Star Trap

by Simon Brett

  ‘And where is she now?’

  ‘I’ve no idea. But wherever she is, she’s nothing – nothing to what she could have been.’

  ‘And you loved her?’

  ‘Yes.’

  ‘Did she love you?’

  ‘Yes, at first. Then he came along . . . I wanted to marry her. She refused. Said she loved him. That’s impossible. There is nothing about him to love.’

  ‘And what happened to you? Why did you give up acting? I know you started at Cheltenham.’

  ‘My, you have done your homework. Why did I give up acting? I gave it up because nobody wanted to employ me. I’d had a good run as a child star, but it’s difficult to make the break from child to juvenile. And I lost my looks, which didn’t help. I developed this acne, my hair turned darker. Nobody thought I was pretty any more. I had three years of nothing. And then I thought, stuff it, I’ll go into the stage management side.’

  ‘But didn’t Christopher Milton recognise you when you started on this show?’

  ‘I don’t know. I doubt it. He’s totally unaware of other people.’ There was another pause. The ambulance moved slowly through the Friday afternoon traffic.

  Charles began again. ‘But, Spike, why? I can see that you hated him, I can see that you wanted revenge, but why do it this way?’

  ‘I had to show him up in public for what he was,’ Spike repeated doggedly.

  ‘But the things you had to do to achieve that . . . I mean, beating up Kevin McMahon, running Pete Masters over . . . It’s all so cruel, so mean.’

  ‘Exactly,’ said Spike as if this proved his point. ‘Christopher Milton is cruel and mean. That’s what I had to show the public. I have seen inside his mind. That’s what he would have wanted to happen to people.’

  ‘But he didn’t do it, Spike. You did it.’

  ‘He wanted to.’ The line came back insistently.

  ‘But, Spike, people got hurt. Mark Spelthorne got killed. That’s murder, Spike.’

  ‘It was suicide. I had nothing to do with that.’

  ‘Do you mean it?’

  ‘Christopher Milton drove him to suicide.’

  ‘And you didn’t help him on his way?’

  ‘No.’ The answer came back so casually that Charles believed it.

  ‘But, Spike, I still can’t understand why you did it.’

  ‘Perhaps you can’t, but then you didn’t grow up with him, you didn’t see him use people, destroy people, always. You didn’t see the smile of satisfaction on his face when someone was removed from his path. You didn’t feel him all the time undermining your confidence. You didn’t see him grinning with triumph every time he came out on top. He is a monster and the public should know it. Someone like that shouldn’t be allowed to win all the time.’

  ‘What do you think made him like that?’

  ‘Ambition for stardom, He wants to be the best. Oh, I know what it’s like. I was big in my teens. I was hailed as the great white hope of English theatre. I was going to get to the top. I understand the kind of pressure that puts you under. And I know that you’ve got to get out of it and love people, not treat them like dirt.’

  ‘Hmm.’ Charles was about to comment on how Spike had treated people but he went on on another tack. ‘Do you think he’s happy?’

  ‘Happy? So long as he’s on top, yes.’

  So Charles told him what he had discovered that morning, how Christopher Milton could not face life without an hour of psychoanalysis a day, how he lived in fear of discovery of his weakness, how his life was split between public acclamation and private misery. ‘How can he be happy when he doesn’t even know who he is? His changes of mood are so violent because he has no real identity. That’s why he clings to his fictional self. Lionel Wilkins is more real to him than Christopher Milton and it is only when he is in that character, hearing the adulation of an audience, that he feels alive. You hate him, you can despise his behaviour, but don’t ever think he’s happy. His desperate concern for his career is only because he lives through it. Take it away and you kill him.’

  There was another long silence. Then Spike grunted, ‘He’s a bastard.’ His mind couldn’t cope with an idea that challenged his long-held obsession.

  The ambulance swung round into the gates of the hospital. Charles felt weak. The pain in his ankle was burning fiercely again. ‘The question now is,’ he said with effort, ‘what are we going to do about it.’

  ‘I suppose you’ll report me to the police.’ Spike’s voice was dull. ‘That’s presumably what the management put you into the company to do – find the wrong-doer and see him brought to justice.’

  ‘On the contrary, they brought me in to the company to find the wrong-doer and to hush up the whole affair.’

  ‘Ah.’

  ‘And I don’t see why I shouldn’t do just that. That is, if you’ve been persuaded of the pointlessness of your vendetta. You cannot do worse to him than he does to himself. You cannot destroy the real Christopher Milton, because it doesn’t exist.’

  ‘So in fact you’re letting me off?’

  ‘Yes, but, by God, if anything else happens in this show, you’ll have the entire police force descending on you from a great height.’

  ‘And if I actually strike at the star himself?’

  ‘I don’t think you will.’

  ‘Well, thanks.’ The ambulance came to a stop and the men got out to open the back door. ‘So you reckon he’s a real wreck?’

  ‘Yes. If that gives you any cause for satisfaction.’

  ‘Oh, it does, it does.’

  ‘What will you do – leave the show?’

  ‘I’ll have to, won’t I?’

  Charles was pulled out and placed on a trolley. Spike still didn’t seem able to leave. He wanted to taste the last drop of news of his rival’s degradation. ‘So it’s driven him mad. That happens. There’s a danger of that with anyone who’s ever been even vaguely in contact with stardom. They lose all touch with reality.’

  ‘Yes,’ said Charles, but, locked in his own world, Gareth Warden seemed unaware of the irony.

  PART V

  First Night

  CHAPTER EIGHTEEN

  THE FIRST NIGHT of Lumpkin! at the King’s Theatre on Thursday, November 27th 1975 was a major social and theatrical event. Everyone was there.

  Included in everyone, though less famous and glamorous than many of the rest of everyone, were Charles Paris and his wife Frances. She had somehow heard about his accident and come down to visit him in the Brighton hospital. His injuries were not too bad. Apart from extensive bruising, the only real damage was a broken ankle. In fact, the rather gloomy young doctor who dealt with him described it as a Pott’s fracture and said that with a fall like that, he was lucky not to have crushed a few vertebrae, fractured his calcaneum and broken his sternum. He was out within a week, complete with a cartoon plaster on his foot and a pair of authentic-looking tubular crutches. There was no chance of his appearing in the show and there was talk of compensation from the company. The wheel had come full circle; his identification with Everard Austick was now complete.

  It was difficult to say where he stood with Frances. She had accepted his invitation to the first night and there had been no mention of Alec, the scout-master. And yet she seemed distant. Perhaps just making her point that she was no longer around whenever he needed picking up out of depression. It wasn’t a tangible change, but it made him feel that if really he did want her back, he’d have to work for her.

  It was like going out with someone for the first time, not knowing which way the evening would turn out.

  In the crowded foyer they met William Bartlemas and Kevin O’Rourke, a pair of indefatigable first-nighters resplendent in the Victorian evening dress they always affected for such occasions. Why, Charles . . .’ exclaimed Bartlemas.

  ‘Charles Paris . . .’ echoed O’Rourke.

  ‘What have you been doing to yourself . . .?’

  ‘You have been in the wars . . .’


  ‘What was it – some tart stamp on your foot . . .?’

  ‘I don’t think you’ve met my wife, Frances.’

  ‘Wife? Dear, oh dear. Never knew you were married . . .’

  ‘Lovely to meet you though, Frances . . .’

  ‘Lovely, Frances darling. Such a pretty name . . .’

  ‘But Charles, I thought you were in this show . . .’

  ‘But obviously the leg put you out. You know what it was, O’Rourke, someone wished him luck. You know, the old theatrical saying – break a leg . . .’

  ‘Break a leg! Oh, that’s too divine . . .’

  ‘Going to be a marvellous show tonight, isn’t it, Charles . . .?

  ‘Well, of course you’d know, wouldn’t you? I mean, you’ve been working with him. Such a clever boy, isn’t he, Christopher . . .?’

  ‘Clever? More than clever. That boy is an Al, thumping great star. If the national press don’t all agree about that in the morning, I’m a Swedish au pair girl . . .’

  ‘Oh, but they will. He is such a big star. I think he’s really brought stardom back into the business. We’ve had all those dreary little actors with Northern accents who spend all their time saying how they’re just like ordinary people . . .’

  ‘But stars shouldn’t be like ordinary people. Stars should be larger than life . . .’

  ‘And Christopher Milton is . . . so big. We were reading an interview with him in one of the Sundays . . .’

  ‘By some American girl, Suzanne somebody . . . very good it was . . .’

  ‘Oh, super. And you’ve been working with him, Charles. That must have been wonderful . . .’

  ‘Yes, but wonderful.

  It was very strange seeing a show he had been with for so long from out front, but perhaps less strange with Lumpkin! than it would have been with anything else. It had changed so much since he last saw it that it was like seeing a new show. The cast must have been working every hour there was since Brighton. And they did well. The first-night sparkle was there and they were all giving of their best.

  The show had gained in consistency of style. Wally Wilson had also been working away like mad and, for all the part he played in the final product, Oliver Goldsmith might as well have taken his name off the credits. Charles reflected that in the whole case there had only been one murder – that of She Stoops to Conquer.

  The changes had involved more cuts and now Tony Lumpkin’s part totally overshadowed all the others. In less skilled hands than those of Christopher Milton it would have overbalanced the show, but the star was at his brilliant best. He leapt about the stage, singing and dancing whole new numbers with amazing precision and that perfect timing which had so struck Charles at the early rehearsals in the Welsh Dragon Club. The show would be a personal triumph. It was bound to be if it succeeded at all, because no other member of the cast got a look in.

  At the interval there was a buzz of satisfaction in the audience. Charles, who was feeling tired and achey after his bruises, couldn’t face the rush for the bar and sat quietly with Frances. Greatly daring, like a schoolboy on his first date, he put his hand on hers and squeezed it. She returned the pressure, which made him feel ridiculously cheerful. Their hands interlocked and he felt the familiar kitchen-knife scar on her thumb.

  He looked at the busy stalls. He could see Kevin McMahon in the middle of a congratulatory throng, smiling with satisfaction. Gwyneth, David Meldrum’s assistant, was coming up the aisle towards him. They were like creatures from a previous existence.

  Gwyneth stopped by his seat to ask how he was. He told her, but she hung around, for the first time in their acquaintance seeming to want a conversation. He asked a few idle questions about the company and production details. Running out of things to say, he asked, ‘Who’s the new stage manager?’

  ‘New one? Why, it’s still Spike.’

  ‘Still Spike?’

  ‘Yes, of course. He’s in charge in the fly gallery tonight.’

  A familiar cold trickle of anticipation crept into Charles as the lights dimmed for the second act.

  It continued to go well. The audience, enlivened by their gins and tonics, seemed more relaxed and receptive. The show was building up to the climax of the Chase Scene. The profusion of comic business meant that no one was aware of the butchery that the plot had undergone. The audience exploded with laughter time and again. Only Charles Paris was silent.

  The Chase Scene arrived and the audience roared. Charles held his breath when it came to the Star Trap moment, but the machinery of the King’s Theatre delivered its burden safely on stage at the correct time and gained an enormous laugh.

  But the respite for Charles was only temporary. He knew what was happening behind the scenes. While doubles onstage continued their interweaving and dancing, the real Tony Lumpkin climbed to the gallery where he would have the Kirby wire attached to the corset he was already wearing. The audience laughed away at the action onstage while Charles fought with the nausea of horror.

  Bang on cue, Christopher Milton appeared. He descended slowly from the heavens and his appearance gathered the round of applause that always attends spectacular stage effects.

  The pace of his descent suddenly accelerated. The applause died as if it had been switched off. No longer was the star coming down at a controlled speed; he was free-falling. The real panic in his eyes and the jerking of his arms and legs communicated his fear to the audience. For about twenty feet he fell and then sharply the wire was taken up again and he came to rest bobbing about five feet above the stage.

  There was a long pause while Charles could feel the agony of the corset cutting under the star’s arms. Then Christopher Milton pulled a Lionel Wilkins face and said, ‘I beg yours?’ The house erupted into laughter and applause.

  And that was how the rest of the show went. Everything that should have got laughs did, every song was applauded to the echo and Christopher Milton could do no wrong. At the end there were twelve curtain calls and the audience was still shouting for more when the curtain came down for the last time.

  Afterwards Charles, who was the least showbiz-conscious person in his profession, felt he had to go round backstage. There was an enormous mêlée of people outside the stage door.

  He met one of the stage management struggling out against the crowd (no doubt sent by thirsty actors to stock up with drinks before the pubs closed). She recognised him. ‘How are you? Wasn’t it marvellous tonight?’

  ‘Great. Barbara, where’s Spike?’

  ‘Well, that’s strange. I don’t know. He was in the gallery and then there was that cock-up in the Chase Scene. Did you notice it?’

  ‘I think the whole audience noticed it.’

  ‘Oh no. Apparently most of them thought it was deliberate. Anyway, Spike went off straight after that. It was very strange, he said something about some things you can’t beat and that he was leaving and wouldn’t be coming back. And he went. Amazing, isn’t it? He always was a funny bloke.’

  ‘Yes,’ said Charles. ‘He was.’

  At that moment the stage door crowd surged forward and Charles and Frances found themselves swept into the theatre. Standing in the green room (he had been mobbed before he could even get to his dressing-room) was Christopher Milton. He was smiling, radiant, happy, as the world milled around him and everyone said how marvellous he was.

  He saw Charles and reached out a hand to wave across the throng. ‘Hello. Are you better? What did you think of it?’

  ‘Bloody fantastic,’ said Charles. And he meant it.

 

 

 
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