He went into a quick five minutes of his club act and, for the first time in the evening, he came alive. The jokes were mostly too blue ever to be televised and the weeks of rehearsal and agonizing over the script all went for nothing.
But the audience roared. Suddenly here was something they could respond to. Not a neatly-packaged ersatz jokezak product viewed distantly and discontinuously from monitors, but a great comedian giving one of his greatest performances. It was five minutes of brilliance, until the clock crept round to nine-thirty and the anxious Floor Manager called a halt.
Charlie Hook’s closing jokes went for nothing. The audience had been spoiled by the sight of a real comedian. The show too had presumably been spoiled. In the box no doubt Wayland Ogilvie was calling down curses on all Aquarians. But for Charles it had been one of the most exciting moments of theatre he had ever seen.
At the end of the recording he was standing behind the set with one of the support actors, who observed, ‘Bloody unprofessional, wasn’t it?’
‘Bloody professional, I would have said. It was brilliantly funny.’
‘Yes, but it wasn’t television, love, was it?’
Charles met Lennie Barber on the stairs going up to the dressing rooms. The comedian looked old and exhausted, but his face bore an expression of chastened triumph, like a schoolboy who had just screwed his headmistress. He knew he was going to be expelled, but it had been worth it.
‘End of my telly career, Charles,’ he said mischievously. ‘Sorry about that. I hope you didn’t think this show was going to make your fame and fortune.’
‘Not really.’
‘Read a book once that said all comedians have got this kind of death-wish thing. Well, that was my kamikaze mission.’
‘Had you planned it?’
‘No. I just didn’t want that audience to go home cheated. They come here to be entertained and that was the least they deserved. Come and have a drink.’
Inside his dressing room Lennie Barber opened another bottle of Scotch. (He had got through one already that day.) ‘If I can’t get rid of the pain in my guts any other way, then I’ll burn it out with alcohol. Cheers.’
They drank gratefully. The recording, the camera rehearsal, the long, long day in the studio, might have taken place years before.
There was a knock on the door and Walter Proud came in. He wore his professional producer’s smile and the firmness of his jaw showed the professional producer’s determination never to admit disaster. ‘Terrific, boys, really terrific. Lovely, Lennie. It’s really going to be very big, this. Must go to a series and really turn the ratings on their heads.’
Lennie Barber didn’t say anything. He just looked at the producer and smiled sceptically.
Walter Proud blushed. ‘No, really, it’ll edit together a treat,’ he said defensively.
‘Yeah, well, maybe.’ Lennie Barber seemed to dismiss the possibility from his mind. ‘Anyway, sorry I didn’t use any of that extra material you got last night.’
‘Oh, never mind. Didn’t need it.’
‘What extra material was that?’ asked Charles curiously.
‘Oh, Walter had got some one-liners from some other writers which he reckoned might help strengthen the monologues.’
‘Yes, I only remembered it when we were in the restaurant last night,’ said Walter, ‘so I left Lennie eating away in Dollops and came back here to my office to get it.’
CHAPTER SEVENTEEN
FEED: Do you know, they say that whisky kills more people than bullets.
COMIC: Ah well, that’s because bullets don’t drink.
Charles got out of make-up as soon as he could and hurried down to the bar. Everyone would be there, he knew.
It was certainly crowded. Before diving into the melee, he stood back and tried to see Walter through the forest of bodies. No luck.
Near him Gerald Venables was talking to Nigel Frisch. As he watched, the television executive moved away and the solicitor caught his eye.
‘Charles. Drink? Bell’s, I take it.’
‘Thanks. Have you seen Walter?’
‘Over there somewhere. Hmm. I’m afraid not the most stimulating evening I’ve ever spent.’
‘No, not marvellous. Still, maybe it’ll edit all right or look better on the screen or something.’
‘Maybe. Though, from what Nigel Frisch was saying, we may never have the opportunity to find out.’
‘You mean he’s not even going to put it out?’
‘Far be it for me to say that and then be proved wrong. I’m sure anything he said to me was purely off the record and I’m sure it’ll be some time before the official verdict on the show filters down to you through the official channels, but he gave me the impression that it might well not go out. In fact, to use his own words, he said he’d rather transmit an hour of rained-off cricket.’
‘I see.’ But Charles couldn’t summon up much interest in the fate of The New Barber and Pole Show; his mind was seething with new thoughts about the deaths of Bill Peaky and Chox Morton.
‘In fact,’ Gerald continued, ‘Nigel gave me the impression that they never had much faith in the project in the first place. But because they’d got a lot of staff and studios booked for the Bill Peaky show, they thought they might as well do it on the off-chance.’
‘I see. Yes, that sounds about right — get an old man to work his guts out for a fortnight on the off-chance — that’s how television companies work.’
‘There’s no need to be satirical, Charles.’
‘Look, are you going to get me that drink or not?’
‘All right, all right. Keep your hair on. Is this deterioration in your customary sunny humour because of the show or because of the murder case? Incidentally, you must bring me up to date on that. Have you got a complete, perfect solution yet?’
‘No, not yet.’
‘Well, it’s about time — ’
‘Give me half an hour.’
Walter Proud was standing at the bar guarding a large round of drinks. ‘Ah, Charles, one of these is for you.’ Charles reached out towards a Scotch. ‘No, sorry, that one’s Lennie’s. Take this.’
Charles took the drink gratefully and took a long swallow for confidence. ‘Walter, I wanted to — ’
But the producer had turned away with outstretched arms. ‘Lennie?’
The old comedian was sweating and looked ill, but he sat down on a bar stool and attacked the large whisky that was thrust into his hand.
‘Well, Lennie, what did you think? Really?’ Walter’s professional beam was fixed in place. He was trying to move them all from the knowledge that the show had been a disaster to the alcoholic reassurance that maybe it hadn’t been so bad after all.
‘I thought it was shit, if you want my honest opinion,’ said Barber. ‘Hardly worth editing, if you ask me.’
‘Oh come on, it wasn’t that bad.’
‘Yes, it was, Walter. That bad, and far, far worse. So bad in fact that I don’t want to talk about it. Let’s talk about something else — talk about the telly shows we used to do back at Ally Pally. When it was live, when you just went on and did your act.’
‘It wasn’t so very different from now, Lennie.’
‘Oh yes it was. We were different, for a start. We both had ambitions then, there were things we believed in. And we both enjoyed what we were doing. I was just flexing my muscles as a comic, beginning to be aware of what I could do. And you were locked away in your world of sound, fiddling with wires, screwdriver flashing away, touching up microphones. And not just microphones. The ladies. There are tales I could tell, Walter, about little dancers and — ’
‘Yes, I’m sure there are, Lennie, but I think you’re being too pessimistic about what happened tonight. There were bits that — ’
‘There were bits that were awful and bits that were bloody awful. Why the whole. . thing.’ Lennie Barber suddenly slowed down. A strange expression flickered onto his face and stayed there. His words slurred. Not just the slurring of alcohol, the effect was too quick for that. ‘What’s. . going on?’ The words seemed unfamiliar, too large for his mouth, unmanageable. ‘What. . the hell’s happened?’