A Deadly Habit

by Simon Brett

  Charles had had an initial reaction of surprise when he saw this casting, because Tod wasn’t gay. But then he had to remind himself that the encroaching political correctness, which would not allow actors to play parts of different ethnicity from their own, had not yet reached sexual orientation. And, when he came to think about it, he realized it never would. Insisting that gay parts could only be played by gay actors might gain some support, but the suggestion that gay actors should not be allowed to represent heterosexuals onstage would really flutter the dovecots. The classical canon contained far too many juicy roles of rampant womanizers. If gay actors were forbidden from playing parts like Othello – and indeed Hamlet … well, there’d be rioting on Shaftesbury Avenue.

  Charles and Tod Singer had last worked together on The School for Scandal in Glasgow. Though it had not been the greatest production in the history of theatre (‘Charles Paris’s Benjamin Backbite lacked backbone.’ Glasgow Herald), the two actors had become close friends, or at least assiduous drinking companions. Indeed, Charles had no recollection of drawing a sober breath from the first day of rehearsal to the last night party.

  And, though of course, as part of the re-wooing of Frances, he was going to cut out the booze, it was still reassuring to know that Tod Singer would be in the company.

  During the read-through, Charles did what everyone else was doing, looked covertly round the table to assess the people with whom he would be spending the next four months of his life. They had each identified themselves in the round-the-table ice-breaking exercise with which Nita had begun the morning, but he hadn’t retained many of the names.

  The playwright, Seamus Milligan, was a dour-looking individual, whose expression suggested he was suffering from some terrible mental burden. Catholic guilt, Charles reckoned. Only a Catholic, or a lapsed Catholic (which, in terms of guilt-bearing, was pretty much the same thing) could have created a play like The Habit of Faith. To write all that maundering-on about belief and the obstacles to belief, you had to think that religion mattered. Something which Charles Paris, from his early teenage years, had signally failed to do.

  Back then, though, he had, for maybe eighteen months, had a deep, almost passionate faith. In retrospect, he reckoned it was a reaction against his parents’ laid-back scepticism. Had his parents been believers, he would probably have found atheism earlier. But for those months of devotion, he did read a chapter of the Bible every night before sleep. He had even written into his copy a quote he’d got from somewhere:

  This book will keep me from sin.

  Sin will keep me from this book.

  Then, one morning, aged about fourteen, Charles Paris had woken up with the conviction that he didn’t believe any of it. And since then, he had not been troubled by religious doubt – or indeed religious thought of any kind.

  All he had gained from the experience was a devoted admiration for the cadences of the Authorized Version. And he was sure that reading that beautiful language so early had helped him in his career as an actor. It developed his natural understanding of emphasis and rhythm.

  His loss of faith had not turned him anti-religion. He had a great respect – even envy – for people with a faith. It just didn’t work for him. Every time he had to go into a church – which was now more for funerals than weddings or christenings – he still hoped that something would happen. A divine revelation. A Damascene conversion. The heavens opening and God reaching down to claim Charles Paris for His own. But, sadly, nothing. He always felt on his exit from the church exactly as he had felt on his entrance.

  Read-throughs are always an opportunity to assess the comparative talent of other company members. However much actors talk about being ‘part of an ensemble’, they are all ferociously competitive. Beneath the smarmy compliments they pay to each other, there is very often the burning conviction that ‘I could play that part a lot better than he/she is doing.’

  And Charles Paris had no doubt that he could play the part of The Monk Who Had Difficulty Controlling His Lust Towards Women much better than the actor who had been cast in the role. In fact, he reckoned a plank of wood or a bowl of porridge could play the part better.

  He had retained, from the round-the-table introductions, the name of this talent-free individual. Grant Yeoell. He could recognize that, although useless as an actor, the young man was extraordinarily handsome. And nobody could maintain a physique like that without frequent visits to the gym.

  What Charles didn’t know, and what most of the rest of the world who watched Vandals and Visigoths could have told him, was that Grant Yeoell was involved in the franchise, playing the part of Wulf, the illegitimate son of Sigismund the Strong. Like many film actors, he had been cast originally for his looks. And, like many film actors, the fact that he couldn’t act for toffee didn’t matter. In the movies, the takes of scenes are so short, and the skills of editors so advanced, that, even without resorting to CGI, the aforementioned plank of wood or bowl of porridge could be made to give a convincing performance. And that was the case with Grant Yeoell.

  So far as the producers of The Habit of Faith were concerned, whether he could hack it on stage or not was completely irrelevant. The sight on a poster of Grant Yeoell’s name, in conjunction with that of Justin Grover, would put even more bums on seats. And who cared if those bums belonged to hormonally rampant underage girls? Or people dressed as Vandals, Visigoths or Skelegators? Producers, generally speaking, don’t care about the quality of the people sitting on their seats, just the quantity.

  Inevitably, in his checking-out observation of the read-through table, Charles Paris clocked The Girl. The name of the person playing the part (as he thought of her, thus avoiding the actor/actress dilemma) had stayed with him from the introductions. Liddy Max. From the way she read, she was clearly a very talented actress. And she had the kind of looks which could have propelled her to the top in the theatre, even if she didn’t have the talent. Trim figure, fine blonde hair cut short, and the kind of large blue eyes in which many men would in time lose themselves.

  Charles felt a knee-jerk – but pointless – rush of disappointment when he noticed she was wearing a wedding ring.

  Why did he always react like that? It wearied him. Why could the sight of a pretty woman always set the same inevitable thoughts in train? Why could he not look at any woman without assessing her on some scale of fanciability? When he was in a good mood, such a reaction reassured him that he was still alive. When he was in a bad mood, it made him feel like a dirty old man.

  Idly, he wondered how she had come to be playing The Girl in The Habit of Faith. Charles now knew that his own presence in the company was due to the magnanimity of Justin Grover. He wondered what kind of favour the star had been repaying when Liddy Max had been cast. It could be sexual, perhaps, but he wouldn’t have expected Justin to be quite so obvious.

  Charles had never really known about Justin Grover’s sex life. He wasn’t gay. Indeed, he was frequently photographed with some new starlet on his arm. His affairs kept the gossip columns well fed. But none lasted. Three months seemed to be their maximum duration. That had been the case when Charles had first known the actor in Bridport, and the same pattern seemed to have been repeated many times since. Justin had always been more interested in having some photogenic younger woman on his arm than in having relationships.

  Charles’s cynical view was that the star was too obsessed with himself to have any love to spare for anyone else. His sex life, like his acting, was a bloodless technical exercise, whose sole aim was to create an effect.

  Charles found himself wondering whether Justin put his characteristic meticulous preparation and attention to detail into his bedroom activities. The image was such an unappealing one that he dismissed it from his mind.

  And concluded that sex was unlikely to have played a part in the casting of Liddy Max. There must have been some other reason why Justin Grover had approved her. Charles wondered what it might be.

  He took another
surreptitious look across the table at The Girl. She was not yet out of her twenties. Far too young for him, he concluded wistfully.

  There was another girl, who was introduced as ‘ASM and understudying Liddy’. Her name was Imogen Whittaker. A stunning natural redhead, she carried herself with striking ease and confidence. But she was even younger than The Girl.

  The stage manager, Kell Drummond, though, was a much more interesting prospect. Forties, short black hair, strong but ample body, and that air of pragmatic competence which Charles never failed to find alluring. In his experience, stage managers had always been encouragingly pragmatic about sex, too.

  Not, of course, that that had any relevance for him in his current situation. No, no, he told himself.

  On the other hand, if he had still been interested in women other than his wife, he might have envisaged intriguing possibilities with Kell Drummond.

  Long habit had ensured that, the morning of the read-through, Charles Paris had, on his journey from the tube station to the rehearsal room, noted the location of the nearest pub. And it seemed logical to adjourn there once The Habit of Faith had been read.

  Rehearsal proper was scheduled to begin the following morning. The afternoon would be devoted to some necessary technical activities. With the read-through table removed, the stage management would lay down tape on the floor to mark out the dimensions of the single set. Some of the actors were required to stay and be measured up for their costumes, though Charles had assumed that monks’ habits were one-size-fits-all. Later, there would be a production meeting for Nita Glaze and all the stage crew. Significantly, Charles noticed, Justin Grover said he too would be attending that. Slight pique tugged at the mouth of the director when she heard his announcement. Was there going to be no area of the production where she wasn’t under surveillance?

  Charles wasn’t called for anything in the afternoon, so, after the rehearsal broke up, it seemed logical to invite Tod Singer to join him in the pub. ‘Recapture the spirit of Glasgow, eh?’

  Time had not been kind to his fellow actor. Tod would certainly no longer have fitted into the costume he wore as Snake in The School for Scandal. Mind you, Charles would no longer have fitted into his Sir Benjamin Backbite costume either. But Tod’s face had aged too; it wore the corrugated complexion of a heavy smoker. And there was something haunted about his eyes. Which certainly suited the part of Brother Philip, The Monk Who Had Difficulty Controlling His Lust Towards Men (Especially Towards The Young Novice Who Had Just Joined The Monastery).

  Tod’s reaction to the pub invitation was not as instant as it would once have been. He seemed to be enduring some moral conflict before he replied, ‘Very well, OK.’

  Charles prided himself on his memory for the favourite tipples of his drinking companions. He remembered from the many sessions in Bridport that he and Tod would start with pints of bitter and whisky chasers, before possibly sharing a bottle of red wine and more Scotch. So, at the bar he pointed to the logo of one of the bitters and said, ‘Two pints of that, please.’

  ‘No,’ said Tod Singer.

  ‘What?’

  ‘Just a fizzy water for me.’

  ‘Oh?’

  ‘I’ve given up the booze.’

  ‘For how long?’

  The reply came back instantly. ‘Three years, seven months and fourteen days.’

  This didn’t sound promising. ‘So, if you’re not drinking, why did you agree to come to the pub with me?’

  ‘To test myself,’ said Tod Singer. ‘To see if I can be strong in the company of the people with whom I used to share my deadly habit.’

  Oh, great, thought Charles Paris.

  THREE

  Charles was less than impressed at being used by Tod as some barometer of rectitude. Without comment, he ordered the fizzy water and a pint for himself. He also took vindictive pleasure in adding a double Bell’s as a chaser.

  ‘So, what’s all this about?’ he asked, once they had sat down with their drinks.

  And his friend told him. At length. There is an old adage that ‘anyone who breaks a habit generally frames the pieces’, and it certainly applied to Tod Singer. The drinking, which had started as recreational – and indeed Charles had thought of it as recreational back in Glasgow days – had gradually got out of hand until the next drink had become the greatest imperative in Tod’s life.

  It had started to affect his career. From being a reliable jobbing actor, who was never going to be a big star but who never experienced more than the odd month out of work, Tod Singer quickly gained a reputation as someone who was ‘not so good in the afternoon’. Offers of work dried up, and on the rare occasions when he was employed, increasingly he failed to deliver. The point of no return came when he was sacked for being drunk onstage and slurring his words as Feste in a production of Twelfth Night in Bristol.

  Round the same time, Tod’s marriage had broken up. His ex-wife, for reasons he could now fully understand, turned him out of the family home. He was reduced to sleeping on the sofas and floors of friends. He had no work, nor – given the speed with which news travels round the world of theatre – any prospect of any. Being drunk onstage – or, to be more accurate, allowing being drunk onstage to affect one’s performance – was one of the final disqualifications for an actor. No director was going to cast someone with that kind of reputation.

  After six months of this, drinking even more, being unable to face the day ahead without a few morning slugs of vodka, Tod decided that he had a choice. Either he could spiral on down to his death, an unsanitary one on the streets or possibly suicide (it would be hard to tell them apart), or he could take on the challenge of cutting out alcohol altogether. He had gone for the second option.

  So then he began to chronicle his way out of the morass into which he had descended. This second stage of the narrative also went on for some time. Charles had needed to break into it to make a return trip to the bar for a second pint and a second large Bell’s chaser – Tod was hardly halfway down his fizzy water.

  A sense of reassurance had settled on Charles. Yes, he knew he drank too much, but he’d never been in the straits that Tod Singer was describing. More than a few times he’d gone on stage in a condition that would have disqualified him from driving a car, but only rarely had his performance been compromised. There was some power, rather like the healing powers of ‘Doctor Theatre’, which sobered an actor up the minute he got under the lights.

  Or so Charles Paris believed. So, though the recital he was listening to was undoubtedly boring, he found it comforting as well.

  It turned out that the salvation of Tod Singer had been Alcoholics Anonymous. After many failed attempts to control his drinking by his own willpower, he had been taken to a meeting with a friend who shared the same problem. The path to abstinence had not been an easy one. There had during the early stages been many backslidings, but eventually the programme had worked. He was still an alcoholic, he would always be an alcoholic, but he had found the resources to resist the temptations of the booze. As he insisted on repeating, Tod Singer had now not had a drink for three years, seven months and fourteen days. And tomorrow he would not have had a drink for three years, seven months and fifteen days.

  Charles was surprised how strong his reaction was to this narrative of redemption. It didn’t make him feel moved to empathy or congratulations. It made him feel rather angry.

  It also made him drink quicker. He was near the end of his second pint and the second chaser was long emptied. Just when Charles was wondering whether his companion might offer to buy him a drink, Tod looked at his watch.

  ‘Still, good you’re back in work now,’ said Charles. ‘The Habit of Faith.’

  ‘Yes.’

  ‘Is it the first job you’ve done since—?’

  ‘Good Lord, no. AA hasn’t just been the salvation of my health. I’ve also made some very good contacts there. You’d be surprised how many directors and producers there are at the meetings.’

>   When he thought about it, Charles wasn’t surprised at all.

  ‘Which also means,’ Tod went on, ‘word gets around the business that I’m now dry. Other directors start believing it’s safe to cast me again. I haven’t had a drink now for three years, seven months and fourteen days.’

  Charles was getting a bit sick of this pious mantra. Presumably, like a rubber date stamp, Tod Singer’s mind had to be recalibrated every morning to add another day. Time to change the subject. ‘Have you worked with Justin Grover before?’

  ‘Way back. Bridport, it was.’

  ‘Oh, I worked with him there. Gave my Rosencrantz to his Guildenstern – or possibly the other way round.’

  ‘Justin got a lot of work down there. Great mates with the director … can’t remember his name.’

  Charles couldn’t either. Oh dear, was this a sign of early onset Alzheimer’s kicking in? He seemed to remember reading somewhere that forgetting people’s names was one of the first symptoms. Mind you, he had forgotten where he’d read it.

  ‘So, did you audition for the part of Brother Philip?’ he asked.

  ‘No. funny thing … I just had a call from my agent out of the blue. I was offered the part. Needless to say, I took it. Four months on West End money …’

  He didn’t need to finish the sentence. For some reason, Charles didn’t volunteer the fact that his experience had been identical. Was it just insecurity on Justin Grover’s part – this need to surround himself with people he’d worked with before? Though quite a long time before …

  Anyway, the topic was not pursued, as Tod Singer stood up. ‘I must be on my way.’ Then he said, with pride, ‘I’ve been here for more than half an hour. That’s the longest I’ve managed to stay in a pub since I started with AA.’

  Bully for you, thought Charles. What am I supposed to do – give you a bloody medal? He too got up and made his way to the bar.