A few days later, at his studio flat in Hereford Road, Charles did receive a copy of the play script. After nipping to the café round the corner to pick up a large strong Americano, he settled into his armchair to read it.
Long habit made him look at the cast list first. It was headed by the name of Abbot Ambrose, the part, some instinct told him, that Justin Grover would be playing. Then there were a lot of characters called Brother This and Brother That. The accompanying letter from the production office announced that Charles Paris would be playing the part of Brother Benedict.
There was only one female character in the dramatis personae, a fact which gave him a knee-jerk reaction of disappointment. It wasn’t that he was living in hope of starting an affair with some nubile cast member. Given the improving state of his relationship with Frances, he was way beyond such fantasies (well, that is to say, unless the right opportunity presented itself). His disappointment arose, he told himself, from the fact that he found exclusively masculine company rather stifling. The presence of women in a production always provided some necessary leavening.
Still, on the plus side, there was a strong chance some of the backstage staff might be female. And members of the stage management had provided some of the most rewarding interludes in the life of Charles Paris.
He was also a little put off by the fact that the only female in the cast list was called ‘The Girl’. Experience had taught him that plays featuring characters with names like ‘The Man’, ‘The Woman’ or, even worse, ‘He’ and ‘She’, had a strong tendency to be pretentious.
He read through The Habit of Faith. Like all plays set in monasteries, the dramatis personae were fairly predictable. There was the Abbot, a Saintly Man Whose Moral Integrity Was Hard Won And Whose Continuing Internal Conflict Between Warring Aspects Of His Personality Was Expressed In A Lot Of Long Monologues.
Then, inevitably, there was The Monk Who Had Lost His Faith, The Monk Who Had Difficulty Controlling His Lust Towards Women, The Monk Who Had Difficulty Controlling His Lust Towards Men (Especially Towards The Young Novice Who Had Just Joined The Monastery), The Young Novice Who Had Just Joined The Monastery And Who Was Still Confused About His Sexual Identity, and The Old Monk Who Had A Childlike Belief In Everything Offered By His Faith And Who Was A Bit Educationally Subnormal.
Charles Paris had got the short straw of Brother Benedict, The Monk Who Just Listened To All Of The Other Monks Who Maundered On In Long Speeches About Their Own Internal Conflicts. Most of Charles’s lines were ‘Really?’ and ‘Did you?’ It was one of those parts, like Horatio in Hamlet, where the actor playing it knows that everyone else onstage is having more fun than he is.
And where did The Girl fit in? She was a rape victim, who had escaped the carnage of the wars that swirled around outside, to seek sanctuary in the monastery. And, of course, she was a plot device, the stranger whose arrival changed everything. Her presence disrupted the serenity of an all-male society, to reveal the seething suppressed passions beneath.
On the title pages, below the cast list, was printed: ‘The action takes place in any time – it could be now’, which Charles thought was rather coy. He was wary of plays set in an unspecified time zone. Playwrights who wrote them claimed that this gave their work ‘universality’, but Charles knew this wasn’t the real reason. By giving his play a timeless setting, Seamus Milligan had avoided having to do any research into contemporary politics or the way in which a real monastery might be run.
Charles Paris’s view, on finishing the script, was that The Habit of Faith was pretty deadly. In fact, a seriously crap play. If he had any pride – or indeed the income to sustain any pride – he should have got straight on to Maurice Skellern and said he didn’t want to do it. But … anything with Justin Grover in it would put those bums on seats. And a guaranteed three-month run in the West End was a guaranteed three-month run in the West End. A bit of stability, both geographical and financial, could only help the progress of his current rapprochement with Frances. He’d do it.
Before the read-through for The Habit of Faith started, at a rehearsal room in White City, Charles had been intrigued as to how Justin Grover would play things. Knowing the star’s propensity for meticulous planning, there was a reasonable chance that he would just mumble through the text, with a view to working privately on his part in the course of the rehearsal period.
But it became clear that his preparation had already been done. As soon as the read-through started, Justin’s interpretation of Abbot Ambrose was firmly in place. Every intonation, every nuance was fully formed. At times, although they were all seated, he could not stop himself from doing some of the hand gestures on which he had worked so assiduously.
What was more, to the dismay of all the other cast members, he already knew every line. Throughout the read-through, he didn’t open his script once.
This was partly showing off, partly gamesmanship, but more importantly a statement of power. Justin Grover’s performance was already there and immutable. The rest of the cast would have to fit their performances around it.
And the director’s vision of the play would also have to be adjusted to match that of its star.
The person taking on the directing role had been very carefully chosen – and Charles felt pretty sure that it had been Justin Grover who had done the choosing. Nita Glaze was very much up-and-coming. Having done lots of theatre while at Manchester University, she had set up her own company, Chip and Pin, soon after graduation. Five years of touring the country and maintaining a strongly controversial presence on social media had raised her profile to the point where she started being offered assistant director jobs at some of the major regional theatres. The unwillingness of most directors to share their artistic vision made these fairly thankless postings, but they all helped build up Nita’s CV. Soon she progressed to directing her own shows at various well-known London pub theatres and other venues. She became a regular arts commentator on Radio 4’s Front Row, and even once appeared on television’s Newsnight. Critics hailed her as a rising star.
The Habit of Faith would be her first West End production.
Giving her the job was a bold choice by Justin Grover, but a canny one. Media coverage would praise the appointment of someone young, vibrant and female, instead of the usual middle-aged, male ‘safe pair of hands’.
And, to tick another of the right boxes, Nita Glaze was black.
In spite of her impressive credits, however, she was very inexperienced at the level of directing a major West End show. And of dealing with a star. Her previous work had demonstrated a shrewd eye for spotting talent and developing nascent careers, but that was a very different matter from dealing with someone as established as Justin Grover. He had such a clear idea of how he wanted things done, that it would take an exceptionally dominant personality to make him change a single intonation. Though strong-willed and confident, Nita Glaze did not have that kind of strength.
Her room for manoeuvre had also been circumscribed by the fact that the producers – or more likely Justin Grover himself – had appointed a designer with whom he had worked many times before. So, although there had been some illusion of consultation with Nita in the run-up to the start of rehearsal, she found herself in nominal charge of a production in which the set and the central performance had already been decided before she came on board.
Charles Paris knew there were two options for someone in that situation. Nita Glaze could either try to impose her own vision on the play, make every rehearsal an argument which she was ultimately bound to lose; or she could zip her lip, put on the show that Justin Grover wanted to be put on, and later reap the benefit of having had her credit on a major West End production. Charles knew what he’d do in the circumstances. But then he’d always done anything to avoid confrontation. He wondered whether Nita Glaze would have the good sense to do the same.
Anyway, there were no open conflicts at the read-through. Everyone was charming to everyone else. The official proceedings started with a welcome from the producer, saying what an exciting adventure they were all embarking on. Then Justin Grover also said a few words, confirming what an exciting adventure they were all embarking on.
In the general milling around which had preceded the start of the read-through, the star had greeted Charles warmly, ‘Hello. I’m Justin Grover.’
He recognized this trick of old. It was a form of inverted egocentricity, whereby a famous person humbly maintains the illusion that no one knows who he is.
‘I know that, Justin. You may remember that we worked together in Bridport. I was Rosencrantz and you were Guildenstern – or possibly the other way round.’
‘Yes, of course I remember, Charles. But I thought you might have forgotten.’
This was taking mealy-mouthed humility a bit too far for Charles’s taste, but he didn’t make any comment. Just said a conventional, ‘Anyway, I’m delighted to be working with you again.’
Justin Grover shrugged magnanimously. ‘If an actor can’t help out an old chum, what has the world of theatre come to, eh?’
Charles winced inwardly. He had never liked being patronized. There was no false humility from the star now. Justin Grover was saying unequivocally, ‘I got you this job, and it therefore behoves you to be eternally grateful to me.’
Charles had known, from the various emails that had been sent around to the cast in the weeks running up to the read-through, that he’d be working with at least one other actor he knew. The part of Brother Philip, The Monk Who Had Difficulty Controlling His Lust Towards Men (Especially Towards The Young Novice Who Had Just Joined The Monastery) was being played by Tod Singer.
Charles had had an initial reaction of surprise when he saw this casting, because Tod wasn’t gay. But then he had to remind himself that the encroaching political correctness, which would not allow actors to play parts of different ethnicity from their own, had not yet reached sexual orientation. And, when he came to think about it, he realized it never would. Insisting that gay parts could only be played by gay actors might gain some support, but the suggestion that gay actors should not be allowed to represent heterosexuals onstage would really flutter the dovecots. The classical canon contained far too many juicy roles of rampant womanizers. If gay actors were forbidden from playing parts like Othello – and indeed Hamlet … well, there’d be rioting on Shaftesbury Avenue.
Charles and Tod Singer had last worked together on The School for Scandal in Glasgow. Though it had not been the greatest production in the history of theatre (‘Charles Paris’s Benjamin Backbite lacked backbone.’ Glasgow Herald), the two actors had become close friends, or at least assiduous drinking companions. Indeed, Charles had no recollection of drawing a sober breath from the first day of rehearsal to the last night party.
And, though of course, as part of the re-wooing of Frances, he was going to cut out the booze, it was still reassuring to know that Tod Singer would be in the company.
During the read-through, Charles did what everyone else was doing, looked covertly round the table to assess the people with whom he would be spending the next four months of his life. They had each identified themselves in the round-the-table ice-breaking exercise with which Nita had begun the morning, but he hadn’t retained many of the names.
The playwright, Seamus Milligan, was a dour-looking individual, whose expression suggested he was suffering from some terrible mental burden. Catholic guilt, Charles reckoned. Only a Catholic, or a lapsed Catholic (which, in terms of guilt-bearing, was pretty much the same thing) could have created a play like The Habit of Faith. To write all that maundering-on about belief and the obstacles to belief, you had to think that religion mattered. Something which Charles Paris, from his early teenage years, had signally failed to do.
Back then, though, he had, for maybe eighteen months, had a deep, almost passionate faith. In retrospect, he reckoned it was a reaction against his parents’ laid-back scepticism. Had his parents been believers, he would probably have found atheism earlier. But for those months of devotion, he did read a chapter of the Bible every night before sleep. He had even written into his copy a quote he’d got from somewhere:
This book will keep me from sin.
Sin will keep me from this book.
Then, one morning, aged about fourteen, Charles Paris had woken up with the conviction that he didn’t believe any of it. And since then, he had not been troubled by religious doubt – or indeed religious thought of any kind.
All he had gained from the experience was a devoted admiration for the cadences of the Authorized Version. And he was sure that reading that beautiful language so early had helped him in his career as an actor. It developed his natural understanding of emphasis and rhythm.
His loss of faith had not turned him anti-religion. He had a great respect – even envy – for people with a faith. It just didn’t work for him. Every time he had to go into a church – which was now more for funerals than weddings or christenings – he still hoped that something would happen. A divine revelation. A Damascene conversion. The heavens opening and God reaching down to claim Charles Paris for His own. But, sadly, nothing. He always felt on his exit from the church exactly as he had felt on his entrance.
Read-throughs are always an opportunity to assess the comparative talent of other company members. However much actors talk about being ‘part of an ensemble’, they are all ferociously competitive. Beneath the smarmy compliments they pay to each other, there is very often the burning conviction that ‘I could play that part a lot better than he/she is doing.’
And Charles Paris had no doubt that he could play the part of The Monk Who Had Difficulty Controlling His Lust Towards Women much better than the actor who had been cast in the role. In fact, he reckoned a plank of wood or a bowl of porridge could play the part better.
He had retained, from the round-the-table introductions, the name of this talent-free individual. Grant Yeoell. He could recognize that, although useless as an actor, the young man was extraordinarily handsome. And nobody could maintain a physique like that without frequent visits to the gym.
What Charles didn’t know, and what most of the rest of the world who watched Vandals and Visigoths could have told him, was that Grant Yeoell was involved in the franchise, playing the part of Wulf, the illegitimate son of Sigismund the Strong. Like many film actors, he had been cast originally for his looks. And, like many film actors, the fact that he couldn’t act for toffee didn’t matter. In the movies, the takes of scenes are so short, and the skills of editors so advanced, that, even without resorting to CGI, the aforementioned plank of wood or bowl of porridge could be made to give a convincing performance. And that was the case with Grant Yeoell.
So far as the producers of The Habit of Faith were concerned, whether he could hack it on stage or not was completely irrelevant. The sight on a poster of Grant Yeoell’s name, in conjunction with that of Justin Grover, would put even more bums on seats. And who cared if those bums belonged to hormonally rampant underage girls? Or people dressed as Vandals, Visigoths or Skelegators? Producers, generally speaking, don’t care about the quality of the people sitting on their seats, just the quantity.
Inevitably, in his checking-out observation of the read-through table, Charles Paris clocked The Girl. The name of the person playing the part (as he thought of her, thus avoiding the actor/actress dilemma) had stayed with him from the introductions. Liddy Max. From the way she read, she was clearly a very talented actress. And she had the kind of looks which could have propelled her to the top in the theatre, even if she didn’t have the talent. Trim figure, fine blonde hair cut short, and the kind of large blue eyes in which many men would in time lose themselves.
Charles felt a knee-jerk – but pointless – rush of disappointment when he noticed she was wearing a wedding ring.
Why did he always react like that? It wearied him. Why could the sight of a pretty woman always set the same inevitable thoughts in train? Why could he not look at any woman without assessing her on some scale of fanciability? When he was in a good mood, such a reaction reassured him that he was still alive. When he was in a bad mood, it made him feel like a dirty old man.
Idly, he wondered how she had come to be playing The Girl in The Habit of Faith. Charles now knew that his own presence in the company was due to the magnanimity of Justin Grover. He wondered what kind of favour the star had been repaying when Liddy Max had been cast. It could be sexual, perhaps, but he wouldn’t have expected Justin to be quite so obvious.
Charles had never really known about Justin Grover’s sex life. He wasn’t gay. Indeed, he was frequently photographed with some new starlet on his arm. His affairs kept the gossip columns well fed. But none lasted. Three months seemed to be their maximum duration. That had been the case when Charles had first known the actor in Bridport, and the same pattern seemed to have been repeated many times since. Justin had always been more interested in having some photogenic younger woman on his arm than in having relationships.
Charles’s cynical view was that the star was too obsessed with himself to have any love to spare for anyone else. His sex life, like his acting, was a bloodless technical exercise, whose sole aim was to create an effect.
Charles found himself wondering whether Justin put his characteristic meticulous preparation and attention to detail into his bedroom activities. The image was such an unappealing one that he dismissed it from his mind.
And concluded that sex was unlikely to have played a part in the casting of Liddy Max. There must have been some other reason why Justin Grover had approved her. Charles wondered what it might be.
He took another surreptitious look across the table at The Girl. She was not yet out of her twenties. Far too young for him, he concluded wistfully.
There was another girl, who was introduced as ‘ASM and understudying Liddy’. Her name was Imogen Whittaker. A stunning natural redhead, she carried herself with striking ease and confidence. But she was even younger than The Girl.
The stage manager, Kell Drummond, though, was a much more interesting prospect. Forties, short black hair, strong but ample body, and that air of pragmatic competence which Charles never failed to find alluring. In his experience, stage managers had always been encouragingly pragmatic about sex, too.
Not, of course, that that had any relevance for him in his current situation. No, no, he told himself.
On the other hand, if he had still been interested in women other than his wife, he might have envisaged intriguing possibilities with Kell Drummond.
Long habit had ensured that, the morning of the read-through, Charles Paris had, on his journey from the tube station to the rehearsal room, noted the location of the nearest pub. And it seemed logical to adjourn there once The Habit of Faith had been read.
Rehearsal proper was scheduled to begin the following morning. The afternoon would be devoted to some necessary technical activities. With the read-through table removed, the stage management would lay down tape on the floor to mark out the dimensions of the single set. Some of the actors were required to stay and be measured up for their costumes, though Charles had assumed that monks’ habits were one-size-fits-all. Later, there would be a production meeting for Nita Glaze and all the stage crew. Significantly, Charles noticed, Justin Grover said he too would be attending that. Slight pique tugged at the mouth of the director when she heard his announcement. Was there going to be no area of the production where she wasn’t under surveillance?
Charles wasn’t called for anything in the afternoon, so, after the rehearsal broke up, it seemed logical to invite Tod Singer to join him in the pub. ‘Recapture the spirit of Glasgow, eh?’
Time had not been kind to his fellow actor. Tod would certainly no longer have fitted into the costume he wore as Snake in The School for Scandal. Mind you, Charles would no longer have fitted into his Sir Benjamin Backbite costume either. But Tod’s face had aged too; it wore the corrugated complexion of a heavy smoker. And there was something haunted about his eyes. Which certainly suited the part of Brother Philip, The Monk Who Had Difficulty Controlling His Lust Towards Men (Especially Towards The Young Novice Who Had Just Joined The Monastery).
Tod’s reaction to the pub invitation was not as instant as it would once have been. He seemed to be enduring some moral conflict before he replied, ‘Very well, OK.’
Charles prided himself on his memory for the favourite tipples of his drinking companions. He remembered from the many sessions in Bridport that he and Tod would start with pints of bitter and whisky chasers, before possibly sharing a bottle of red wine and more Scotch. So, at the bar he pointed to the logo of one of the bitters and said, ‘Two pints of that, please.’
‘No,’ said Tod Singer.
‘What?’
‘Just a fizzy water for me.’
‘Oh?’
‘I’ve given up the booze.’
‘For how long?’
The reply came back instantly. ‘Three years, seven months and fourteen days.’
This didn’t sound promising. ‘So, if you’re not drinking, why did you agree to come to the pub with me?’
‘To test myself,’ said Tod Singer. ‘To see if I can be strong in the company of the people with whom I used to share my deadly habit.’
Oh, great, thought Charles Paris.