Actors, whose working tools are their voices, are naturally terrified of colds, sore throats, ’flus and other infections which threaten their precious vocal cords. They all have their own favourite remedies and preventative methods when germs are in the air, or, in some cases, even when they aren’t. Large doses of Vitamin C are swallowed, dissolved or crunched. (So are most other vitamins of the alphabet, with a kind of pagan awe.) Strange elixirs of lemon and honey (with bizarre variations involving onions) are poured down tender throats. Aspirin, codeine, paracetamol, Anadin, Veganin and others are swilled down, discussed and compared as connoisseurs speak of malt whiskies. Names of doctors who can ‘do wonders for throats’ (as well as others who deal with backs and nervous twinges) are exchanged like rare stamps. It is all taken very seriously.
When a show involves singing, the panic and precautions are doubled. Vocal sprays are brought into play. Little tins and envelopes of pills are ostentatiously produced and their various merits extolled. Some favour Nigroids, small pills which ‘blow your head off, dear, but really do wonders for my cords’; others will not stir without ‘The Fisherman’s Friend’ — ‘quite strong, darling, but they really relax the throat’; there are Friar’s Balsam, Vocalzones, Sanderson’s Throat Specific and a whole gallery of other patent medicines available, all of which have their staunch adherents.
The Cold started with one of the dancers, who had difficulty in preventing his sneeze during the matinee. Then Mark Spelthorne, quick to seize any opportunity for self-dramatisation, thought he might have one of his throats coming on. During the evening performance many of the cast were walking round backstage massaging their throats, talking in whispers (‘conserving the voice, dear — may have a touch of ’flu coming on’) and generally putting on expressions of private suffering which they had learnt when rehearsing Chekhov. It helped to make the atmosphere around Lumpkin! suddenly spiky.
Charles just made it to the pub as time was being called after a sedate Bristol house had given its qualified support to the evening performance. He was the only one of the company who went. Most went straight home to nurse themselves in anticipation of The Cold.
He managed to get in an order for a pint of bitter (performing always made him thirsty) and was letting the first mouthful wash down when the girl came up to him. The American voice twanged. ‘Did you ask him?’
‘Who? What?’ He pretended innocence, but knew full well what she meant.
‘Christopher Milton. You were going to ask him about the interview.’
‘Oh yes, of course. I hadn’t forgotten. Trouble is, today was very busy, what with the two shows. And we were rehearsing some new arrangements this morning.’ It sounded pretty feeble.
But she didn’t seem to notice. ‘Never mind. You’ll do it sometime.’ Surprisingly benign. He’d expected her to tear him apart for his omission. ‘Some time,’ she repeated and he realised that she was drunk.
‘Can I get you a drink?’
‘Haven’t they closed?’
‘Nooo. Never. Barman. What is it, Suzanne?’
‘Vodka tonic.’
‘One of those, please.’
She took the drink and gulped it down like water. She stood close to him and swayed so that they almost touched. ‘How’d the show go?’
‘Not world-shattering.’
‘’Smy birthday today.’
‘Ah.’
‘Had a few drinks to celebrate. Alone in a foreign country.’
‘Ah.’
She leant against him. ‘Give me a birthday kiss. Back in the States I never go without a birthday kiss.’
He kissed her dryly on the lips as if she were a child, but he felt uncomfortably aware of how unchildlike she was. Her breasts exercised a magnetic attraction as she swayed towards him. He drained his beer. ‘Well, better be off. They’ll be turfing us out shortly.’
‘You going to see me home?’ she asked kookily. Miss Suzanne Horst with a few drinks inside her was a very different proposition from the hyper-efficient lady who was about to set British journalism afire.
‘Is it far?’
‘Not far. Staying at a hotel.’
‘Ah.’ Charles found he said a lot of ‘Ahs’ in conversation with Suzanne. Because he couldn’t think of anything else to say.
They hadn’t got far from the pub when she stopped and rolled round into his arms. ‘Kiss me properly,’ she mumbled. Light filtered across the road from the lamp over the stage door.
He held her warm and cosy in his arms. He didn’t kiss her. Thoughts moved slowly, but with great clarity through his mind. The girl was drunk. He was nearly fifty. He should keep away from women; it always hurt one way or the other. The silent resentment of Ruth was too recent a memory. And before that there had been Anna in Edinburgh. And others. A wave of tiredness swept over him at the eternal predictability of lust.
He felt a shock of depression, as if the pavement in front of him had suddenly fallen away. What was the point of anything? Women could alleviate the awareness of the approach of death, but they could not delay it. He was cold, cold as though someone was walking over his grave. The intensity and speed of the emotion frightened him. Age, it must be age, time trickling away. He thought of Frances and wanted her comforting touch.
The girl in his arms was still, half dozing. He took her elbow and detached her from him. ‘Come on. I’ll get you back to your hotel.’ Gently.
At that moment he heard the clunk of the stage door closing and looked across to see Pete Masters emerge with a brief-case under his arm. The M.D. didn’t see him, but started to cross the road, going away from him.
The Mini must have been parked near by, but Charles wasn’t aware of it until it flashed past. He turned sharply, seemed dumb for a moment, then found his voice, too late, to shout, ‘Look out!’
Pete Masters half-turned as the wing of the Mini caught him. He was spun round on his feet and flung sprawling against a parked car. From there he slid down to lie still in the road. The Mini turned right at the end of the street and disappeared.
CHAPTER TEN
And Dickie Peck had not been in Bristol at the time of the accident. Charles tried to reason round it, but the fact was incontrovertible. According to Christopher Milton, the agent was not expected to come and see Lumpkin! again until Brighton. In case that information wasn’t reliable, Charles went to the extreme of phoning Creative Artists to check it. He used a disguised voice and pretended to be a policeman investigating the accident to Pete Masters. It was a risky expedient, one that had turned sour on him before, but he couldn’t think of another. As soon as he put the phone down, he realised that if Dickie Peck had anything to hide, he was now going to be a hundred times more careful. And he could well have been lying about his movements anyway.
All the same, Charles had already started to remove the agent from the front rank of his suspicions. Though he might be involved, might be directing operations, Dickie Peck wasn’t the one to do the heavy stuff. The more Charles thought about it, the more incongruous it became — a successful agent, with a lot of artists on his books, going round running people over and slipping them liquid paraffin? No. What was needed was a logical reappraisal of the situation.
He sat in Julian Paddon’s sitting-room on a bright autumn day and once again wrote down James Mime’s headings, ‘Incident’, ‘Suspect’ and ‘Motive’. He only filled in the middle column. Three names — Dickie Peck, Christopher Milton and Christopher Milton’s driver.
Then, as if imposing logic by committing conjecture to paper, he wrote another heading, ‘Reasons for Innocence’. Against Dickie Peck’s name he filled in, ‘Not on scene of last incident (i.e. in London) — position to keep up — discovery would ruin career’. Against Christopher Milton — ‘Last point above to nth degree — v. concerned with public image — could not afford the risk of personal action’. Against the driver he put a neat dash, then changed his mind and wrote, ‘The only question is who he’s taking orders from — D.P. or C.M. — or is he acting off his own bat?’