Spies and Stars

by Charlotte Bingham

  ‘Why this sudden treachery, Harry?’

  He smiled as tears from the onions trickled from his eyes.

  ‘Look,’ he said, pointing to his face. ‘The masks of tragedy and comedy in one,’ he said proudly.

  ‘Never mind that,’ I said, sticking a piece of bread in his mouth – something Mrs Graham always did when chopping onions. ‘Leslie Johns is no more suitable for The Happy Communist than Bennett Hunter would be.’

  ‘Oh, I don’t know,’ Harry replied, throwing the piece of bread over his shoulder. ‘Mr Hunter could be magic. Anyway, like it or lump it, Lottie-bags, we meet with the great man when shooting is over.’

  That was the trouble with Harry. Like my great-aunt Bibby’s pugs, he just didn’t do telling off. Pugs did what they did and that was that, and Harry was the same.

  I put the matter out of my mind, thinking nothing would come of it.

  Besides, there were new challenges for Harry on the horizon, and for me too. We had been asked to contribute to a musical revue, and what’s more Harry was to star in it. I had never written sketches before but Harry had, and so I had to learn that a sketch was a little play, which had to have a beginning and a middle and an end, but instead of lasting an hour and a half it took six or seven minutes.

  To my astonishment one of my sketches was included in the show. It was particularly astonishing since the main player in the sketch was a tank, which would shoot stars instead of bullets. Needless to say, the sketch was anti-war.

  I kept away from rehearsals because Harry told me, quite firmly, that actors hated writers and anyway he was there so he would look after my work.

  Of course, I believed him, and besides I was at MI5 during the day, and we were all getting a bit excited because Commander Steerforth and I thought we might have caught a double agent. He was an utterly believable character who could deceive almost anyone – except Commander Steerforth who had a nose for scoundrels due, he said, to having spent so much time at sea.

  ‘The salt breezes clear the nostrils,’ he assured me. ‘Any nasty tang approaching and you are alerted straight away, and that’s without binoculars.’

  He was rightly proud of this.

  Of course, I could not tell Harry about Commander Steerforth’s great catch, but it was one of the reasons that for once my mind was more concentrated on my security work than what was happening in rehearsal.

  The opening night was out of town, some way out of town, which made getting there with my parents a bit of a stately progress. My father was looking forward to it because he liked anything with music in it. He did not like straight theatre on the sound principle that the intervals were too long and he did not want to drink himself into the next act. My mother was looking forward to it because although she didn’t like musicals, at least revues had sketches. I didn’t tell them that I had a sketch in it – I thought it better to keep quiet on that front.

  When we arrived I went round to see Harry in his dressing room and he was in a right old state because they hadn’t rehearsed enough and there was only one bulb above his mirror, so making up was a nightmare. I did not attempt to calm him – but once again he reminded me of one of Aunt Bibby’s pugs. If a pug’s tail goes straight he is really in a stew – Harry’s tail was straight all right.

  So the heavy old-fashioned velvet curtains parted and there was mild applause as a very pretty set was revealed. On came Harry singing, to be joined a few seconds later by a very pretty actress who opened her mouth to respond, only for nothing to come out. The orchestra played on and Harry, obviously loath to be at a complete loss, finally hummed her part obligingly, but still nothing came out of the poor girl’s mouth.

  ‘Her jaw’s locked,’ my mother whispered. My mother knew about these things.

  ‘Harry hums rather well,’ my father said, a little too loudly.

  The musical number came to an end, to be followed by a sketch set in a restaurant during which Harry had to hurl crockery for reasons I could not quite understand, but I could see that in the process of the hurling he had cut his hand and had to wrap a napkin round it, which worried the audience.

  After that things went from worse to much worse as the actress with the locked jaw not only found it hard to sing, but almost impossible to speak, which meant that the other actors were all too often heard to say: ‘I think what you mean is …’ The musical numbers continued to be a mess to say the least, with Harry singing as cheerfully as he could only to be responded to by unintelligible responses. Meanwhile the audience went from baffled to hysterical, and the interval was a riot.

  I do not like to revel in the misfortunes of others so did not go backstage in the interval but stayed in the bar with my parents, who were looking remarkably relaxed and good-tempered.

  ‘Your mother loves things going wrong – and, I must say, I quite enjoy telling people about it afterwards,’ my father murmured. He paused, his expression serious. ‘I think Harry is doing splendidly, not easy to hum in tune.’

  The curtain rose on the second act of the entertainment and the understudy came on to replace the poor lockjawed lead. She could sing and she could certainly speak, but the truth was that after the excitements of the first act the audience seemed to be waiting for more of the same.

  My sketch was the last item of the evening. On came Harry all ready to start the sketch, but the stage manager must have forgotten to do something essential because the tank started to take on a life of its own, making its inexorable way towards the orchestra pit. Harry rushed forward to wedge his foot behind a wheel, while the understudy somehow triggered the device to shoot the stars, which all promptly fell on to the stage. At a screeched command from Harry the poor benighted actress took over from him, wedging her foot under a wheel, while Harry rushed about the stage stamping on the burning stars.

  The audience rocked with laughter, the tank was removed, and the revue finally finished with all the cast on-stage singing a rousing number, the words of which I have happily forgotten. But I have an awful feeling they involved everyone having been at a marvellous party.

  ‘I am quite sure your number made the evening for everyone, Lottie,’ my father said, patting me on the shoulder when we got back to Dingley Dell.

  Harry could not agree. In fact, he could not wait to come off tour and abandon the revue but it staggered on for some months, during which my belief in MI5 grew ever stronger because we caught not one double agent, but two, which made Commander Steerforth as happy as we had ever seen him, if not Monty. To his dismay the Commander’s euphoria translated into yet more bouquets for Arabella’s mother, and yet more vases to be filled by Monty.

  ‘Say what you like but you can go off flowers, you know,’ he kept murmuring every time Arabella and I stopped by.

  All in all, it was quite a relief when Harry’s revue finally folded, and the poor young leading lady went off in search of a cure for her first-night lockjaw.

  I didn’t tell Harry but I had become somewhat disillusioned with theatre.

  It was so unglamorous backstage, and no one was very happy until they got to the pub afterwards when they all seemed to cheer up like there was no tomorrow.

  Harry swore he would never do another revue, which was only understandable.

  His thoughts therefore turned to The Happy Communist.

  ‘Not the version with Leslie Johns? Please, Harry. Please, please, please.’

  He gave me the look he had adopted since my tank sketch. The look said: ‘After what you put me through with your sketch, you owe me far too much to argue with me.’ And of course I did feel a mountain of guilt about it, so I shut up, which was hard for me.

  A bit like the tank rolling inexorably towards the orchestra pit, the whole thing seemed to be trundling on of its own accord, no matter what I thought or felt. Leslie Johns’ agent had rung Dewi and they had arranged for us to see him in cabaret at a theatre that seated hundreds more than the usual places where cabaret played.

  The evening loomed over me l
ong before it happened. After the revue experience I had developed a fear of anything in the way of live singing and dancing, not to mention comedy. But I didn’t want to let Harry down.

  The evening started off with Leslie Johns sending a car for us. Well, it wasn’t just a car; it was a Bentley, complete with driver. Since it had been sent to Harry’s address in downtown Earls Court it drew quite a crowd, I can tell you.

  Dermot pointed out of the window at it as we bustled about ready to leave. ‘That car cost as much as this flat,’ he called after us.

  ‘Get into Variety and you could have both, Dermot,’ Harry called back.

  He explained to me that it was as necessary to Leslie Johns to put on a good show for us as it had been for us to appear swanky and successful before Bennett Hunter. In fact, it was even more important if you were a Variety star like Leslie Johns because everyone thought you were on the downslide if you didn’t turn up in a Rolls-Royce or a Bentley. Their agents couldn’t even negotiate if they didn’t have a Rolls or a Bentley, not to mention a large house with a swimming pool.

  ‘It’s a different world to the theatre, Lottie-bags, quite different. Theatre is small change compared to Variety. Seaside audiences just don’t want to see King Lear after a shrimp tea and four glasses of Tizer.’

  I could understand that, but at the same time I still felt that we might not be the right writers for Leslie Johns. The memory of the tank incident acted as a dreadful warning.

  The evening began with a great many bad acts meant to make the audience restless for the main course, which was of course Leslie Johns.

  When he came on he was received with rapture, and understandably so since he gave them what they loved. Nothing entirely new, nothing too dated, just pure Leslie Johns. Harry was thrilled. He loved comedians and often went to see his favourites, never tiring of their catchphrases. I must say I did become a fan of Leslie Johns during the evening, but was still filled with doubt about whether our pens would suit him. One thing I did know was that I would not be putting him in a tank.

  ‘Come on, we’re invited backstage,’ Harry called to me afterwards.

  ‘Are you sure?’

  ‘Of course I’m sure. It’s a rule. You get comps, you go back and thank.’

  ‘We could write a note,’ I suggested, following him.

  ‘What – while we’re sitting in the back of his car with him?’

  Knowing nothing about Variety, I feared I might stick out like a sore thumb at a piano recital or maybe get lockjaw like the poor actress in the revue.

  The moment we were shown to Leslie Johns’ dressing room with the glittering star on its door and heard the rumble of talk and laughter, I started to feel like I was walking into a new world, which of course I was.

  The door was opened by a smart dresser with a bright Hollywood smile.

  Behind him a table was set with champagne glasses and not one but two buckets with champagne bottles peeping merrily out of them. The lighting was what Melville would call ‘divine’. It was all so different from ‘theatre’ where the dressing-room lighting was more often than not a row of light bulbs burning forlornly around shabby mirrors. In this dressing room there were no worn-down make-up sticks or frayed towels. This room blazed with light, and to my delighted eyes everyone seemed to be sprinkled with stardust.

  Leslie Johns stood in the middle in a wonderful white towelling dressing gown such as champion boxers wear. In his hand, and indeed everyone else’s, was a champagne glass, which his circling dresser was busy keeping filled.

  Soon Harry and I too had champagne glasses being refilled after every sip. It was a dizzying change after the tooth mugs and cooking sherry that was our normal fayre when visiting friends backstage.

  I soon found myself being introduced to Lonny Langley – catchphrase ‘Getting along with Lonny, incher?’ I knew him from watching Sunday telly with my father who was a Lonny Langley fan.

  ‘I have heard a great deal about you young writers,’ he said, smiling widely.

  ‘If that is the case perhaps I had better go?’ I quipped. Valiantly – or lamely, depending on how you view such an answer. ‘Although we have written a film for Bennett Hunter but – it hasn’t been oxygenated yet.’

  He purred.

  ‘I can see why Leslie has his eye on you,’ he stated, getting closer and closer to me.

  ‘Really?’

  ‘You know who I am, of course?’

  ‘Yes, of course. You are very, very famous.’

  ‘Yes, I am,’ he agreed.

  ‘You are almost as famous as the Queen.’

  ‘Almost.’ He puffed on his long diamanté-encrusted cigarette holder. ‘And almost as rich. Although her tiara is bigger than mine, something I will have fixed before my next panto. People …’ he confided, realising that I was riveted, and anyway he was so close to me, I could not move even if I’d wanted to. ‘People,’ he went on, ‘many, many people, keep trying to make me ashamed of my success, but I refuse to be. I will not be ashamed of my Rolls-Royce, or my villa in the South of France, or my penthouse in Brighton, or my flat in Belgravia. I am proud to be successful. In this country, too many people are cut down to size because of their success. I say: more. More success is what I work for – just like the Queen.’

  As he was speaking Lonny Langley advanced closer and closer to me, which meant that I stepped further and further back and back until I ended up against the wall, my eyes popping out of my head because I had never before been privileged to hear a monologue like this. It was both exciting, and strangely subversive.

  Money was never talked about at Dingley Dell and with good reason; there was not enough of it about to support a conversation of any lasting interest.

  ‘I am very, very jealous of Leslie employing you, very jell-jell indeed.’

  ‘Oh, I shouldn’t be,’ I reassured him. ‘We are—’

  I was about to embark on a modest speech about only just beginning when I realised that it would be against his principles, so I stopped.

  ‘You are?’

  ‘Only passing brilliant.’

  ‘There you go again!’ He laughed immoderately. Then he leaned forward and whispered in my ear, ‘Have you ever done panto?’

  ‘Not as such.’

  ‘But you would love to, of course?’

  ‘Of course.’

  ‘Your agent shall be notified by my agent.’

  He went to move away as he saw Leslie Johns bearing down on us.

  ‘But, hush, here comes the wicked Baron.’

  Soon afterwards the party broke up, and Harry took me firmly by the arm and guided me out of the theatre where we waited for Leslie Johns.

  ‘You want to be careful of Lonny Langley,’ Harry said, crossly. ‘He has a very bad reputation.’

  ‘What for?’

  ‘What do you think? Pinching—’

  ‘Chorus girls?’

  ‘No, writers,’ Harry said, even more crossly.

  ‘He doesn’t seem the type, seems the other way,’ I said absently.

  Leslie Johns came out and we followed him into his Bentley. It was his turn to look at me.

  ‘You want to be careful of Lonny,’ he said, sternly.

  ‘I just told her,’ Harry said quickly.

  ‘He’s always pinching writers.’

  I gazed out of the window, not wanting to tell either of them how I felt. I did not mind if Lonny Langley pinched us, or anyone else for that matter. The truth was I had fallen heavily in love with Variety.

  *

  The following evening at the flat Dermot was much in evidence hanging about where we normally worked, huddled behind a screen for privacy. He kept poking his head round the side to ask unnecessary questions along the lines of, did one of us plan to have a bath tonight?

  Harry rolled his eyes at me so much I thought he might pass out with the effort. Finally he got up and beckoned to me to leave.

  ‘We’re going to the coffee bar to write, Dermot,’ he called. �
�It’s much quieter.’

  I trotted along beside Harry, who was inclined to forget that I was a great deal shorter.

  ‘Dermot,’ he explained as I went into an extended trot to keep up, ‘overheard our conversation about Leslie Johns and wants to find out whether we’re going to take up the offer, because if we don’t he will.’

  ‘Coat-tailing as usual,’ I muttered.

  ‘It would be easier to write in an Anderson shelter than at the flat.’

  I stopped trotting and after a bit Harry did look back and notice.

  ‘I am not handing yet another job to that sneak Dermot, not even if I have to write for both Leslie Johns and Lonny Langley at the same time.’

  Harry beckoned me to catch up. ‘We are not writing for either of them.’

  I stopped again.

  ‘I am,’ I said, wearing my best intransigent expression.

  ‘You must be kidding?’

  ‘No, I am not,’ I said, firmly, and resumed trotting so quickly that this time Harry had to catch up with me.

  ‘But you didn’t even want to see his show … you didn’t want to see Leslie Johns’ show.’

  ‘I know,’ I agreed. ‘But that was before I went backstage and saw his dressing room and all that champagne, and those lovely thick white towels.’

  ‘Lottie—’

  Since Harry had been left speechless we did not resume our conversation until we had settled into our usual coffee-bar pews.

  ‘Lottie,’ Harry said again, louder, because I was busy staring at the menu wondering whether to have chips with my omelette, which was always a difficult moment for me.

  I put down the menu.

  ‘It’s no good, I will have to have chips.’

  ‘Lottie, we can’t write for Variety. We’re too finely wrought for that kind of rough and tumble. Do you know what they get up to?’

  ‘Yes, Harry, and I don’t care. I want to be in dressing rooms that serve champagne and have performers wearing nice clean dressing gowns and dressers that smile and are charming.’

  ‘What about artistic integrity? Whatever happened to that?’

  ‘It’s in the Lost Property Office at Victoria Station. I might pick it up – in a few weeks’ time.’