Sicken and So Die (11 page)

Chad Pearson, seated beside Sally, was in the middle of some scatalogical anecdote about a slow-witted Jamaican immigrant. It was all right for him. He was black. Anything he said against black people was politically acceptable.

Chad reached his punch-line with immaculate timing, and the area around him erupted with laughter. When it subsided, Alexandru Radulescu was full of congratulations. ‘Excellent, Chad, excellent. You are very good comedy actor. It is a pity that Feste doesn't have more comedy in the play. Maybe we work out some extra business to use your talents properly – eh?'

Chad Pearson responded to this with some line in his dumb Jamaican patois, which again set the table on a roar. Charles wasn't near enough to hear what was said. He hadn't been near enough to hear more than the odd word of the original story. His spirits sank lower. Pity Osbert Sitwell had used the title
Laughter in the Next Room
for a volume of autobiography. It would have suited Charles Paris's memoirs. Not of course that there was anything worth remembering in his life. A long timetable of missed buses and wrong roads followed.

Oh God, he must get out of this cycle of self-recrimination. There was an unhealthy indulgence in it, a picking away at the scabs of his discontent, willing them to reinfect themselves.

A waiter was slowly working his way round the table, taking orders. There was so much hilarity, so much backchat, so much flamboyance, so many changes of mind, that it was hard for him to pin the diners down to final decisions, particularly on the minutiae of bhajees, naans, chapatis and pappadums.

‘I must just nip off to the Gents,' John B. Murgatroyd announced. ‘Order me a Chicken Vindaloo, Charles. With a tarka dal. And pilau rice. And, as for you, my dear . . .' He turned a sexy beam on Talya Northcott, ‘. . . I'm sure Charles will keep you conversationally on the boil till my return.'

The pretty little actress gave Charles a token grin and then turned determinedly to talk to the person on her right.

I'm too old, he thought. Why should I imagine a young woman would be interested in me? Why should I imagine any woman would be interested in me?

Even Frances. He'd really screwed up with Frances. The one lifeline that was offered for his declining years and he had deliberately swum away from it. He should be with her at that moment, making it up with her, telling her how much she meant to him, telling her that she was the only woman he'd ever really loved and that he'd definitely try in future to – ‘Yes, please, sir?' The waiter's voice broke into this self-indulgent spiral of misery. ‘Have you decided?'

‘Oh yes.' John B.'s instructions had completely vanished from Charles's head. He grasped at the menu, hoping it would remind him. ‘Now my friend wants a tarka something. Not
Tarka the Otter
, I know, but –'

‘Tarka dal,' supplied the waiter, and wrote it down.

‘And he wanted a . . . Vindaloo, I think . . .'

‘Prawn Vindaloo is very good, sir.'

‘Yes, fine. And I'll have the . . . which is the mild one?'

‘Khurma is mild. Or . . .' A note of contempt came into the waiter's voice ‘. . . Dupiaza is so mild it hardly deserves the name of a curry.'

‘Chicken Dupiaza for me, please,' said Charles wimpishly. He also wanted to order some of those nice crispy round things, but he couldn't remember whether they were chapatis or pappadums. Unwilling to show himself up further, he didn't ask for either.

‘And boiled rice for both of you, yes?'

‘Er, yes, fine,' said Charles, and took another long swallow of wine.

He knew there was little chance of shifting his mood, but at least he could numb it with alcohol. Pity he hadn't had the chance to put down a few large Bell's before they got to the restaurant. Wine worked, but it took so much longer. And you needed a lot more of it. Charles Paris refilled his glass.

The large order from the
Twelfth Night
company seemed to have thrown the restaurant into confusion. Maybe they were short-staffed, maybe there was some crisis in the kitchen . . . For whatever reason, the food took a long time to arrive. The actors drank more, ordered extra bottles, and grew ever rowdier.

As a result, there was a lot more confusion – genuine and engineered – when the food finally came. People couldn't remember what they'd ordered. Some mischievously claimed things they hadn't ordered, while others rejected dishes that they had ordered. It was the kind of mayhem that Indian restaurateurs are presumably used to when they have in a large party of overexcited thespians.

‘Who's the Chicken Madras?' ‘King Prawn Biryani, anyone . . .?' ‘Whose are the Dupiazas?' ‘Someone's stolen my naan.' ‘Oy, get the chutney down here.' ‘I'm missing a chapati.' ‘I definitely did order a Sag Aloo.' The sound level rose higher and higher.

But slowly order was imposed on the orders. The joke of pretending to have got the wrong food wore thin, metal dishes were reallocated around the table, wine glasses recharged, and the serious business of eating began.

‘What the hell's this?' John B. Murgatroyd demanded when the only meal left that could possibly be his appeared in front of him. ‘Charles, what did you order me?'

‘Vindaloo – that's what you wanted, isn't it?'

‘Yes, Chicken Vindaloo, not prawn. For God's sake, I'm allergic to shellfish. If I eat these now, I'll be throwing up all over the place in three hours' time.'

‘Oh, I am sorry. I wasn't concentrating. Look, you have mine. Mine's chicken.'

John B. Murgatroyd scrutinised the proffered dish dubiously. ‘What is that?'

‘Chicken Dupi . . . duppy – doopy – something . . .'

‘Dupiaza?' John B. had caught the waiter's note of contempt.

‘Yes.'

‘Oh God.' Charles's order was picked up and waved over the table as John B. Murgatroyd shouted out, ‘Anybody fancy swapping a Chicken Dupiaza for something stronger?'

Howls of derision, ‘I've already got one', ‘No Way' and, ‘Forget it' greeted this suggestion.

‘Order something else,' said Charles. ‘I'll pay. Look, I'm sorry if –'

‘God, no. If it takes them this long to get things cooked, I'll be waiting all night. I'll eat this.'

John B. Murgatroyd dumped a portion of Chicken Dupiaza on to his plate, then saw the rice. ‘Oh, shit. I did say order pilau.'

‘I'm sorry. I –'

But John B. Murgatroyd turned his back on his friend, and spent the rest of the meal strenuously and unambiguously chatting up Talya Northcott.

Leaving Charles feeling even more wretched. Particularly as he found the Prawn Vindaloo inedibly hot.

John B. Murgatroyd clearly thought he was on to a winner. The intentions of his chatting up became more overt as the evening progressed. He only spoke to Charles once, when Talya had slipped away to make a phone call.

‘I think the old John B. magic's working again,' he leered. ‘I think a serious, steamy bonking session is going to prove unavoidable. God, it's hell, you know, being fatally attractive to women.' He grinned smugly. ‘But I've learned to live with it. Ah, my dear,' he greeted the returning Handmaiden, ‘you just put your beautiful little bottom back down there.'

Why is it, Charles asked himself bitterly, that one always feels jealous of someone who's clearly about to score? It doesn't make any difference if you find the object of their attentions utterly repulsive. It doesn't even matter how well your own sex-life's going at that precise moment . . . Not of course that mine's going at all right now . . . His mind readily – even eagerly – supplied the gloomy thoughts, and the cycle of self-hatred started up again.

They'd got to the stage of bill-paying. Everyone was keen to leave. Those who didn't reckon they were on a promise, like John B. Murgatroyd, were simply tired. It'd been a long day's rehearsal, and they had to start again at ten in the morning. Another ten days and
Twelfth Night
would be opening at Chailey Ferrars. They all needed to conserve their energy.

Dividing up the bill was, as ever, complicated, and the communal mood was by now scratchier. The company's two teetotallers objected to contributing to the wine; the vegetarians, Tottie Roundwood and Talya Northcott, insisted they'd only ordered small vegetable curries; all the usual wrangles developed. And, as always, somebody – in this case the company manager – produced a calculator and started working it all out.

Sally Luther, exasperated, slammed a twenty-pound note down on the table and left. Benzo Ritter's eyes followed her like a rejected spaniel's. She hadn't even said goodbye to him. Charles felt a moment of sympathy for the young actor. Infatuation's tough when you're that age, he recollected.

‘I'll pay for yours,' said John B. Murgatroyd, flamboyantly placing a twenty and a ten-pound note on Talya's side plate.

‘Oh, thank you very much,' she giggled.

John B.'s proprietorial hand was on her shoulder. ‘Come on, let's move. See you, Charles,' he threw back as they strolled to the door.

Wistfully, Charles watched them across the room. Then Olivia's Handmaiden walked up to an elegantly dressed woman in her sixties, who was standing by the coat-rack. Introductions were made and the new arrival graciously shook John B. Murgatroyd by the hand. Talya Northcott also shook her host politely by the hand; then she and the woman who was undoubtedly ‘Mummy' left.

Charles Paris did not need the explanation John B. gave as he came stomping back to the table; he had read it all in the little pantomime by the door. ‘Only rung up her bloody, sodding mother, hadn't she? Oh, shit! Fucking, pissing shit!'

‘All-round entertainer,' said Charles.

‘What?'

‘Well, shit that can fuck and piss could surely get bookings at any venue in the . . .' But John B.'s face suggested he was in no mood to pursue verbal fantasies. Charles looked at his watch. ‘Pubs're still open. Fancy a quick one?'

‘That's what I thought Talya bloody Northcott was going to say,' John B. Murgatroyd muttered. ‘Oh yes, what the hell? Let's see how many quick ones we can fit in before they close.'

‘WHAT WE'RE doing isn't working, you know,' said John B. Murgatroyd, as he sat down with their second round of drinks. The pub had been recently refurbished, decked out with all those brass rails, coloured glass lamps and sporting prints which are meant to give character, but are now so familiar they drain it all away.

‘It is,' Charles protested. He took a substantial swallow from his large Bell's. ‘We are doing the play as Shakespeare intended it to be done. We are making sense of our scenes.'

‘We're still sticking out like sore thumbs in this production.'

‘That's the production's fault, not ours. Everything else is just flashy theatrical tricks;
we
are actually telling the story.'

‘Still sticking out like sore thumbs.' John B. Murgatroyd took a reflective swig from his second pint.

‘So what are you suggesting – that we cave in, do as Alexandru tells us, make nonsense of the play?'

‘Well –'

‘Listen, I'm not denying he's talented. He is. He has some very good ideas.
Some
very good ideas. But not all his ideas are good. And it needs someone to stand up to him and tell him that. He'll listen.'

‘I doubt it.'

‘He listens to that guy from Asphodel. When he was told he couldn't change the sets and costumes, OK, Alexandru stamped his little foot, but he accepted it. Thank God he did. Otherwise, no doubt, we'd be doing
Twelfth Night
in cycling shorts and kimonos. But you see, a firm hand works. We've got to stand up to him about the way we play our characters.'

‘We just look wrong. I was noticing during the run this afternoon. The two of us looked totally out of place.'

‘That's because the place is wrong, not our performances.'

‘Maybe. It doesn't matter which, anyway. It's still going to give the audience a strange feeling, as if they're watching something unfinished.'

‘Listen, John B.,' said Charles. The alcohol had made him more forceful and confessional than he might have been under other circumstances. ‘My career as an actor hasn't been great. I've had my chances, OK. Most of them I've screwed up. I've never made it to the top rank. At my age it's very unlikely now that I ever will. I can accept that. I have accepted that.

‘But it doesn't mean I've run out of ambition. There are still things I want to do professionally, still things I believe I
can
do professionally. And playing Sir Toby Belch is one of them. It's a part I've always wanted, and one I know I can play well. Under Gavin I was getting the chance to play it well. Now that's being threatened. It's impossible for me to give a good performance with Alexandru directing.'

John B. Murgatroyd shook his head ruefully. ‘The production was looking pretty good this afternoon. Even you must admit that.'

‘Yes, moments looked OK, I agree. Some of the effects are stunning, but it's all at the expense of the play – and at the expense of the actors. You know, no one in the cast is going to get any decent notices out of this.'

‘Well, I don't know. I'd have thought –'

‘All the notices will be about the production. They'll talk about “Alexandru Radulescu's radical new interpretation”, “Radulescu's brave vision”. Directing for him's nothing more or less than an ego-trip.'

John B. Murgatroyd squirmed uncomfortably. ‘But if it
works
?'

‘Do I gather from this, John B., that you're about to start playing Sir Andrew Aguecheek differently?'

‘Well . . . maybe.'

So Charles Paris had lost his one supporter in the
Twelfth Night
company. From now on it was just him against the massed forces of Alexandru Radulescu's creatures.