by Alan Handley
We walked down a narrow hall and I opened the door leading onto the stage proper and we tiptoed in. The set from the show that was still playing at the Lyceum was up and the rehearsal was on. We could hear voices as we walked around the back of the set, stepping over cables and dodging props. It was very dark, just a few leaks from the big, bare work light hanging in the middle of the stage. We groped around to the proscenium arch and looked in. Frobisher was sitting on a chair in front of the footlights directing a scene. He saw us and motioned us to wait. I wanted a cigarette, but no one else seemed to be smoking and some theaters are stuffy about it backstage. In a couple of minutes Frobisher told the cast to take a break and came to us. We shook hands and I was glad mine was comparatively dry.
He was still looking tired, but everyone gets nervy as opening night creeps up. He’d probably been up every night helping with the rewriting.
He said how glad he was to see us and asked us to come with him while he introduced us to the rest of the company. Just before we followed him out on the stage, Maggie and I shook hands behind his back.
It was a good cast Frobisher had assembled. Small, only ten counting Maggie and me, but you knew who all of them were, if not personally, at least by name. Miss Randall, the lead, had been starred for years. Paul Showers who played her husband was on loan from Hollywood and none of them was working for coffee and cakes. I wondered how much the actor I had replaced got. I began to wish I had held out for a hundred and fifty, but it was too late now. At least I wouldn’t have to pay any commission. It was odd to think that if Nellie wasn’t dead I would be giving her five per cent every week. She had agented all the others.
Frobisher started right in with the last act and since the play had been in rehearsal for two weeks, even though our parts were small, Maggie and I had a lot of catching up to do. It was three o’clock before we realized it and Frobisher quietly announced that because of Nellie’s funeral we would break for the rest of the afternoon, but an evening rehearsal would be held at his Sutton Place apartment promptly at seven-thirty.
Greg Moulton, the stage manager, told Maggie and me that from now on, Mr. Frobisher wanted us to attend every rehearsal because there might be some skipping back and forth in the acts.
There was still half an hour before the ceremony so Maggie and I walked up Broadway to the Henderson Funeral Home at Sixty-eighth Street where the services were to be held. We stopped off for a couple of swallows on the way and as it turned out, almost everyone else at the funeral had had the same idea.
CHAPTER ELEVEN
WHEN WE GOT TO THE funeral home, except for the fact that it was Sixty-eighth Street instead of Forty-fourth, the crowd looked like the sidewalk in front of Sardi’s at rush hour. I expect Nellie would have been pleased at such a good house.
Kendall Thayer was there in fine fettle and his courtly bow aimed in my general direction almost threw him on his face.
A cab pulled up and Jenny poured out. She, from the looks of her, had just this minute left Ernie and his sliding bar.
“Darlings!” she screamed when she saw us. “Isn’t this heaven? All this crush makes me feel like a bud again.” And she promptly collapsed against Maggie. Between the two of us, we managed to keep her from slumping into the gutter.
The crowd was jamming the doors and just ahead of us were Ted Kent, Libby and old square-mouth Margo. I certainly didn’t want to sit with those three and if we went in now we might have to. I still was feeling a little guilty about charging Margo for that ticket last night and, also, I didn’t want to give her a chance to remind me of that understudy job again.
“Let’s wait a minute, Maggie.”
“But I can’t hold Jenny up much longer,” Maggie complained. We propped Jenny against the wall and lit cigarettes, but my unfavorite three evidently decided to let the rest of the crowd get in first, too, and they elbowed their way out on the sidewalk again and, of course, couldn’t help seeing us.
Ted darlinged Maggie and, much to my annoyance, kissed her. Libby just pretended I didn’t exist. She was sore, I guess, about my crack the other night. But not old square-mouth Margo. To my astonishment she threw her arms around me and kissed me. Maybe she was just doing it to make Ted mad for the way he kissed Maggie, but whatever her motives, it was one of the busiest kisses I have ever been on the other end of.
It startled me so I almost jumped. I thought Maggie was too taken up with Ted to notice, she was standing with her back to me, but without stopping her conversation with Ted, she reached in her purse and pulled out a handkerchief and put it in my hand. There wasn’t anything else to do but shamefacedly wipe the lipstick off my mouth as she had intended me to do. Maybe I’d been wrong about Libby and Margo being an item.
“I had such a good time last night,” Margo said. “I do hope you’ll forgive me for barging in like that on you and Libby.”
“That’s okay,” I said. Just then Jenny started sliding down the wall to the sidewalk. Now that Ted was here he might as well work. “Help me get Jenny inside, will you, Ted? If we can get her set somewhere she ought to be okay.” He took her other arm and we started to lift her up. Jenny opened one bleary eye.
“Whassa matter?”
“Come on. Stand up, Jenny.” I said. “We’re going inside.”
“Whaffor?”
“You remember Nellie’s funeral?” She struggled to her feet.
“Oh, yes. Gotta see Nellie’s dress.”
“What’s the matter with her?” asked Ted.
“Gotta see old Nellie in Ernie’s dress. Ole queen of the blood suckers in Ernie’s stylish dress.”
“It isn’t Nellie’s dress,” I explained patiently. “It’s her niece’s.”
“Then gotta see ole Nellie’s niece in Ernie’s stylish dress.” At last she was vertical and the five of us got her inside where another drunk latched on to our happy little band. Kendall Thayer. This was getting to be too much of a good thing and I was all for dumping Jenny and grabbing Maggie and getting the hell out, but Kendall was demanding introductions to the three girls and there wasn’t much I could do. I know from experience that when Kendall starts trotting out that roguish matinee-idol routine you have no choice.
He must have had a breath like a serpent for Margo, unto whom, luckily for Maggie, he fastened first. She made no bones about the way she felt and held her handkerchief up to her nose the whole time he was talking to us. We managed to shake him at last and find seats in the rear.
It was twenty years since I had been to a real sit-down funeral. I didn’t like it then and the minute I sat down, I wished I was somewhere else. The organ music and the smell of flowers banked around the coffin brought back things I didn’t particularly want brought back.
I must admit Nellie’s friends had done well by her. There seemed to be a great many flowers. The casket was in front of a little altar and a minister or preacher…a man in vestments, anyway, was standing by it. The chapel was packed with people. Nellie was playing to S.R.O. and most of the audience acted as though they had just stopped by from a cocktail party. After you got used to the smell of flowers you started noticing the alcohol base like a cheap perfume. Kendall had found a seat well up front not far from Frobisher. The whole thing seemed more like an Equity meeting with a sprinkling of producers and agents than a funeral. Luckily Jenny had lapsed into a snoring stupor. I thought it better to let her snore than to wake her up and take a chance on her that way.
Maggie was getting tight. I could tell by the way she kept pushing her hair back across her face. It’s a gesture I know well and means that she is well on the way. The drinks we’d had on the way were beginning to hit me, too, and I couldn’t focus very clearly on what was going on. I remember the minister getting up and mumbling something and the next thing I knew Kendall was standing beside him. He seemed to have taken over and there was no chance to avoid hearing those resonant tones. He was giving a performance. Not being awfully up on my funerals, I wasn’t aware it was considered a yes th
ing to have some of the audience get up and say a few well-chosen words like Brutus in the one time I had a fling at Shakespeare. But it didn’t seem quite right. Kendall was actually starting out with a paraphrase of that “Friends, Romans, Countrymen” chestnut. The minister looked too startled to do anything about it and Kendall did as neat a job of upstaging as I have ever seen.
“Friends, Producers, Equity Members.” He was taking it big. “I come not only to praise Nellie, but to bury her.” He brushed away a tear, undoubtedly pure alcohol. “We are saying farewell to not only a great friend, a great little agent, but a great artist, as well. I remember when she was with me in Front Page Stuff, such brilliance! Such charm! Such vitality! Perhaps some of you remember that unforgettable table scene we had together. I was playing Lord Washburn and she mistook me for the butler. That scene took all the notices as perhaps you recall. In playing that scene for forty weeks we found the true theater and I knew I was right in turning my back on the Hollywood gold where I had been so long as a star with Fox Films.” The crowd at first was too surprised to do anything but sit dumbly—now they started to titter. Jenny pulled herself up out of her slump and peered around like a walrus looking for fish.
“Crap,” she snorted and immediately went back to sleep. People were laughing now, and Mr. Frobisher somehow guided Kendall back to his seat and once more the startled minister began, but it was too late to get back the audience’s attention. Everyone started talking among themselves and a few people actually got up and went over to talk to friends standing at the back.
The minister doggedly kept going. He had so many sides to his part and he was determined to say them regardless.
I was feeling embarrassed and tried to shush a few of the noisier ones, but no one paid any attention to me. I hoped the minister would be through or give up pretty soon. Maggie and I stood up. I was feeling none too steady.
“Maggie,” I said. “Let’s go.”
“What about Jenny?”
“Leave her lie. She’ll be all right….” Under the circumstances that seemed the only thing we could do. It would take a half-pound block of TNT to budge her. “You follow me. I’ll run interference for you.” We had almost broken through the line of scrimmage and made the door when Kendall clipped me from behind.
“Tim…Tim…I want to talk to you.” Well, I didn’t want to talk to old serpent’s-breath again. Now or ever.
“Go on. Beat it, Kendall. I’ve got nothing to say to you after that performance you just gave.” I savagely jerked my arm out of his fingers. “Blow!”
“But, Tim, this is important.” I almost hit him.
“Beat it, I tell you.” Maggie and I started up again and this time I was blocked head-on by Ted Kent.
“I was looking for you, Tim. You’re on.” He started back to the front of the chapel.
“Hey, wait a minute,” I called after him. “I’m on what?”
“You dope. You’re supposed to help tote Nellie’s barge.” And then I remembered that Frobisher had asked me to be a pallbearer and I couldn’t very well not, under the circumstances.
“I’ve got to go bear a pall,” I told Maggie. “See you at your place afterward.” I elbowed my way down the aisle and grabbed one of the silver casket handles. Ted, Mr. Frobisher and some other juveniles around town were already spotted at the other handles.
Someone started to sing “For She’s a Jolly Good Fellow” but was quickly discouraged. That was too much even for this crowd. The minister with one horrified look disappeared through a little door. Jenny came staggering up, flailing her arms jut as Mr. Frobisher gave the signal and we hoisted the casket.
Alive, Nellie was no featherweight, and dead, she hadn’t shed a pound. I could feel the sweat breaking out on my forehead. A glance at the other pallbearers told me they weren’t having any better time of it than I was.
The rest of the audience filed out into the street after us. We managed to ease the casket into the waiting hearse. Mr. Frobisher said we would ride to the station in his car, which was parked right behind the hearse. After we had run back into the chapel and grabbed our coats and hats, we started to pile into the car. I got in first.
Sitting over in the corner of the backseat was a girl, dressed in black, crying noisily into a sodden handkerchief. Mr. Frobisher got in after me. Ted sat up front with the chauffeur and another juvenile and the other two drew the jump seats. I had the sensation that any minute the crowd would begin throwing rice and old shoes at us.
“Gentlemen,” said Mr. Frobisher. “I’d like to present Miss Mary Ellen Taylor, Miss Brant’s niece.” This brought on a great burst of sobs as he spieled off our names.
“I think they were all the most horrid people I ever heard of.” She was slightly muffled by the handkerchief mashed against her face. Frobisher tried to comfort her, but she would have none of it. “Carryin’ on like that with poor old Aunt Nellie lyin’ right there.” The accent was pure “Uncle Tom.” “I hope something awful happens to every one of them. And that terrible old man that did all that talkin’. Didn’t he know he wasn’t supposed to do that?” Kendall Thayer. “I do believe some of those people were drunk.” This grim thought sent her into even louder sobs. I still couldn’t get it straight.
“Are you really Nellie’s niece? I mean her only niece?” A red-rimmed eye glared at me around the gray handkerchief.
“Course I am. The only kin poor old Aunt Nellie had in the whole world. She was the finest, most generous aunt in creation—” And off she was again.
The rumpled black suit and dusty felt hat she was wearing would have sent Ernie screaming for a burnt feather. I gave up!
It was getting hot in the car and I must have dozed off, for when I came to we were parked outside the baggage room at Penn Station. The pallbearers bore Nellie once more, this time into the baggage room, and since there didn’t seem to be anything else to do, we got back in the car, smoked and waited for Mr. Frobisher, who, with Miss Taylor, was arranging for tickets. None of us said very much. Juveniles as a rule don’t have much in common, and Ted and I, who certainly couldn’t be called juveniles, didn’t even bother to try.
While we waited, I tried to figure out the angles, but I didn’t get anywhere. Nellie couldn’t have had a second niece, or, if she did, Little Mary Ellen would surely have known about her and there was no particular point in lying to me about it. Something was strictly not on the up and up!
CHAPTER TWELVE
WHEN I GOT TO MAGGIE’S apartment, she was just getting ready to take a bath and opened the door in a great white bathrobe with her hair pinned up on top of her head. She looked about sixteen.
“What took you so long?”
“I was seeing Nellie home. Mr. Frobisher dropped me off here.”
“My, my. Aren’t we coming up in the world? Did he buy your dinner for you, too?”
“No. But it might interest you to know he offered to.”
“I’m that impressed. Well, call up Schrafft’s and have them send something over with lots of coffee. We’ve got to be in shape for rehearsal tonight. Why don’t you lie down while I take my bath, then you can have one, too. You could probably use one after that shindig. Did you ever see anything so disgusting? Actors are really awful people, aren’t they?”
She headed for the bathroom. I followed her into the bedroom and stripped down to my shorts and lay on her bed. She started splashing around in the bathtub. Clouds of steam were coming out the door.
“If the bath salts get you down,” she called, “just open a window. I need some after that.” She started to close the door. Her bath salts even matched her perfume. So that’s how she did it. It smelled warm and steamy and good.
“Leave the door open. I want to talk.” She did and I could hear her getting in the tub. I lay back and looked at the ceiling.
“I met Nellie’s niece,” I said finally.
“Really? What was she like.”
“A flower of the ole Sooth. And she would never wear one of
Ernie’s dresses, either. I’ll bet anything in the world on that.”
“Well, so what? People have lots of nieces. Maybe Nellie had one a little more glamorous tucked away somewhere.”
“‘I’m all the kith and kin poah li’l ole Aunt Nellie had in this great big horrid world.’ And I quote li’l Missy Mary Ellen Taylor. Now will you admit it?”
“I’ll admit nothing of the kind and what’s more I’m bored with the whole business. Have you ordered dinner yet?” I told her I hadn’t. “Well, do it, then. It takes forever to get here. We haven’t got all night, you know.” The water was gurgling out of the tub. I reached for the phone by her bed.
“What’s the number?”
“Volunteer something. For God’s sake look it up.”
“Where do you keep the book?”
“Oh, never mind, I’ll do it. You were just waiting for me to, anyway.” She came out of the bathroom tying the cord of the big white bathrobe. “You are the laziest person I’ve ever known. Go ahead, the bathroom’s all yours.” She sat on the side of the bed and pulled the telephone book out from a little cupboard in the bedside table.
“I know, if it had been a snake it would have bit me.” She started thumbing through the directory. Little beads of moisture still clung to her face. Her forehead was wrinkled with concentration. I reached up and smoothed it out with my thumb.
“Oh, stop it. Now you made me lose my place. U comes before S or after? I never can remember.”
I pulled out the pin that held the pile of hair up and it tumbled down around her shoulders. Part of it fell in front of her eyes and she pushed it aside with an irritated gesture.
I shoved the telephone book out of her hands and pulled her back on the bed and kissed her. She didn’t react one way or the other. I let her go and she sat up and picked up the telephone book and started looking through it again. I felt a little annoyed.
“What’s the matter?”
“Nothing.”