The Twist of a Knife, page 4
But that was impossible, wasn’t it? Critics never attended first-night parties. It was completely inappropriate and might even be seen as unethical. I couldn’t imagine what she was thinking, coming here. Could it be that she was a friend of one of the actors? That was extremely unlikely, given what Ewan had told me, and anyway, it would still have been wrong. Her job was to go home and write whatever she was going to write. She wasn’t part of the production and for all Ahmet’s smiles, she couldn’t be welcome here – particularly if she hadn’t liked the play.
I watched Ahmet leaning towards her, speaking earnestly. It was impossible to hear what he was saying with all the noise. For her part, Harriet was already bored and looking past him. I saw her eyes settle on the man Ahmet had just been talking to – the thin man in the suit. Brushing past Ahmet, she went over to him, smiling as if he was an old friend. The thin man stared at her, appalled. Harriet said something and he replied. Again, the words were lost in the crowd.
As the two of them continued their conversation, I pushed my way through about a dozen people and found Ewan, who was standing next to Tirian Kirke and Sky Palmer. ‘Have you seen?’ I asked.
‘What?’
‘Harriet Throsby!’
Ewan grimaced. ‘Didn’t Ahmet warn you she’d be here?’ he said. ‘She always comes to first-night parties. She expects to be invited . . . in fact, she insists upon it. Whatever you do, don’t ask her about the play – and I mean the writing, the performances, the scenery . . . anything. Just don’t go there. She won’t tell you what she thinks. She never does.’
‘Then why is she here?’ Tirian asked. He was as surprised as I was.
‘God knows. It doesn’t make any difference to what she’s going to write, but I think it gives her a sense of power. She knows we’re all scared of her.’
‘I’m not scared of her,’ Tirian said.
‘Then she’s probably never given you a bad review.’
Tirian thought for a moment. ‘I haven’t done much theatre – and I don’t care what she thinks. I’ve already got my next job and there’s nothing she can say that can change that.’
‘Tenet,’ Sky said.
‘Yes. We’re going to be shooting in Paris. I’ve never been to France, so I can’t wait. And we might be going to Denmark and Italy too.’
‘Who are you playing?’ I asked.
‘A spy. The character doesn’t have a name. In fact, he doesn’t even have a character. They sent me the script last week and the truth is, it’s completely insane. There are bullets that travel backwards in time, something called the Algorithm that’s going to either destroy the world or save it – I don’t know – and doors between dimensions. It’s total nonsense. Christopher Nolan may be a big-shot director, but he’s got his head right up his arse. Not that I care. Eleven weeks shooting. A ton of money. And I go to France.’
‘Shh . . . !’ Sky warned.
It was too late. Harriet Throsby had made her way over to us and had heard what he was saying. It certainly wasn’t the best way Tirian could have described his big breakthrough, and he was startled when he saw her standing behind him. She glanced at him and I saw a spark of malevolence in her eyes. Tirian twisted away awkwardly.
‘Good evening, Harriet,’ Ewan said, with no enthusiasm.
The Sunday Times critic stopped and examined us, measuring us up as if she was intending to review the party as well as the play. For the first time, I was able to examine her properly.
She was not large but she certainly had presence, expensively dressed in a cut-off jacket with a faux-fur collar and pearls. She was wearing horn-rimmed glasses that might have been deliberately chosen to make her look antagonistic, and she had a bulky black leather handbag – big enough to hold a laptop – looped over her arm. Her hair was obviously dyed, which was odd because it was an unpleasant colour, somewhere between brown and ginger. She had cut it short with a fringe, like a flapper girl from the twenties, which was exactly what she wasn’t. It didn’t suit her at all. I guessed she was about fifty. Her skin was pale and her make-up – the rouge, the lipstick, the eyeshadow – was so pronounced that it concealed her face rather than highlighted it. She could have been wearing a mask.
The girl who had arrived with her had followed her across and I decided that I was right and that she must be Harriet’s daughter. She also had short hair, the same eyes and turned-up nose, although in almost every other respect the two women could not have been more different. She looked downtrodden, miserable. She had deliberately chosen to dress down for the occasion with a denim jacket and a loose-fitting T-shirt printed with a photograph of Kristen Stewart in her role as the star of Twilight. Nor did she make any attempt to connect with the people in the room. Everything about her appearance and her manner suggested an archetypal stroppy teenager, dominated by a mother she didn’t like. The trouble was, she was actually quite a bit older, probably in her early twenties.
‘How nice to see you, Ewan,’ Harriet said brightly and even in that greeting and the cold smile that accompanied it, I got a sense of the game she was playing. She was enjoying herself, watching us squirm. I thought there was an American twang to her voice, but maybe it was just her extreme self-confidence, the way she targeted her words. ‘How have you been keeping?’
‘I’m very well, thank you, Harriet,’ Ewan said, his eyes blinking more rapidly than ever.
‘What a delightful idea to have a party in a Turkish restaurant, although I have to say I’m not a big fan of foreign food. Olivia and I had half an hour in the Savoy. Excellent cocktails, although those big hotels don’t exactly light my fire. And they’re shockingly expensive too.’ She changed the subject without pausing. ‘I hear Sheffield have their new artistic director. I thought you might have been in the running.’
‘No. I wasn’t interested.’
‘Really? You do surprise me. So, you’re trying your hand at comedy thrillers. Very hard to get right. I saw . . . who was it? . . . in Deathtrap a few years ago. Simon Russell Beale, of course! I never forget a face! I thought he was excellent, although the play had rather dated. Ira Levin. I used to like his novels. As a matter of fact, I recently read one of yours.’ It took me a moment to realise that Harriet was now addressing me. She had a strange way of avoiding my eye while she spoke, looking over my shoulder as if hoping someone more interesting had come into the room.
‘Thank you,’ I said.
‘I’ve always been a fan of crime fiction. I used to write about crime. Non-fiction. I didn’t find it entirely satisfying, though. Criminals are so boring. Not all of them – but most of them. What was the one I read? I can’t remember now. But Olivia used to read your books too. Didn’t you, dear!’
‘Alex Rider.’ The girl looked embarrassed.
‘You used to like them. They were stories about a young assassin.’
‘He’s not really an assassin,’ I said. ‘He’s a spy.’
‘He did kill people,’ Olivia contradicted me.
Her mother leered at me. ‘And now you’re writing for the theatre.’
‘Yes.’ I couldn’t stop myself. ‘Did you enjoy the play?’ Ewan glared at me. Tirian and Sky looked embarrassed. It was the one thing I’d been told not to do but I’d gone ahead and done it.
Harriet ignored me. It was as if I hadn’t spoken. ‘So, you’ve been cast in a big film,’ she said. Now she was talking to Tirian. ‘Personally, I have to say that I think it’s a shame, all our young talent going over the Atlantic.’
‘I’m only crossing the Channel,’ Tirian replied. ‘We’re shooting in Paris.’
‘You know what I mean, dear. I suppose the Americans pay so much better, but what does that do for our own theatre and television?’ Again, that malicious gleam.
There was an uncomfortable silence. None of us wanted to talk to Harriet Throsby. I think we were all hoping she’d go away.
Sky broke the silence. ‘It’s nice to see you, Olivia,’ she said.
‘Oh. Hello, Sky.’
‘Do you two know each other?’ Harriet asked.
Olivia said nothing, so Sky explained. ‘We met at the first-night party for The Crucible at the Barbican. I played Mercy Lewis.’
‘Yes. I remember you.’
‘You didn’t like the production.’
Harriet shrugged. ‘It had its moments. Unfortunately, as I recall, they were too few and far between.’ She turned back to me, although once again her eyes refused to meet mine, as if she was trying to remind me that I meant nothing to her. ‘I’m glad I spotted you. What a lovely party! So unusual to have it Turkish-themed. Come on, Olivia. Our car’s waiting for us . . .’
And then the two of them were gone, crossing the restaurant to the exit and disappearing into the rain. I watched the door swing shut. The four of us were left trying to work out what had just occurred.
‘I need a large whisky,’ Ewan said. He put down his glass. ‘This Turkish wine tastes like cat’s piss.’
‘I’ve got a bottle of vodka in my dressing room,’ Sky said.
‘I’ve got some Scotch,’ Tirian added.
‘Then why don’t we go back?’ Ewan suggested.
None of us wanted to be at the party any more. Harriet Throsby hadn’t said anything mean or vindictive about the play but she had nonetheless spoiled it for all of us, which was exactly what she had intended.
Ewan looked at his watch. ‘I’ll go and get Jordan. Let’s meet there in ten . . .’
I shouldn’t have gone. I wish I’d listened to my earlier instincts and gone home with my family. Everything would have been so different. But, of course, you never know these things at the time. That’s why life is so different to fiction. Every day is a single page and you have no chance to thumb forward and see what lies ahead.
4
The First Review
Going backstage at the theatre is always a bizarre experience. It’s like stepping into a secret world.
All the comforts that the audience enjoys and expects disappear the moment you step through the stage door. Backstage, everything is relentlessly old-fashioned and utilitarian, as if the architects have deliberately set out to remind the actors and the crew that they are only the servants and matter less than the paying guests. The Vaudeville was built in the Romanesque style back in the late nineteenth century. Henry Irving had his first noticeable success there. I’ve described the luxuriousness of the lobby and the auditorium. But the corridors and dressing rooms on the other side of the mirror were quite another matter. Here, the flooring was covered by linoleum. Pipes and cables snaked willy-nilly along the walls, twisting between fire extinguishers, alarm boxes and overbright, naked light bulbs. I was fascinated by the pieces of defunct machinery that had been screwed into place a century ago and then forgotten. Even the noticeboard with its tatty cards and clippings could have come from a police station or a failing secondary school. I found it all rather alluring. The backstage area of any London theatre would make a great set. One glance and you’d know exactly where you were.
It was pelting with rain when I made my way back to Maiden Lane, the little backstreet in which the stage door of the Vaudeville was located. Normally, the theatre would have closed by ten o’clock, but Keith, the deputy stage-door manager, had agreed we could hang out there until midnight. Sky Palmer had arrived ahead of me and was shaking water out of a Gucci umbrella. It had the trademark diamond-shaped pattern and logo and, unlike Ahmet’s watch, I didn’t think it was fake. I was quite surprised she had agreed to come. She didn’t often socialise with the rest of the company, but perhaps, on the first night, she felt she couldn’t let the others down.
I had barely spoken to her at the party and congratulated her on her performance. ‘I thought you were great tonight.’
‘Did you? I don’t know . . .’
Why did she have to be so unenthusiastic? ‘I think the audience enjoyed it.’
‘Maybe.’ She didn’t sound convinced.
Fortunately, we were rescued by Keith, who stepped out of his cramped, awkwardly shaped office carrying a white box. ‘This came for you,’ he said. He handed it to me.
It was a first-night present with a label wishing me good luck, signed by Ahmet. Sky was looking at it dubiously but I have to say I was rather touched. I opened and took out an object tightly wrapped in tissue paper. I tore off the paper to reveal, of all things, an ornamental dagger, about twenty centimetres long, in a black leather sheath. The blade was silver and very sharp. The handle was wooden, embossed with a circular, metallic medallion decorated with what might have been Celtic knotwork. It looked like an old Scottish dirk, although it was obviously a reproduction and not very well made. The medallion wobbled when I touched it.
‘Oh . . . look at that,’ I said, showing it to Sky. At the same time, I couldn’t help thinking that it was also rather odd. ‘I don’t know what it’s got to do with the play,’ I added. It was true. Mindgame is violent, but nobody is killed – and certainly not with a dirk.
‘You have to look at the blade,’ Sky said.
I did as she suggested and saw four words engraved in the metal: Is this a dagger . . . ?
‘He did Macbeth last year,’ she went on in a matter-of-fact way. I was surprised that, unlike most actors, she wasn’t superstitious about naming what most of them would call ‘the Scottish play’. It reinforced my impression that she wasn’t completely committed to the acting world. ‘He put it on in the ruins of a castle in Yorkshire, but it didn’t last very long. It poured with rain for the first three performances, Banquo slipped over in the mud, and it closed at the end of the week. He had these made for the cast.’
‘And he’s giving the ones that were left over to us?’
‘That’s right. I’ve got mine in my dressing room. I don’t know what I’m going to do with it.’
‘Well,’ I tried, ‘I suppose it’s the thought that counts.’
‘Yes. He thought we wouldn’t notice he’s a complete cheapskate.’
We signed our names and added the time in the register that was kept in the corridor, then went through the swing doors and past the first dressing room. Jordan Williams came out and laughed when he saw me with water trickling down my face. Unlike Sky, I hadn’t had an umbrella.
‘You look like a drowned rat!’ he exclaimed, enunciating every word as if they’d been rehearsed. He handed me a towel. At the same time, he noticed the knife. ‘I see you’ve picked up your opening-night prezzie.’ He produced his own and waved it at me. ‘Touché’. He was evidently in a good mood. As far as he was concerned, the performance had gone well and he’d already had plenty to drink. ‘Shall we go down?’
The Vaudeville is unusual among London’s Victorian theatres in that it has a green room where the actors can meet and relax. We went down the stairs and along the corridor to a door that opened into a small, square space where Ewan and Tirian were already waiting for us. As promised, Tirian had opened a bottle of Scotch. He was sitting at a table with a half-filled glass in front of him and a backpack resting against his chair. Sky had popped into her dressing room, which was next door, and returned with a bottle of vodka and a chocolate cake – both of them gifts from friends. Jordan, in the dressing gown that he always wore between performances and still holding his dagger, threw himself into an armchair with his leg lolling over one side. Ewan poured him a glass of whisky, spilling a few drops onto the carpet and adding to the stains from a hundred first nights, a liquid history of the Vaudeville. The room would have been shabby in any other context but here it seemed homely, with a battered table, chairs and a worn-out sofa. There was a sink on one side and an old fridge. The rain was hammering at the window, but inside it was warm and cosy, with a two-bar heater turned on full and a CD of Noel Coward playing in the background. Everyone was relaxed. Even Jordan and Tirian seemed at ease with one another.
When I look back on the London production of Mindgame, I think this was my only truly happy night. It represented the brief interval between believing that the play might have succeeded and knowing that it hadn’t. For that one hour in the green room, I was part of the company and during that time all the tension and the hostility that had accompanied the rehearsal process evaporated – as if we had accepted that whatever happened, we were all in this together. We had given it our best shot. We might as well get drunk and enjoy ourselves. We talked. We laughed. We retold some of the stories from rehearsals and the road. Tirian did an imitation of Ewan that actually caught him remarkably well. Jordan used his Scottish dagger to cut slices of cake.
At about half past eleven, Ahmet turned up with two bottles of Turkish champagne and – no surprise – Maureen accompanied him. She had dressed very smartly for the first night. Along with the fur and the jewellery, she’d had her hair permed so ferociously that it looked like one of those balls of wire you use to scrub pans. Ahmet was in an ebullient mood, smoking a foul-smelling cigarette even though it wasn’t allowed backstage. He had come from the party with compliments ringing in his ears. He was certain the play was a success and grabbed me with both hands.
‘You are a genius!’ he exclaimed. ‘A great genius!’ He sounded almost relieved. As if he had never believed it until now.
Everyone picked up their glasses and drank a toast to me. By now we’d all had too much to drink.
It couldn’t last long. And it didn’t.
It was at exactly twelve o’clock midnight when Sky suddenly looked up from her phone.
