Simon Brett - So Much Blood

‘What do you mean?’

‘During term-time. If he was involved in the Dramatic Society.’

‘Oh, but he wasn’t. He was nothing to do with the University.’

‘Then where did he come from?’

‘He used to play with Puce.’

‘What?’

‘The rock band. He was lead guitar. Until they broke up earlier this year. Oh, come on, you’ve heard of Puce.’

Charles had to confess he hadn’t.

They walked back to Coates Gardens together. Pam seemed calmer; she had almost recaptured her customary bounce. A nice girl. No beauty, but good-natured. Needed a man who appreciated her.

She was telling him about her parents’ home in Somerset as they entered the hall. At that moment Anna Duncan came out of the Office. ‘Hello,’ said Charles. She grinned.

Pam paused in mid-sentence: He realised his rudeness. ‘I’m so sorry. I… what were you saying?’

‘Oh, it wasn’t important. I’d better get on with my wall.’ And she disappeared gracelessly downstairs.

‘Taking other women out when you’ve already stood me up,’ said Anna with mock reproach.

‘I hardly think we’d have had a very relaxed dinner with policemen taking statements between courses.’

‘No, I didn’t mean it.’

‘Rehearsing tonight?’

‘Finishing at half past eight.’

‘Shall we pretend the last two days haven’t happened, and pick up where we left off?’

‘That sounds a nice idea.’

‘Shall I see you here?’

‘No. If Mike gives us another of his rolling about on the floor workshops, I’ll need to go back to the flat and have a quick bath.’

‘Well, let’s meet at the restaurant. Do you know L’Etoile?’

‘In Grindlay Street?’

‘That’s the one. I’ll book a table for half past nine. O.K.?’

‘Fine. I must get back upstairs and pretend to be a banana.’

‘Another of Michael Vanderzee’s wonderful ideas?’

‘Yes. The perception through inanimate transference of pure emotion.’

‘Wow.’

Anna grinned again and left. Charles knocked on the office door. If Brian was back, perhaps it would be possible to arrange some rehearsal time at the Masonic Hall.

The Company Manager was wearing another executive suit, this time a beige three-piece. Charles explained his requirements and was not wholly reassured by Brian’s assurance that he’d sort it out and the movement of some coloured strips on the wall-chart. There are certain sorts of efficiency which do not inspire confidence.

The efficiency had obviously been at work on the ‘What the Press says about D.U.D.S.’ board. It was smothered with cuttings about the death of Willy Mariello. The one person to have made a definite profit from the killing was the disgruntled Glaswegian photographer. He seemed to have sold the pictures to every newspaper in the country. Charles felt a frisson of shock at seeing the scene again. ‘You’re not actually going to use those as publicity?’

‘No,’ said Brian regretfully, ‘wouldn’t be quite the thing. Not to display them. Mind you, it is an amazing spread. It’s really fixed the name of D.U.D.S. in people’s minds. Better than any publicity stunt you could devise. I remember last year Cambridge staged something about pretending Elizabeth Taylor was in Edinburgh. They got a girl to dress up as her and so on. Quite a lot of coverage. But nothing like this.’

The note of unashamed satisfaction in Brian’s voice made Charles look at him curiously. Insensitivity of that order would be wasted in the Civil Service; he should try for advertising or television. ‘I’m sure Willy would be glad to think that his life was lost in the cause of full houses for the D.U.D.S.’

‘Yes, it’s an ill wind.’ Brian was impervious to irony.

‘One thing… I was interested to hear that Willy Mariello wasn’t a member of the University.’

‘No.’

‘How did he come to be involved in this then?’

‘I don’t know. I suppose he was a friend of someone.’

‘Who? Do you know?’

‘No. I don’t know any of them very well. I wasn’t in D.U.D.S. I was Chairman of Ducker.’

‘Ducker?’

‘D.U.C.A. Derby University Conservative Association.’

‘Oh.’

‘They only brought me into this because of my administrative ability.’

The men’s dormitory was mercifully empty and Charles managed an undisturbed run of So Much Comic, So Much Blood. He was encouraged to find how much he remembered. The intonation of the poems came back naturally and he began to feel the rhythm of the whole show. A bit more work and it could be quite good.

So he felt confident as he sat opposite Anna in the French restaurant in Grindlay Street. Her appearance contributed to his mood. The ‘quick bath’ back at her flat had included a flattering amount of preparation. Just-pressed pale yellow shirt with a silly design of foxtrotting dancers on it, beautifully cut black velvet trousers. Eyelashes touched with mascara, lip-coloured lipstick, cropped hair flopping with controlled abandon. All very casual, but carefully done.

‘I’m looking forward to seeing the show. I’m sorry, as I said, I don’t know anything about Hood.’

‘Not many people do.’

‘Was he Scottish?’

‘No. His father came from Dundee, but Thomas himself only went there a couple of times. Wasn’t very struck with it either. Particularly the cooking. “I sicken with disgust at sight of a singed sheep’s head. I cannot bring myself to endure oatmeal, which I think harsh, dry and insipid. The only time I ever took it with any kind of relish was one day on a trouting party, when I was hungry enough to eat anything.” Sorry, I’ve just been working on it, hence the long trailer.’

‘What do you do in the show-dress up as Hood?’

‘No, it wouldn’t work. I don’t like all that emotive bit-this is what the bloke was really like. It seems to remove the subject from reality rather than making him more real. Like historical novels about Famous People. I’m just an interpreter of Hood’s work; I don’t pretend to be him. Let the poems and lyrics speak for themselves. Certainly in the case of the poems, it would falsify them to read them in character. They were written as public entertainments to be recited and that’s how I treat them.’

‘So it’s more a sort of recital than an acting thing?’

‘I suppose so. It’s mid-way between. And it has the great advantage that I don’t have to learn it all and can actually refer to the book when I want to.’

‘Handy. So you just wear ordinary clothes for it?’

‘A suit, maybe. I’d look daft dressed as Thomas Hood anyway. I haven’t the figure of a stunted Victorian consumptive.’

‘He was another one, was he?’

‘Yes. Hence the So Much Blood of the title. Actually there is some question as to whether it was consumption-T.B. or not T.B. It may have been rheumatic heart disease. But he spat blood, that’s the main thing. It was very difficult to be a literary figure in Victorian times without spitting blood. Healthy writers started at an enormous disadvantage.’

Anna laughed. ‘If he was ill, I think you’re showing great restraint in not acting it out. Most actors leap at the chance of doing hacking coughs and their dramatic dying bit.’

‘So do I. But unfortunately it wouldn’t be right for this show. Oh, I’ve died with the best of them. You should have heard my death rattle as Richard II after Sir Pierce of Exton stabbed me.’

There was a moment’s pause. They were both thinking the same, both seeing Willy Mariello lying on the stage at the Masonic Hall. Anna went pale.

‘Sorry. Shouldn’t have said that. I wasn’t thinking.’

‘It’s all right. It’s just… so recent.’