‘Nice to meet you. I’m Jude. And this is my friend Carole.’
‘Ah, good evening. We’ve got quite a lot of new members in for The Devil’s Disciple, because it’s such a big cast, though Davina has cut the numbers down a bit. And I’m just going round, checking with the newcomers that they are actually members of SADOS. Now I know you’re fully paid up, Janie.’ The girl nodded. ‘The subscription rate for acting members is—’
‘Let me stop you there,’ said Jude. ‘We’re nothing to do with the production.’
‘No, we certainly aren’t,’ Carole endorsed.
‘Oh?’
‘We’ve just been bearers of a chaise longue which I’m lending to be part of the set.’
Mimi Lassiter looked seriously disappointed. ‘So you’re not even in the crowd scenes?’
Jude assured her that they weren’t.
‘And does that mean,’ asked Mimi almost pathetically, ‘that you don’t want to join SADOS?’
‘Certainly not,’ replied Carole, as if she’d just been asked to do something very dirty indeed.
‘Oh.’ Discomfited, the Membership Secretary drifted away.
By now the bearded man had got their drinks which he handed round with old-fashioned gallantry. He introduced himself to Carole and Jude as ‘Gordon Blaine – I’m in charge of the heavy backstage stuff for the SADOS – building sets, that kind of thing.’
‘Oh yes, Storm mentioned you,’ said Jude. ‘Your Land Rover’s broken down.’
He looked a little affronted by that. ‘It’s more in a process of refurbishment. I’m putting in a new engine. Haven’t quite finished yet. So thanks for the use of your car.’
‘It’s my car actually,’ said Carole tartly.
‘Sorry. Then thank you,’ he said without rancour.
Jude noticed that Janie Trotman was kind of lingering on the edge of their group, as if she wouldn’t mind getting away. But maybe she thought, having accepted a drink from Gordon Blaine, she must stay with him for at least a little while.
‘Sorry,’ he was saying, ‘didn’t get your names.’
They identified themselves and Jude, to compensate for Carole’s frostiness, asked, ‘So, Gordon, will you be building the set for The Devil’s Disciple?’
‘Oh yes.’
‘And designing it too?’
‘No, no. I’m not given the name of “designer”,’ he replied with careful emphasis. ‘Lady over there is “the designer”.’ He gestured to a thin woman in her thirties, whose short blond hair was dyed almost white. ‘I merely interpret the squiggles she puts on the page and turn them into a practical set which won’t fall over. And from all accounts, Disciple is going to be a real bugger to build.’
‘Oh?’ said Jude. ‘Why? I’m afraid I haven’t read the play.’
‘Nor have I,’ said Gordon with something approaching pride. ‘I only arrived at the end of the read-through. I never read the plays we do. Just do as I’m told and get on with whatever I’m instructed to do by the director and the designer.’
‘So why is The Devil’s Disciple going to be such a bugger?’ asked Jude, not feeling she was sufficiently part of the SADOS to abbreviate the play’s title to ‘Disciple’.
‘Well, apparently it’s got lots of sets. There’s the Dudgeons’ house and then the Andersons’ house … which aren’t too bad because you can use one basic structure and differentiate the two locations by a bit of set dressing. But then in Act Three there’s also the inside of the Town Hall and the outside of the Town Square where the scaffold is set up. Logistical nightmare.’
‘So how are you going to manage it?’
‘Don’t worry, I’ll manage it,’ he replied with almost smug confidence. Jude had readily identified Gordon Blaine’s type. He was the kind of man who would build up the difficulties of any task he was given and then apply his miraculous practical skills to succeed in delivering the impossible. In her brief contact with the professional theatre, she had met a good few characters like that, mostly involved in some backstage capacity.
‘I think the only way it can be done,’ Gordon went on, ‘whatever fancy ideas the designer may have, is for me to build a basic box-set structure and then—’
He might clearly have gone on for quite a while had they not been interrupted by the appearance of Storm Lavelle, bringing in her wake a tall, good-looking man in his forties. His long hair flopped apologetically over his brow, and there was an expression of mock-innocence in his blue eyes.
Seeing the man approach, Janie Trotman took the opportunity to detach herself from the group round Gordon Blaine and go to join some of the younger members of the company. Whether this was a pointed avoidance of the newcomer neither Carole nor Jude could not judge.
‘Jude!’ Storm emoted, loud against the background hubbub. ‘I really do want you to meet Ritchie.’
‘You haven’t properly met my friend Carole who—’
But the introduction was lost as Ritchie Good – it must have been him, there couldn’t be two Ritchies in SADOS – took Jude’s hand in both of his and said, ‘Where have you been hiding all my life?’
It was one of the corniest lines in the world, but she admired the way it was delivered. He imbued the words with a sardonic quality, at the same time sending up their cheesiness and leaving the small possibility that they could be heartfelt.
‘I’ve been hiding all over the place,’ Jude replied evenly. ‘Currently in Fethering.’
‘Oh, lovely Fethering, where the Fether rolls down to the sea,’ he said, for no very good reason.
‘Ritchie’s our Dick Dudgeon,’ said Storm enthusiastically. ‘He’s just done a terrific read-through.’
‘Well, you were no slouch yourself, Storm. It’s only possible to give a good performance when you’re up against other good actors.’
Jude was amused by the solipsism of the compliment. While apparently praising his co-star, he was also putting himself firmly in the category of ‘good actors’.
‘Well, I thought you were wonderful,’ Storm insisted. ‘You really were Dick Dudgeon. I was nearly tearing up in the last act.’
‘Oh,’ Ritchie said airily, ‘I was just demonstrating a few shabby, manipulative tricks. My performance will get a lot more subtle as we go through the rehearsal process.’
‘I’m sure it will,’ said Storm devoutly.
Oh dear, thought Jude. She had seen the symptoms in her friend before. It looked as though Ritchie Good was in serious danger of receiving the full impact of Storm Lavelle’s adoration. And Jude didn’t think it was an encounter that would have a happy outcome.
‘Oh, look, there’s Elizaveta,’ said Ritchie, waving across the bar. ‘Must go and say hello to her.’
Storm took Jude’s arm. ‘You must come and meet Elizaveta too. She is just so funny.’
And the three of them swept away. Leaving Carole with Gordon Blaine.
Her nose, susceptible to frequent dislocation, was once again put out of joint. She was taken back to the agony of school dances, where her prettier friends had all been very friendly to her until they’d been swept away by the handsome boys. And she’d been left either pretending that the last thing on her mind was dancing, or stuck with one of the nerdy ones. Like Gordon Blaine.
‘There’s a little trick I used,’ he was saying, ‘when I was building the Midsummer Night’s Dream set for the SADOS. Obvious, but it was surprising how few people thought of it. You see, by hingeing the flats at the back so that they could open up to reveal the cyclorama, and using gauzes for the scenes in the woods, I …’