Death on the High C's

by Robert Barnard

  Mike Turner strode to the wings.

  ‘They’ve tekken Mr McKaid.’ said the unemployed urchin, who had lived more vividly in the last fortnight than in the entire first sixteen years of his life, and was showing it.

  ‘I know. Where’s Pettifer—oh sorry, there you are’ (as Mr Pettifer suddenly appeared under his feet). ‘We haven’t had anyone covering Marullo, have we? Who’s the fastest learner among the chorus basses?’

  ‘Well, there’s—’

  ‘My brother could do it,’ came a voice over Mike Turner’s shoulder. He turned. It was, inevitably, the insinuating form of Raymond Ricci, come to assert the continuing strength of the Italian family.

  ‘Could he, do you think? Surely he doesn’t know the part?’

  ‘More or less. Marullo’s only got two more scenes, and they’re both ones with the chorus. He must practically know them already, and he learns very quickly. He’ll probably only need to run over the words.’

  ‘Okay. He’s on. Where is he—oh’ (as the younger, slightly shorter, and not quite so sinister version of Raymond Ricci appeared at his brother’s side). ‘Get hold of a costume that marks you off from the rest of the chorus. It doesn’t matter about the next scene—it’s in darkness. Learn your words for the next twenty minutes or so, and then you’re on. There’s the interval after that: get hold of someone and tell them to make you look as much like McKaid as possible.’

  ‘Nobody notices Marullo,’ said Raymond Ricci, ‘so it’s not that vital.’

  ‘True—which is bloody lucky. Right—I’m going to start Scene II,’ said Mike, heading back to the orchestra pit.

  It was indeed true that nobody noticed the replacement in the role. In fact, a couple of the London critics mentioned next day that the ‘rich young baritone of James McKaid in the role of Marullo’, which made them feel fools when they read the news of his arrest on the front pages of the same newspaper. It did seem, though, as if Robert Ricci was fated to get good notices under any name but his own.

  • • •

  Barbara Bootle, leaving her place at the back of the wings whence she had been watching odd fragments of the action through bits of scenery, charged in the direction of the lavatories for the fifth time since the performance started. As usual, by hoping that nobody would notice her, she made sure that everyone did. Her heart was wrung by the look of concern on the face of Calvin Cross.

  ‘You needn’t worry,’ she said earnestly. ‘I’ll be all right. I don’t mean I’ll be all right in the role, but I’ll be all right, me.’

  ‘I’m sure you will,’ said Calvin.

  ‘I think the arrest has taken my mind off things a bit. And it is better not having to wonder whether the person you’re singing with is a murderer or not, isn’t it? On top of everything else, I mean.’

  ‘It is. And I don’t think the performance has suffered, do you? It seems to be going very well.’

  ‘Oh, it is. That’s what worries me. I’d so hate to let it down.’ She headed off miserably in the direction of the loo, and then turned with a pleading expression on her face. ‘You will try to hide me for as much of the time as possible, won’t you?’

  • • •

  In the first interval Mike Turner heard from the front-of-house people that Royalty had indeed come, and was ensconced with friends somewhere in the middle of the dress circle. The news seemed to unnerve him much more than had the arrest of Jim McKaid.

  ‘Good God. Why wasn’t I told earlier? What do I do? Go round and welcome them? Is it a large party? Are they in the bar? Couldn’t we take them in to one of the private rooms?’

  ‘Since the visit is incognito,’ said Bridget calmly, ‘I presume the thing that would be most welcome would be to have no notice at all taken of the visit.’

  Mike thought for a bit. Then he nodded. ‘Yes, that would be best, wouldn’t it? We’ll pretend we don’t know they’ve come—that’s just the thing that never happens to them as a rule. Could someone get on to Publicity and tell them to ring round all the newspapers?’

  He looked very pleased with himself at having found The Right Thing To Do in a delicate situation.

  • • •

  The scene between Rigoletto, Marullo and the courtiers had gone very well. Difficulties always spurred Simon Mulley on to give of his best, like most theatrical people, and Robert Ricci as Marullo had done all that was required of him. He had looked a good deal younger than Jim McKaid, but he had sounded considerably fresher.

  With the entry of Gilda, after her rape, the tension slackened a little. Simon Mulley was still singing and acting at white heat, but he made little impression on Giulia’s placidity. Her solo, and the big duets with Simon, were nice enough to listen to, but they certainly weren’t much to watch. Hurtle Marwick, though, was watching her from the wings with considerable admiration. And so was Bridget Lander, with less.

  ‘How’s she doing?’ asked Calvin.

  ‘Operatic passion—Italian style,’ said Bridget, not letting her eyes stray from their intent casing of the stage, her hands clasped tensely together.

  ‘Why are you so interested?’ asked Calvin. ‘Are you getting the part up for January?’

  ‘I’m noticing what not to do,’ said Bridget.

  ‘Oh, she’s not as bad as all that,’ said Calvin, watching.

  ‘She’s a second-rate. There’s a hundred sopranos in the world who could do the part like that. I’m going to be first-rate.’

  Silently Calvin sighed. He was beginning to think it was not going to be the easiest thing in the world—his future as the husband of a great operatic star.

  • • •

  It was the last act that had everyone’s hearts in their mouths. Mike Turner had been on hot bricks during the interval: he was torn between the feeling that Bridget’s advice about letting Royalty enjoy its evening of pseudo-anonymity in peace was good sense, and a very strong desire to go and pay his respects to it, or perhaps invite it backstage afterwards. It was not that he expected CBEs to shower over the company from the royal hands, nor, indeed, any more tangible largesse. But still, when you come down to it, Royalty is Royalty.

  The tension in Mike was of the sort that had to find some outlet or other. It communicated itself to his players, and from the beginning of the last act a competent, dramatic orchestral performance was transformed into a blazing one.

  Calvin was also tensed up to give of his best. Like any actor, or any singer with a sense of drama, there were few moments when he was not acting in one way or another. The stage was a maggot that entered the bones very quickly, and when he was most natural, then he was most subtly acting. His conversation with Bridget during the closing duets of Act II had opened his eyes to the new role that lay ahead for him: the competent tenor husband of the prima donna assoluta. The singer who achieved a tenuous international career by clutching to the skirts of his wife. The singer who received grudging or sneering reviews because the critics resented the fact that he, rather than Pavarotti or Domingo, had been engaged.

  During the interval he had squared his shoulders and said to himself: Some day it will probably be like that. Some day. But not yet.

  By the time he came to sing, the tenseness had resolved itself into an intoxicating feeling of freedom and relaxation. During ‘La donna è mobile’ he discarded the typically Owenish idea of putting one foot on to the inn bench and holding a goblet aloft, and instead he strolled around the stage, looking at everything with a sort of boyish delight at the unsalubriousness of his surroundings. And when Barbara appeared, hot foot from the loo, but summoning wonderful resources of Lancashire doggedness to carry her through, he threw himself on her, nearly ate her alive to shield her as much as was practicable from the audience’s cynical gaze, and as soon as possible got her down on to the bench in a close, sweaty, all-concealing embrace. As he threw himself over her, a thought occurred to him: wouldn’t Gaylene be surprised!

  And he launched himself, gloriously free and seductive of voice, in
to the great quartet.

  • • •

  Nichols stood at the door of the stage-door-keeper’s room and looked around it for the last time. He had tidied up the mess on the desk, tipped a mountain of alibi cards neatly into envelopes, and rubbed off the dirty black marks his shoes had made on the desk. As he looked along the neat shelves of lost property, the post-racks waiting to be used again, the hooks for keys, with each one labelled, he made a mental bow in the direction of Sergeant Harrison, and hoped he was satisfied.

  Tomorrow Bob would move in, and everything would begin to return to normal. But normality would be a looser, more slapdash state than it had been under the redoubtable sergeant. Perhaps it was just as well. Probably a theatre could only stand so much discipline. More than that was dangerous.

  And tomorrow he, Nichols, would join with Special Branch, and together they would grill McKaid and his wife and the other members of the repulsive little gang they had managed to pick up—grill them over and over, till they tired, contradicted themselves, implicated themselves, betrayed each other. And after they were done and sizzling, there would be charges—conspiracy, extortion, maiming, and against one, murder. It was not a process he liked being part of. It was his job’s equivalent of lavatory duty.

  Meanwhile there was home. Not bad—home before half past ten. There hadn’t been many evenings like that in the past week or so. His wife would be waiting for him, and perhaps they would have a drink together. Perhaps even a record. Not Rigoletto. Definitely not Rigoletto. Perhaps Ernani—always a favourite, whatever the mood. Or perhaps some of the soupier bits of Rosenkavalier would fit the bill.

  He turned off the light and shut the door. As his feet were on the point of directing themselves towards the stage-door, they were caught by the music, and they turned themselves automatically towards the stage, where the quartet was swelling and fading with an irresistible pulse towards its climax. He walked along the passage as the applause rang out, caught by a spell that had bewitched him when he was fifteen and had never lost an iota of its potency. He heard, from his resting position near the wings, the furtive dialogue that ensued between Rigoletto and Sparafucile. Then, unable to stop himself, he opened his mouth, and in a modest but pleasant baritone he joined in with Simon Mulley:

  ‘His name is CRIME, and mine is PUNISHMENT.’

  Seeing, from the wings, a row of faces turned on him with scandalized reprobation, he blushed violently, turned on his heels, and made for home.

  • • •

  The cheers rang through the theatre, raucous cheers such as can only be wrung from a jewel-studded, brass-weighted audience by a performance of tremendous passion. Ebullient cheers that brought even the bar-room ladies out to see, and made the gilded cherubs grin with pleasure. It was the most exciting music of the whole evening to the cast lining up to take their curtain-calls. As the curtain was swept aside over and over again, they gazed out on their acclaimers with a modicum of pretended humility, and a great deal of real self-satisfaction. There was not one of them that didn’t think in his heart of hearts: We deserve this.

  As Barbara Bootle took her solo curtain-call—polite, sympathetic applause, mingled with some patriotic Lancashire encouragement to a native daughter—she was thinking: Perhaps I won’t ask to go back to the chorus. After all, there are some parts I could do properly.

  As he took his curtain-call, Raymond Ricci was remembering some words Giulia Contini had hissed at him as he bundled her into her sack: ‘You take your dizgusting ’ands off me,’ she had said. ‘Is finito—understand?’ And Raymond was thinking: That bloody little Italian bitch has thrown me over.

  As he took his rapturous curtain call, Calvin Cross was thinking: I was good tonight. Damned good. Tonight I’m the star. It can’t last, but tonight it’s me.

  As she took her curtain call—an avalanche of shouting, because this audience would have cheered a steam kettle if it had had an Italian name—Giulia Contini was thinking something very physical about Hurtle.

  As he took his curtain call, during which the gallery exploded, Simon Mulley was thinking: This time was good. Perhaps eighty per cent right. Next time, ninety. And after that—

  And as Mike Turner took his solo call as conductor he drank in the enthusiasm from every corner of the theatre, blinked into the darkness, and thought that somewhere out there was sitting ’cello-playing, Goon-Show-loving Royalty, and he said to himself: Surely, when Royalty comes along, they’re finally going to admit that we’ve proved ourselves artistically.

  And, strange as it may seem, he was probably right.

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  All the characters and events portrayed in this story are fictitious.

  Copyright © Robert Barnard 1977

  All rights reserved. No part of this book may be reproduced or transmitted in any form or by any means, electronic or mechanical, including photocopying, recording, or by any information storage and retrieval system, without permission in writing from the Publisher. For information address Walker Publishing Company, Inc., New York, New York.

  ISBN: 0-440-11900-6

  ISBN: 978-1-4767-3398-2 (eBook)

  First printing—June 1985