Simon Brett - Star Trap

‘No. Well, you have a drink and keep your mind off it’

‘Drink, huh, I’ve had plenty of drinks.’ Julian was playing the scene for all it was worth. Charles had the feeling that he often got with actor friends in real emotional situations, that they rose to the inherent drama and, though their feelings at such moments were absolutely genuine, their acting training was not wasted. ‘Oh God,’ Julian went on, ‘the waiting. It’s much worse than a first night.’

‘For a small Paddon it is a first night’

‘Yes. Oh God!’

‘Talk about something else. Take your mind off it.’

‘All right. What shall we talk about?’

‘The Irish situation? Whether Beowulf is the work of one or more writers? The Football League? Spinoza’s Ethics? Is pay restraint compatible with democracy? Is democracy compatible with individual freedom? Is individual freedom compatible with fashion? Is fashion compatible with the Irish situation? Do stop me if you hear anything that sounds interesting.’

‘Nothing yet. Keep talking.’

‘You sod.’

‘All right. Let you off. Tell me what you’ve been doing all day. I’m sure the wacky world of a pre-London tour must be more interesting than a day of rehearsal in a resident company.’

‘Yes, I suppose today has been quite eventful. Desmond Porton of Amulet came down last night to pass sentence.’

‘And are you still going in?’

‘Oh yes, but today has been spent disembowelling the show.’

‘Ah, that’s familiar. A different show every night. Oh, the thrills of the open road.’

‘You sound very bourgeois as you say that.’

‘Well, I am. Respectable. Look at me — regular company, in the same job for at least six months. Married…’

‘Prospective father…’

‘Oh God!’

‘I’m sorry. I’m meant to be taking your mind off that. I wonder what that makes you in the hierarchy.’

‘What?’

‘Being in a resident company. I suppose it’s not quite a managing director but it’s better than a lower clerical grade. A sort of rising young executive. Middle management, that’s probably the level.’

‘What are you talking about?’

‘Nothing. I’m sorry. I’m a bit pissed.’

‘Well, get stuck into that whisky bottle and get very pissed.’

‘Okay.’

‘Who have you been drinking with until this time of night?’

‘With no less than Christopher Milton. The Star. Tonight I was given the honour of being the repository of his guilty secrets.’

‘Not all of them, I bet.’

‘Why, what do you — oh, of course, you knew him.’ Spike’s words of earlier in the day suddenly came back. ‘You knew him before he was big.’

‘Yes, I had the dubious pleasure of being with him in the first company he went to as an adult actor. He’d done quite a lot as a child, but this was his first job as a member of a company. Cheltenham, it was.’

‘How long ago was this?’

‘I don’t know. Fifteen years — no, twenty. I remember, I celebrated my twenty-first birthday there.’

‘Christopher Milton must have been pretty young.’

‘Eighteen, I suppose.’

‘No, fourteen. He’s only thirty-four now.’

‘My dear Charles, you must never allow yourself to be a victim of the publicity men.’

‘What do you mean?’

‘Christopher Milton is thirty-eight, at least.’

‘But it says in the programme — ’

‘Charles, Charles, you’ve been in the business too long to be so naive. As you know, in this game everyone gets to play parts at the wrong age. People who play juveniles in the West End have almost always spent ten years grafting round the provinces and are about forty. But it doesn’t have quite the right ring, does it? So when Christopher Milton suddenly became very big, he suddenly shed four years.’

‘I see. It figures. Do you remember him from that time?’

‘Difficult to forget.’

‘What — the star bit?’

‘Oh yes, give him his due, he never made any secret of what he wanted to be. He spent a good few years rehearsing for the big time.’

‘Was he good?’

‘Very good. But no better than any number of other young actors. Indeed there was another in the company at the time who was at least as good. He’d come from the same drama school, also done the child star bit — what was his name? Garry Warden, that was it. And who’s heard of that name now? I don’t know what happens to the products of the stage schools. They almost always vanish without trace…’

‘Perhaps most of them haven’t got Christopher Milton’s single-mindedness.’

‘Single-mindedness is a charitable word for it. God, he was terrible. Put everyone’s backs up. Used to do charming things like ringing up other actors in the middle of the night to give them notes. And as you know it’s very difficult to have that sort of person in a small company.’

‘Did he drive everyone mad?’

‘Funny you should say that.’ Julian held his glass up to the light and looked through it pensively. ‘No, he drove himself mad.’

‘What do you mean?’

‘He had a breakdown, complete crack-up. Couldn’t live with an ego that size, maybe.’

‘What form did the breakdown take?’

‘Oh, the full bit None of this quiet sobbing in corners or sudden keeling over in the pub. It was the shouting and screaming that everyone was trying to murder him sort. He barricaded himself in the dressing-room with a carving knife. I tell you, it was the most exciting thing to happen in Cheltenham since the Ladies’ College Open Night.’

‘Did he go for anyone with the knife?’ Charles was beginning to feel a little uncomfortable.

‘Went for everyone. One of the stage staff got a nasty gash on the forearm. It took three policemen to calm him down. Well no, not calm him down, hold him down. He was screaming blue murder, accusing us all of the most amazing things. Yes, it was a pretty ugly scene.’

‘And did he come back to the company when he’d recovered?’

‘No, he was taken off in a traditional little white van and that’s the last time I saw him. Then suddenly four or five years ago I started reading all this publicity about the great new British star and there he was.’

‘And you’ve no idea what happened to him after Cheltenham?’

‘Not a clue. I suppose he went to some loony bin and got cured or whatever they do to people with homicidal tendencies.’

‘Yes. Strange, I’ve never heard about that incident before.’

‘Well, he’s not going to go around advertising it. Lovable Lionel Wilkins, the well-known loony.’

‘No, but it’s the sort of story that gets around in the business.’

‘Probably he’s deliberately tried to keep it quiet. I suppose there aren’t many people who would know about it. The Cheltenham company was pretty small — what was it the director used to call us? “A small integrated band.” A cheap integrated band, anyway. God, when I think of the money they used to give us, it’s a wonder we didn’t all die of malnutrition.’

‘You don’t still see any of them?’

‘No, not for years. I should think a lot of them have died from natural causes — and one or two drunk themselves to death.’

‘Can you remember who was in that company?’

‘Yes. Let me think — ’ At that moment the telephone rang. Julian leapt on it as if it were trying to escape. ‘Hello. Yes, I am. What? When? But you said nothing would happen till the morning. Well, I know, but — what is it? Good Lord. Well, I… um… I mean… Good Lord. But I wanted to be there. Can I come down? Look, it’s only five minutes. No, I’ll be there straight away. Good God, having effectively stopped me being there, you can bloody well keep them up for five minutes for me to see them!’ He slammed the receiver down and did a jaunty little walk over to the fireplace. He turned dramatically to Charles and threw away the line, ‘A boy. Just a little boy. Damian Walter Alexander Robertson Paddon.’