Break a Leg, Darlings Read online

  'They are.' Hugh took Martha's hand and beamed at me. 'And so am I. Our lives have been transformed. 'And' – he looked into Martha's eyes lovingly – 'this is just the beginning.'

  Evangeline snorted. Fortunately, they were oblivious, gazing into each other's eyes. This annoyed her more than any curt rejoinder could have done.

  'It's wonderful to see Martha so happy,' I said softly to Evangeline, trying to plumb any random maternal instincts that might lie deep below the surface. 'I feel as though there should be violins serenading them

  'A rousing rendition of "Second-Hand Rose" might be appropriate.'

  'Evangeline!'

  'You can stay here and contemplate Love's Middle-Aged Dream, if you like.' Evangeline pushed back her chair. 'I'm going to go and powder my nose until the dessert arrives.'

  No, it had not been an entirely successful evening.

  Next morning, I was awakened by the familiar sound of breaking china. I reached the kitchen in time to see Evangeline pick up a saucer, take deliberate aim at the far wall and hurl it.

  'Now what?' I asked.

  'How dare she?' Evangeline picked up another saucer from the pile on the draining board. 'The insolence! The arrogance! How dare she?'

  I tried not to wince at the crash as the saucer hit the wall. Carefully, I picked my way through the rubble to the kitchen table where Evangeline's half-empty cup of coffee and partially eaten croissant sat neglected. Another saucer hit the wall.

  'I see your caffeine fix kicked in early this morning.' I dodged a few flying chips and wondered if I dared cross the line of fire to the coffee pot for my own fix. Eventually, she would tell me what had set her off.

  Meanwhile, I looked at the morning newspaper beside her plate, still neatly folded and untouched. If there was anything in that to upset her, she hadn't read it yet.

  There was also a small pile of letters, some of them addressed to me, I noticed. I picked them up and sorted through, taking out my own. A postcard from Whitby signed by Des and Julian contained only one word I could decipher easily: 'marooned'. I knew just what they meant.

  Crash! 'The impertinence!' Crash! 'The brass-bound cast-iron nerve!' Crash! The pile of saucers was exhausted and Evangeline looked around for something else to throw.

  'Anyone I know?' I inquired mildly, taking the opportunity to make a dash for the coffee pot and pour myself a cup. There was no saucer for it, of course, nor little breakfast plate for my croissant. I carried them both across to the table and set them down opposite Evangeline, who had subsided into her chair and was moodily sipping at her coffee. The coffee must be cold by now, but Evangeline was simmering enough for both of them.

  'How dare she? How dare she? Does she actually expect we'd do such a thing?'

  'Who? What?'

  Maddeningly, she sipped her coffee, staring into middle distance and shaking her head incredulously.

  'Oh, forget it!' I was using the wrong technique, playing into her scene. Now I feigned indifference, ignoring her and picking up a stiff white envelope from my own little stack of mail. I glanced at her from under my eyelids as I opened the envelope and saw that she was watching me with a sardonic smile.

  'How nice.' It was an invitation. I glanced at Evangeline again. She was fanning herself with a stiff white card, the twin to my own; her smile had broadened, but was no less sardonic.

  'Read it,' she commanded. 'Out loud.'

  'What beautiful handwriting.' I was lost in admiration. What wouldn't I give to be able to set pen to paper and get results like that. 'It's what they call copperplate, isn't it?'

  'Never mind the form, get to the content.'

  'Theatre Royal, Brighton ... pre-West End Tour ...' I skipped over the intervening phrases. '... Opening Night Party for ... for Arsenic and –' I broke off, choking.

  'The sheer effrontery takes your breath away, doesn't it? Inviting us to the premiere of the play she snatched away from under our noses. Our play, Trixie. The one we should have been opening in.'

  Without fully realizing what I was doing, I drained my coffee, stood up – and hurled the cup against the wall.

  'Exactly,' Evangeline said with satisfaction. She drained her own cup and handed it to me.

  Part of me stood aghast as I snatched the cup from her hand and sent it flying at the wall. I watched the explosion of china shards with disbelief. I couldn't believe I had just done that. I hadn't realized losing the play had upset me so much. Not until Dame Cecile Savoy began rubbing it in.

  I took a deep breath and sat down, still quivering with fury.

  'Anyway, who cares?' I said defiantly. 'I don't think that play was such a red-hot choice for us. Let her have it. Who wants to play a pair of ancient nutty murderesses? We ought to be able to do better than that.'

  'Good thinking, Trixie.' Now that she had me as upset as she was, Evangeline had regained her calm.

  'There must be plenty of great vehicles out there somewhere,' I said recklessly. 'And not revivals, either. We just have to find one.'

  'You ain't just whistlin' Dixie!' We high-fived and then sat back beaming at each other for a few moments before the chill wind of reality swept across us. If there were so many great vehicles out there, why hadn't we heard about them? Why weren't the West End stages swarming with our ageing colleagues showing the younger generation what it was all about?

  'Of course, the West End is moribund at the moment,' Evangeline conceded thoughtfully.

  'And the musicals are all revivals of shows I didn't even like the first time round,' I agreed.

  'And I refuse to play the Nurse in Romeo and Juliet!'

  She might wait until she was asked, but I saw her point. It was the main Shakespearean role producers seemed to consider suitable for actresses who had gently edged over the hill.

  'So where does that leave us?'

  'Searching ...' Evangeline gazed into space with the air of one dedicating herself to a quest for the Holy Grail. 'We must find our own vehicle. Of course,' she came down to earth with a bump, 'that's really Hugh's job. However, since he has either lost interest or is incapable, we shall have to do it ourselves.'

  'All right.' Maybe I should have tried to defend my new son-in-law, but I found I more than half agreed with her. Hugh might at least be pretending to get back to business now that the honeymoon was over. On the other hand, it was just remotely possible that he might have been doing something all along and was just waiting until all the details were finalized before telling us. Perhaps there was a script on his desk this very minute . ..

  'I'll talk to Martha,' I said. 'I'll get her to have a look around his office and see if he has anything that might suit us.'

  'Martha!' Evangeline snorted. 'Martha is too bound up with those step-brats of hers to see to anything else. Apart from which, she wouldn't know a good script if it leapt out of the pile and bit her on the nose.'

  'She would, too. Martha always vetted my scripts for me in Los Angeles.'

  'And look where that got you! Until you came to England, you hadn't worked in twenty years.'

  'Thirteen. And she was right – the scripts I was being offered were terrible. Anyway, you're not counting the voice-overs I did for Tallulah the Tap-Dancing Cat in that cartoon series.'

  'I have no intention of dignifying that piece of idiocy by a reply,' Evangeline said severely, in her best Ethel Barrymore mode.

  'Meanwhile neither of us is working. Maybe we ought to go to that Brighton premiere and party. We could see what Dame Cecile has got that we haven't got.'

  'A producer who's paying attention to business, for one thing.' Evangeline picked up her invitation and began tapping it against the palm of her hand.

  'Oh, we'll go, Trixie. We'll go. I wouldn't give her the satisfaction of thinking she's upstaged us. We will go in triumph! With our own show in the offing! And not a mere revival, but a vivid, exciting, brand-new play.'

  'Uh-huh? And just how do we accomplish this?'

  'We have' – Evangeline checked th
e invitation – 'three weeks. Ample time. Surely we can smoke out an incipient genius in that time. This is London. It swarms with talent.'

  'Uh-huh.'

  'True, the West End is moribund. We must look farther afield.'

  'How about Paris? I could use a bit of light relief.'

  'You don't speak French – and neither do I.'

  'I was thinking of eating and shopping, not giving speeches.'

  'Whereas I am thinking of finding a vehicle for us.'

  'What's wrong with a nice French farce?'

  'We'd have to get it translated before we even knew what we had. And then we might not like it. French always seems to lose a lot in the translation, perhaps because there's nothing much there to begin with. No, Trixie, we want home-grown English-speaking talent.'

  'Uh-huh.' But I wasn't being fair. She was right and I ought to show more enthusiasm. 'OK, where do we start, then? There are a lot of provincial repertory theatres –'

  'I wasn't thinking of going that far afield,' Evangeline said. 'Not unless it becomes necessary. First, we shall investigate the fringe theatre of London. Quite a lot of original theatre is taking place in pubs these days. We mustn't overlook them.'

  'Now you're talking!' My enthusiasm rose. Sitting comfortably in a back room with a drink in my hand as I watched the performance sounded like the sort of luxury that could give watching television at home a run for its money. (How little I knew!)

  'Yes, Trixie. I was reading a review of a new pub show just last night. Now, where did I put that paper?' She looked around vaguely. 'The review was absolutely glowing. It spoke of a possible West End transfer for the production and the brilliance of the new young playwright. Our search might be over before it starts.'

  'Uh-huh.' I knew that sounded too good to be true, enthusiasm or not.

  'We'll go Monday night!' Evangeline raised her hand as though holding an imaginary champagne glass. I responded with one of mine. Even in my imagination, I could see a crack appear as the glasses clinked together.

  'That reminds me' – I looked at the pile of shards at the foot of the far wall – 'we'd better do some shopping. We need more crockery.'

  'Good! I could do with a trip to Harrods.'

  'Actually, I was thinking of one of those wholesalers who supply Greek restaurants.'

  3

  And so we staggered home from our first excursion into pub theatre, bloody but unbowed. It couldn't all be like that. Could it?

  'That obviously was not our sort of place.' Evangeline flung her coat over the back of a chair and headed for the brandy decanter. 'Nor did I like the way some of those people looked at us. One felt that they were up to no good.'

  'Sinister as all get-out,' I agreed half-heartedly. They had seemed perfectly ordinary people to me. If an eyebrow or two had been raised and a few glances exchanged as we walked through the saloon bar it was probably because they weren't accustomed to seeing members of the audience walking out in the middle of a performance. Or it could have been that we'd lasted longer than they thought we would. We were well above the average age of most of the audience.

  On the other hand, there was always the possibility that they had recognized us. In which case, perhaps it was unfortunate that we had overdone the staggering bit in our anxiety to escape without being too insulting to the performers.

  'There are plenty more pub theatres.' Evangeline handed me my drink. 'We'll make a list and cover them one by one.'

  'If that show got such good reviews' – I took a deep swallow and shuddered – 'what are the others like? The ones that got bad reviews?'

  'Only a fool pays any attention to reviews! We shall form our own opinions untrammelled by prejudices or preconceptions.' She sipped at her brandy and stared thoughtfully into space. 'Once we get through our list, which will start with those on the verge of closing, we can concentrate on openings, where there'll be no chance, of any other viewpoint influencing our own.'

  'Uh-huh.' This was beginning to sound like a long haul. I didn't bother to stifle my yawn.

  'Now where ...?' Evangeline looked around, still bright-eyed and bushy-tailed. 'Where did I put that listings magazine?'

  'You make your list.' I yawned again and headed for my bedroom. 'I'm calling it a night.'

  It was as well I got a good night's sleep. Evangeline was already seated at the kitchen table when I got up. A closely scribbled sheet of paper was in front of her and I did not feel that it boded well to find her poring over the A-Z Atlas of London. I had already suspected that most of the fringe venues were going to be located a long way from the West End.

  'I've arranged the possibilities in the order of their closing.' She greeted me without looking up. 'We'll have to toss a coin for tonight; it's the last night for two of them. They don't seem to run for very long,' she added on a note of complaint.

  'That should tell you something right there.' I poured a cup of coffee and rummaged in the breadbox, settling for a slightly stale poppy-seed roll. With butter and jam, it would do.

  The small stack of mail at my place did not look very exciting: a couple of obvious advertisements, another plaintive postcard from Julian and an unidentifiable envelope with French stamps, which had been readdressed from the St John's Wood house.

  I picked it up curiously. No, no, I didn't recognize the handwriting but, somehow, I didn't like the vibes it was giving off. I began to remember what curiosity had done to the cat. Still, it was addressed to me and I couldn't not open it, could I?

  Gingerly, I inserted a finger into the little ungummed space at the end of the flap and began to work it open. A cloying sickly sweet scent made my nose wrinkle. I held the envelope a little farther away from me and eased the letter out, unfolding it and scanning the signature.

  'Good Lord! Sweetums!' I yelped.

  Evangeline reared back. She looked over her shoulder and then all around the room. Nobody there but us chickens. She glared across at me.

  'You were not, I trust, addressing me?'

  'Certainly not! It's from Sweetums. Sweetums Carew!' Incautiously, I flapped the letter at her. A great gust of heliotrope eddied out, engulfing us both and setting us gagging. Sweetums often had that effect. 'Surely you remember her.'

  'Sweetums!' Evangeline choked, in the tone people usually reserve for violent oaths. 'I'd hoped she was dead.'

  That was another familiar reaction to Sweetums.

  'Oh, come on,' I said. 'She's not that bad. Not really.'

  'What does she want?' Evangeline demanded icily.

  It was a good question. No one had ever heard from Sweetums unless she wanted something from them. I looked for the answer.

  'Here it is.' Halfway down the page, after a totally insincere couple of paragraphs about what good pals we had always been and her delight at hearing such wonderful news about us. 'She's arriving in London, uh ... soon ... and is dying to see us again.'

  'She's heard we're doing well and wants to horn in on it,' Evangeline translated. 'How did she find us? How did she get our address?'

  'She's been on part of a world cruise. The Fort Lauderdale to Acapulco leg. Beau and Juanita were on board; they gave her all our news. But she used the old address, the letter has been forwarded. Beau can't know that Jasper lost the house yet.'

  'Jasper has a lot to answer for,' Evangeline said darkly.

  'And so does Beau. When did you say she's arriving?'

  'Well, er ...' She wasn't going to like this.

  'Don't shilly-shally, Trixie. When?'

  'Um ...' I looked at her grim face, but there was no use in trying to keep it from her. 'Today, in fact.'

  'Today. Sweetums Carew.' Evangeline rose to her feet. 'I find I have a blinding headache. I am going to bed for the rest of the day, perhaps the rest of the week.'

  'What about all those plays we need to see?' That halted her halfway to the door. She changed course and came back and poured herself another cup of coffee instead.

  'We might always hope –' She carried i
t back to the table and sat sipping it thoughtfully. 'We might always hope that she'll go to the old address and there'll be no one there to redirect her.'

  'We might, but I wouldn't take any bets on it.'

  'I suppose it would be too much to hope for,' she agreed. 'We'll have to think of other ways to protect ourselves.'

  'Evangeline –' I didn't trust the faint half-smile quirking her lips. 'Promise me you'll be nice to her.'

  'Why should I be?'

  'Well ...' The only reason I could think of was a negative one. 'She hasn't done anything nasty to us ... lately.'

  'Only because she hasn't had the chance.'

  That was true enough to silence me. It was awfully hard to defend Sweetums Carew. Of course, most people outside the business didn't know there was anything wrong with her; they believed all that sweetness and light she projected. Considering the way things are now, it's really amazing to look back on those early innocent days of fan magazines, gossip columnists and publicity handouts and realize how tightly the studios were able to keep the lid on everything.

  Oh, Hedda or Louella regularly revealed exciting scoops with much fanfare, but the really nasty damaging revelation stayed firmly buried – except for the occasional murder or scandal that erupted in the public press and law courts too violently to be hushed up. There were enough of those to convince the public that it knew everything about the stars and almost everything about the featured players. Walter and Jimmy could be tougher, especially if they took a dislike to someone but, basically, the stories were of the Jack Benny - who - pretends - to -be - a - miser - is - really - the - first - one - to - grab - the - check - at - any - restaurant - and - refuses - to - let - anyone - else - pay sort. They never reported items like

  Beauregard Sylvester, who gave the impression of being an open-handed big-hearted Joe, still having ninety cents out of the first dollar he ever earned and being so vain yet sneaky that he had sent his wife to test out a new face-lift technique before he tried it himself. Nor, when the experiment had gone disastrously wrong, did they break the story. Oh, no. They weaselled out with touching little yarns about Juanita retiring from the screen to devote herself to her husband and children and enjoy sweet domesticity.