A Deadly Habit

by Simon Brett

  ‘No, I didn’t,’ the investor agreed.

  Further conversation was fortunately interrupted by the arrival of other cast members. At such Press Night occasions there is always an exuberance, a communal relief at finally having got the show opened. But tonight’s euphoria seemed less manic and fragile than was often the case. Even if they hadn’t known that Justin Grover’s name on the marquee had ensured their three-months’ stay in the West End, there was a confident feeling that the evening’s performance had gone well. With an audience there, The Habit of Faith had really opened out. Even Charles Paris was wondering whether his assessment of ‘a seriously crap play’ may have been a little hasty.

  When everyone was assembled, the producers said a few words of congratulation to the company. And then Justin Grover added a few humble words of his own, saying what a privilege it had been to be part of such ‘a dedicated ensemble’.

  And then those present who were drinking had a few more drinks.

  Charles was surprised – and slightly disappointed – to see how many weren’t drinking. He knew they all had a matinee and an evening show to do the next day, but what kind of actor didn’t have a drink after a Press Night? Surely even teetotallers should relax their principles for such a special occasion?

  Justin Grover, having raised his champagne glass to the rest of the ensemble and taken a modest sip, had then put it to one side and moved on to Perrier. But that was maybe to be expected. In the days of mobile phone cameras and social media, he could not ever put his star status at risk by getting drunk.

  However much they wished it did, that didn’t apply to the rest of the company. None of them was famous enough for anyone to care whether they got drunk or not. And yet a scary number of them seemed to have joined the Perrier party.

  Kell, Charles noticed, had a glass of fizzy water. He went across and, perhaps to assert his own virtuousness, said, ‘I’ve followed up with TAUT. Going to have an assessment next week. With someone called Erica.’

  ‘She’s good. Well, they’re all good.’ Kell didn’t seem to be focusing on him; her eyes were flitting round the room.

  ‘Are you likely to be going there?’ asked Charles, quite relishing having Kell’s company for the next stage of his journey to sobriety.

  ‘I hope not.’

  ‘Oh?’ He was taken aback by the sharpness of her tone.

  ‘Sorry, that came out wrong. I didn’t mean to knock what they do at TAUT. It’s brilliant. I just meant I hope I’ll be able to get through this next patch from my own inner resources.’

  ‘Ah. Well, good luck.’

  ‘Thanks. Oh, there you are,’ she said, breaking away from Charles and taking the arm of Tod Singer, who had just arrived.

  Charles went to get his champagne glass filled up.

  He still had a headache when he arrived at the Duke of Kent’s on the Wednesday afternoon. He was there a good hour before the matinee, clutching a virtuous sandwich he’d bought from one of the Hereford Road convenience stores. Not going to give in to the temptation of a pub lunch.

  Because he was early, there were not many other company members about, which provided a welcome opportunity to talk to Gideon on his own.

  ‘All the fuss about Liddy seems to have died down a bit,’ he observed. ‘Everyone’s been so busy getting the show on.’

  Gideon nodded, starting a ripple through the rolls of flesh where his neck should have been.

  ‘You had any more hassle from the police?’ Charles went on casually.

  ‘They did talk to me this morning.’

  ‘And? Have they made up their minds about what actually happened to Liddy?’

  ‘Well, if they have, they didn’t tell me. Been in touch with you again, have they?’

  Gideon’s question seemed to imply some level of complicity between the two of them. As if they both had something to hide about the night Liddy died. Gideon’s secret was the fact that he’d been off drinking when he should have been on duty. Charles felt confident that the stage doorman didn’t know what his was.

  ‘No. Haven’t heard a squeak. Maybe they’ve decided it was an accident. Or maybe it’ll be one of those cases where they can never find out the truth about what actually happened.’

  ‘Maybe.’ But there was still important information Charles needed from Gideon. Maintaining the casual tone, he said, ‘I heard from someone that the cops were going to check out the CCTV footage from round this area … you know, on the relevant night. You hear anything from them about that?’

  Gideon’s chubby face crinkled into a smile. ‘Yes, I did. And thank the Lord, it was good news.’

  ‘Oh?’

  ‘Seems that all the CCTV cameras in the area had been sabotaged. Paint sprayed all over the lenses.’

  ‘When was it done?’

  ‘No idea. Cops didn’t tell me that. But, like I say, it’s good news for me. It’s evidence that the raid was planned.’

  ‘What raid?’

  ‘The raid by the intruder who hit me over the head.’

  ‘But you told me there never was an intruder who hit you over the head.’

  ‘You know that, I know that.’ The stage doorman winked conspiratorially. ‘But the police don’t know that, do they?’

  Their conversation was interrupted by the arrival at the stage door of one of the wardrobe girls.

  ‘Anyway, Charles,’ said Gideon, ‘if you fancy going for a drink after the show one night, I’d be up for it.’

  ‘Me too,’ said Charles, convincing himself he was agreeing, not because he fancied a drink, but because he wanted to pick Gideon’s brains further about the mystery of Liddy Max’s death.

  As he walked up the steep stairs to his dressing room, Charles Paris felt enormous relief. There was no CCTV footage to prove that he’d lied to the police about his movements on the relevant night. He had got away with it.

  To Charles’s amazement, The Habit of Faith got very good reviews, most of them concentrating on Justin Grover’s performance. What versatility he had, moving from the craggy grandeur of Sigismund the Strong to the fragile sensitivity of Abbot Ambrose! How splendid it was that an international movie star had returned to work onstage in the West End!

  And, to Charles’s disappointment, none of the reviews mentioned what a piece of crap the play was. So, what did he know?

  None of the reviews mentioned him either. But then he’d known from the start that he was only in the play as a plot device, a listener to what were effectively monologues from all the other characters.

  Anyway, he wasn’t too upset. He remembered the last review he’s received when he’d played a part in a monk’s habit. (‘In the role of the prior, Charles Paris’s bellicose ranting made me wish he’d joined a Trappist order.’ Bolton Evening News)

  ‘Frances, it’s Charles.’

  It was the Friday, just before the show opened. End of a busy school week for her.

  ‘Oh yes?’ There was no intonation in her words, neither welcoming nor deterrent. ‘Press notices for your show seemed to be pretty good.’

  ‘They were, weren’t they? You must come and see it sometime when we’ve—’

  ‘Yes.’ She didn’t sound particularly enthusiastic. ‘Listen, Charles, I’m about to luxuriate with a glass of wine in the long hot bath I’ve been promising myself all week, so if you just rang to pass the time of day, then I’d—’

  ‘No, no. I did have a reason for ringing.’

  ‘And what was that?’

  ‘I wanted to tell you, I have been in touch with TAUT.’

  ‘TAUT? What’s that?’

  ‘It’s a charity which helps people with addiction problems.’

  ‘Oh, good, Charles.’ Her tone was instantly softer. ‘I thought you’d conveniently forgotten our discussions about that.’

  ‘No. I was just waiting till we got the show opened. I’m going to TAUT to have an assessment on Monday.’

  ‘Good. It’s a start. And may I ask … have you had a drink to
day?’

  ‘No,’ Charles replied proudly.

  ‘Yet,’ said Frances, with the weariness of many years’ experience.

  He didn’t respond to that. ‘Anyway, I was thinking …’

  ‘Mm?’

  ‘Because I have taken the first step, you know, setting up this assessment interview—’

  ‘Yes?’ She sounded as if the imperative of her bath was growing stronger with every second.

  ‘I wondered if we could meet up on Sunday night, at the Italian place …?’

  ‘And will you turn up this time? I’ve had my fill of looks from other diners, pitying The Woman Whose Date Didn’t Turn Up.’

  ‘No, I’ll be there, I promise. Go on, please say yes.’

  Frances let out a long sigh. ‘All right, Charles, I’ll meet you there … on one condition.’

  ‘What’s that?’

  ‘That you make me another promise.’

  ‘Mm,’ he said warily.

  ‘Not to have a drink between now and then.’

  There was a silence, then, ‘All right, I’ll do it.’

  ‘See you Sunday,’ said Frances. ‘Perhaps.’

  He was there at the Hampstead place on the Sunday. And he hadn’t had a drink since they spoke on the phone.

  Nor, to the amazement of the waiters, who knew the couple well, did he order anything alcoholic. As he watched his wife down two large Cabernet Sauvignons, Charles Paris sipped San Pellegrino.

  He felt virtuous, but knew the evening would have gone better if he had been drinking. There were pauses and longueurs in their dialogue, which he was sure he wouldn’t have been aware of with a drink inside him. Frances seemed tired, and Charles, listening to the lively banter from the tables around them, felt old.

  When he paid the bill, there was no thought of Frances inviting him back to her place. She asked him to report back to her on his assessment at TAUT, kissed him on the cheek and left.

  Charles returned disconsolately on the tube to Queensway, warmed only by the knowledge that he had a barely opened litre of Bell’s waiting for him back at the flat.

  ELEVEN

  When he arrived at Gower House, he had been surprised at its grandeur. A tall Victorian villa in Finchley, whose value, given London’s rocketing prices, must have been in multiple millions. Whether the whole house was given over to TAUT, he had no means of knowing. The waiting room to which he had been directed was white-emulsioned and functional. There was a small stainless-steel sink in the corner, and next to it a surface littered with mugs, kettles, boxes of tea bags and industrial-sized tins of instant coffee. On corkboards on the walls were flyers about addiction support from the NHS and other, less official, organizations. One wall was painted with a not-very-good mural of a faceless man breaking free from heavy chains.

  As he entered, a smiling man was making himself a mug of tea. ‘You want a hot drink?’ he offered cheerily.

  ‘No, thanks. Just had some coffee,’ Charles lied.

  ‘Well, take a seat.’

  The man volunteered his name, but Charles didn’t know whether he was on the staff or one of the … what was the right word? Patients? Customers? Addicts?

  ‘All first names here,’ the man said, and introduced the two other seated men. They looked relaxed. This was clearly a venue they knew well. The only female in the room, an unhealthily thin girl who had the shakes, said nothing.

  ‘I’m Charles,’ he responded, cutting off the insane impulse to add, ‘and I’m an alcoholic.’

  ‘So how much would you say you are drinking, Charles?’

  ‘Well, if you count the last few days, very little.’ He conveniently forgot the couple of large glasses of Bell’s he had downed when he got back to Hereford Road the previous evening.

  ‘But presumably that’s not typical, or you wouldn’t have got in touch with us?’

  Erica was probably ten years younger than Charles. A thickset woman with dark-rimmed glasses and black hair caught up with a rubber band into a kind of untidy topknot. No wedding ring, jeans and a purple fleece. She wore no make-up, and her face looked as if it wasn’t used to smiling. But maybe that was just a mask she wore professionally. The problems she was dealing with were, Charles imagined, rarely funny.

  She had a pad of paper on the table between them, and was making notes on Charles’s answers. ‘So how much do you usually drink, Charles?’

  ‘Are you talking in units, like government health guidelines?’

  ‘I’m not too worried about those. Tell me in terms of glasses per day. Or bottles, if that’s more appropriate.’ Still no hint of a smile, accompanying what some people might have considered a joke.

  ‘Well, it depends really on what’s happening in my life.’

  ‘You’re an actor, you say?’

  ‘Yes. I’ve just opened in a show in the West End.’ She showed no interest in what that show might be. ‘So, the pattern’s different when I’m actually in work.’

  ‘And actors do spend quite a lot of time out of work, I believe.’

  ‘It depends what kind of actor you are. I spend quite a lot of time out of work.’

  ‘Do you drink more, or less, when you’re out of work?’

  ‘Hard to say. More likely to drink during the day when you’re out of work. And being out of work is depressing, so you drink more then, anyway.’

  ‘You know that alcohol is a depressant?’

  ‘I’ve heard it said, yes.’ Charles’s mental jury was out on that one. When he woke in the middle of the night after a skinful, he often felt depressed. But the way his gloom lifted after a couple of drinks generally seemed to make the indulgence worthwhile.

  He went on, ‘If you’ve got a show to do in the evening, the idea is that you don’t have a drink until after you’ve finished.’ He knew that ‘the idea is’ was a rather feeble expression, which didn’t really define his drinking habits.

  ‘So, back to my question about how many glasses – or bottles – you drink …?’

  ‘Well, I suppose … half a bottle of wine most days.’

  ‘Beer?’

  ‘Occasionally.’

  ‘Spirits?’

  ‘I enjoy the odd glass of whisky.’

  ‘How often?’

  ‘Most days,’ he conceded.

  ‘Just the one glass?’

  ‘Well, sometimes more.’

  ‘So, in the average week …?’ Erica’s pen hovered over her pad. Though they weren’t actually printed on the page, there were boxes she needed to fill.

  ‘Ooh, let’s say … over the week … three bottles of wine, a couple of pints of beer and … maybe half a bottle of Scotch?’ It was a considerable underestimate. But presumably, in her job, she was used to that.

  ‘And when was the last day you didn’t have any kind of alcoholic drink?’

  ‘Yesterday,’ he replied virtuously, then had to correct himself to ‘Saturday.’

  ‘Before that?’

  ‘Friday.’

  ‘And before that?’

  ‘Ah.’ His memory couldn’t cope with that one.

  ‘Going back to your wife …’

  ‘Yes.’

  ‘Have you become violent towards her?’

  ‘Good Lord, no. I’m not one of those drunks who gets aggressive. I get silly first, then more, sort of, pathetic and self-pitying.’

  ‘But you say your wife encouraged you to get help?’

  ‘Yes. We don’t actually live together.’

  ‘Oh?’

  ‘Both got our own places. Have done for … I don’t know how many years. Over twenty, anyway.’

  Erica’s pen moved quickly across the pad as she noted down these details. ‘But she still clearly takes an interest in your life … or in your health, anyway?’

  ‘Yes.’

  ‘So, was there some particular incident which made you get in touch with us?’

  ‘What kind of incident?’

  ‘Were you arrested for drunken behaviour? Did you cause
an accident through driving when drunk? Did you pass out and have no recollection of a certain period of time?’

  ‘No, none of those things.’ Charles thought about the questions for a moment, and remembered the night of Liddy Max’s death. ‘Well, there have sometimes been evenings when I kind of … can’t remember what happened.’

  ‘Recently?’

  ‘There was a bad one the Monday before last.’

  Erica made a note. ‘And it was after that that your wife recommended that you seek help?’

  ‘No. She suggested it before that happened. I mean, actually she’s suggested it many times over the years.’

  ‘And have you ever followed her advice?’

  ‘Sorry?’

  ‘Have you tried other forms of therapy? I ask these questions so that I can get a background to your history of addiction. It helps us to know the best ongoing treatment for you.’ Charles didn’t really like the word ‘treatment’. It sounded horribly medical. ‘I mean, for instance, it would help us to know if you’ve ever tried Alcoholics Anonymous.’

  ‘I did once go to a meeting, with a friend.’

  ‘When was this?’

  It felt like an age ago, though his reply was: ‘Last week.’

  ‘And how did you feel about the AA programme?’

  ‘I loathed it. It made me very cross.’ In fact, he thought but didn’t say, ‘It was in reaction to that meeting that I went off on the worst bender I’ve been on for years.’

  ‘AA doesn’t suit everyone,’ said Erica, in a tone that was studiedly non-judgemental. ‘Another question I should ask … Have you ever woken up in the morning with such a hangover that you needed another drink before you could get on with your day?’

  Charles admitted that that had happened. ‘But not very often.’

  Again, Erica made no comment or judgement. ‘Going back to your wife, why suddenly now have you followed her advice, to get treatment?’

  ‘She raised the possibility of our living together again.’

  ‘And is that something you would like to happen?’

  Charles found the direct question difficult. ‘Yes. I mean, obviously it would be a big commitment, but … Well, yes, I think so.’