‘Oh, don’t look so innocent, as if you don’t know why I’ve moved on to this subject. People think I’m blind, but I see all the little looks, the raised eyebrows, the remarks about me putting on the charm. Listen, my talent, wherever it came from, is all I’ve got. It’s a commodity and, like any other commodity, it has to be attractively packaged. I have to be what the public wants me to be.’
‘Even if at times that means not being yourself?’
‘Even if that means most of the time not being myself. That’s the way of life I’ve chosen.’
‘It must put you under incredible strain.’
‘It does, but it’s what I’ve elected to do and so I must do it.’ This messianic conviction seemed almost laughable when related to the triviality of Lumpkin! but it was clear that this was what made Christopher Milton tick. And though the strength of his conviction might easily overrule conventional morality, he was never going to commit any crime whose discovery might alienate the precious audience whom he saw, almost obsessively, as the arbiters of his every action.
Charles left the Holiday Inn, slightly unsteady from the whisky, but with the beginnings of an understanding of Christopher Milton.
CHAPTER TWELVE
The lights were still on in Julian’s flat when Charles got back there, though it was two o’clock in the morning. Julian himself was in the front room, marooned wretchedly on an island of bottles, glasses and ash-trays. ‘Oh, Charles, thank God you’ve come back. I need someone to talk to. It’s started.’
‘Started?’
‘The baby.’
‘Oh yes.’ He nearly added ‘I’d completely forgotten’, but decided that might show an unwelcome sense of priorities.
‘Waters broke, or whatever it is they do, about nine. I took her down to the hospital, they said nothing’d happen overnight, suggested I came back to get some sleep. Sleep, huh!’
‘She’ll be okay.’
‘Yes, I’m sure she will, but that doesn’t make the time till I know she is any easier. It’s like quoting the statistics of normal childbirths, it doesn’t make you any more convinced that yours is going to be one.’
‘No. Well, you have a drink and keep your mind off it’
‘Drink, huh, I’ve had plenty of drinks.’ Julian was playing the scene for all it was worth. Charles had the feeling that he often got with actor friends in real emotional situations, that they rose to the inherent drama and, though their feelings at such moments were absolutely genuine, their acting training was not wasted. ‘Oh God,’ Julian went on, ‘the waiting. It’s much worse than a first night.’
‘For a small Paddon it is a first night’
‘Yes. Oh God!’
‘Talk about something else. Take your mind off it.’
‘All right. What shall we talk about?’
‘The Irish situation? Whether Beowulf is the work of one or more writers? The Football League? Spinoza’s Ethics? Is pay restraint compatible with democracy? Is democracy compatible with individual freedom? Is individual freedom compatible with fashion? Is fashion compatible with the Irish situation? Do stop me if you hear anything that sounds interesting.’
‘Nothing yet. Keep talking.’
‘You sod.’
‘All right. Let you off. Tell me what you’ve been doing all day. I’m sure the wacky world of a pre-London tour must be more interesting than a day of rehearsal in a resident company.’
‘Yes, I suppose today has been quite eventful. Desmond Porton of Amulet came down last night to pass sentence.’
‘And are you still going in?’
‘Oh yes, but today has been spent disembowelling the show.’
‘Ah, that’s familiar. A different show every night. Oh, the thrills of the open road.’
‘You sound very bourgeois as you say that.’
‘Well, I am. Respectable. Look at me — regular company, in the same job for at least six months. Married…’
‘Prospective father…’
‘Oh God!’
‘I’m sorry. I’m meant to be taking your mind off that. I wonder what that makes you in the hierarchy.’
‘What?’
‘Being in a resident company. I suppose it’s not quite a managing director but it’s better than a lower clerical grade. A sort of rising young executive. Middle management, that’s probably the level.’
‘What are you talking about?’
‘Nothing. I’m sorry. I’m a bit pissed.’
‘Well, get stuck into that whisky bottle and get very pissed.’
‘Okay.’
‘Who have you been drinking with until this time of night?’
‘With no less than Christopher Milton. The Star. Tonight I was given the honour of being the repository of his guilty secrets.’
‘Not all of them, I bet.’
‘Why, what do you — oh, of course, you knew him.’ Spike’s words of earlier in the day suddenly came back. ‘You knew him before he was big.’
‘Yes, I had the dubious pleasure of being with him in the first company he went to as an adult actor. He’d done quite a lot as a child, but this was his first job as a member of a company. Cheltenham, it was.’
‘How long ago was this?’
‘I don’t know. Fifteen years — no, twenty. I remember, I celebrated my twenty-first birthday there.’
‘Christopher Milton must have been pretty young.’
‘Eighteen, I suppose.’
‘No, fourteen. He’s only thirty-four now.’
‘My dear Charles, you must never allow yourself to be a victim of the publicity men.’
‘What do you mean?’
‘Christopher Milton is thirty-eight, at least.’
‘But it says in the programme — ’
‘Charles, Charles, you’ve been in the business too long to be so naive. As you know, in this game everyone gets to play parts at the wrong age. People who play juveniles in the West End have almost always spent ten years grafting round the provinces and are about forty. But it doesn’t have quite the right ring, does it? So when Christopher Milton suddenly became very big, he suddenly shed four years.’
‘I see. It figures. Do you remember him from that time?’
‘Difficult to forget.’
‘What — the star bit?’
‘Oh yes, give him his due, he never made any secret of what he wanted to be. He spent a good few years rehearsing for the big time.’
‘Was he good?’
‘Very good. But no better than any number of other young actors. Indeed there was another in the company at the time who was at least as good. He’d come from the same drama school, also done the child star bit — what was his name? Garry Warden, that was it. And who’s heard of that name now? I don’t know what happens to the products of the stage schools. They almost always vanish without trace…’
‘Perhaps most of them haven’t got Christopher Milton’s single-mindedness.’
‘Single-mindedness is a charitable word for it. God, he was terrible. Put everyone’s backs up. Used to do charming things like ringing up other actors in the middle of the night to give them notes. And as you know it’s very difficult to have that sort of person in a small company.’
‘Did he drive everyone mad?’
‘Funny you should say that.’ Julian held his glass up to the light and looked through it pensively. ‘No, he drove himself mad.’
‘What do you mean?’
‘He had a breakdown, complete crack-up. Couldn’t live with an ego that size, maybe.’
‘What form did the breakdown take?’
‘Oh, the full bit None of this quiet sobbing in corners or sudden keeling over in the pub. It was the shouting and screaming that everyone was trying to murder him sort. He barricaded himself in the dressing-room with a carving knife. I tell you, it was the most exciting thing to happen in Cheltenham since the Ladies’ College Open Night.’
‘Did he go for anyone with the knife?’ Charles was beginning to feel a little uncomfortable.
‘Went for everyone. One of the stage staff got a nasty gash on the forearm. It took three policemen to calm him down. Well no, not calm him down, hold him down. He was screaming blue murder, accusing us all of the most amazing things. Yes, it was a pretty ugly scene.’