Encore Encore (10 page)

“You mean I’ll get all the perverts writing to me, like the dirty old men who try to touch me up at parties. I never seem to attract the nice blokes.” Another newspaper was fl icked open but Francis’s heart suddenly wasn’t really into basking in his glory.

“I get touched up by Fred Casey or Amos.” There was no one to share the triumph with, either. Old friends, yeah—but not someone he could lie in with the morning after and read the later editions, with newspapers and toast crumbs all over the bed.

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“You’d rather have Billy Flynn touch you up?” Owen refi lled his leading actor’s coffee cup, easing the brandy away to the other side of the table.

Francis noted it, biting his lip on any response. It wasn’t that unreasonable on Owen’s part; they had a performance tomorrow.

No, it was a performance today—they’d heard midnight bells chiming the new day in and toasted them along with the production’s success. In nineteen hours time some bloke would be shouting “orchestra and beginners” and Velma had to be on the best of form. Everybody was going to be expecting brilliance from now on.

“Billy Flynn? He’s a bastard, too.” Francis accepted the coffee with appreciation and swung his legs up onto the adjacent chair.

Had to look after the old pins really carefully now.

“Feet giving you gip? Here, I’ll get you a cushion.” Freddie fussed around like a mother hen, clearly concerned for his star’s welfare. He and Owen made an incongruous duo among the celebrity world, less Posh and Becks than George and Mildred.

Almost like a pair of aged uncles or some old fashioned couple who’d shared each other’s lives and beds for the past thirty years.

The fact that they were both only a couple of years older than Francis never seemed to fi gure in the equation—to him they seemed a hundred years more grown up. And they were genuinely nice blokes, maybe the last two genuinely nice blokes in a world populated with Billy Flynns and James fucking Mannerings.

“Well, who the hell
are
we going to fi x you up with, my son?” Owen never hid the fact that his background was Hammersmith Broadway rather than Broadway, New York.

“Don’t worry about me. I’m Velma now, not Miss Otis.

Leaving regrets behind and looking forward to falling on my feet. ‘Joy everywhere,’ that’s what I’m going to fi nd.” Maybe if he started believing it offstage as well as on, it would come true.

“Jazz everywhere, booze everywhere?” There was an edge to Freddie’s voice.

74 Cochrane ~ All That Jazz

Miss Otis, Velma, whoever he turned out as, Francis wasn’t going to be allowed to forget that part of his life, either. No cruising, now no boozing. The rules were being laid down thick and fast. “Long time ago, Freddie.
Autres temps, autres moeurs.”
He’d hardly touched a drink since they’d fi rst gone into serious rehearsal—fuck it, he’d hardly had a bender of any sort since those initial few months after James Mannering ditched him. Back then he’d been drinking to forget. Floating on a sea of white wine and vodka shots had been a damn sight better than going round the bend. And it had all happened when he was between shows, so nothing had been at risk except his liver.

“He doesn’t touch it now, Freddie.” The confi dence in Owen’s voice seemed genuine enough. “And even when he did he was sensible with it.”

Francis felt like a schoolboy called to the headmaster’s offi ce with two teachers discussing his delinquency over him. “Just give it a rest, will you? Why the hell must you treat me like a child?” He scrunched the page he was reading into a ball and lobbed it over the table. “Tonight’s supposed to be a celebration, and you old farts are turning it into a funeral.” If the old farts were surprised at the fact he was smiling again, he didn’t care. His mood hadn’t changed, he was just a bloody good actor. If they hadn’t noticed the rest of the cast giving them funny looks, he had, and he wasn’t going to let on what they were talking about.

Owen picked up the brandy bottle, offered it with a raised eyebrow, but Francis declined it with a grin. He didn’t feel like drinking at the moment, not even to spite his producer. He scanned some more reviews but they didn’t taste as glorious anymore. He’d leave them until the morning when they’d be sweeter taken over breakfast, even if he didn’t have anyone to share the papers or the tea, toast and jam. Maybe if there’d been a Prince Charming in his life he’d have stocked up on champagne and smoked salmon, but what was the point when his bed was as empty as Roxie Hart’s head.

Tea, toast and jam—such a glamorous life he led. Maybe The One Show would like to do a fl y-on-the-wall documentary and ENCORE! ENCORE!
75

see how Francis Yardley spent his time, what a dab hand he was at hoovering his fl at or hand washing his underwear.

“What’s tickled you, then?” Graham—Billy Flynn—Keegan plonked himself down in the empty chair. He looked happy enough, two of the broadsheets having said that he’d held his own against stiff opposition. Clearly the papers thought there was some sort of side contest going on over who could show off the most, or win the greatest proportion of the audience’s hearts.

“Still grinning over the reviews?”

“If I told you I was actually thinking about rubbing through my smalls with Persil you’d never believe me, so let’s pretend it was the reviews.” Francis had clearly lost Graham at the mention of smalls and he’d probably never seen Persil in his life, nanny or mummy and then girlfriend or wifey always dealing with the laundry. He jabbed at one of the papers. “The Grauniad liked you.”

“Eh? Oh, the Grauniad. Yes, didn’t they?” The dazzling white teeth which had razzle-dazzled the audience fl ashed in the neon lights that shone wearily over the brasserie.

Francis suddenly felt dog tired. He’d been buoyed by a wave of compliments, overriding his tiredness, and now his boat had sprung a leak of confi dence, and the adrenaline had fl owed out.

“They always have good taste, Graham.” He spoke the lie with his last bit of aplomb. “Can’t proofread but great taste. I’ll save the Grauniad for the morning, along with some of the others.

Too much to take in tonight.” If he could just carry this fi nal scene off, make a grand exit with his pride intact, he really could enjoy the rest of the reviews the next day. “If you’ll all excuse me, I’m going to ‘live the life I like’, and tonight that means an early night and a clear head to savour these...” He snatched up an armful of papers, “...tomorrow.”

It would have been perfect, the sashay into the wings with everyone left in awe, if Roxie hadn’t minced over with a bottle of white and insisted they all drink the company’s health. Francis couldn’t get away now, not without making everyone thinking he
76 Cochrane ~ All That Jazz

was a self-obsessed pillock who only cared for his own shining reviews and didn’t give a toss about the rest of them. He had to put the papers down, take up his glass and join in all the interminable healths that were being drunk. Tiredness began to metamorphose into irritation once more.

The wine helped, especially the second glass, or was it the third?

He could almost bear Graham’s false camaraderie and Roxie’s faux bonhomie. For the fi rst time they felt like a real company, a group of friends offstage as well as on. Or they did until Francis caught Graham looking at him again with something that might have been jealousy, or pity, or one of a hundred negative emotions he couldn’t read. He felt like punching the bloke’s immaculate teeth down his throat.
You’re not just jealous, are you, Graham? You’re waiting
for Velma to fall arse over tip.

“Put down that bottle. You’ve gone past maudlin and you’re heading for rat-arsed.” Freddie’s voice hissed in his star’s ear. He subtly edged the Pinot Grigio out of Francis’s grip, hardly spilling a drop as he moved it across the table. “You’ve been off it too long, sweetheart, you’ve become a lightweight.”

“Rat-arsed feels right at the moment.” Francis tried to grab the bottle, all efforts in vain as his friend had got it safely cached behind him. “Especially if I have to keep on listening to their crap.”

“The speeches are all done now, and some of the rivalries can get swilled away with the wine dregs. Don’t begrudge them a bit of fun, Francis. They didn’t all get your glowing plaudits.” Freddie eased an avuncular arm around his star’s shoulder. “They can’t all be as good as you.”

“If they want my fucking reviews, they can have them. Give me a blue pen and I’ll cross my name out and put in Graham’s.

Billy can do it alone.
” Rat-arsed? He didn’t even feel more than tipsy. Yet.

“I don’t understand you. You’ve had fantastic write-ups, yet you’re moping along as if the Telegraph had the knives out.” Freddie’s arm got brusquely shaken off his old friend’s shoulder.

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“Everest.” Francis tried to wrestle a couple of last drops from his glass.

“What the hell does that mean? The mountain or the double glazing company?”

Francis smiled despite himself; this friendship went back too far and Freddie knew him too well. It wasn’t fair when you wanted to sink into a slough of despondence to have some idiot making you laugh and dragging you out of it. “I’m at the top and people will be waiting in line to see me fall down again.”

“That’s defi nitely the booze talking. No one wants to see you fail—we couldn’t afford to lose you now.” Freddie glanced uneasily over at Owen, but he was poring over the Express with Amos Hart. He was going to get no moral support from that direction for the moment. He looked worried, almost as worried as he’d looked when Francis had rolled out of a taxi and up to his door that night, scarf tied around his arm to stop the bleeding.

The night cruising had ended in a bruising.

“Yeah, maybe. But what about when the run’s over—what’s there left except going downhill?”

“Anyone told you you’re a born optimist? Why should it be downhill from now on?” Freddie called the waiter over to come and take the wine away. He ordered coffee, black, strong and in copious quantities. “Maybe a mug of that will get you thinking straight. There’s plenty of other roles.”

“Oh yeah. Plenty of roles if I get back into trousers. I could even be Billy Flynn next time you and Owen take this on tour. Or would you prefer me singing “Mr. Cellophane”?” The bitterness in Francis’s voice couldn’t be controlled. Not even Laurence Olivier could have hidden feeling like this. “Face it, Freddie.

I’ll always be, as the guy from the Mirror so eloquently put it,

‘the bloke with the brilliant legs who looks so good as a tart I wouldn’t have said no to his Velma.’ Anything else is going to be a disappointment, for me and for the audience.”

“Then stay with the tights and the dresses.” Freddie kept looking round, waiting for the arrival of the coffee. It was on its way, past its best but still drinkable.

78 Cochrane ~ All That Jazz

“So you’ll be trying out more all-male musicals if this one’s a success?” Francis didn’t believe it, no matter how much Owen’s eyes had been lighting up at the advance sales.

“We might. Owen’s been thinking about Sweet Charity.” Graham was hovering, but Freddie kept him at bay with a fi erce fl ash of his eyes, a more incisive look than Francis had believed him capable of. “And I suppose there’s a chance I’d get the lead.” He settled back into his chair, swung an elegant ankle. “Maybe. But I can’t see this becoming a long-term thing.

You know,” Francis switched into a dark, sultry, female tone,

“Daaaaaaahling, we always do ‘The Dream’ at Regents Park the week after Wimbledon ladies’ fi nal, then it’s the men-only at Drury Lane every November.” He fl ipped back to his own, husky, deeply attractive voice. “It would just take the twinset and blue rinse brigade nicely into John Barrowman does Friday Night is Music Night and then the pantomime season.”

“Why shouldn’t it? Why can’t we establish ourselves as the musical theatre equivalent of the Globe? All these things must have started small and established themselves.” Freddie’s eyes weren’t fl ashing any more. They were hazy and full of some fairy tale hope. “It could happen.”

Well, why not? Except that these things didn’t happen to Francis Yardley. No fairy tales ever came true for him. “Okay, it might. But even if it did catch on, what would be the future for me?” Francis wasn’t being talked out of his nice little bit of feeling sorry for himself, not a second time. “Derek Jacobi and the rest of the theatrical knights might get away with playing Hamlet when they’re technically old enough to be his dad, but someone’s going to notice when Sally Bowles looks more like Widow Twanky.” He ran his elegantly manicured fi ngers through his hair. “And what sort of roles will there be out there for me then? Albin in La Cage? Or will it be straight to an Ugly Sister, and don’t pass go?”

“You’ll be far too pretty for Albin. Zaza’s supposed to be blousy at best.” The director leaned forward to top up their cups.

Fresher coffee had arrived, and Freddie clearly felt the drama ENCORE! ENCORE!
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queen needed another large mug of it. “Why do you always have to be looking ahead? Can’t you bear to enjoy what you have now?”

Any argument died on Francis’s tongue, sudden sobriety striking. Freddie was right. “Look, I have a bit of a problem enjoying success. Never feel like I deserve it or whatever.” He sipped his coffee, even the vaguely tipsy sensation disappearing now, leaving a chilling, self-knowing clear-headedness. “If you were something useful like a psychologist you could put some fancy name to it, or trace it back to my mother not letting me have a puppy or something.”

“Twat. You’re just afraid to grasp it with both hands, Franny-boy. You always took brickbats better than bouquets.” Freddie leaned forward, closing the gap, gazing intently and unnervingly into his leading man’s eyes. “You’re afraid that if you hold it too tight, you’ll lose it.”

Like when he tried to hold on to James Mannering? Francis felt sick. “I don’t want to talk about this now. I’m going home to get a decent night’s kip or I’ll be fi t for nothing, come tonight’s performance.” The last of the coffee was left to go bitter in the cup, like Francis’s dreams had three years ago.