Page 25 of A Village Theatre Murder
‘It’s lovely to have music in the house. And I see the dogs like it too.’
‘That’s not the music, that’s Jono,’ said Sean proudly. ‘Eversince he was little, animals have loved him. Stray dogs would follow him home; cats would choose his lap to sit on.’
Jono rested his guitar on his knees and stroked a dog with each hand. ‘I like animals and they like me.’
Julia smiled. One of the things that she had noticed when she was a social worker was that the troubled young men who had a connection with an animal – a family pet or a stray that they had taken in or a neighbour’s friendly dog – seemed to have a better chance of a happy outcome. It wasn’t a scientific observation by any means, and Julia was sure that many people would disagree with her. But she believed it. Jono was the type of lad who was going to be okay. Berrywick would work its magic on him.
13
In retrospect, Julia thought it had been a mistake to continue with the play. They should have called it quits when Graham died. They should have thanked the am-dram festival organisers for their offer of inclusion, and declined. But all that ‘show must go on’ nonsense of Hector’s had gone to their heads. And now they’d been summoned by Roger to another emergency meeting.
She had muttered as much to Tabitha, who seemed more accepting of the state of affairs, but there was no time to discuss it, because it was 3p.m. on the dot and Roger was taking the floor. He stood and raised his hand.
‘Fellow thespians!’ he said, thespianly, by way of greeting. ‘I come to you with good news, difficult news, and a conundrum.’
Julia was torn between wishing she hadn’t come, intrigue as to the nature of the news, news and conundrum, and the hope that something might tip her off as to who might have had a murderous grudge against Graham Powell.
‘Jane has given us her blessing to stage the production at the festival. If we wish to go ahead, she has no objection.’
There was some appreciative muttering.
‘In the more difficult news, Oscar phoned me yesterday afternoon to tell me that after much thought and discussion, he has decided not to return to our group for this production.’
Understanding nodding and murmuring greeted this announcement. Julia wondered who Oscar had discussed it with. Jane?
‘Which brings us to our conundrum. We need to rearrange our cast once more. I will need someone to fill Oscar’s shoes. It’s a speaking role, so…’
‘Let me do it!’ Hector said, jumping to his feet. For unexplained reasons, Hector had, as usual, brought his son Troilus with him to this meeting. Troilus had seemed to be nodding off and looked most startled by Hector’s sudden burst of energy.
‘Well, that’s a very generous offer…’ Roger looked awkward, even shifty.
‘I knowallthe lines, every single one.’ Hector spoke passionately, using theatrical arm movements to reinforce his point. ‘Don’t I, Troilus?’
Troilus nodded vigorously, ‘That you do, Papa, that you do.’ Julia could only imagine the hours that the poor young man had spent listening to his father orate.
‘And as you know – I haveextensiveexperience in front of the camera. I may not have mentioned, but I had a major role onHot Press.’
Roger looked like a man caught in a conundrum worse than the conundrum he’d been previously caught in.
‘Allow me todemonstrateto you…’ Hector said. He cleared his throat, and looked at Roger expectantly.
‘Ah, well, that’s a nice offer, but not necessary. I do believe you when you say you know…’
‘I insist! It’s only right that I have the chance to audition.’ Hector stood, feet apart, head held high. He was an actor at the ready.
Julia got the distinct impression that Roger didn’t want tohear Hector’s demonstration. But he must have realised he had no choice, because he sighed in what seemed like resignation, and said, ‘Go ahead then, Hector.’
Hector nodded. ‘I’ll take it from where Charming Good-for-Nothing first makes his intentions known.’
Ah, so Hector was going for broke. Despite the fact that the lead was not up for grabs, Hector seemed to be auditioning for it! Audacious, thought Julia. Audacious audition action from the ambitious prompt! Well, good luck to him.
Hector cleared his throat once more, and spoke in a clear, forceful voice.
‘My dearyounglady, please, allow metobe of assistance. As a man with some experience in thewaysof the human heart, Ihaveno motive than to assist you innavigatingthe affairs ofyourheart. I, myself, have some experienceinthis field, and am muchacquaintedwith the minds of men – men like your betrothed – and canplainlysee…’
Julia cringed. Hector’s acting was terrible, justterrible! That’s why Roger hadn’t given him a bigger role from the beginning. He must have heard him bludgeoning his way through his lines before. And now here was Hector, re-auditioning. It was utterly excruciating. Julia could hardly watch. In fact, she had taken to examining her hands, which were clasped in her lap, writhing in horror, while Hector plodded his way through the lines. He wasn’t inaccurate in his claim that he knew every single word, or so it seemed from his performance so far. But the way he put them together…Lord above, it was as if each word existed in a completely separate universe from its neighbour, and they were individually plodding along one after the next after the next until one decided – randomly, and without warning or logic – to burst forth withemphasis, calling undue attention to itself for no reason whatsoever. The one thing she must not do was to look at Tabitha, or, in fact, she must not think about Tabitha at all. Since childhood, she had beenhorribly susceptible to being set off by other people’s illicit, barely controlled laughter. From the moment she and Tabitha had become friends, at university, their shared ability to get the giggles together had landed them in trouble. And once they started…
Which is why when Julia glanced up, momentarily, she did so explicitlynotin the direction of Tabitha. The faces before her were frozen in awkward expressions that indicated either embarrassment, or a desperate wish to be elsewhere. Gina was staring at the ceiling. Dylan was staring at the floor. Only Troilus was looking at his father in rapt attention. Nicky, unfortunately, happened to be looking in Julia’s direction, and Julia accidentally caught Nicky’s eye. Caught Nicky’s whole face, actually, which was in the process of performing a remarkable dance, flitting from amusement to horror to confusion to:Oh my God, please don’t let me laugh.
