‘I’m exhausted,’ I said to KT. ‘I just want to get on the outside of a bottle of wine and a pot noodle, and as far as I’m concerned, Izzy, Dan and David can all bugger off.’
‘I’ll join you if we can have creme eggs for afters.’
‘You’re on.’
We were leaving through the stage door when Flossie, his face contorted, ran past, stopped, turned, and gasped: ‘Izzy’s sacked Dan. He’s sacked him. Dan’s over the pub, you’ve got to come. We’ve got to sort it out.’
The words stumbled over each other and Flossie didn’t wait to answer our questions.
‘Oh, for goodness’ sake,’ said KT. ‘Not more bloody grandstanding.’
We didn’t hurry to the pub but sat on the wall and shared a bar of slightly hairy fruit-and-nut chocolate, which KT found in the bottom of his bag.
Did the Schumachers throw the toys out of the pram? No. They even said well done to the usherettes before getting into their blacked-out limousine. KT and I agreed, this was just more foolishness from our megalomaniac producer.
It was a romantic night – clear and frosty, filled with the distant sounds of people enjoying themselves. The sky was loaded with stars and I was sitting on a wall in Plymouth eating chocolate with a homosexual. Life didn’t get much better. Finally, reluctantly, we wandered over to the pub.
A wave of noise crashed over us as we opened the door. Saturday night and the place was jumping. It was one of those vast halls of drink created for under-25s intent on alcohol poisoning. Upstairs, the company was scattered about watching Dan, Viola, Morag and Flossie, who were sitting at a table on the balcony. The women were talking animatedly, but Dan just sat holding his drink and staring at nothing but his own thoughts.
‘You’d better go and find out what’s going on,’ said KT. ‘I’ll bring you a drink.’
I approached cautiously, neck bent as I’d seen wolves do when approaching an alien pack. Viola was speaking.
‘Dan, I won’t let you go. You can’t.’ Her eyes were moist and large with pleading as she twisted to see into his impassive face.
‘What’s happened?,’ I asked.
Dan didn’t speak, he seemed bewildered.
‘That wee gobshite – sorry Viola – has only sacked Dan.’ Morag’s red-slash mouth was straight and tight with disgust. ‘Does the wee nyaff no realise what Dan’s done for this show? Without him there’d be no bloody show. Ungrateful scumbag.’
Betrayal, mendacity, adultery all wilted into insignificance.
‘Dan,’ I said. ‘If you go I go. If you’re off the show, I walk.’
That woke him up. ‘You can’t Eleanor, you’ve got a responsibility to the youngsters.’
‘Aye, he’s right,’ said Morag. ‘Look at them, they’re shittin’ hedgehogs. Most of them it’s their first job. Ye cannae make it their last.’
Dan nodded. ‘You’ve got to keep the whole thing together. You’re company leader.’ I had been catapulted from Medusa to Joan of Arc. Even Viola was pleading with me.
‘Eleanor, please, you gotta tell Dan he has to come back.’
Dan was adamant. ‘No, Viola. Izzy sacked me, he insulted me in front of a theatre full of people then demanded I shake hands with him, and because I wouldn’t, he sacked me. I don’t want to work with him. I can’t work with him.’
Despite my new role as arbitrator, I couldn’t help noticing the hollow shadows under his cheek bones and the tired beauty of his eyes. Then I realised what he’d said.
‘Hold on… He sacked you because you wouldn’t shake hands. You’re joking.’
‘D’ye see anyone laughing?,’ said Morag.
‘It’s true… He sacked me because I wouldn’t shake hands.’
It took a moment to sink in. ‘Where is he now?,’ I asked, with some vague idea of going to reason with him.
Viola was dismissive. ‘He went back to the hotel.’
Members of the company were closing in around us, their young faces reflecting the fear they felt. I glanced round and noticed a few absences, the minty Scots queen who’d teamed up with Lee, the deaf actor and a few others – fence-sitters and Dan’s enemies. And Susan. Hell hath no fury like an actress in the number eight dressing-room. Her non-appearance wasn’t simply because of her foot.
Glenda perched on the arm of Dan’s chair and put her hand on his back. At any other time, Dan would have purred with pleasure.
‘All right,’ I said. ‘You just tried to blackmail me with my responsibility to the cast, what about yours? Viola is asking you back, we all want you to go on and you’re saying no. Why?’
‘Because I cannot work with Izzy. I won’t work with him. Simple as that. It’d be easier working with a bag of cats.’ Dan took a breath, pursed his lips and went on. ‘You have no idea what he’s been like in production meetings, accusing Jonty of not providing budgets, Morag of trying to rip him off, Flossie of being an amateur, and me of being the greatest genius the British theatre has ever produced one minute, and a jackass the next – it goes on and on. I’m sorry. I’ve had enough. He sacked me and I’m staying sacked.’
There was a part of me, a big part, that just wanted to agree with him and allow the show to disintegrate. I could go back to David, pretend this had all been a pre-perimenopausal last fling, pretend I knew nothing about his adulterous romps with the cover girl for Exchange and Mart 1976. I could abort the rebirth of my independence and allow myself to sink into the shadowy age of female invisibility, where all that’s of interest is in the past. I could embrace neglected muscles, spreading stomach and the dismissal of my dreams. Settle for telling a dwindling audience of what I should have had, the chances that could have been, the parts that would have been mine. A twilight of ifs and buts. In Chile there were the Disappeared, in Equity there were the Disappointed.
Morag gripped my arm. My pasty ambivalence contrasted unfavour-ably with her blazing loyalty.
‘Eleanor, Dan’s put everything he has into this, we all have. You’ve got to talk to him.’
I had no choice.
‘All right…’ I wished my brain would provide some flash of inspiration. Nothing came. I felt my way cautiously through the only thought that came to me. ‘Dan, if Viola could keep Izzy locked in an underground dungeon until press night in London then, as far as I can see, you’d have no reason not to come back.’ Not exactly the delicate Japanese brush-stroke of diplomacy, but he didn’t argue. I went on carefully. ‘If Viola can absolutely guarantee, and I mean absolutely, that he won’t be allowed to interfere in any way with your work – or the show itself – you have no argument, you have to come back for all of us.’
He didn’t say anything but held his drink in both hands as if it were a crystal ball.
‘Or is it your ego stopping you? You want me to be humble and serve the greater good, but you’re not prepared to yourself?’
Inspiration out of desperation had pricked Dan’s self-awareness. He looked at me, hurt – by the question or the answer, I didn’t know. I turned back to Viola.
‘Can you do that? Can you keep Izzy away for his own good and the good of your show?’
‘Now’s your chance to find out. Izzy’s just walked in,’ Morag said, leaning over the balcony rail.
Izzy was lost among the tight press of rowdy drinkers who had no respect for a Broadway Producer. Viola ran down to rescue him, then, hanging onto his arm, she guided him up towards us.
His cigar, pushed into his cheek, pulled his slack mouth tight. He was sweating under his baseball cap but wouldn’t remove it to reveal his wispy liver-spotted skull. She held him back at the top of the stairs, talking earnestly to him, voice raised over the noise from below. He tilted his head towards her, trying to hear through his deafness while his eyes shifted round quickly, taking in who was there, calculating the strength of his enemies. In Izzy’s mind, enemies were everywhere.
Morag and I moved towards them, intending to welcome him and smooth the way for a rapprochement. Izzy swung round to face us like a belligerent bull. At that moment the lights went on and the music cut out. The closing of the pub provided a melodramatic backdrop to Izzy’s unfolding tragedy.
‘You want I should walk away from my own show?’ He spat his accusation at us, then turned back to Viola, unable to comprehend the enormity of her treachery. ‘You, my own wife? You? You’re siding with Dan?’
Viola was truculent and adamant. ‘Yes I am, Izzy. You can’t sack him. I believe in what he’s doing. We all do.’ She looked round at us; surely for the first time in her life dozens of eyes were watching her with admiration and respect. Intoxicated by liberation, she rushed on. ‘Dan is right, Izzy, and you are wrong. Absolutely wrong. Now, will you let Dan and me get on without any more interference?’
‘Viola, I gotta tell you, you’re getting crazy over this guy. I don’t know what you two a been doin’ but just remember you’re my wife.’ We were slack-jawed with horror, fascination and astonishment.
‘No, Izzy, I’m co-producer and if you don’t stand down I’m going to sack you, I will sack you and take over myself. You hear me?’
He waved his cigar sharply to dismiss her. That was it: she drew herself up, a column of flaming indignation.
‘You’re fired, Izzy. You hear me? I’m firing you.’ She was flying now, her collar turned up round her straining neck, her hands determinedly in her trouser pockets. Another Viola facing up to an Orsino become a foolish Lear.
Someone, KT perhaps, started to applaud. We followed him, whooping and clapping, spurring her to greater heights of bravery against her apparently defeated husband.
Izzy slumped against the wrought iron balcony railing, shrunken and tragically old. ‘I’m gonna kill myself, Viola. You left me with no choice.’ He paused dramatically. ‘I’m gonna kill myself.’
And with those words still dripping off the beer-sodden tables and into the beer-sodden actors, he turned and made his exit.
‘He’s so full of shit,’ said Morag decisively. ‘Come on, let’s go over the Mexican.’
We gathered our bags, settling like a herd of ruminants forgetting upset in favour of the comforts of grazing.
Dan accepted the homage of the young, recently insecure dancers, then went over to Viola, who had deflated and was now riven with self-doubt. He enveloped her in a hug I would have been jealous of had it been anyone else. Gently he rocked her, her face against his chest. I could smell what she smelled, feel on the skin of my face the cotton of his shirt and hear the slow thump of his heart. He kissed the top of her head, then moved her so as to present her to the room.
‘Hey, everyone, Viola’s coming over the Mexican for a drink, I’m buying.’
I don’t know if the cheers were for his largesse or for our new producer, but I heard the words ‘Santa Viola’ being called not entirely in jest. I had been The Goddess and now we had a saint. Perhaps she’d be more worthy of her title than I was of mine. She was borne out of the pub on a wave of enthusiasm, protected, like a film star, by her attentive director.
KT and I trailed after them. ‘Reckon he’s topped himself yet?,’ said KT. The thought had obviously occurred to Viola as well, because by the time they’d reached the street she was saying she had to find him and refusing all offers of help with admirable new-found saintliness. Dan put her in a cab to take her back to the hotel where her husband was no doubt sucking on an exhaust pipe while swallowing the contents of the bathroom cabinet.