Kelly! The man was a hack. He'd done years of radio soap opera in New York, played every kind of third-rate circuit in the States. Then he'd had an automobile accident and won himself a settlement in court, enough to come to Tangier, buy himself a little house, sniff around, and start giving little dinners at which he'd been clawing his way to popularity and trying to alienate Laurence's support. He even tried to ingratiate himself with the Mountain set. No chance of success, of course-he was far too grotty in his ways. But his mincing little efforts had caused confusion and, to Laurence, pain.
No sense brooding, he thought. Too much work to be done. He stroked the dusty curtains, then left the stage to check on things in back. Most of the cast was waiting in the wings. He went on to the dressing rooms to hurry the stragglers. In the men's section he found Jessamyn Drear watching Kelly apply powder to his ravaged face. They stopped whispering the moment he walked in. Jessamyn looked at him shyly. Kelly gave him a thumbs-up.
"Brings it all back, Luscombe," he said. "Smell of the greasepaint and all that. Never thought I'd troop the boards again, especially not in old Tangier. Not after the accident. Never thought I would." He raised his hands to his face. "Oh, the scars, Luscombe-the scars. I was a beautiful kid once. Can you believe it? But the years took their toll. Then the crackup in Connecticut, a year in traction, every damn thing broken and torn. They wrote me right out of Suburban Wife. I was in the hospital, listening to the radio one day, when one of the characters announced my demise. There were a few tears, and that was the end of that. No hope of work then. When you're sick they forget you soon enough. No pity. Not in show biz. Play's the thing. Course you know all that yourself."
Laurence was thinking of some way to respond when Jill Packwood stormed in, out of breath.
"Place is filling up, Larry. Looks like a full house. Derik says we can start on time."
He was about to answer her when Kelly interrupted. "Jill, sweetie, your dress is crooked. Better find a safety pin and hitch it up."
"Oh! Thanks, Joe. Wish me luck."
"Yeah," said Kelly, blowing her a kiss. "Break a leg, sweetheart. Break a leg."
When she was gone he put his arm around Jessamyn Drear, then leaned toward Laurence and stuck out his chin. "Jill's got nice little tits," he said. "Course I don't want 'em. Ha! Ha! Ha!"
Jessamyn giggled, but Laurence turned away, offended by Kelly's humor and the scent of liquor on his breath.
He'd been impossible at rehearsals, always interrupting, trying to give his own directions to the cast. The man was unprofessional, the way he kept cutting Laurence off. But he was clever too, knew how to handle amateurs, call them "sweetheart" and "darling" and blame everything on Laurence when he turned his back. Kelly told long anecdotes that wasted time, boring stories about his experiences on the road-that charade game, for instance, the one he'd played in Kansas City, where he'd acted out "He who steals my merkin steals trash."
No one, including Laurence, knew what a "merkin" was until Kelly smirked and then explained. "It's a female pubic hair wig," he said, then the vulgar, billowing laughter, the final "Ha! Ha! Ha!" Laurence couldn't stand it, wanted to fire him right out of the cast. But Kelly was good, a professional among amateurs. When he felt like it he had no difficulty standing out. Of course, he wasn't really top class, the way Laurence had been in his prime. Kelly could never have made it on the West End, where Laurence had worked for years. He'd been an actor's actor, not a star but a master craftsman admired in the ranks. His enemies called him "grand," but he'd never stooped to soap opera at least.
Between the wars, when he'd had a little fling with society, he'd been invited to Lady Astor's, where he'd met T. E. Lawrence and Bernard Shaw. And he'd dined one summer at Villa Mauresque, with Noel Coward and Somerset Maugham. Willy Maugham had told a wonderful story that afternoon about the American writer Edna Millay. She'd come in uninvited, in the middle of a stag lunch, looked around at the house, the garden, and all the guests. "This is fairyland, Mr. Maugham," she'd said. He and Noel had chuckled through dessert.
Now that was funny. Real wit. Not like those vulgar nonsense things that Kelly came out with all the time. What had he said last night at dress rehearsal? Something obscene to Jessamyn Drear. Oh, yes, he remembered now-one of his vulgar "knock knock" routines.
"Knock knock."
"Who's there?"
"Fornication."
"Fornication who?"
"Fornication like this you ought to wear black tie. Ha! Ha! Ha!"
Jessamyn had doubled up with laughter. It was ghastly the way Kelly was winning them all. They were so weak in their characters, so flabby in their souls, that they couldn't see through his simpering guile. One day he'd have it out with Kelly, force a showdown, expose him raw. But for the moment he mustn't think of that. The important thing was that The Winslow Boy go on.
He left the dressing room, walked back around the stage to a door where he could watch the audience unseen. Many of the seats were taken, but the ones reserved for Peter Barclay and his group were still empty in the front. The Lakes, the Manchesters, and the Whittles were seated in the Consul General's row. Behind them sat Joop and Claude de Hoag, along with Claude's father, General Gilbert Bresson, and de Hoag's assistant, Jean Tassigny. Behind them he saw the Swedish dentist Sven Lundgren and Robin Scott, who would write the review.
The writer Darryl Kranker came down the aisle with a beautiful Arab boy, and behind him Vicar Wick followed by Countess de Lauzon, blue eye circles matching her hair, and Patrick Wax, in a gold-trimmed cape, holding a thin little pony whip in his hand. Fufu, the Ugandan, was with his wife and an assortment of distinguished-looking blacks. With them was Omar Salah, chief of customs in the port.
The Ashton Codds came next, along with Foster and Jackie Knowles. Laurence, noticing Inspector Ouazzani and his Asian girlfriend, peered around to find Peter Zvegintzov slung low in a seat on the other side.
But where was the Barclay group? He needed Peter tonight, desperately needed the prestige of his praise. If Peter liked the play, then no one would dare speak against it, and Kelly's nasty little coup would be nipped right in its bud. But what if Peter didn't come? He'd promised he would, had reserved a whole row of seats, had even said something about a party afterward for friends. Laurence was counting on that-at the party Peter would put out the word. That night it would spread across the Mountain, would be all over town by the next afternoon. But what was Peter's promise really worth? Laurence knew not much. He was perfectly capable of forgetting the whole thing, or canceling out because it didn't suit his mood. That was the trouble with Peter Barclay, and everybody knew it too. He only did things that were in his interest, and cared only for himself.
Whew! It was desperate now, already three past eight. Still there were people coming in: Inigo, the painter, who'd refused to do the sets, and his Moroccan boyfriend, the one Countess de Lauzon called "Pumpkin Pie." He'd worked in her garden before Inigo had picked him up. His real name was Mohammed, but the Countess had so many of those around her place that she couldn't stand it when she yelled "Mohammed" and six Berber faces suddenly looked up. So she'd renamed them, squeezing their biceps while waiting to be inspired. There was "Celery Tops" and "Coffee Boy" and "Tender in the Night." But Pumpkin Pie was the prettiest of the lot-Inigo had something there.