Old Ernest did not take this in good part, but mingled his barking with growling and with unpleasant remarks about his pupils. The only person in the place he really approved of was Carroll. On several occasions they went together to the Nag’s Head in Floral Street; only half a pint for old Ernest, otherwise his kidneys played him up and he couldn’t go down on all fours.
Carroll, who knew nothing about Peter Pan, had never seen it, and had no intention of seeing it, couldn’t quite get the hang of the conversation at first. It appeared, according to Ernest, that Sir James had written an extra scene which had only been played once, that would be in 1908. Wendy has grown up and got married, but in order not to disillusion Peter, who enters through the window as usual, she tries to cram herself into her old dress, but it can’t be done, she’s developed a bit, eh, and it’s too tight, you get me, round here and round here.
‘And what is supposed to have happened to Nana?’ Carroll asked.
‘She’s been getting out at night and going with other dogs, and it’s like you’d expect, she’s been having a bit of nookey.’
‘Is that so?’ said Carroll.
For Hannah’s sake he would have liked to have been drawn into the enchanted circle. But he simply hadn’t the feeling for the stage. He saw now that was a failing in him. He simply didn’t understand it. It was quite beyond him why old Ernest, who had never been much more than an understudy, should stand at the bar with his eyes full of tears, talking of the theatre and only of the theatre, and, to the annoyance of the regular customers, barking at frequent intervals. Carroll noticed also, with considerable surprise, the effect which his visits were having on Joey Blatt. Blatt was looking for an investment, no secret about that, and it was only good sense for him to ask questions. But although he could hardly have been satisfied with the answers, he seemed unable to keep away. A glance had shown him that everything could be differently, and better, done at Freddie’s. The publicity and safety regulations should be reorganised, the piano shouldn’t be standing under a direct leak from the ceiling, even the dance routines could be tightened up. Agitated, canny, and smooth-shaven, he moved trimly through the ramshackle rooms and corridors. In a very short time he mastered the details of a quite unfamiliar business. All his suggestions for improvement were excellent. But all of them met with frustration, like efforts in a dream, where the way to escape is clear enough, but one can’t remember how to walk. Carroll, for example, he spotted at once as a liability. He didn’t want to hurt any feelings, but the man was of no possible use. ‘I wouldn’t say that, dear,’ Freddie told him. ‘Someone has to talk to Ernest.’
Nothing was concealed from Blatt, but neither was he told what was happening. Freddie spoke to him, and of him, as if he were an old suitor, tolerated through habit. Certainly he couldn’t remember it having been mentioned that Noël Coward was going to visit the Temple. ‘Just dropping in, dear, I don’t suppose he’ll be more than half an hour.’ But had Noël Coward ever had any connection with the school, in any capacity? Had he ever been there? It didn’t seem that he had. But even so, surely there was a lot of publicity value in it, a lot of mileage to be got out of it? Oughtn’t the children to put on some sort of display, to impress him? The Bluebell, who sometimes took pity on Blatt and made him a cup of Nescafe in her filing-room, said that the school was quite used to distinguished visitors.
There was, after all, nothing very perplexing about it. On a rapid business visit to London, the Master had heard of Freddie’s recent difficulties and had recalled, as he always did readily enough, his own triumph as a child star in Peter Pan. Who exactly had suggested that it would be a kind gesture to go and see Freddie, and give her just a squeeze of the hand, is not clear now, perhaps it wasn’t even then. He arrived with two assistants and a male nurse, but all three of these remained outside in the car, which glittered with superb indifference in Baddeley Street.
Freddie was at the front door. The children, leaning perilously from the front windows into the sparkling October air, could just see the top of her head. Then, steering clear of the doubtful floorboards, they skimmed down to the hall to intercept the Master.
Carroll, although he was on duty, did not attend the great occasion. When, at the Master’s gracious request for a piano, Freddie led the way to the decrepit salon, Carroll stayed behind, not feeling that he’d be of very much use to anyone. To the classroom where he sat alone in the pale autumn light, laughter floated up, and shuffling, and after that a silence, more alive than any sound. He did wonder – he couldn’t help it – how things would go with the half-submerged piano. But he did not know the profession. Noël Coward was singing. The tinkling notes of the accompaniment ascended to wait patiently for the unmistakable toneless half-voice, a kind of satire on itself, blandly enticing. The song was one that Carroll didn’t know, indeed couldn’t have known; it had been composed in the car on the way over, entirely for the occasion. The subject was how many of ‘us’, living in luxurious exile all over the world, remembered what we had learned from Freddie … yes
even in the Medi-
terranean sun …
When day is done
And shadows fall
We can recall …
All those long Shakespearean speeches
Once more unto the breaches
Those All the worlds a stage, dear, every one …
Because … Freddie, you made it fun …
‘Freddie, you made it fun,’ Carroll repeated in sincere admiration. The Master, drawing entirely, as has been said, on his imagination, was giving an artfully faded charm to reminiscences of something that had never happened. The voice was resting now and the piano could be heard only in snatches. Carroll beat time gently with his biro.
For the first time since his appointment he was correcting some exercise books. He had not asked for the exercises to be done, but the children left behind, those who hadn’t got work in the theatre, had decided, for a day or so at least, to do an imitation of good pupils. How they could tell what to do was a mystery, and as to the books, he hadn’t even known that they’d got any.
While he made his scrupulous ticks and listened to the surge of applause from downstairs, his thoughts turned to the present state of his relationship with Hannah. That could be said to have advanced, by which Carroll meant that at least it was not going backwards. And yet it distressed him. There was something amiss about the effect he had on her, and this must be his fault, for it couldn’t be hers. It was this way – Hannah was the most natural creature that ever breathed. Well then, how was it that more than once, when they were talking together, her manner had changed to the kind of nervous arch brightness which used to be thought necessary to signify that one party was female, the other male? For example, he’d been round to her place on Saturday last, putting up the bookshelves for her. He had made a good job of it, and after all a man who can put up shelves properly is a prince, even if it’s only for an hour or two. But then afterwards, when he’d put on his jacket again and had a cup of tea, she’d asked him to help her fold a pile of sheets and blankets back from the launderette – the whole place was in a bit of a mess, but he didn’t mind that, he didn’t mind anything she did – and as they stood there, holding the two ends of the sheet, she’d glanced at him and said, ‘My aunts would think I was giving you the come-on.’ There was a convent-school remark for you, if you like. Coming from Hannah, it was more like an impersonation. It might almost have been his eldest sister, who was not likely now to get any kind of a husband. But Carroll, cursed as he was with honesty even in his own dearest concerns, knew only too well what was the matter. Hannah was trying to cheer him up and bring him out of himself, or, worse still, she thought it was the way he expected her to talk.
However, he would see her tomorrow, and that couldn’t be taken away from him. In all probability it couldn’t, he carefully corrected himself.
The singing downstairs began again, but now there were footsteps, almost running, it couldn’t be Hanna
h though, much too heavy.
‘Mr Carroll …’
‘I think it’s time you called me Pierce, Miss Blewett,’ he said.
‘Mr Carroll, I need help, I want you to … after all, you’re a man …’
‘After all what?’ Carroll asked. He rose and pushed forward a chair for her.
‘No, it’s urgent. I want you to come at once. I want you to deal with things, as a man, I mean.’
Carroll looked at her crumpled face. Various possibilities suggested themselves to his mind, and he began the task of rejecting them.
‘It’s little Jonathan. He’s not himself.’
‘What is he, then?’
‘He’s not quite himself, that’s what I mean … just when we have the Master here … just when he might have had his chance to show what he can do …’
‘Hannah had a word with Jonathan yesterday,’ Carroll said, ‘and he didn’t want to put on an act of any kind. He was perfectly sensible about it. He said he hadn’t got anything ready. You can’t blame him for not putting himself forward.’
‘But Mr Blatt thought he was missing his opportunities, he took things into his own hands, he’s always thinking he can improve on our methods here.’
‘What is Blatt doing exactly?’ Carroll asked. ‘I presume he’s not behaving like a man, or you wouldn’t have come for me.’
‘He called Jonathan out of the room, you know the Master is doing a song for us, and he told him that as soon as the applause was over he ought to go right in and do some imitations, but Jonathan just smiled and shook his head, but politely, like he always does. Then when I came back from making sure the car was still there he’d given the child a drink of whisky.’
‘How much?’
‘And it’s only three o’clock in the afternoon …’
‘How much?’
‘I don’t know, it was out of that flask he has. Really nowadays you only see flasks like that at race-meetings. It can’t be right, Pierce, can it?’
‘I don’t see what Blatt is doing here in the school at all.’
‘He’s taking an interest,’ Miss Blewett said.
The smell of whisky was noticeable even before Jonathan appeared in the doorway, sidling in, very pale, a debased mannikin gleaming with sweat.
‘If you could do something with him.’
‘We’ll retire to the boys’ cloakroom,’ Carroll said. He stood the little boy in front of the drinking tap, bent him down, and let the cold stream run hard on to his head. The water bounced off the round dark-furred skull symmetrically, in jets to the right and left. It couldn’t have been so difficult to design those Renaissance fountains, Carroll thought. Just get the amount of force right. Jonathan was pitifully sick on the tiled floor. The poor kid. He supported the sopping head, not well able to hear the words.
‘I’m not doing it right. I can do drunks, really.’
‘Perhaps we could worry about that later.’
‘I ought to fall over.’
‘No, that would be too much. That would be overdoing it.’
‘I wasn’t right,’ Jonathan whispered.
Worse still, he hadn’t got the Master’s autograph. He’d been looking forward to getting that all week.
Blatt felt terribly ashamed of what had happened. As a youngster he had done a bit of boxing, indeed he’d thought at that time it would be the way up for him, and he’d twice been given a nip before a bout, both times with good effect. Everyone kept talking about this little Kemp boy and what great things he’d do next year, and then when Coward had told them – as he had done, just turning round a bit from the piano – that he’d played his first straight part, as a cockney page-boy, at the age of eleven, well that surely was now the moment for the kid to put his goods in the shop window. Still it was crazy. Never in connection with any of his other interests would Blatt have taken such a short cut, not in his mailing service, nor the concession for Seat-U office furniture, nor the kitchenware agency. But then, anywhere else dealing with people didn’t seem such a problem, only at Freddie’s.
Blatt determined to pull out altogether. Un win was still trying to press him, of course, but he hadn’t managed to finalise anything, far from it. Perhaps he’d give it another month.
Freddie, who was not used to taking either Carroll or the Bluebell seriously, dismissed their account of the incident. If she had believed them, she would have been very angry. But the atmosphere of the Temple, heady as the theatre itself, was now at high pressure, warmed with congratulation. The Master’s farewell had been cordial: ‘Play it large, darling.’ The next thing had been a telephone call from the multi-storey car park where they were holding the auditions for King John. It was from Mattie, to say that he had got the part of little Prince Arthur.
9
DIRECTORS realise that audiences are not likely to have much grip on Shakespeare’s King John. They hardly know what to expect, except perhaps something about Magna Carta, which doesn’t figure in the play at all. Perhaps Shakespeare had never heard of it. In any case, he presents King John as a patriot, misguided, certainly, when he connives at the torture of his nephew little Prince Arthur, but standing out to his last breath against France. In the high Victorian theatre the actor playing the king used to sweep the crown from his head during his death scene and even hurl it into the wings, partly to indicate magnificent failure, and partly to keep some attention for himself. By that time the audience had already seen little Arthur die and his mother Constance run mad, their handkerchiefs were soaked, they had no more tears to shed. King John himself was left ranting on, against unfair competition.
The director of King John, 1963, was Ed Voysey, who had avoided reading any accounts of the old performances, in order to keep his mind clear. Certainly there would be no feeling of competition, no ‘matching’, just teamwork and open consultation with the cast on disputed points. It was quite obvious to him, however, that King John must be played in Edwardian costume. That didn’t need discussion with anyone. John had this mother, Eleanor of Aquitaine, in the play, who gave a good deal of trouble; Edward VII also, of course, had an old mother. It would make it much easier for the audience to relate to what was going on if every time John talked about his mother, they thought he meant Queen Victoria. True, England hadn’t been at war with France in Edwardian times, but, apart from that, there were almost too many parallels.
Casting was rather more straightforward than usual. One slight hiccup, his Queen Constance was said to be unavoidably delayed in New York and could only manage to be back in time to rehearse her solo scenes. On the other hand William Beardless, who he’d managed to get for King John, preferred to rehearse without any woman at all for as long as possible. Beardless had a very, very high reputation, and was punctual to a fault. With that, though, he was acutely-sensitive and had simple, though fixed, ideas of his own importance. Gentleman-scholarly in his approach, he had practised the crown-sweeping gesture and was determined, in the face of any director on earth, to get it in somehow. Ed, aware of this, prepared to sweep it back by force if necessary. For Hubert, the king’s henchman, he’d had to fall back on an actor who had been around a long while, Boney Lewis, a charming drunk who was dependable enough while working, whether sober or not. And Mattie seemed at least well trained. After all, he came from Freddie’s.
The first read through was at a church hall in Acton Central, piled with Scout equipment and a set of drums which, the caretaker told them, belonged to the Youth. The lowest paid among the cast arrived first, brightly conscious of opportunity, one of them with a slice of bread in a string bag to indicate virtual starvation. Others appeared to have only just got up, or not to be sure of the time. But they had been up a long while, and they did know the time.
An exception to the nervous gaiety around him, Boney sat heavily on a large reinforced toadstool, the property of the local Brownies. He looked terrible. Beardless reclined on one of the parish chairs, his legs crossed, one fine ankle in one fine hand, head a little on one si
de in a pose of marked attention. He was disliked throughout the profession for his habit of handing out little notes to the cast after every performance, pointing out, in a friendly spirit, exactly where they had gone wrong. His notebook and pencil were out already. Crouching behind Beardless, fascinated, Mattie waited to make an impression on him. If all else failed, he might try blowing a Scout whistle. He had stolen one already from the store cupboard.
The hall was freezing. One of the walk-ons, said to understand these things, fiddled about with the screw cap of the radiator, which remained cold as a tomb. The caretaker’s old dog, which had been lying underneath the water-pipes, dreaming of warmth, stirred hopefully, and then subsided again. After a calculated interval the caretaker himself came in with a radiator key, which he said he never left in place for fear the Youth should get hold of it. The key made no difference either.
Springing on to the stage with determined agility, Voysey, in a black pullover with a low V, giving a reassuring glimpse of chest hair, leather wristlets, and a gold pectoral cross, welcomed them all. There would be no warm-up, he told them, no judo, no improvisations to get them used to each other, just the exchange of ideas, the sooner ideas were exchanged the better. He held up the brown-paper-covered book of the play.
‘My thought – and I want to know how it strikes you all – is to underline Shakespeare’s concepts in the way he’d do it himself if he was here. Example in Act 3 where Queen Constance goes into a frenzy, Queen Constance is frenzied in Act 3. Now there I’m bringing a crowd of lunatics on, a whole circle of ravers, everyone tearing their hair, cracked laughter, everyone that is except Constance herself who stays quite, quite calm. I’ll block that out as soon as Sal gets here. Emphasising the fact that though Constance is quite, quite mentally afflicted, politically speaking she’s the only sane person on stage. Speaking politically, of course. Then this Prince Henry, King John’s son, who comes on at the end and inherits the crown, we haven’t cast him yet, how old is he supposed to be?’
At Freddie's Page 7
