Stagestruck

15

My Dear Friends,

This theatre has been my life and you have been my family, all of you, for six happy years. I can’t thank you enough for all the warmth and support you have given me and the wonderful moments we shared. I had no idea everything would change overnight, but it has, through my own stupidity. I’m deeply sorry now about what happened to Clarion and I pray that it won’t be permanent. I hope by some miracle the theatre and all of you can survive this. But for me there can be no future in my beloved Theatre Royal, my home, and this is where I have chosen to put an end to it, backstage where I belong.

Please don’t mourn. No black clothes. No prayers at my funeral. If my ashes could be scattered in the theatre garden that would be more than I deserve.

Goodbye and blessings.

Denise

Diamond handed the note to Ingeborg. Fred Dawkins stood beside her and read the words at the same time.

‘Poor soul,’ Ingeborg said.

‘Brave soul,’ Dawkins said.

‘True.’

‘Blaming no one else.’

‘Yes, I’ve heard suicide called a coward’s way out, but I don’t agree with that.’

‘Even to think about one’s own funeral.’

‘It’s been written on a computer and printed out,’ Diamond said, unwilling to join in the fatalistic talk and already querying this as reliable evidence. ‘Suicide notes are usually written by hand.’

‘Guv, we’re in the computer age now,’ Ingeborg said. ‘No one writes anything by hand apart from shopping lists. If I were doing one of these I’d use my laptop. She’s signed it by hand.’

‘We’ll get the signature checked,’ he said and then as he thought about forensics, ‘If I’d been sharper, we wouldn’t have handled it. They can get prints from paper. Someone is going to rap my knuckles over this.’ With a shrug and a wry smile, he started to fold the note.

‘Don’t, guv,’ Ingeborg said. ‘The more you touch it, the less chance there is of finding anything. We need an evidence bag.’

‘Did anyone think of bringing one?’ he said with a look that said it was more their fault than his.

Dawkins was never stumped for a suggestion. ‘Place it between two of the other sheets of paper.’

‘Good thinking, Fred,’ Ingeborg said.

Outnumbered, Diamond didn’t argue.

The same evening when he called for Paloma, she was in her office scanning pictures of frock-coated Victorians for the costume designer of Sweeney Todd. ‘Could you lower the lid while I hold this engraving in place? Gently.’

The scanner hummed and another image was stored. The BLOGs would have more than enough authentic illustrations to work with.

‘Did I tell you my boss has made it into the chorus?’ Diamond said.

‘Georgina? Good for her. She’ll be one of the Fleet Street women in a bright bodice and skirt.’

‘More out of the bodice than in. She’s a well built lady.’

‘Front row for her, then. The BLOGs maximise their assets.’ She picked up a book and opened it at the page she wanted. ‘One more, and we’re done. I hope this damn show goes ahead. I’ve invested a lot of time in it.’

‘It’s on. The theatre has a future.’ He told her about Clarion deciding not to proceed with the lawsuit.

‘Sensible woman,’ Paloma said. ‘The only people who make money out of the courts are the lawyers. Who told you this?’

‘Francis Melmot, the chairman of the trust. They can’t believe their luck.’

Then he told her about finding the suicide note.

‘Not a bad day all round,’ she said. ‘The theatre is in the clear and the note proves what happened to Denise. Case closed.’

‘If the note is genuine.’

‘Why shouldn’t it be?’

‘For one thing it was hidden away inside a piece of scenery.’

‘But you explained about that. Someone found it lying about and tidied up. That German oven was a useful place to tuck some papers out of sight.’

‘Why would Denise leave her suicide note lying about?’ he said.

‘Come on, Peter. To be noticed. It’s a theatre. Where do you put something you want people to find? Centre stage isn’t a bad idea, is it? She was about to hurl herself off the gallery and hit the stage floor. I know she didn’t fall all the way, but that was clearly the intention. They’d find the body and see the note nearby.’

Put like that, it made sense.

‘Denise killed herself. It’s over, Peter. You can relax.’

How he wished he could. He’d been debating with himself whether to tell Paloma what he’d learned from Mike Glaze-brook. There was a powerful instinct to stay tight-lipped and battle with his own demons. Innocent as he must have been at eight years old, he still felt tainted. On the other hand, he’d told Paloma about the panic attacks he’d been getting at the theatre. She was sure to ask at some point soon if he’d worked out why they happened.

Would he have confided in Steph, his wife?

Certainly.

Then why not Paloma?

‘I met someone I was at school with today.’ When he’d finished telling her, he felt some relief. It hadn’t been good to bottle it up.

Paloma had listened in silence, only her eyes expressing concern. ‘You don’t know for certain that the art teacher abused you,’ she pointed out.

‘I won’t unless I can let the memories in. My brain is acting as a censor. It doesn’t take a Sigmund Freud to work out that something deeply upsetting is locked in there. White was a convicted paedophile and he recruited us for that play I was in. My theatre phobia – or whatever we choose to call it – kicked in immediately after that weekend.’

‘But do you really want to remember?’

‘It’s more than a want. It’s a need. I have to overcome this, not have it forever as a no-go area.’

‘The school friend…?’

‘Mike Glazebrook.’

‘He told you Flakey White didn’t abuse him. Do you believe him?’

‘Yes, he convinced me.’

‘Yet you feel sure you were taken advantage of? Why you?’

‘I’ve thought about this. Paedophiles are devious. If I was the kid he set out to entrap, he may have used Mike as a cover, so that it wasn’t obvious, to let me feel safe knowing there was another boy. Our parents would also be more confident if there were two kids, not one.’

‘Where do you think the abuse happened?’

‘Don’t know. His car? The changing room at the hall? I can’t – or won’t let myself – remember.’

‘But you’re sure it took place?’

‘It’s the only explanation. I don’t scare easily, Paloma. This has undermined me.’

‘Is White still alive?’

The question unsettled him. Up to now he’d been focusing on the past. ‘No idea. He’d be over seventy.’

‘Plenty of people are. You’re in the police. They keep track of sex offenders, don’t they? You could find out. You could meet him.’

She was pushing him to the limit and he wished he hadn’t started this. ‘I don’t know if I could trust myself. He’d deny it, anyway.’

‘Some way, you need to know the truth. It’s a festering wound, Peter. If you can find him, it’s the best chance you’ve got. Do you know his real name?’

‘It was something fancy. Morgan O. White, I think.’

‘That should make him easier to find.’

‘I expect he changed his identity. Most of them do.’ He was putting obstacles in the way and it did him no credit.

‘But the Sex Offenders Register would list all the names he’s used.’

‘You have a touching faith in the system,’ he said. ‘He was convicted in the sixties, thirty years before the register was started and it isn’t retroactive.’

‘There must be criminal records.’

‘You’re right. They’re kept at Scotland Yard by the National Identification Service.’ Keen to bring this conversation to an end, he added, ‘I’ll call them from work tomorrow and get them to run a check. Let’s go for a meal and talk about other things.’

‘You’ve got your mobile. Why not do it now?’

She could have been Steph talking. After a moment’s hesitation he reached into his pocket.

Once he’d passed the checks on his own identity, the information was quick in coming. The helpful civil servant at the Yard told him that Morgan Ogilby White, a teacher, aged thirty-one, had been convicted on three counts of indecency with minors at Winchester in 1965 and sentenced to five years, of which he had served three in Shepton Mallet prison. The offences had been committed at a private school in Hampshire called Manningham Academy. White must have moved there from the junior school in Kingston where Diamond had known him. He’d been released on probation in 1968.

Hearing the details like this made it more real than getting it at third hand from Glazebrook’s Mum.

‘Is that it?’ he asked.

The voice said, ‘That’s all we have.’

‘I was expecting more.’

‘He hasn’t re-offended – under that name, anyway. Paedophiles are crafty at changing their identities and re-offending, as you know.’

‘I was hoping to trace him.’

‘Difficult. You could try the probation service. But your best bet would be the police authority where he offended. Before the new legislation came in, they kept their own intelligence on sex offenders.’

The house was more than three-quarters full that evening. Not bad, considering how bleak the prospects had been after Clarion had left the cast. Although numerous fans had returned their tickets on the Tuesday, the generous reviews and news coverage of Gisella’s success as understudy had boosted sales and numbers of those empty seats were filled.

Chairman Melmot had made sure everyone knew of Clarion’s decision not to sue. The mood backstage was upbeat as the countdown to curtain up was relayed at intervals over the tannoy. Gisella herself couldn’t wait to go on stage. She’d heard that a casting director from the National had come to see her as Sally Bowles. They were looking for someone to play the main role in a revival of Irma la Douce. If she was asked, it would be a huge opportunity, she’d informed the other leading actors. Preston, as usual, was incommunicado an hour before the show, so she’d pushed a note under his door. She didn’t have any worries about him. He could be relied on to give a strong performance. An actor was allowed to be self-absorbed off stage as long as he played his part like a professional. Whatever his secret pre-show build-up might consist of, it worked. The way Gisella saw it, Preston’s Isherwood was a perfect foil for her Sally Bowles.

Little Hedley Shearman looked in at one stage with a bunch of roses when Gisella was doing her make-up. ‘You look radiant,’ he said. ‘These are for you, my dear.’

She thanked him for bringing them up, assuming they’d been left by some admirer at the stage door.

‘They’re from me,’ he said with a smirk, ‘to spur you on.’

‘Oh… well, thanks.’ A guarded response. She hadn’t enjoyed him pawing her the day before.

He continued, oblivious. ‘We’re expecting a VIP out there tonight.’

‘I heard. Don’t make me nervous.’

‘You’ll be marvellous, no question.’ And now he revealed the reason for the flowers. ‘How about a spot of supper afterwards? I know what you actors are like. You’ll be on a high. You can’t face sleep for hours.’

‘Thanks for the offer,’ she said, ‘but I don’t like eating late. I’ll just have a sandwich at the hotel. And I have no problem sleeping, as it happens.’

‘Can I join you?’ He grinned. ‘For the sandwich, I mean. I’m supposed to be dieting.’

‘Mr Shearman – ’

‘Hedley to you.’

‘Hedley, please don’t take this personally, but I don’t want company tonight or any night.’

This awkward exchange was quickly forgotten as the beginners left the dressing rooms to take their positions. The buzz of expectant conversation out front had been audible over the tannoy and was exciting to hear from the wings. The old theatre with its gilded panels, crimson drapes and crystal chandelier created an ambience. Every performance started with favourable conditions for a good hearing. The anticipation on both sides of the curtain was positive.

Preston Barnes was already in his usual place at the table on stage, having his appearance checked by Belinda, the make-up girl. Gisella tried to catch his eye to check that he’d seen her note, but he didn’t look her way. His concentration was total, almost intimidating.

In the wings the large woman playing Fräulein Schneider waited with the lace tablecloth she would set in preparation for Sally Bowles. Everyone in the cast spoke of her as Schneider, rather than using her own name. She had an air of overweening importance on and off stage. All the other actors were lesser lights so far as she was concerned.

‘And curtain up,’ came the voice of the DSM from the prompt corner. Thursday’s performance got under way. No evening in the theatre is ever exactly like another, even though the cast speak the same lines and make the same moves. This night would stand out.

I Am a Camera was written as a three act play, but in the modern theatre a single interval is preferred, so the decision had been made to stop once, at the close of Act One, and run Two and Three together, dimming the lights between to show the passage of time. Act One ends with Sally Bowles, who is pregnant, about to go to an abortionist recommended by Fräulein Schneider. Isherwood is not the father, but he offers first to marry her and then to pay for the operation.

Shortly before the interval curtain was lowered, Schneider had an exit, followed soon after by Sally. On each other evening they had gone straight to their dressing rooms to prepare for the second half. Tonight, in the wings, Schneider blocked Gisella’s way. Something was clearly wrong. She was out of character and apparently eager to speak. Gisella’s first thought was that she must have committed some gaffe, missed a cue or blocked a sight line. It was soon clear something else was wrong.

‘Did you see it?’ Wide, startled eyes locked with Gisella’s.

‘See what?’

‘Out there. The top box, stage right.’

Gisella’s role was so demanding that she never had a chance to look anywhere beyond the footlights. She was aware of the audience, as any actor is, yet her concentration had been all on what was happening on stage. ‘I wasn’t looking.’

Schneider’s part involved a lot of business moving about the set, tidying up, picking garments off the floor, answering doorbells, so that was how she had opportunities to sneak a look at the auditorium. ‘I didn’t believe my own eyes,’ she said, ‘but there’s no question. Look at me. I’m not suggestible.’

This had seemed self-evident up to now.

‘I don’t know what this is about,’ Gisella said, ‘but I must get to my room. If you don’t mind -’

‘The lady in grey. She was there.’

There was a pause while Gisella tried to overcome her disbelief. ‘The theatre ghost?’

‘Staring at me, watching.’

‘That’s what an audience does. They stare at us all.’

‘She was not flesh and blood. She was quite alone.’

‘In the box? I expect it’s just some member of the public.’

‘The boxes haven’t been used all week,’ Schneider said. ‘The sight-lines are too restricted. That box is where the ghost is always seen. I promise you, she was there, pale as death, and all in grey. What does it mean if you see her? Is it bad luck?’

‘I’ve no idea, but…’ Gisella looked around for support, anything to shake off this crazy woman. The curtain had just come down and Preston Barnes was walking off.

Schneider caught him by the arm. ‘Did you see her?’

‘Who?’

‘The grey lady.’

He wasn’t as polite as Gisella. ‘Let go of me.’

‘The theatre ghost.’

‘For Christ’s sake, I don’t have time to piss around.’ With that, he marched on, past them both.

Gisella wished she’d been as firm as that. She needed the interval break herself, and more than ever on this important night. She had to be on again from the opening of Act Two. All Schneider had to do was announce a couple of visitors. ‘I’d forget about it if I were you,’ she said, taking a step away. ‘You don’t want it affecting your performance.’

‘I’m scared,’ Schneider said in a little-girl voice. ‘Doesn’t anyone believe me?’

‘There’s nothing to be scared of.’

‘Someone else must have seen her. I’ll ask stage management.’

‘Do that. I must get to my room.’

Soon, the news of the sighting circulated backstage. Sceneshifters tried peeping through the slots in the curtain. The grey lady was no longer on view. ‘She must have gone for her interval drink,’ was the quip. The word got through to the Garrick’s Head, where Titus O’Driscoll was holding court with a few friends. Titus was never going to treat the theatre ghost lightly.

‘This has to be investigated at once. A sighting of the grey lady is an event.’ He left his half-finished wine and hurried round to the foyer. The interval was still on and the usual smokers were standing in Saw Close. None looked as if they’d seen a ghost. The royal circle bar was the obvious place to check first and Titus headed there. The talk in the bar was all about the play, not the grey lady. Deeply disappointing to a ghost-hunter. Recalling that earlier sightings had been from the stage itself, Titus hurried to the pass door at the end of the corridor and let himself through to the backstage area.

He had an immediate success. One of the crew who recognised him told him exactly what Schneider claimed to have seen.

‘Marvellous,’ Titus said. ‘This has all the hallmarks of a classic encounter. Where is she now – in her dressing room?’

‘Probably on her way back. The second half starts in five.’

‘Is she on at the beginning?’

‘Quite early in the scene.’

Torn between getting Schneider’s account at first hand and trying for a sight of the ghost, he chose the latter, returning through the pass door to the royal circle. The five-minute bell had gone and the audience were coming back to their seats. The house lights were still on. A clear view of the box could be had from here. Disappointing. No grey lady. The box was unlit and to Titus’s keen eye had a look of disuse. He asked some people who had just returned if they’d noticed anyone occupying the upper box before the interval. They had not, but then they were foreign tourists and all their attention must have been on the play, trying to follow the dialogue.

He was deeply frustrated by knowing someone had reported a sighting just a short time ago. Perhaps he was fated never to see the grey lady, to be an expert reliant on other people’s experiences. He went backstage again, still hopeful of a firsthand account from Schneider.

No question: the place was charged with nervous energy. Preston was on stage ready for the second half and Gisella stood in the wings ready to make her entrance. The deputy stage manager’s urgent voice was coming over the tannoy system. ‘I’m not raising the curtain without her. We’ve been through this a dozen times. She has to be out here and ready. Will someone please put a bomb under her?’

‘Who does he mean – Schneider?’ Titus asked a stagehand.

‘Wouldn’t you know it? Old bossy-boots. She’s not in position and we’re running late already.’

‘I’ll check. Which dressing room is she in?’

‘Nine, on the OP side. It’s being taken care of.’

‘I’ll still check. That’s where she’s got to be.’

He crossed behind the scenery. Out of consideration for her below-average mobility, Schneider had been given a ground-floor dressing room that by rights should have been occupied by a leading actor. The door was open. Two stagehands were trying to coax her back to the stage, but she was in her chair with arms folded showing no intention of budging.

One of them was saying, ‘You can’t stop the show. It isn’t fair to the rest of the cast.’

Schneider was implacable. ‘I won’t be treated as a half-wit. I know what I saw. Mr Shearman was downright rude to me. He seems to think I imagined it. Well, if that’s what he thinks, he can rot in hell and so can the rest of them.’

‘Wouldn’t it be better to make your point after the play is over?’ the other stagehand said. These two young women were almost certainly drama students getting experience, and they would learn from Schneider’s behaviour, but they weren’t competent to reverse it.

Titus took over. ‘I understand you had a sighting of the lady in grey. I’m Titus O’Driscoll, dramaturge.’

‘If you’re here to drag me kicking and screaming onto the stage, you’d better think again, because it won’t look pretty.’

‘Madam, I have no such intention,’ Titus said. ‘I have the utmost sympathy for you.’

‘Bad cop, nice cop, is it?’ she said with a glare. ‘That won’t wash with me.’

‘What was her appearance?’

The more vocal of the stagehands said, ‘Sir, we don’t have time. She’s needed for her first entrance.’

‘Grey. She was all in grey, with cold, glittering eyes I shall never forget so long as I live,’ Schneider said.

Titus asked, ‘Was she wearing the costume of a nineteenth-century lady?’

She became more animated. ‘Yes! It looked like a cloak, the sort of thing they used to wear over their ball gowns, with a cowl, all grey.’

Titus gasped and his voice faltered in excitement. ‘This is truly momentous.’ After a moment’s thought, he said, ‘We need to speak for longer. Why don’t you go on stage now and meet me afterwards to talk about this amazing occurrence?’

‘I’ve made my position clear,’ Schneider said. ‘I’ve been through a terrifying experience and was given no sympathy whatsoever. Until that horrible little manager man goes on his knees and apologises to me I’m not moving from here.’

‘Find Mr Shearman,’ Titus said to the stagehands with more drama than anything heard in the play. ‘Get him here fast. Tell him he’s needed by the dramaturge.’

‘There isn’t time.’

‘Young lady, if you want to stay working in this theatre, do as I say. I don’t care if you drag him feet first. Do it!’

Both of them hurried out.

‘You’re a gentleman,’ Schneider told Titus.

The DSM’s voice over the tannoy said, ‘We’ll have to manage without her.’

‘Fat chance,’ Schneider said with a smirk.

‘All she does is step on stage and announce people,’ the DSM went on.

Schneider drew in a huge, affronted gasp.

‘We’ll have to improvise. Isherwood must answer the doorbell himself. Are you okay with that, Preston?’

‘The hell he is!’ Schneider said, rising from her chair. ‘They’re going to axe me from the scene. They can’t do that.’

‘You’ll be redundant,’ Titus said, sharing her outrage.

‘It’s underhand. It’s blackmail,’ Schneider said.

‘You’d better deal with it fast,’ Titus said. ‘We can talk about the grey lady later.’

The protest came to an abrupt end. Schneider swept out of the room and beetled towards the wings, elbowing Hedley Shearman aside as he arrived to plead with her, flanked by the stagehands.

‘Is she going on?’ Shearman asked. The emergency had exacted an extraordinary toll from him. He was sweating and he’d changed physically, drained of colour, jowls quivering, voice thinner, as if he’d seen the ghost himself.

‘Under protest,’ Titus said. ‘I doubt if you’ve heard the last of it.’

‘Whatever you said it appears to have worked.’

‘The lady has my sympathy,’ Titus said. ‘The supernatural is extremely unnerving. I’ve no doubt in my own mind that the theatre ghost was among us tonight.’

‘Auto-suggestion, I expect,’ Shearman said.

‘Unlikely.’

One of the stagehands said, ‘She convinced me she’d seen something.’

‘Me, too,’ Titus said, ‘and I propose to go into the box and check for proof positive: the scent of jasmine.’

‘Not now,’ Shearman said, close to panic.

‘Why not?’

‘There’s a performance in progress. I won’t have the audience distracted. It isn’t fair to the performers.’

‘All I need is to open the door and sniff.’

‘You won’t. The box is locked on my instructions. As soon as this daft rumour started I knew some idiot would want to get in there. It isn’t going to happen.’

‘You can unlock it for me,’ Titus said. ‘I’m not “some idiot”, as you put it. I’m on the staff, and, what is more, on the creative team, not mere management.’

Even in his depleted state, Shearman wouldn’t relent. ‘For God’s sake, I’m not getting into an argument about status.’

‘See some sense, then. If I wait for the curtain, the jasmine will have dispersed.’

‘There is no ghost and there never has been,’ Shearman said, practically stamping his foot. ‘It’s a myth put about by people who ought to know better. This has been one hell of a night, and my job is to restore sanity to this theatre. I suggest you return to the Garrick’s Head, or wherever it is you came from.’

‘There’s gratitude,’ Titus said, knowing he’d lost this skirmish.

The play resumed seven minutes late, barely enough to register with the audience. Schneider may have appeared subdued compared to other performances, but she didn’t miss a cue or dry or scramble her lines. Gisella was in fine form as Sally Bowles and this seemed to inspire Preston. The second half sparkled.

From the back of the royal circle, Titus kept a vigil on the box opposite, and was disappointed. The grey lady failed to appear for him.

In the stalls, the casting director from the National Theatre studied Gisella’s performance and made a few notes. Francis Melmot loomed in the aisle, studying the casting director.

In the understage area, Kate from wardrobe found Hedley Shearman alone in the company office, hunched over his desk, his hands covering his face. The loudspeaker in the corner of the room was relaying the dialogue from upstairs.

‘Someone obviously needs more therapy,’ she said, putting an arm around his shoulders and nudging his face with her breast. ‘As a matter of fact, I feel the need myself. How would Hedley like to give his Kate another good seeing-to?’

He tensed. ‘Leave me alone.’

Stung by the reaction, she snapped back, ‘What’s your problem? Not in the mood? That’s got to be a first.’

‘We’re in deep shit,’ he said.

‘Why? What do you mean?’

‘There’s been another death.’