Play to the End

by Robert Goddard

  “I trust he didn’t do too good a job,” Colborn went on with a chuckle. “You wouldn’t want the idea to get around that you’re…expendable.”

  Soon enough we were back in Madeira Place. “Thanks for the ride,” I said as I climbed out. “My pleasure,” he responded. I closed the passenger door behind me and watched him pull away. The car sped the short distance to the end of the street. Its brake lights blinked. Then it swung onto Marine Parade and was gone.

  I headed straight across the road, sleep out of the question now but some kind of rest definitely in order. A glance up at the ground-floor bay window of the Sea Air told me that too was to be denied me. The residents’ lounge ought by rights to have been deserted, given that I’m the only resident. As a result, I thought for a fragment of a second that the face I saw peering down at me might be some kind of hallucination. But no. Melvyn Buckingham really was there, craning his neck round the wing-back of his chair for a view. Our celebrated director had paid me a call.

  I encountered Eunice in the hall, bearing a tea-tray towards the lounge. She whispered an apology to me. “I’m really sorry about this, Toby. I couldn’t turn him away, could I? Not when he’s come all this way.”

  “You didn’t have to bake him a cake,” I grumbled, catching the homemade aroma rising from a generous slice of Dundee.

  “I baked it for you. Here.” She handed me the tray. “Take it in while I get back to my chores.”

  I scowled after her as she descended discontentedly to the basement, then took a deep breath and proceeded into the directorial presence.

  Melvyn was kitted out in the squirely tweeds he favours despite his metropolitan lifestyle. His expression, which ranges swiftly from approving smirks to pained grimaces during rehearsals, was currently fixed in a frown that indicated either anger or perplexity.

  I plonked the tray down and smiled at him. “Brian didn’t say you were thinking of coming down.”

  “It was to be a surprise,” Melvyn responded. “Ever since Leo told me he wasn’t bringing the play in, I’ve been meaning to see for myself where you’ve gone wrong. I was in the Canaries last week, catching the sun, so this was the soonest I could manage. I mentioned the trip to Leo over lunch yesterday. As you can imagine, it’s turned out to be rather more apposite than I’d anticipated. Leo called me at an ungodly hour this morning, asking—nay, insisting—that I read you the riot act on his behalf.”

  “He’s overreacting. I missed one performance. That’s all there is to it.”

  “Very possibly. But he who overpays is entitled to overreact.”

  “Do you want some tea?”

  “I want a stiff gin, dear boy. But in its absence I suppose the soothing leaf will suffice.”

  I poured and handed him his cup, adding, “I recommend the cake,” in my most enticing tone.

  “It does look good.” Melvyn’s gluttony has always eclipsed his professional judgement. He was a goner. “All right.”

  I handed him that too and watched as he took a bite. He was still munching through a first mouthful to his evident satisfaction when Eunice flounced into the room, balanced a plate bearing another slice on the arm of my chair and flounced out again.

  “Leo’s anxious to ensure things don’t go off the rails this week,” Melvyn spluttered through the sultanas.

  “They won’t.”

  “Fortunately, the Argus didn’t make a big thing of your…indisposition.” He nodded to a copy of the paper lying on the floor next to his chair. “There’s a lot of flu about.”

  “But I’m over mine.”

  “I certainly hope so.”

  “There’s nothing for Leo to worry about.”

  “He doesn’t seem to agree. I fear the letter spooked him.”

  “What letter?”

  “You didn’t know about it?”

  “I’ve no idea what you’re referring to.”

  “Oh.” He wiped some crumbs from his lips. “You’d better take a look, then.” With an effort, he pulled a piece of paper from his jacket pocket and handed it over. “It was delivered to Leo’s office this morning.”

  As soon as I unfolded the sheet, I recognized the handwriting. In one sense, the source was no surprise. In another…

  77 Viaduct Road

  Brighton

  BN1 4ND

  2nd December 2002

  Dear Mr. Gauntlett,

  I do not want you to worry when you hear that Mr. Flood has missed this evening’s performance of Lodger in the Throat. As you may be aware, Mr. Flood’s estranged wife lives here in Brighton. Since Mr. Flood arrived yesterday, I have been assisting him as best I can in his endeavours to effect a reconciliation with Mrs. Flood. I feel sure you would not want to stand in the way of such a development. After all, it would make Mr. Flood a more contented man and therefore a more assured actor.

  As it happens, it is necessary for Mr. Flood to be somewhere other than the Theatre Royal this evening. He will probably decline to explain his absence, which is why I am writing to emphasize that it is quite simply unavoidable if his future well-being is to be secured. In the circumstances, I am confident that you will be tolerant of the inconvenience caused to your company.

  Incidentally, perhaps I could take this opportunity of mentioning that the play’s disappointing performance on tour is largely attributable in my opinion to the unsympathetic direction of Mr. Buckingham, who has insisted upon treating it as some form of drawing-room comedy rather than the merciless satire on family life that it actually is.

  Respectfully yours,

  Derek Oswin

  The name Edna Welthorpe popped into my thoughts as I finished the letter. She was the pseudonymous phantom Joe Orton invented for the purpose of writing teasing and tendentious missives to institutions whose pomposity needed pricking (in his opinion). Sometimes she’d even fire off a prudish complaint to a newspaper about one of Orton’s own plays, all publicity being good publicity. I felt instantly and instinctively certain that Derek had written to Leo in the spirit of Edna Welthorpe, calculating that I would see the joke—but that neither Leo nor Melvyn would. But, though I saw the joke, I was also the victim of it. Derek really was mad, in the Ortonian sense. There was no telling what he might do next. If I’d thought I was in control of the situation, this letter showed me to be deluding myself.

  I handed it back to Melvyn. “I seem to have a prankster by the tail,” I said through a simulated smile. “This is rather embarrassing, isn’t it?”

  “You are acquainted with Mr. Oswin, dear boy?”

  “Yes. But he isn’t acting as my go-between, or—”

  “Then why did you miss the play?”

  My smile became a stiff grin. “You’ve got me there.”

  “Who is he?”

  “Nobody you need to bother about. In fact, that’s exactly what he is. Nobody.”

  “I wish Leo agreed with you. He seemed to think the ghastly little pipsqueak had a point.” Melvyn reddened. “About my direction.”

  “Oswin’s just trying to get a rise out of us.”

  “But why did you miss the play?”

  “All right.” I held up my hands in surrender. “It did have to do with Jenny…and my attempts to persuade her to…call off the divorce. But Oswin isn’t…assisting me…in any way.”

  “Then how does he know so much about it, pray?”

  “Oh God.” I stood up and stared out through the window, a view of slowly falling dusk seeming preferable to holding Melvyn’s gaze. “There’ll be no more Edna letters, I assure you.”

  “Edna?”

  “Never mind. Forget Derek Oswin. Please. Leave him to me.”

  “I’d be glad to.”

  “I’ll sort him out.” I gave my dimly reflected self a confirmatory nod. “Once and for all.”

  I eventually persuaded Melvyn to leave on the grounds—to which he could hardly object—that I needed a rest before the performance. This was undoubtedly true. But lying on my bed, with the only light in the ro
om a drizzle of amber from the nearest street lamp, I found rest hard to come by. What did Derek Oswin think he was playing at? The question would have been troubling enough to ponder without the added complication of Roger Colborn’s brazen attempt to buy me off, backed up as it very possibly was by the threat of still cruder inducements. What in the name of sweet Jesus had I got myself into? And how, more to the point, was I to get myself out?

  Not, I reasoned, by storming round to Viaduct Road and throttling the epistolarian of number 77, tempting though the idea was. Derek would probably claim he had written to Leo in the genuine hope of persuading him to go easy on me, just as he had supposedly manoeuvred me into missing the play in the first place solely for the purpose of making Jenny think well of me. It could even be true. I didn’t know whether I was over- or underestimating him. He’d sent the letter to Leo before knowing if I’d do his bidding, which suggested a supreme confidence in his tactics. But confidence and madness often go hand in hand.

  Not in Roger Colborn’s case, though. He’s the ultimate rationalist. And confident to boot. It occurred to me that he and Derek are strangely alike, for all their apparent dissimilarity. They both think they have the measure of me. And they both might be right. I certainly don’t have the measure of them. Yet.

  Gavin Colborn may be my conduit to the truth. And I was relying on Syd Porteous to lead me to him. Until my post-show supper with Syd and his lady friend, therefore, I could make no headway. Derek would have to wait. Everything was on hold. Until I’d got back on stage and done my stuff. As some seemed to doubt I still could.

  But I wasn’t one of them. In fact, tonight’s performance of Lodger in the Throat was a liberation for me. I could stop thinking about the complexities of the Jenny-Roger-Derek triangle and enjoy myself as James Elliott, the middle-aged middle-class man of repute who suddenly senses that his carefully managed life is falling apart around him. I stopped straining for effects and played it like I saw it was. For the first time, I found myself believing in the person I was supposed to be. Orton hadn’t written a comedy with a serious undercurrent, I realized. He’d written a tragedy so bleak you had to laugh at it.

  And how they laughed. A Brighton audience was bound to be at the sophisticated end of the spectrum of those we’d played to, but their responsiveness none the less took me by surprise. If it had been like this earlier in the tour, we’d all be looking forward to a New Year in the West End. We’d hit our stride too late.

  That we’d found it at all was attributed by an over-excited and over-lubricated Melvyn Buckingham to my more assertive projection of the character of James Elliott. And this, he told anyone who was willing to listen as drinks and hangers-on circulated afterwards round the star’s and co-star’s dressing rooms, was the result of an intensive examination of the role we’d conducted earlier.

  “It’s strange,” I smilingly whispered to Jocasta. “I don’t seem to have any memory of that.”

  “Something galvanized you, Toby,” she said. “Even if it wasn’t Melvyn.”

  “More likely to have been the widespread reports of how well Denis did last night.”

  “He did do well. But he’s still not in the same league as you, not when you’re really on form, anyway. That bit at the start of act two, where you delayed waking Tom and took a sort of poignant tour of the set—where did that come from?”

  “Not sure. It just…came.”

  I was sure, of course. Derek Oswin of all unlikely people had turned me into a better James Elliott. I didn’t know whether to welcome his influence or resent it. Either way, he was hardly a conventional source of artistic advice. In fact, however you looked at it, he was a thoroughly disturbing one.

  Melvyn was evidently set on making his night in Brighton memorable. I extricated myself with some difficulty from the party he was getting together and headed for the Latin in the Lane.

  The restaurant was three-quarters full, bubbling and bustling in best late-night Italian tradition. Judging by the numerous glances and murmurs I attracted on my way through, many of the diners had adjourned there from the Theatre Royal. Among those was Syd Porteous, who’d added a tie to his standard clobber. It looked worn and thin enough to be of the old-school variety. He greeted me as if we’d known each other for years (which in some strange way it felt as if we had) and introduced me to his suitably surprised companion.

  “Sydney, you dark horse,” she exclaimed. “You never said it was Mr. Toby Flood we were meeting.”

  “An evening with me is a venture into the unexpected,” Syd responded with a roll of the eyes. “Tobe, this lovely lady is Audrey Spencer.”

  Audrey was lovely, despite an outfit that might have flattered her fifteen years ago but now verged on the affectionately sarcastic. There was a lot of bosom and a lacy fringe of bra on display. And the pink trousers—I couldn’t avoid noticing when she set off for the loo later—were stretched round a bottom that needed camouflage rather than emphasis. What age couldn’t either wither or expand, though, was the sparkle in her eyes, her mischievously crooked grin and her effervescently winning personality.

  “I haven’t enjoyed myself at the theatre as much in I don’t know how long,” she enthused. “That Orton was a one, wasn’t he? Not that the words would count for a lot if you didn’t deliver them so well, Toby. Sydney tells me he actually met Orton once. Has he mentioned that to you?”

  “He has, yes,” I replied, glancing at Syd.

  “I had no idea he moved in such exalted circles, you know. I’m beginning to realize he’s a man of mystery. Just as well I like a good mystery, isn’t it?”

  At which Syd fingered his tie and tried to give his self-satisfied smirk a mysterious edge.

  Such banter continued as we ordered our meals and made steady inroads into the Piedmont end of the wine list. Syd wasn’t one to stint ladies or actors. Feeling more than somewhat pleased with myself following what had to count as our best yet rendering of Lodger in the Throat, I was happy to indulge my host, especially in view of the pay-off I was hoping for.

  This was delivered during the first of Audrey’s nose-powdering expeditions. Syd lowered his voice to a hoarse growl, leaned towards me and announced, “I’ve been in touch with Gav Colborn as promised, Tobe. He’s happy to meet. The Cricketers at noon tomorrow suit you? Same time, same place, like? May as well keep it simple.”

  “I’ll be there.”

  “Perfecto. Although, as it happens, you don’t have to wait until then for some interesting gen on the Colborn clan.”

  “I don’t?”

  “No. Wait till Aud gets back. She can spring it on you.”

  “Audrey can?”

  I had to be content with one of Syd’s ludicrously choreographed winks by way of an answer. Within a few minutes, though, Audrey rejoined us, whereupon Syd asked her to tell me all about something they’d discussed earlier.

  “Oh, that.” Audrey cast a sympathetic glance in my direction. “Are you sure Toby wants to hear about it, Sydney? It’s really not very exciting. Or jolly. And we’re supposed to be having fun.”

  “I hope you are, darling,” said Syd, using darling for the first time I could recall. “Tobe will be interested, I promise.”

  “All right, then.” She turned towards me. “Sydney asked me if I’d heard of a plastics company called Colbonite, though why he should think I might have done…”

  “He that asketh receiveth,” murmured Syd.

  “Well,” Audrey went on, “it’s a strange thing, but I do know the name. I’m secretary to one of the consultants at the Royal Sussex. He’s a cancer specialist. Over the years, he’s treated quite a lot of people who worked for Colbonite. The thing is—”

  The trill of my mobile was a sound I didn’t want to hear. With a gabbled apology, I plucked it out of my pocket, intending to dispose of the caller in short order. Melvyn in his cups was my bet, urging me to join the party. But it wasn’t Melvyn.

  “Toby, this is Denis. Where are you?”

  �
��A restaurant in the Lanes.”

  “Is there any chance…you could meet me…sort of right now?”

  “I’m in the middle of a meal, Denis.”

  “I wouldn’t ask if I wasn’t…pretty desperate.” And it was true to say he did sound desperate. There was a quiver of anxiety in his voice.

  “What’s wrong?”

  “The man mountain who threw me out of Embassy Court has shown up at my digs. They’re after me, Toby. Christ knows why. But I’m frightened, I don’t mind admitting it. I don’t know what to do.”

  “Where are you now?”

  “I’m at a bus stop in North Street, with a load of students waiting for a midnight run back to the University. I figure there’s safety in numbers. But there won’t be any numbers to be safe in when the bus turns up.”

  I struggled to suppress my irritation, knowing that if Denis was in trouble, it was probably on my account. “OK, OK,” I said. “I’ll be with you as soon as I can get there.”

  I rang off and smiled ruefully at my bemused companions. “I’m really sorry about this. A friend of mine is…in difficulties. I’m going to have to go and find out what the problem is.”

  “You’re leaving us, Tobe?” Syd looked positively distraught. “Don’t say that.”

  “I’ve no choice, I’m afraid.”

  “We understand, Toby,” said Audrey. “What are friends for but to help out in an emergency?”

  “True enough,” Syd reluctantly agreed.

  “Do you have time for me to finish telling you about Colbonite?” Audrey asked. “There isn’t a lot to it, in all honesty.”

  “Well…” I glanced at my watch. It was approaching a quarter to midnight, which meant Denis was safe enough for the present. “I can stay for a few minutes.” And I did want to hear about Colbonite. Oh yes. “Your boss treated a lot of workers from Colbonite, you said. For cancer?”