BEGINNERS PLEASE by B W Frimston (2nd Place, June25)

“Ladies and gentlemen, this is your half-hour call.  You have thirty minutes until curtain up, thank you.”

As the announcement was made by the theatre manager over the tannoy, the company stage manager Gerry scoured backstage, just the slightest hint of concern starting to edge into her consciousness.  “Has anybody seen Derek?  Derek’s missing.”

A couple of black-clad technicians shook their heads and went back to completing a crossword puzzle, so Gerry moved on.  She knocked on the door of dressing room 2, where Aaron Elphinstone, a tall, good-looking actor recently graduated from LAMDA, was about to get into costume.

“Come in.”

“Oh, God, sorry,” Gerry said, averting her eyes from the sight of Aaron standing in his pants.  “I didn’t realise.”

            “Don’t worry, occupational hazard in this game.”  Aaron was one of those actors who loved being an actor, loved the idea of being an actor.  He felt it made him special, part of an elite club.  He had done well at drama school, acquired a top agent, and hadn’t stopped working since graduating two years ago.  He loved using phrases like ‘in this game’, ‘The Scottish Play’, and ‘see you on the green.’  “What can I do for you darling?”

“Have you seen Derek?  Or heard from him?”

“No, love, why?”

“I can’t find him.  Nobody’s seen him, and he isn’t in his dressing room next door.”

“Come to think of it, I do usually hear him warming up by now,” Aaron said, making no attempt to put any clothes on.  He had a gym-chiselled body which he took an exhibitionist’s pleasure in displaying whenever he got the chance.  He banged on the wall.  “Derek, are you in there mate?”  There was no response from Dressing Room 1.

Aaron looked at Gerry and shrugged.  “Oh Christ,” she said, “I hope he hasn’t gone AWOL again.  Cameron is in tonight.”

*

Cameron Darville was the writer, director and producer of the play – a brand new adaptation of an Agatha Christie short story – and at the moment he was in the theatre foyer, clutching a glass of wine.

“What if the arsehole doesn’t come?” he hissed to his assistant Charlotte as his eyes darted back and forth around the foyer.  “Be just my sodding luck he pulls out at the last minute.”

“He won’t,” Charlotte reassured him.  “He emailed me yesterday, he’s looking forward to it.”

“That was yesterday.  Anything could have happened since then…  Oh, God, he’s not coming is he?  That’s it, it’s all been for nothing.”

“Cameron,” Charlotte said gently, not raising her voice above the hum of middle-class theatre-goer conversation.  “He’ll come.  Look, there’s still twenty minutes until we go up.  Come on, let’s get another drink from the bar.”

They moved towards the stalls bar of The Betjeman, a mid-scale theatre in Berkshire, where Cameron’s new production of The Mysterious Affair At Styles had played to reasonable audiences for the last month.  Now, thanks to the tireless work of his assistant Charlotte, the West End producer Harry Ainslie had agreed to attend to see if it might transfer into one of his theatres in town.  This was a big deal for Cameron.

“I know you’re nervous, Cameron,” Charlotte said as she handed over a twenty pound note for their two glasses of wine, not expecting to receive much change, “but try to stay calm, okay?  Oh – and try not to call him an arsehole to his face.”

*

“Have you tried his door?” Patricia, another of the acting company, suggested.

“Of course I’ve tried his door,” Gerry snapped.

“All right dear, I’m only trying to help.”

“Sorry, sorry, Patricia.  Yes, I have tried it.  It’s locked.”

“And he’s definitely not in there?”

“Well I’ve knocked and there’s no answer.”

The door to dressing room 2 opened and Aaron poked his head out.  Wearing trousers now, but still shirtless.  “Still no sign of the old boy?”

“No,” Gerry said, looking at her watch and feeling the hint of slight concern merge into mild panic.  “Where the bloody hell is he?”

“Do you think he’s hurt somewhere?” Patricia said, concerned.  “Should we try to call him?”

“Hasn’t got a mobile,” Aaron said.  “Won’t have one.  Hates them.”  And then he went into an impression of Derek, putting on a deep, resonant and slightly plummy voice, somewhere between Donald Sinden and Brian Blessed.  “ ‘No-one but my agent needs contact me, and my old Bakerlite still serves that purpose perfectly well.  Carphones for You or whatever they’re called can shove their wireless devices up their silicon valley arseholes!’ ”  Aaron was laughing at his own performance.  “Brilliant!  Legend.”

Gerry and Patricia were observing him with complete disdain.  After a moment Patricia, who was in her 60’s and just a few years older than Derek, said, “Go and put your costume on, Aaron, you look like a bloody gigolo.”

*

In the stalls bar, Cameron and Charlotte became aware of a sudden buzz of excitement in the building.  Draining the last few drops of wine from their glasses and putting them down, they raced out into the foyer and spotted Harry Ainslie with a beautiful and significantly younger woman on his arm.  The buzz of excitement was all around them, as audience members nudged each other and whispered things like, ‘Look, there’s that bloke who does that TV talent show,’ or ‘Look, there’s the chairman of that Rugby League team’.  Some of the more discerning theatre crowd even said, ‘Look, there’s the West End producer Harry Ainslie.’

“Mr Ainslie,” Charlotte said brightly, extending her hand to him which he graciously took.  “I’m Charlotte, we’ve been communicating.  Thank you so much for coming.  This is Cameron Darville, the writer and director.”

“Cameron,” Harry Ainslie said, shaking his hand.  Then he indicated the woman on his arm.  “This is Mrs Ainslie,” he said.  She was the third woman who had been so introduced by Harry.

“Annalise, please,” she insisted, and they all nodded their greetings of hello.

“God, I haven’t been to the Betjeman for years,” Harry exclaimed, looking around for someone in a nondescript uniform to bring him a drink.  ‘Damn,’ Charlotte thought, ‘should have set aside a VIP area.’  “Produced one of my first plays here, back in the early 80’s.  Can’t remember which one.  A Stoppard or an Ayckbourn or a bloody Durbridge or something.  Absolutely bombed.  One disaster after another.”

“Oh,” Cameron said.  “Dear.”

“Let’s hope there’s no problems with yours tonight, eh Cameron?”

“Yes,” Cameron said, his normally over-confident and over-sized ego reduced to quivering jelly in the presence of this man who held Cameron’s potential West End career in his hands.  “Let’s hope not.”

*

“This is your fifteen minute call, ladies and gentlemen.  Fifteen minutes until curtain up.”

There was a growing number of company members gathering backstage now, as word had got round that Derek, their leading man, was missing.  Gerry had started her old habit of chewing her nails.  They all looked up hopefully as Jack, one of the technicians, came in through the stage door.

“Well?” Gerry asked expectantly.  Jack shook his head.

“He’s not in the Dog and Duck, and no-one’s seen him in the Wetherspoon’s for two weeks since he had an argument with that one-legged whisky fiend who sits in the corner.”

“Shit!”  The local pubs had been Gerry’s last hope.  Now there was nothing left for it.  “We’re going to have to pull the show.”

The older cast members nodded and made murmurs of agreement, summoning all their acting skills to look disappointed and hide their real feelings of delight at getting a night off.  The younger actors showed their lack of experience by being genuinely gutted.

“We can’t cancel a show,” said Ronnie, a fresh-faced, floppy haired RADA graduate with the look of an Eton Boy about him.

“Ronnie, we’re nearly at the ten and Derek is missing.  It’s a Hercule Poirot play, and Derek plays Hercule Poirot.  What the hell do you suggest we do?”

“But my agent’s in tonight,” Aaron whined.

“I don’t give a flying toss who’s in tonight,” Gerry shouted, and then she stopped dead.  “Oh shit,” she said.

“What’s wrong, Gerry?” Patricia asked.

“Cameron’s got Harry Ainslie in tonight.”

“The producer Harry Ainslie?”

“No, Aaron, the local painter and decorator Harry Ainslie.  Of course the producer.”

“Bloody typical!  The one night in this godforsaken place there’s somebody important in, and Derek does a bloody disappearing act.  What an absolute shit.”

Patricia drew herself up to her full formidable stature and declared, “Oh, for goodness sake, Aaron, will you shut up and stop being an utter bloody fool.  Derek and I were at the RSC before you were even conceived of, and I can tell you now that he hasn’t gone missing without there being something very wrong.  Now if you don’t have anything useful to say will you please shut up.”

There was an instant outbreak of applause from the technicians, who were gathering on the periphery and watching the proceedings with fascination.

“What’s going on?” Janey, the props mistress, asked, as she came in through the stage door eating an apple.

“Derek hasn’t turned up,” Gerry told her.  “We can’t find him anywhere.”

“Yeah he did,” Janey said, looking round at everyone.  “I saw him about an hour ago, just before I went out.  He went into his dressing room.”

“But his dressing room’s locked, dear,” said Patricia.

Janey shrugged, throwing the apple core into a bin liner hanging on the wall.  “Must have locked it from inside.”

The cast and crew looked at each other, then at the dressing room door.  Gerry looked at Patricia, who gave a slight nod of consent.  Gerry turned to Aaron.

“Break it down.”

It was an old, decrepit building, held together with gaffa tape and will power, and the flimsy door took just three shoulder charges to splinter and give way.  There was an audible gasp as they saw Derek, dressed in a grubby white vest, slumped over his make-up box.  There was an empty pill bottle near his right hand and, next to that, a note.

Patricia gave a small gasp of shock, and Aaron uncharacteristically helped her to a flea-bitten two-seater settee.

“Do you think someone ought to fetch Cameron?” Freddy, another of the actors, suggested.

“Yes,” Gerry said, gently closing Derek’s eyes.  “I’ll radio someone.”

“Ten minutes until curtain up,” the tannoy informed them.

*

Cameron sneaked a look at his watch.  Harry was expostulating about his latest transfer to Broadway while Charlotte made all the right interested noises.  Annalise had gone to powder her nose.

From behind him, Cameron heard the crackling of a walkie-talkie.  He turned to see a staff member approaching him.  “Mr Darville?”

“Yes?”

“You’re needed backstage.  Urgently.”

“What?  I’m entertaining Mr Ainslie.”

“I think you’d better come.  There’s a… situation.”

Harry had tuned in to what was being said by now and muted his ego-inflated monologue.  “You’d better get back there.  Sounds serious.”

With a deep sigh of annoyance, Cameron consented to be led backstage.  Harry and Charlotte watched the staff member talk into her walkie-talkie as they went.  Her face looked concerned.

“I’d better go with him,” said Charlotte.

“No, no, no, my dear,” Harry said, grabbing her arm and stopping her from moving off.  “They’ll be all right.  You stay here with me.”

*

“What’s going on?” Cameron demanded when he arrived backstage and saw the group of actors and crew standing waiting for him outside the dressing room.

“It’s Derek,” Gerry told him.

“What about Derek?  Please don’t tell me he’s gone AWOL again.”

Gerry shook her head.  “Worse.”  She indicated into the room and Cameron looked in.

“Oh my God.”

“We’ll have to pull the show, obviously,” Gerry began.

“No!”

“What?”

“Harry Ainslie’s in.  We are not pulling this show.”

“We have to Cameron.  We can’t go on.”

“You have no idea how much I’ve sacrificed for this Gerry, we are not pulling tonight’s show.”

“Well what do you suggest we do, Cameron?…” Gerry said, and then was interrupted by a tannoy announcement.

“Five minutes until curtain up, ladies and gentlemen.”

Gerry continued: “Because that’s the five and we haven’t got a fucking Poirot!”

A handful of conversations broke out, as people discussed the situation.  The younger company members agreed it was a story they’d be telling for months, while the older ones all said how it reminded them of that time when.

“Look, I mean, does anybody actually know the part?” Gerry asked, trying to be practical.  Everyone looked around at each other.  There was the loudest of silences.

“Erm, well I think I probably do,” someone said.  It was Cameron.  “I mean, I went through his lines with him enough, I directed it, I’ve watched it performed for the last three weeks.  I think I could probably do it.”

Gerry looked at Patricia, who just rolled her eyes and wafted her hand in a vague motion of surrender.

“All right, Cameron.  If you really insist on doing the show, on your head be it.  You’d better get into Derek’s costume.”

*

The last bell had gone and Harry Ainslie, along with the rest of the audience, was taking his seat in the stalls.

“Well, if he wants me to invest in his show he’s got a funny way of showing it.”

“Sorry Harry,” Charlotte said to him as the house lights started to go down.  “I’ll try to find him in the interval.”

*

As Cameron got into the Poirot costume in the technician’s workshop, he realised that he was alone for the first time that evening.  Well, not quite for the first time.  He had last been alone about an hour ago, sitting in dressing room 1, as he waited for Derek to arrive.  The empty pill bottle was in his pocket and the suicide note, which he had tricked Derek into writing out nearly two months ago under the pretence of possibly using it in the play, was in his pocket.

Derek was still sprightly enough for an actor approaching his 60’s, but not strong enough to withstand the overpowering strength of Cameron, who grabbed Derek from behind as soon as he entered his dressing room, pulled him back onto the two-seater settee and used a cushion to smother the life out of him.  He’d never played Poirot the way Cameron had envisaged it, plus he’d been forgetting his lines more and more over the past two weeks.  He wasn’t going to let this has-been actor ruin his big chance of a West End transfer.

He looked at himself in the mirror as he attached the little false moustache, smiling a knowing, triumphant smile to himself.  He took a deep breath as he heard the tannoy that sent him to the wings.

“First act beginners to the stage, ladies and gentlemen.  Beginners please.”