Next morning I battled my way through the wind and found a sheltered seat by a little kiosk selling hot carbohydrates. Despite the fine drizzle, the sea was sparkling and the laughing remains of the British Navy were assembled in the bay, grand and grey in the occasional sunlight. I was just settling in to a plate of mini-doughnuts, still hot from the fryer, when my phone rang. Dan.
‘Hallo? Eleanor? I think the line went dead last night.’
Tell the truth or lie? Why cut off the nose to spite the orgasm?
‘Yes…the reception’s terrible in my room. So…how’s my gorgeous director?’
‘I may not be the person to ask,’ he said. ‘Izzy has demanded I come back for a meeting. He’s read the local review and says it’s crap. I think I’m going to be sacked again.’ His voice had lost all its confidence. ‘Eleanor, would you meet me at the theatre? I need – I’d like you to be there.’ This was a Dan I hadn’t met before. He sounded almost frightened. ‘I don’t know if I can control the situation any more.’
‘Sure you can, but of course I’ll be there. I’m sure there’s no problem.’ Should I mention the Leather Queen? No. ‘The show was great last night, the crits can’t be that bad.’
As I rang off, I thought again about Ricky and his spooky agent. No one flies from Los Angeles to Plymouth because they fancy a night out at the theatre.
As if summoned by thought, there they were coming towards me through the wind-whipped rain. I hoped they hadn’t seen me, and they, from the split-second our eyes met, were hoping I hadn’t seen them. We assumed our masks.
‘Eleanor. Hi. What a great show last night. I am just so in awe of you. You are so talented. I just love what you’re doing up there.’
Ricky’s torrent of Americana broke round my stiff upper lip.
‘Thank you so much. It’s an unexpected pleasure to see you again. To what do we owe the honour of your visit?’
Shall we take a turn about the room, Mr D’Arcy?
‘Ohmygod! I just love the way you talk. Rudolph and I just came over to see where the Pilgrim Fathers started from. I want to find my roots.’
‘Your roots? Surely you should try Ireland. Or Italy?’
I could see myself in his wrap-around sunglasses. He said nothing as Rudolph hurried him away.
•
Dan was sheltering from a sudden downpour. A solitary cloud was anchored above the theatre. Omens were everywhere. I kissed his cheek. His response was a bare movement of the air above mine. He looked grey with tiredness and reeked of cigarettes.
‘They won’t let me have an independent witness.’
‘What?,’ I said.
‘If they’re going to sack me, I want someone in there. They said I can’t have anyone.’
I couldn’t believe this was possible. What about the union? It turned out he was out of benefit.
‘That’s all right,’ I said cheerfully. ‘You can lapse up to thirteen weeks without losing your membership.’
He flicked his cigarette-end into a puddle.
‘It’s more like years.’
‘I thought you were a Marxist –’
‘Trotskyist,’ he interrupted.
‘Sorry, I thought you Trots were union-mad. Anyway, you’d better rejoin quick if you’re right about this meeting. Is that the review?’
He had the local paper sticking out of his coat pocket. ‘Yes. It’s pretty illiterate.’
He handed it to me as Jonty joined us, grinning, showing both rows of teeth in his wide jaws. What did he remind me of? The theatrical fox in Pinocchio.
‘Did you know about this meeting?,’ I asked.
He nodded.
‘What’s it about?’
He shrugged and did a ‘my lips are sealed’ mime. It was his job to sit on the fence between Izzy and the rest of us, but I was beginning to think he had crocodile clips instead of buttocks.
‘They’ll be here in a minute, Dan, the meeting’s in my office so just go in when you want to. See you later.’
‘Will you?,’ asked Dan. Jonty smiled and sauntered off. ‘I don’t trust him. If I go, you shouldn’t either.’
A nasty logic was beginning to emerge. After Viola’s public humiliation of Izzy, she’d chosen Dan; and despite her immediate capitulation after Izzy’s suicide and divorce, he was hell-bent on destroying the cause of her betrayal. Only Dan’s absolute ruin would satisfy his shattered pride.
And the Leather Queen in the Bandana had arrived to pick up the ball and score the try. Not that rugby similes were apt for one so far removed from the hurly-burly of the loose ruck.
I left Dan and ran to my dressing-room, ransacked the drawers and ran back.
‘Here,’ I gasped. ‘My tape-recorder. It’s old and it squeaks, but that’ll be your independent observer.’ I stopped him before he could object. ‘You’ll need something if they do try and sack you. They haven’t got a leg to stand on.’
Dan was changing the batteries when Izzy and Viola arrived, as always, in a taxi. They didn’t say anything as they passed us, so Dan shrugged deeper inside his raincoat and made to follow them through the stage door.
‘Dan? There’s something else…’
‘What?’
‘Ricky Ricky, the American’s here.’
‘In England?’
‘In Plymouth.’
‘That’s it, then,’ he said and walked into the theatre.
I stayed outside, wondering if I should have told him and trying to concentrate on reading the review. It was a poorly written catalogue of who did what to whom, with a bit of pretentiousness thrown in, but it wasn’t bad – qualified rapture for the comedy and music and a few doubts about the script, particularly Act One.
Izzy was reacting to this lone example of provincial journalism as if it was the verdict of the Butcher of Broadway. It was hard to believe these flaccid paragraphs could be fashioned into a stiletto for Dan’s assassination.
Half an hour later, his air of hurt confusion had evaporated when Dan slammed out of the stage door. He grabbed me by the elbow and hustled me across to the Mexican. We chose a corner table with a sofa and ordered a couple of coffees.
‘Well?’
‘Thanks for that,’ he said, placing my elderly Sony on the table. ‘Frightened the life out of the buggers.’
I was childishly excited my plan had actually worked. ‘Talk me through it. What happened…?’
•
Izzy told Viola and Dan to sit down, then paced the floor, issuing vague threats and boasts of his invincibility in the face of adversity.
‘The critics trashing us is down to your direction, Dan. I told you you made crap and you shouted me down. I trusted you and we got killed. They murdered us.’
‘Izzy, it’s one newspaper in Plymouth. It’s irrelevant, oh, and…’ Dan took the tape-recorder out of his coat pocket and slowly placed it on the low table between them. ‘You don’t mind, do you?’
Dan was surprised at how calm he sounded, how in control; he was even more surprised to see how steady his fingers were as he pressed the record button. Viola, already pale, went the colour of a distempered wall and Izzy stopped dead in his tracks, staring at the revolving tape. He then launched into a bullying tirade.
‘You saying you don’t trust me, Dan? That what you saying? We have to trust each other, I can’t work with anyone who doesn’t trust me. I never worked with anyone didn’t trust me. Are you telling me you don’t trust Izzy Duck?’
Dan just smiled and held his hand over the machine, as if protecting it from Izzy’s harsh words. When Izzy finished his rant, Dan said:
‘What was it you wanted to say, Izzy? And if this is just another attempt at intimidation, I think I should leave.’
As always when he was confronted, Izzy backed down, spraying out apologies and accusations of misunderstanding.
‘…Hey Dan, you’re over-reacting, you gotta know we love your work. You’ve done a great job up to now…but we all need to improve, it’s a life’s mission, am I right?’ Seeing no reaction, he changed tack. ‘The greatest story-teller in British theatre, a genius, that’s what I called you to the London Times when they interviewed me.’
Dan, with Izzy on the back foot, rediscovered his charm.
‘I’m sure you didn’t call me to this meeting to tell me how wonderful I am.’ He looked at Viola. She looked down, her cheeks flushing so she looked like a badly distempered red-brick wall. ‘What did you want to say?’
Izzy didn’t like the direct approach and squirmed around the distant edges of what Dan was sure he’d intended to say.
‘Well, see, you know what your problem is, Dan?’ He paused. Dan waited. ‘Your problem is you’re a turtle.’
‘Sorry?’
‘A turtle, Dan. You know a turtle? Four legs, shell, eats lettuce.’
Dan frowned. ‘You mean a tortoise.’
‘That’s right. A turtle. And that’s where you’re going wrong. You know the story of the race between the hare and the turtle?’
Dan controlled himself.
‘Yes I do, Izzy. And the turtle won.’
Izzy looked blank.
‘He did?’ A pause. ‘I didn’t know that.’
He unwrapped a new cigar, puzzled but undeterred. ‘So, pal, what I wanna say is this, pal, maybe you could do with a little help. You know, fizz up the choreography a little, give it some Broadway pizzazz.’
He paused to see what effect his words were having. None at all, from the look on Dan’s face. The tape made a soft creaking sound as it went round.
‘Okay, Dan, here’s the bottom line. Ricky has come over from LA – just passing through, you know? He’s seen the show – loves it, loves what you’ve done, he admires your work.’ He almost shouted this last into the recorder. ‘But he thought maybe he could come on board, you know, work alongside you, bring in some fresh ideas.’
‘Yes,’ said Dan. ‘Why not? I think that’s a very good idea. Alongside, not instead of.’
Izzy was thrown by Dan’s agreement. He continued, but with less certainty. ‘Of course not. No way. You’re the director. You’ve done a great show, Ricky’s just going to add, that’s all…’
•
On the table in the Mexican, Dan flicked open the tape machine and took out the evidence.
‘And you believe him?,’ I asked.
‘I don’t know,’ said Dan. ‘But I’ve got no problem with Ricky coming in and redoing a couple of numbers. And I know Flossie’ll be over the moon – he’s not a dance choreographer, that was God’s job – and, well…’
Dan didn’t say what had been reverberating round the company since the first week: that God, great salsa dancer though he was, couldn’t choreograph a line-dance for the Bolshoi. As KT said, What’s the difference between God the Father and God the choreographer? One of them is an unknowable mystery, the other is Jesus Christ’s father. We certainly needed help, and Leather Queen might be just the man. After all, he’d not only directed laxative commercials, he’d choreographed them too.
‘So what happens now?,’ I asked, relaxing back into the sofa. Dan put his hand on my thigh.
‘Well,’ he shrugged, ‘I think I should let Ricky have a couple of days to learn the show without me breathing down his neck, and we’ll start work for the West End when we get to London on Monday. For God’s sake, we’ve got twenty-one previews, there’s plenty of time. It’ll be fine. In the meantime I’ll make myself scarce for a couple of days.’
‘No.’ I moved closer to him, afraid to lose my security blanket.
‘Just tomorrow and Friday, I’ll be back Saturday.’ He kissed the end of my nose. ‘Promise.’
I snuggled in to him, too close for him to see my face. ‘By the way, Susan wasn’t pregnant. She was never pregnant. Her period started last Friday.’ I didn’t bother with the complexities of menstrual coordination. ‘The day before her miscarriage.’
‘Christ. Is that true?,’ he said, pushing me away. ‘No wonder she’s scared of you. You don’t miss a trick, do you?’
‘No.’ I stood up to go. ‘And Dan, she’s not scared of me. It’s just that vulnerable plays better than hard as nails.’