might have my practice mirror now, Reggie – oh, and Sandra …’
‘Yes, Mr Brookes?’
‘You could afford to wear your fur a bit lower on the return tonight at the six thirty, I think. We might as well give the poor deluded sods their money’s worth, mightn’t we?’
Watching Sandra’s thin face as she tried to decide whether to try answering back or not, Reggie reckoned he’d give these two until about Friday. Please God she doesn’t just run, like the last one did , he thought to himself as he was clearing up afterwards. Because then we’ll really be up the fucking pictures .
5
The mirror that Reggie was asked to fetch at the end of that rehearsal was a pier glass in a battered mahogany frame. Its mirroring was blown and spotted in quite a few places, but Mr Brookes superstitiously refused to replace it – it had been with him for years. As Sandra hung up her gown on the back of her dressing-room door and congratulated herself on having got through all of that without once making Teddy properly lose his temper, and as Reggie collected the parachute silk from where it had landed in the wings and dragged it out into a backstage corridor so he could check the hem for tears, Mr Brookes tilted his mirror and spread his hands into two well-boned fans, making sure they were properly lit. He inverted them, inspected them, bit a nail – and then began the chore of repeating each produce and vanish in the act six times. He repeated each move three times watching his hands, and three times staring himself straight in the eye. As always, he paid particular attention to the production of his smile. He never blinked.
Sometimes, Mr Brookes feels tired – of the repetition, of the telephone calls and arrangements, of the twelve shows a week plus matinees, and of the women. He knows what he’s like, though, and let’s face it, he’s been doing this all his life.
He looked in his clouded mirror, and smiled for the forty-second time.
That’s more like it , he thought. Teddy Brookes. Esquire .
Again, he didn’t blink.
6
There was still no news of a booking by Friday lunchtime, and so that night Reggie came in early to make sure everything was ready to be packed up into storage after the final three shows on Saturday. After he’d cleaned the pier glass rather more thoroughly than was strictly necessary, and laid out Mr Brookes’s make-up, he went down into the wings to catch the curtain coming down on the six thirty first half. The Rigoletto Brothers – the trampoline duo who closed the first act – were one of his favourite turns on the circuit, and he knew he was going to miss rubbing past them in the corridors and popping down to watch them whenever he felt like it. Tonight, when their big finish came, the younger of the two brothers arced so high over the stage in his white tights that Reggie found himself involuntarily tapping his breast pocket for luck. The sweat came off the twisting figure like a spray of diamonds, and when the house applauded, so did Reg. He stayed all the way through their bows – he liked that bit as much as anything, loved the fact that now they were back down to earth you could see how hard they’d been working to fly like that, their thick black Italian hair shining, both of them dripping and gasping for breath, their matted chests heaving – and he trotted off backstage with a grin on his face, ready to check that everything was shipshape for the act. His night continued pretty well. Both houses were good, and there was a very respectable round at the end of the second Friday night showing of ‘The Missing Lady’. It wasn’t until after the curtain came down at the very end of the night that their final weekend in Wimbledon began to go wrong.
Reg never knew exactly what had happened – Mr Gardiner hinted that there had been some kind of a scene at the stage door as the two of them went home – but whatever it was, the incident had obviously led to trouble between them
‘Yes, Mr Brookes?’
‘You could afford to wear your fur a bit lower on the return tonight at the six thirty, I think. We might as well give the poor deluded sods their money’s worth, mightn’t we?’
Watching Sandra’s thin face as she tried to decide whether to try answering back or not, Reggie reckoned he’d give these two until about Friday. Please God she doesn’t just run, like the last one did , he thought to himself as he was clearing up afterwards. Because then we’ll really be up the fucking pictures .
5
The mirror that Reggie was asked to fetch at the end of that rehearsal was a pier glass in a battered mahogany frame. Its mirroring was blown and spotted in quite a few places, but Mr Brookes superstitiously refused to replace it – it had been with him for years. As Sandra hung up her gown on the back of her dressing-room door and congratulated herself on having got through all of that without once making Teddy properly lose his temper, and as Reggie collected the parachute silk from where it had landed in the wings and dragged it out into a backstage corridor so he could check the hem for tears, Mr Brookes tilted his mirror and spread his hands into two well-boned fans, making sure they were properly lit. He inverted them, inspected them, bit a nail – and then began the chore of repeating each produce and vanish in the act six times. He repeated each move three times watching his hands, and three times staring himself straight in the eye. As always, he paid particular attention to the production of his smile. He never blinked.
Sometimes, Mr Brookes feels tired – of the repetition, of the telephone calls and arrangements, of the twelve shows a week plus matinees, and of the women. He knows what he’s like, though, and let’s face it, he’s been doing this all his life.
He looked in his clouded mirror, and smiled for the forty-second time.
That’s more like it , he thought. Teddy Brookes. Esquire .
Again, he didn’t blink.
6
There was still no news of a booking by Friday lunchtime, and so that night Reggie came in early to make sure everything was ready to be packed up into storage after the final three shows on Saturday. After he’d cleaned the pier glass rather more thoroughly than was strictly necessary, and laid out Mr Brookes’s make-up, he went down into the wings to catch the curtain coming down on the six thirty first half. The Rigoletto Brothers – the trampoline duo who closed the first act – were one of his favourite turns on the circuit, and he knew he was going to miss rubbing past them in the corridors and popping down to watch them whenever he felt like it. Tonight, when their big finish came, the younger of the two brothers arced so high over the stage in his white tights that Reggie found himself involuntarily tapping his breast pocket for luck. The sweat came off the twisting figure like a spray of diamonds, and when the house applauded, so did Reg. He stayed all the way through their bows – he liked that bit as much as anything, loved the fact that now they were back down to earth you could see how hard they’d been working to fly like that, their thick black Italian hair shining, both of them dripping and gasping for breath, their matted chests heaving – and he trotted off backstage with a grin on his face, ready to check that everything was shipshape for the act. His night continued pretty well. Both houses were good, and there was a very respectable round at the end of the second Friday night showing of ‘The Missing Lady’. It wasn’t until after the curtain came down at the very end of the night that their final weekend in Wimbledon began to go wrong.
Reg never knew exactly what had happened – Mr Gardiner hinted that there had been some kind of a scene at the stage door as the two of them went home – but whatever it was, the incident had obviously led to trouble between them
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