The Gentleman Heavy

For those of you missed this as a download - here's the story again.

I am thinking of a linked series of short stories about the Princess Royal Theatre Group.

THE GENTLEMAN HEAVY

Imogen de la Bere

Stephen Hemmings lay on his sun-lounger on the terrace of his Spanish home and applied sun-tan lotion to his body. There was a great deal of Stephen’s body, so this took a long time. He had bottle of pink champagne to aid him in the process.

He didn’t need the protection, as he was perennially brick-brown, from spending so much time on his terrace in Spain, but he liked the moisturising.

Ideally Trisha should be doing this for him, as she usually did, and as she delighted  to do, but as he was trying to create some space between himself and Trisha, he had decided not to involve her in the process.

His Facebook status read “Morning all – toasting all the boys and girls in pink champers in sunny Spain. Wish you were here! Bet you do!”

It was eleven in the morning. He’d flown to Spain yesterday, the day after the triumphant last night of Twelfth Night at the Princess Royal – the twelfth night of their Twelfth Night - so there was a bit of recovery needed. However,  he was a great bouncer-back, was Stephen, and had already had a constitutional swim, a walk to the shop for The Telegraph, taken his dog Petsy for a walk along the beach, greeted several of his friends, and had his muesli for breakfast. Trisha was still doing whatever women did in the morning: it was a mystery to him.

He was deeply pleased with himself, and had a bit of sing as he lovingly unguated his nipples. It was pity the hair surrounding them was white, and there was so much chest/stomach beneath them, but nonetheless they were amply loved. Much more important – for the moment at least – his Sir Toby Belch had been the triumph of a triumphant show. Make ‘em laugh, make ‘em cry! He’d certainly done the first – as for the second, who cared in a comedy? Cry with laughter, especially at his nightly gags about the donkey. Young Eddie trussed up backwards on the donkey – just too many opportunities for jokes there. And when the donkey did its business on the sand – oh, the fun he had with the punters over that one!

He put down the bottle of lotion and picked up the bottle of champagne.

‘Trisha! Bottoms up!’ he called, but she answered with the indistinct garble of one who is cleaning her teeth.

‘I deserve a toast!’ he said and toasted himself. The funniest Sir Toby the Home Counties had ever seen – didn’t that reviewer say something like that? Surely the funniest Sir Toby ever?

Pity that young Tony didn’t see it that way. But he was an arrogant young whippersnapper who didn’t like any of the glory going elsewhere. It had to be Tony’s show, and Stephen taking things off course and cracking them up made sure it wasn’t. Young Tony didn’t like that, and that made him say some pretty fresh things. Some pretty harsh things. Some pretty unforgivable things. Some not very pretty things…

Some things so very not pretty that Stephen felt perhaps he should take some time out from the Princess Royal. Amateur. Crass. Music hall. Bernard Mannings. These were terms bandied about in the heat of the moment.

He swilled champagne round his glass and quaffed it to take away the sour taste of those remarks, and glanced at his mobile. He picked it up to be quite sure it had signal. No calls, no messages. Here it was eleven o’clock in the morning and no messages. Perhaps it was too early. Monday morning. Back to work. Not for Stephen, he thought, chuckling, who worked when he felt like it. When work came his way.

‘Trisha!’

No calls. He rang the message centre to be sure, and found there were a couple of work calls he had saved up for later. He dealt with them, and as a result someone texted him a joke about donkeys. He sent this round to the theatre gang; that would provoke some responses.

He heard Trisha go downstairs and start banging about in the kitchen.

‘Had breakfast, up betimes!’ he hallooed. ‘Tilly valley lady!’

As there was no response he texted Trisha to say he’d had breakfast and that she was a beagle true bred.

Finally a text arrived from one of the gang, then another. That was better.

It was getting hot now, time for a swim and then just time to take the boat out before lunch. He sent a message containing a single X as a symbol of his devotion to Grace who had played his Maria and went off for his constitutional.

After lunch he was once again on a sun lounger this time in the shade on the front terrace near the pool. He was looking at his phone.

His Facebook status read “ mucho sun here in Spain. Bet its raining in blighty.”

Around him spread his domain. There was a nice balustrade on this terrace from which you could look down on the street or across to the beach, and watch the punters without swimming pools dip in and out of the waves. Around the perimeter of the lower terrace were grand cactuses and succulents, punctuated by classical statues in concrete, and in the middle of the terrace was a nice fountain with concrete dolphins in the middle of a large concrete bowl. It was not playing at the moment because of the water shortage.  At least the swimming pool was filled. He had heard that in America some pool owners were forbidden to fill them. That might just be the end of the world. End of Spain for him anyway.

At last the phone! Grace rang, voluptuous, loveable everybody’s sweetheart Grace.

‘I thought you were cross with little me!’ he said. ‘ I’ve heard from Charley, and Little John, all the gang. But from you – a big round O.’

‘I’m working,’ she said in her sweet little girl’s voice, which came so charmingly from her earth mother body. ‘Some of us have to work, uncle Stevie.’

‘Oh and I work too, chuck. Only today I’m on my break. Wrung out I am, like a dish clout.’

‘You were wonderful.’

‘So were you.’

‘I think you were the funniest Sir Toby ever! My mum and dad were practically wetting themselves over the donkey.’

‘So you don’t agree with young Tony then?  I think amateur was the word used.’

‘Oh don’t be a silly! You mustn’t mind Tony, he’s a purist. A fanatic. Emilia’s worse – such a throwback. Shakespeare would have loved you.’

‘They’ve gone all quiet on me. What are we doing next?’

‘King Lear, darling, in a caravan park! I’m going to do Goneril!’ She made the evilest of Shakespearean women sound like a box of very dark chocolates.

‘Oh has he cast it then?’ said Stephen as if making a polite inquiry into her auntie’s health.

‘Not really, but you know how it is. In the pub.  It comes up, and I say I’ll kill you if I don’t play Goneril and he says Yes, like a lamb. You should try it,’ she said giggling fruitily.

‘What part is there for me, for a Gentleman heavy?’

‘Oh loads – Albany – that would be fun, you could be my husband‘

‘Funnies?’

‘It’s a tragedy, darling, the uber-tragedy. I think the Fool is supposed to be funny.’

‘Then I’ll play the fool. I’m good at that.’

She laughed throatily.

‘Well darling must dash.’

He called out to Trisha to bring him out his Essential Shakespeare, but she was busy watering the oleanders around the statue of St George on the front terrace. So he sent her a text to ask her to bring it out with her when she came, and contented himself doing a Web search on his mobile for king lear fool. There was screeds on sources and dates which made his brain go bleary, but he did find reference to the Fool as a ‘tragic figure in his own right’. He liked the sound of that.

By the time Trisha finally trotted out with his Essential Shakespeare he had called two of the gang and texted three more, and had ascertained that King Lear was largely cast. It was the troupe as before with a few exciting additions. The bombshell was dropped by Charley, an amiable, not quite so young man, who played all the romantic leads, was everybody’s friend, perpetually in love and always free for a drink with the boys. Charley said that Tony had scored a real coup. He had poached the leading Gentleman Heavy from the Actors’s Society to play Lear.

‘We’ll all have to squeeze up a bit now. I think they’re giving me Edgar.’

‘What’s Edgar? A lover?’

‘No a tiresome goody-good who goes doolally and takes his kit off in a storm.’

Trisha bore a tray on which stood a bottle of champagne, two glasses, her suntan lotion, her Good Book, and his Essential Shakespeare. She plonked the tray down on the little white table, heavy-duty plastic cunningly devised to look like wrought-iron. She applied suntan lotion while he opened the drinks. She was wonderfully preserved and bravely blond for her age. She wore a cheerful two piece, bright and splodgy like hotel curtains, and had scarlet painted toenails.

‘I do so love the Bard,’ she declared, ‘but I sometimes wish they would do something else. I want to see you in a proper comedy.’

‘Do you fancy me in a wig?’

‘There are other plays. Modern farces and what not. You should join that other group – the Actors. They do modern farces all the time. Besides this lot don’t value you.’

‘Read me the characters from King Lear, would you? I’ve left me specs inside.’

Trisha finished her anointing, wiped her hands carefully on her towel and sought out the King Lear entries.

‘Well there’s King Lear. It’s a big part. 850 lines,’ she read.  ‘Lear should be played by an older man – ‘

‘So I’m too young for it.’

‘-but is often taken by actors at the peak of their prowess and fame, because of the strenuous physical and emotional demands of the role.’

‘Lots of lines,’ Stephen said dubiously.

‘I don’t think it’s your part,’ she said. ‘No comedy moments.’

She proceeded to read her way through all the role descriptions. Stephen was able to assign them all to members of the gang. She reached the Fool.

‘That’s my part. Make ‘em laugh, make ‘em cry.’

Trisha had never seen King Lear, so she could not comment on this.

‘I wonder why they keep mentioning Albany. Read him out.’

Trisha duly obliged. Stephen was a bit thoughtful.

After a while he said, ‘I feel so not needed.’

‘It’s her,’ said Trisha, putting down the book and attending to her toenail varnish. ‘She really hates you.’

‘Who?’ said Stephen, affronted that anyone should be seen to hate him, the universal uncle.

‘Mrs Tony. What’s her name? Emilia. She’s the power behind the throne. She really doesn’t like you.’

Stephen nodded sagely as he poured himself a glass of champagne.

‘She shouted at me, you know,’ he confided. ‘Tore strips off me. I can still feel them.  She said I wasn’t pulling my weight. I said if I pulled my weight they’d be nothing for anyone else to do, but she didn’t find that funny, and I said besides I was the oldest and have blood pressure and the young ones should be doing all the humping.’ He chuckled. ‘I told her, I do my share, of the humping that is. She wasn’t amooosed.’

‘I’m not surprised. She’s a terrible prude. Do you know what she called me – to my face – Mrs Dirty Old Uncle. Just because I gather you sent the girls some racy text messages. Mrs Dirty Old Uncle.’

‘Well that’s not true,’ he said and chuckled. ‘You’re not the Missus.’

‘It’s not right for her to talk to you like that,’ said Trisha. ‘You do so much for the company.’

‘I’ll ring Gracey.’

He rang a few of the gang and left some messages, expanding on the subject, and the joke, of whether he pulled his weight. He finally found someone to talk to. It was Grace again, whose reception counter was having a slow patch.

‘Well to be honest with you Steve, I have heard some of the production guys having a bit of a moan. They have this idea that we should all swing into action and do their job for them – you know all that sourcing stuff and putting up posters and clearing up. I always tell them I’m the social secretary and my role is to give the parties. But then you get the teacher’s pets, the guys like Fred and Philip and Johnny, who know they won’t get another part unless they’re good boys, because they’re such crap actors. Emilia has this thing about a Company, everyone mucking in together. But that’s just because she doesn’t act herself. If she did, she understand that we have to concentrate and conserve our energies.’

‘I don’t think Emilia likes me any more. She’s changed. We used to be such buddies.’

‘Oh everyone loves you Uncle Steve.’

‘I think I’d make a marvellous Fool,’ he said in a deep dark, King Lear kind of voice.

‘Don’t you want to play my Albany?’

Stephen did not feel happy at the end of this conversation. He was no closer knowing how the land lay. Albany indeed, after his magnificent Sir Toby. Perhaps he should take a sabbatical and make some money.

‘Emilia shouldn’t take it upon herself to talk to you like that,’ said Trisha. ‘She’s barely thirty, and she’s nobody of any importance. It’s not her Company. It’s your Company. You’re the Chair.’

Stephen said nothing to this because he was not the Chair. But he may have led Trisha to believe so.

‘She does have opinions, that Emilia. And Tony does what she says. We have a word for it up North.’

‘After all you’ve done for them!  All the money you put up for – which one was it?’

‘Oh, several. Money I shan’t see again.’

‘And you have to buy your own costumes. How much did that blazer cost for Sir Toby? Hand tailored.’

Stephen did not mention that he had turned down the candy-striped blazer offered him, and unable to source a suitable replacement, had popped in on a Chinese tailor in a back street who owed him a favour.

‘And you’ve provided marketing resources, and publicity materials, and financial advice…’

‘Have I?’

‘I saw the invoice. The one your accountant prepared for Tony. It came to a great deal of money.’

‘Have I given it to Tony yet?’

‘He must know how much he owes you.’

‘And there was the parking outside the theatre on the night of the dress rehearsal – it’s outrageous that you had to pay for that – eleven pounds it was, eleven!’

‘Was it really?’

‘Yes, you borrowed it off me.’

‘And,’ she went on, getting into her dainty stride, ‘transportation of props around the countryside. You had to pick up those Punch and Judy puppets from Bournemouth – how much was that in petrol and mileage?’

Trisha was a life coach, self-employed. She knew all about expenses.

Stephen did not say that the Punch and Judy had come from a neighbouring troupe. His trip to Bournemouth had been for quite other motives of which Trisha might as well be ignorant.

‘It’s a long drive,’ he said.

‘And don’t forget the canes! You lent them your grandfather’s canes. If they’d hired those, they’d have paid the earth!’

‘It all mounts up,’ he said, and suddenly leapt to his feet and trotted to the pool. He went in with a tremendous splash.

The evenings were very long in Spain. Stephen’s Facebook status read  “Worked hard all day – on the tan.”

They spruced themselves up and went out to dinner at a restaurant up in the bare hills above the settlement.

 ‘’Ave you reservation, sir?’

‘Yes!’ said Stephen firmly, although he had not, and pointed to a random name on the majordomo’s list.

They sat under a roof of vines, around a little pond, and watched the carp plop out of water and the mosquitoes skid across the surface. Down below them, between the road and the sea spread a vast children’s toy room, ranks of gaily coloured chunky houses interspersed with little pools, and twinkling poolside lights, and tiny patches of green. Up here in the scrubbed hills, with cactuses and donkeys, red earth and secretive beige cottages, the bright brave settlement of ten thousand expat souls looked like a diorama in a museum on the other side of the glass.

He put his mobile on the table, just in case. Trisha pursed her lips, but she didn’t say anything. She knew it was almost over, but she was putting up a fight.

He was rewarded by a text from Johnny.

‘Have fun in Spain. Hope is book. Cant wait for next! He get part!

Stephen puzzled over this, and decided to ring Johnny.

‘Hello me old sport. How dost? The knight’s in admirable fooling!’

Johnny gave an explanation of his message, which had been misinterpreted at the whim of predictive texting.

‘Oswald? What sort of part is Oswald? As sort of comic? There isn’t much call for comics in King Lear I hear.’

Johnny said he would make the best of it, and would probably do the King of France and the Doctor as well. He tried out his ripe French accent on Stephen.

‘Good moaning. I was just pissing bee.’

‘Don’t think Tony will go for that.’

‘Comic relief,’ said Johnny. ‘Got to have comic relief. I could probably make the Doctor Indian. Goodness gracious me!’

‘Tony will sack you for that. He almost sacked you from the last one for weeping loudly at the happy ending.’

‘No he didn’t sack me. He didn’t even shout at me. He sent Emilia round to ask me to moderate my sobs. She and I negotiated a discrete sniff into my hankie.’

‘Well King Lear seems to be an altogether grimmer set up.  Too grim for me.  I think I’ll take a break.’

‘Oh Stephen! There’s no show without Punch!’

‘No I’ve almost made up my mind. Getting tired. Getting cross. Who’s playing the Fool, by the way?’

‘Oh, most of us.’

Stephen laughed dutifully, and eventually got the conversation back on course. No-one knew who was playing the Fool in King Lear.

Trisha tried a new tack.

‘I think their audition policy is so unfair. There should be open auditions. Everyone should have a chance. Emilia talks about everyone being equal, but some people are more equal than others. Emilia for example. She gets to shout at you and decide who plays what. That’s not equality. And Tony acts like a petty dictator. Why does his word always go? Why shouldn’t you get a chance at King Lear?’

‘Not sure I really want King Lear. Too many bloody words. No laughs.’

‘But you should have the chance. They’re not fair to you. Everyone else has been cast, but they’re keeping you dangling just to be cruel. It’s petty and vindictive. Just because you get your own laughs and the audiences love you.’

‘And Emilia has taken against me,’ said Stephen sadly.

‘It’s all her doing,’ Trisha went on, dissecting a lobster claw as she went, ‘She’s turned him against you. She’s jealous because you’re the king-pin of the company, and she wants to be the queen bee.’

Stephen nodded though he was not entirely sure of her analysis – how could Trisha know, for all her life-coach skills, what went on at rehearsals, where the power and influence really lay?

‘You’re far closer to the company than either of them ever could be.’

Stephen considered whether this might be true. He hoped it was true. He prayed it was true. But it sounded too much like flattery to his ear.

Stephen sent a text to Tony.

Don’t think can commit to Lear. Needs older actor. Will consider Cordelia.

He showed it to Trisha and laughed.

Over coffee a text came back from Emilia.

Not casting Lear yet. Will consider offer. Have to play it in blond wig and corsets. X Em.

‘I don’t believe a word of it,’ said Trisha. ‘They have cast it. It’s a blatant snub. Why are they doing this to you?’

Stephen could not be bothered explaining to her the complex method  by which plays were cast among the Princess Royals. It was like doing business with Arabs. A mention was made of the offer of an offer, because refusal of a firm offer on either side caused offence. ‘Are you interested in a part in X – there are one or two juicy ones?’ ‘I was vaguely wondering about Y. Though V looks like a fun part.’ ‘I had thought of you for Z, but the Clown is a great part too.’ ‘I’ve always harboured a desire to play Q, but I don’t think I’m quite ready.’ ‘One of these days, if you put on W, I’d die if you didn’t cast me as the Duke.’ And so on, over drinks and chats and texts and emails, little swirls of negotiation in which the director pretended to flatter the actor and simultaneously snub him, in which the actor played hard to get, while angling strenuously for that ill-defined catch, the good part. Stephen judged a good part on three criteria – the number of lines, the number of chances to get his own laughs, and the grandeur of the costumes. Sir Toby Belch had scored very highly on the first two. Anything less good now would be a humiliation. A largish part  - 200 lines - with a grand costume might do as a follow up, but the Duke of Albany presiding over a caravan park in a red coat did not sound like either.

It was late now. Stephen’s Facebook status read “Nighty night blighty. Still partying here.” Stephen and Trisha were sitting on the top terrace, looking down at the lights. Stephen was drunk and bored, but he didn’t want to go to bed yet, as that committed him to certain things. He needed to fall into bed and fall instantly asleep, hopefully snoring in an off-putting manner. Trisha would no longer wake him if he snored. There had been a time when she woke him on any pretext, and he had been happy to be so woken.

‘How many bubbles are there in a bottle of champagne?’ he wondered, staring at same. ‘Fred will know. Fred is a mine of information. Hello Fred! It’s Stephen here. What time is it in blighty? I’m on my terrace in Spain and it’s twenty eight degrees. Trisha and I were just enjoying a bottle of champers and I thought of you. You’re the man who would know how many bubbles there are in a bottle of champagne.’

Fred mumbled. He might have been asleep when Stephen rang, but Stephen did not care.

‘Are there more bubbles in my bottle of champagne than I can see stars above me in the Spanish sky?’

Fred said crossly that it depended how many stars Stephen could see. He, Fred, could see no stars in the Spanish sky from where he was, so the answer was clearly yes. Or no, in that Fred did not have a bottle of champagne to hand either.

Stephen laughed at Fred’s droll attempts at ill temper. He chatted for a while until Fred woke and cheered up. He was by no means as cheerful as Stephen, but he became quite voluble on the subject of the casting policy of the Princess Royals.

‘It is iniquitous!’ he squeaked. ‘I should be allowed to read for Kent and Gloucester. But I gather through the grapevine that Tony and Emilia went to the pub with the boys from Great Gaddesden Players and offers were made. Which rules all of us out of the big parts. I believe I might be offered Albany. I mean Albany. Who wants to play Albany!’

‘No-one as far as I can tell,’ said Stephen who now had never even considered taking the part.

‘He’ll probably cut the part anyway. Or have it mouthed by a ventriloquist’s puppet sitting on Goneril’s knee.’

‘You could be a puppet sitting on Gracie’s knee. That would be cosy!’

‘Well at least it would be a part,’ said Fred gloomily.

‘You could play the Fool. You’re good at that.’

‘More your line, old man,’ said Fred. ‘Anyway I’ve heard he wants to cast a girlie as the Fool. Little Jackie or Tamsin or one of the groupies.’

‘A girl?’

‘You know what Tony’s like.’

‘I do.’

‘It doesn’t matter really, I’m doing She Stoops to Conquer instead. They held proper auditions.’

‘It’s not the same. All the gang will be in Tony’s show.’

‘I’m going to sleep now, Stephen. Have a nice evening wherever you really are.’

He hung up. Stephen was as affronted by the suggestion that he might be lying about his location, as he was alarmed that the Fool might be played by a girl.

Vexation upon vexation!

He recounted the latest developments to Trisha, who continued to tell him how outrageous it was. She reminded him that they didn’t value him, constantly snubbed him, took his money, bossed him around, left him out of decisions, mocked him behind his back. It all seemed monstrous.

‘I think you should write to that Emilia and tell her what you really think.’

‘She and I were such good friends,’ said Stephen sadly to his emptying glass. ‘I gave her a rose on her birthday and she wrote me a sonnet to say thank you.’

‘I didn’t know that,’ said Trisha.

‘There’s a great deal about me that you don’t know, madam.’

In the silence that followed you could hear the waves nibbling at the seaside.

‘You should still write and clarify your feelings. It’s good to get things into the open. Otherwise they fester.’

‘Yes it would. I’m going for a hot dip.’

He levered himself up from the lounger and went round the side of the house to another terrace overlooking the plane, where his hot tub resided. He turned it on and went inside for an emperor-sized towel.

A good while later, he was lying watching the movements in the water and wondering if it were too late to send Tony a text stating his clear desire to be in King Lear, no matter how beneath him the role offered. He knew clearly that he wanted this more than he wanted to preserve his pride, that the gang mattered to him in a way his dignity did not.

He wondered what Trisha was up to.

When she tripped outside in her bikini and sank into the tub beside him she mentioned cheerily that she had sent his email for him. To clear the air.

Stephen lay in the water and watched spurts of hot water rise to the surface. Such was his rage that it was all he could do to lie still and say nowt.

He could imagine what the email contained. It would mention his contribution to the company, his advice, his business input, the unpaid bill (which he had never presented), the need to provide his own costume, the effrontery of the eleven pounds in parking fees, the unremarked round trip to Bournemouth, the rudeness of Emilia, the unfairness of the casting system, and doubtless, doubtless, would allude to the fact that Stephen was closer to the gang than Tony and Emilia. All this he saw with the clarity bequeathed by three bottle of champagne and a hot tub.

He foresaw also the effect, and heard, with a breaking heart,  from far away across the Spanish Seas, the mighty slamming of theatre doors.

 

Comments

[Cress]

I really enjoyed it, though i wish you hadn't told me the end in advance ;-)

Particularly liked the scene sitting in the restaurant with the fish and the houses below. And the faux marble table.

He's very sympathetic, your gentleman heavy.

XX

[Comedy Bournemouth]

Hi,
This is the nice post.