Simon Brett - An Amateur Corpse

It was Charles’s turn to be self-deprecating. ‘Oh, come on, Hugo, I’m a professional actor. Much as I’d like to do it, I’m likely to be off touring or something at a moment’s notice.’

‘Nonsense. This voice-over campaign’s really going to take off. You’ll be stuck in London with more work than you can cope with.’

‘When that happens — ’ Charles joked, ‘and I won’t believe it until it does — I’ll be prepared to do a production for the Backstagers.’ That seemed to get him safely off the hook.

But a new voice joined the circle and qualified his remark. ‘If,’ of course, you do a successful One-Act Productions Audition and your choice of play is ‘approved by the Directorial Selection Sub-Committee.’ Charles was not surprised to find that the voice came from sour Reggie, the walking rule-book.

‘Oh, Charles has had rather a lot of experience as a director.’ It was Hugo coming to his rescue. Charles didn’t’ want rescuing. He thought doing a production for the Breckton Backstagers was a consummation devoutly to be avoided. The atmosphere was getting claustrophobic.

But Hugo’s defence was quite impassioned. Again Charles was conscious of the other man’s need for him. He was being paraded for the benefit of Hugo’s local crowd. In a strange way, it seemed to tie in with Charlotte’s behaviour, as if Hugo’s ignoring his wife was justified by the fact that he had a genuine professional actor to show off.

Charles was being used and he didn’t like it, but Hugo continued with his sales campaign. ‘Charles is, a bit of a playwright too. You should get him to write something for the World Premieres Festival.’

Charles made some suitably modest response, but Robert Chubb seized on the cue. ‘Oh really, if you’ve got something that hasn’t been performed tucked away in a cupboard, do let us see it. We’re getting the next Festival sorted out at the moment and one of our expected scripts has just fallen through, so we’d be very interested.’

Charles was tempted. There was in fact an unperformed play sitting in a drawer in his room in Hereford Road. He’d written it after his one successful play, The Ratepayer. A light comedy, called How’s Your Father? It would be quite gratifying to have it done under any circumstances.

But the patronizing tone in which Robert Chubb continued changed his mind. ‘It could do you a lot of good,

Charles. Lots of plays we’ve premiered here have gone on to do awfully well. It’s a real chance for an unknown playwright. I don’t know if you know George Walsh’s Doomwomb?’

Charles shook his head. Robert Chubb smiled indulgently at his ignorance. ‘That started here.’

‘Really?’ Suddenly he wanted to scream, wanted to do something appalling, be very rude to someone, break something, get the hell away from all these pretentious idiots.

Rescue came from an unexpected source. He felt an arm round his waist and a female body pressed close to his. ‘Dance with me.’

It was Vee Winter.

She was a strange woman. She clung to him tightly and he could feel the nervous excitement coursing through her body. In other circumstances, he would have interpreted this as a sexual message and responded in kind, but that somehow didn’t seem appropriate. The excitement had nothing to do with him.

He was being used for some purpose of her own. Certainly she was working to give the appearance of a sexual encounter, but it was for the benefit of the rest of the room, not for her partner.

Charles wondered at first if it was a ploy to make her husband jealous. Geoffrey was across the room, dancing with circumscribed abandon in front of yet another little dolly and Vee was very aware of his presence. But her behaviour did not seem designed to antagonize him; instead Charles received an inexplicable impression of complicity between husband and wife, as if their performances were co-ordinated parts of an overall plan and would later be laughed over when they were alone together.

This annoyed him. Again he was being used as a counter in a game he didn’t understand. The heavy beat of a rock number changed to a soupy ballad and Vee snuggled closer, pressing the contours of her body tightly against his. He realized with surprise that he didn’t find this arousing. Vee Winter was an attractive woman, but he didn’t fancy her. this gave him a perverse sense of righteousness, as if confirming that his randiness was not absolutely indiscriminate.

He commented rather coldly on her forwardness, ‘is this to give food for scandal to the gossip columnist of Backbite?’

‘Backbite?’

‘Your fortnightly magazine.

‘That’s called Backchat.’ She corrected him without humour. ‘Anyway, it doesn’t have a gossip columnist.’

Charles unwisely chose to continue in facetious vein. ‘So there’s no one to chronicle the backslidings of the Backstagers bopping to Burt Bacharach and their bacchanalian orgies?’

‘No.’ Vee’s reply was absolutely straight. Charles wouldn’t have minded if she had said it as a put-down (his attempt at humour had been pretty feeble), but for her not to notice even that the attempt had been made, that he found galling.

‘Do you act much here?’

She laughed with incredulity at his question, rather as if someone had asked the Queen if she had any jewelery. ‘Oh I have done a few things, yes.’

‘But not The Seagull?’

‘No.’ She stiffened slightly. ‘I really’ felt I needed a rest. Also I’ve played so many leads in the past year, I didn’t want it to look as if Geoff and I were monopolizing the entire society. Ought to give some of the newer members a chance. And then Shad, who directed, had this strange notion that Nina ought to have red hair. He’s a rather quirky director, if you know what I mean.’

Through the excuses, Charles knew exactly what she meant.

He took the end of a record as an opportunity to end their clinch. He looked over at the group round Hugo and couldn’t face it yet. He needed just to get out of the place for a moment. The sweet wine was making him feel sick. Pausing only to pick up someone’s full glass off a table, he left the rehearsal room.

The change was as welcome as he had anticipated. In spite of the summery days of that fall, October was nearing its end and the evenings were chilly. The slap of cold air was refreshing. He leaned against the inside of the porch and breathed deeply.

Then he heard the voices. Charlotte Mecken and Clive Steele. Arguing in fierce whispers. First Charlotte’s voice, the veneer of drama school thinned by emotion to reveal its Northern Irish origin. ‘I’m sorry, Clive, you’ve got it completely wrong. I never knew you were thinking that.’

‘Whit was I meant to think, after all those rehearsals, when you suddenly got all emotional and confided in me when I drove you home?’

‘I’m sorry. I shouldn’t have broken down. I just… it was all too much…’

‘Well, I made the perfectly natural assumption that — ’

‘It may have seemed perfectly natural to you, but — ’

‘It bloody well did. Look, if it’s your husband you’re worried about, forget it. It’s bloody obscene you being married to him anyway. Reminds me of all those jokes about young girls on their wedding nights feeling old age creeping all over them — ’

‘Clive. stop it. You’ve got the wrong end of the stick. So completely the wrong end. It’s all much more complicated than you can begin to imagine. Look, I’m sorry if you’ve been hurt, but I can assure you — ’

‘Oh, stuff that! All right, you’ve made your point. I see what’s been happening now. There is a word for women who lead men on you know.’

‘Clive, if I’d had any idea of what was going through you mind — ’