“A few …” Harold led the way to the Latimer’s glass doors. “The story I have to tell, my dear, will take a lot longer than a few minutes.”
As the girl followed him into the foyer, she laughed and said, “Is he with you?” jerking her head at the pigeon. Harold tightened his lips. Ms. Plume opened a small leather case slung on a thin strap across her chest. Harold, who had assumed this to be a handbag, watched disconcertedly as she undid a flap, pressed a button, and started a tape. He leaped into speech. “I first thought of producing Ama—”
“Hang on. Just rewinding.”
“Oh.” Miffed, Harold strolled over to the photograph board and stood in a proprietorial stance, one arm draped across the top. “I thought—when your colleague turns up— the first set of photographs might be here?”
“No piccies.”
“What!”
“It’s Saturday. Nobody free.” She tossed back a long fall of blond hair. “Weddings. Dog Shows. Pudding and Pie. Scouts’ Xmas Fair.”
“I see.” Harold bit back a sharp rejoinder. It never did to antagonize the press. And he had plenty of stills, including a recent one of himself wreathed in a Davidoffian haze directing Nicholas in Night Must Fall.
Ms. Plume poked a microphone not much bigger than a toothbrush at him, saying, “I understand from your letter that this is the Latimer’s ninetieth production?”
Harold smiled and shook his head. There was an awful lot of ground to be covered before they discussed the precise place of Amadeus in the Winstanley pantheon. He took a deep breath. “I always knew,” he began, “that I was destined for—”
“Just a sec.” She dashed into the street, looked up and down, and dashed back. “They’re getting very sniffy at the office about paying fines.”
“As I was saying—”
“Are the programs done yet?”
‘‘What for?”
“Amadeus, of course.”
“I should hope so. It’s the first night on Monday.”
“Could I have one?”
“What … now?”
“In case I have to zip off. Get the names right—that’s the main bit, isn’t it? With Amdram.”
Amdram! Harold went to the filing cabinet, feeling sourly that the way things were going it might be a good idea to skip his formative years. He took two first night tickets from the cash box and slipped them into a program, saying, “I don’t know if you’re familiar with the play at all?”
“I’ll say. Saw it at the National. That Simon Callow. Amaayzing.”
“Well, of course Peter Hall and I do approach the text from an entirely different—”
“Did you see Chance in a Million?”
“What?”
“On the telly. Simon Callow. And Faust. Totally in the nudies at one point.”
“I’m afraid I-”
“Amaayzing.”
“You seem very young,” said Harold acerbically, “to be a reporter.”
“I’m their cub.” The cuddliness of the noun did not mollify, especially when she added, “I always get the short straw.”
“Look. If we could go on to my next—”
A black and yellow shape peered through the doors. The girl gave a piercing squeal and flew across the carpet. “I’m coming .. . Don’t book me … please .. . Press. Press!” She waved her microphone at the phlegmatic profile and disappeared into the street. Harold hurried after and caught up with her as she climbed back into the car. She wound the window down. “Sorry it was a bit rushed.”
“There’s some tickets inside the program.” He dropped it into her lap as she took first gear. “Front row. Do try to come. …”
On the way back to Slough the Observer’s cub drew into a rest area, changed her tape of Bros for the Wedding Present, and checked her appointments list. In half an hour Honey Rampant, the TV personality, was opening a garden center. There’d probably be snacks and munchies, so Ms. Plume decided to drive straight there instead of stopping for a sandwich. Before driving off again, she tore up the front-row tickets for Amadeus and threw the fragments out of the car window.
PLAYBILL
AMADEUS by PETER SHAFFER
THE VENTICELLI: Clive Everard
Donald Everard
VALET TO SALIERI: David Smy
COOK TO SALIERI: Joyce Barnaby
ANTONIO SALIERI: Esslyn Carmichael
TERESA SALIERI: Rosa Crawley
JOHANN KILIAN VON STRACK: Victor Lacey
COUNT ORSINI-ROSENBERG: James Baker
BARON VAN SWIETEN: Bill Last
CONSTANZE WEBER: Kitty Carmichael
WOLFGANG AMADEUS MOZART: Nicholas Bradley
MAJOR-DOMO: Anthony Chailis
JOSEPH II, EMPEROR OF AUSTRIA: Boris Kent
KATHERINA CAVALIERI: Sarah Pitt-Keighley
CITIZENS OF VIENNA: Kenney Badel, David smy, Sarah Pitt-Keighley, Joyce Barnaby, Kevin Latimer, Noel Armstrong, Alan L Hughes, Lucy Mitchell, Guy Catchpole, Phoebe Glover
DESIGN: Avery Phillips
LIGHTING: Tim Young
WARDROBE: Joyce Barnaby
STAGE MANAGER: Colin Smy
ASSISTANT STAGE MANAGER: Deidre Tibbs
DIRECTED BY Harold Winstanley
First Night
Everything was ready. Checked and counterchecked. Deidre sent her young assistants up to the clubroom for some orangeade or a cup of coffee, leaving Colin to set the pianoforte. It was already past the half, and a buzz of excited conversation came up from the dressing rooms.
“I shall come in on a wing and a prayer,” Boris was informing everyone.
“I thought you were an atheist.”
“No one’s an atheist on first nights, darling.”
“Where’s Nicholas?”
“He’s always here hours before anyone else.”
“Someone’s pinched my eyebrow pencil.”
“I’ve forgotten every line. You’ll all have to cover for me.
“Has anyone seen my stockings?”
“I hear Joyce’s daughter’s coming.”
“Oh, God. Well, I hope she keeps her opinions to herself. I can still remember what she said about Shop at Sly Corner. ”
“I thought Harold was going to go into orbit.”
“I mean—no one minds constructive criticism.”
“You’ve got my stockings.”
“No, I haven’t. They’re mine!”
“If any of the furniture collapses tonight, I shall dry up completely.”
“They are not yours. Look—here’s the stain where I upset my wet-white.”
“We’ve got an almost full house.”
“Oh, the master will be pleased. ‘A bum on every seat, my loveys.’ ”
“ ‘And mass genuflection.’ ”
“It’s nearly the quarter. Where on earth can Nicholas be?”
Nicholas was late for the most thrilling of reasons. Tim and Avery had just told him their secret, and he had been so excited and alarmed that he had stayed in the lighting box questioning them until the very last minute. The facts were these. Tim always designed his own lighting for each production, working at home with a model of the set. He was especially pleased with his plan for Amadeus, amber and rose for Schonbrunn, grays behind the whispering Venticelli, crepuscular violet when Mozart died. Harold, as always, would have none of it. (“Just who is directing this epic? No—I’m serious. I really want to know.”) That same night Tim carried out Harold’s lighting plot for the first time, and when he and Avery got home, Avery burst into tears, saying his beautiful set looked as if it were part of a sewer after its star product hit the fan.