by Simon Brett
‘Yes, I was afraid that’s what would happen.’ Charles paused, swamped by a wave of depression. What was the point in his dabbling in detection when his efforts brought so little happiness to the people involved?
But Gerald wouldn’t let him brood. ‘Come on, come on. What is it this time? Spear-carrier impaled on his spear? Stripper garotted with her G-string?’
‘No. Did you read about Bill Peaky?’
‘That comedian who got electrocuted out at Great Yarmouth?’
‘Hunstanton, yes. I was there with Frances.’
‘Ah, you two back together again. That’s good.’
‘Were back together. I’m afraid we’ve had another row.’
‘Oh God –’
‘ANYWAY . . .’ Charles changed the subject forcibly. ‘About Peaky . . .’
‘What, you think his death may not have be all it seemed?’
‘It’s possible.’
‘But surely the inquest . . .’
‘The inquest may have been working on incomplete evidence.’ Briefly Charles outlined Norman del Rosa’s revelation.
‘I see. Yes, it certainly does sound possible. Anything I can do?’
‘I’m sure there will be in time. For the moment I just wondered if you have any background on Peaky.’
‘No, nothing, except what one reads in TV Times or a newspaper. He was one of these showbiz mushrooms who spring up overnight. One day nobody’s heard of them, then they do a television and – bang – everyone’s talking about them. But I don’t know anything about Peaky personally. Not really my end of the business, I’m afraid.’
‘Nor mine. Though it may be soon.’
‘What do you mean?’
Charles told Gerald about his booking on The Alexander Harvey Show.
‘Oh, I remember. Wilkie Pole. That terrible character you used always to be doing at parties after we came down from Oxford.’
‘Yes.’ Into the accent. ‘Bepardon?’
‘God, that takes me back. Look, Charles, get me a ticket for the show. I’d like to be in the audience.’
‘What, to see me do my act?’
‘No, to see Alexander Harvey. He’s a client. I did his divorce.’
‘Divorce? I didn’t think women were his thing.’
‘He’s not the first to have made a mistake. I think he still kicks with both feet, anyway.’
‘Interesting.’
‘Is there any rehearsal for the show?’
‘Just the day before the recording. But Walter Proud’s taking me out to lunch today to meet Lennie Barber.’
‘I thought Walter was with the BBC. The Alexander Harvey Show’s the other side, isn’t it?’
‘Yes, Walter’s freelance now. Sort of throwing ideas around to all the companies.’
‘I see. Thought he was rather well placed at the BBC.’
‘Yes, but he left. I don’t know, reading between the lines, I think there may have been some sort of row.’
‘Hmm. Anyway, you’ll get a better lunch on ITV expenses. Where’s he taking you?’
‘Restaurant called Great Expectations.’
‘I hope they’re realized. Let me know when you get anywhere on the murder.’
Great Expectations had recently opened in that Notting Hill area which is so convenient for lunching from BBC Television Centre. It was a concept restaurant, themed wittily around the works of Dickens. A bust of the author greeted patrons outside the door and inside the walls were covered with prints from his novels. The motif was carried through to the table-mats and napkins; menu and wine list were held in leather folders like first editions. The waiters and waitresses looked as though they had escaped from the chorus of Oliver!
This High Camp had also invaded the food. Instead of being called sensible things like Tomato Soup or Steak and Kidney Pie, the dishes rejoiced in such titles as Sairey Gamp’s Strengthening Broth or Mr. Pickwick’s Noble Pudding. Beneath these fanciful names on the menu, just to make the whole exercise completely pointless, appeared translations of what the items really were.
Charles arrived a little late to find Walter Proud and Lennie Barber already perusing their first editions. The producer introduced them perfunctorily, but the comedian seemed engrossed in choosing what he was going to eat. ‘Have a lot of trouble with the old guts,’ he confided to the world at large, as he sipped a large whisky. ‘Ey, Walter, do you reckon this Martin Chuzzlewit would have garlic in it?’
‘I wouldn’t think so. It says underneath it’s toad in the hole and I think all the food here is supposed to be traditional English.’
‘Well, maybe I should try that.’ Lennie Barber didn’t seem convinced.
‘How about a Tale of Two Cities?’ offered Walter helpfully. ‘That’s just two poached eggs on spinach.’
‘Hmm. I’m never sure whether eggs help or hinder.’
‘It’s very plain. Sort of Oeufs Florentine.’
‘That sounds foreign.’ So Lennie Barber didn’t want any of it.
Eventually, he went back to the Martin Chuzzlewit, which the tassel-capped waiter assured him was wholly without foreign condiments, and a Sidney Carton (tomato soup) to start with. Walter plumped for Fanny Squeers’ Pate followed by a Dombey and Son with a mixed green Little Dorrit. Charles was a bit more adventurous and ordered Quilp Fritters and a rare Nicholas Nickleby. Walter consulted the wine list and ordered wine as if his life depended on it. Lennie Barber said he would keep drinking Scotch and asked for another.
Charles was interested in the comedian. He had that feeling, which even hardened actors cannot quash, of being in the presence of someone special, a celebrity. In spite of the downward spiral of his career, Lennie Barber had been, in his prime, one of the greatest comics in the land. His catch-phrases had been on everyone’s lips. Charles wanted to hear the man talk. He also wanted to hear the man talk about Hunstanton and Bill Peaky. Unwillingly, because he liked what he knew of the comedian, he had to admit that Barber was a prime suspect. Professional jealousy of a cocky upstart might have provided a motive for the crime. And Barber had been pulling the cart that broke the cable in the first place. Investigation would be necessary.
He looked covertly at the comedian. The spray of white hair over the lined features was still a shock, but at close quarters the face seemed to have more of the impudence of the old Barber.
Another surprise was the hands. The strange outsize mittens in Hunstanton were explained by heavy crêpe bandages. Interesting. Those too must be investigated. But, first, social conventions.
‘It’s a great pleasure to meet you. I’ve been a fan of yours for many years.’ He hoped it didn’t sound meaninglessly fulsome.
Barber seemed to take it straight. ‘Surprising the number of people who say that – that they’ve always been fans. What happened to them when I needed fans, that’s what I want to know. People forget pretty quickly.’ He spoke without bitterness, just acknowledging facts.
‘I don’t think anyone who heard them or saw them will ever forget those Barber and Pole shows. The number of people I’ve heard saying they wished comedy programmes were like that nowadays.’
‘I’ve been available. The trouble is, the public never want anyone to change. They liked me with Wilkie – and so they should, it was a good act – but they’ve never been able to accept that that was only one style I could do. I mean, I’ve been developing as a comic all my life. Still am developing. And yet all the public wants is me back with Wilkie. When he died, they didn’t want to know about me on my own.’
‘It must have been quite a shock for you when he did die.’
‘I don’t know. We’d known for some months he was on the way out. Mind you, it certainly would have been a shock if I’d known the effect it would have on my career.’
‘I meant personally.’
‘Personally? Wilkie and I weren’t very close. Obviously we spent a lot of time together professionally, but we weren’t bosom mates. Anyway I’d been thinking of splitting up w
ith him for some time, so his death sort of decided that for me.’
‘But why did you want to get out of the double act? It was enormously successful.’
‘Oh, sure. But it was holding me back in my career. You see, Wilkie was a grand feed, but that’s all he was. I was the funny one.’
The arrival of the first chapters of their meal gave Charles a moment in which to assess this claim. Though it sounded arrogant, there was a lot of truth in it. Lennie Barber had always been the funny one. It was his face that one remembered, ballooned out with indignation, twisted with deceit or crumpled with disappointment. Wilkie Pole had been a funny accent and a couple of catch-phrases, but otherwise just a straight man. The ease with which Charles could imitate him and (presumably) step into his place showed the lack of strong identity.
And yet Lennie Barber had needed him. His subsequent fall from popularity had shown that. Wilkie Pole had been nothing special in himself and yet he had been the irreplaceable catalyst in the chemistry of a unique double act.
Barber was having difficulty holding his soup spoon with his swaddled hands. Some of the red slopped onto his bandages. ‘Shit. Looks like the stump’s bleeding again.’
It gave Charles the perfect opportunity. ‘What happened? Have you lost a finger or something?’
‘No. Joking about the stump. I got burned. Bloody electric kettle in my digs at Hunstanton. It was faulty.’
Charles’ heartbeat quickened. Faulty wiring could certainly give a burn. But it would be possible to get that kind of shock while sabotaging an amplified extension lead as well as from a faulty kettle. ‘When did it happen?’ he asked casually.
‘A Sunday. When was it? Two weeks ago last Sunday.’ In other words, before Peaky’s death. Charles realized the stupidity of his recent conjecture. Barber had had the bandages on when he did his act in the first half of Sun ’n’ Funtime. And since the fatal fiddling with the cable had been done in the interval, that couldn’t be how the comedian got burned.
With this realization came another, comforting thought. If Lennie Barber’s hands were still so painful that he couldn’t manage a soup spoon, it was impossible that he could have dismantled a plug and changed its wires two weeks previously. So, unless the whole business with the burns was an act, Lennie Barber didn’t kill Bill Peaky. And that could be confirmed in time by a look under the bandages.
The germ of a further thought was also born. Two comedians in the same show, both the victims of electrical accidents. Was there a connection?
This chain of ideas didn’t come to Charles immediately, but evolved while he continued to question the comedian about his relationship with Wilkie Pole.
‘How did the two of you get together?’ He knew he sounded like a show business page reporter, but he wanted to get to know the comedian and few performers can resist talking about themselves. Walter Proud didn’t contribute to the conversation, but sat back complacently as if he had just introduced Gilbert to Sullivan.
‘Met on the halls. We were both touring round in the early thirties. Only in our teens. I was called Charley Wobble then – my act was a few impressions and a patter routine. Wilkie was with a vocal harmony group called the Songthrushes. Usual thing happened – I wanted to try out a new sketch, which was two-handed. He hadn’t done anything like that, but said he’d have a go. Bilston Royal I think the theatre was. Anyway, it went all right with the audience and so, a couple of years later, when I’d got some more double-act routines, I looked him up again and we got together. ’37, it was.’
He had responded in the style that Charles’ show business reporter approach demanded. The story had been told many times before, but he was prepared to tell it again, so long as no one expected him to get too excited about it.
‘And then you toured the halls as a double-act?’
‘Yes, a good few years of that.’
‘And were you a success right from the start?’
‘Good God, no. We died the death. I tell you, you name any theatre in this country and we’ve died there. There’s no such thing as overnight success in this business. You’re as good as your last show. Even when you’ve got a good act, it can suddenly all go wrong. The audience just stops laughing. No reason, no reason you can tell, anyway. They just suddenly don’t find it funny anymore and you’re back where you started.’
‘So you and Wilkie Pole just plugged away at it, doing the same act time and again until the audience began to appreciate it?’
‘No, of course not. Blimey, where were you brought up – the Royal Academy of bleedin’ Dramatic Art? A music hall act is not a play. You don’t go on doing it the same until the audience likes it. You change it all the way so that the audience likes it. Wilkie and I changed the act every night, added little bits I’d thought of, tried new things out. That way we got to know what was going to work. I mean, take something like our barbershop routine, you wouldn’t recognize that from the way we done it at first. By the time we got it good we’d changed every line, we were only doing the stuff that worked. Mind you, an audience could still surprise you and give you nothing, but at least we knew we were in with a chance. That act took at least five years to get going and we were still developing it while we was doing the radios and telly shows.’
Lennie Barber paused and poked rather suspiciously at his Martin Chuzzlewit, which had just arrived. Walter Proud took the opportunity to assert his entrepreneurial position.
‘Actually, I wanted to talk about the Barbershop Sketch. I think that’s the one we should do for The Alexander Harvey Show.’
‘I knew it bloody would be.’ Morosely Lennie Barber speared one of the sausages in his Martin Chuzzlewit. ‘I done more routines than most people have had hot shits and all they ever bloody want is the Barbershop Sketch.’
‘Well, it is a classic.’
‘Oh yeah.’ He sounded resigned. ‘I feel like bloody Elgar must’ve felt – wrote all this acres and acres of music and all anyone remembers is Land of Hope and bleedin’ Glory. Whoever he met, I bet they all said, “Show us your Land of Hope and Glory. Go on.” He must’ve got bloomin’ cheesed off with it.’
It was an unexpected parallel for the comedian to draw. Lennie Barber was more cultured than he might appear. For Charles it offered a new insight to the man’s character, which was beginning to exercise a strong fascination.
However, what Barber said did raise immediate worries for him as a performer. ‘Lennie, if it took you all those years of doing the sketch, presumably twice nightly, to get it right, how on earth do you reckon I’m going to be able to learn it up in one day of rehearsal?’
‘No problem. It’s because we done all that work that it’ll be easy. I know exactly how that sketch works. Wilkie was only the feed anyway; I had all the lines. No, so long as you can get the voice right – and I presume you can, otherwise Walter wouldn’t have booked you – it’ll be all right. I’ll give you the timing. You just do exactly as I say and it’ll work.’
‘I don’t look a lot like Wilkie Pole.’
‘You will in the costume, don’t worry. He had the special wig, so’s I could cut the hair, then that big moustache and the pasty face. Under that lot anyone who’d got two eyes, a nose and a mouth would look like Wilkie Pole.’
While not wholly flattering to his self-esteem as an actor, this was at least a comfort for the job in question.
‘But, Lennie, if it was so easy to get someone to look like Pole, why didn’t you take on a new feed after he died? Any number of comics have done that. Jimmy James kept on changing his stooges, why couldn’t you do that?’
‘Bloody hell, Charles, haven’t I told you?’ Lennie Barber now sounded quite annoyed. Other people munching through the Complete Works of Dickens looked over to their table. ‘I wanted to do something else. I had been trying to get out of the Barber and Pole thing for years.’
‘Look, I’m a comedian, that’s my profession, and like anyone in any other profession, I want to get better at it. I’ve been on th
e boards for fifty-six years and I’m still improving my act. I started in 1921, six years old I was, did a comic song and a dance. Harry, What Are You Doing With That Hammer? – that was the number. On the same bill as my Dad.’ His tone softened with pride. ‘Did you ever see my Dad? Freddie Darvill he was called – Darvill’s my real name. He was on the halls all his life. Billed as The Simple Pieman – did an act with a barrow of hot pies. Sang, danced – did a lovely clog dance – not that he come from the North, Londoner born and bred, like me. He could do it all, my Dad. Taught me the lot.’
‘I’m afraid I don’t think I ever saw him.’
‘No, I suppose you wouldn’t have done. Too young. He died 1936, backstage at the Derby Hippodrome. Perforated ulcer.’ The memory abstracted him for a moment and the watery eyes fixed in space. Then he turned to Charles with a gleam of malice. ‘Still, I’m sure you weren’t traipsing round the halls at that age. Getting your dose of culture down the bleedin’ Old Vic, I dare say.’
Charles smiled indulgently, hoping to disguise the fact that Lennie Barber was absolutely tight.
‘I still got all my Dad’s old gear. All his props and that. Look after them very carefully. In fact, I used his old pie-cart in a summer season I just finished.’
‘Hunstanton.’
‘Right.’
‘I saw it.’
‘Oh, did you?’ For the first time in the conversation the comedian looked embarrassed. ‘Well, I can only apologize. Not my greatest performance. No, I wanted to work up a new act there, you know, using some of my Dad’s routines with the pies, but the audiences up there . . . Jesus. Like I said, you got to give the audience what they want and that lot of old biddies just wanted jokes they knew so well they could join in the punch-lines. I’m afraid I give up on that lot.’
‘But you’re still going to work up the new act, are you?’ Walter Proud asked with professional interest.
‘Oh sure, I will do it.’
‘Because I’m still convinced that with the right sort of act, the right breaks, a timely telly show, you could make a very big come-back. Nostalgia’s very big in the entertainment business.’