work round the clock to achieve the effects he desired. The staff of the Variety did not have this attitude. They had no personal loyalty to him and were too strongly unionised to accept his way of working. Peter Hickton, unaware that co-operation could be bought by payment of ‘negotiated extras’, responded to the crew’s apparent lethargy by throwing one of his tantrums, which had only served to make them less willing to help out. Paul Lexington and Wallas Ward had had to devote much energy to smoothing ruffled feathers, nobody had got much sleep, and everything was way behind schedule.

  When eventually, after ten o’clock at night, the run started, it was very slow. Apart from the unfamiliarity of
the entrances and exits and the other customary problems for the cast, Peter Hickton had not had time to complete the lighting plot, so much of that was being done in the course of the run, which meant endless waits while new lighting settings were agreed. This left the cast standing around; they got bored and giggly, which set off explosions of bad temper from the technical staffs working around them. The atmosphere degenerated.

  Members of the resident stage crew wandered round, looking at their watches and making dark remarks about amateurism and provincial rep. and the folly of trying to bring in a show so quickly and the unlikelihood of its being presentable in time for the Monday night preview.

  Paul Lexington rushed around, also looking at his watch and working out how much overtime he was going to have to pay (or, to Charles’s suspicious mind, how much overtime he was going to avoid paying).

  The latest technical innovation, the deaf-aid transmitter, did not make things any easier. For a start, the resident sound engineer didn’t like it, because he hadn’t been consulted about its introduction and he maintained that he should be responsible for all sound equipment. This led to a circuitous discussion with Paul Lexington about whether it was sound equipment or not, which was only settled after much wrangling (and, almost definitely, money changing hands).

  But even when its use had been approved, it didn’t work as it should. Michael Banks, who by this time looked terminally tired, seemed to have lost the knack of timing which he had so laboriously achieved the day before, and so his lines were once again all over the place. Alex, from his position in the wings, was not concentrating as much and could not easily be kept informed about when they were stopping and starting, going back to rehearse lighting changes and so on, with the result that he was often feeding the wrong words.

  Setting the transmitter’s volume level was also a problem. If it was too low, Michael kept mishearing lines and producing bizarre variations, many of which would, under other circumstances, have been funny, and did in fact produce some snorts of ill-advised laughter from the overwrought cast. If the level was set too high, Michael could hear all right, but unfortunately so could the rest of the theatre, in a sort of ghostly pre-echo.

  But the climax of technical disaster came, as the climax always did, with the Hooded Owl speech. Charles was out in front and saw what happened.

  It was then getting on for three in the morning, but in the last quarter of an hour things had been getting better. With the end of the play in sight, everyone seemed to get a second (or possibly tenth) wind. Michael Banks, for the first time in the run, showed some signs of his real power as the Hooded Owl speech drew near.

  ‘But, Father,’ said Lesley-Jane, ‘you will never be forgotten.’

  ‘Oh yes. Oh yes, I will.

  ‘Three generations of us have lived in this house. Three generations have passed through this room, slept here, argued here, made love here, even picked up a passenger in Shaftesbury Avenue to take out to Neasden. . ’

  There was silence in the theatre. The star, suddenly aware of what he had said, looked pitifully puzzled. Charles wondered if Alex Household had carried out his threat of feeding the wrong lines. If so, he had chosen a singularly inappropriate moment for the experiment.

  It was some time before the cause of the error was identified. The transmitter was on the same wave-length as a passing radio-cab.

  Somehow the Technical Run ended. Somehow a Dress Rehearsal was achieved on the Monday afternoon. And somehow, not too long after eight o’clock on the Monday evening, the curtain rose for the first time on the London production of The Hooded Owl by Malcolm Harris.

  It was just competent. To say more would have been to overstate the case, but as a first preview it got by. The West End had witnessed many worse first previews.

  The house was about a third full and they were respectful if not ecstatic in their reaction. Those of the cast who remembered the euphoria of Taunton were disappointed, but they comforted themselves with the fact that they were at least on,something which three days previously had looked most unlikely.

  Michael Banks managed his lines fairly well, with only a couple of mishearings and one awfully long thirty seconds where he totally lost the thread. Perversely, George Birkitt seemed to have lost his lines completely and had to take at least half a dozen prompts. Charles Paris was heard to remark cynically that George, having seen that the star had got a deaf-aid, thought he ought to have one too.

  Though he got the lines, Michael Banks’s performance was very subdued, only a vestige of what he could achieve. That was just the result of fatigue. The strains of the last fortnight were catching up with him, and he looked every one of his sixty-four years.

  No one was too worried about it. After all, these were only previews. Wait till the first night they thought, and watch ‘Doctor Theatre’ do his work.

  Two more previews to go, and then, at seven o’clock on the Thursday (early so that the critics could get their copy in), the curtain would go up on the first night proper of The Hooded Owl.

  ‘Hello, it’s me.’

  ‘Charles.’

  ‘Sorry to ring you at school, but I wanted to get hold of you and I’m in the theatre in the evenings.’

  ‘Yes.’

  ‘Can you talk, Frances?’

  ‘Well, I’ve got someone with me, but if you’re quick. .’

  ‘It’s about the first night.’

  ‘Oh yes. Of your play. When is it?’

  ‘Thursday.’

  ‘Ah.’

  ‘I wondered if you could come. .’

  ‘Thursday. Hmm. I am actually meant to be going to a meeting. .’

  ‘Frances. .’

  ‘But I suppose I could. . Yes, all right, Charles. After all, I don’t want to miss your opening in this wonderful part you told me about.’

  ‘Ah.’

  ‘What?’

  ‘Hmm. It is a long time since we spoke, isn’t it?’

  ‘What do you mean?’

  ‘I’m afraid you won’t have the pleasure of seeing me on-stage. Instead you will have the no doubt greater pleasure of sitting beside me.’

  ‘Why? What’s happened?’

  ‘I’ll explain all on Thursday. See you in the foyer of the Variety Theatre in Macklin Street at quarter to seven.’

  ‘All right.’

  ‘Goodbye.’

  ‘Goodbye.’

  He shivered. Was it imagination, or did she really sound colder towards him?

  There was a small reception after the Tuesday night preview. This was not Paul Lexington pushing the boat out for the cast, which would have been very out of character; it was for the ticket agencies.

  Charles had forgotten how important these now were to the survival of a West End show. As transport costs rose and London’s reputation for violence after dark grew, business was increasingly dependent on coachloads of theatre-goers coming in from the provinces. So the ticket agencies and the people who organised the coaches were very important and managements were wise to make a fuss of them.

  Hence the reception, with bottles of wine and the odd crisp provided by Paul Lexington Productions. It was typical of the outfit that before the performance, the Company Manager, Wallas Ward, had come round the dressing rooms with a message from the management. The message had been that the reception was for the ticket agencies, and the cast were requested to ration themselves to one glass of wine each. It was like the old admonition at nursery teas, F.H.B. (Family Hold Back).

  Charles thought it was appalling. He wouldn’t have minded the meanness of only allowing one glass each, if it hadn’t been that the reception was so timed as to prevent that vital half-hour in the pub before closing time, which was so much a part of the necessary wind-down from giving of himself in performance. (The fact that, as understudy, he wasn’t giving a performance did not reduce the necessity for the wind-down.)

  But the cast were all very professional and knew the importance of the agencies’ backing, so they presented thei
r most charming fronts. Needless to say, the focus of the visitors’ attention was Michael Banks, who, in spite of his fatigue, made himself most affable and approachable. Charles admired the skill with which the old pro conveyed an air of ease and relaxation, of the company having been one happy family, of the great fun he had had rehearsing for the show. At one point he overheard the star laughing and saying, ‘Long time since I’ve done theatre. Even had a little trouble learning the old lines. Still, got that sorted out now.’

  As an exercise in the skills of understatement and of giving the wrong impression without actually lying, Charles thought that took some beating.

  He himself got landed with a boring little man from Luton, who was a great stalwart of the local amateur dramatic society there and clearly, though he didn’t quite put it into words, thought The Hooded Owl a pale shadow of their recent production of When We Are Married. ‘Also,’ he said expanding his criticism, ‘your show’s too long.’

  ‘Oh really?’ said Charles mildly. ‘You mean it sags?’

  ‘No, but it finishes too late. Coach party’d be very late back to Luton, and they don’t like that.’

  ‘Oh.’

  ‘What you want to do. .’ The man paused, then magnanimously decided to give the benefit of his expertise, ‘What you want to do is chop ten minutes out of it. Then you may have a show.’

  ‘Oh,’ said Charles. ‘Thank you very much.’

  It was Paul Lexington’s party, and since courting the ticket agencies was very much a management job, Charles was surprised to notice that the Producer wasn’t there. Wallas Ward was filling in, exercising his rather effete charm on the guests, but it wasn’t the same. Charles heard more than one question as to where Paul was. The ticket agents felt they weren’t getting the full treatment.

  The Producer did finally arrive about half an hour into the party, and he scurried around meeting everyone, making up for his earlier absence. He did so with his customary boyish bounce, and yet there was something strange in his manner. His face had the dead whiteness of someone in shock. Charles wondered what new disaster had hit the production, or which of the Producer’s dubious deals had just blown up in his face.