When I arrived at the theatre the next day, I had a hangover and a post-coital glow that could have lit up Blackpool.
The air backstage was heavy with gloomy foreboding. How could we survive such a trashing? The house was tiny, made up mostly of the sort of people who like public hangings, but by the end of the show there was no sign of Izzy, nor, more importantly, of the piece of paper on the noticeboard that would announce our closing.
Susan, devastated by the demolition of her dreams, those ambitions which had been so public and so publicly destroyed, was weepy and subdued on stage and off. Lee, angry and defiant, went so far over the top he was interfering with the Heathrow flight-path. The kids were depressed, and we took all sharp objects out of Kelvin’s room.
‘Are West End musicals always so…so…awful?,’ Tizer asked during the interval, bewildered by the disintegration of the company and his illusions. Now the panic calls to agents would start, any job chased, rumours of castings seized upon with desperate hope. We were all preparing for the end. Dead men dancing – though limping optimism could be heard in the goodnights as we left the theatre. Perhaps we could become a cult hit? Other productions had survived bad press…
KT, ministering spaghetti bolognese to Kelvin and me at midnight, was philosophical:
‘Oh well, you’ve fucked up better shows than this.’
•
On Tuesday morning, the phone rang early.
‘Eleanor?’
‘Jonty? What’s up?
‘Izzy’s just phoned.’
‘Is the notice going up?’
‘No. No, of course not.’ Of course not? What did he think we were doing? The Mousetrap? ‘No, Izzy rang me from the airport…’
‘I didn’t have him down for a plane-spotter.’
‘He and Viola have gone back to Costa Rica…’
‘You’re not serious.’
‘…to release more funds.’
More chance of them releasing Rudolf Hess.
‘What do you mean, “release more funds”?’
He went into a complicated and superficially convincing explanation of the running-costs of the show. Izzy Duck had to go home to sign papers in person to release monies that would be used for a big publicity drive – and to cover a few small outstanding bills.
‘Not to pay the wages, then?’
‘Well…er…’
‘Oh, Jonty, don’t tell me…hang on, they owe you money, don’t they? Have they given you anything?’
‘A bit.’
‘How much?’
‘Nine thou.’
I couldn’t believe it. ‘So they’ve stiffed you for sixteen grand?’
‘Um…yes. But it’s all right, they’ll be back on Thursday with the money.’
I couldn’t control my frustration with the poor lad. KT and Kelvin came out their bedroom to see what I was shouting about. ‘You dozy tart.’ I’d definitely been around KT too long. ‘You stupid sod, they are not coming back. Don’t you understand? They’ve done a runner…and you’re not the only one owed money, are you?’
‘Well, no, actually.’ He sounded completely different from the cocky, public school boy I was used to. ‘The first night party hasn’t been paid for.’
‘How much?’
‘Twenty grand. He told them that salsa singer was paying – he didn’t even turn up.’
‘Bloody hell. Anything else?’
‘The sound company, the lighting company, the PR company, not that they’ve done much, the prop-makers, the printers, the hire company, the set-builders, the costume- and wig-makers.’ He paused, then in the voice I was used to, added, ‘But they’ll be back. You really mustn’t be so cynical, Eleanor, negativity is the enemy of life.’
‘No Jonty, Izzy Duck and his Cro-Magnon wife are the enemy. See you at the theatre.’
I sat in exhausted silence after I’d repeated the details to KT and Kelvin, who, having indulged in a fountain of vitriolic fury, started checking flights to Vancouver. He would be gone as soon as the final curtain came down.
‘Well…,’ KT said to the back of Kelvin’s head, as he trawled the internet, ‘I’ll make a pie, got a few blackberries need eating.’
Hurt and upset, his hands went ice cold. Perfect for pastry. I followed him into the kitchen, ignoring the tears on his cheeks and the cigarette burning by the rolling-pin.
‘KT, what’s your agent doing about your money? They had no grounds to sack you.’
‘Jonty never took me off the payroll,’ he said, through a cloud of flour. ‘I was never officially fired. They’ve been paying me to sit on my backside.’
A small silver lining in the gathering clouds.
‘You’re not broke, then…you could jump a flight to Canada.’
KT stopped his furious attack on a block of margarine.
‘He hasn’t asked me.’ He thought for a moment. ‘And, you know, Eleanor, a West End fuck stops at the end of the Northern Line. No…it was good. Leave it at that.’
•
That night, the serious rumour squad had been working overtime. We were coming off that evening. Izzy and Viola were transferring the show to a smaller theatre, then on to Broadway. They’d been arrested for drug smuggling. They were definitely on the Wednesday overnight flight, and Susan had been assured by Viola that everything was fine. The show would go on. After all, it was their baby.
I tried to get into the stage door with my double latte foam-backed coffee without being seen by Susan, who was posing with a cigarette under the outside light like a 1950s hooker. She didn’t speak, but gave me a look that when we started rehearsals would have left me whimpering and unable to go on. Now I gave her a cheerful good evening and asked her if she had a migraine.
‘They will be back, you know,’ she hissed, with a ridiculous overplaying of the will. ‘And you’re going to be shown up for the destructive bitch you are. What you did to those people was vicious, just plain vicious. They’re just trying to make their dream come true and you stopped them.’
I considered rising above this and sailing past in dignity, but then I thought, what the hell…
‘I helped stop those two crooks from breaking the law, yes, and I stopped this show being taken over by a talentless egomaniac who knows as much about theatre as you know about singing. And if I have any part in stopping them ever putting another show on in London, my life will not have been lived in vain. And if that means I’ve stopped you becoming a star then frankly, Scarlett, I don’t give a damn.’
I’d like to say I ducked the punch she aimed at me and danced laughing into the theatre, but it landed messily just above my left ear and bounced me off the door frame. I didn’t have time to think or feel pain, as I hurled the vat of boiling coffee over her. She screamed, not just from shock and outrage, but from real pain, as a pint of scalding brown sludge smacked her in the face. Her hair flattened under the weight of the liquid and drops dripped from her false eyelashes.
I couldn’t help it. I laughed.
I roared with laughter. She started to slap me around the head screeching incoherently, and I couldn’t stop laughing until Ruby came out and separated us, when I subsided onto the ground holding my ribs.
‘What the fuck’s going on?’ It was the first time I’d seen him abandon his dynamic lethargy.
‘She thinks they’re coming back. That stupid great hippopotamus think Izzy and Viola Duck are coming back with the contents of their piggy bank. That Viola’s Cinderella and I’m the Wicked Stepmother.’ I stood up, not laughing any more, and put my face threateningly close to hers. ‘They are not coming back, you dimwit. You backed the wrong poxy horse. But that’s the story of your career isn’t it? Also-ran and not placed.’
She tried to kick me, but Ruby stopped her. As I staggered into the theatre, the last words I heard from Susan were:
‘She thinks she’s so fucking clever.’
‘I don’t think, Susan, I know,’ I yelled back.
The only smiles that night were on stage. In the bleak corridors and dressing-rooms were fear, confusion and anger. We were waiting to be put out of our misery.
It would be neither swift nor humane.
•
At three o’clock on the Wednesday, during the matinée, Jonty put up the notice, as the only thing to come from Costa Rica was silence.
No money. Nothing.
We would play for two weeks on the wages lodged with the union. Then the nightmare spiralled into Thursday. The technicians, with no union buffer, weren’t to be paid at all. Our pot of Izzy the Fool’s gold didn’t cover them. But it did cover cast members who, through meanness or stupidity, weren’t union members, to the fury of those who’d paid their dues. I longed for the return of the closed shop.
Jonty called us together.
‘Due to funds not being available to pay the staff, we will close this Saturday. In three day’s time.’
Pandemonium broke out. The show had lasted nine days. All that work and heartbreak for nine days. Twelve shows.
Jonty raised his voice. ‘…If – and only if – the staff will consent to work until then. It means that, should there still be no funds by Friday morning they will do three shows, Friday, Saturday matinée and Saturday evening, without pay, and they may well refuse. In which case, we close tonight.’
A simian boy, Lee’s unshaven and uncaring sidekick, shrugged. ‘That’s all right by me,’ he said in his loud Glasgow voice. ‘We still get two weeks’ money.’ He had been equally vocal in refusing to join the union.
The cast dispersed. Impotent at the unfairness of life. ‘It’s not fair,’ I’d say as a child. ‘What’s not fair? A dark horse?,’ would come the impenetrable reply.
Enemies I didn’t know I had would be laughing at my name – above the title – on the ridiculous posters hanging in shreds from neglected hoardings. A public humiliation. A famous flop. I’d barely climbed the ladder and was hurtling down the snake.
On stage that night, we looked no different – bright, beaming, brainless, servicing the punters. Off stage, the atmosphere was leaden with unspoken recrimination.
•
Everyone agreed to stay on – some were in denial, some because they believed there would be an eleventh-hour reprieve, some because they felt a loyalty neither the producers nor the fates reciprocated.
The last performance came and went with no word from Izzy or Viola. No thank you, no regrets or goodbyes, and definitely no money.
At the curtain, I stepped forward. The cheers of the few to witness our demise died away.
‘Ladies and gentlemen…’
Susan made to stop me. I covered my mike. ‘Fuck off back in line. Now.’ Maybe it was the ferocious wig – she obeyed.
‘Ladies and gentlemen, you may have heard our producers have returned to Costa Rica to spend more time with their bank account.’ Gratifying laughter. ‘So I would like you to give your applause to the technicians and staff of this theatre who have not been paid and have worked since Wednesday out of loyalty to the cast and to those of you who have come to see us. Thank you.’
We clapped and shouted for the unseen heroes. Even Lee and Susan.
•
The wardrobe mistress held a sale of the costumes to pay the dressers, whose collective wages didn’t amount to one of Izzy’s solicitor’s letters. The washing machines, driers, irons and sewing machine were looted. Everything of value was taken in lieu of what was owed. Even the padded coat hangers.
KT came down to the theatre and the two of us wandered onto the empty stage. The flat grey light of the workers threw shadows on the great house.
‘Here you are, gell. Thought you might need this.’
He produced a screwdriver.
We took Izzy’s door knobs. A souvenir of the best and worst months of my life. The rest of the set would be dismantled and thrown in a skip. But Izzy hadn’t even provided money for that. It was two weeks before a producer paid a pound for it and took it away on a 36-week tour of The Merry Widow.
We said our goodbyes with that false merriment that protects at times of bereavement. We would grieve and nurse our wounds alone, the hastily exchanged phone numbers never used.
Susan and Lee, elaborately ignoring me, swept out with their entourages. I leaned out of my dressing-room window.
‘Oi, Susan.’
She turned, mouth sucked tight.
‘Let’s meet for a coffee sometime, you can tell me where I went wrong.’
She gathered her dignity, turned on her impossibly high heels, tripped and fell into the bottle-filled crates that lined the entrance to the stage door.
‘Mind you’re not still there on Monday morning – that lot’s for recycling. You might come back as an actress.’
‘Or a singer,’ chimed in KT.
We looked at each other.
‘Nah…,’ we chorused.