What Bloody Man Is That (2 page)

‘Ah,' said Charles. Thirty-six lines, if his memory served him correctly. Mind you, thirty-six lines of fairly long-winded poetry . . . a lot of directors cut a few of them.

‘And he wants you to double the Drunken Porter.'

‘Oh yes.' Thirty-three lines. And that worst of all fates, a Shakespearean character who's meant to be funny. Charles was prepared to believe that lines like “Have napkins enow about you; here you'll sweat for it” got belters from the groundlings at the Globe; but he knew that to a modern audience they were about as funny as a rise in the mortgage rate.

‘Still,' Maurice went on, ‘Gavin says there could be other good parts in the offing.'

‘Oh.' Well, that was encouraging. Maybe not in
Macbeth
, but there might be leads in later productions. ‘Is it a booking for the season?'

‘Well, no, it's just
Macbeth
at the moment. Gavin's booking one production at a time . . . but he was optimistic that there could be some other good parts.'

‘And what money are they offering?'

Maurice told him.

Charles winced. ‘They've got to pay more than that. You're going to push for more, aren't you?'

‘Oh, Charles . . .' Maurice sounded mortally offended. ‘What do you take me for?'

Charles restrained himself from answering that one.

‘I'll be as tough as nails. Got to earn my fifteen per cent, haven't I?'

‘Yes. Maurice, I'm still not happy about this fifteen per cent business. Most agents only take ten. I mean, I know you call it Personal Management, but I haven't really seen much evidence that –'

‘Charles, trust me.'

‘Hmm.'

‘I'll screw them for every penny they've got. And then a few. Come on, Charles, you know me, don't you?'

‘Yes,' Charles agreed gloomily.

He knew the sort of money he would get. Maurice might screw another five a week out of them, but it was still going to be an income most tea-ladies would reject with derision. A lot of actors, he knew, just said they couldn't afford to do rep. ‘Love to do it, darling, super part, and I really want to get back to my roots in the live theatre, but I'm afraid, with the money they were offering, the sums just don't add up.'

But the people who said that were actors who had good chances of getting parts in television. The sums didn't add up for Charles either, but in his case there weren't at that moment any other options.

And even the pittance that the Pinero Theatre, Warminster, was offering was more than the dole. Just.

And it was work. He felt ridiculously elated when he put the phone down. Like most actors, he went into a sort of limbo, a suspended animation, when he wasn't working. Now at least he had a chance to do what he was supposed to do.

And the parts weren't really that bad. Already he was starting to think of the accents he would use for the two. Something contrasting. Yes, be nice to get a notice like he had when playing Pompey and the Clown in Antony and Cleopatra (‘an acutely differentiated pair of cameos by Charles Paris' –
Western Evening News
).

Hmm, the Bleeding Sergeant and the Drunken Porter . . . Not at all bad.

And it could have been a lot worse. Charles recalled the opening stage direction for Macbeth Act One Scene Seven: “Enter a Sewer”.'

At least he hadn't got that part.

‘Now the question is, of course, how much imagination has Lady Macbeth got? That's the important thing, isn't it, Charles?'

‘Er, sorry?' With an effort he dragged his concentration back to what Gavin was saying. ‘Yes, yes,' he said, opting for a safe response.

‘She's obviously not such a stranger to the imaginative dimension as Macbeth himself is. Is she?'

‘No,' Charles agreed, continuing his safety play. So long as he got the Yesses, Noes and Ahs in the right places, he reckoned he'd be all right.

‘I mean, clearly, when we first see her, reading Macbeth's letter, she has already imagined the possibility of her husband becoming King. Wouldn't you agree?'

‘Oh yes.' He added the ‘Oh' for simple variety.

‘But just
how
imaginative is she? I mean, could Lady Macbeth cope with the Weird Sisters?'

‘Ah.'

‘And indeed does she get less imaginative as Macbeth gets more imaginative? Does she actually –?'

The US Cavalry, in the form of the barman, appeared at the end of the counter and Charles, whose ammunition against death by boredom was running dangerously low, hailed the lifesaver effusively.

‘Could we have the same again, please?'

‘Sure.' The barman took their glasses. He was a quiet man, whose face was permanently set in an expression of rueful apology. While their drinks were being served, Charles made a determined effort to shift the conversation away from Gavin Scholes' theory of hidden resonances in Shakespeare's text. There'd be time enough for all that once they started actual rehearsal. It was the Saturday evening; they'd got till Monday morning before they had to address themselves to the problems of interpretation and characterisation. And Charles didn't really think that finding the concealed behavioural triggers of the Bleeding Sergeant and the Drunken Porter was going to take him that long.

‘Who else is in the company, Gavin?'

‘Well, I told you George Birkitt is giving his Macbeth . . . You ever worked with him, Charles?'

‘Yes.' Charles left it at that. No point in going into the details of his previous encounters with George, on a television sit com called
The Strutters
, in a play called
The Hooded Owl
which had transferred to the West End, most recently on the pilot of a ghastly television game-show entitled
If the Cap Fits
. Nor did Charles wish to be drawn on what he thought of George Birkitt's talent as an actor.

‘Very lucky to get him,' said Gavin. ‘Big telly name like that.'

‘Yes.'

‘He's got to have a couple of rehearsal days out for filming some new sit com he's doing, but basically we've got him right through.'

‘Oh, good,' said Charles, permitting himself an edge of irony. Down at his level in the profession, you didn't get days off rehearsal for doing other jobs; it was only so-called stars who could get that kind of thing written into their contracts.

But Gavin seemed unaware of the intonation. ‘Then I was terribly lucky to get Felicia Chatterton for Lady Macbeth. Ever come across her?'

Charles shook his head.

‘No, well, you wouldn't have done unless you'd been with the Royal Shakespeare. She went straight out of Central to Stratford and hasn't worked anywhere else. Done some lovely stuff . . . super notices for her Perdita. And a smashing Celia. Anyway, like most of them do, she's now venturing out into the real commercial world.'

‘How old is she?'

‘Late twenties.'

‘Bit young to be partnered by George, isn't she?'

‘Oh, I don't know. She's very clever. And, anyway, I think a younger Lady Macbeth helps the sensuality in the relationship. Don't you?'

Charles tried another nod this time.

‘The sexual dimension is so important. You know, that whole business of whether she's had children or not . . . She has the “I have given suck . . .” speech, but then Macduff says, ‘He has no children.' Now, are we meant to assume –?'

‘Yes.' Charles diverted the subject forcibly. ‘Who else is there?'

‘What, in the company?'

‘Yes. Who's Duncan, for instance?'

‘Oh.' Gavin smiled slyly. ‘I got Warnock Belvedere for that.'

‘Ah.'

‘From your tone of voice, I gather you know him.'

‘Only by reputation.'

Again Gavin Scholes read something in Charles's intonation. ‘Oh, I think that's probably all bullshit. I mean, you know how easily someone gets a name for being difficult. One director they don't get on with, and suddenly all these stories start circulating round the business. I'm sure he'll be fine.'

‘You haven't worked with him?'

‘No. I've spoken to him on the phone, and he sounds absolutely charming. Anyway, when you book someone like that, one of those larger-than-life characters, in my experience you get so much in return. You know, those older actors really know how to fill the stage. Don't you agree?'

Charles did agree, and said ‘Yes.' But he didn't say that, in his experience, actors who ‘filled the stage' hadn't a lot of time for the other actors who tried to share it with them.

‘Oh, I'm not worried,' Gavin went on breezily, though something in his expression belied the words. ‘With most so-called difficult actors, I think it's all down to how the director handles them. Don't you agree?'

This time there was no mistaking the naked appeal in Gavin's eyes. It confirmed Charles's suspicion that he had been booked as much to give the director moral support as to give his Bleeding Sergeant and Drunken Porter.

‘No, there'll be no problem,' Gavin continued protesting too much. ‘Most actors who behave badly are just insecure. If you take a firm line from the start –'

But the director didn't get time to articulate his full theory of how to deal with difficult actors. Behind them the swing doors into the bar clattered dramatically open and a huge fruity voice boomed out, ‘Who do you have to fuck to get a drink round here?'

Gavin Scholes and Charles Paris looked round. But they both knew what they would see before they saw it.

A mountainous man propped up on a silver-topped walking stick swayed near the door. He wore a shapeless suit of thick checked tweed over a bottle-green waistcoat across which a watch-chain hung pretentiously. His mane of white hair and beard seemed to have been modelled on the elderly Buffalo Bill. A monocle was screwed firmly into the veined purple face.

‘Charles Paris,' said Gavin Scholes as he moved towards the door, ‘I don't believe you've met Warnock Belvedere . . .?'

THE OLD ACTOR'S presence was so commanding that it was only as Gavin and Charles drew near that they noticed he had not entered the bar alone. Slightly behind Warnock, eclipsed by his bulk, stood a thin boy, scarcely out of his teens, on whose face an eager-to-please smile hovered nervously.

‘Oh, hello, Russ. Charles, I don't think you've met Russ Lavery either . . .?'

‘No, I –'

‘Never mind that,' boomed Warnock Belvedere. ‘Time enough for pleasantries when you've got me that bloody drink. God, a man could die of dehydration in this place.'

‘Yes, yes, of course,' said Gavin, scuttling back to the bar, and suggesting to Charles that the director's ‘firm line' in dealing with the supposedly difficult actor would be based on abject subservience.

‘What's it to be?' Gavin asked from the bar.

‘Brandy. Large one,' Warnock Belvedere replied as he limped heavily across the room.

Charles reached out his hand to the young man who had been introduced as Russ Lavery. ‘Charles Paris. Are you in the company?'

‘Yes, it's my first job out of Webber Douglas.'

‘Welcome to the business.'

‘Thanks. Yes, I just finished my training this summer. I was very lucky. An agent liked what I did in one of the final term productions and signed me up.'

‘Well done.'

‘It was Robbie Patrick, actually.' The boy was demonstrably keen to get the name into the conversation. And with reason. Robbie Patrick was one of the most successful and fashionable agents on the scene. To be signed up by him was about the best start any aspiring actor could have.

‘Anyway, Robbie put me up to audition for Gavin and it went okay, and I've got one of the Pinero's provisional cards.'

‘Again, well done.' It was quite an achievement. The actors' union, Equity, paranoid about too many people entering a hopelessly overcrowded profession, restricted most theatres to admitting two new members a year. To have got one of the coveted union cards so quickly was what every drama student in the country prayed for.

‘What are you playing?' asked Charles, with a grin.

The grin had the right effect, and the boy seemed more relaxed as he replied, ‘Fleance and Young Siward.'

‘Great.'

‘Yes, I'm very excited about it. You know, the chance to play two contrasting roles. Using different voices.'

There was something puppyish about the boy's enthusiasm. Charles for a moment felt almost patronising, until he reflected that he himself had reacted in exactly the same way to the prospect of playing two minor roles.

‘I'm sure you'll have lots of fun,' he said.

‘Yes, I mean just the chance to work in a company with –'

‘Come over here, boy!' Warnock Belvedere bellowed from the bar. ‘Come and sit by me. Pretty boy's just bought me dinner. Least I can do is to get him a drink.'

Russ Lavery flushed and moved across to the bar. Charles followed more slowly. He didn't like the sound of what Wamock had just said. The old actor was a notorious sponger, but to sponge off someone like Russ seemed pretty shabby. Nearly all actors are poor, but the ones who've just finished drama school tend to be even poorer than the rest.

Nor did Charles like the ‘pretty boy' reference. Wamock Belvedere's reputation encompassed fairly aggressive homosexuality, and Charles hoped that Russ wasn't going to find himself in an awkward situation with the old actor. There was an air of naïveté about the youngster, which was capable of misinterpreting Warnock's interest as something more altruistic, the simple desire of an old stager to help someone making his first tentative steps in the business.

Charles's misgivings were not dispelled when the old actor put his arm round the young one's shoulders and hoisted him on to a barstool. ‘Now what's it to be, Russ? It's still Gavin's round, so ask for whatever you want.'