Star Trap

by Simon Brett

  That got Mark on the raw. ‘How the hell did you know that?’

  ‘I have contacts, sonny. As a matter of fact, the Head of London Weekend Television was down this week trying to get me to do a series for them. He told me.’

  ‘It’s not definite yet,’ said Mark defensively. ‘They’re still considering it. The producer told me.’

  ‘It’s definite. The producer just hasn’t got the guts to tell you the truth. No, your brief taste of telly stardom is over and let me tell you, no one’s too anxious to pick up the failed star of a failed series that didn’t make the ratings. So if I were you, I’d keep very quiet in this show, take what you’re given and start writing round the reps.’

  The public savagery of the attack gave Mark no alternative but to leave the theatre, which he did. What made the denunciation so cruel was that it was true. Mark Spelthorne had risen to public notice in advance of his talents on the strength of one series and without it he wasn’t much of a prospect.

  As usual the star continued addressing his audience as if nothing had happened. ‘Now the next scene we come to is the Chase, the Lead ’em Astray sequence. I don’t think we need cuts in this one. In fact I don’t think we’ve begun to develop that scene yet. I discussed this with Desmond Porton and he agrees that we can add a whole lot more business and make it a really funny slapstick sequence. We’re going to do it in a sort of silent film style, with a lot more special effects. And I think we can pep up the choreography a bit in that scene. Really get the girls jumping about.’

  ‘You try jumping about in eighteenth-century costume,’ complained an anonymous female dancer’s voice.

  Christopher Milton did not object to the interruption; he continued as if it were part of his own train of thought. ‘Yes, we’ve got to change the girl’s costumes there. Get more of an up-to-date feel. Like go-go dancers. Really get the audience going.’

  ‘Why not have them topless?’ drawled one of the dancing queens.

  ‘Yes, we could – no.’ His objection was, needless to say, not on grounds of anachronism. ‘We’ve got to think of the family audience. I think this Chase Scene can be terrific. Wally Wilson’s working on it now and we can make it into something really exciting. Going to mean a lot more work, but it will be worth while. Oh, that reminds me, we’re going to need flying equipment for it . . .’

  ‘What?’ asked David Meldrum weakly.

  ‘Flying equipment for the Chase Scene. I’m going to be flown in on a Kirby wire. Have we got the stuff?’

  ‘No, I don’t think so. We’d have to get it from London.’

  ‘Well, get it. Who organises that?’

  ‘I suppose the stage manager.’

  ‘Is he about?’

  ‘Yes, I think he’s backstage somewhere.’

  ‘Then get him to organise that straight away. I want to start rehearsing with it as soon as possible.’ As if under hypnosis, the man whose title was ‘director’ wandered offstage to find Spike.

  ‘Now, in that sequence, we’re also going to be making a lot more use of the trap-doors and doubles for me . . . Okay. It’s going to make that bit longer, but I think it’ll give the show a great lift towards the end . . .’

  Charles’ part was so small that, short of cutting it completely (and in the current climate, that did not seem impossible), the management could not do it much harm. As it was he lost four lines and left the theatre for the pub feeling that it could have been a lot worse. Just as he went through the stage door, he met Spike coming in. ‘Oh, they were looking for you. Something about a Kirby wire.’

  Spike’s papier-mâché face crumpled into a sardonic grin. ‘They found me. Yes, so now his Lordship wants to fly as well as everything else. It’ll be walking on the water next.’

  Charles chuckled. ‘I wonder if he’s always been like this.’

  ‘What do you mean?’

  ‘Always ordering everyone about. I mean, he couldn’t have done it when he started in the business, could he?’

  ‘With him anything’s possible.’

  ‘Where did he start? Any idea?’

  ‘Came out of stage school, didn’t he? Suppose he went straight into rep.’

  ‘You’ve met lots of people in the business, Spike. Ever come across anyone who knew him before he became the big star?’

  There was a pause. ‘I don’t know. I’m trying to think.’ Spike wrinkled his face; when the acne scars were in shadow, he looked almost babylike. ‘There was an actor I once met who I think had been with him a long time back. Now what was his name . . .? Seddon . . . Madden, something like that. Paddon, that’s right.’

  ‘Not Julian Paddon?’

  ‘Yes, I think that was the name. Why, do you know him?’

  ‘I’m only staying with him here in Bristol.’

  Mark Spelthorne was sitting in the corner of the pub. It was only eleven-thirty and there weren’t many people about. Charles felt he couldn’t ignore him. ‘Can I get you a drink?’

  ‘Brandy, please. Medicinal. For the cold.’ He looked frail. His nose was comically red, the lines of his face were deeply etched and for the first time Charles realised that the hair was dyed. Mark Spelthorne was older than the parts he played. As Christopher Milton had said, overcoming the current setback in his career wouldn’t be easy.

  Charles ordered the brandy and a pint of bitter for himself. That meant he was in a good mood. He drank Scotch when he was drinking to change his mood or delay a bad one and beer when he wanted to enjoy the one he was in.

  ‘Cheers.’ They drank. Charles felt he could not ignore what had happened. ‘Sorry about all that this morning. Must’ve been pretty nasty for you.’

  ‘Not the most pleasant few minutes of my life.’

  ‘That I believe. Still, he says things like that in the heat of the moment. He doesn’t mean them.’

  ‘Oh, he means them.’

  Though he agreed, Charles didn’t think he should say so. He made do with a grunt.

  ‘Yes, he means them, Charles, and what’s more, he’s right.’

  ‘What do you mean?’

  ‘They aren’t going to do any more Fighter Pilots.’

  ‘Well, so what? Something else will come up.’

  ‘You reckon? No, he’s right about that too. They launched that series to see if it caught on. If it had, I’d have been made, got star billing from now on. But now it’s failed, nobody’ll touch me.’

  ‘Oh, come on. You’ll keep in work.’

  ‘Work, yes. Supports, but not star billing. My career’s ruined.’ Charles tried to remember if he’d ever thought like that. So far as he could recollect, his aim in the theatre had always been for variety rather than stardom. Still, it obviously mattered to Mark. He tried another optimistic tack. ‘But there’ll be other chances. I mean, you made this pilot for your own radio show . . .’

  ‘Yes. They don’t want it. It’s been heard and they don’t want to make a series.’

  ‘Ah, ah well.’ Charles searched through his store of comforts for such situations and could only come up with cliché ‘Never mind, one door closes, another one opens.’ It was patently untrue. In his own experience life’s doors worked like linked traffic lights – one closed and all the others closed just before you got to them. Mark treated the platitude to the contemptuous grunt it deserved. ‘My God, he’s such a sod. I feel so angry, just so angry.’

  ‘Yes,’ Charles said, inadequately soothing.

  ‘And the world loves him. Lovable Christopher Milton. Every time he’s mentioned in the press, there it is, lovable Christopher Milton. Doesn’t it make you puke? If only his precious public could see him as he was this morning, could see all the meanness that goes to make up his lovability. My God, do people have to be that unpleasant to appear lovable?’

  ‘He works hard at his public image. It’s all very calculated.’

  ‘Yes, calculated and untrue. He has no integrity, his whole life is a masquerade.’ Mark Spelthorne spoke from a position of extrem
e righteousness, as if his own life had never been sullied by a shadow of affection. ‘You know, I think I’d give anything to expose him, show him to the public for what he really is – a mean-minded, egotistical, insensitive bastard.’

  ‘But talented.’

  ‘Oh yes. Talented.’ Even in the violence of his anger Mark could not deny the facts.

  Charles thought a lot about what Mark had said. Because possibly he held in his hands the power to expose the star. If the series of accidents which had happened to Lumpkin! and been perpetrated by his driver could ever be traced back to Christopher Milton, that would be exactly the sort of scandal to bring the star down in the public estimation.

  And yet Charles did not believe that Christopher Milton was directly involved. True, all the crimes turned out to the star’s advantage, but Charles was convinced that the driver had either been acting off his own bat or on the orders of Dickie Peck. Either way, the motive had been a protective instinct, to keep the star from the harsh realities of life (like people disagreeing with him). Somehow Christopher Milton himself, in spite of all his verbal viciousness, retained a certain naiveté. He assumed that everything should go his way and was not surprised to find obstacles removed from his path, but his was more the confidence of a divine mission than the gangster’s confidence in his ability to rub out anyone who threatened him. The star might have his suspicions as to how he was being protected, but he was too sensible to ask any questions about such matters. And far too sensible to take direct action. For a person so fiercely conscious of his public image it would be insane and, when it came to his career, Christopher Milton seemed to have his head very firmly screwed on.

  The Friday performance was scrappy. The cuts had been only partly assimilated and the show was full of sudden pauses, glazed expressions and untidy musical passages where some of the band remembered the cut and some didn’t. With that perversity which makes it impossible for actors ever to know what will or won’t work onstage, the audience loved it . . .

  Charles was taking his make-up off at speed – even with the cuts, it was still a close call to the pub – when there was a discreet knock on his door. Assuming that someone must have got the wrong dressing-room, he opened it and was amazed to be confronted by his daughter Juliet and her husband Miles. What amazed him more was that Juliet, who had a trim figure and was not in the ordinary way prone to smocks, was obviously pregnant.

  ‘Good heavens. Come. Sit down,’ he added hastily, over-conscious of Juliet’s condition. It confused him. He knew that everything about having children is a continual process of growing apart and could remember, when Frances first brought the tiny baby home, the shock of its separateness, but seeing his daughter pregnant seemed to double the already considerable gulf between them.

  ‘Enjoyed the show very much,’ Juliet volunteered.

  ‘Oh good,’ Charles replied, feeling that he should have kissed her on her arrival, but that he’d been too surprised and now he had missed the opportunity (and that the whole history of his relationship with his daughter had been missed opportunities to show affection and draw close to her). ‘I didn’t know you were coming. You should have let me know. I could have organised tickets,’ he concluded feebly, as if free seats could compensate for a life-time of non-communication.

  ‘I didn’t know I was coming till today. Miles had to come to a dinner in Bristol and then I was talking to Mummy yesterday and she said you were in this show and I thought I’d come and see it.’

  That gave him a frisson too. He had not told Frances about Lumpkin! How had she found out? At least that meant she was still interested in his activities. He couldn’t work out whether the thought elated or depressed him.

  ‘I didn’t see the show, of course,’ Miles stated in the plonking, consciously-mature manner he had. ‘I had to attend this dinner of my professional body.’

  Charles nodded. He could never begin to relate to his son-in-law. Miles Taylerson did very well in insurance, which was a conversation-stopper for Charles before they started. Miles was only about twenty-five, but had obviously sprung middle-aged from his mother’s womb (though, when Charles reflected on Miles’ mother, it was unlikely that she had a womb – she must have devised some other more hygienic and socially acceptable method of producing children). Miles and Juliet lived in a neat circumscribed executive estate in Pangbourne and did everything right. They bought every possession (including the right opinions) that the young executive should have and their lives were organised with a degree of foresight that made the average Soviet Five-Year-Plan look impetuous.

  When Miles spoke, Charles took him in properly for the first time. He was dressed exactly as a young executive should be for a dinner of his professional body. Dinner jacket, but not the old double-breasted or now-dated rolled-lapel style. It was cut like an ordinary suit, in very dark blue rather than black, with a discreet braiding of silk ribbon. Conventional enough not to offend any senior members of the professional body, but sufficiently modern to imply that here was a potential pace-setter for that professional body. The bow tie was velvet, large enough to maintain the image of restrained panache, but not so large as to invite disturbing comparisons with anything flamboyant or artistic. The shirt was discreetly frilled, like the paper decoration on a leg of lamb. In fact, as he thought of the image, Charles realised that that was exactly what Miles looked like – a well-dressed joint of meat.

  Recalling a conversation that Miles and he had had two years previously on the subject of breeding intentions, he could not resist a dig. ‘When’s the baby due?’ he asked ingenuously.

  ‘Mid-April.’ Juliet supplied the information.

  ‘You’ve changed your plans, Miles. I thought you were going to wait a couple more years until you were more established financially.’

  ‘Well, yes . . .’ Miles launched into his prepared arguments. ‘When we discussed it, I was thinking that we would need Juliet’s income to keep going comfortably, but of course, I’ve had one or two rises since then and a recent promotion, so the mortgage isn’t taking such a big bite as it was, and I think the general recession picture may be clearing a little with the Government’s anti-inflation package really beginning to work and so we decided that we could advance our plans a little.’

  He paused for breath and Juliet said, ‘Actually it was a mistake.’ Charles could have hugged her. He spoke quickly to stop himself laughing. ‘I’m sorry I can’t offer you anything to drink . . . I don’t keep anything here.’ With a last act entrance and an adjacent pub, there didn’t seem any need.

  ‘Don’t worry, I’m not drinking much, because of the baby.’

  ‘And I had up to my limit at the dinner. Don’t want to get nabbed on the M4.’ The image came of Miles sitting at the dinner of his professional body, measuring out his drinks drop by drop (and no doubt working out their alcoholic content with his pocket calculator).

  ‘You say you heard from your mother yesterday,’ said Charles, with what attempted (and failed) to be the insouciance of a practitioner of modem marriage, unmoved by considerations of fidelity and jealousy.

  ‘Yes.’

  ‘How was she?’

  ‘Fine.’

  ‘How’s the new boy friend?’ He brought in the question with the subtlety of a sledge-hammer.

  ‘Oh, what do you . . .?’ Juliet was flustered. ‘Oh, Alec. Well, I don’t know that you’d quite call him a boy friend. I mean, he just teaches at the same school as Mummy and, you know, they see each other. But Alec’s very busy, doesn’t have much time. He’s a scout-master and tends to be off camping or climbing or doing arduous training most weekends.’

  Good God. A scout-master. Frances must have changed if she’d found a scout-master to console her. Perhaps she’d deliberately looked for someone as different as possible from her husband.

  Juliet tactfully redirected the conversation, a skill no doubt refined by many Pangbourne coffee mornings. ‘It must be marvellous working in a show with Christopher Milton.’<
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  ‘In what way marvellous?’

  ‘Well, he must be such fun. I mean, he comes across as so . . . nice. Is he just the same off stage?’

  ‘Not exactly.’ Charles could also be tactful.

  But apparently Christopher Milton united the Taylersons in admiration. Miles thought the television show was ‘damn funny’ and he was also glad, ‘that you’re getting into this sort of theatre, Pop. I mean, it must be quite a fillip, career-wise.’

  ‘What do you mean?’

  ‘Well, being in proper commercial theatre, you know, West End, chance of a good long run, that sort of thing. I mean, it’s almost like having a regular job.’

  ‘Miles, I have done quite a few shows in the West End before, and if I have spent a lot of my life going round the reps, it’s at least partly because I have found more variety of work there, more interest.’

  ‘But the West End must be the top.’

  ‘Not necessarily. If you want to be a star, I suppose it might be, but if you want to be an actor, it certainly isn’t.’

  ‘Oh, come on, surely everyone in acting wants to be a star.’

  ‘No, actors are different. Some want to open supermarkets, some just want to act.’

  ‘But they must want to be stars. I mean, it’s the only way up. Just as everyone in a company wants to be managing director.’

  ‘That principle is certainly not true in acting, and I doubt if it’s true in the average company.’

  ‘Of course it is. Oh, people cover up and pretend they haven’t got ambitions just because they see them dashed or realise they haven’t got a chance, but that’s what everyone wants. And it must be the same in the theatre, except that the West End stars are the managing directors.’

  ‘If that’s the case, where do I come on the promotion scale?’