Star Trap

by Simon Brett

  ‘I suppose you’d be at a sort of . . . lower clerical grade.’ And then, realising that that might be construed as criticism, Miles added, ‘I mean, doing the job frightfully well and all that, but sort of not recognised as executive material.’

  They were fortunate in meeting the managing director on the stairs. Christopher Milton was leaving alone and, suddenly in one of his charming moods, he greeted Charles profusely. Miles and Juliet were introduced and the star made a great fuss of them, asking about the baby, even pretending to be interested when Miles talked about insurance. They left, delighted with him, and Charles reflected wryly that if he’d wanted to organise a treat, he couldn’t have come up with anything better.

  Christopher Milton’s mood of affability remained after they’d gone. ‘Fancy a drink?’

  ‘Too late. The pubs have closed.’

  ‘No, I meant back at the hotel.’

  ‘Yes. Thank you very much.’ Charles accepted slowly, but his mind was racing. The offer was so unexpected. If Christopher Milton were behind the accidents which had been happening over the past weeks and if he knew that Charles had been inspecting his car the night before, then it could be a trap. Or it could be an innocent whim. Acceptance was the only way of finding out which. And Charles certainly felt like a drink.

  ‘Good. I’ve got a cab waiting at the stage door.’

  ‘I thought you usually had your car.’

  ‘Yes. Unfortunately my driver had an accident last night.’

  The intonation did not sound pointed and Charles tried to speak equally casually. ‘Anything serious?’

  ‘Got a bang on the head. Don’t know how it happened. He’ll be in hospital under observation the next couple of days, but then he should be okay.’

  ‘Do you drive yourself?’

  ‘I do, but I don’t like to have that to think about when I’m on my way to the theatre. I do quite a big mental build-up for the show.’ Again the reply did not appear to have hidden layers of meaning. No suspicion that Charles was mildly investigating the accident to Pete Masters.

  In his suite at the hotel Christopher Milton found out Charles’ predilections and rang for a bottle of Bell’s. It arrived on a tray with a bowl of cocktail biscuits. The star himself drank Perrier water. ‘. . . but you just tuck into that’

  Charles did as he was told and after a long welcome swallow he offered the biscuits to his host.

  ‘I don’t know. Are they cheese?’

  Charles tried one. ‘Yes.’

  ‘Then I won’t, thanks.’

  There was a long pause. Charles, who had the feeling he was there for a purpose, did not like to initiate a topic of conversation. Christopher Milton broke the silence. ‘Well, how do you think it’s going?’

  ‘The show? Oh, not too bad. A lot of work still to be done.’ Clichés seemed safer than detailed opinions.

  ‘Yes. This is the ugliest part.’ Christopher Milton paced the room to use up some of his nervous energy. ‘This is where the real work has to happen.’ He stopped suddenly. ‘What do you think of the cuts?’

  ‘Cuts were needed.’

  ‘That tells me nothing. We both know cuts were needed. I’m asking what you thought of the cuts that were made.’

  ‘Well, it depends. If you’re thinking of how much sense we’re now making of Goldsmith’s play –’

  ‘We’re not. We’re thinking of the audience. That’s what theatre’s about – the people who watch the stuff, not the people who write it.’

  ‘I agree with you up to a point, but –’

  ‘What you’re trying to say is that the cuts could have been spread more evenly, that I myself got off pretty lightly. Is that it?’

  ‘To an extent, yes.’ Asked a direct question, Charles felt bound to give his real opinion.

  ‘I thought you’d think that. I bet they all think that, that it’s me just indulging my oversized ego.’ Charles didn’t confirm or deny. ‘Go on. That’s what they think. That’s what you think, isn’t it?’

  The sudden realisation came that all the star wanted that evening was someone to whom he could justify himself. The fact that it was Charles Paris was irrelevant. Christopher Milton was aware of the bad feeling in the cast and he wanted to explain his actions to someone, to make him feel better. Obviously he had more sensitivity to atmosphere than Charles had given him credit for. ‘All right,’ Charles owned up, ‘I did think other cuts would have been fairer.’

  Christopher Milton seemed relieved that he’d now got a point of view against which to deliver his prepared arguments. ‘Yes, and I bet every member of the cast is sitting in his digs tonight saying what a bastard I am. Well, let me tell you, all I think is whether or not this show is going to be a success, and I’m going to do my damnedest to see that it is. That’s my responsibility.

  ‘You see, Lumpkin! just wouldn’t be on if I weren’t in it. She Stoops to Conquer’s been around for years. No commercial management’s likely to revive it unless they suddenly get an all-star cast lined up. I suppose the National or the RSC might do a definitive version for the A-level trade, but basically there’s no particular reason to do it now. But I said I was interested in the project and the whole band-wagon started.

  ‘Now we come to the point that I know you’re thinking – that we’re buggering up a fine old English play. No, don’t deny it, you’re a kind of intellectual, you’re the sort who likes literature for its own sake. What I’m trying to tell you, to tell everyone, is to forget what the play was. We’re doing a show for an audience in 1975. And that, in your terms, is probably a debased audience, an audience force-fed on television. Their ideal night out at the theatre would probably be to see ‘live’ some soap opera which they see twice a week in the privacy of their sitting-rooms. Okay, that’s the situation. I’m not saying it’s a good situation, it’s just the way things are, and that’s the audience I’m aiming for.

  ‘Because of television, I’m one of the people they want to see. And they want to see a lot of me. They don’t give a bugger about the twists and turns of Goldsmith’s quaint old plot They want to see Lionel Wilkins of Straight Up, Guv, simply because he’s something familiar. I’ve only realised this since we started playing the show in front of audiences. That’s why I stopped playing Lumpkin rustic – oh, yes, I saw the expression of disapproval on your face when I did that. But I am right. Give the audience what they want.’

  ‘All right, I agree they want to see you, but surely they’d be even more impressed if they saw your range of abilities, if they saw that you could play a very funny rustic as well as Lionel Wilkins.’

  ‘No, there you’re wrong. They want what they recognise. Popular entertainment has got to be familiar. This is a mistake that a lot of young comedians make. They think the audience wants to hear new jokes. Not true, the average audience wants to hear jokes it recognises. No, in this show they see sufficient variety in me, they see me sing and dance – most of them probably didn’t know I could do that – but they never lose sight of Lionel Wilkins, and it’s him they came for. And it’s my business to give them Lionel Wilkins.

  ‘So, when I said to Mark Spelthorne this morning that I felt responsible for the entire company, I meant it. It’s up to me to hold this company together and if that looks like just ego-tripping, well, I’m sorry.’

  Charles couldn’t think of anything to say. He had been surprised to hear such a cogently reasoned justification and, although he could not agree with all the arguments, he could respect it as a point of view. Christopher Milton himself obviously believed passionately in what he said. He broke from the unnatural stillness he had maintained throughout his exposition and started his restless pacing again. He stopped by a sofa and began rearranging the cushions. ‘And it’s the same reason, my duty to the audience, which makes me so concerned about my public image. I just can’t afford to do anything that lowers me in their estimation.

  ‘Oh, don’t look so innocent, as if you don’t know why I’ve moved on to this s
ubject. People think I’m blind, but I see all the little looks, the raised eyebrows, the remarks about me putting on the charm. Listen, my talent, wherever it came from, is all I’ve got. It’s a commodity and, like any other commodity, it has to be attractively packaged. I have to be what the public wants me to be.’

  ‘Even if at times that means not being yourself?’

  ‘Even if that means most of the time not being myself. That’s the way of life I’ve chosen.’

  ‘It must put you under incredible strain.’

  ‘It does, but it’s what I’ve elected to do and so I must do it.’ This messianic conviction seemed almost laughable when related to the triviality of Lumpkin!, but it was clear that this was what made Christopher Milton tick. And though the strength of his conviction might easily overrule conventional morality, he was never going to commit any crime whose discovery might alienate the precious audience whom he saw, almost obsessively, as the arbiters of his every action.

  Charles left the Holiday Inn, slightly unsteady from the whisky, but with the beginnings of an understanding of Christopher Milton.

  CHAPTER TWELVE

  THE LIGHTS WERE still on in Julian’s flat when Charles got back there, though it was two o’clock in the morning. Julian himself was in the front room, marooned wretchedly on an island of bottles, glasses and ash-trays. ‘Oh, Charles, thank God you’ve come back. I need someone to talk to. It’s started.’

  ‘Started?’

  ‘The baby.’

  ‘Oh yes.’ He nearly added ‘I’d completely forgotten’, but decided that might show an unwelcome sense of priorities.

  ‘Waters broke, or whatever it is they do, about nine. I took her down to the hospital, they said nothing’d happen overnight, suggested I came back to get some sleep. Sleep, huh!’

  ‘She’ll be okay.’

  ‘Yes, I’m sure she will, but that doesn’t make the time till I know she is any easier. It’s like quoting the statistics of normal childbirths, it doesn’t make you any more convinced that yours is going to be one.’

  ‘No. Well, you have a drink and keep your mind off it’

  ‘Drink, huh, I’ve had plenty of drinks.’ Julian was playing the scene for all it was worth. Charles had the feeling that he often got with actor friends in real emotional situations, that they rose to the inherent drama and, though their feelings at such moments were absolutely genuine, their acting training was not wasted. ‘Oh God,’ Julian went on, ‘the waiting. It’s much worse than a first night.’

  ‘For a small Paddon it is a first night’

  ‘Yes. Oh God!’

  ‘Talk about something else. Take your mind off it.’

  ‘All right. What shall we talk about?’

  ‘The Irish situation? Whether Beowulf is the work of one or more writers? The Football League? Spinoza’s Ethics? Is pay restraint compatible with democracy? Is democracy compatible with individual freedom? Is individual freedom compatible with fashion? Is fashion compatible with the Irish situation? Do stop me if you hear anything that sounds interesting.’

  ‘Nothing yet. Keep talking.’

  ‘You sod.’

  ‘All right. Let you off. Tell me what you’ve been doing all day. I’m sure the wacky world of a pre-London tour must be more interesting than a day of rehearsal in a resident company.’

  ‘Yes, I suppose today has been quite eventful. Desmond Porton of Amulet came down last night to pass sentence.’

  ‘And are you still going in?’

  ‘Oh yes, but today has been spent disembowelling the show.’

  ‘Ah, that’s familiar. A different show every night. Oh, the thrills of the open road.’

  ‘You sound very bourgeois as you say that.’

  ‘Well, I am. Respectable. Look at me – regular company, in the same job for at least six months. Married . . .’

  ‘Prospective father . . .’

  ‘Oh God!’

  ‘I’m sorry. I’m meant to be taking your mind off that. I wonder what that makes you in the hierarchy.’

  ‘What?’

  ‘Being in a resident company. I suppose it’s not quite a managing director but it’s better than a lower clerical grade. A sort of rising young executive. Middle management, that’s probably the level.’

  ‘What are you talking about?’

  ‘Nothing. I’m sorry. I’m a bit pissed.’

  ‘Well, get stuck into that whisky bottle and get very pissed.’

  ‘Okay.’

  ‘Who have you been drinking with until this time of night?’

  ‘With no less than Christopher Milton. The Star. Tonight I was given the honour of being the repository of his guilty secrets.’

  ‘Not all of them, I bet.’

  ‘Why, what do you – oh, of course, you knew him.’ Spike’s words of earlier in the day suddenly came back. ‘You knew him before he was big.’

  ‘Yes, I had the dubious pleasure of being with him in the first company he went to as an adult actor. He’d done quite a lot as a child, but this was his first job as a member of a company. Cheltenham, it was.’

  ‘How long ago was this?’

  ‘I don’t know. Fifteen years – no, twenty. I remember, I celebrated my twenty-first birthday there.’

  ‘Christopher Milton must have been pretty young.’

  ‘Eighteen, I suppose.’

  ‘No, fourteen. He’s only thirty-four now.’

  ‘My dear Charles, you must never allow yourself to be a victim of the publicity men.’

  ‘What do you mean?’

  ‘Christopher Milton is thirty-eight, at least.’

  ‘But it says in the programme –’

  ‘Charles, Charles, you’ve been in the business too long to be so naive. As you know, in this game everyone gets to play parts at the wrong age. People who play juveniles in the West End have almost always spent ten years grafting round the provinces and are about forty. But it doesn’t have quite the right ring, does it? So when Christopher Milton suddenly became very big, he suddenly shed four years.’

  ‘I see. It figures. Do you remember him from that time?’

  ‘Difficult to forget.’

  ‘What – the star bit?’

  ‘Oh yes, give him his due, he never made any secret of what he wanted to be. He spent a good few years rehearsing for the big time.’

  ‘Was he good?’

  ‘Very good. But no better than any number of other young actors. Indeed there was another in the company at the time who was at least as good. He’d come from the same drama school, also done the child star bit – what was his name? Garry Warden, that was it. And who’s heard of that name now? I don’t know what happens to the products of the stage schools. They almost always vanish without trace . . .’

  ‘Perhaps most of them haven’t got Christopher Milton’s single-mindedness.’

  ‘Single-mindedness is a charitable word for it. God, he was terrible. Put everyone’s backs up. Used to do charming things like ringing up other actors in the middle of the night to give them notes. And as you know it’s very difficult to have that sort of person in a small company.’

  ‘Did he drive everyone mad?’

  ‘Funny you should say that.’ Julian held his glass up to the light and looked through it pensively. ‘No, he drove himself mad.’

  ‘What do you mean?’

  ‘He had a breakdown, complete crack-up. Couldn’t live with an ego that size, maybe.’

  ‘What form did the breakdown take?’

  ‘Oh, the full bit None of this quiet sobbing in corners or sudden keeling over in the pub. It was the shouting and screaming that everyone was trying to murder him sort. He barricaded himself in the dressing-room with a carving knife. I tell you, it was the most exciting thing to happen in Cheltenham since the Ladies’ College Open Night.’

  ‘Did he go for anyone with the knife?’ Charles was beginning to feel a little uncomfortable.

  ‘Went for everyone. One of the stage staff got a nasty g
ash on the forearm. It took three policemen to calm him down. Well no, not calm him down, hold him down. He was screaming blue murder, accusing us all of the most amazing things. Yes, it was a pretty ugly scene.’

  ‘And did he come back to the company when he’d recovered?’

  ‘No, he was taken off in a traditional little white van and that’s the last time I saw him. Then suddenly four or five years ago I started reading all this publicity about the great new British star and there he was.’

  ‘And you’ve no idea what happened to him after Cheltenham?’

  ‘Not a clue. I suppose he went to some loony bin and got cured or whatever they do to people with homicidal tendencies.’

  ‘Yes. Strange, I’ve never heard about that incident before.’

  ‘Well, he’s not going to go around advertising it. Lovable Lionel Wilkins, the well-known loony.’

  ‘No, but it’s the sort of story that gets around in the business.’

  ‘Probably he’s deliberately tried to keep it quiet. I suppose there aren’t many people who would know about it. The Cheltenham company was pretty small – what was it the director used to call us? “A small integrated band.” A cheap integrated band, anyway. God, when I think of the money they used to give us, it’s a wonder we didn’t all die of malnutrition.’

  ‘You don’t still see any of them?’

  ‘No, not for years. I should think a lot of them have died from natural causes – and one or two drunk themselves to death.’

  ‘Can you remember who was in that company?’

  ‘Yes. Let me think –’ At that moment the telephone rang. Julian leapt on it as if it were trying to escape. ‘Hello. Yes, I am. What? When? But you said nothing would happen till the morning. Well, I know, but – what is it? Good Lord. Well, I . . . um . . . I mean . . . Good Lord. But I wanted to be there. Can I come down? Look, it’s only five minutes. No, I’ll be there straight away. Good God, having effectively stopped me being there, you can bloody well keep them up for five minutes for me to see them!’ He slammed the receiver down and did a jaunty little walk over to the fireplace. He turned dramatically to Charles and threw away the line, ‘A boy. Just a little boy. Damian Walter Alexander Robertson Paddon.’