Star Trap

by Simon Brett

  ‘Sensationally well. Damian has inherited my own innate sense of the theatre. I went to see them yesterday and he shat all over the nurse who was changing him. What timing. I think he’ll grow up to be a critic.’

  ‘And Helen?’

  ‘Fine. Uncomfortable, which is I believe a feature of the condition, but extremely cheerful. Normal cervix, I understand, will be resumed as soon as possible. No hint of purple depression or whatever it is. Can’t wait to get home.’

  ‘When will that be?’

  ‘Monday, I hope.’

  ‘Listen, Julian, I wanted to pick your brains again. You remember we were talking last week about the old Cheltenham company you were in with Christopher Milton.’

  ‘Oh yes.’

  ‘You did say that an actor called Gareth Warden was also in the company?’

  ‘Yes.’

  ‘Seen anything of him since?’

  ‘No. Why do you ask?’

  ‘Oh, it’s just something I’m trying to work out You’ve no idea what happened to him?’

  ‘Vanished off the face of the earth so far as I know.’ Julian’s words gave substance to a thought which had been forming in Charles’ mind. Christopher Milton tended to make people who challenged him ‘vanish off the face of the earth’. Was the key to the current set of crimes in a crime which had been committed long before?

  ‘Hmm. I see. Another thing – you don’t remember by any chance what Christopher Milton’s sex-life was like at the time?’

  ‘Good God. What do you want – times, dates, with whom, number of orgasms achieved? It was twenty years ago, Charles. It’s hard enough to remember what my own sex life was like.’

  ‘I mean just in general terms.’

  ‘Blimey. Well, let me think – I don’t remember him being gay, though I could be wrong. I don’t remember him taking up with anyone in the company – mind you, there wasn’t much spare there, they tended to get snapped up pretty quickly. I don’t even recall a sort of regular popsie coming down for weekends. Oh, it’s a long time ago. I honestly don’t know, Charles. I mean, keeping a track of actors’ love-lives is like doing a National Census of rabbits. Sorry, I just can’t remember.’

  ‘Oh well, never mind. And you can’t ever recall hearing him speak of a girl called Prudence Carr?’

  ‘Nope.’

  ‘Does the name mean anything to you?’

  ‘Nope.’

  ‘Oh. Well, I – ooh, one last thing – when he had his breakdown, was it caused by anything personal, you know, a girl who’d chucked him or . . .’

  ‘I don’t think so, Charles. I think it was solely due to the fact that the world did not at that time share his inflated opinion of himself. As I remember him, sex was a long way down his list of priorities. In fact everything was a long way down his list of priorities – except for his career and becoming a star.’

  The strain of the extra rehearsals and the difficulties of remembering a continuously changing text began to show on the Wednesday evening performance. Perhaps the matinée was the last straw which made the cast suddenly realise how tired they were. Whatever the reason, the mood of united endeavour was replaced in a moment by an atmosphere of bad temper and imminent disintegration.

  It was small things that went wrong. Lines were missed and lighting cues were slow. As the show progressed, the contagion spread and by the end everyone felt they were doing everything wrong. There weren’t any major errors of the sort that an audience is likely to notice, but they worried the cast and undermined the communal confidence.

  The Chase Scene was all over the place. Entrances were missed and special effects failed to function. The Star Trap didn’t work. Because of other stage management crises, the crew forgot about it completely and Christopher Milton rushed down to the cellar to find the locking bar which held the wooden platform firmly in position and no sign of the four members of the crew who were meant to man the ropes and eject him on to the stage. As a result he had to rush back up on stage mouthing obscenities at everyone and make a very tame entrance from the wings. The comic timing of the scene’s slapstick was ruined.

  Even Charles didn’t escape the epidemic of cack-handedness. He actually fell over in his first scene. To give him his due, it wasn’t his fault. Because of the general panic of the stage management, including some local help who’d only been brought in that day, the rostrum on to which he had to move at a given point had not been anchored to the ground and was free-moving on its wheels. So, as soon as he put his foot on it, it sped away, forcing an ungainly splits movement which deposited him flat on his face. It got a good laugh from the audience, but, since it took place in the course of Tony Lumpkin’s romantic song to Bet Bouncer, it was perhaps not the sort of laugh the show wanted.

  The only person who came through the performance unscathed was Lizzie Dark. In fact, she was at her very best. She had an advantage. She was only eighteen months out of Sussex University and still had a lot of friends there who had come en masse to see her. They were wildly partisan and applauded her every action. The general mediocrity of the performance made her seem even better and the reaction grew increasingly fulsome. It was only a small group in the audience, but they were noisy. At the curtain call, they screamed and shouted ‘Bravos!’ and ‘Encores!’ at her. It was an elaborate private joke, recapturing no doubt the heady atmosphere of a campus first night, and it was out of place in a professional theatre. But Lizzie seemed to be carried along by it, to be instantly transported back to amateur night. She played to her gallery shamelessly.

  Christopher Milton exploded as soon as the curtain was down. Surprisingly he didn’t turn on Lizzie or any other of the cast who had miscued him or let him down. He let the stage management have it. Of all the errors of the show, it was his ignominious return to the stage from the Star Trap which really rankled. He bawled them all out. Four-letter words flew around as he lambasted their incompetence, called them amateurs, provided a few choice images of things he wouldn’t trust them with and some equally vivid ones of fates that would be too good for them. This display of temper was the most violent Charles had witnessed from the star and it made him uncomfortable. The great hiss of anger came like steam from a pressure cooker and before long the pressure cooker was going to explode and scald everyone in sight. Charles couldn’t keep his knowledge to himself and do nothing much longer.

  The inefficiency which had characterised the performance continued. While the star was unleashing his diatribe onstage, a group of schoolkids had somehow eluded Len the stage doorman’s vigilance and invaded the dressing-rooms. They had only been driven by enthusiasm and were in fact fans of Christopher Milton, but he was in no mood for one of his sudden switches to charm. He added a few lacerating sentences against Len and said he’d remain on stage until the fans had been cleared. The rest of the cast shuffled sheepishly off to get changed.

  Charles started to follow them. He was in a bad mood; the limping performance and the ensuing row had ruled out any possibility of getting to the pub before closing time. But just as he was at the pass door he noticed Christopher Milton going off into the wings and down the stairs to the cellar. Presumably just to have another look at The offending Star Trap. What made it interesting was that Lizzie Dark followed him.

  There was another way down to the cellar backstage. Charles moved silently, though there was no one about The cellar was lit by a couple of isolated working lights, but the vertical and horizontal girders of the old stage machinery made forests of shadow through which he could creep to a good spying position. Somewhere over the other side Spike or one of the stage crew was hammering nails into a broken flat, but he paid no attention to the intruders.

  As Charles anticipated, Christopher Milton was looking balefully at the Star Trap mechanism. Four wooden beams boxed in the small platform on which the person to be ejected stood. The platform was in the up position, almost flush with the stage underneath the hinged Star top. The locking bar, a solid piece of two by four, was firmly
in position, blocking any movement The star slapped it petulantly. He seemed aware of Lizzie Dark’s presence, but, though he spoke out loud, he did not speak to her.

  ‘Sodding thing. Why we’re stuck with this sort of old-fashioned crap I don’t know. Four people to operate it. You’d think with a system of counterweights, you could make it self-operating. Get this bloody locking bar out and leave it pre-set, so that it’s ready when I am and not when the bloody stage crew are.’

  ‘But,’ Lizzie hazarded tentatively, ‘if you took out the locking bar and had it down for too long someone onstage might step on and fall through.’

  ‘Yes, so we’re back relying on incompetents.’ His anger had drained away, leaving him tired and listless.

  ‘Christopher . . .’

  ‘Yes.’

  ‘I wanted to apologise for tonight.’

  ‘Eh?’

  ‘That load of lunatics in the audience. My so-called friends. I’m afraid they did rather misbehave. It can’t have made it any easier for you to concentrate.’

  ‘Oh, never mind. There are good nights and bad nights.’ His voice was philosophical and very tired. The violent outburst Charles had expected didn’t come. That was what made being with Christopher Milton so exhausting. There was never any indication of which way he was going to jump.

  ‘Well, I’m sorry. I shouldn’t have played up to them. It was a bit unprofessional.’

  ‘Never mind.’ He put his arm round the girl’s waist affectionately. ‘We all have to learn.’

  This avuncular, kindly Christopher Milton was a new one on Charles and he found it unaccountably sinister. The arm stayed round her waist as Lizzie asked, ‘How do you think it’s going, Christopher?’

  ‘It’s going all right. It’ll be very good – if we all survive to see the first night.’

  ‘Am I doing all right?’

  ‘Yes, you’re good. Could be better in bits.’

  No actress could have resisted asking which bits.

  ‘That song in the second half, the romantic one. There’s a lot more to be got out of that.’

  ‘Yes, I’m sure there is, but the trouble is, David never actually gives any direction and I’m not experienced enough to know what to do myself . . . It’s difficult.’

  ‘I’ll take you through it when I’ve got a moment.’

  ‘Would you?’

  ‘Sure. When? What’s the rehearsal schedule tomorrow?’

  ‘The afternoon’s free. We’re all meant to be in need of a rest.’

  ‘And how.’ The deep weariness in the two words reminded Charles of the intense physical pressure that the star had been under for the past months. ‘But okay. Let’s go through it tomorrow afternoon.’

  ‘No, I don’t want to take up your time. I . . .’

  ‘Here. At three o’clock.’

  ‘Well, if you really . . .’

  ‘I really.’

  ‘Thank you. I’m sorry, I just feel so amateur in this company. I mean, it’s jolly nice getting good jobs, but I’ve only done a year round the reps and I’ve got so much ground to make up.’

  ‘Don’t worry. You’ll make it. You’ve got talent.’

  ‘Do you really mean it?’

  ‘I do. You’ll be a big star. Probably bigger than me.’

  ‘Come off it.’

  ‘I’m serious. It’s a long time since I’ve seen an actress who had your kind of potential. There was a girl I was with at drama school, but no one since then.’

  ‘What was her name?’

  ‘Prudence.’

  ‘And what happened to her?’

  ‘Ah.’ There was a long pause, during which Charles felt that water, defying the laws of gravity, was being poured up his back. ‘What does happen to talented girls who work with me?’

  Christopher Milton moved suddenly. The hand on Lizzie Dark’s waist was brought up sharply to her neck where his other hand joined it. Charles started forward from his hide to save her.

  They didn’t see him, which was just as well. Because far from being strangled, as he feared, Lizzie Dark was being passionately kissed. Charles melted back into the shadows. The hammering in the distance continued, but otherwise the cellar was silent as he crept out, feeling like a schoolboy surprised with a dirty book.

  The next morning Alfred Bostock took over the case again. For the next part of the investigation it would not do to be recognised and, after the previous night’s unsatisfactory spying, Charles wanted the comfort of disguise.

  He’d hung around the stage door until Christopher Milton and Lizzie Dark left the building. They had come out separately and set off in opposite directions. Charles trailed Christopher Milton to the Villiers, his sea-front hotel. (It was so near the theatre that there was no point in having a car, even for a star.) That made him think that Lizzie at least was safe for the night. What had gone on in the cellar after he’d left fed his imagination. It was a good half-hour before they emerged, so most things were possible.

  But the urgency of the case was inescapable. The star’s violent outburst, the strangeness of his behaviour with Lizzie, and a vague but unpleasant idea of what had happened to Gareth Warden and Prudence Carr made Charles realise that he could dither no longer. And the most obvious thing to do was to find out what Christopher Milton did during that missing hour in the morning.

  Charles was very organised. He got up at five o’clock after a disbelieving look at the alarm clock and started making up as Alfred Bostock.

  At six-thirty he rang the Villiers. A night porter answered. Charles said he was ringing on behalf of Dickie Peck, Mr Milton’s agent, and was Mr Milton up, he knew he sometimes got up very early. No, Mr Milton was not up. Yes, he was in the hotel, but he was sleeping. Yes, he was certain that Mr Milton had not gone out, because he’d been on all night. Yes, he thought it would be advisable if the representative of Mr Peck rang back later. Mr Milton normally ordered breakfast in his suite at eight o’clock. And, incidentally, the Villiers Hotel looked forward to Mr Peck’s arrival later in the day.

  At eight o’clock the representative of Mr Peck – who incidentally used the accent Charles Paris had used as Voltore in Volpone (‘Lamentably under-rehearsed’ – Plays and Players) – rang again and asked to be put through to Mr Milton. He was connected, but as soon as Christopher Milton spoke, there occurred one of those unfortunate cut-offs which are a feature of the British telecommunications system. Charles Paris, in a phone-booth on the sea-front opposite the Villiers Hotel, knew that his quarry was inside and was determined to follow him wherever he went. He had checked the entrances and exits and, unless Christopher Milton left through the kitchens (which would be more conspicuous than the main door in terms of witnesses), he would have to come out on to the front. Now it was just a question of waiting.

  Charles sat in a shelter with a miserable-looking couple of old men who were realising their life-time’s ambition of retiring to the south coast. They depressed him. It was cold. He saw himself with the deadly X-ray eye of a third person. A middle-aged actor play-acting on the front at Brighton. Someone who’d never managed to create a real relationship with anyone, a man whose wife was forced to take solace with a scout-master, a man whose daughter spoke the language of another planet, a man who would sink into death without even disturbing the surface of life, unnoticed, unmourned. How would he be remembered? As an actor, not for long. Maybe the occasional unfortunate accident might stick in people’s minds: ‘There was an actor I knew – what was his name? – Charles Paris, that’s right, and he . . .’ Or would he just live on as a sort of Everard Austick, an archetypal heavy drinker in the mythology of the theatre? ‘There was an incredible piss-artist in a company I was once in, bloke called Charles Paris, and he used to drink . . .’ No, he wasn’t even an exceptional drinker, not the sort of wild alcoholic around whom Rabelaisian stories gathered. He drank too much, but not interestingly too much.

  Perhaps it was the sea-front in winter that made him so introspective, but he found
big questions looming in his mind, big unanswerable cliché questions, all the whys? and why bothers? and what does it matters? Life was very empty.

  There was a man walking along the street towards the Villiers Hotel. Charles stiffened. Here at last was something, something real and tangible.

  The man he saw was bald, with big ears. When he had seen them in Leeds, Charles had thought the ears looked like handles of a loving cup. The man had hardly registered in Bristol, Charles had just thought he looked like the one in Leeds, but now seeing him for the third time there was no question. It was the same man.

  And each time the man had appeared near Christopher Milton’s hotel early in the morning. Charles felt he was near to solving the mystery of who did the star’s dirty work.

  He crossed the road and followed the bald man into the Villiers Hotel. He hadn’t really planned his next move, but it was made easy for him. There was temporarily no one in Reception. The bald man rang for a lift. Charles stood by his side, assessing him. A bit old for a heavy, but he was well-built and had the bear-like shape of a wrestler. His mouth was a tight line and the eyes looked mean.

  The lift came. The bald man got in and asked for the fourth floor. Charles, who hadn’t acted in fifties detective films for nothing, also got in and asked for the fifth. There wasn’t one. ‘Oh, so sorry,’ he said, feeling that this wasn’t a very auspicious start. ‘I mean the fourth – third.’

  The bald man did not seem to notice his companion’s gaucheness and Charles was decanted on the third floor. It was a matter of moments to find the stairs and scurry up to the fourth. He hid behind the fire-door and watched the bald man walk along the corridor to room 41, knock and enter.

  Charles followed, treading noiselessly in the soft pile of the expensive carpet. He stopped by room 41 and put his ear to the door. He could hear two voices, one of them recognisably Christopher Milton’s, but they were too far away for him to distinguish the words.

  Anyway, he was in a rather exposed position for listening. A Hoover stood unattended in the corridor and muffled singing also indicated the presence of cleaners. He’d have to move quickly.