During the summer season, Henry Turner rented a house on the sea front. Nothing grand, but three storeys, sandwiched between the Esplanade Hotel and the Comasuare Guest House. The white stone frontage was badly discoloured by the salt air, the window frames stripped of paint and starting to rot. The inside of the house reeked of damp from a leaking roof which made the top floor uninhabitable, and cooking smells from its neighbours filtered through the walls as if by osmosis, mingling with the dampness to produce a smell like rotting vegetation.
Turner switched on the light in the sitting room and sagged down into a badly stuffed armchair, pulling off his shoes and massaging his feet through his socks. The telephone rang.
“Hello, it’s D’arcy Blake. Have you read it yet?”
Turner sighed exasperatedly. “For heaven’s sake. I’ve only just this minute got in.” He glanced quickly around the room, looking in vain for Blake’s manuscript on all the flat surfaces. Maybe Mrs Ellory, who cleaned for him once a week, had put it somewhere.
“But the theatre closed over an hour ago,” Blake said, his voice nothing more than a nasal whine, intense and pernicious.
Turner drummed his fingers on the arm of the chair. “Look, Mr Blake, this is simply not on. I told you I would read your play and I will, but I won’t be able to if you keep bothering me like this.”
The line went dead and Turner was left listening to the soft purr of the dialling tone. For some reason the anodyne sound unnerved him, and he slammed the phone down. The man and his damned play were starting to haunt him.
A thorough search of the room yielded nothing. Blake’s play was nowhere to be found, and Turner fought down a rising sense of panic. What if he couldn’t find it? What if Mrs Ellory had thrown it out thinking it rubbish? How could he face Blake then? “Get a grip, man,” he admonished himself. “You’re letting this whole affair put you off your game.” With no special relationship in his life and certainly no pets to fuss over, he often conversed with himself; it kept loneliness at bay and besides, he was a damned good listener. “Think, man, where did you last see it?” He sat down in a chair and forced his mind back to the morning when the postman woke him with an insistent ring on the doorbell. Bleary eyed, he’d thrown on his bathrobe and stumbled down the two flights of stairs to the front door.
The postman was annoyingly cheerful, handing Turner the package with the excuse that it was too large to fit through the letterbox. From there Turner had gone back to the kitchen to make himself a pot of tea, then, sitting at the table, had torn open the package and taken out Blake’s play. He remembered flicking through scenes as he ate his toast, remembered thinking that yesterday’s newspaper would make more stimulating reading. In fact he had gone to the pile of newspapers next to the boiler to retrieve Sunday’s paper because there was a review in it he wanted to re-read. He had found the paper, taken it back to the table, and…and he must have left the manuscript on top of the pile of old newspapers.
“Oh my God,” he said, and ran to the kitchen. The pile of old newspapers had gone. Mrs Ellory, with her usual diligence had thrown them away when cleaning the kitchen. He raised his eyes to the ceiling in despair, his mind franticly formulating an excuse to give Blake. Then, turning to go back to the sitting room, he spied a large manila envelope sitting on top of the spin-dryer. Attached to it was a note in Mrs Ellory’s cramped handwriting. `Are you sure you want this thrown away?’
Had she been there Turner would have kissed her. He pulled Blake’s play from the envelope, sat down at the kitchen table and despite the lateness of the hour, started to read.
Two hours later he yawned, rubbed his eyes and read the final page. Mrs Ellory had done the future theatre going public and him no favours at all. It was not one of the worst things Henry Turner had ever read, but it was far from being the best. It was depressingly average; not dreadfully bad, nor dreadfully good. With some work, and the right cast, it might possibly have been made into a presentable production, if shown to a not too discerning audience. He looked up at the clock on the wall and was appalled to see it was half past two in the morning. Before he left the stage tonight he told the cast he was calling a special rehearsal in the morning to avoid a repeat of the shambles that was this evening’s performance. At this rate he would be sleepwalking through it. He badly needed his bed. Without giving further thought to Blake’s play he took himself upstairs.
The pier was open early for business the next morning. In the amusement arcade, slot machines clattered as children and adults alike fed in their pennies, flicked levers and watched the small metal balls spin round the metal tracks, whooping with delight when the balls dropped into winning cups but, most of the time, groaning in defeat as the balls unerringly found their way to the cup marked LOST.
In the theatre, Turner was little more than halfway through rehearsing the cast when the doors at the back opened and D’arcy Blake stepped through into the auditorium. Turner was in mid-speech but out of the corner of his eye saw Blake coming down the aisle to the stage. He stopped speaking and turned to face the young man. Other members of the cast, sensing a real-life drama, did the same. As Blake drew close to the stage, Turner could see the angry expression on the young man’s face.
“Mr Blake,” he boomed from the stage, hoping to avoid an unpleasant scene. “Good to see you.” It had the effect of stopping Blake mid-stride. He stood in the centre of the aisle, hands on hips.
“You were supposed to phone me,” he said.
Members of the cast exchanged looks. Maurice Littlejohn said sardonically, “A friend of yours, Henry?” Someone else laughed quietly. Turner felt an unfamiliar flush of embarrassment creeping over his skin. He dropped down from the stage.
“We will talk in my dressing room, Mr Blake,” he said, as he walked past the young man and gestured for him to follow.
The dressing room was as sparse and dull as Turner’s office. Pervading the air was the heavy smell of greasepaint. The mirror was cracked in one corner, partly covered by a signed photograph of Richard Burton. Turner shut the door behind Blake and wheeled on him. “How dare you interrupt my rehearsal,” he said angrily.
Blake looked at him steadily. “Have you read it?”
Turner ignored him. “I will not be harassed in this way. I did not commission your play, and I am under no obligation to you at all. I did not ask to see it, and I certainly did not want to read it. I find your behaviour totally unacceptable.”
“Have you read it?”
Turner slammed his hand down on the dressing table, rattling the pots and tubes of make-up. “Oh for heaven’s sake!”
Blake stood with his back to the door, his eyes magnified behind his glasses, hostile and unrelenting. “You could have read it last night instead of going to the pub.”
So Blake had seen him at the Three Anchors after all. “What I do in my spare time, Mr Blake, is of no concern to you.” He opened the drawer of the dressing table and took out Blake’s play. “There’s your damned play, Mr Blake. Take it and go.” He thrust the manuscript into the young man’s hands and pulled open the door.
“Have you read it?” The man was unhesitant in his conviction.
Turner was breathing hard, his patience finally exhausted. “Yes, Mr Blake, I’ve read it. And a worthless piece it is too.”
For the first time Blake reacted to Turner’s words. He flinched.
Turner continued. “The play has no thematic structure, no dramatic flow. The characters are two-dimensional. Cardboard characters whom you set in ridiculously unrealistic and unbelievable situations. From what I’ve read, the characters’ motivations are spurious and confused, and your dialogue…” He paused. Blake’s face was a study of misery. His eyes were welling with tears and his skin was pale. Turner sensed that, at last, he had the advantage over the young man. He followed it through ruthlessly. “Your dialogue, Mr Blake, is nothing more than inane rambling. You put speech into your characters’ mouths that any half-decent actor would find impossible to delive
r whilst keeping a straight face. Do you listen to the way people speak to each other? Obviously not, because if you did you would realise that your dialogue has no connection with reality. Well, you say you have spent five years of your life writing this play? In my opinion your time would have been better spent teaching yourself basket making, or some other practical pursuit that does not involve murdering the Queen’s English. Have I made myself perfectly clear?”
Exhausted by his tirade, Turner sat down at the dressing table, turning his back on Blake but watching the young man closely in the mirror. D’arcy Blake stood by the open door, tears flowing freely down his pallid cheeks, a mixture of despair and hatred in his eyes as he stared at Turner. His mouth worked furiously, trying to conjure up some response, but the words refused to come. Finally, with a sob bursting from his throat, he spun on his heel and, still clutching his play, ran from the theatre.
Henry Turner sat back in his chair and closed his eyes. He felt so much better. He was a decent man, and a modicum of guilt pricked his conscience, as his words were not wholly justified. He felt so much better though for lashing out. Lashing out at someone, anyone, and if it should be this unfortunate young hopeful then so be it. At least his target was one that could do him no harm. He had recognised over the past few days that his temper was due to blow, after so many setbacks and frustrations, and it had blown at the author of an average play. He’ll recover, Turner reassured himself, might even improve his writing. He had not meant to be so brutal in his criticism, but something had driven him on. Perhaps all those years of bad notices, of the scathing reviews he himself had suffered at the hands of merciless critics, had produced in him a need to hurt someone. All the pent up frustration at his own lack of achievement in the medium he loved, had burst out of him with uncharacteristic viciousness. He was able to justify his behaviour by reminding himself of the way the young man had pursued him, but in truth he knew that was only an excuse. The life he had settled for was turning him slowly, but inexorably, into a soured and troubled man, who found his audiences unbearable, his fellow actors flippant, and his theatre a living tomb. Then there was the sea. His morbid thoughts were interrupted by Eric Latham who burst into the dressing room. “Come quick, Mr Turner, it’s your friend.”
“Friend? What friend?”
“The young man. He’s trying to kill himself.”
Turner rushed out to the pier where most of the cast and a gaggle of holidaymakers were gathered in a crowd at the end of the pier. According to some of the witnesses there was nothing anyone could have done to prevent him. D’arcy Blake had rushed from the theatre in a state of some distress, clutching his manuscript to his chest, like a mother holding her precious child to her bosom. He barged his way through a small crowd of holidaymakers who were standing at the rail watching a large ocean liner crossing on the horizon. Climbing up, he balanced precariously on the wooden handrail, where he still stood, wavering like a reed in the wind.
“Is he here yet?” he shouted in his strangled voice. “Ah, I see him. Henry Turner, the murderer, the killer of my baby.”
People in the crowd shrank away from Turner when they realised Blake was addressing him.
“He means his play,” Turner said absently. “He’s talking about the play he wrote.”
Then, with one look back at the theatre, Blake pitched himself forwards into the sea.
There is a fierce undertow along that stretch of the coast, so strong around the pier that there are signs prohibiting bathing. People looked at one another but no one had much inclination to jump in after him. Those who leaned over the rail to catch sight of him reported that he sank quickly. By the time a lifeguard reached the rail there was no sign of D’arcy Blake, just a few pages of typewritten script floating on the surface, to mark the spot where he entered the water. Police and the coastguards searched for the body but it was never found. Locals said it would turn up along the coast in a few weeks time.
Henry Turner cancelled rehearsals for the day but asked everyone in the cast to be prompt for the evening performance. By the late afternoon he sat at his dressing table, hands still shaking. He felt the guilt gnawing away at him like an echo. He knew he had been too hard on the young man but there was nothing he could do about it now. Had D’arcy Blake’s body been found and a proper funeral arranged, Turner may have been able to put the matter to rest, but Blake must have been swept out to sea within minutes of entering the water.
There was a knock at the door and Maurice Littlejohn called out. “Will you be long, Henry? We’ve only an hour before curtain up.”
Turner pulled himself out of his seat, feeling incredibly weary. Perhaps he would not go on at all this evening, let his understudy take over the role. The audience certainly would not care. If the advance bookings were anything to go by, the cast would out-number them two to one. With a long sigh he stepped out of the dressing room and made his way to the stage.
After the evening performance Melanie Collins approached him as he stood in the wings watching the cast take their curtain calls. “Can I have a word, Henry?”
Turner was still depressed. Although less of a disaster than the night before, the play still lacked polish. The acting was weak, the direction poor. The audience, which mainly consisted of a coach party from the local bicycle works, had treated the whole thing like an extension of their sing-a-long coach ride. They were noisy and ill behaved, eating sandwiches out of greaseproof paper and drinking from bottles of brown ale. The theatre ushers were two fourteen-year-old schoolgirls who wanted to be actresses. They worked for pin money and usually did their job efficiently, but they were no match for the factory workers.
“Henry?”
“Sorry, Melanie, miles away.” A flicker of panic crossed his face when he saw the serious expression on Melanie’s face. “You haven’t got a job with the RSC have you?”
“No, it’s nothing like that.” Melanie Collins was a bright, vivacious thirty years old; too old to be considered an ingénue, but she had the manner and appearance of one.
“You heard about Maurice, I suppose,” Turner said.
Melanie smiled. “You know Maurice. He wouldn’t sit on news like that. I’m surprised he didn’t put an announcement in the Times. No, I haven’t got a job with another company. You’ve been good to me and I appreciate it. But I am leaving.”
“But why, Melanie? You have talent.”
“I also have a widowed mother who needs looking after more than I can manage at present. I have to look after her.”
Turner was aware that she was avoiding his eyes as she spoke. “Is there something else?”
She looked at him directly. “This morning,” she began hesitantly. “It wasn’t pleasant for anyone, but it did unnerve me. It made me think about a lot of things and I decided that if the theatre can do that to someone then perhaps I’m better off out of it. I’m sorry I know he was your friend.”
Turner nearly shouted at her. “He was no friend of mine,” but bit his tongue. Already, since Blake’s suicide, the rumours had been flying and Turner had decided to keep to a strict policy of silence about the matter. He had no desire for anyone to know that the wretched man had jumped off the pier because of anything Turner had said to him. His reticence only fuelled the rumours.
The next day he was questioned by the police and they were soon satisfied that his involvement with Blake was minimal. Reports later filtered back to him, through a mutual friend of the detective heading the case, that D’arcy Blake had a history of mental illness, and really it was only a matter of time before he killed himself. The police asked him to make himself available for the inquest and after that he heard no more from them.
Over the next day or so Turner found himself becoming more and more obsessed with Blake and his memory. He kept hearing that breathy, wheezing voice whispering his name, distant at first, like hearing someone talking in another room, but gradually drawing nearer so that it sounded close to his shoulder.
The weather was sur
prisingly improving, and talk was of an Indian summer. One afternoon Turner was in the tearooms on Marlborough Street where he was a frequent visitor. He was seated at his usual table by the window, moodily sipping his Earl Grey, and wondering if the company would still be performing at the Variety Theatre next season. He sat, staring out through the window at the shoppers and holidaymakers, as they filed past, loaded down with bags of groceries, buckets and spades and beach balls. For a second there was a gap in the endless parade and he saw Blake on the other side of the street, leaning nonchalantly against a lamppost, peering out from behind his thick spectacles at the tearooms.
Turner leapt from his seat and rushed to the door, drawing curious looks from the other patrons. Once outside he stared across the street and then looked right and left, but of D’arcy Blake there was no sign. Someone was leaning against the lamppost, but it was an elderly woman holding a white miniature poodle on a lead.
He returned to the tearooms but his tea was cold and the waitress had cleared away his scones. He had a clear view of the theatre from his seat, which in earlier years he had found reassuring. Now it only served to remind him that the best days were over, for the theatre and for him. Maurice Littlejohn and Melanie had only been the first, now three others had announced their departures. It was a disaster but he had coped with worse. He could replace them, and would at one time have enjoyed the challenge. Now he was only daunted by the prospect, as the slow realisation enveloped him that in killing himself Blake had killed something in Turner as well. By involving Turner in his quest for recognition of his play Blake had sullied what Turner held precious about the theatre and its life. By the manner of his death Blake had infused Turner with his legacy.
He walked home along the promenade, past the colourful rows of bathing-huts, watching the holidaymakers enjoying themselves on the beach. The weather was acceptable even in the first week of October. Children built elaborate sandcastles while their parents sat in deck chairs surrounded by gaudily striped windbreaks, peeling the shells from hard-boiled eggs and shaking sand from their sandwiches. A group of teenagers huddled together, listening with rapt attention to the tinny din of a transistor radio blasting out the broadcast from one of the pirate radio stations. They all had the relieved look of people who had won an unexpected reprieve from the weather.
Echoes of Darkness Page 8