16

 

 

‘I think it’s a load of crap,’ Rett Latham said dogmatically. ‘I think Murray got stinko last night in his room by himself and this morning he had qualms of conscience.’

‘Shut up, Rett!’ Ida said. ‘Hasn’t it worked through your ivory skull yet that that’s why he went to see this doctor in the village? The doctor said he hadn’t been drinking, and Sam Blizzard has a certificate to say so.’

‘What good is a blood test or whatever he had so many hours afterwards?’ Al Wilkinson demanded. ‘Some people get over the effects quicker than others, and a lush is probably quicker than anybody.’

‘I believe Murray,’ Heather said with defiance. ‘Delgado is trying to make out that he staged the thing himself—but why should he?’

‘This griping’s getting on my nerves,’ Constant said sourly. ‘Why should Delgado want to do a thing like that to Murray? That’s a much better question!’

‘If you want the answer I can give it to you,’ Murray flared. ‘Stop flapping your mouth and start flapping your ears for a change.’

‘Oh—brilliant!’ Constant grunted, stubbing a cigarette in a handy ashtray. ‘Who’s doing your script today, Murray?’

‘Constant, for Christ’s sake,’ Ida said. ‘If Murray’s got an explanation, listen to it.’

‘Okay, I’m listening.’ Constant folded his arms with elaborate pantomime.

‘To start with.’ Murray took a deep breath. ‘You don’t honestly think Delgado’s abandoning the play was due to my acting. You told me so last night, remember?’ A protest died stillborn on Constant’s lips, and a reluctant nod took its place. ‘He has a personal gripe against me. The only thing I’ve done which nobody else has is to stumble across some peculiar gadgetry in the bedrooms which Delgado can’t or won’t explain. I’ve been ripping off the nonsensical bits of wire he has on the mattresses, for example. I—’

He broke off, thinking from her expression that Heather was going to say something, but before she could respond to his look of inquiry Adrian Gardner had jumped into the pause.

‘Not your damned tape-decks again! Murray, you’re getting to be a bore about them.’

‘Agreed,’ Jess Aumen said from his stool at the piano. He had been occupying himself with his habitual silent ‘practice’, and Murray hadn’t thought he was listening.

‘It isn’t just the tapes,’ Murray said. ‘There’s stuff in the TV sets, and there’s something in room thirteen. And there’s something under room thirteen, too. Lester, did you know that there’s a sort of giant version of the stuff on the mattresses up there over the stage? It’s behind a grille on the ceiling, but you can see it from close to. Go and take a look.’

The lighting engineer shook his head, leaning back in one of the padded seats. ‘You know my opinion of this stuff, Murray. I think it’s a lot of pseudo-scientific rubbish and nothing to make such a fuss about.’

‘Delgado doesn’t think so,’ Murray snapped. ‘It was when I was poking at it yesterday that he—’

‘Told you not to, and got you so worked up you decided to get your own back?’ That was Rett Latham again, registering boredom. ‘Murray, this is all doubletalk. You haven’t made the case you said you were going to, and frankly I’m tired of the argument.’

‘Hear hear!’ agreed Adrian, and ostentatiously checked his watch. ‘I wish Sam and Delgado would stop wasting time on this red herring of Murray’s and come and join us.’

‘I think that’s disgusting, Ade,’ Gerry Hoading exclaimed. ‘It was the most sadistic bloody trick imaginable, what was done to Murray, and you call it a red herring—God, do you imagine he enjoyed it?’

‘We don’t have to ask why you’re taking his part, do we?’ Adrian said, curling his lip.

‘What’s Delgado bought you with, Ade?’ Gerry whispered, tensing as though to rise and hurl himself bodily forward. ‘An endless supply of pretty little boys?’

‘Oh, for Christ’s sake can it, will you?’ Jess Aumen shouted, swinging around on the piano stool. ‘You’ll drive the whole bloody lot of us up the wall if you go on!’

Murray recognized the truth of the warning. He yielded despondently and walked to the side of the auditorium, where he put his forearm on the wall and leaned his head against it.

The air smelt sour with tension. Obedient to Dr Cromarty’s instructions, he had contrived to force down some breakfast when Delgado and Blizzard had left the dining room, but now he was thinking it had been a mistake; it lay heavy as lead in his guts.

Jesus, how did I get into this madhouse?

He grew aware of someone standing beside him, and raised his head. It was Gerry, a cigarette thrust between his pale lips. Fumbling for a light, the designer said, ‘Murray, how the hell did you stop yourself from beating Ade’s head in?’

‘I don’t know,’ Murray said shortly. Out of all those here, he would perhaps have picked Gerry last as his staunch advocate, but as a result of last night the matter was settled. ‘I don’t know. Maybe because the only reason I can think of for Delgado to do as he’s doing is to provoke that kind of row.’

‘Yes.’ Gerry got the light to his cigarette at last. ‘Yes—but what for? Just to add a real-life tang to his play? It seems crazy!’

‘I think he is crazy,’ Murray muttered. ‘But then, so are we all, to be putting up with him.’

There was a sudden stir. Everyone swung to look at the far end of the auditorium. Murray’s heart turned over, and he clenched his hands at his sides.

Blizzard was coming down the aisle, followed by Delgado and the author didn’t look his best. His forehead was distinctly shiny, and he was smoking one of his king-size cigarettes not with his usual aplomb but as though sucking comfort with the smoke.

‘Sam put up a better fight than I gave him credit for,’ Murray said under his breath to Gerry. ‘Look at Delgado!’

Gerry nodded, betraying excitement. ‘You don’t imagine he’s got him to back down, do you?’ he murmured.

‘That?’ Murray gave a bitter chuckle. ‘Oh, I doubt it.’

But that was exactly what Blizzard had done.

He didn’t have to call for attention when he clambered up on the stage. There was an intense silence, broken only by the sound of Delgado’s cat-light footfalls crossing the stage towards a chair at the back.

‘All right, I’ve been having a long discussion with Manuel,’ Blizzard said. ‘You all know about this thing that happened to Murray this morning—yes? I see you do. I don’t know who was responsible, but it was presumably one of you lot here, so I know I’m getting through when I say it was a filthy, disgusting, sadistic trick. In spite of certain opinions to the contrary’—he didn’t look at Delgado, but no one could doubt whom he meant—‘I think Murray has done bloody well to climb back out of the mess he got into, and he’s worked bloody well since coming here, too. I’m going to put it down to the way we all felt yesterday as a result of—well, of what happened. But if there’s any repetition, the person responsible goes out on his ear, and I will undertake to see that his membership of Equity is cancelled immediately. He’ll never get work in this country again. Is that clear?’

He glanced around the auditorium, scowling, and finally turned to Murray. ‘That satisfy you, Murray?’ he asked.

‘The person responsible won’t be worried by that kind of threat,’ Murray said. ‘He isn’t in Equity.’

‘Shut up, Murray!’ said Constant from the side of his mouth. Murray shrugged and leaned against the wall.

‘Murray, I know what you mean by that,’ Blizzard said. ‘But I think everyone else here would rather I pretended not to.’

‘Hear hear!’—in a subdued voice from Rett Latham.

‘All right, let’s get on. That isn’t the only thing I’ve been talking to Manuel about. We ran over the problem of the existing draft of the play. Manuel?’

The author stirred on his chair. It was obvious he didn’t like what he had to say, but he was having to put up with it. Murray’s estimate of Blizzard rose afresh. ‘Sam has represented to me that it may be possible to salvage what we have so far,’ he said. ‘I’m willing to concede that quite a lot of effort has gone into it, and a bad lapse on the part of one of the cast’—his eyes flickered to Murray and moved away—‘needn’t necessarily mean that it all has to go to waste. So I’ve agreed with him that if he can get a better performance this morning we can go ahead from there. But it will have to be not merely good, but damned good. Clear?’

A wave of relief went through his audience.

‘Why the hell couldn’t you have said this yesterday instead of mucking around?’ Gerry demanded, not sharing the general mood. He strode towards the stage, waving at the big canvas flats which he had slashed last night. ‘All that work wasted because of a petty tantrum—God, it makes me sick!’

‘I’m sorry about that, Mr Hoading,’ Delgado said after a pause.

Murray started. It wasn’t like Delgado to apologize straight-forwardly. He preferred to find a self-justification, and if possible to make the person he had offended appear to be in the wrong himself. Which implied …

‘All right, everybody!’ Blizzard shouted. ‘Places! Ade, I want you and Murray for a minute before we start to straighten out one or two bits I thought were scrappy yesterday. Murray, hear me?’

Belatedly, Murray responded to his name. But as he walked towards the stage, his mind was elsewhere, completing the train of his thoughts.

Which implies that Delgado isn’t pretending to care about the play any more. He’s yielding there to conceal his real interest.

In what?