Simon Brett - Situation Tragedy

With all the pressures, a kind of peace and community spirit came over the production. They all spent so much time together that they had to choose between constant arguments or conviviality and fortunately most opted for the latter. Even Charles began to see the advantages of television. It was almost like having a regular job.

The audience reaction to the recordings didn’t change much, but everyone seemed quite happy about it, and Charles came to share the indifference to, or even contempt of audiences, which is common to most people who work in television. Bob Tomlinson was all set to come in with his electronic hilarity in the dubbing suite, so it hardly mattered what the people shovelled out of coaches into the studio seats thought of the show. The only function of their reaction was to tell the viewing audience at home where the jokes were intended to be.

Charles also got closer to Jay Lewis. The young PA seemed to have ended her relationship with Nick Coxhill and to be more or less available. She seemed to enjoy Charles’s company and, though he got a little sick of the received wisdom of Phil Middleton and Ernie Franklyn Junior, news of the progress of VTR editing and the doings of Jay’s flatmate who worked in Film Research, he enjoyed hers. She really was very pretty.

Sometimes Charles wondered if his continuing attraction to girls young enough to be his daughter arose from his incomplete relationship with his real daughter, Juliet. But, since it didn’t change facts or get him anywhere, he never indulged such speculation for long.

He didn’t make any move with Jay for the time being. They were working too closely together for him to risk a rebuff or any awkwardness. But he made his interest clear, and planned in a vague way for some sort of advance just before the break in recording sequence in mid-July.

Thoughts of crime receded. When he spoke to Gerald Venables after one of the recordings, he said he’d decided there was nothing to be investigated, except for a sequence of coincidences. The only thing that had ever made him think differently was the words of Sadie which he had overheard. And there was no chance of finding out any more about them.

After the recording before the overnight filming, the usual group of cast (including Toby Root, who’d played the part of Colonel Strutter’s friend) and camp followers (very camp, in some cases) gathered in the bar for a quick drink, because the week ahead was busy. Read-through the following morning and rehearsal all day. Then, because of Union regulations covering the Thursday night’s shoot, no rehearsal on the Thursday or Friday. Pick up again Saturday morning, rehearse Sunday, somehow be ready for the Crew Run Monday at noon, and into the studio on the Tuesday. It wasn’t long to get a half-hour of television together.

With this in mind, neither Dame Aurelia Howarth nor George Birkitt went up for a drink. Both no doubt (though the latter would never admit it) had gone back to do a bit of work on the week’s lines.

The absence of his idol left Aurelia’s Number One Fan at something of a loose end. Since his first contested appearance, Romney Kirkstall had come to every recording and hung around on the fringe of Aurelia’s circle in the bar afterwards. He never had a drink, neither buying for himself nor accepting anyone else’s offer.

He looked so helpless that once he had got a large Bell’s (very skilfully bought by Peter Lipscombe), Charles went across to him.

‘Dob not coming up?’ asked Romney Kirkstall anxiously.

‘Don’t think so. Busy schedule this week. I expect she’s gone back to catch up on some sleep.’

‘Oh dear.’ The little man looked very upset. The focus of his whole week had been removed.

‘I’m sure she’ll come up for a drink next time,’ Charles comforted. ‘It’s just that we’ve got an overnight shoot on Thursday, so it’s a tight week.’

Romney Kirkstall still looked distraught. ‘I wanted to see her. I’ve got a book I wanted her to autograph.’

‘Oh. Well, next week.’

‘I suppose so,’ Romney Kirkstall conceded dismally. ‘I was so excited to find it, though. It’s a biography of Dab that I’ve been looking for for ages. Found it on a barrow outside a second-hand bookshop in Putney.’

‘Oh, really.’

‘It’s very rare, you know. Called I Dream of Dancing. You know, after the song.’

‘Oh yes. I’ve heard of it.’ It was difficult not to have done. The song had been a big hit in a revue in the early Thirties and had virtually become Aurelia Howarth’s signature tune.

‘Oh, I did want to get her signature today.’ Romney Kirkstall still sounded desolated.

‘You’ll get it in a week.’

‘Anything can happen in a week.’

Charles looked up sharply, his dormant detective instinct aroused. But no, there was no threat in Romney Kirkstall’s words. He was a little man with an obsession, but that obsession wasn’t murder.

Charles thought perhaps showing an interest would cheer him up, so asked Romney if he might look at the book.

It was the right question. There was a scurry into the duffle bag and the precious trophy was presented to him.

The book was a battered little blue volume. Presumably it had had a decorative dust jacket, but that was long gone. Charles turned instinctively to the date of publication — 1940. It was not surprising that Romney Kirkstall had had difficulty in finding it. Most books vanish pretty quickly, but show business biographies must be the most quickly dated and evanescent forms of literature.

The name of the book’s author was Max de Pouray, which meant nothing to Charles. He glanced at the text as he flicked through and recognised the breathless sycophancy of the genre.

And of course Dob appeared in his famous Midnight Revue at the ‘Pav’. All the stars in London’s theatrical galaxy were there, and she outshone them all. Dressed in the simplest gown of white silk, in such company as the Prince of Wales, Lord and Lady Louis Mountbatten, Mrs Dudley Ward, the Duchess of Portland, Lady Victoria Wemyss, the Duke and Duchess of Westminster, the Duke of Norfolk and half the noble scions of Debrett’s, a glittering company that must have left most of this sceptred isle’s stately homes empty, it was Dob who was the ‘wow’ of the evening . .

There was a lot more in similar vein, but Charles found the photographs more interesting. They were brownish, and many had the posed quality of publicity stills. What they revealed most forcibly was Aurelia Howarth’s natural beauty. At fifteen, while she was a humble member of the chorus, she already had a remarkable purity of line and, maturing through the photographs, she retained the softness of youth. In spite of the vagaries of hair-styling and the ridiculous nature of some of her revue costumes, her quality shone through. And the soft studio lighting of the period gave her outline that blurred indistinction which she somehow still retained.

There were a few less posed shots, though they still looked pretty formal. Over dinner at the Cafe Royal. In a deck chair on a transatlantic liner. Relaxing on the beach at Nice with a handsome young man. . It was with shock that Charles realised that her escort must be her husband. A photograph of their wedding confirmed it.

It was hard to imagine from the grinning skeleton he now was that Barton Rivers had once been such a dashing figure. With his body fleshed out and a thick crop of dark hair sleeked back on his head, he looked very much the matinee idol.

But the photographs did not offer much evidence of his career. After all, the book’s subject was Aurelia, and it seemed that they had rarely worked together. There was one shot of them with two other couples dancing in front of a backdrop of a desert island. The caption read ‘In the Palm of My Hand with a Palm Overhead from Careless Feet.’ And there was a picture of the pair sitting in a Bentley over the legend, ‘Husband and Wife — from Death Takes A Short Cut.’ The photograph looked like a film still.