Simon Brett - Situation Tragedy

‘Any luck?’

‘Don’t think so. I had a word with a girl who was my PA on something I did here, girl called Sadie Wainwright, but she. . No, there doesn’t seem to be much around.’

Walter’s dismal tone suggested that Sadie had choked him off rather in the same way she had everyone else.

‘Oh well, something’ll turn up,’ said Charles blandly.

‘Hope so. Actually, if you are going across to see Nigel Frisch — ’

But Charles was saved embarrassment by the arrival of Scott Newton. The young man looked awful. He had no colour, and his face gleamed with a fine sweat. ‘Hello, Charles,’ he cried, with a sad attempt at conviviality. ‘Lovely performance. Can I get you a drink?’

‘I think I’d better get you one. You look terrible.’

‘No, I’m okay now. Had some sort of bilious bug, don’t know, must have been something I ate.’

Charles caught the sour whiff of the young man s breath. He had obviously just been very sick. Something he’d eaten. . or, more likely, just the nervous pressures of the day.

‘By the way, do you know Walter Proud? You’re both BBC renegades, so perhaps you’ve. .’

But no, they hadn’t. Charles introduced them.

‘You came after the big money too, did you?’ asked Walter ironically.

Scott replied in the same tone. ‘Bigger, maybe, but not big enough. I seem to have even less since I made the move.’

‘If that’s the case, then let me buy you a drink.’

‘No, no, things aren’t that bad.’

They argued a bit, but Walter didn’t need much convincing and Scott walked unsteadily to the bar.

‘And he’s directing you, Charles?’ The question was incredulous.

‘Yes.’

‘God, kids like that get jobs, while people with experience. . If I had my way — ’

But Charles never found out what would happen if Walter Proud had his way. The door from the fire escape into the bar suddenly burst open to admit Mort Verdon, waving his arms and screaming.

He was making so much noise that everyone was distracted and gathered round him, trying to find out the cause of his agitation.

Charles and Robin Laughton understood at the same moment that it was something he had seen outside on the fire escape, and rushed to the door. Most of the rest of the crowd followed.

It was after half-past ten and dark outside. Charles look down the fire escape, but could see nothing untoward. The car park below was shrouded in darkness.

Then a departing member of West End Television’s staff switched on the headlights of his car. A swathe of light cut across the car park.

In the middle of it, at the foot of the fire escape, lay a foreshortened figure in beige cord trousers and a flowered shirt. The light glinted on a gold necklace.

The car’s headlights also played on the lower parts of the fire escape. They showed the regular parallels of painted steel and the sudden asymmetry of the railing that had given way.

The car below did not move. Its owner got out to inspect the horror he could half-see ahead.

Charles felt the press of people behind him on the small metal balcony. He looked round at the shocked faces of Robin Laughton, Bernard Walton, Rod Tisdale, George Birkitt, Walter Proud, Scott Newton, Jane Lewis and Aurelia Howarth, and at the grinning incomprehension of Barton Rivers.

There was a long silence as they all looked down at the corpse of Sadie Wainwright, and waited for someone else to be the first to say they were sorry.

Then Peter Lipscombe’s cheery face appeared in the doorway. ‘Hello,’ he said. ‘’Everything okay?’

West End Television Ltd,

W.E.T. House,

235-9 Lisson Avenue, London NW1 3PQ.

22nd March, 1979.

Dear Charles,

I’m sure you’ve already heard from your agent, but I wanted to write personally to say how delighted I am to be able to tell you that The Strutters is a ‘go proposition’. It’s really very exciting news!

I’m sorry it has taken so long for me to be in a position to pass on the news, but the ‘powers that be’ always take their time deliberating over this sort of thing. However, they have now made up their minds and are backing The Strutters all the way. Nigel Frisch really thinks it’s one of the most exciting cards he holds, and reckons that with this and the new Wragg and Bowen series, W.E.T.’s going to make a very big dent in the BBC’s Autumn audience figures!

Many thanks for all your hard work on the pilot, which contributed to make the show such an exciting success. I’m sure you’re looking forward to the series as much as we all are — we think it’s going to be very exciting! The dates will be within the option period agreed with your agent, with prefilming probably starting the last week in May, six shows recorded on Tuesday evenings June 12th-July 17th, a couple of weeks’ break, and then the remaining six (which, with the pilot, will make a series of thirteen) starting on 3rd August. All sewn up by mid-September.

We at W.E.T. don’t believe in changing a winning team, so the casting will all be as for the pilot, and Scott Newton, who did such a splendid job for us then, will again be directing. Rod Tisdale, whose way with a line, as you know, puts him in the Oscar Wilde class, will certainly be writing the first six scripts, though, with the pressure of time, we may bring in other writers for later episodes. But don’t worry, we’ll keep up the high standards we have set ourselves with that very exciting pilot!

I do hope that everything is OK with you, and that you’re going to be able to fit this new very exciting project into your already busy schedule. I very much look forward to seeing you for our preliminary read-through, probably in mid-May, when we hope to assemble as many of the people who worked on the pilot as we can for the start of what I’m sure you’ll agree is going to be a very exciting series.

With the warmest good wishes,

Yours sincerely,

Peter

Peter Lipscombe

Producer The Strutters

Charles Paris had six reactions after reading the producer’s letter.

1. No, he hadn’t already heard from his agent, but since his agent was Maurice Skellern, possibly (and this was a bold claim, but one he believed he could substantiate) the least efficient of the breed in existence, that did not surprise him.

2. Yes, it was good news. The Inland Revenue had recently developed an unhealthy interest in his affairs and made the laughable demand that he should supply them with accounts for the last seven years. He felt betrayed by this. How did they know he had earned anything over that period? He certainly hadn’t told them. He was left with the unavoidable conclusion that the people who had actually paid him the money must have ratted on him. He reckoned it rather cheapened the magnanimous gesture of paying someone if you then went and told the tax authorities what you’d done.

3. Try as he might, he couldn’t find the news as exciting as Peter Lipscombe evidently did. Financially encouraging, yes; good, because being in work was better than being out of work, yes; but he had great difficulty in viewing the prospect of doing fourteen lines and two moves twelve times over with anything approaching excitement.

4. If Peter Lipscombe could seriously describe what Charles had done on the pilot as ‘hard work’, then he needed his head examined.

5. On the other hand, if Peter Lipscombe dared to refer to Charles’s ‘already busy schedule’, he must be either very ignorant or capable of irony. So perhaps the ‘hard work’ reference was also a dig.

6. However keen the producer was to assemble everyone who had worked on the pilot, there was one person whose services he would have to forego. And that was the PA, Sadie Wainwright.