Simon Brett - So Much Blood

‘I’m going to make some coffee. Would you like some?’ Charles looked up at the girl in the photograph, Anna Duncan.

‘Please.’ She disappeared into the kitchen. He stared with less interest at the extant fragments of The Dundee Guide.

‘Here’s the coffee. Do carry on.’

‘Don’t worry. I like being disturbed. I’m Charles Paris.’

‘I know. Recognise you from the box. It’s very good of you to step into the breach.’

‘I gather you did more or less the same thing.’

‘Yes. Poor Lesley.’ A brief pause. ‘What is your show about?’

‘Thomas Hood.’

She did not recognise the name. ‘Why’s it called what it is?’

‘Because he once wrote “No gentleman alive has written so much Comic and spitten so much blood within six consecutive years”. In a letter to The Athenaeum actually.’

‘Oh. I don’t think I’ve even heard of Thomas Hood.’

‘I’m sure you know his poems.’

‘Do I?’

‘Yes. “I remember, I remember…’

‘“… the house where I was born”? That one? I didn’t know that was Hood.’

‘It was. And November. Faithless Sally Brown. Lots of stuff.’

‘Oh.’

Her eyes were unusual. Very dark, almost navy blue. Her bare arm on the table was sunburned, its haze of tiny hairs bleached golden.

‘What are you reading at Derby?’

‘French and Drama in theory. Drama in practice.’

‘Last year?’

‘One more. If I bother.’ The navy eyes stared at him evenly. It was pleasantly disconcerting.

‘I’ve just been down to the hall. Saw the lovely Stella Galpin-Lord. A mature student, I thought.’

Anna laughed. ‘She lectures in Drama.’

‘Ah. She seemed rather to have lost her temper this morning.’

‘That’s unusual. She’s always uptight, but doesn’t often actually explode.’

‘She was exploding this morning.’

‘Everyone’s getting on each other’s nerves. Living like sardines in this place. I’m glad I’m in a flat up here.’ (On reflection, Charles was glad she was too.) ‘And people keep arguing about who’s rehearsing what when, and who’s in the hall. It’s purgatory.’

‘You’re rehearsing the revue at the moment?’

‘Yes, but I’ve got a break. They’re doing a new number-about Nixon’s resignation and Ford coming in. Trying to be topical.’

‘Is the revue going to be good?’

‘Bits.’

‘Bits?’ Charles smiled. Anna smiled back.

At that moment Pam Northcliffe bounced into the room, her arms clutching two carrier bags which she spilled out on the table. ‘Hello. Oh Lord, I must write my expenses. I’m spending so much on props.’

‘What have you been buying?’ asked Charles.

‘Oh Lord, lots of stuff for Mary.’

‘Did you get the cardboard for my ruff?’

‘No, Anna, will do, promise. No, I was getting black crepe for the execution. And all these knives that I’ve got to make retractable. And some make-up and stuff.’

‘Good old Leichner’s,’ said Charles, picking up a bottle which had rolled out of one of the carriers. It was labelled ‘Arterial Blood’.

‘What other sort is there?’

‘There’s a brighter one, for surface cuts. It’s called…’ Pam paused for a moment. ‘… oh, I forget.’ And she bustled on. ‘Look, I’m not going to be in your way, am I? I’ve got to do these knives. I was going to do them on the table, if you…’

‘No, it’s O.K. I’ve finished.’ Charles resigned himself to the inevitable. Anna returned to her rehearsal and he went to see if the men’s dormitory was still being serenaded.

Passing the office, he heard sounds of argument, Michael Vanderzee’s voice, more Dutch in anger, struggling against Brian Cassells’ diplomatic tones. ‘… and the whole rehearsal was ruined yesterday because that bloody fool Willy wasn’t there. Look, I need more time in the hall.’

‘So does everyone.’

‘But I’ve lost a day.’

‘That’s not my fault, Mike. Look, I’ve worked out a schedule that’s fair to everyone.

‘Bugger your schedule.’

‘It’s there on the wall-chart-’

‘Oh, bugger your wall-chart!’ Michael Vanderzee flung himself out of the office, past Charles, to the front door. The windows shook as it slammed behind him.

Brian Cassells appeared in the hall looking flushed. When he saw Charles, he smoothed down his pin-striped suit as if nothing had happened. ‘Ah, morning.’ The efficient young executive was reborn. ‘I’ve… er… I’ve got your posters. Just picked them up.’

‘Oh, great.’

‘In the office.’

On the desk were two rectangular brown paper parcels. ‘A thousand in each,’ said Brian smugly. ‘Did the Letrasetting myself. Do have a look.’

Charles tore the paper and slid one of the printed sheets out. As he looked at it, Brian Cassells grinned. ‘O.K.?’

Charles passed the paper over. It was headed: DUDS ON THE FRINGE

… and the greatest of these is Charles Paris’

So Much Comic, So Much Blood.

‘Oh,’ said Brian, ‘I am sorry.’

Undisturbed rehearsal in the Coates Gardens house was clearly impossible. Charles decided a jaunt to one of his Edinburgh favourites, the Museum of Childhood in the Royal Mile, might not come amiss. It was only Monday and there was a whole week till he had to face an audience. And with Brian Cassells in charge of publicity, the chances were against there being an audience anyway.

Back at the house late afternoon, he found Martin Warburton hovering in the hail, as if waiting for him. ‘You’re Charles Paris, aren’t you?’

‘Yes.’

‘I’ve written this play. Who Now? We’re doing it. I want you to read it.’ A fifth carbon copy was thrust forward.

‘Oh, thank you. I’d like to.’

‘You don’t know. You might like to; you might think it was a waste of time.’

‘I’m sure you wouldn’t have written it if you thought it was a waste of time.’

The boy looked at Charles fiercely for a moment, then burst into loud laughter. ‘Yes, I might. That’s exactly what I might have done.’

‘Why?’

‘Everything we do is just random. I happened to write this. It’s just chance. I might have written anything else. It’s nothing.’

‘I know sometimes it seems like that, but very few things are random-’

‘Don’t patronise me!’ Martin’s shout was suddenly loud, as if the volume control on his voice had broken. He reached out to snatch the play back, then changed his mind, rushed out of the house and slammed the door.

In spite of Brian Cassells’ assurances, the Masonic Hall was not free for Charles to rehearse in on the Tuesday afternoon. When he arrived at two o’clock Michael Vanderzee had just started a workshop session with the Mary cast and most of the Dream lot too. Brian was not there to appeal to (he’d apparently gone down to London for a Civil Service interview), so Charles sat at the back of the hall and waited.

Everyone except Michael was lying stretched out on the floor. ‘.. and relax. Feel each part of your body go. From the extremities. Right, your fingers and toes, now your hands and feet. Now the forearms and your calves-feel them go…’

Charles’ attitude to this sort of theatre was ambivalent. He had no objection to movement classes and workshop techniques. They were useful exercises for actors, and kept them from getting over-analytical about their ‘art’. All good stuff. Until there was a show to put on. At that point they became irrelevant and the expediency of getting everything ready for the opening left no time for self-indulgence.

Michael Vanderzee (who drew inspiration from the physical disciplines of East and West and created a theatre indissolubly integrated with working life) obviously did not share these views. ‘Right. O.K. Now I want you to sit in pairs, and when I clap, you start to tell each other fairy stories. And you’ve got to concentrate so hard, you tell your story and you don’t listen to the other guy. Really concentrate. O.K. I clap my hands.’