The Cinderella Killer (6 page)

‘But I am your husband.'

‘No longer a very good argument, Charles.'

‘But—'

‘I was going to ring you after I'd got the results of the biopsy.'

‘When will that be?'

‘They said it'd be about a week, so … Friday with a following wind. May take longer. You never know.'

‘I'll definitely ring you Friday,' said Charles. ‘When I get a break in rehearsal. Promise I'll do that.'

‘OK,' said the tired voice. ‘And then hopefully I'll just be able to tell you that everything is fine.'

‘Yes.' He was silent for a moment, then couldn't help asking, ‘But, Frances, why didn't you tell me before?'

‘What would have been the point, Charles?'

‘But it makes me feel like I'm not part of your life.'

‘If you're not, whose fault is that?' He couldn't supply an answer. ‘I'd have told you if you'd rung me, Charles.'

NAUSEA: My sister and I are fastidious.

DYSPEPSIA: Yes, I'm fast and she's hideous.

 

C
harles Paris was preoccupied during the following day's rehearsals. Nobody noticed anything different about him – he was normally one of the quieter members of the company – but his mind kept turning back to thoughts of Frances. He wasn't by nature good at finding out positive scenarios, and had a tendency to think the worst. The worst he could think about Frances's situation was pretty grim. The thought of the threat to her, the idea that she might not always be in his life, hurt like physical pain. And he could not lose the feeling that he was somehow to blame for what was happening to her.

The Broker's Men were not involved much in the day's rehearsals, but Charles stayed around St Asaph's Church Halls. He didn't want to be on his own with his worries. Bix Rogers was off in the main hall, elaborating the choreography for Tilly Marcus's ‘Dance With Your Body' routine, and in the smaller hall the Ugly Sisters, Baron Hardup and Buttons were rehearsing their kitchen slapstick scene (which preceded Dandini's arrival with invitations to Prince Charming's ball).

This was another area of the pantomime where virtually no script existed, but Danny Fitz had taken charge, trying to coach his fellow actors into a routine that might well have been a hundred years old. There was a lot of water, flour and dough involved, so it was one of those scenes for which a protective sheet had to be ceremoniously laid down on the stage.

The participants were meant to be making a cake and Buttons kept being sent off to fetch the necessary components – or rather to fetch the wrong components. Thus, when ordered by Nausea and Dyspepsia to fetch the ‘ingredients', he came back with a jar full of ‘greedy ants'. And when asked to bring ‘flour', he returned with a single rose, prompting the following exchange:

NAUSEA: What's that?

BUTTONS: You said get a little flower. So I got one.

NAUSEA: Not that kind of flower. What sort is it anyway?

BUTTONS: It's a chrysanthemum.

NAUSEA: No, it's not, it's a rose.

BUTTONS: It's a chrysanthemum.

NAUSEA: It's a rose.

BUTTONS: It's a chrysanthemum.

NAUSEA: All right. Spell chrysanthemum.

BUTTONS: Errrr … It's a rose.

 

Danny Fitz had an amazing memory for such sequences of crosstalk. He had been playing dames for over thirty years and was like a walking encyclopedia of the genre. The trouble was, though, that he had such respect for the ancient pantomime routines that he didn't like to see a single detail of them changed.

Which had been fine when he had been working with Bobby Crowther, who had been as well drilled in the tradition as Danny himself. But Bobby was dead and it wasn't going so well trying to recreate the scenes with Kenny Polizzi, Tad Gentry and Felix Fisher. None of them could see why they should stick to the script that Danny remembered so exactly. And each of them thought they could make the routine funnier by adding jokes of their own.

This was a particular problem with Buttons. With his background in outrageous stand-up, Felix had a lot of experience in holding an audience's attention and in ad-libbing. But he had very little experience of working with other actors. Stand-ups are rarely team players. So he didn't like having the creaky structure of an old-fashioned slapstick routine imposed on him. And he reckoned he could come up with better lines than the ones that Danny was trying to make him say.

And although Buttons was meant to be a step on the way to becoming a family-friendly performer, Felix's stand-up training told him he could always get a laugh by being crude.

For example, Danny was trying to get him to say the following lines:

BUTTONS: How can I tell when this cake's cooked?

NAUSEA: You stick a knife in it and if it comes out clean, it's cooked.

BUTTONS: Oh, good, if it comes out clean I'll stick all the other dirty knives in it too.

 

Not great, but traditional and it might well get a laugh based on the enduring stupidity of Buttons' character.

Felix, however, thought it would be funnier if he were to make his second line, ‘Oh, good, I'll stick my dick in too – that could do with a clean-up, after the unlikely places it's been.'

Charles didn't say anything but he felt sympathy for Danny trying to explain to the stand-up that the line a) wasn't funny, b) didn't fit into the pantomime tradition, and c) would be totally unsuitable for a matinee full of pre-teens.

The wrangling went on for some time. Kenny retained his customary cool and didn't take sides, but Tad was with Felix all the way. Watching from the sidelines, Charles felt acutely embarrassed, particularly when Felix started telling Danny that he ought to ‘come into the twenty-first century'. Audiences, he said, ‘don't mind a bit of smut these days – in fact, they feel cheated if they don't get it.'

Danny countered that
double entendres
were fine, indeed the stock-in-trade of many pantomime routines, but there was no ambiguity in the lines that Felix was coming up with. They could only be interpreted one way – and that was as filth.

‘Look,' said Felix, his false lashes flickering dangerously under their glittering eyeliner, ‘I can guarantee you that that line will get a laugh.'

‘Possibly,' came the waspish reply from Danny. ‘You could flash your willy at the audience and that'd probably get a laugh too. But it wouldn't be the right kind of laugh.'

Charles was deeply aware of how much time was being wasted by this argument. The rehearsal schedule was already tight enough without battling over the script. Though Bix was polishing up the musical numbers to a high professional gloss, there were whole dialogue scenes that still hadn't even been looked at. It was Thursday and the show was opening on the following Friday.

Eventually Kenny said something. His stance as a neutral didn't stop him from being aware of the waste of rehearsal time. ‘Hey, guys,' he began in a conciliatory tone, ‘let's not get this out of proportion. I think I see a solution here.'

‘The solution,' said Danny, ‘is to do the traditional kitchen slapstick scene.'

‘Not necessarily. All that's needed is a funny scene, something for the audience to laugh at.'

‘And they will laugh at the traditional kitchen slapstick scene – if it's done right.'

‘Sure,' Kenny agreed. ‘But it might be easier to do something completely different.'

‘Completely different – like what?'

‘There's a comic song I did on an album some years back – nothing to do with
The Dwight House
. Always works when I do it in cabaret. And the thing is – there's a funny chorus which you three could do.'

Charles was struck by how reasonable Kenny sounded. This wasn't just an ego trip; he was genuinely trying to come up with a way out of their current impasse.

‘But what about the kitchen slapstick scene?' asked Danny.

‘We drop the kitchen slapstick scene,' Kenny replied.

Danny looked as though he had been shot through the heart.

‘So how're things going with the dialogue scenes?' said Bix Rogers.

Charles found it bizarre that such a question could be asked by the director about his own show. Bix was meant to be responsible for the whole production of
Cinderella
, but he was still focusing all his attention on the musical numbers. Presumably at some point during rehearsals, Charles comforted himself, they'd have to do a run of the whole show, and then Bix would see the uneven quality of the dialogue scenes. How the director reacted then would be interesting.

‘We're getting there,' Kenny replied, ‘but there's a lot of work still to be done.'

‘I'm sure there is.' But Bix spoke as if, whatever the nature of the work that needed doing, it was somebody else's problem, rather than his.

‘We've been working on the kitchen slapstick scene.'

‘Oh yes,' Bix responded distractedly.

‘Danny's very keen to keep it in, but I'm not sure it's going to play right.'

‘Well, see how you go.'

‘I was suggesting to the boys that maybe we junk the slapstick scene and put in another musical number.'

Bix's eyes lit up. ‘Now that is a good idea.'

Felix was not to be upstaged. ‘I was thinking also, Bix, that I could put in a bit of my stand-up act too … you know, in that bit when I'm alone in the kitchen just before Cinderella goes to the ball. I've got a very funny routine about being gay and shopping for vegetables.'

‘Sure. Whatever works,' said the director.

A second bullet appeared to have entered Danny's heart. Charles, who also had great respect for the traditions of pantomime, felt for him. He thought back to the pantomimes he and Frances had taken their daughter Juliet to, back in the days when their marriage and family life had been almost normal. And that of course made him think again about Frances, and the terrible prospect of losing her.

Rehearsal breaks in the two halls of St Asaph's Church didn't always coincide, but they had done that morning, so the musical parts and the dialogue parts of the company were all foregathered in the larger hall. Except of course for a lot of the dancers, who had gone straight outside to light up cigarettes.

One who hadn't gone, though, was the dance captain, Jasmine del Rio. Though everyone had been introduced at the start of rehearsals, the dancers hadn't intermingled a lot with the acting members of the company. It was partly because they always tended to stick together, but also because the intensity of Bix Rogers' choreographic rehearsals left them little chance to socialize.

But at this coffee break Jasmine del Rio detached herself from Kitty Woo and came across purposefully to join the sycophantic group surrounding Kenny. Charles was struck again by the beautiful suppleness of her body and by the hardness of her face. He found it impossible to put an age on her. From a distance eighteen, closer at least thirty.

Jasmine carried a cup of coffee and deliberately took the vacant chair next to Kenny. ‘We haven't been introduced properly, have we?' she said. Her voice had that kind of slack American twang affected by some on the outskirts of show business.

He smiled his Dwight Bredon smile, open and welcoming. ‘No, we haven't. I've seen you across a crowded rehearsal room, but that's all.' He held out a hand. ‘I'm Kenny Polizzi.'

It was a good ploy, which Charles had seen used by a lot of famous people in showbiz. Even though well aware that everyone in the entire world knew who they were, they demonstrated apparent humility by identifying themselves.

‘Jasmine del Rio,' she said, taking his hand.

‘It's an honour to meet you,' he said, still playing the humble card.

‘Though actually we have met before … worked together.'

‘Really?' Kenny looked puzzled and a little wary. Not recognizing someone he'd worked with might tarnish his image of ‘regular guy' bonhomie. It might even make him look a bit starry. ‘When was this?'

‘More than fifteen years ago. Before the whole
Dwight House
thing began.'

‘Oh.' He looked relieved. Maybe forgetting someone after fifteen years wasn't so bad.

‘Besides,' she went on, ‘I wasn't called Jasmine del Rio then.'

‘Oh? What were you called?'

She smiled lazily, delaying the impact of her words. Then she said, ‘Marybeth Docker.'

It was fortunate that Bix called everyone back to rehearsal at that point, because it obscured Kenny's reaction to the name. But Charles was near enough to see that the American looked as though he had been slapped in the face, very hard.

As had now become a habit, Charles lingered by the exit to St Asaph's Church Halls until Kenny joined him. Going to the pub together had quickly become an evening ritual for the two men. Charles still couldn't help wondering whether it was a self-imposed test for Kenny, a proof to himself of how completely he had defeated the temptation of the demon drink.

That evening as they left the hall, they encountered a woman standing outside in the street. Of indeterminate age, she wore a lilac hooded waterproof and sequin-decorated jeans. She had a small wheeled suitcase in a tiger-skin design. Her face was caked with powdery make-up and thick glasses distorted her eyes. For some reason he couldn't define, Charles felt there was something odd about her.

But clearly the woman knew Kenny Polizzi, and he knew her.

‘Hello,' she said. ‘I found you.' Her accent was American.

‘You always do, Gloria.' He spoke cautiously, warily, as if he knew that saying the wrong thing could upset her.

‘I sure do,' the woman agreed.

‘This is Charles Paris. He's in the show too.'