What was more, he was down to about half an inch in his pocket-bottle thanks to the pressures of the previous days. He had been sure there’d at least be time for him to nip out and buy a replacement.
But there wasn’t. And all the A.S.M.s and hangers-on were too busy to have this important commission delegated to them.
It was a serious situation.
And it didn’t improve the half-hour before curtain-up, when all the pent-up nerves came crashing in with devastating force. Normally he could control the incipient nausea and limit the number of rushes to the lavatory by judiciously-spaced doses of Bell’s whisky, but now he felt as if he was having a leg off without anaesthetic.
He drained the half-bottle to attain some sort of stability, but five minutes later, when something started doing macrame with his intestines, he wished he had saved it.
Alex Household’s method of building up to a performance did not involve alcohol. He did not believe in the use of stimulants, being an advocate of the use of the mind’s internal resources to control the waywardness of the body. It was part of an elaborate philosophy he had developed from reading the first chapters of a few paperbacks about Eastern Religion and talking to other actors over cups of jasmine tea.
His build-up method involved lying dead straight over three chairs, with the head free and lolling back and breathing deeply. A deep intake of air sounding like a gas central heating boiler igniting, a long pause, and then exhalation over a muttered phrase, which may have been some potent mantra, but to the casual observer sounded like ‘Rub-a-dub-a-dub-a-dub-a-dub’.
Charles was becoming a decreasingly casual observer as the half-hour ticked away and his nerves were twisted tighter. Alex’s charade didn’t help. Charles, normally most accommodating about the foibles of others, began to think sharing the dressing room might have its drawbacks.
Alex was that very common theatrical type, a faddish actor. He believed in vegetarianism, transcendental meditation, homeopathy, transmigration, the occult and a variety of other semi-digested notions. Alex was always talking about communion with nature and being at one with the world. He had a habit of producing herbal snacks in the dressing room, seeds, grasses, nettles and other less identifiable greenery. He had read a few chapters of a book called Food for Free, and kept going on about ‘the earth’s plenty’.
Normally, Charles could accept all this with good humour — after all, he did quite like the man — but, as he again suffered the interminable pause between the intake and the inevitable ‘Rub-a-dub-a-dub-a-duba-dub’ he thought he was going to scream or lash out. To avert both these dangers, he left the dressing room to go to the lavatory, though he couldn’t resist slamming the door as he went.
In the corridor he met Lesley-Jane Decker, whose arms were full of purple tissue-wrapped parcels. She was an attractive red-head of about twenty, still full of breathless excitement about actually ‘being in the theatre’. She was quite talented, and devoutly believed Paul Lexington’s and Peter Hickton’s conviction that The Hooded Owl was going to sweep triumphantly into the West End and make them all stars.
It had been obvious from rehearsal that Peter Hickton fancied her, but whether he had got anywhere, Charles could not judge. In fact, he couldn’t imagine how the director’s rehearsal schedule would leave any time for thoughts of sex, though, of course, all things were possible.
On balance, Charles thought that probably nothing had developed. A part from the logistics, Lesley-Jane was so naive and bubbly, he could not imagine her keeping quiet about a love affair. He even suspected that she might be that remarkable rarity, a theatrical virgin.
And it was more likely that Peter Hickton was saving his assault on her for the less hectic time when the play was actually running. There would be two and a half weeks then, which should give the young director plenty of time.
‘Oh, Charles darling, this is for you.’ Lesley-Jane thrust one of the packages into his hands.
‘Oh,’ he said blankly.
‘First-night present.’
‘Ah.’ Theatrical camp, he thought. What would it be? A fluffy toy? No, felt too hard. A plaster statuette of a pierrot? Yes, that’d be the sort of thing. ‘Oh, er, thank you. How are you feeling?’
She opened her green eyes wide. ‘Scared witless, darling. Paul says he’s hoping there’ll be some people from London out front.’
‘Oh really?’ Charles had heard that a few too many times to get very excited about it.
‘And, even worse. .’ She paused dramatically.
‘What?’
‘My mother’s come down from London to see it.’
‘Is that bad? Is she awful?’
‘No, she’s an absolute angel. But she’s got awfully high standards. Used to be in the business, you know.’
‘Oh.’ The need to get to the lavatory was suddenly strong again. ‘If you’ll excuse me.
‘Yes. Is Alex in the dressing room?’
‘Sure.’
Sitting on the lavatory, Charles opened his first-night present. Oh, good, that girl would go far. He took back all his thoughts about her naivete and theatrical camp.
It was a quarter bottle of champagne. He drained it gratefully.
As he went back to his dressing room, he met the author of The Hooded Owl, hanging around in the corridor like a schoolboy outside the headmaster’s study. The expression of agony on Malcolm Harris’s pallid face made Charles’s own nerves seem less crippling.
‘Don’t worry. It’ll be all right. It’s a good play.’
‘Do you really think so?’ The schoolmaster’s pouncing on this crumb of praise was almost pathetic.
‘Yes, of course it is. We wouldn’t have put in all this work on it if it hadn’t been.’
‘Oh, I do hope so. It’s just no one seems to have talked about anything for the past few days except the bits that don’t work and all the technical problems it raises and. .’
Poor sap. Yes, it must have been strange for him, religiously attending the last week of rehearsals, and knowing nothing about the workings of the theatre. Everyone would be far too busy to waste time assuring the author that his play worked; there would be a lot of complaint about its inadequacies and difficulties. Anyone who had had a play produced before would have been prepared for that; but for Malcolm Harris, snatched from teaching the Causes of the Thirty Years’ War to fourteen-year-olds, it must all have been a profound culture shock. Charles felt guilty for not having realised earlier what the author had been suffering.
‘It’ll work. Really.’
Malcolm made a grimace that might have been intended for a smile. Maybe. My main worry is everyone getting the lines right.’
That’s what every author wants, thought Charles. And occasionally they get it. though most actors are highly skilled in the art of paraphrase.
‘I do hope Alex gets that big speech about the Hooded Owl itself right. I mean, that is the key to the play, and he got the rhythms all wrong this afternoon.’
‘Don’t worry,’ Charles soothed. Poor old Alex was having a bit of difficulty with the lines, he thought complacently.
‘Oh, and Charles, could you watch your line at the end of Act One.’
‘What?’
‘At the Dress Rehearsal, you said, ‘I’ll tell you one thing — it’s the last time I’ll come running.’
‘So? Isn’t that right?’
‘No. It should be, ‘I’ll tell you something. .”
Oh really! thought Charles. Bloody authors!
But he didn’t say it. Instead he asked, ‘Anyone out front tonight?’
‘Oh, just my wife and my wife’s mother.’
‘Ah.’ Then reassuringly, ‘And maybe lots of impresarios and film producers waiting to snap up the rights. How would you feel about a film offer on the play?’
‘Oh, I’d. . I’d get my agent to deal with it,’ replied the author, with an unsuccessful attempt at insouciance.