Bachelors Anonymous (2 page)

She was
a handsome brunette, as all his five wives had been, and it was not long before
her undeniable good looks caused him temporarily to allow the wise words of Mr
Trout to pass from his mind, such as it was. It was not till her play had been
running nearly two weeks that he realised the advisability of establishing
contact with Nichols, Erridge and Trubshaw of Bedford Row, W.C.1.

Chapter Two

On the stage of the Regal
Theatre in London’s Shaftesbury Avenue Vera Dalrymple and a man in his fifties
were rehearsing a scene from
Cousin Angela,
and anyone following the
dialogue would have noted that Miss Dalrymple seemed to be getting all the good
lines. And such a criticism would have been justified. The actor who was
performing with her now had been known to complain that when you played a scene
with Miss Dalrymple you might just as well be painted on the back drop.

In the
stalls Joe Pickering was being interviewed by a girl so pretty that the first
sight of her had affected his vocal chords. Her matter-of-fact briskness,
however, had soon restored his composure, and they were now prattling away together
like old friends. Her name, he gathered, was Sally Fitch, and she represented a
weekly paper he had never heard of. Women’s something, but Women’s what he had
forgotten.

Nature,
when planning Joe Pickering, had had in mind something light-hearted and
cheerful, and until the rehearsals of
Cousin Angela
had begun this was
what he had been. But a sensitive young man whose first play has fallen into
the hands of as exacting a star as Vera Dalrymple seldom retains those
qualities for long. Quite early in their association the iron had entered into
his soul, and with the opening a few days off he was feeling as he had often
felt at the end of a strenuous boxing contest.

Sally,
who had been probing into his methods of work, touched on another subject.

‘Extraordinary
how grim a theatre is in the daytime,’ she said.

‘Grim
things go on in it,’ said Joe with feeling.

‘I
wonder some mystery writer doesn’t make it the setting for a thriller. This
stall I’m sitting in. The perfect place for finding a corpse underneath. A
small corpse, of course. A midget, in fact, and one that had stunted its growth
by cigarette-smoking in boyhood. His size enabled him to hide in the villain’s
Homburg hat and he overheard the villain plotting, but unfortunately he
sneezed and was discovered and bumped off. I’ll make you a present of the
idea.’

‘Thanks.
Why did the heavy put the body under the seat?’

‘He had
to put it somewhere, and anyway that’s up to you. I can’t do all the work.’

In
addition to being pretty she had, Joe thought, a charming voice. At least it
charmed him, but not, apparently, everybody, for at this moment another voice
spoke from the stage.

‘For
heaven’s sake will you be quiet at the back there. It’s impossible to rehearse
with all this talking going on.’

‘Oh, sorry,’
said Joe. ‘Sorry.’

‘Who
was that?’ asked Sally, awed. ‘God?’

‘Vera
Dalrymple.’

‘Of
course. I ought to have recognised her. I interviewed her once.’

‘Please!’
from the stage.

‘Well,
we don’t seem to be wanted here,’ said Sally.

‘Let’s
go into the foyer. Tell me,’ she went on, as the door closed behind them, ‘what
do you think of that gifted artiste? Off the record. Just between you and me.’

It was
a question which Joe was well prepared to answer. He did so with the minimum of
hesitation.

‘Let’s
say that I think it possible her mother may love her.’

‘But
not you?’

‘Not
me. ‘

‘Temperamental?
‘

‘Very.’

‘Bossy?’

‘Most.’

‘Disposition?
‘

‘Fiendish.’

‘But
otherwise all right?’

‘Not at
all. She’s a line-grabber.’

‘A
what?’

‘She
grabs other people’s lines and throws the whole show out of balance. Take that
bit they’re doing now, it was supposed to be the man who was scoring. It linked
up with something in the next act.

The
story depended on it. But a lot she cares about the story so long as she gets
the laughs. I had to rewrite the scene a dozen times before she was satisfied
that she had grabbed everything that was worth grabbing.’

‘I’ve
always heard she was a selfish star.’

‘Ha!’

‘But
couldn’t you have told her to go and drown herself in the Serpentine?’

‘How could
I? She’s the boss. You wouldn’t expect an Ethiopian slave to tell Cleopatra to
go and drown in the Nile.’

‘I
wouldn’t have taken you for an Ethiopian slave.’

‘Only
because I’m a bit blonder than the average Ethiopian.’

‘Is she
married?’

‘Not
that I know of.’

‘I’m
sorry for her husband, if and when.’

‘Yes,
one does feel a pang.’

‘But we
can’t help his troubles. On with the interview.

‘Must
we? I hate talking about myself.’

‘I dare
say, but you’ve got to when you’re being interviewed.’

‘I
can’t think why your paper wants an interview with me. I’m nobody much.’

‘Well,
we aren’t much of a paper. And you’ve probably done something besides writing
a play calculated to impress one and all. Have you a sideline? You box, don’t
you?’

‘Who
told you that?’

‘My editress.
She’s a great boxing fan. She said you won the amateur championship the other
day.’

‘An
amateur championship. Middleweight.’

‘She
was probably in a ringside seat.’

‘Odd,
her being interested in boxing. Does she perform herself?’

‘I
shouldn’t wonder. Though I imagine past her best. And now let’s have a word
about Pickering the author.’

Joe
shifted uneasily in his seat. He shrank from giving the floor to the totally
uninteresting character she had mentioned.

‘There’s
not much to say. I write as much as I can in the evenings after I leave the
office.’

‘So do I.
What sort of office?’

‘Solicitor’s.’

‘Rather
dull. What made you choose that for a life work?’

‘I
didn’t. I was supposed to be going to the Bar, but there was an upheaval in the
family fortunes and I had to take a job.’

This
silenced Sally for an unusual moment.

‘Tough
luck,’ she said at length.

‘It was
something of a blow.’

‘But
how do you come to be able to attend rehearsals if you’re in an office?’

‘They
let me out for the afternoon.’

‘I see.
Do you like office work?’

‘Not
much. It’s a living, but I wish I had all day to write in.’

‘Same
here.’

‘How’s
your writing coming along?’

‘Not
too badly. But I’m supposed to be interviewing
you.’

‘You’re
the one I’d like to hear about.’

‘Oh,
well, if you want the story of my life, you may as well have it. Clergyman’s
daughter in Worcestershire. Broke away from the reservation. Got various jobs. Spent
a long time as secretary-companion to Letitia Carberry. Ever hear of her?’

‘Not to
my recollection.’

‘Very
active in connection with the Anti-Tobacco League.’

‘Then
I’m glad I never met her. I know the Car-berry type. Fat and bullying everyone
she came across.’

‘On the
contrary, slender and as sweet as pie. Not very intelligent.’

‘I
should imagine not, if she fired you.’

‘What
makes you think she fired me?’

‘Well,
here you are, aren’t you, free from her evil influence.’

‘The
work got too hard for me and she decided to engage a male secretary. I could
have stayed on as companion, but she suddenly took it into her head to go and
settle in South America, and I didn’t want to leave England. Why South America,
you ask? Probably because she had heard that a lot of smoking went on there
and she hoped to spread the light. We parted on the best of terms. It was
rather like a mother bidding farewell to a daughter, or at least an aunt
bidding farewell to a niece, not that I’ve ever seen an aunt bidding farewell
to a niece.

‘Much
the same as an uncle bidding farewell to a nephew, I expect.’

‘And I
came to London and eventually landed my present job.’

‘Happy
ending?’

‘Very.
I love the little thing. And now for heaven’s sake let’s hear from you. I
suppose this play means a lot to you—your first.’

‘It
means everything.’

‘Well,
good luck.’

‘Thanks.
Have you ever written a play?’

‘Now
don’t get on to me again,’ said Sally. ‘Correct this impression that I came
here to give you material for my biography.’

When
she had gone, far too soon in his opinion, it occurred to Joe that it would be
as well to make his peace with Miss Dalrymple. He intercepted her as she was
leaving the theatre and asked her to lunch. The invitation was well received,
but it appeared that she already had a luncheon engagement, with a Mr
Llewellyn, a prominent figure in the motion picture world.

Chapter Three

Enthroned in his box at
the artists’ entrance of the Regal Theatre, Mac the stage-doorkeeper was conscious
of a feeling of depression. This was not because he wanted to smoke and was not
allowed to but for a more altruistic reason. Beyond the door to his left the
comedy
Cousin Angela
by Joseph Pickering was concluding its brief
career, and this saddened Mac.

Not
that its failure to entertain affected him personally. As he often said, what
took place on the other side of that door made no difference to him. Triumph or
disaster, socko or flop, he went on for ever like one of those permanent
officials at the Foreign Office. But in the course of their short acquaintance
he had become fond of the author of
Cousin Angela
and regretted that he
had not enjoyed better luck. When he thought of some of the stinkers whose
plays had run a year and more at the Regal since he first took office there, he
could not but feel that Fate in allowing only sixteen performances to
deserving Joe Pickering’s brain child had shown poor judgement.

These
thoughts were silent thoughts, for he had no one with whom to share them. His
only companion was a middle-aged man who was propped up against the wall with
his eyes closed and a dreamy smile on his face. One could not have said that
the vine leaves were in this man’s hair, for he had practically no hair, but it
would have been plain to a far less able diagnostician than the keeper of the
stage door that he was under the influence of what is technically known as the
sauce. American, Mac put him down as, and he marvelled, as he had often done
before, at the ability of the citizens of that great country to hoist so many
and still remain perpendicular.

Obviously
an exchange of thought—what Shakespeare would have called the marriage of true
minds —was not to be expected with one so far below the surface, and Mac’s
meditations had turned to the prospects of a horse, shortly to run at Catterick
Bridge, in whose prowess he had a financial interest, when there entered from
the street someone younger and considerably more pleasing to the eye than his
predecessor. He was indeed spectacularly good-looking —in the fragile ethereal
Percy-Bysshe-Shelley way that goes straight to the hearts of women. His appeal
to men was less marked, and Mac regarded him with a jaundiced eye.

He
said:

‘Mr
Pickering here tonight, Mac?’

To
which Mac replied:

‘He’s
round in front’—which would not have been a bad description of the visitor
propped against the wall, who was noticeably stout. Julius Caesar would have liked
him.

The
ethereal young man withdrew, and Mac returned to his reverie. But he was soon
to resume his social life. The door leading to the stage opened, to admit Joe
Pickering.

Things
being as they were on the other side of that door, Mac did not venture on his
usual smile of welcome. His face was suitably grave as he greeted him.

‘Hullo,
Mr Pickering.’

‘Hullo,
Mac. Just came to say goodbye.’

‘Sorry
to lose you, Mr Pickering. Too bad the show didn’t click.’

‘Yes,
it was a disappointment.’