Bad Actors
When the theatre closed down, we were all at a loose end. After all, actors need somewhere to act and without that we are just ordinary people sitting in a chair waiting for our mobile phones to make a noise.
Tony Gordon made the announcement at seven o’clock on a Friday afternoon, just as we had all turned up to rehearse his new murder mystery play, The Maid Did It.
‘I’m sorry luvs!’ his voiced echoed through the rafters, ‘I’ve been looking at the books, and basically we’re screwed.’ He apologised to Nicola and Mary, The Abattoir Street Players, two women members for the bad language.
Nicola, the leading lady to my leading man, was due to play the aging, but still glamorous, Lady Butterwell in the new production. The news meant, that not only was I not going to be out of the gaze of any future talent-spotting activities, but was not going to get that long awaited snog in Act 2 Scene 3. Mary was going to play the maid, as she had done in every play we had ever performed in that building since we’d been together in 1996.
Young Lee and Kirk said nothing, as expected. Merely had the same faces as still and expressionless as in any performance we did. They were always happy doing anything, just as long as there weren’t too many lines. Lucky for them both, Tony wasn’t going to be putting any more words in their talentless mouths.
We had all invested money into that company. Every piece of wood one could see, every stitch in every item of costume, the seats in the stalls that had to be recovered before they saw a bottom, The scenery, paint, props, makeup (I’m sure I’ve no need to go on) had all come from our savings accounts, our children’s inheritance funds, bank loans. Further to that, we also worked in the foyer before we started, took ticket money, ushered punters in and sold them ice-cream – which we also paid for during the intervals.
So when Tony Gordon announced that we weren’t going to get any of it back we were annoyed to say the very least.
‘The coffers are dry darlings, you have to believe me,’ Tony pleaded.
‘They can’t be,’ I said, ‘Mary’s studying to be an accountant and she’s done the sums. The money can’t all be gone like that.’
‘I can show you the safe, if you don’t believe me.’
We didn’t need to. I certainly knew that the twisted old fool would have already shoved it in the bosom of a bank somewhere, in a nice little safety deposit box.
Graham, our aging gigolo took a puff from his French cigarette. ‘What are we supposed to do now,’ he said in his usual cool, calm manner, ‘now, that are you going to throw us all on the scrap heap old boy?’
Tony leapt through us all, desperate to land a reassuring hand on the man’s shoulder, ‘Try not to look at it like that Graham, I’m sure that a talent like yours won’t go to waste.’
‘Thanks!’said Nicola, ‘so what are us bits of wood supposed to do then?’
‘I meant that in the plural sense.’
I didn’t mince words, I never did. ‘Give us our money you twister!’
My words were echoed by the others. Tony waved his hands in the air as if to attempt to disperse them. ‘Look! I didn’t what to say anything but there is something I think I ought to tell you.’
On stage there was a long table that we’d been using for script readings. He instructed us to sit down while he gave us his sob story. I couldn’t wait to hear it myself. What was it going to be? Perhaps his mother needed an operation, or he had given our money away anonymously to help the poor.
He began. ‘I’ve been keeping this to myself because I’ve been embarrassed about it. I mean, you all know me. I may be a harsh director when it comes to getting the best out of my actors, but I’m not stupid.’
Some of us nodded to that.
‘So when I tell you that I did a stupid thing, then the first thing you are going to think of me is, that it is completely uncharacteristic of me.’
There was a pause for effect here. The silence was broken by Nicola. ‘Spit it out man! Don’t leave us all hanging. Let’s hear this sorry excuse for losing all our hard-earned cash.’
‘I was approached by this man,’ Tony continued, ‘he was a tough-looking sort but he seemed OK. I was talking to him at the open market. He said his name was Bryant, Timothy Bryant. Anyway, we got talking about the theatre and he was saying what a dump it was. I had to agree. I mean, we’ve all invested a lot in this place, but look at it. The place needs pulling down and rebuilding.’
‘True, it’s old,’ I said, ‘then it used to be a cinema, before that, in the 1900’s, they performed music hall here.’
‘Exactly!’
‘But surely that’s part of the charm?’
‘Nobody wants to come and watch a play in a flea pit like this,’ Tony went on, ‘we’ve had it decorated over and over again, to make the place more appealing. It’s done nothing. Tim said what I was thinking. We need to relocate to somewhere more modern if we want to get bums on seats again.’
‘Don’t tell me,’ said Nicola, ‘he said he would give you a loan to buy somewhere else?’
‘Not as such,’ said Tony, ‘he said he was one of these chaps that do the stock exchange. You can make an absolute mint on that, if you know what you are doing. He reckoned he had some inside news about oil, that it was going to go through the roof.’
‘Let me finish that story for you,’ I said, ‘you gave him our money and took the risk. However, things didn’t exactly go to plan. The oil shares sank and you both got broke.’
‘One way of putting it! It wasn’t the oil I had in mind anyway, it was olive oil.’
There was a chorus of negative sounds around the table. ‘So what happened next?’ I ventured, ‘I take it things didn’t end there.’
Tony nodded pathetically. ‘He returned the next day with a couple of heavies. He offered me a loan to cover what I’d taken from you guys and gals, only it came nowhere near. I’m sure I don’t have to tell you that the interest on the loan was astronomical to say the least.’
‘So big, that you had to pay back what you borrowed before you could put it to any use?’ I said.
‘Precisely!’
We all left him with sunken hearts, as anyone who’d lost their very livelihood, would have done. Everyone, even me, went back and sunk our heads back into real life. Mary put her face back into her study books. Nicola was a traffic warden during the hours of daylight. I imagined she would have handed out more fines the next day. I heard that Graham was working longer hours at the gentleman’s outfitters and Tweedle-Dee and Tweedle-Dum had gone back to DJ-ing. Any one of us that ever said that there wasn’t anything missing from our lives would have been lying. To me personally, Fridays were always something for me to focus on, something to look forward to, and a portion of my daily life that transcended the boring reality of sitting in front of a computer twenty-four seven, updating customer information for the electricity board. The flickering screen became even more irritating.
Then, one day my irritation turned into something else. I couldn’t afford to run the car and so I’d been taking the bus to and from work. My eyes, no longer having to be watchful of the road, would wander the sides of the passing buildings and shops. We stopped outside a shoe shop on the High Street to let some pensioners off. There, on a small plastic billboard next to the stop, was a poster, that nearly poked my eyes out. It was a standard A4 sheet exploding with colours and words. In the centre of it surrounded by the most tacky looking star shapes were the words Tony Gordon Presents… The Maid Did It. Needless to say my heart sank into my trousers, especially when I noted the date of the first performance, which was next month.
The swine, had been rehearsing with another cast. Closing down? That was just a ruse to get rid of us and not have to pay us.
I rang Nicola as soon as I got in.
‘Tell me you’re joking!’
‘I can’t – it’s true!’ I had the poster in my hand as I was speaking into the mouthpiece. So annoyed was I, I’d ripped the offending articl
e from the post.
We went to the theatre to confront him, and there he was in full flow in the middle of the second act. The actor had Nicola’s character in his arms on the sofa and was going in for the kiss that should have been mine.
When he saw us standing in between the rows of seats, he decided to greet us in a very false manner. ‘Nicola, Michael, how marvellous to see you both again!’ He then told his replacement troupe to take an early break.
‘I doubt that very much,’ said Nicola, ‘I’m not happy about this at all, and unless you can give us a very good explanation as to why these people are here, you will find your car is going to be very illegally parked tomorrow afternoon.’
‘Please,’ he pleaded stupidly, ‘it was true what I said.’
Nicola held both of her palms out angrily. ‘Hand over the money now!’
‘I need it Nicola,’ said Tony, ‘can’t you see the production is going well. I was going to give you your money back, as soon as the play had finished. These guys and gals are fantastic, RADA material if ever I saw it.’
I had to say what I was thinking, ‘Why isn’t that us up there Tony?’
Tony gave us both an awkward sort of smile. He waved his hands in our direction and at the empty stage, as if we were some sort of sign language we haven’t had the privilege of learning.
‘Spit it out man!’ roared Nicola.
‘You’re…’
‘Crap?’ I suggested.
‘Thank you Michael!’ said Tony. ‘That’s why we hadn’t been doing very well.’
‘You low life!’ Nicola formed a fist and threw it in Tony’s direction. I caught it before it reached his face.
‘Nicola is a bloody good actress,’ I said, in a lame attempt to calm her down, ‘I nearly went to RADA…’
There was that awkward grin again. Tony knew as well as I did, I only filled an online form in. I didn’t hear anything from them. ‘Just give us our money back Tony,’ I said, still holding Nicola’s wrist, ‘and we’ll say no more about it.’
Tony dipped his head in shame. ‘I haven’t got it Michael. That part about the heavies was true. They are coming back the day after tomorrow. The interest is doubling every visit. I just have enough to send them packing.’
‘And may I ask,’ I said, ‘your new troupe, are you stinging them for cash too?’
Tony nodded. ‘Whatever you can do to me, I swear there are people after my blood, who can do so much worse. Hit me if you want to, not the face, though, and be gone.’
I looked Nicola in the eyes and shook my head at what she was thinking. When we left I was sure there was steam coming from her nostrils. Nicola wasn’t even five feet tall, she wasn’t bulky by any stretch of the imagination, yet when she was angry, she could come across as a complete Minotaur.
We returned to my house, where I immersed her in a calming cup of Chai tea.
We were sitting side by side at the kitchen table, sipping away and not saying a word, until I said what was on my mind again. ‘Maybe you should channel that anger of yours,’ I said.
‘What do you mean?’
‘I’ve been thinking, why do you think these creeps are going to get their hands on our money and not us?’
She shrugged.
‘Think about it. Think about when you were back in school. How do you think the school bully got all your dinner money? Because he or she was scary.’
‘I was the school bully,’ Nicola reminded me.
‘No matter,’ I said, trying to ignore my obvious clumsiness, ‘what I am saying is, these bullies – present company excepted, were nothing behind it all. They were all just noise and posture.’
‘What are you saying?’
‘We have the proper skills,’ I said, grinning now like a maniac on helium, ‘not like these baboons. They are just bullies too, fakes. Surely we can come across more menacingly and get our money back. Let’s get our dignity back from this horrid man.’
Nicola slurped noisily at her cup, and slammed it down on its saucer. ‘That’ll be good! I want his balls in my hands first though.’
‘No, not that!’ I insisted, ‘getting our money back will be triumph enough. However, there is a snag.’
‘What snag?’
‘You heard the man. We have to get to him before these thugs do.’
And so we had a master plan. Nicola stayed overnight, and we went through all of the acting techniques we had learnt over the years. We focussed hard on the things deep inside that made us angry, pinned them down and logged the feelings into our mental databases, for use later. After we were both happy with that, we watched gangster films on my DVD player. We carefully noted the use of voice, and how you could come across as a complete psychopath, without even raising the volume a single notch.
Then, through sleepy eyes, we looked at wardrobe. We went for dark colours, that were slightly shabby and discussed how we were going to make ourselves up. We even went a bit method actor-ish, and made up some background for our sudden rage.
Nicola had gone into work the next day and punched a customer. The customer it turned out, was suffering a terminal illness and so she had to go home with the thought that she will be henceforth hated by the whole of society for evermore, her family was going to completely disown her. She went home and rummaged for a publicity photo of Tony. She put said poster on the wall and threw sharp and heavy objects at it.
I on the other hand discover that I have deep seated feelings for her, and become so overwrought with emotion, that my mind is wracked with all thoughts of revenge.
I didn’t tell her, that bit was true.
When we arrived at the theatre door, our faces obscured with our collars, we got into character. Nicola had done a marvellous job on the makeup, we both looked like Hell. She certainly scared the Hell out of me.
‘Reach for those feelings,’ I said.
‘I’m already there!’
‘Get the anger, feel the menace, that is not blood coursing through your body right now, but fire!’
‘I’m feeling it Michael!’
We walked up the steps and into the building with all the swagger of East End gangsters. The reception area was clear as expected. We walked on to the main theatre, throwing the doors open fiercely as we moved.
‘Gordon!’ Nicola screeched at the top of her voice and apologised when she saw me wincing.
All of the props were there on the stage ready for use. They were set up for a run through of Act One, Scene One, the library scene. Apart from that, not a soul about, no noises off.
‘The cast hasn’t arrived yet. He must be in his office!’ I said.
We doubled back through the doors and took the stairs to the next floor. There was another set of stairs going up to the staff area. Our way was blocked by a thick red rope over two brass poles, two feet off the ground. ‘What do we do?’ I asked.
‘Wuss!’ Nicole kicked the poles down angrily and made one of those gorilla whooping noises. She was really getting into the part. Far removed was this, from silent, austere yet alluring Lady Butterwell.
We proceeded up what remained of the stairs, where we were met with the red carpet on the landing. On the other side of a brass railing was a row of heavy wooden doors baring shiny silver plaques. One was shinier than the other, the only one still in use, Tony Gordon’s office.
‘Right!’ Nicola whispered loudly, ‘feel the anger!’
‘Got it! ‘ I said assertively and ‘so who is going to knock?’
‘Forget that!’ Nicole twisted the knob and gave the door panel a hard kick. The door flew open to reveal Tony, bound and gagged and tied to a chair. A smallish man, and I must add dressed much more effectively than we were, placed himself in the door frame. He had very heavily stubble, and thick leather gloves on. I assumed that inside them, were very broad hands. He was wearing dark glasses and a long heavy coat.
‘Come in,’ he said in a broken glass, cockney accent, ‘I trust you know Tony.’
‘H-how do you
know that?’ I asked nervously.
‘I saw your production of Run For Your Trousers,’ he said, ‘you were bloody awful.’
‘I think we should come back later,’ I said.
‘No chance,’ he almost spat out the words, ‘you’ve seen too much.’ He signalled to someone we couldn’t see. Two more men, equally nasty revealed themselves. ‘Cutter and Ice!’
‘Nice names!’
We were escorted in, if you could call it that, into the office. Tony looked awful. You could tell that nobody had laid a finger on him, yet his face said otherwise. I had seen this man run up and down the boards like a man possessed on a sunny afternoon in a woolly jumper. He was sweating even more than that now. I sort of felt sorry for him.
‘S-so why is he tied to a chair?’ I asked, ‘if he has the money to give you.’
‘He tried to pull a fast one,’ said the angry man. ‘Thought he could get away with giving us half, said he needed the other half to live off. I ain’t having that. Gotta teach him a lesson somehow, or else it might happen again.’ He leaned right into Tony’s face. ‘Might it!!?’
‘I gave them what they asked for Michael, Nicola, they said they wanted double.
‘That money is ours!’ Nicola cried out, ‘he owes it to the company.’
‘Tough titty!’
‘So what are you going to do with us? You can’t just let us leave.’
‘He can if he wants to,’ I said shaking.
The man nodded at the two accomplices stood silent like menacing trees. They gave each other a simultaneous nod and pulled out pistols.
‘Good grief!’ I exclaimed.
‘Insurance,’ said the man, ‘you’re coming with us. We can’t risk you blabbing to the cops.’
‘You’re going to k-knock us off?’
‘Clever man,’ he turned to the two gorillas, ‘take ‘em down an alley. One shot each to the back of the head! Use silencers.’
‘Alright boss!’ they said together.
‘Wait!’ Nicola said to my utter relief as they approached us, ‘use your head.’
‘Explain!’
‘If you shoot us how long do you think it would take for the police to get to you? There are all sorts of testing they could do to get DNA evidence. They could have you three banged up in days. You’ve got your money. Untie him and let us go. There is nothing we have to give the police. We don’t know what your names are, and I take it Cutter and Ice aren’t on the electoral register.’
The air in the room froze. The man’s face was still as rock, expressionless, while thoughts flew about. If there were any clues as to what was going to happen next, then I wasn’t seeing them. Suddenly his face dropped, and was replaced by what I had to say was a worrying smile.
‘Clever girl,’ he said finally, ‘you will go far!’ The thugs left leaving us to untie Tony.
My mind was numb over the following days. I didn’t want to leave the house and when I did through complete necessity and desperation, I did so while looking over my shoulder. I stayed in at night and viewed the dark shadows from the safety of my living room window.
Then, one morning I had a visitor. I was of course very cautious about opening the door, but did so as soon as I realised who it was, Lee from the company.
‘Hello Michael,’ he said, ‘I’m not stopping. I was sent by Graham.’
‘Why,’ I replied wittily and nervously, ‘is he setting up a company of his own?’
‘No,’ he said not getting my joke, ‘he wanted to give you this.’
Lee reached into his inside pocket and pulled out a pleasingly thick brown envelope.
‘What’s that?’
‘Your share of the money, from Tony.’
‘Tony said he didn’t have any left. He gave it all to those loan sharks.’
Lee giggled as if attempting to hold back a private joke. ‘That was us!’
‘What?’ I said, bemused, ‘do you mean that it was you who’ve been harassing Gordon all along?’
‘No,’ said Lee, ‘we turned up before the real ones did. We just said we bought the debt and his mind filled in the rest. Graham had this great idea about frightening Tony into giving us back what he owed us.’
‘So who was the other guy?’
‘Mary!’
‘She was really good, frightened the Hell out of me!’
‘She said sorry about that. Said she was sick of playing the maid all the time, and she thoroughly enjoyed it. She regretted that you two got in the way.’
I was a bit confused after that, about who it was who really got their comeuppance. That brief moment in the office seemed to last for an ice age, surely it was us for not letting sleeping dogs lie. But it did make me think. Over the coming days an idea buzzed around my head like an annoying bluebottle I couldn’t quite reach with a rolled up newspaper. Perhaps if something interesting came up it would be possible to put our acting skills into good use. We could make even more money.
I shook the idea free. It was even suggested that we pooled the money and start up another company. That idea too was rejected rapidly. I did begin to worry about Tony Harper and paid a visit to the theatre. When I got there I found a heavy iron padlock on the doors. The windows were boarded up and there was a demolition notice for all passing bystanders to see. When I asked someone in a neighbouring shop what had happened to him, my fear for the worst went away. I was told by the woman, a Mrs Tingle that he had moved abroad with his sister. She showed me a postcard to that effect.