Starburst (36 page)

S
ir Alasdair Dreyfuss placed the cup of coffee on his desk and sat down, leaning forward on his elbows and rubbing at the fatigue that was smarting in his eyes. For the past ten days, the earliest he had been to his bed was two o’clock in the morning, and it was really beginning to tell on him. He pulled forward his diary and glanced through the appointments he had listed for the day. The telephone began to ring and he muttered angrily under his breath, wondering why, at nine-fifteen in the morning, it had yet to be switched off night service.

“Oh, where the hell is everyone?” he exclaimed, grabbing the receiver on its sixth ring. “Hullo, International Festival.”

“Alasdair?” a woman’s voice asked.

“Yes,” the director answered, a quizzical frown on his face. “Who is this?”

“It’s Birgitte Hansen.”

“Birgitte!” Alasdair exclaimed, leaning back in his chair, relaxing immediately in the knowledge it was to be a social call. “What a lovely surprise. How are you?”

“I am good.”

“And the family?”

“All busy doing different things. Kirsten is working close to us here in a restaurant in Charlottenlund, making some money before she goes back to university, and Henning starts his new school next week, so there is a lot to do, as you can imagine. I don’t seem to have stopped all summer, so I am very much looking forward to our holiday with you and Paula and the kids in Lille-hammer next April.”

Alasdair laughed. “That goes for me too. We’re bang in the middle of the festival here and it’s chaos in the office. So, tell me, how’s Peter getting on?”

His question was met with a long silence, and for a moment, he thought the line had gone dead. “I’m sorry,” Birgitte said eventually, “what did you say?”

“I wondered how Peter was?”

“But you should know how Peter is. He is with you in Edinburgh, is he not?”

Alasdair sat forward in his chair. “Peter? I don’t think so, Birgitte.”

“Of course he is. He is directing some plays for you.” Alasdair began to note a rising level of desperation in her voice. “I am sending him something in the post today as a surprise, but I do not know the address of his hotel and I don’t want to contact him on his mobile phone, so I wondered if you might be able to tell me.”

Alasdair rubbed at his brow. “Birgitte, I’m sorry, but if he’s here in Edinburgh, I’m afraid it’s for a different reason other than the festival, because I haven’t seen him and he certainly isn’t directing anything for me.”

He heard her mutter something forcefully in Danish, and deciphered the word God as part of the phrase.

“Birgitte, are you all right?” he asked concernedly.

There was a long sigh. “Yes, I’m all right,” she replied in a resigned, almost sad voice. “Tell me, Alasdair, do you know of a girl called Tess?”

“Well, I suppose you’ll be referring to Tess Goodwin. She works in the office here.”

“Ah, she still works there, does she? I found out she was quite a friend of Peter’s.”

“I suppose she was. She looked after him a couple of years ago, when he first came here to direct.”

“And she did a very good job of that, not just for one year, but for two.”

Alasdair frowned. “I’m not sure quite what you mean by that, Birgitte.”

He heard her letting out a deep breath. “Peter had an affair with this girl. It went on for the two years he was in Edinburgh and I found out about it just before the end of the festival last year.”

Alasdair stared with shock at the door of his office. “Are you sure about all this?”

“Of course I am. I heard it from Peter himself. He is like a little boy, Alasdair, he cannot keep secrets. He has to tell me everything to…what is that word?…to…to exonerate himself.”

Alasdair ran a hand across his head. “Birgitte, I had no idea. I’m so sorry.”

“Oh, it is not new. It has happened before. He goes off to work abroad and I never know what he is going to tell me when he gets home.”

“Why on earth do you stand for it?”

“Because of Kirsten and Henning and because—this may sound stupid to you—but because he is so honest about his indiscretions.” She sighed again. “However, it looks like his affair with this Tess has continued, so maybe this time I have to make a decision.”

“Birgitte, to be quite honest, I really don’t think you’re right on this one. Tess got married earlier this year and I know she’s head over heels in love with her husband. I can’t see her jeopardizing that relationship.”

“Do you know how long she went out with her husband before they got married?”

“Yes, quite some time. I think about three—” Alasdair stopped abruptly when he realized what he was saying. He pressed a hand to his forehead and closed his eyes. “Oh, Birgitte, I really don’t know what to say.”

“It’s all right. It is my problem, not anybody else’s. I shall speak with him and find out the truth.” She laughed quietly. “He will no doubt tell me. Goodbye, Alasdair.”

He returned the farewell and thumped the receiver back on its cradle, and then sat drumming his fingers slowly on the desk, lost in his thoughts. The telephone began to ring again, this time it was an internal extension that flashed. He answered it.

“Hullo?”

“Good morning, Alasdair.” It was Sarah Atkinson. “I’ve got Peter Hansen holding for you on line one. Do you want to speak to him?”

“Well, speak of the devil. Yes, I most certainly do. Sarah, is Tess coming in this morning?”

“She’s just arrived. She had phoned in to say she was going to be a bit late.”

“Would you send her into my office as soon as I’ve finished with this call?”

“Will do.”

As soon as she had hung up, Alasdair heard the smooth voice of Peter Hansen greeting him with his usual self-confident charm.

“Peter,” Alasdair cut in vehemently, “I’ve just spoken to Birgitte, and if I were you, you stupid bastard, I’d zip up your trousers and get back to her as fast as you bloody well can.”

He slammed down the receiver and jumped to his feet, and thrusting his hands into his trouser pockets, he turned and looked out of the window, trying to steady his anger and gather his thoughts before Tess came in. He had no more than a moment because there was an immediate knock on the door.

“Come in!”

He turned as Tess walked in and he could tell from the apprehensive expression on her face that Sarah had obviously warned her some kind of confrontation was imminent.

“Take a seat, Tess,” he said, gesturing towards the wooden armchair at the other side of the desk. He watched as she sat down, nervously smoothing her skirt over her knees. “Are you all right?”

“Yes, fine. I just had a few glasses of wine over the top last night, but”—she blew out a long breath—“I’m ready now for what the world has to throw at me.”

“Right.” He cleared his throat. “Tess, there’s no real easy way to ask this question, but did you…or maybe I should say, have you been having an affair with the creative director, Peter Hansen?”

She nodded slowly. “You’ve obviously spoken to him.”

“Very briefly, but as it happens, it was his wife who’s just broken the news to me.”

Tess closed her eyes tight and lowered her head. “I had no idea she knew.”

“So it’s been going on for three years.”

She jolted up her head. “No, it all finished last year. I had no idea he was going to turn up again. He rang you out of the blue, don’t you remember, about a week and a half ago, and you put him through to me?”

“He was here in Edinburgh at that time?”

“Yes, and he quite literally forced me into meeting with him.”

“How did he do that?”

“By implying that he would tell you about our affair if I first didn’t see him, and then later, go out for dinner with him.”

Alasdair rubbed his fingers on his brow. “For heaven’s sakes, that’s as good as blackmail.”

“I know,” Tess replied quietly.

“But, Tess, you didn’t, er, succumb to him this time?”

Despite the seriousness of her predicament, Tess could not help but smile at his formality. “No, of course I didn’t. I’m married now, Alasdair, I’m extremely happy and I certainly wouldn’t put all that at risk for a man like Peter Hansen.”

The director nodded. “I’m glad.”

“I agreed to have dinner with him last night, but that’s all. I’ve no doubt he viewed it as the necessary stepping stone in order to rekindle the affair, but it was going to be my opportunity to tell him to get the hell out of my life.”

“And did you say that to him?”

“No. For one reason or another, I didn’t turn up.”

Alasdair nodded slowly, beginning to piece together Peter Hansen’s resultant actions in his mind. “So that’s obviously why he called me this morning. To let the cat out of the bag.”

“I’m sure of it.” Tess leaned forward, resting a hand on the desk. “I don’t even know how to start apologizing to you, Alasdair. I know he’s a great friend of yours and I can’t imagine what his wife is thinking right now…”

“Well, she’s thinking it was all still going on.”

“I promise you, that’s not true. It all ended pretty acrimoniously last year, but nevertheless, I do still feel so guilty for allowing it all to happen and letting you down so badly.”

Alasdair gave a dismissive wave of his hand. “Tess, you’ve no reason to feel that way.
I’m
the one that’s guilty.”

She stared at him, perplexed. “I’m sorry?”

“I didn’t admit knowledge of it to his wife, but I’ve known for years that Peter is a philanderer. He’s had girls in every country he’s worked in. I should
never
have put you in charge of him for that first year. I realize now it was as good as sending a lamb to slaughter. So, you see, it’s me that owes
you
the apology.”

Tess remained silent for a moment. She could never imagine he would have reacted in such a way. “Thank you,” she said quietly. “I can’t tell you how good that makes me feel.”

Alasdair smiled at her. “And how bloody awful it makes me feel.”

Tess sat back in the chair and rubbed nervously at the palm of her hand. “And…what about my job? Do you want me to continue?”

The director stared incredulously at her. “Of course I do. Did you think you were in danger of losing it?”

“To be quite honest, yes.”

He shook his head slowly. “How dreadful—not, I may add, because you thought you’d lose your job, but I realize now how little you understand my ways.” He stopped prowling around behind the desk and sat down, linking his hands in front of him. “You have become a very important part of the team here, Tess. I would go so far as to say you’re invaluable, and I think, quite honestly, you could not have handled this appalling situation with Peter Hansen any better.”

“Yes, I could.”

“Why do you say that?”

She paused for a moment. “I told Allan last year about the affair and that was the main reason we spurred on the marriage, but I never told him about Peter Hansen returning again and he found out.”

“Oh, my word, no,” Alasdair replied quietly. “Has it caused great difficulties?”

“There was a moment when I thought I’d blown it completely, but we eventually managed to reason it out. If there’s any upside to this whole stupid situation, it has to be that it’s made me appreciate even more what a special person Allan is and just how much I love him.”

“Well, what a lucky girl you are to have hooked him.”

Tess grinned. “Yes, I know.”

Alasdair shook his head. “Well, I can only reiterate how sorry I am that this all took place, Tess, and if you feel you can, I really hope we might be able to treat this whole episode as water under the bridge.”

“I’d be happy to.”

“And if Mr. Hansen ever so much as utters one word to you again, will you let me know?”

“Without a moment’s hesitation.”

“Good.” The director thumped a hand down on his diary and smiled at her. “In that case, maybe the time has come for us both to get on with some work.”

F
ollowing hard on the heels of Matti Fullbright, Rene entered the Smirnoff Underbelly at the top door beneath a narrow tubular archway from which a sign of an upside-down cow with gravity-defying teats was suspended, and descended the stone steps into a claustrophobically small, but brightly painted reception area.

“Is this it?” Rene asked as she looked around, wondering why so much hype surrounded this Hobbit-sized venue.

“Just you wait,” Matti replied, beckoning her on. “Don’t make a judgement until you’ve seen the whole place.”

She led the way down a circular stone staircase, hardly wide enough for two undernourished people to pass without contact, each step worn into a curve by centuries of use. Spotlights played on the thick dark walls, plastered from top to bottom with posters advertising the acts that were being staged. At the bottom of the flight it opened out into a small but crowded space, off which led two doors hung with signs reading “Quiet, please. Show in progress,” each attended by a girl wearing a red T-shirt emblazoned with the inverted-cow logo.

“Come on, keep up,” Matti said as she led on down another identical flight of stairs.

“I don’t know if I’m enjoying this very much,” Rene said, putting her hands against the cold dank walls to steady her descent. “It’s like we’re going into the bowels of the earth.”

“Aye, it does feel a bit like that,” Matti replied as she momentarily disappeared from sight.

“What is this place?”

“Old bank vaults,” Matti’s disembodied voice echoed up the stairwell. “They’re supposed to be haunted.”

“Oh, bloody ’ell,” Rene mumbled, hurrying her step to catch up with her tour guide.

They continued to descend more winding stairs, each one ending on a floor packed with show-goers, standing outside venues or crammed into bars with low-vaulted ceilings that rang with laughter and conversation.

“How big is this place?” Rene asked as she squeezed past a portly American woman who had picked an inopportune place to stop and study her programme.

“Ten venues, three bars and a nightclub,” Matti replied. “I think they continuously stage about one hundred and thirty shows a day.”

They eventually ran out of staircases, coming out into a large bar that was again filled to bursting point.

“This is the famous Beer Belly,” Matti said as she pushed her way through to the blue-fronted bar. “I’ll get us some drinks up and meet you outside in the yard.” She pointed a finger towards an entrance at the far end of the room.

Rene threaded her way through the crowd and walked out the lower entrance door into a narrow cobbled alleyway, its fifty-metre length strung with a dazzle of lighted bulbs. Small open-doored rooms and arched alcoves lined the street, each set up as a temporary coffee stall or fast-food kitchen, their wares being consumed at wooden tables that sat against the walls of the ancient stone buildings. Rene stopped in front of a huge board that showed the full programme of events, smiling at the clever puns that gave names to each of the venues—Belly Button, Belly Dancer, Delhi Belly. She scanned the list of acts, eventually finding Matti’s name under a column headed Belly Laugh.

“Here y’are,” Matti said as she arrived beside Rene and handed her an enormous glass brimming with spitting bubbles.

“What is it?” Rene asked, holding it away from her and studying its swirling contents.

“A very large Bacardi and Coke.”

“’Eavens, lass, I’m not used to drinking in the middle of the day.”

“You’re going to need it,” she said, grabbing Rene by the arm. “Come on, I’m running late.”

The musty-smelling changing room was as small and sparsely furnished as a nun’s cell, yet it was a hundred times more salubrious than the conditions Rene had to endure at the Corinthian Bar. “Take off your coat and sling it on a chair,” Matti said as she hurried to get herself ready, “and then go out onstage and have a squint through the curtains. I need to know if there’s anyone out there.”

Shrugging off her coat, Rene walked out of the room, around the side wing and out onto the stage. She tiptoed over to the curtain and pulled it aside a fraction, catching her breath when she saw that the auditorium was jam-packed. She dropped the curtain and scuttled back to the changing room.

“It doesn’t look as if there’s a spare seat in the place!” she said to Matti, who was leaning over in front of the mirror on the makeshift dressing table, trying to fix a red rose in her hair with a kirby grip.

“Fantastic!” she exclaimed, picking up the plastic bag she had brought with her. “Just what I wanted.” She extracted a white rose and another kirby grip from the bag and handed it to Rene. “Stick that in your hair, girl.”

“What for?”

“Don’t ask, just do it.”

Moving over to the mirror, Rene arranged the rose above her right ear and secured it with the grip. She stood back, swinging from side to side as she admired herself. “Look at that—a touch of Carmen, don’t ye think?”

“You look perfect,” Matti said, pulling Rene by the arm out towards the stage as the announcer began his rambling introduction.

“I’d better go try to find a seat out there,” Rene said, trying to wrest her arm free from Matti’s grip.

“Leave it to the last minute, would you? I’m feeling dead nervous about my act today.”

“…so, ladies and gentlemen,” the announcer’s voice crescendoed through the sound system, “will you please welcome that red-haired lady from Lancashire,
MATTI-I-I-I FULLBRIGHT
!”

As the curtains drew back and the audience burst out into applause and loud whistles, Rene tried once more to free herself from Matti’s vicelike hand.

“I’d better get off now,” she said.

Matti turned round to face her, a broad grin on her freckly face. “Too late. We’re on.”

She gave Rene an almighty heave that nearly took her off her feet. The next thing she knew she was standing in the middle of the stage in front of the largest audience she had faced since being in Edinburgh.

“Good afternoon, everybody, good afternoon!” Matti yelled out, waving her hands in the air in acknowledgement of the thundering applause. “Okay, calm down, calm down.”

She turned to Rene and eyed her in a strangely hostile way as the noise abated. “I decided tonight to bring along a friend with me. Well, not really a friend, actually. How could she be?” She nodded knowingly. “She’s from Yorkshire.” She turned and walked towards Rene, giving her a wink as she approached. “Ladies and gentlemen,” she said, putting her arm around Rene’s shoulders, “this is Rene Brownlow, one of the funniest women I know, but unfortunately”—she reached down and patted Rene’s stomach—“coming from Hartlepool, she’s too fond of her fish suppers.”

As the audience burst out laughing, Rene looked up at Matti, aghast that she could have said such a thing, but then her fellow comedienne smiled and leaned over and whispered in her ear, “Come on, defend your rose.”

And then Rene understood. The red rose of Lancashire, the white rose of Yorkshire. Matti was setting up a double act. No rehearsals, no scripts. She wanted a duel of head-to-head ad-libbing, one bouncing off the other. The audience was suddenly deathly silent, waiting for the riposte, waiting for the next scheduled line to be spoken. But there was none. She slowly unwound Matti’s arm from around her shoulders and stood her distance from her, appraising her from head to foot. “You’re a fine one to talk, ye red-’aired tramp. Bad breeding, that’s what it is”—she held out her hands to the audience—“but what can ye expect, coming from Lancashire.” And with that, the partisan spirit of the audience was unleashed with whoops of support and cries of umbrage.

It was the perfect ice-breaker, but neither Matti nor Rene could keep up the animosity during the performance. There was too strong a rapport between them, too much good humour, and they settled into an off-the-cuff routine that had both the audience and themselves in fits of laughter. They kept it going without one faltering moment for a full hour, and at the end of the show the audience would not allow them to leave the stage, clapping and banging their feet for a full ten minutes before the curtain finally fell on the two bowing performers.

“Read that!” Matti exclaimed, striding across the bar in the Assembly Rooms and throwing a copy of the
Evening News
at Rene.

“What is it?” she asked, leaning forward on the sofa and putting her drink down on the table.

“I’m not telling you,” Matti said, her face aflame with excitement. “Just read it and see.”

Rene watched Matti move off with a spring in her step towards the bar before spreading the folded paper on her knee. She scanned the newsprint, trying to find what she was meant to be looking for, and then her own name bounced out at her. She moved quickly to the start of the small review article, entitled “War of the Roses.”

This had to be written today,
it read.
It couldn’t wait. At two o’clock this afternoon, the Belly Laugh venue truly lived up to its name when two comediennes took to the stage for a raucous side-splitting, hour-long ad-lib session.

Wacky-haired Lancastrian Matti Fullbright, a favourite with audiences at the Underbelly for the past three years, teamed up with feisty little Yorkshire lass Rene Brownlow (currently appearing at the Corinthian Bar in West Richmond Street) to produce one of the most pulsating double acts seen so far on the Fringe this year. And rumour has it that it’s not going to be a one-off either, so go beg, steal or kill your best friend for a ticket. It’s just a pity they hadn’t pooled their considerable talents before now, because there’s no doubt they would have been up there with the front-runners contesting the Perrier Comedy Award for this year.

“Did you find it?” Matti asked, placing two wineglasses on the table in front of Rene before applying all her strength to prising the cork out of a bottle of Cava.

Rene could not reply. She read through the article again, taking in every word, every accolade, every nuance of what the reviewer was implying.

“What have we done?” she asked eventually, her eyes registering total incomprehension.

“We’ve cracked it, Rene, that’s what we’ve done.”

“But what’s all this about the show continuing? We never said that.”

Matti grinned as she overflowed the glasses with frothing liquid. “I did.”

Rene dropped the newspaper on the sofa and stared at Matti in disbelief. “Why?”

“Why not? We’re electric, Rene. We’ve taken the punters by storm. I’ve never had a reaction to any of my shows like that. Have you?”

Rene looked at Matti open-mouthed. “Are ye saying that…we should team up, like?”

“Of course I am! We’ve got it made, girl!” The grin slid from her face, taking Rene’s blank expression as one of rejection to the idea. “What’s the matter? Don’t you want to?”

Rene slowly shook her head. “Matti, ye’re successful. Ye’ve been working the Fringe for years. For God’s sakes, ye’ve even got an agent! It’s a really wonderful thought, lass, but ye don’t want to be saddled with me.”

“What d’you mean, saddled with you? Rene, it’s vice versa! I told you I had to change my act. I need you. Obviously though, the question is do you need me?”

“But…what about my own show in the Corinthian? What do I do about that?”

“Ditch it! You said yourself you weren’t getting the punters in. If we team up, we’ll go fifty-fifty on everything. That’ll cover all your costs and more, I know it will.”

Rene bit hard at her bottom lip to stop her face from crumpling into tears. It didn’t work. She got up from the sofa, walked around the table and put her arms around Matti’s neck. “Thanks, lass, thanks so much.”

Matti chuckled. “Do I take that as a yes, then?” she asked, pushing Rene away from her.

Rene snuffled out a laugh. “Aye, why not? Let’s go for it.”

“Oh, that is great, girl!” Matti said, punching her fists in the air. “You and I are just going to take this whole damned world apart!” She picked up the two glasses from the table and handed one to Rene. “Here’s to us, my love, here’s to the War of the bloody Roses!”