Simon Brett - So Much Blood

It rang true. The brief mystery of the poster was explained. But there must be more to be found out from Pam. ‘What did you feel about Willy when he was dead?’

‘Shock. I mean, I hadn’t seen a dead body before.’

‘Nothing else?’

‘No, I don’t think so.’

‘No sense of loss?’

‘Not really. I mean, it wasn’t real love, just something I’d built up in my mind. In a way his death got it out of my system, made me realise that I didn’t really feel a thing for him. Anyway, it had been fading ever since we came up here.’

‘As you saw more of him?’

‘Yes.’ She grinned ruefully. ‘He became more real. Just an ordinary man. And perhaps not a very nice one. Anyway, I didn’t really feel the same about him after that business with Lesley…’ Charles picked up the last few words as if they were the ash of a vital document in a murderer’s fireplace. ‘Business with Lesley?’

‘Yes, I…’ well, I haven’t mentioned it to anyone, but… it may be nothing, just the way it seemed…’

‘What?’

‘It was after we’d been up here about a week. Willy suddenly started to take an interest in Lesley-that’s Lesley Petter who-’

‘I know about her. Go on.’

‘I think he was probably after her, fancied her, I don’t know. Anyway, one evening, after we’d been rehearsing, we were all having coffee back at Coates Gardens and Willy said he was going for a walk up to the Castle and did anyone want to come with him. Well, I said yes sort of straight off, because, you know, I thought he was marvellous and… But then I realised that he’d only said that as a sort of prearranged signal to Lesley. It was meant to be just the two of them.

‘I was awfully embarrassed, but I couldn’t say I wouldn’t go when I realised. So the three of us set off and I dawdled or went ahead or

… wishing like anything I wasn’t there.

‘We went up to the Castle Esplanade and wandered around, and I, feeling more and more of a gooseberry, went on ahead on the way back. I started off down the steps that go down to Johnstone Terrace.’

‘Castle Wynd South.’

‘Is that what it’s called, yes. Anyway, I was nearly at the bottom, and suddenly I heard this scream. I turned round and saw Lesley, with her arms and legs flailing, falling down the steps.’

‘And that was how she broke her leg?’

‘Yes. I rushed up to where she’d managed to stop herself, and Willy rushed down. She was in terrible pain and I shot off to phone for an ambulance. But just before I went, I heard her say something to Willy, or at least I think I did.’

Charles felt the excitement prickling over his shoulders and neck. ‘What did she say?’

‘She said, “Willy, you pushed me.”’

The show biz razzmatazz of first nights was invented before the development of lunch time theatre. There is something incongruous about flowers and telegrams for a first lunch. Charles did not get any, anyway. There was no one to send them. Maurice Skellem was the only person outside Edinburgh who knew the show was happening and he was not the sort to spend his client’s money on fulsome gestures. Charles deliberately had not told his ex-wife Frances that he was going up to the Festival as another hack at the fraying but resilient umbilical cord that joined him to her.

But the first night excitement was there. He walked from Coates Gardens to the Masonic Hall with a jumpy step, a little gurgling void of anticipation in his stomach. To his relief, the odious Plug had been replaced by an amiable young man called Vernon, who was not only efficient in the rehearsal but was also staying for the show. It made Charles feel more confident. And more scared. With the technical side under control, no excuses were possible; it was his responsibility entirely.

He calmed himself by hard work. One run of the show for Vernon’s benefit, to get the cues right; then a quick double-check through all the slides; finally an as-per performance run which was depressingly pedestrian. As it should be. Charles believed in the old theatrical adage about bad dress rehearsals leading to good first nights.

A few more details checked, then down to the pub about twelve-thirty for a quick one. Just one; mustn’t risk slurring. Vernon was quiet and reassuring, a good companion for last-minute anxieties. Yes, he would hold the last fade. Yes, he would anticipate the slide of The Last Man sitting on the gallows. No, he didn’t think there was too much serious stuff in the programme. No, he didn’t think the dark suit was too anonymous.

Back at the hall Brian Cassells was in charge as Front of House Manager. Apparently he felt that evening dress was obligatory for this role, though he looked a little out of place penguined up at lunch time. He admitted to Charles that advance sales were not that good (three seats), but he had great hopes for casual trade during the next twenty minutes.

Sharp on one fifteen the show started. Charles had felt on the edge of nausea as he waited to enter in the blackout, but as usual actually being onstage gave him a sense of calm and control.

The imperfect masking of the hall’s windows meant that the audience was visible, but he did not dare to look until he had received some reaction. The watershed was Faithless Nellie Gray; nothing expected on I Remember, I Remember and the rest of the preamble. But the first Pathetic Ballad should get something.

Ben Battle was a soldier bold,

And used to war’s alarms;

But a cannon-ball took off his legs,

So he laid down his arms.

Yes, a distinct laugh. And the laughs built through the ensuing stanzas. Not a big sound, but warming.

Emboldened, he inspected the audience as he recited. About twenty, which, on the first day of the Festival, with negative publicity, was not bad. On a second glance he realised that a lot of it was paper, members of D.U.D.S. who had been allowed in free. There was a little knot of revue cast, dark figures grouped around Anna’s shining head. James Milne leant forward in his seat with intense concentration. There were only about eight faces Charles did not recognise. And some of those might be complimentaries for the critics. Maurice Skellern was not going to be over-impressed by ten per cent of fifty per cent of that lot.

But it was an audience. And they were responding. Charles enjoyed himself.

The Laird insisted on taking him out to lunch. They went to an Indian restaurant on Forrest Place and managed to persuade the waiter it was still early enough for them to have a bottle of wine. After a couple of glasses Charles felt better. The immediate reaction after a show was always emptiness, even depression, and the ability to remember only the things that went wrong. Gradually it passed; alcohol always speeded the process.

So did enthusiastic response to the show. And James Milne was very enthusiastic. He had only known the familiar poems of Hood, the ones which have become cliches by repetition, November, A Retrospective Review, The Song of the Shirt and the inevitable I Remember, I Remember. The broadening of the picture which Charles’ show had given obviously excited him. The punning and other verbal tricks appealed to his crossword mind. ‘I had no idea there was so much variety, Charles. I really must get hold of a Complete Works. Is there a good edition?’