Encore Encore (9 page)

That was
his
call and he needed to get his arse in gear.

Another glance in the mirror and a last deep breath. Off with Francis, on with Velma, and off to the wings.

◊ ◊ ◊ ◊

“Come on babe, we’re gonna paint the town.”
Freddie watched his friend slink across the stage. From the third row of the circle, his favoured place for observing any show,
66 Cochrane ~ All That Jazz

he’d have bet fi fty quid that the average punter wouldn’t have guessed Francis wasn’t a woman. And a bloody attractive one at that. Not if they hadn’t known his gender beforehand, and maybe not even then. He knew that one of the—straight—stagehands had made a pass at the “leading lady”, even though he must have known damn well that the entire cast of this production was male. That was the whole bloody point.

“It’s just a noisy hall where there’s a nightly brawl…”
Francis was holding it up well, the slight nerves which had come across in the opening lines fading now into an assured performance. He’d have to give as good as this when it came to fi rst night. Novelty value was all very well, but if people didn’t believe they’d had their money’s worth from their night at the theatre, then no amount of innovation was going to compensate for them feeling hard done by.

Freddie took his eyes off Velma and had a good look at the rest of the troupe. Nice legs, every one of them, not a bosom out of place. It was taking a huge risk having no women in the cast of a show that relied on the relationship between its two leading ladies. Yeah, it was the sort of thing which was being done with Shakespeare. Didn’t the Globe prove that no one batted an eye at a reversion to all male theatre? There were never any snide remarks in the broadsheets about some Ophelia who had to pad her cleavage and shave twice before taking the stage. It was an experience regarded as oddly highbrow. But how would the same newspapers react to an all male
Chicago
? Only the press night would tell and there was a rumour that the Daily Telegraph was sending someone. Not necessarily Charles Spencer, but it would still be a coup. So long as the critic thought the show was worth the trip.

Freddie closed his eyes for a moment, focussing his thoughts and reassuring himself that it was worth the risk. It was the right musical, of course it was. All the mad ideas when they’d fi rst mooted it—among the more sane suggestions
West Side Story
or
Wicked
—had been little more than private wishes and fantasy fulfi lment. When someone had suggested
The Sound of Music
ENCORE! ENCORE!
67

he’d been ready to throw the whole thing up. Then someone had started humming “Razzle dazzle” and the penny had dropped.

They had to choose
Chicago
or
Cabaret
, to be honest, Kander and Ebbs’ music and Fosse’s choreographic ideas having a bizarre manliness, even butchness, to them. Mary Sunshine was a cross-dressing role already, and Mama Morton seemed to have been created to be played by a drag queen. There was even a peculiarly masculine edge about Velma which Francis had been bringing out beautifully in all the rehearsals so far.

“He’s got it all right.” Freddie’s partner—business and pleasure—slipped into the seat behind his, leaning forward to whisper conspiratorially while the performers took their break.

“From the fi rst time I saw him at your shindig I knew he’d be the business.”

“He had to be the business, Owen, didn’t he? In that red dress he wore.” Red dress, his own hair curled into a bob, Francis had been mooching around at the party looking both gorgeous and out of place. He’d tottered over to the piano on stiletto heels, leaned on it and breathed out “Miss Otis Regrets” in a husky voice full of power and emotion. Everybody at the party had been stunned, not just at the presentation but at the fresh interpretation of a well known, some would say hackneyed, song. The story of Miss Otis’ betrayal had become less a tale of miscegenation than one of a cross-dressing guy discovering the duplicity of his lover, and taking an appropriate revenge. Freddie had recognised unplumbed depths in his old friend and known he’d found his Velma. “Look at him now. He’s been lighting the stage up.”

“Of course he has—he’s got star quality. I know we saw plenty of blokes at the auditions with just as good technique, better voice, niftier moves. I mean, how many bloody counter tenors did we call back a second time for Mary Sunshine? But Francis sings it from the heart. He
was
Miss Otis. And now he’s Velma.” Owen sighed into his partner’s ear. “I’d love to know what the hell he’s got in his past that makes him so good at portraying someone who’s been betrayed.”

68 Cochrane ~ All That Jazz

“You should ask him.” Freddie grinned.

“And you know I have. Used a bottle of Pinot Grigio to oil his tongue but it did me no good. Get too close to
whatever it is
and he clams up.” Owen let Roxie get on with “Funny Honey” uninterrupted. When the song came to an end he leaned forward again. “You’re the only one who really knows about our company enigma, and you ain’t telling, either.”

“It isn’t anything to do with me. Now shut up until the break.” The performance moved along nicely, right through to the interval, with only one mistimed entrance and a couple of duff notes to mar a pretty well fl awless fi rst half. The director hoped the old adage wouldn’t apply and that a good dress rehearsal would mean a good fi rst night, too.

“I know you’re not the bastard who broke his heart or whatever it was happened.” Owen carried on as if there hadn’t been half a dozen musical numbers in the middle of the conversation. “You can’t lie—that twitch under your left eye always gives the game away. If you say you’ve never been more than friends, I believe it.”

Freddie wasn’t getting into the “Just how well did you know Francis?” debate. He’d confessed to a couple of fumbling encounters they’d had together in a fi rst-year undergraduate bedroom, and still wasn’t sure Owen completely believed the story, telltale twitch or not. “On a need to know basis, I’ve told you what you need to know.”

“Yeah, but all you’ve told me’s the offi cial line, isn’t it? The bit to go in the press releases. ‘Francis left Bristol University happy go lucky, en route to an Equity card and ready to set the West End alight.’ So whatever sod buggered up his love life did it in the six years since then. Doesn’t get me any further forward, does it?” Owen screwed up his face. “I’m getting myself a coffee. You can get your own.”

“You should be grateful to the sod who buggered up his love life.” Freddie addressed his partner’s back as he mounted the stairs. “He might have created our star in the process. And mine’s the usual large mug of black. With two sugars.” ENCORE! ENCORE!
69

◊ ◊ ◊ ◊

“You were fabulous.” Freddie must have been trying to control the grin splitting his face but he was fi ghting a losing battle. He perched on the edge of the dressing room chair looking like a little boy on his fi rst visit to the pantomime. “All the cast was, but Francis, you—” He spread his hands in a gesture suggesting that, for once, words had failed him. “Wow.”

“It felt awesome. Fucking awesome.” Francis had discarded the wig, but he clung to the costume, much to Juliet’s annoyance.

She fl uttered around, trying to coax him out of it by sheer irritation. “All right, all right. You can have it in a minute, Jules.

Just give me a chance to chat to the boss, eh?” Juliet muttered something indistinct and probably obscene, then opened the dressing room door. “Five minutes and that’s your lot. You don’t have to keep the things laundered—and you’d be the fi rst to complain if it stank of sweat.”

“Thank you, Jules.” Francis addressed the door as it swung to. “Can’t you get me another one of these?” He fi ngered the black fi lmy material clinging to his waist. Such a well cut dress, so comfortable and classy.
Made you feel like a million dollars, a dress like
this.
“I’d like to wear it home.”

“You wear that back to your digs and I’ll have to drag the stagehands off you before you get out of the building.” Freddie laughed but he couldn’t hide the genuine concern in his voice.

“I’ve told you to keep the dressing up for the stage.”

“No fun in that. Never any fun in that.” Francis ran his hands along his thighs, just like he’d done in “All that Jazz.” “It’s nice, Freddie, gives you a good feeling, looking like a fi lm star. You should try it, one day, a bit of drag. Makes a change from striped shirt and chinos.”

“I’ll stick to the Marks and Spencer chic, thank you. Each to his own and I’ve no inclination to strap on the suspender belt.” Clearly not. Freddie was tall, stood as ramrod straight as a sergeant major and looked as if he didn’t know what
the scene
was,
70 Cochrane ~ All That Jazz

let alone indulged in it. There were days he’d have made Gary Cooper look effeminate.

“You always were a stick in the mud.” Francis’s elegantly clad feet twitched in time to some silent beat. “You want to let yourself live dangerously sometime.”

“Bloody hell.” Freddie rose. “I don’t want to hear any more.

You’ll get yourself done over one day and I’d rather not know about it. Just make sure that if you must go out trawling for whatever you trawl for, you don’t do it before we’ve completed the West End run, eh?” He stopped by the door, voice suddenly serious. “The scene’s not always safe, Francis. You know that.”

“You’re a bit too late with that lecture.” Francis took a fi nal appraisal of himself in the mirror before reluctantly starting to get undressed. “I’m a big boy, I can look after myself.”

“Like you did before?” Freddie still hovered at the door, as if afraid to let his precious package of a star out of his sight. He fi ddled with the handle, avoiding his friend’s gaze.

It always came around to this in the end. Miss Otis was never allowed to forget what she regretted. “James fucking Mannering is history, Freddie. I won’t make the same mistake again.”

“It isn’t another James Mannering I’m worried about. It’s the big ugly sods who pick you up, invite you into the bushes, punch your face and nick your wallet. And leave you pleased to get away as lightly as that.” The sudden silence in the dressing room obliterated even the ordinary backstage hum of activity. “Who’s going to take a bet on your being so lucky next time?”

“It just happened the once. Once bitten, twice shy—or is it once cut, twice shy? Either way, these days I make sure I don’t go cruising for a bruising.” Francis’s eyes narrowed, his gaze fi xed on the seductive image in the mirror. He automatically rubbed his upper arm—the scar hardly showed now, especially under all the makeup. “I don’t really go cruising at all anymore.”

“Good job.” Freddie came over, ruffl ed the black wig. “Do us all a favour and fi nd yourself some nice bloke, one who’ll look ENCORE! ENCORE!
71

after you properly. You’re too precious by half to waste yourself on yobs or rough trade. Now I’d better go and see Roxie Hart.”

“He doesn’t need ‘the talk.’ He’s already got a boyfriend, hasn’t he?” Francis waited until the director was down the corridor before he let out a stream of obscenities. The idea of fi nding some nice bloke was all very well, but they didn’t grow on trees, not even in Brighton. And even if you managed to stumble over one, they always turned out to be complete bastards in the end. Like James Mannering.

“Got that costume ready for me yet?” Juliet must have been lingering by the door, waiting for her moment to pounce. “Have a heart, love. I’ve got a lot of work to do.”

“I’m doing it now.” Francis slipped out of the dress, handed it over—and Velma with it—then started on his underwear. But the makeup was staying on, no matter what Freddie, or anyone else, said.

London, March

“She can do it alone.”
Francis quoted the newspaper headline with glee. It was one helluva review—even Owen was grinning from ear to ear. The guy who played Roxie had got his due, the niftiness of his footwork and his quirky humour in the ventriloquist number rightly praised, but they reckoned Velma had knocked spots off the lot of them. Francis was the star.

All of the reviews, even the slightly grudging quarter page from one of the tabloids which would have preferred a buxom half naked blonde in the role, had picked him out, followed closely by the guy who played Amos. That was only right— “Mr Cellophane” had almost stopped the show every night so far, in London or the provinces.

“Looks like we’ve got a hit.” Freddie wasn’t trying to hide the smile this time. The table was covered in newsprint, held down by coffee mugs and a couple of brandy glasses. The rest of the cast were sprawled around the bar, holding cups or glasses, poring
72 Cochrane ~ All That Jazz

over the reviews to see if they got a mention, or an allusion, or anything at all they could hold on to and cherish.

“You haven’t booked any holidays over the next few months, have you, Francis?” Owen beamed happily, his trademark fi scal smile showing his brain was totting up the likely increase in takings each good review would be worth. “We can’t afford to lose you until we can fi nd another bloke with legs like yours. You don’t get many of them to the pound.” The short run in Brighton had been a pleasant success, enough to give everyone hope that a bit of reworking would iron out the few wrinkles the local press had picked up. Manchester had earned them their fi rst really enthusiastic standing ovation, the previous one on the south coast being more dutiful than heartfelt.

The West End had brought something close to a barnstorming triumph.

“I’ve nothing planned. You know me by now, Owen. Always all dressed up and nowhere to go.” Francis wasn’t quite in his best war paint, just a comfortably feminine oriental style trouser suit with a hint of subtle makeup to give a muted but still striking effect. “And no one to go with.”

“Lah dah dah.” Freddie mimed playing a violin as he warbled the start of “Hearts and Flowers.” “Might be your great chance right here. You’ll be the toast of the West End for a while, and Owen’s got the TV stations practically begging him for an interview with you. Fancy being on The One Show? You’ll get snowed under with offers from eligible bachelors afterwards.”