‘Hmm. Sounds biased.’ But she was obviously delighted.
‘Biased nothing! I may also happen to think you are the best screw in the world, but I do genuinely believe that you are exceptionally talented as an actress. Now come and make love.’
She grinned suddenly. ‘You talked me into it.’
It was even better. They were completely together. He rolled apart from her and cradled the strong slender body in his arms. Her breasts were slack against his ribs, her breath soft on his shoulder. He recited gently into her hair.
‘“O, happy times! O happy rhymes!
For ever ye’re gone by!
Few now-if any-are the lays
Can make me smile or sigh.” But you’re one of them. You can make me smile and sigh.’
‘I don’t think Thomas Hood meant “lay” that way,’ she murmured lazily.
‘No, I don’t think he did.’
‘Incidentally, I liked your show. I think I was too uptight over dinner to mention it.’
‘Thank you. Mutual admiration society.’
‘Hmm.’ There was a long pause. He wondered if she had gone to sleep. But she spoke again. ‘Do you really think I’m good?’
‘Yes.’
‘Good enough to make it in the professional theatre?’
‘Yes.’
‘In spite of all you said about needing to be tough and calculating, and needing lots of help?’
‘I’ll help you, Anna.’
Soon she was asleep. Charles lay thinking. He could help her. Get her work, maybe. Even cast her in plays he was directing. He felt useful and wanted to give to her. To give a lot. Was it so ridiculous for a man of nearly forty-eight to go round with a girl in her early twenties? His experience could help her. He felt something for Anna that he had not felt for a long, long time. Possibly even love.
CHAPTER EIGHT
O William Dear! O William Dear!
My rest eternal ceases;
Alas! my everlasting peace
Is broken into pieces.
Tuesday 20th August was an unsettling day.
It started all right. Charles felt at one with Anna and at one with the world. She left the flat at about half-past nine. (Michael Vanderzee was champing at the bit to get his workshop sessions restarted after the layoff caused by the revue’s opening.) Charles had a leisurely breakfast of floury bacon rolls at the Poppin and then, as a token gesture to detective work, he went back to the Scottish National Portrait Gallery to see if he could work out the reason for Martin’s visit.
The Gallery was well laid out and should have been interesting, but he was not in the mood for inspecting the faces of people he had never heard of. The whole business of searching for clues and motives was beginning to bore him.
He was gazing at a wax model of William III when he remembered the newspapers. The day after a first night (or at least a first lunch) and he had not yet checked to see if there were any notices. The rest of the portraits could wait. He hurried out under the disapproving glare of the large nosed-faces of Scotland’s heritage.
There was a big newsagents on Princes Street. Rather than behaving logically and starting with just the Guardian, he went mad and bought every available daily. Which meant a great deal of waste paper; So Much Comic… had so far failed to capture the interest of the nationals.
He stood in the street reading and dropped the inadequate newspapers one by one into a litter-bin. Nothing in the Guardian; so much for his conversation at the Fringe Reception. Charles realised he was being naively optimistic to expect to be noticed on the first day of the Festival, particularly with negative advertising.
Only the Glasgow Herald left. He opened it without hope, and on the review page, there it was.
So Much Comic, So Much Blood, Masonic Hall, Lauriston Place. Thomas Hood is now remembered, if at all, for about three poems which recur in anthologies. It was therefore a pleasant surprise to get a broader view of the poet’s work from this enchanting lunch-time show. Charles Paris has compiled a skilful programme from poems and letters, which maintains a fine balance between humour and pathos without ever slipping into sentimentality. He performs the show with the clarity and understatement which are the hallmark of real talent. Do try to catch this. It’s only on for the first week of the Festival and I guarantee more laughs than in most of the late-night revues.
Charles could not control an ebullient smile. What he held in his hands was a good old-fashioned rave.
Thanks to the review and a couple of large Bell’s, he arrived at the Masonic Hall at a quarter to one in high spirits and totally devoid of nerves. He felt confident as he waited in the wings for the lights to go down.
From that point on the day deteriorated. For a start, the show did not go well. A second performance is always difficult, because of the feeling of anticlimax. And the size of the audience did not augur well for the circulation figures of the Glasgow Herald. There were about twenty, apparently under doctor’s orders that laughter was injurious to health. Puns and wisecracks vanished into the spongy void of the hall.
And, to add to that, Frances was in the audience. The woman he had married, to whom he had given the unfortunate name of Frances Paris. He recognised her as soon as the show started from her loyal, and solitary, laughter. When he stopped to consider, it was quite logical that she should be in Edinburgh. She came up most summers to give a couple of her sixth formers a quick cultural immersion. There were two girls sitting with her, one black and one white.
Charles was very fond of Frances, but he wished she was not there. Since he had walked out on her twelve years before, they had remained friendly and he had even gone back to her from time to time. She made no demands on him, but her presence, just when he was feeling secure of his relationship with Anna, was embarrassing.
He tried not to be too off-hand when she came round backstage; he had no desire to hurt her. She looked harassed and was obviously having difficulty controlling her two charges outside the school context. The white girl was dumpy and called Candy; the black girl was splendidly tangible and called Jane; both regarded Edinburgh as an opportunity to be emancipated and meet men.
Husband and wife exchanged Edinburgh addresses and parted amicably with vague intentions to meet up again. The encounter brought a little cloud of depression into Charles’ sunny outlook.
It was not until about half past six that the cloud started to look stormy. The Mary cast had been rehearsing all afternoon, but most of them were released for the evening, because Michael Vanderzee wanted to work on the Mary/Bothwell scenes for an hour until Anna had to go to the revue. After a cabbage supper at Coates Gardens, the actor playing John Knox (nicknamed ‘Opportunity Knox’ by the rest of the cast) suggested a trip to the pub. Darnley, Ruthven and Cardinal Beaton thought it was a good idea. So did the new David Rizzio, Sam Wasserman. Charles decided that he too would like a drink.
In the Haymarket pub, he discovered that student unrest manifests itself in reluctance to be first to the bar, so he bought the round. Without conscious engineering, he found himself alone at a table with Sam.
The author of Mary, Queen of Sots was a young American with fine blond hair, a woffly ginger moustache and black-rimmed round glasses. He wore a thick check lumberjack shirt, the inevitable blue jeans and yellow-laced brown boots. He had arrived in Edinburgh that day, just in time to hear the boom of the one o’clock gun fired from the Castle and become immediately embroiled in one of Michael Vanderzee’s workshops.
‘That was after two solid days’ travelling. I got Mike’s telegram from the Poste Restante in Brindisi, and I just dropped everything and came. I mean, my God. I really care about this show…’
As soon as Sam started speaking, Charles realised why the tete-a-tete had been so easily arranged. Sam Wasserman was a bore, one of those instantly identifiable bores who has the ability to make the most interesting anecdote tedious, who can destroy by endless detail. But as well as qualifying as one of this international type, Sam also demonstrated that refinement of the quality which is peculiar to earnest young American academics. A glaze crept over Charles’ eyes as the monologue continued.