Davina was dressed that day in jeans and a bright coral jumper with a high collar. Jude observed that she always seemed to wear high collars. She wondered whether this was a vanity thing, disguising the age-induced stringiness of her neck.
And Jude tried, without success, to think of Davina Vere Smith as a murderer. It just didn’t fit, didn’t seem right.
When the last line of the play had finally been spoken, at just before six o’clock, the director indulged herself in a major tantrum. This was all the more effective for being unexpected. Up until then in rehearsal, except for her regular verbal assaults on Olly Pinto, Davina had been conciliatory and friendly to the rest of the cast. So they all looked shocked to hear her finally losing her rag.
‘The whole thing was complete rubbish! I don’t know why I’ve been wasting my time with you lot for the last three months! This afternoon was an example of absolutely no one showing any concentration at all! OK, this is just an amateur production, and if you’ve come along for the ride and don’t care about the quality of the show and just want to have a giggle at rehearsals, then fair enough. I think you should leave now. We can very happily manage without you.
‘But I have certain standards I want to maintain. SADOS has certain standards it wants to maintain, and on the evidence of what I’ve seen this afternoon, we aren’t achieving any of them. But for the fact that the box office is already open and tickets have already been bought for The Devil’s Disciple, I would pull the plugs on the whole production now!
‘So …’ Davina paused for a moment to gather her breath and her thoughts. The Devil’s Disciple company were too shocked to say anything, as she continued, ‘I know it’s six o’clock and you’re all gasping to go to the Cricketers, but I’m afraid I’m not going to let anyone go until we’ve had another look at the blocking of that last scene. It’s a complete dog’s dinner and we need to do a bit of basic work on it.
‘So those of you who aren’t involved can go. Jude, obviously, since Mrs Dudgeon is long dead. And Carole, you can go. I’ll be concentrating on the movements not the words for this bit. But the rest of you … will you please all pull your bloody socks up and concentrate for the next half-hour!’
It was a measure of the effect Davina’s unwonted outburst had had that nobody moaned about being kept from their liquid refreshment in the Cricketers. All of the company looked very chastened as Carole and Jude slipped out to the pub.
‘I was idly thinking about Davina’s neck,’ said Jude, as they settled down with their large Chilean Chardonnays. The pub was virtually empty, just Len behind the bar reading the Mail on Sunday. Again she wondered how the Cricketers would keep going without the regular custom of SADOS members.
‘Davina’s neck? What on earth do you mean?’ asked Carole.
‘Well, every time I see her at rehearsal she’s wearing these high collars. I assume it’s because – as happens at our age – her neck is getting a bit stringy and her cleavage a bit wrinkled.’
‘What do you mean – “as happens at our age”?’ Carole was quite put out. ‘I don’t believe I’m getting either stringy or wrinkled.’
‘No, but you’re so thin no wrinkle would dare to sully your skin.’
Carole looked beadily at her neighbour, unsure whether she was being sent up or not. Eventually she decided that what she’d just heard was probably a compliment. ‘As a matter of fact,’ she said, ‘Davina’s cleavage is in very good condition.’
‘Oh? When have you seen it?’
‘First time I met her. First time I met her properly, that is. In the Crown and Anchor, when she tried to persuade me to take over as prompter.’
‘She not only tried to persuade you. She succeeded in persuading you.’
‘Well, all right. Anyway, on that occasion she was wearing a purple cardigan, unbuttoned to show quite a lot of cleavage. And, as I say, the cleavage in question was in very good condition.’
‘I’m glad to hear it. Then I wonder why she always wears high collars at rehearsal?’
‘Up to her, I would have thought.’
‘Sure.’
‘Incidentally, I don’t want you to get the impression that I make a habit of staring at other women’s cleavages.’
When Carole made remarks like that, Jude could never be quite sure whether she was serious or not. Deciding on this occasion she probably was, Jude said, ‘Thought never occurred to me.’
‘The reason I noticed it on that occasion was that Davina was wearing a rather distinctive pendant.’
‘Oh?’
‘Silver. Shaped like a star.’
This prompted a much less casual ‘Oh.’ Jude’s brown eyes sparkled with excitement as she asked, ‘Was it like the one Elizaveta wears?’
‘I’ve never noticed Elizaveta wearing any particular jewellery.’
‘But she showed it that first evening in here. After we’d delivered the chaise longue.’
‘What? I’ve no idea what you’re talking about, Jude.’
‘Oh, of course you weren’t in the group with Elizaveta, were you? You were being bored to death by Gordon Blaine.’
‘I still don’t understand a word you’re saying. I just …’
But Jude was already out of her seat, crossing to the bar and snatching the landlord’s attention away from his Mail on Sunday. ‘Len, do you remember the silver pendant that got left here after a pantomime rehearsal?’
‘Oh yes. What about it?’
‘I remember, first time I ever came in here you asked Elizaveta Dalrymple if it was hers. And when she said it wasn’t, you said you’d keep it behind the bar until someone claimed it.’
‘Uh-huh,’ he agreed.
‘Well, did anyone ever claim it?’
‘Yes. Only a few days later. I can’t remember whether it was the Tuesday or the Thursday, but she came in early for rehearsal and said it was hers.’
‘Who did?’
‘Davina.’
‘Are you sure?’
‘Yes. I remember particularly because she was the only person in the pub, and she very specifically asked me not to tell Elizaveta that she’d claimed it.’
‘And so you didn’t tell her?’
‘No. Mind you, the wife might have done.’
‘Why did your wife know about it?’
‘Because I mentioned the engraving on the back of the pendant to her.’
‘Engraving? What did it say?’
‘“YOU’RE A STAR – WITH LOVE FROM FREDDIE”.’
TWENTY-SEVEN
The members of the Devil’s Disciple company who trickled over to the Cricketers round half past six looked very subdued. They were not used to Davina Vere Smith bawling them out and the rarity of such behaviour had had a powerful effect. As they bought their drinks and formed into little groups, the laughter was nervous rather than convivial. Facing the reality of The Devil’s Disciple’s unpreparedness had wiped smiles off quite a few faces.
Davina herself stalked in last of all and there was a silence, not of unfriendliness but rather of trepidation. None of the cast dared to speak to her, afraid that they might again get their heads bitten off. She ordered ‘a large G and T’ from Len and stalked across the bar to sit at a table, studiedly alone. The actors shuffled around, talking in low voices, as though there was an unexploded bomb in the room.
This in fact suited Carole and Jude rather well. Since neither of them was involved in the play’s final scene, they alone had not felt the wrath of Davina Vere Smith. They felt rather like the class goody-goodies as they picked up their glasses and went across to join the director at her solitary table.