‘Is there anything wrong with that?’
‘No, not if it helps all round in the end. But it’s vicarious living. Don’t you agree?’
‘Well—’ Michael was not sure. ‘Up to a point, perhaps.’
‘He likes running home to St Mark’s when he’s had enough of the real world,’ said Jane. ‘It’s a retreat.’
‘Well, at least he makes little forays outside,’ he said. ‘He doesn’t shut himself up the whole time, like some academics.’
‘I hope he brings his Greek friend to see us,’ Jane said. ‘I want to meet him.’
‘He probably will,’ said Michael. ‘He’ll want to show him our English way of life.’
Back at St Mark’s, Patrick was not dining in the grandeur imagined by Jane, for the college staff were having a rest and the kitchens were closed. He was, in fact, opening a tin of soup and eating biscuits and cheese for his supper. He had forgotten to shop, and the bread in his plastic bin was covered in flourishing mould.
He was delighted when, at nine o’clock, Manolakis rang up to report his business in London concluded and to ask if he might return the next day.
Part VII
1
Manolakis was eager for the experience of travelling by British Rail; trains were not a feature of life in Crete. However, Patrick insisted that he had a call to make in Dean Street and would collect him afterwards.
He parked in Soho near the office of the agent whose address he had been given at the Fantasy Theatre. It was above a pizza restaurant, and strong, cheesy smells filtered up the stairway to the dark passage above, where a glass door bore the name Leila Waters, painted in black, and a sign instructed Enter and Wait.
Patrick entered.
In a small room with green walls and a cream ceiling, and an unvarnished board floor, three men sat on chairs ranged round the sides of the room like patients waiting for the doctor. Two looked despondent, the third desperately alert. None was young. Over their heads were ranged a variety of blown-up photographs, none of which showed a face which Patrick was able to recognise.
A thin girl with frizzed hair and high platform soles sat typing at a desk in the corner.
‘She won’t see you without an appointment,’ was the response when Patrick asked for an audience with Leila Waters.
‘Please take her this and ask her if she would be good enough to spare me five minutes,’ said Patrick, as he took a card from his wallet and wrote a few words on the back of it.
The girl looked at him suspiciously.
‘I’m not an actor. It’s about something else,’ said Patrick, and felt the atmosphere in the room change as the three waiting men stopped silently registering horror at his effrontery.
‘Well, I’ll ask,’ said the girl. ‘But I’m sure she won’t see you.’
She disappeared through a chocolate-brown door. Certainly Sam’s agent wasted no percentages on the premises, thought Patrick. He sat down, well away from the trio of men. The alert one was fidgeting, twitching his foot up and down and snapping his fingers. Patrick wondered if he was mentally practising some dance routine. The other two men stared into space. As the girl came back, the telephone on her desk rang.
‘You’re to go in,’ she said to Patrick, swinging her hips behind the desk and seizing the receiver while she spoke.
Watched resentfully by the other men, Patrick went through the chocolate-brown door.
A fat, white-haired woman sat behind a scratched desk talking into another telephone. She had stubby fingers with chunky rings on most of them, and her nails were painted blue. The walls here were covered with more photographs, and this time Patrick recognised nearly all the faces. He saw Joss Ruxton, the actor who had played Othello last year at Stratford, and his Desdemona, and a print of Sam taken long ago dressed as Jaques.
‘Yes—I know you’ve an audition on Tuesday, but this would be better for you – eight weeks filming and who knows what might come after that if the film’s any damn good. Now, you get along there,’ the woman was saying, and she waved a hand at Patrick to sit down.
He did so, watching while she talked on, cajoling and bullying, and eventually reached agreement with her client, after which she slammed down the receiver.
‘Now. Three minutes, that’s all,’ she said, fixing Patrick with a bright blue stare from tiny, deep-set eyes. Her voice was youthful, and her diction crisp; he guessed she had once been on the stage herself.
‘Sam’s funeral – do you know when it is?’ Patrick asked her.
‘He can’t be cremated – some ban by the coroner. It’s on Wednesday at ten,’ said Leila Waters. She scribbled something on a piece of paper, tore it from a pad and gave it to him. ‘There. That’s the cemetery and the name of the undertaker.’
‘Thank you,’ said Patrick.
‘Well, Sam’s troubles are over. Pity,’ said Leila. ‘He had talent.’
‘Why didn’t he get any further?’ Patrick asked.
‘It was his own fault. There was that business years ago – you knew about it?’
Sam had been mixed up in a drug scandal; he had been acquitted in court of any complicity in what had gone on but he had had a breakdown, broken a contract, and been out of work for years.
‘He needn’t have dropped out of sight then,’ Leila went on. ‘But his nerve went – he wouldn’t turn up for auditions, or if he did, he dried – couldn’t do a thing. He was almost washed up.’
‘What made him keep at it?’
‘I did. Told him to stop wallowing in self-pity and get on with it, and found fresh opportunities for him when no other agent would have bothered. I always believed in his ability, but his temperament was too much – it beat him in the end.’
The telephone rang, and she spoke into it again for some minutes. It was a call about finding an actress for a commercial. Patrick listened with interest to the conversation. He thrived on seeing aspects of life so different from his own.
‘Stratford,’ he said, when Leila had finished. ‘Sam was going to be Friar Lawrence and Cinna.’
‘Not Cinna – Caesar,’ said Leila. ‘That could have made him. He might have settled down and become a regular part of the company.’
‘Caesar himself, indeed,’ said Patrick thoughtfully. Denis had got it wrong.
‘Yes. Another actor was picked first, but he couldn’t do it in the end – a film part came up, and he took that.’
‘So it was offered to Sam? He was already going up there for Romeo and Juliet?’
‘Yes.’
‘He seemed to have no friends,’ said Patrick.
‘He was a loner. I doubt if anyone ever got close to him,’ said Leila. ‘I can’t help you, if you want to know why he did it. I told the police the same thing.’ She reached out for the telephone. ‘I’ve got to find that actress,’ she said, and, as Patrick still remained sitting in front of her, added, ‘I sent him off several times to audition for really good parts – things he could do on his head if only he’d kept it – but he didn’t turn up. You can’t keep on indefinitely with someone like that.’
Yet she’d done it: persevered for years, and thought at last that she’d found him a niche where he might take root.
‘Nerves?’
‘No confidence. Many actors lack it – some of the greatest never get over their nervousness – but the obsession with acting overcomes it. The business is harsh—tough—unless they fight they don’t get on. There are hundreds of people with talent and someone unreliable won’t be chosen if there’s a reliable actor around waiting to grab what’s going.’
‘So you think he was capable of suicide?’
‘He proved it, didn’t he? Yet I thought this time he was really looking forward to the season. The run at the Fantasy went well, and he’s always liked doing Shakespeare.’
‘It seems funny that he lost his nerve about Stratford when he’d done that spell at the Fantasy,’ Patrick said. ‘I should have thought that was more of a challenge.’
L
eila shrugged. ‘He’d done Macduff before, in rep. He’d never played Caesar,’ she said. ‘He’s the sort of person who, when they’re gone, you forget – it’s as if he never was,’ she added. ‘A negative man.’
‘What a terrible epitaph.’ Patrick was shocked.
Leila shrugged, impatient for him to leave.
‘Had he a drink problem?’
‘Not now. In the past.’
‘Any enemies?’
‘You’re joking. He wasn’t positive enough. No friends and no foes. Now, you’ve had far more than three minutes of my valuable time,’ Leila said. ‘Goodbye.’
She started her telephoning again as Patrick left. The three men in the outer office had been joined by a dark girl. None took the least notice of him; all were absorbed by their own problems.
They were looking for roles to play. But they must have other things too in their lives – lovers – people to whom they related in some fashion. Or did they all come to life only when they were acting?
And what about Sam?
2
Patrick spent the afternoon in the cinema and then met Dimitris Manolakis outside the British Museum, where he had been keeping a tryst with the fragments from the Parthenon.
He had also visited St Paul’s and Westminster Abbey with his relations, and he was wearing a new sweater which showed he had visited another tourist mecca.
‘I have some news about your dead friend,’ said Manolakis. ‘You might like to hear it right away.’ His English sounded more fluent already, though he must have been speaking Greek with his relations. ‘I have been to see the good Colin Smithers this morning and he told me. He knew you would want to know.’
The way Manolakis gambolled about among English verbs was impressive; but Greek ones were so difficult that ours must seem child’s play to one who had grown up with those, Patrick reflected.
‘The police are satisfied. They think his death was suicide, but he died from failing heart, not drowning. He had been acting out his fantasies.’
‘I don’t believe it,’ said Patrick. ‘You mean he tied himself up, acting out some masochistic scheme, and then jumped in the river?’
After a little sorting out of the linguistics of this, Manolakis agreed.
‘And he died from fear before he is hitting the water,’ he said, letting his tenses slip. ‘His arteries were not good.’
‘So they’re stopping enquiries?’
‘That bright.’
‘What do you think, Dimitri?’
‘I did not know your friend. I cannot judge. These things happen, it is known. Colin has told me of many unhappy cases.’
‘But the shreds of sacking under his fingers – what about them?’
‘Perhaps for some time beforehand he is tying himself inside a sack?’
If this was a case of some sort of perversion, it was possible. Inconsequentially, Patrick remembered the pile of sacks in the garage at the empty cottage near Stratford- upon-Avon.
‘I’m not at all happy about this,’ he said. ‘Let’s go and ask Liz what she thinks about it.’
‘Liz? Who is Liz?’
‘She’s a friend of mine – she knew Sam,’ he said. ‘And there’s a whole lot more, Dimitri,’ and he told him about Tina Willoughby.
‘But you have no proof that this lady knew Sam?’
‘Not yet.’
Manolakis had heard from Colin about Patrick’s uncanny instinct for sensing trouble. His nose, Colin had called it, and the Greek had seen proof of it himself in the past. It was a faculty he too possessed, and he respected it in another; the owner of it would worry away at a problem until he solved it, even if it took years.
‘If it was so, you will find out,’ he said.
They had hit the rush hour, and it took some time to get from Bedford Square to Bolton Gardens. Manolakis did not mind; the London crowds fascinated him. He had never seen so many people herded together. Athens was a great and bustling city, but the population of London equalled that of the whole of Greece; it was a sobering reflection. He looked benevolently at the convoys of large red buses and the hurrying citizens; he had no responsibility for any of them, he was merely an observer.
Patrick, meanwhile, was wondering what had made him think of consulting Liz. After all, they had met only a few days before. She would be very surprised to see him again so soon.
She was, and did not hide it; she also looked pleased. She had only just got back from the office when they arrived.
She gave them drinks and asked Manolakis how he was enjoying his visit, listening with interest to his answers. She had never been to Greece.
‘Oh, but you must go!’ Manolakis exclaimed. ‘You must take her, Patrick,’ he cried. ‘All English people are loving Greece.’
‘Yes, well—’ Patrick looked uneasy. He and Liz had met by chance in Greutz; they had never started out on holiday together. He looked at her and was relieved to see her eyes were sparkling and she looked amused. Where had she been on holiday last year, he wondered, never having thought about it before; and more important, with whom?
‘About Sam,’ he said, to put his thoughts in order, and told her that Manolakis had propounded her own theory.
‘It must have been something like that, surely, Patrick,’ she said. ‘One finds it hard to accept this sort of thing when it happens to someone one knows. It’s so sad to think they were so unhappy.’
‘His lack of success seemed to be mostly his own fault,’ Patrick said, and related what Leila Waters had told him.
‘Dimitris and I might call on Tina Willoughby’s neighbour on our way home,’ he said.
‘What excuse will you offer?’ Liz asked.
‘None. I shall tell the truth – that I was passing and was curious to know how the inquest went. It’s always better to stick to the truth. Damn it, I did kill her wretched dog,’ said Patrick. ‘We’ll be going to Stratford anyway, so I can have another look around Pear Tree Cottage then. You do want to go to Stratford-on-Avon, Dimitri, don’t you?’
‘Ah—that is the home of William Shakespeare. Yes, I like it very much. What is it to be seen? The Merchant of Venice? I have studied him.’
“They’re not doing that just now,’ said Patrick. ‘It’s Othello again this year.’
Perhaps, for a Greek, a play with a less controversial background than the troubled island of Cyprus might be a better choice, but Manolakis appeared unconcerned.
‘I would like to see that,’ he said.
He did not mind what he saw or where he went; these English friends were warm and kind; where was the well- known British aloofness? He had yet to meet it.
‘You will come too?’ he said to Liz.
She was startled, and looked at Patrick.
‘Please,’ said Manolakis, and then was inspired. ‘It will be very happy for me if you are both my guests – I buy the tickets. How can it be done?’ He was delighted at having found a way to return some hospitality, typically forgetting that Patrick had stayed with him in Crete and the debt was quite the other way. ‘You will come, Elizabeth?’ He gave each syllable of her name its full value.
Why not, thought Liz. Did Patrick want her to accept? His expression did not reveal what he felt, but it would be silly to make an issue of it; she went with him to the theatre two or three times a year, and afterwards he always quietly forgot her till the next time. This would be merely another such occasion. She would like to see Othello at Stratford.
‘Thank you, Dimitri. I would like it very much,’ she said.
‘We may not be able to get tickets at short notice,’ Patrick warned.
‘You sometimes can at the start of the season,’ said Liz. ‘We can try. When shall we go? I might be able to get away early on Friday, but otherwise it would have to be Saturday.’
‘Let’s ring them up,’ said Patrick. ‘It may be a different play each night.’
Liz had a programme for the first weeks of the season. From that, they saw that Othello would be performe
d on Friday, and also on Saturday for the Birthday performance. They explained to Manolakis that the anniversary of Shakespeare’s birthday was always celebrated.
‘We won’t get in to that. It will be booked up for the important guests,’ said Patrick.
‘Well, let’s try for Friday, then,’ said Liz. She was about to make the telephone call herself, automatically, but something stopped her. ‘There’s the telephone, Patrick,’ she said. ‘You ring them up.’
He gaped at her. She sounded so bossy; just like Jane. But he rang up the theatre and was able to book three good stalls seats for the Friday performance; the tickets had just been returned.
Part VIII
1
‘She is a lovely woman, your Elizabeth,’ said Manolakis as they drove away. ‘She is your mistress?’
‘Good heavens, no!’ exclaimed Patrick. ‘Nothing like that.’
‘But why not? Or you will marry – she is not married, is she?’
‘She’s divorced. Her husband was—her marriage was unhappy—they parted years ago,’ said Patrick, feeling flustered at this inquisition.
‘You like her.’
‘Very much,’ said Patrick.
‘Well, then, it is natural – the one or the other,’ said Manolakis in his direct, Greek way.
‘It’s not as easy as that,’ said Patrick. ‘You Greeks, with your warm sunshine and your blue skies – these things seem simpler to you.’
‘Take her to Greece, then, Patrick, and it will be simple for you,’ said Manolakis.
Patrick was so stupefied by this conversation that he drove in silence for the next six miles while Manolakis admired the countryside.
‘Perhaps she has some other lover,’ the Greek said after a while.
‘Who? Liz?’
‘Yes. She is attractive. It must be so.’
The very notion was enough to make Patrick lose his concentration and drive without proper care. He scowled at the road ahead; if Manolakis was right, the fellow might be with her now. What a thought! Patrick gripped the steering-wheel tightly and pushed the car on faster, driving the loathsome idea out of his mind.
Cast For Death Page 6
