The Strangling on the Stage

TWENTY-FOUR

It was clear to Carole and Jude the moment they were admitted by Elizaveta Dalrymple on the Saturday evening that the seafront house in Smalting was a shrine to her late husband Freddie. The hall was dominated by a top-lit large portrait of him in the purple velvet doublet of some (undoubtedly Shakespearean) character. The pearl earring and the pointed goatee beard were presumably period props.

Except, as Elizaveta led them up a staircase lined with photographs of Freddie, it became clear that the beard at least was a permanent fixture. Whatever part he was playing, the presence of the goatee was a non-negotiable.

His wife’s hair was the same. Jude remembered the scene reported by Storm Lavelle of Elizaveta not wanting to have her head covered by a shawl when she was still going to play Mrs Dudgeon. In some of the earlier photographs on the wall, before she’d needed recourse to dying, her natural hair did look wonderful, though not always of the same period as the costume that she was wearing. The flamenco dancer look was fine for proud Iberian peasants, but it didn’t look quite so good with Regency dresses or crinolines.

But clearly that was another unwritten law of SADOS. Freddie and Elizaveta Dalrymple had set up the society, so it was as if everyone else was playing with their ball. Whatever the play, Freddie and Elizaveta would play the leads, he with his pointed goatee and she with her long black hair.

There was further proof of this at the top of the stairs, in one of those large framed photographs which are textured to look like paintings on canvas. Their crowns, Freddie’s dagger and the tartan scarf fixed by a brooch across Elizaveta’s substantial bosom, left no doubt they were playing Macbeth and Lady Macbeth. With, of course, the goatee and the long black hair.

The space into which Carole and Jude were led showed exactly why the house’s sitting room was on the first floor. It was still light that April evening and the floor-to-ceiling windows commanded a wonderful view over Smalting Beach to the far horizon of the sea.

The sitting room demonstrated the same decorative motif as the hall and stairs. Every surface, except for the wall with the windows in it, bore yet more stills from SADOS productions, again with the goatee and the black hair much in evidence. Presumably the plays in which Freddie and Elizaveta Dalrymple took part featured other actors in minor roles, but you’d never have known it from the photographs.

‘Welcome,’ Elizaveta said lavishly as she ushered Carole and Jude into the sitting room, ‘to your first – but I hope not your last – visit to one of my “drinkies things”. Now I’m sure you know everyone here …’

They did know everyone, except for a couple of elderly ladies who had ‘retired from the stage, but as founder members were still massive supporters of SADOS’. Otherwise Carole and Jude greeted Olly Pinto, Storm Lavelle, Gordon Blaine and Mimi Lassiter. All had glasses of champagne in their hands. Storm’s hair was now black and shoulder-length (hair extensions at work – there was no way it had had time to grow naturally to that length).

‘Now,’ said Elizaveta. ‘Olly’s in charge of drinks this evening, so you just tell him what you’d like.’ On the wall facing the sea, space had been made among the encroaching photographs for a well-stocked bar. Olly apologized that there was no Chilean Chardonnay – he knew their tastes from the Cricketers – but wondered if they could force themselves to drink champagne. They could.

A lot of glass-raising and clinking went on, then Elizaveta said, ‘Now, Carole and Jude, the agenda we have for my “drinkies things” is that we have no agenda. We’re just a group of friends who talk about whatever we want to talk about … though more often than not we do end up talking about the theatre.’

‘In fact just before you arrived,’ volunteered Olly Pinto, ‘we were discussing the wonderful Private Lives the SADOS did a few years back, with Freddie and Elizaveta in the leads.’

‘Oh, we’re talking a horribly long time ago,’ said Elizaveta coyly.

‘Sadly I never saw it,’ said Olly, ‘but I did hear your Amanda was marvellous.’

‘One did one’s best.’ This line was accompanied by an insouciant shrug. ‘And of course I was so well supported by Freddie. So sad that Noel Coward was never able to see the SADOS production. He would have seen the absolutely perfect Elyot. The part could have been written for Freddie.’

‘I think it was actually written for Noel Coward,’ Carole ventured to point out. The information was something that had come up in a Times crossword clue. ‘He played the part himself.’

Elizaveta Dalrymple was only a little put out by this. ‘Yes, but Noel Coward was always so mannered. I’m sure Freddie brought more nuance to the role.’

Not to mention a goatee beard, thought Jude. And a barrel-load of impregnable self-esteem.

‘It was a very fine performance,’ said Gordon Blaine, as if he wanted to gain a few brownie points. ‘And of course your Amanda was stunning.’

‘Thank you, kind sir,’ said Elizaveta with a little curtsy. ‘Freddie always had such a touch as a director too. Very subtle, he was. Not one of those bossy egotists. He let a play have space, let it evolve with the help of the actors. “A gentle hand on the tiller” – that’s how Freddie described the business of directing.’

‘Did he always direct the plays he was in?’ asked Jude.

‘Invariably. Freddie was always very diffident about it, said he’d be very happy for someone better to take on the role. But there never was anyone better, so yes, he directed all the shows we did together.’

Carole and Jude exchanged the most imperceptible of looks. Both of them were realizing to what extent the SADOS was the Dalrymples’ private train set. Other children were allowed to play with it, but only under the owners’ strict supervision. They also realized how painful relinquishing total control of the society must have been for Elizaveta.

‘Freddie often designed the shows too,’ Gordon chipped in. ‘I mean, he didn’t do elaborate drawings of what he wanted, but his ideas were very clear. I was more involved in building the sets when Freddie was around.’ This was said in a slightly accusatory tone, as though there might be someone present who had caused the limiting of his involvement. ‘And Freddie would always say to me, “I have this image in my mind, Gordon, and I’m sure you can turn that image into reality.”’

‘And did you build lots of stage machinery, special effects, that kind of thing?’ asked Carole. ‘Like the gallows for The Devil’s Disciple?’

‘Oh yes, that sort of thing was always my responsibility. Freddie would come up to me and he’d say, “Now I may be asking the impossible, Gordon, but it seems to me that the impossible has always rather appealed to you.” And then he’d say what his latest fancy was. Do you remember, Elizaveta, when we were doing As You Like It, and Freddie asked me if I could make those thrones for the palace which were trees when they were turned round?’

‘Oh, goodness me, yes, Gordon! Such a coup de théâtre they were. Suddenly, with just the turning of a few chairs, we were right there in the Forest of Arden. It got a round of applause every night. Wonderful, Gordon, wasn’t it?’

He positively glowed beneath his ginger beard. ‘All my own work. Yes, though I say it myself.’

But, from Elizaveta Dalrymple’s point of view, Gordon was now taking too much credit on himself. ‘Though, of course, it was Freddie’s concept,’ she said quite sharply.

‘Oh yes,’ a chastened Gordon Blaine agreed. ‘It was very definitely Freddie’s concept.’

‘And the Fethering Observer gave a real rave of a review for my Rosalind. Which was rather one in the eye for those SADOS members who suggested I might be a bit old for the part.’

‘I remember,’ Mimi Lassiter chimed in. ‘The Fethering Observer actually talked about you moving “with the coltish grace of a teenage girl”.’

‘But that’s what acting’s about,’ Elizaveta enthused. ‘You think yourself into the character you are playing, you become that person. Considerations like age and size and shape become totally irrelevant once you’re caught up in the magic of the theatre. And, Gordon,’ she said, feeling that the technician should now be thrown some kind of magnanimous sop, ‘your chairs that turned into trees were part of the magic of that As You Like It.’

He grinned, his good humour instantly restored.

‘Anyway, Gordon,’ said Carole, eager to steer the conversation round to Ritchie Good’s death, ‘you’ve also done a splendid job on those gallows for The Devil’s Disciple.’

‘Oh, relatively straightforward, those were.’ He started to laugh. ‘Certainly compared to the palaver I had with that balcony on wheels Freddie wanted for Romeo & Juliet!’

Elizaveta Dalrymple laughed theatrically at the recollection, while Jude winced inwardly, visualizing a Juliet with flamenco hair and a Romeo with a pointed goatee beard.

‘But the gallows,’ Carole insisted. ‘They seem to work very well. Possibly even too well,’ she dared to add.

Her words did actually prompt a brief silence. Then Gordon said, rather defensively, ‘I created a set of gallows that were completely safe. Everyone saw that. If they’d been used properly, Ritchie Good’d be alive today. I can’t be held responsible if people mess around with the equipment I’ve made.’

‘By “messing around” you mean changing the doctored noose for the solid one?’ suggested Carole.

‘Exactly.’

‘Can I ask something?’ said Jude innocently. ‘Why did you have a solid noose when the one that was going to be used would always be the one with Velcro?’

Gordon appeared pleased to have been asked the question, as it gave him an opportunity to provide a technical explanation. ‘I was determined to make the gallows look real, so I needed to see what it would look like with a proper noose attached. Then I’d know what the doctored one had to look like.’

‘But why did you bring it with you to St Mary’s Hall that Sunday when you were demonstrating it?’

‘Ah well.’ He coloured slightly. ‘The fact is, I had planned to have the stage curtains open during the rehearsal, with the gallows there with a proper noose. Then anyone in the company who had a look at it would see a real, businesslike noose there, and they’d be even more surprised when Ritchie appeared to have it round his neck.’

‘What, and you would have switched the two nooses just before the demonstration?’

‘Yes. We’d have drawn the curtains for a moment and done it. I thought that’d be more dramatic. But Ritchie didn’t. He said we’d get the maximum effect if the curtains were closed right through the rehearsal, and then when we opened them we’d get a real coo … what was that thing you said, Elizaveta?’

‘Coup de théâtre,’ she supplied.

‘Exactly. One of those.’ Gordon looked grumpy. ‘I still think my way would have been better.’

‘Well, it was quite dramatic,’ said Jude. ‘Of course, you weren’t there, were you, Carole?’

‘No, but you told me about it. So after the demonstration, Gordon, someone must have switched the two nooses round.’

‘Yes.’

‘But you don’t know who?’

‘I know it wasn’t me,’ he said huffily.

‘I wasn’t suggesting—’

‘Mind you, I can think of one or two people in SADOS who might have—’

‘I’m not sure,’ Elizaveta Dalrymple interrupted magisterially, ‘that I want my entire “drinkies thing” taken up with talk about that ill-mannered boor Ritchie Good.’

‘I’m sorry,’ said Jude meekly.

‘But I’ve spent a lot of time,’ Gordon continued, ‘thinking how the two nooses got switched, and I’ve come to the conclusion that—’

‘Nor,’ Elizaveta steamrollered on, ‘do we want to spend the whole time talking about your wretched gallows – particularly since you’ve already spent one entire evening telling us all about them.’

‘Have I?’ asked Gordon, puzzled.

‘Yes,’ said Olly Pinto. ‘It was three weeks ago, the day before you were going to do the demonstration. We were all here for Elizaveta’s “drinkies thing” and you couldn’t talk about anything else. Goodness, by the time you’d finished we all knew enough about your gallows to have built a replica ourselves.’

Carole and Jude exchanged a quick look before the SADOS Mr Fixit said abjectly, ‘Oh, I’m sorry. Was I a bore?’

‘Yes, I’m afraid you were, Gordon darling,’ Elizaveta replied. ‘Let’s just say that by the time the evening finished the gallows was a subject on which you had “delighted us long enough”.’

Her coterie sniggered at the line, unaware that Elizaveta had filched it from Jane Austen. Then the star of the show vouchsafed a gracious smile to Carole and Jude. ‘Now do tell me, you two, what’s The Devil’s Disciple going to be like?’

‘I think it’s coming together,’ Jude replied cautiously.

‘And is Olly keeping you busy as prompter?’

‘Still a little ragged on the lines,’ Carole was forced to admit.

Elizaveta smiled indulgently on the young man under discussion. ‘Yes, you always go for the approximate approach, don’t you, Olly? I remember you were all over the place as Lysander in Freddie’s Dream.’

‘It didn’t matter,’ said Olly gallantly. ‘No one in the audience had eyes for anyone except your Titania.’

‘And Freddie’s Oberon,’ said Elizaveta in gentle reproof.

‘Oh yes, of course.’

‘And our doubling, me also playing Hippolyta and Freddie giving his Theseus.’

‘Yes, they were all splendid,’ said Olly.

‘There was a very good production of A Midsummer Night’s Dream at the RSC last season,’ Jude volunteered.

‘Really?’ Elizaveta Dalrymple dismissed the idea. For her theatre began and ended with the SADOS. No stage other than St Mary’s Hall was of any significance. ‘Anyway,’ she went on, ‘it doesn’t matter so much, I suppose, if Olly’s paraphrasing George Bernard Shaw’s lines. They are at least in prose. But with Shakespeare’s blank verse it was a complete disaster.’

Olly grinned winsomely, as if already enjoying the chastisement he was about to receive.

‘“Doesn’t the boy have any sense of rhythm?” Freddie kept asking. “How can anyone have such a tin ear for the beauties of blank verse?”’ Elizaveta laughed and the others joined in, Olly as heartily as anyone. ‘He did try to help you, didn’t he?’

‘Oh yes,’ Olly agreed. ‘Freddie was always so generous with his time and his talent.’

‘He was.’ Elizaveta let out a nostalgic sigh. ‘And of course Freddie was a wonderful verse speaker.’ Everyone mumbled endorsements of this self-evident truth, as she focused a beady eye on Olly. ‘So, will you know your Devil’s Disciple lines by the first night?’

‘Of course I will. Sheer terror will keep me going.’

‘Oh yes. When a man knows he is to be hanged in a fortnight, it concentrates his mind wonderfully.’

The coterie greeted Elizaveta’s latest bon mot with more laughter, unaware that she was quoting Dr Johnson. Then she turned sharply to Jude and asked, ‘How’s Davina doing?’

‘Doing in what way?’

‘As a director, of course.’

‘Well, she seems to be … fine.’ Jude wasn’t sure what kind of answer was expected. ‘I mean, obviously her plans were all disrupted by what happened to Ritchie, but she seems to have managed to regroup and … As I say, everything’s fine.’

‘Hm.’ Elizaveta Dalrymple managed to invest the monosyllable with a great deal of doubt and suspicion. ‘Of course, Freddie and I taught her everything she knows.’

‘In the theatre?’

‘Oh yes. Hadn’t an idea in her head when she started in amdram. Freddie sort of took her under his wing. And she’s developed into quite a nice little director. But I’m not sure how this Devil’s Disciple is going to go.’

‘As I said, I think it’ll be fine.’

Another loaded ‘Hm.’ Elizaveta looked across to where Olly Pinto was deep in flirtatious chatter with Mimi Lassiter and the two old ladies. Then she moved closer to Jude and started to whisper.

Carole felt awkward. She wasn’t quite near enough to hear and she didn’t know whether she was meant to be included in the conversation. Rather than moving closer, she shifted nearer the window, as if suddenly fascinated by the movement of shipping beyond Smalting Beach.

‘At least,’ Elizaveta whispered fiercely at Jude, ‘from Davina’s point of view, she’ll be better off with Olly as Dick Dudgeon than she would have been with Ritchie.’

‘Oh?’

‘Bit of bad blood between her and Ritchie. She thought he was keen on her, which he certainly appeared to be. But when she suggested taking the relationship further, he dropped her like a brick.’

Par for the course with Ritchie Good, thought Jude.

‘And Davina didn’t like that at all. Hell hath no fury … you know the quote. No, Davina would have done anything to remove Ritchie from her production of The Devil’s Disciple.’