George Birkitt joined in the occasional, insouciant banter of the Conference Room, saying things like, ‘Never sure about these damned game shows myself. Still, the agent says they’re good, keep the old face in front of the public, show there’s a man behind the actor. So I suppose I should take his advice. After all, that’s what I pay the old sod such a large chunk of my income for. .’
He did, however, refer to his copy of the show’s format rather more often than was strictly proper for someone of his celebrity status.
Between the Conference Rooms Jeremy Fowler flitted, a lost soul trying to shed his burden of wacky one-liners about shepherds, metallurgists, coach-drivers, vicars and hats. He found few takers, though George Birkitt, who recognised that he had the imaginative faculty of a bar of soap, did scribble down an old joke about a rock-star’s school cap being discovered when he had a haircut.
And all the while Bob Garston dashed about the place, expending enormous energy and charm. He was determined to show not only that he could host the show a damned sight better than Barrett Doran, but also that he could be lovable with it. The effort he put into his affability was almost physically painful.
In Studio A rehearsal wound on its dilatory way. Jim Trace-Smith exhorted the participants to bravura performances with all the damp aplomb of fruit juice soaking through a paper bag.
And Sylvian de Beaune, dressed for the occasion in a leopard-skin T-shirt and gold lame trousers, fussed around his set and wondered why Sydnee had asked him to meet Charles Paris for a chat in the bar at half-past six.
For Charles it was a day of nerves. Not terrified, panicky nerves, but nerves of anticipation, that jumpy surging twitchiness which precedes a first night, the feeling that a great many different strands are coming together and that if one can only keep going a little longer, everything will be all right.
This state covered the whole spectrum of emotion and included moments of great confidence. In one of these, he rang Maurice Skellern, assertively demanding what there was coming up on the work front.
The fact that his agent gave the predictable reply, ‘Nothing. Very quiet at the moment, Charles’, did not instantly deflate his mood, so he made another audacious phone-call. He rang the number of Frances’s school and asked to speak to the headmistress.
‘What on earth is it?’ Her voice was tight with anxiety. ‘Something to do with Juliet or the boys?’
It was predictable that her first thought should be for their daughter and grandchildren, though why she should think he might know anything of Juliet’s troubles Charles could not imagine. If there were anything wrong, Juliet would have got straight on to Frances. Experience had not encouraged her to rely on her father.
‘No, Frances. It’s just me ringing to say hello.’
‘You know I’m at work.’
‘I told you never to ring me at the office,’ hissed Charles in the voice he’d used as a panicked adulterer in a tired bedroom farce at Blackpool (‘If it’s laughter you’re after, stay at home and watch television.’ — Liverpool Daily Post).
‘I’ve got someone with me,’ she said in the frosty voice of reprimand which was much imitated by her fourth-formers.
‘I want to see you.’
‘We met a couple of weeks ago.’
‘I know. It’s habit-forming. I want to see you again. Another dinner?’
‘Well. .’
‘Name a date. Any evening you like. Except tonight.’
‘Next Wednesday. The Italian place.’
‘I’ll book.’
‘You certainly will. Eight-thirty. On the dot. Or forget it.’
The headmistress put the phone down on him, but that didn’t extinguish the little spark of excitement inside. If he and Frances really could get together again. . He was in his fifties, too old for self-dramatizing actresses, too old for desperate housewives in Billericay. Maybe this time it really would work again with Frances. . Why not, after all? They were both mature human beings, both knew the score. The separation had enriched their relationship in some ways. If he was patient, if he was sensible, he was sure it could work. .
He went from the payphone on the landing into his bedsitter. He made a pretence at reading and resisted the temptation to have a drink. No, need all his wits about him later.
There was nothing he could do until the evening. He just hoped that Sydnee had done her stuff.
Chapter Fourteen
Sydnee had done the first bit of her stuff, anyway. When Charles arrived at the Reception of W.E.T. House and identified himself, the girl, the same one as on his previous visit, immediately handed him an envelope which contained a ticket to that night’s recording of a brand-new big-prize game show, If The Cap Fits, together with a Visitor’s Security Pass, stamped for that day only.
This latter document meant that, rather than joining the queue of Townswomen’s Guild, insurance company social club and amateur dramatic society members round the back of the building, he could go inside to the bar.
It was a little before six-thirty. He bought himself a large Bell’s and stood alone sipping it, a sore thumb amidst the tight fists of programme groups. Flying-suits giggled and gesticulated, disparaging rival productions, reliving location disasters, calculating overtime payments, repeating the day’s insults.
Sylvian arrived promptly. He was not wearing make-up for the day in the studio, so the shiny pallor of his face was his own. His eyes flickered about the bar. He refused the offer of a drink.
Charles reminded the designer of something he had said in his silver Dockland flat. Sylvian, expecting a completely different line of questioning, readily answered Charles’s query about the celebrities’ blue desk on the set of If The Cap Fits.
Their conversation lasted less than two minutes. The ice in Charles’s glass had not had time to melt before he drained the whisky and went down to Studio A.
It was about quarter to seven. The studio was empty and still. No one yet had come back from their meal-break. The red, blue and silver set gleamed under working lights. The cameras were pointed at cards on caption-stands, ready for the half-hour’s line-up time, due to start at seven. Air-conditioning hummed slightly, and gave the atmosphere a surprising chill, before the full lighting and crowds of people would warm it up.
Charles walked on to the familiar set, but he did not go to the side where he had stood two weeks before with the hamburger chef, the surgeon and the stockbroker. He walked round the back of the long blue desk where the celebrities would sit, and looked under it. It was exactly as Sylvian had said.
Next he inspected the four blue-and-red-striped glasses, which stood on the desk in front of each red chair.
He also looked at the other glass and the carafe on the host’s lectern.
All were empty.
Good. Sydnee was continuing to do her stuff.
She had advised him to watch from the area just to the right of the block of audience seating. This was where the stage managers, who shared their power on studio days with the floor managers, and the make-up girls, who were poised to leap on with saving puffs of powder, stood during recordings. The advantage of the position was that it commanded an uninterrupted view of the centre of the set. From any of the audience seats the outlook would be interrupted by cameras and their operators, sound men and floor managers.