Sicken and So Die

by Simon Brett

  Everyone else was watching the rehearsal. They wanted to see Alexandru Radulescu’s latest experiment. It was Act Three, Scene Three, the first entrance of Sebastian and Antonio, and Alex (as they all now sycophantically called him) had decided he wanted Sally Luther to play Sebastian, ‘Just for this run, you understand, love, just for this run.’

  Sally, since the exercise involved her having more lines rather than fewer, readily agreed. And Russ Lavery, after looking momentarily miffed, also fell in with the suggestion. He was, after all, a serious actor ‘getting back to his roots in the theatre.’ Directorial experiment excited him; when next interviewed for TV Times, he’d tell them how much he enjoyed ‘playing with ideas in the rehearsal room, just picking something up and seeing how far you can run with it.’

  The cast, fascinated to see how Alex’s latest invention would work, clustered around to watch the two-handed scene. Even John B. Murgatroyd stayed, wistfully – now almost desperately – wanting to hunt with the pack. Only Charles Paris emphasised his isolation by making for the Green Room. He’d hoped to slip out unnoticed, but everyone saw him go.

  The kettle was empty. He filled it and switched it on. Waiting for it to boil, he flicked moodily through the pile of books that someone, trying to tidy the place up, had piled on a central table.

  Most of it was predictable rehearsal reading. A Dick Francis. A Joanna Trollope. A compendium of crosswords. A dog-eared analysis of Nostradamus’s predictions. Some swot had even brought in Shakespeare’s Festive Comedy to do some background reading on Twelfth Night.

  But the book that didn’t fit – and the one that interested Charles – was old and green-covered, probably a late nineteenth-century publication.

  It was An Elementary Handbook of British Fungi by William Delisle Hay, FRGS.

  And there was a torn-paper marker in the chapter entitled ‘On the Chemistry and Toxicology of Fungi.’

  Chapter Nine

  THERE WAS a break in rehearsal and all the company came milling in. They made coffee and formed little knots of chatter round the Green Room. Vasile Bogdan and Tottie Roundwood expatiated enthusiastically on Alexandru Radulescu’s latest ideas. Sally Luther and Benzo Bitter were huddled in deep but inaudible conversation on a sofa in the far corner. Other actors loudly acted and emoted. Charles watched closely over the rim of his coffee cup, but nobody claimed the book on British fungi.

  The rehearsal recommenced, but he stayed behind to maintain his vigil, until summoned by a rather testy assistant stage manager. Sir Toby Belch was late for his entrance with Maria and Fabian in Act Three, Scene Four. Malvolio had been left suspended at the end of his monologue and the momentum of the action had been lost. Everyone was waiting for him.

  As Charles scurried shamefacedly into position, he could feel the general disapproval. And it may have been paranoia, but he could have sworn he heard someone muttering ‘not so good after lunch these days.’ Which was annoying, because he actually hadn’t had a drink that lunch-time.

  As a result he was flustered and cocked up his opening line. Instead of “‘Which way is he, in the name of sanctity?”’, his mouth said, ‘“Which name is he, in the way of sanctity?”’

  ‘God, that doesn’t even make sense,’ Alexandru Radulescu said contemptuously. ‘What can a director do when he’s saddled with actors who don’t understand the text?’

  This was an infuriating criticism for Charles, given his love of Shakespeare. But it was also, in the current circumstances, unanswerable. Alexandru had scored a point, and enlisted yet more company support against Charles Paris.

  They played the scene, and Charles knew he wasn’t doing it very well. Not nearly as well as he’d played it in previous rehearsals. The trouble was that the general resistance to his performance was getting to him. Charles shared the undermining weakness of far too many people – he liked to be liked. An atmosphere of disapprobation wormed away at his confidence. He started to wonder whether perhaps he should be playing Sir Toby as Alexandru demanded. He even started to wonder whether he actually had any talent at all as an actor.

  Act Three, Scene Four is a long one, and one of Sir Toby Belch’s biggest, as he hurries on and offstage setting up the elaborate mechanics of the duel between Sir Andrew Aguecheek and ‘Cesario’. It was a scene Charles usually enjoyed playing, but not that afternoon. His mind was in the Green Room, wondering who – if anyone – had picked up the book on British fungi.

  When, at last, he could leave the stage, his exit line proved prophetic. “‘I dare lay any money, ’twill be nothing yet.”’

  For nothing was what he found. The book of British fungi was no longer in the Green Room. And there was no way of knowing who had reclaimed it.

  Charles Paris could not remove from his mind the image of the dining hall at Chailey Ferrars, of Gavin Scholes swallowing down a mushroom tartlet.

  Doing the full run of the play meant inevitably that they overran their designated rehearsal time, but this gave rise to no objections. Alexandru Radulescu, showing surprising awareness of British union rules, kept checking with the company’s Equity representative that he had permission to continue. The Romanian showed an annoying degree of tact for someone Charles would like to have dismissed as an insensitive megalomaniac.

  The run wound through to its end, gathering momentum. Sir Toby Belch did the little he had to do in Act Five. He approached, ‘Bleeding, led by the Clown’, and let out his few petulantly drunken lines before being taken off to have his wound dressed. Again, Charles felt unhappy about what he was doing. And again he was getting paranoid. He felt sure, after Sir Toby had said, ‘I hate a drunken rogue’, he heard a voice murmur, ‘Takes one to know one.’

  The play’s final loose ends were tied up in neat matrimonial bows; though, of course, this being an Alexandru Radulescu production, the bows were not tied very tight. The impression left after the play’s end was that the characters faced lives of serial infidelity – with partners of both sexes.

  Then Chad Pearson, alone on stage, came forward to sing “‘When that I was and a little tiny boy . . .” The words, to Charles’s continuing annoyance, remained indistinct, but the moment was still theatrical, the wailing Indian music compounding the melancholy that lies at the heart of Twelfth Night.

  The general view at the end of the run was that it had gone very well for this stage of the production. There was even the beginning of communal excitement, restoring the feeling of the first week under Gavin Scholes. Since it was late, a popular suggestion spread of everyone going off to ‘an Indian for a bite to eat.’

  There was much discussion as to how many were going. A hard core committed themselves immediately, while some thought they ought to get back home, but lingered and were persuaded. Sally Luther was among these.

  ‘I really shouldn’t,’ she said. ‘My flat’s in a hell of a mess and we’re going to be away for months . . .’

  ‘Oh, go on, do come,’ urged Benzo Ritter. He sounded truculent, his tone implying that she’d be letting him down if she refused.

  Sally looked across at the boy and grimaced. ‘Oh, all right, I’ll come.’

  Benzo looked marginally more cheerful.

  Charles was torn. He didn’t really want to go. He’d enjoyed many riotous post-performance dinners over the years, but he wasn’t in the mood that evening. Also, he had a vague recollection of having hinted to Frances that he might take her out for a meal. He was always better on a one-to-one basis, and a little fence-mending with his wife was certainly overdue.

  Also, he wasn’t that keen on Indian food. That is to say, he liked it while he was eating it, but he didn’t like the aftertaste that seemed to stay in his mouth for the ensuing twenty-four hours. And, pathetically, his stomach was very old-fashioned about spicy food. As a result, he would never go to an Indian restaurant by choice and, on the rare occasions when he did, always had to be guided through the unfamiliar menu.

  So there were a lot of arguments for just slipping away at the en
d of rehearsals with a casual, ‘Got to meet someone for dinner. See you in the morning.’

  Against that was, once more, the dreadful pressure of wanting to be liked. Fences certainly needed to be mended with Frances, but he didn’t want to break any more with the Twelfth Night company. These were the people he was going to be spending the next four months with. Some kind of working relationship with them had to be recaptured. Charles Paris didn’t relish being ostracised; it wasn’t his style.

  A measure of how far his isolation had already gone was that, as all the cast shuffled off chattering and pulling on their coats, it was only John B. Murgatroyd who asked, ‘You’re not going to come, are you, Charles?’

  If ever there was a question expecting the answer no, that was it.

  ‘Yes,’ Charles Paris replied. ‘I’ll come.’

  ‘So let me get this right – is it the Khurma that’s mild and the Vindaloo hot?’

  ‘Yes, yes, yes,’ said John B. Murgatroyd dismissively and turned to his right to talk to Talya Northcott.

  ‘And the Madras is somewhere in the middle?’ asked Charles. He felt rather pathetic for not knowing. And he also worried that John B. Murgatroyd was only sitting next to him out of pity. His friend’d much rather be the other side of the table, in the raucous sycophantic crowd that surrounded Alexandru Radulescu. The director was flanked by Russ Lavery and Vasile Bogdan. Sally Luther and Tottie Roundwood spread out from them. Benzo Ritter was beside Tottie; he looked a little marginalised – rather the way Charles felt.

  Chad Pearson, seated beside Sally, was in the middle of some scatalogical anecdote about a slow-witted Jamaican immigrant. It was all right for him. He was black. Anything he said against black people was politically acceptable.

  Chad reached his punch-line with immaculate timing, and the area around him erupted with laughter. When it subsided, Alexandru Radulescu was full of congratulations. ‘Excellent, Chad, excellent. You are very good comedy actor. It is a pity that Feste doesn’t have more comedy in the play. Maybe we work out some extra business to use your talents properly – eh?’

  Chad Pearson responded to this with some line in his dumb Jamaican patois, which again set the table on a roar. Charles wasn’t near enough to hear what was said. He hadn’t been near enough to hear more than the odd word of the original story. His spirits sank lower. Pity Osbert Sitwell had used the title Laughter in the Next Room for a volume of autobiography. It would have suited Charles Paris’s memoirs. Not of course that there was anything worth remembering in his life. A long timetable of missed buses and wrong roads followed.

  Oh God, he must get out of this cycle of self-recrimination. There was an unhealthy indulgence in it, a picking away at the scabs of his discontent, willing them to reinfect themselves.

  A waiter was slowly working his way round the table, taking orders. There was so much hilarity, so much backchat, so much flamboyance, so many changes of mind, that it was hard for him to pin the diners down to final decisions, particularly on the minutiae of bhajees, naans, chapatis and pappadums.

  ‘I must just nip off to the Gents,’ John B. Murgatroyd announced. ‘Order me a Chicken Vindaloo, Charles. With a tarka dal. And pilau rice. And, as for you, my dear . . .’ He turned a sexy beam on Talya Northcott, ‘. . . I’m sure Charles will keep you conversationally on the boil till my return.’

  The pretty little actress gave Charles a token grin and then turned determinedly to talk to the person on her right.

  I’m too old, he thought. Why should I imagine a young woman would be interested in me? Why should I imagine any woman would be interested in me?

  Even Frances. He’d really screwed up with Frances. The one lifeline that was offered for his declining years and he had deliberately swum away from it. He should be with her at that moment, making it up with her, telling her how much she meant to him, telling her that she was the only woman he’d ever really loved and that he’d definitely try in future to – ‘Yes, please, sir?’ The waiter’s voice broke into this self-indulgent spiral of misery. ‘Have you decided?’

  ‘Oh yes.’ John B.’s instructions had completely vanished from Charles’s head. He grasped at the menu, hoping it would remind him. ‘Now my friend wants a tarka something. Not Tarka the Otter, I know, but –’

  ‘Tarka dal,’ supplied the waiter, and wrote it down.

  ‘And he wanted a . . . Vindaloo, I think . . .’

  ‘Prawn Vindaloo is very good, sir.’

  ‘Yes, fine. And I’ll have the . . . which is the mild one?’

  ‘Khurma is mild. Or . . .’ A note of contempt came into the waiter’s voice ‘. . . Dupiaza is so mild it hardly deserves the name of a curry.’

  ‘Chicken Dupiaza for me, please,’ said Charles wimpishly. He also wanted to order some of those nice crispy round things, but he couldn’t remember whether they were chapatis or pappadums. Unwilling to show himself up further, he didn’t ask for either.

  ‘And boiled rice for both of you, yes?’

  ‘Er, yes, fine,’ said Charles, and took another long swallow of wine.

  He knew there was little chance of shifting his mood, but at least he could numb it with alcohol. Pity he hadn’t had the chance to put down a few large Bell’s before they got to the restaurant. Wine worked, but it took so much longer. And you needed a lot more of it. Charles Paris refilled his glass.

  The large order from the Twelfth Night company seemed to have thrown the restaurant into confusion. Maybe they were short-staffed, maybe there was some crisis in the kitchen . . . For whatever reason, the food took a long time to arrive. The actors drank more, ordered extra bottles, and grew ever rowdier.

  As a result, there was a lot more confusion – genuine and engineered – when the food finally came. People couldn’t remember what they’d ordered. Some mischievously claimed things they hadn’t ordered, while others rejected dishes that they had ordered. It was the kind of mayhem that Indian restaurateurs are presumably used to when they have in a large party of overexcited thespians.

  ‘Who’s the Chicken Madras?’ ‘King Prawn Biryani, anyone . . .?’ ‘Whose are the Dupiazas?’ ‘Someone’s stolen my naan.’ ‘Oy, get the chutney down here.’ ‘I’m missing a chapati.’ ‘I definitely did order a Sag Aloo.’ The sound level rose higher and higher.

  But slowly order was imposed on the orders. The joke of pretending to have got the wrong food wore thin, metal dishes were reallocated around the table, wine glasses recharged, and the serious business of eating began.

  ‘What the hell’s this?’ John B. Murgatroyd demanded when the only meal left that could possibly be his appeared in front of him. ‘Charles, what did you order me?’

  ‘Vindaloo – that’s what you wanted, isn’t it?’

  ‘Yes, Chicken Vindaloo, not prawn. For God’s sake, I’m allergic to shellfish. If I eat these now, I’ll be throwing up all over the place in three hours’ time.’

  ‘Oh, I am sorry. I wasn’t concentrating. Look, you have mine. Mine’s chicken.’

  John B. Murgatroyd scrutinised the proffered dish dubiously. ‘What is that?’

  ‘Chicken Dupi . . . duppy – doopy – something . . .’

  ‘Dupiaza?’ John B. had caught the waiter’s note of contempt.

  ‘Yes.’

  ‘Oh God.’ Charles’s order was picked up and waved over the table as John B. Murgatroyd shouted out, ‘Anybody fancy swapping a Chicken Dupiaza for something stronger?’

  Howls of derision, ‘I’ve already got one’, ‘No Way’ and, ‘Forget it’ greeted this suggestion.

  ‘Order something else,’ said Charles. ‘I’ll pay. Look, I’m sorry if –’

  ‘God, no. If it takes them this long to get things cooked, I’ll be waiting all night. I’ll eat this.’

  John B. Murgatroyd dumped a portion of Chicken Dupiaza on to his plate, then saw the rice. ‘Oh, shit. I did say order pilau.’

  ‘I’m sorry. I –’

  But John B. Murgatroyd turned his back on his friend, a
nd spent the rest of the meal strenuously and unambiguously chatting up Talya Northcott.

  Leaving Charles feeling even more wretched. Particularly as he found the Prawn Vindaloo inedibly hot.

  John B. Murgatroyd clearly thought he was on to a winner. The intentions of his chatting up became more overt as the evening progressed. He only spoke to Charles once, when Talya had slipped away to make a phone call.

  ‘I think the old John B. magic’s working again,’ he leered. ‘I think a serious, steamy bonking session is going to prove unavoidable. God, it’s hell, you know, being fatally attractive to women.’ He grinned smugly. ‘But I’ve learned to live with it. Ah, my dear,’ he greeted the returning Handmaiden, ‘you just put your beautiful little bottom back down there.’

  Why is it, Charles asked himself bitterly, that one always feels jealous of someone who’s clearly about to score? It doesn’t make any difference if you find the object of their attentions utterly repulsive. It doesn’t even matter how well your own sex-life’s going at that precise moment . . . Not of course that mine’s going at all right now . . . His mind readily – even eagerly – supplied the gloomy thoughts, and the cycle of self-hatred started up again.

  They’d got to the stage of bill-paying. Everyone was keen to leave. Those who didn’t reckon they were on a promise, like John B. Murgatroyd, were simply tired. It’d been a long day’s rehearsal, and they had to start again at ten in the morning. Another ten days and Twelfth Night would be opening at Chailey Ferrars. They all needed to conserve their energy.

  Dividing up the bill was, as ever, complicated, and the communal mood was by now scratchier. The company’s two teetotallers objected to contributing to the wine; the vegetarians, Tottie Roundwood and Talya Northcott, insisted they’d only ordered small vegetable curries; all the usual wrangles developed. And, as always, somebody – in this case the company manager – produced a calculator and started working it all out.

  Sally Luther, exasperated, slammed a twenty-pound note down on the table and left. Benzo Ritter’s eyes followed her like a rejected spaniel’s. She hadn’t even said goodbye to him. Charles felt a moment of sympathy for the young actor. Infatuation’s tough when you’re that age, he recollected.