Death Of A Hollow Man

Another Opening, Another Show

Christmas had come and gone, and the weather was far from clement. The woman who climbed out of the shiny blue Metro was wearing a full-length fur coat (beaver) and a silk-lined fur hood. She made her way across the wet pavements to the Far Horizons Travel Agency and gratefully hurried into its warmth. She pushed back the hood as she waited at the counter, revealing soft gray-blue curls, and also removed her gloves. She asked for some cruise brochures and, at the sound of her voice, the agency’s only other customer, a slender girl in black, turned and spoke in some surprise.

“Doris?”

“Kitty—hullo.” Doris Winstanley’s response was a spontaneous smile; then, remembering past circumstances, an embarrassed silence. Kitty was far from embarrassed. She smiled back and asked Doris where on earth she was planning to sail away to.

“I’m not sure. It’s just that all my life I’ve dreamed of going on a cruise. Of course, I never thought I’d have the opportunity.”

“Don’t blame you, Doris. Weather like this. You want to be careful, though.”

“I’m sorry? I’m not sure …”

“Lounge lizards. All those charmers looking round for unattached wealthy ladies.”

“Oh, I’m not at all wealthy,” Doris said quickly. “But I have had a little windfall. So I thought I’d treat myself.”

“Super. Are you going to stay in Causton when you come back?”

“Oh, yes. I have quite a few friends here.” (Indeed, it had surprised her how many people had visited and shown genuine concern and support over the last few weeks. People who had never showed their faces when Harold was at home.) “And I’m going to let my two spare rooms to students when I come back. I’ve already contacted Brunei. It’ll be lovely to have young people around the place again. My own children are so far away.”

Doris talked on for a few minutes more. She didn’t mind at all Kitty asking questions, or the brazen flavor of her advice. Doris was only grateful that Esslyn’s widow was able to meet her and chat with some degree of kindness. Kitty looked very attractive, and had made no concessions to the weather. Her black suit had a miniskirt, and she seemed to be wearing neither blouse nor jumper beneath the tight-fitting jacket. She was beautifully made up, and had on a little pillbox hat with a black veil that came just to the bridge of her pretty nose and through which her pearly skin gleamed. Doris concluded her ramblings by asking Kitty what she was doing in Far Horizons.

“I’m picking up my plane tickets. I fly to Ottawa on Tuesday. To visit my brother-in-law.” She adjusted the veil with rosy-tipped fingers. “He’s been so kind. They’re very anxious to console me.”

“Oh,” said Doris. There didn’t seem to be much else she could say except, “Have a nice trip.”

“You, too. And watch out for those lizards.” Kitty pushed her ticket into her bag. “Now, I must rush. I’ve got a friend coming at seven, and I want to have a bath. See you.”

Doris reflected for a moment on the unlikeliness of this assurance ever coming to pass, then she collected her pile of brochures and made her way to the Soft Shoe Cafe where she ordered tea and cakes. It was much more comfortable here than at home. There was hardly a stick of furniture in the place at the moment. All the tired, stained, hateful old rubbish of a lifetime had gone to the junkyard, and she would take her time replacing it. She would buy some new things and hunt for little treasures in antique shops. There would be plenty of time. And plenty of money. She had got an awful lot for the Morgan and, to her surprise, a very capable solicitor that Tom Barnaby recommended had sold the business for what seemed to Doris an enormous sum. And of course the house was in her name. Doris smiled, picked up her fork, and plunged it into an eclair.

Avery was cooking supper. They were eating in the kitchen as the surface of the dining-room table had almost disappeared under a large and beautiful working model of the set for Uncle Vanya. Tim had spent the last hour with a flashlight and colored cellophane, experimenting with lighting and making notes. Personally he thought the main room in the composite set looked as if it belonged to a villa in New Orleans rather than one in tum-of-the-century Russia, but there was no denying the close, enervating feel of the place, especially when the jalousies were closed and the light seeped through them and fell in dusty bars across the furniture.

“I hope you understand it’s just scratch.”

‘‘So you keep saying.” Tim transferred his attention to Avery’s garden, wonderfully light and airy, and pictured it under a bright blue sky. Then he went to the larder, chose a bottle of Pedroncelli, and wielded the corkscrew. “What are you scratching, then?”

“Skate.”

Tim poured two glasses of wine and put one by the cooker. Then he picked up Floyd on Fish. “I thought you said he wasn’t sound.”

“One mustn’t be too purist in these matters. Joycey didn’t want to keep it—understandable under the circs— so I took it off her hands. In fact”—he tasted the juices in the pan—“I think this is going to be rather good.”

Silently Avery cursed himself for leaving the book out (it was usually at the back of the dish towel drawer). The last thing he wanted was to remind Tim of the occasion of Esslyn’s death. For Tim had confessed to Avery (and Barnaby, too) that he had known about the plan to unseat Harold from its very emergence—although not about the blackmail. Assured by Esslyn that once he had taken charge, there would be no interference in the area of lighting or design, Tim had seen no reason why his original ideas should not be used in Amadeus, beginning on the first night.

Now, of course, he blamed himself for the outcome. If he had not kept the secret, if he had only told Avery— i.e., the entire company—Esslyn would probably be alive today. For weeks after Harold’s arrest, Tim sat around the house melancholic and racked with guilt. He hardly ate and took no interest in the shop, which, in the pre-Christmas rush, nearly had Avery demented, even though Nicholas gave up his job at the supermarket to help.

On top of this, Avery had his own feelings to cope with. A certain disappointment, for instance, at the realization that Tim’s seemingly brave and generous offer over the lighting had actually carried no risk at all if he knew Harold was to be deposed. But Avery nobly struggled to live with the fact that one small bubble had burst, and continued to cook ravishing meals when he wasn’t scurrying around the shop and catching up on orders till midnight. But now Tim was getting better. Almost his old self. Avery drained his glass and smiled across at his companion.

‘‘Don’t slosh it down like that. It’s a premier cru!”

“How you do go on.” Avery lifted the skate onto an oval dish, and Riley, who had been curled on top of the Bentwood stool like a cushion, leaped (or rather thudded) to the ground. Since Sunny had started visiting the theater on a regular basis, Riley had refused to enter the building and had skulked, wet, shivering, and martyred, in the yard by the trash bins. Avery had not been able to bear this for long, and the cat was now ensconced in the house, stout, comfortable, and living the life to which, in his most far-reaching and secret dreams, he had always believed his name entitled him. Now, he padded over to his plate and attacked the fish with gusto. It was not up to the pheasant Perigord he had had last night, but he was certainly prepared to give it eight out of ten for succulence.

“I’ve made some brown-bread ice cream for pudding.”

“My favorite.”

Avery chopped some parsley over the vegetables. “But I didn’t have time to shop today, so I’m afraid the baby carrots are frozen.”

“My God.” Tim banged down the knife with which he had been slicing a baguette. “And I understood this place had five stars.”

“Not for the food, duckie.” Tim laughed then. The first real laugh Avery had heard for weeks. They started to eat. “How is it?”

“Delicious.”

“What do you think … ?” mumbled Avery.

“Don’t speak with your mouth full.”

Avery swallowed and drank some more wine. “It’s ambrosial, this stuff. What do you think we ought to give Nico for a going-away present?”

“We’ve already given him The Year of the King. ”

“But that was weeks ago. Now he’s staying on for Vanya, shouldn’t we give him something else?”

“I don’t see why. We hardly see him, what with rehearsals. And Cully.”

“There’s talent, if you like.”

“Terrifying. I thought Nico was good, but she lights up the stage.”

“Tim … you’re not sorry Kitty’s gone?”

“Of course not. Don’t start.”

“I’m not. Truly.”

And, truly, he wasn’t. Avery, having weathered the first really shattering blow to the relationship that was the cornerstone of his existence, now experienced, somewhere unreachably deep within his heart, a safe, abiding peace. He didn’t quite understand this. It wasn’t that he thought that Tim would never stray again. Or even that he might not, on some future occasion, stray himself (although this struck him as incredibly unlikely). Rather, it seemed that his personality had somehow developed an extra dimension where hurts or sharp surprises could be absorbed or even neutralized. Gratitude for this unexpected and surprising state of affairs and for the very fact of his continuing existence, struck him anew, and he smiled.

“What are you beaming at in that fatuous manner?”

“I’m not.”

“You look ridiculous.”

“I was just thinking how nice it was that the good ended happily and the bad unhappily.”

“I thought that was only in fiction.”

“Not always,” said Avery, and poured some more wine.

“Can you drop me off?”

Barnaby and Troy were about to leave the office. Troy, trench coat tightly belted, a shiny packet of cigarettes to hand, was already anticipating that first cloudy, cool lungful. Barnaby shrugged on his greatcoat, adding, “It’s on your way home.” When his sergeant still did not reply, the chief inspector added, “You can smoke if you like.” Blimey. In my own car. In my own time. Thanks a bloody million. Troy noticed his boss’s eyebrows, which today looked more like used-up shreds of Brillo pads than ever, lift inquiringly.

“Where’s the Orion, sir?”

“Joyce took it in for an MOT.”

“Only I’m not going straight home … calling at the Golden Swans.” More waggling. “It’s a free house,” explained Troy. “Out on the Uxbridge Road.”

“That’s all right by me. I could do with something wet and warm on a night like this.”

“Well …” Red-faced, hanging on to the door handle, Troy elucidated further. “It’s not really a pub—that was just a joke—they’re on the bath, you see.”

Barnaby looked at his sergeant. And saw. “Ah. Sorry, Troy. I’m not usually so slow on the uptake. It’s been a long day.”

“Yes, sir.” The younger man made it halfway through the door, then turned and squared up to Barnaby in a manner both awkward and defiant. “I mean, the case is over.”

“Oh, yes, yes. What you do off duty’s your own affair.” Then, when Troy still hovered: “If you’re waiting for my approval, you’ll stand there till daisies grow out of your arse.”

“Good night then, sir.”

“Good night, Sergeant.” As the door closed, Barnaby called, “Give my regards to Maureen.”

That reminded him of the song about Broadway, which reminded him of theaters, which reminded him of the Latimer, which reminded him of Harold, whom he was trying to forget, which he did most of the time, especially once he got into the business of the day. After all, he told himself (yet again), it was just another arrest. A bit out of the ordinary in that it was someone he knew. Also slightly out of the ordinary in that, once Harold had realized that the crème de la crème of British journalism had not gathered to honor him, it had taken three men to hold him down and get him into a cell. Barnaby, for the first time that he could remember in working hours, took the coward’s way out and left them to it. But even in the canteen, he could still hear Harold screaming.

“Oh, Christ!” Barnaby slammed the office door and decided to walk home. A brisk trot through the snapping air should cool his blood. And calm his recollections. He strode down Causton High Street, darkness by his side. Naturally he had never expected, even as a naive young constable in the early fifties, that his policeman’s lot would be an entirely happy one. He had been prepared for foulness galore, and the preparation had not been in vain. But there were occasions when all the foulnesses memory held seemed to join together and become one great dark malodorous scab blotting out the good times, the bright times.

He strode on, crossing the road before he got to the Latimer even though it meant he would have to cross back further on. He didn’t want to go near the place. Neither did he have any intention of helping to paint the set for their next production, “heavenly” though his daughter had asserted it to be. She and Joyce would be in there now— he glanced at his watch—carrying on. He knew he’d probably feel differently in a few days’ time, perhaps even tomorrow, but just at the moment he was sick of actors. Sick to death of their ramshackle emotions and dissembling hearts. Of their posturing ways and secret, gossipy gatherings.

Then, on the principle that spiteful coincidence always seeks out those who can least tolerate it, as he moved out onto the Pelican crossing, the car that had stopped gave a friendly hoot and, glancing across, Barnaby saw the Everards. Their faces were grubby yellow under the sodium street lamps. Clive wound his window down and called, “Hello,” and Donald, who was driving, tootled again. Barnaby continued to walk.

There must be something, he grimly thought, as he grimly plodded on, still in a welter of miserable recall, to turn this sorry tide of introspection. Then, felicitously, outside the Jolly Cavalier, he stopped. The scene at that morning’s breakfast table popped into his mind. Joyce had said would he mind terribly, as she had a packed day and had to be at the theater by seven, getting something from the Indian or Chinese for his supper. So Barnaby pushed open the door of the Cavalier and went in.

Moving with the times, the pub offered a family/no-smoking room at the back. They also did all their own cooking. Barnaby obtained a large helping of meat pie-rich steak and kidney and flaky pastry—buttered broccoli, roast potatoes, and steamed treacle pudding for dessert. He added a pint of real ale and took his tray through.

The family room, living up to its name, held one small family. A thin young woman nursing a baby and a youngish man, heavily tattooed, who was crouching in front of a cardboard box filled with much-used toys and showing them to his three-year-old daughter. He was speaking quietly and offering first a shabby animal, then a doll. Their table was littered with potato-chip bags and beer bottles. Barnaby nodded curtly (he would much rather have had the place to himself), and sat down.

The hot, savory food was soothing, and gradually he started to relax. The little girl eventually chose a woolly lamb, took it back to their table, and offered it to her brother. He took it and dropped it on the floor. She reclaimed it and gave it back. He threw it down again. They both seemed to think this was a great joke.

Barnaby started on his pudding. He no longer wished he had the place to himself. The family about which, perhaps fortuitously, he knew nothing, seemed to offer, in a muddled way he could not be bothered to define, a kind of solace. He drained his glass and, deciding to make an evening of it, went to get another pint.

The Latimer caravan rolled on. Right now there was a rehearsal for Uncle Vanya. Rosa, who had seriously thought about getting off forever when she had been offered the measly part of the old nurse, was now glad that she hadn’t. It had been a near thing, though, more than once. Especially when she’d been told there was no such thing as a small part, only small actors. She’d flounced out then, but had sidled back after Joycey had made her some coffee and talked about how exciting it would all be. And Rosa had to admit that it was. Exhilarating, in fact. But frightening, too.

All the little technical tricks she had accumulated over the years had had to go. And that romantic husky voice the audience loved. All very well being told to use her imagination, search for the truth, and follow the syntax. Armorless, Rosa frequently felt she had never been on a stage before in her life. It was like stepping out over an abyss on a thin wire. And tired. She had never been so tired. When she looked back at all the leading roles that she had played, all on technique, without even getting out of breath, she marveled at her present exhaustion. Thank goodness for dear Earnest. He was such a comfort; warming her slippers by the fire, cocoa freshly made as soon as she tottered in. Rosa gathered her wits. It was nearly time for her entrance; opening Act IV.

Nicholas and Joyce sat together halfway up the stalls. They were both thinking of Cully. Nicholas, madly in love, wondered if she meant it when she said they would meet in London and, if he was in anything at Central, he was to let her know and she’d come along to cheer and shout.

Joyce, observing the sad splendor in which her daughter moved as Yelena, marveled and was afraid. What a business she was going into. Cully knew all about theatrical uncertainties, of course; her mother had made sure of that. All about being “between engagements” and the unanswered letters and the auditions where they would let you know and never did. But like all young hopefuls, she didn’t really think they would apply much to her. Joyce turned her attention to the stage, where Boris as Telyegin was holding out his arms, which were draped with a skein of wool. The ancient nurse, Marina, wound the ball slowly, holding it with great care in arthritic fingers. Her face and humped shoulders were old, but there was a robust peasant merriment in her cackling voice.

“Who’d ever have thought,” whispered Nicholas, “that Rosa could turn in a performance like that.”

Joyce smiled. All of them were thinking—and feeling-on their feet, alive, alive-o, re-creating moment to moment. Her ideas on her own character (Maria Voinitski) had gotten pretty short shrift. Cully had got off lightest. Not that any of them minded. Because what was happening onstage made it all worthwhile.

In the scene dock David Smy was recovering a chaise lounge with olive-green patterned velvet. Sunny lay yawning by the portable gas fire. There seemed to be a lot going on at the moment, he thought, and certainly his walks were getting shorter and shorter, but he was not a dog to complain. Perhaps when the nice weather came, things would perk up.

Colin worked on a huge armoire, painting it with a walnut stain. Phoebe Glover, the ASM, would pop down and tell them when it was okay to saw and bang and generally make a racket. Colin wasn’t too worried. The set was almost finished. There hadn’t been any flats to paint or rostrums to drag about; it all looked so simple, yet seemed to work very well. He glanced across at David’s bent head. Colin was neither a fanciful nor a religious man, but just at that moment found himself wondering if Glenda knew of their son’s present happiness. Why not? Stranger things must have happened. He smiled at the thought. David looked up.

“What is it, Dad?”

“I’m parched, that’s what. I’m popping up to the club-room for a drink. Coming?”

“No. I want to get this done.”

“Henpecked.”

David gave a broad grin. “You want to bet?”

Upstairs they were taking a break. The cast had gathered together and were sitting, standing, or lying about on the stage. Their director rose from her seat in the back row, a tall, slim figure in a white jumpsuit, and came down to the footlight, clipboard in hand.

“That wasn’t bad at all. We’ve a long way to go yet. Don’t look like that, Rosa—what you got in Act Four was marvelous. Really very good.”

There was a murmur of genuine agreement, and Rosa, proud but inexplicably shy, studied the carpet.

“I’m sure we could all do with some coffee. Phoebe?” The ASM hurried out from the wings. “Put the kettle on, there’s a good girl.”

“I’m just painting the candlesticks.”

“Leave those for now. Go on then .. said Deidre, and she smiled. A smile with all the zing and glitter of a bold young samurai. Then she clapped her hands and cried, “Chop-chop!”