Play to the End (12 page)

"No surprise there. The guy's a loser."

"But he's been in touch with you?"

"Sadly, yes. He's bombarded me with letters and phone calls about this history of Colbonite he's written. He's even sent me copies of the bloody thing."

"Read it?"

"I'm a busy man, Toby. Ploughing through the rambling reminiscences of Derek Oswin isn't something I have either the time or the inclination to get around to. My father wound Colbonite up thirteen years ago. It was just a two-bit middling plastics company. One obscure victim of the slow death of British manufacturing. Who the hell cares?"

"Oswin said something about a valuable patent."

"Did he?" Colborn's brow furrowed briefly at that, then he concentrated on the mirror as we joined the A27, heading east. A surge of acceleration took the Porsche into its preferred cruising range. But its driver's discourse had stalled.

"Was it valuable?"

"Mmm?"

"The patent."

"Oh, moderately. It was a formula to prevent discoloration by sunlight. One of the company's precious few assets. But selling it didn't make my father rich beyond the dreams of avarice, let me tell you."

"Richer than the redundant workforce, though, I assume."

"They were paid their dues. Oswin has nothing to complain about."

"I'm not sure he is complaining. About that, anyway."

"What will your agent do with the book?"

"Read and reject, I imagine."

"Let's hope that satisfies Oswin."

"I think it will."

"And you think I should have arranged something similar before this got out of hand. Well, you think right." Colborn glanced at me. "Thanks for getting me out of a hole I dug for myself, Toby. You've done me a favour as well as Jenny. I won't forget that."

How magnanimous of him. And of me. At this rate he'd soon have been inviting me to a round of golf at his club. We were two civilized men of the world, finessing our way round the compromises and contradictions of embodying both Jenny's past and her future.

Complete bullshit, of course. What Roger Colborn was really engaged in was risk assessment. Was I an irritant that would soon go away of its own accord? Or a challenge he had to face down?

Somewhere beyond Lewes, he turned off the main road and headed up a steep lane onto the downs. There was a parking area at the top and broad vistas in all directions: a quilt of fields and woodland to the north, a grey slab of sea to the south.

"Game for a walk, Toby?" he asked in the moment of silence after the engine had died. "I find the open air helps clear my thoughts. And there's something I really do want to be clear about."

I agreed, with little enthusiasm. We climbed out into a cold-edged wind. I gazed along the crest of the downs, where a couple of hikers were the only humans in sight. The going looked chill and muddy. I was persuaded to squeeze into a spare pair of Wellingtons. We set off.

And Colborn began to lay out his thoughts.

"Jenny's made me a better person, Toby. Maybe she did that for you as well. If so, losing her must have been a real blow. I certainly wouldn't want to go back to being what I was before I met her. It was the biggest stroke of luck in my life. I'll never do anything to hurt her. You have my word on that.

I love her. I honestly believe I always will. And I know I'll always protect her. She's safe with me. It's important you should understand that. I may not be quite as good for her as she is for me. That would be impossible. But I'm good enough. Plenty good enough."

"I'm sure you are," I lied.

"But what about you, Toby? Where are you going? According to Jenny, things aren't looking too bright for you. Tell me to mind my own business if you like, but, as I understand it, this play you're in has been, to put it bluntly, a flop."

"It hasn't gone as well as we'd hoped."

"And film work's pretty much dried up for you."

"I wouldn't '

"There's no need to be defensive about it." He held up a hand to silence me. "The point is that I have contacts in the film world. Not Hollywood, it's true, but in Europe. Co-production's the name of the game. I have a stake in several projects."

"What are you trying to say?"

We stopped. He turned to look at me, the wind ruffling his hair. "I'm saying I could get you into something. Back on the screen. In the relatively big time. Where you belong."

He meant it. That was obvious. And whether you regarded it as the repayment of a favour or the removal of a stone from his shoe, the effect was the same: a problem solved for both of us. This, I suddenly realized, was what being a businessman meant. The making of attractive offers. The doing of productive deals. Cost-effectiveness. The profit margin. The bottom line.

"We don't have to like each other, Toby. Mutual respect is all it takes."

"Why be a loser when you can be a winner? Is that what you mean?"

"Something like it."

"I'd be a fool to turn you down, then."

"So you would. But I come across plenty of fools. I'm used to having win-win propositions thrown back in my face."

"I'm a jobbing actor, Roger. I can't afford to say no." "In that case, we'd better make sure there's something lucrative on hand soon for you to say yes to." "It'd be music to my agent's ears." Colborn smiled "Don't you just love being pragmatic?" "It's something of a novelty for me," I coolly replied. "You'll get used to it." His smile broadened. "I promise."

We returned to the car and started back towards Brighton. Colborn elaborated briefly and pointedly on the nature of his profitably pragmatic business.

"It's all about timing, Toby. When to get into something. When to get out. And the key to timing is the same as the condition upon which God hath given liberty to man: eternal vigilance. That's what my staff do for me. Observe vigilantly. Freeing me to take time off. And to open my mind. I've learned to reject nothing without considering it. And to be willing to reject everything. It's worked well for me."

"Do you have any relatives or dependants to support?"

"Ex-wives and children, you mean? None. Which helps, of course. It's easier to take risks when there's no-one else to worry about. Meeting Jenny's made me a little more risk-averse, I admit, even though she's quite capable of supporting herself, as the success she's made of Brimmers demonstrates. To be honest, I'd always avoided long-term relationships, partly because I knew they might turn me into a more cautious operator. But I've got to the stage where I can indulge a little caution. And Jenny's well worth any adjustments I've had to make to my life."

It was all plausible enough, this slickly packaged version of himself Colborn was serving up. But it didn't convince me. And not just because I didn't want to be convinced. I'd spotted a flaw in his logic. What exactly was the ratio between the profits he'd turned on his shrewdly timed investments and the pile of cash he'd no doubt inherited from his father -the residue of that 'two-bit middling plastics company'? It wasn't so much about timing as editing. And when you edit a story there's always a danger that you'll leave a few loose ends dangling. I decided to give one a tug.

"Where was your office before you inherited Wickhurst Manor, Roger?"

"I didn't .. . put the business on its current footing until after my father died, actually." That was one up to me. And he knew it. His change of tack was swift and clumsy. Or maybe it was just meant to seem clumsy. "I hope missing the play last night didn't get you into too much trouble, by the way."

"I'm weathering it."

"Good." He judged a pause minutely before continuing. "How did your stand-in cope?"

It was an unusual question to ask. Why should he care? Why should he even bother to enquire? The only answer that came to mind was a deeply disturbing one. It was bad enough to think Denis might have been the victim of a botched setup meant for me and commissioned by the man who'd just made me an offer too good to refuse. But it was somehow worse, far worse, to suppose that the set-up hadn't been botched at all; that Denis's brush with calamity had been devised quite deliberately as a message to me: a demonstration of what might befall me if I were foolish enough to reject the offer.

"I trust he didn't do too good a job," Colborn went on with a chuckle.

"You wouldn't want the idea to get around that you're ...

expendable."

Soon enough we were back in Madeira Place. "Thanks for the ride," I said as I climbed out. "My pleasure," he responded. I closed the passenger door behind me and watched him pull away. The car sped the short distance to the end of the street. Its brake lights blinked.

Then it swung onto Marine Parade and was gone.

I headed straight across the road, sleep out of the question now but some kind of rest definitely in order. A glance up at the ground-floor bay window of the Sea Air told me that too was to be denied me. The residents' lounge ought by rights to have been deserted, given that I'm the only resident. As a result, I thought for a fragment of a second that the face I saw peering down at me might be some kind of hallucination. But no. Melvyn Buckingham really was there, craning his neck round the wing-back of his chair for a view. Our celebrated director had paid me a call.

I encountered Eunice in the hall, bearing a tea-tray towards the lounge. She whispered an apology to me. "I'm really sorry about this, Toby. I couldn't turn him away, could I? Not when he's come all this way."

"You didn't have to bake him a cake," I grumbled, catching the homemade aroma rising from a generous slice of Dundee.

"I baked it for you. Here." She handed me the tray. "Take it in while I get back to my chores."

I scowled after her as she descended discontentedly to the basement, then took a deep breath and processed into the directorial presence.

Melvyn was kit ted out in the squirely tweeds he favours despite his metropolitan lifestyle. His expression, which ranges swiftly from approving smirks to pained grimaces during rehearsals, was currently fixed in a frown that indicated either anger or perplexity.

I plonked the tray down and smiled at him. "Brian didn't say you were thinking of coming down."

"It was to be a surprise," Melvyn responded. "Ever since Leo told me he wasn't bringing the play in, I've been meaning to see for myself where you've gone wrong. I was in the Canaries last week, catching the sun, so this was the soonest I could manage. I mentioned the trip to Leo over lunch yesterday. As you can imagine, it's turned out to be rather more apposite than I'd anticipated. Leo called me at an ungodly hour this morning, asking nay, insisting that I read you the riot act on his behalf."

"He's over-reacting. I missed one performance. That's all there is to it."

"Very possibly. But he who overpays is entitled to overreact."

"Do you want some tea?"

"I want a stiff gin, dear boy. But in its absence I suppose the soothing leaf will suffice."

I poured and handed him his cup, adding, "I recommend the cake," in my most enticing tone.

"It does look good." Melvyn's gluttony has always eclipsed his professional judgement. He was a goner. "All right."

I handed him that too and watched as he took a bite. He was still munching through a first mouthful to his evident satisfaction when Eunice flounced into the room, balanced a plate bearing another slice on the arm of my chair and flounced out again.

"Leo's anxious to ensure things don't go off the rails this week,"

Melvyn spluttered through the sultanas.

"They won't."

"Fortunately, the Argus didn't make a big thing of your .. .

indisposition." He nodded to a copy of the paper lying on the floor next to his chair. "There's a lot of flu about."

"But I'm over mine."

"I certainly hope so."

"There's nothing for Leo to worry about."

"He doesn't seem to agree. I fear the letter spooked him."

"What letter?"

"You didn't know about it?"

"I've no idea what you're referring to."

"Oh." He wiped some crumbs from his lips. "You'd better take a look, then." With an effort, he pulled a piece of paper from his jacket pocket and handed it over. "It was delivered to Leo's office this morning."

As soon as I unfolded the sheet, I recognized the handwriting. In one sense, the source was no surprise. In another... 77 Viaduct Road Brighton BN1 4ND

Dear Mr. Gauntlett,

I do not want you to worry when you hear that Mr. Flood has missed this evening's performance of Lodger in the Throat. As you may be aware, Mr. Flood's estranged wife lives here in Brighton. Since Mr.

Flood arrived yesterday, I have been assisting him as best I can in his endeavours to effect a reconciliation with Mrs. Flood. I feel sure you would not want to stand in the way of such a development. After all, it would make Mr. Flood a more contented man and therefore a more assured actor.

As it happens, it is necessary for Mr. Flood to be somewhere other than the Theatre Royal this evening. He will probably decline to explain his absence, which is why I am writing to emphasize that it is quite simply unavoidable if his future wellbeing is to be secured. In the circumstances, I am confident that you will be tolerant of the inconvenience caused to your company.

Incidentally, perhaps I could take this opportunity of mentioning that the play's disappointing performance on tour is largely attributable in my opinion to the unsympathetic direction of Mr. Buckingham, who has insisted upon treating it as some form of drawing-room comedy rather than the merciless satire on family life that it actually is.

Respectfully yours,