The Strangling on the Stage (5 page)

‘But,' Neville objected, ‘we agreed at the Play Selection Committee Meeting that SADOS ought to be doing more challenging work.'

‘I'm not arguing with that, Neville love. When Freddie founded the Society, he was determined that we should present material that was “at the forefront of contemporary theatre”.'

‘And yet it ended up, like every other amdram in the country, doing the usual round of light West End comedies and Agatha Christies.'

‘No, I don't think that's fair, Neville.' Clearly nothing that contained the mildest criticism of the hallowed Freddie Dalrymple was fair. Jude also got the impression that Neville and Elizaveta were reanimating an argument which they had visited many times before. ‘We have done some very contemporary material,' Elizaveta went on. ‘When we did
Shirley Valentine
, that was quite ground-breaking for Smalting – I mean, doing a play based in Liverpool.'

And also one with a socking great part for you in it, thought Jude. The idea of Elizaveta Dalrymple using her ‘very good ear' for accents to tackle Scouse was engagingly incongruous.

‘I also still think,' the grande dame continued, ‘that this time round we should have done
Driving Miss Daisy
.'

And who might have played Miss Daisy? Jude asked herself.

‘I mean, that's a play that really tackles serious issues.'

‘So does
The Devil's Disciple
,' insisted Neville Prideaux.

‘But
Driving Miss Daisy
's about racial prejudice – anti-Semitism, colour prejudice.'

‘Whereas
The Devil's Disciple
is about nothing less than the conflict between Good and Evil. It's also about honour and honesty and bravery and religion and the entire business of being a human being. Anyway, Elizaveta, the other big argument against doing
Driving Miss Daisy
is: where on earth are you going to find a black man in Smalting to play the chauffeur?'

Jude had been aware for a while that Hester Winstone had been trying to attract Neville's attention, and at this moment she interrupted the argument. Looking at her watch, she said, ‘Sorry, Neville, I've got to be going.'

‘Fine,' he said, without even looking at her. ‘See you at the next rehearsal.'

The prompter detached herself from the group. She still looked nervous and unhappy. The next time Jude looked, Hester Winstone was no longer in the pub.

‘Well, anyway,' said Elizaveta Dalrymple, as if putting an end to the topic, ‘
The Devil's Disciple
is the play we're doing and I'm sure the production will be well up to SADOS's high standards.' She vouchsafed a smile to Davina Vere Smith, as if bestowing her blessing on the enterprise. ‘I just wonder, though, how many people in Smalting will want to buy tickets …?'

‘… and, you see,' Gordon Blaine was still going on to Carole, ‘I've worked out a rather cunning way of doing the gallows at the end of the play.'

She looked in desperation around the bar, but saw no prospects of imminent rescue. Jude was still in the middle of the group around the melodramatic old woman with dyed black hair. Ritchie Good, the tall man who had chatted up Jude, was by the pub door in whispered conversation with a red-haired woman who looked as if she was about to leave.

There was no escape as Gordon continued, ‘It's important that it looks authentic, but it's also important that the structure would pass a Health and Safety inspection. And Dick Dudgeon has to have the noose actually around his neck so it looks like he's really about to be hanged, so what I'm going to do is to have a break in the noose where the two ends are only joined by Velcro and then the—'

‘Oh God,' said a languid approaching voice, ‘is Gordon boring you with his technical wizardry?'

The words so exactly mirrored Carole Seddon's thoughts that she couldn't help smiling at their speaker. Even though it was Ritchie Good.

‘Carole was actually very interested in what I was saying,' said Gordon Blaine defensively.

‘Yes, yes, it was fascinating,' she lied.

‘Anyway, I've got things to get on with.' And with that huffy farewell, Gordon moved away from them.

‘Looked like you needed rescuing,' said Ritchie.

‘Thank you very much.'

‘And sorry, in all those introductions I didn't get your name …?'

‘Carole.'

‘Ah. Right.' It never occurred to him that she hadn't taken in his name. ‘So …' He took Carole's hand in both of his and said, ‘Where have you been hiding all my life?'

H
aving not wanted to go to the Cricketers in the first place, Carole found that an hour and a quarter had passed before she finally managed to extricate Jude and leave the place. Their departure was now quite urgent. In little more than half an hour Carole's saga of convents and placentas would be starting.

The St Mary's Hall car park was in darkness as they came out of the pub, but when they crossed the beam of a sensor an overhead light came on. In spite of the time pressure of her television programme, Carole characteristically said she must put up the back seats of the Renault before they set off. Anything out of place disturbed her, and the car must be returned to its customary configuration. Carole was the kind of woman who had a tendency to clear away her guests' dinner plates almost before they'd finished eating.

While she repositioned the back seats Jude stood waiting. It was a mild evening for February, the first that offered some prospect of spring eventually arriving. She looked around the car park. The range of Mercedes, BMWs and Audis suggested that the members of SADOS didn't have too much to worry about financially.

Out of the corner of her eye Jude caught sight of a movement behind the windscreen of a BMW quite nearby. Looking closer, she recognized the face of Hester Winstone, the
Devil's Disciple
's prompter.

And the overhead light caught the shine of tears on the woman's cheeks.

Instinctive compassion took Jude towards the car. The closer she got the more sense she had of something being seriously wrong. Hester was slumped a little sideways in the driver's seat and her eyes were closed. Peacefully closed, as though she were asleep.

Jude had no hesitation in snatching open the car door. As she did so, the prompter's arm flopped to the side of her seat.

And from her wrist bright red blood dripped on to the surface of the car park.

‘I
still think we should call the police,' muttered Carole. ‘Or at least send for an ambulance.'

‘Hester specifically asked me not to,' Jude whispered back. They were in the sitting room of Woodside Cottage and the subject of their conversation had just gone upstairs to the loo.

‘Yes, but she's not rational. People who try to kill themselves are by definition not rational.'

‘It wasn't a very serious attempt to kill herself. Those nail scissors couldn't have done much damage. The cuts are only surface scratches.'

‘Maybe they are this time, but people who do that kind of thing are very likely to try again. Someone in authority should be informed.'

‘Carole, I'd rather just talk to Hester for a while, find out what her state of mind really is.'

‘Not great, if she's trying to top herself,' said Carole shortly.

‘Please. I'd just like to talk to her.'

Jude's words only added to Carole's sense of pique. ‘I'd just like to talk to her.' Nothing on the lines of ‘We should talk to her.' Not for the first time that evening, Carole felt excluded. She'd been stuck at the Cricketers with the world's most boring man, Gordon Blaine, while Jude went off with a bunch of people who had, by definition, to be more interesting. Then in the car park her neighbour had overruled her about getting someone from SADOS to look after Hester Winstone. It had also been against Carole's advice that Jude had driven Hester back to Woodside Cottage in the BMW.

To compound these multiple affronts, the business of doing a temporary bandaging job on the would-be suicide in the car park meant that Carole had missed at least half of her chronicle of wimples and waters breaking.

‘Very well,' she said huffily to Jude. ‘Well, I must go. I've got things to do.'

‘The children are off at boarding school,' said Hester Winstone, ‘and my husband's away at the moment.'

‘Where?' asked Jude.

‘He's on a cricket tour in New Zealand.' Jude didn't take much of an interest in the game, but she knew that there seemed to be Test Matches happening somewhere every day right around the world.

‘What, watching cricket?'

‘No, playing.'

‘Really?' That was a surprise. Assuming that Hester Winstone was in her late forties, then her husband might be expected to be the same age or a little older. And though Jude knew that some men continued to play cricket into their fifties and sixties, she didn't expect many to be involved in international tours.

Hester seemed to sense her need for explanation. ‘It's a group of them, a kind of ad hoc team called the Subversives. One of the blokes works in the travel industry and he sets up the tours. They've been doing it for years. Some of the players are pushing seventy.'

‘How long do the tours last?'

‘Oh, never more than a month. Mike will be back next Friday.'

Hester Winstone seemed remarkably together and businesslike for a woman who had within the last two hours slit her wrists. Jude recognized that she was embarrassed and trying to talk about anything except the reason why she had ended up in Woodside Cottage.

‘And have you been involved with SADOS for long?'

‘Oh no.
Disciple
is the first show I've done with them. No, I just thought, now I've got more time on my hands …'

‘Have you done amateur dramatics before?'

‘Not really. Well, a certain amount at school, and I started to do a bit at college, but since then … life's rather taken over … you know, marriage, children …'

‘How many children do you have?'

‘Two. Boys, both boarding at Charterhouse. Younger one started in September. Mike was there, so there was never any thought of sending them anywhere else. It's a very good school for sport.'

‘Are your boys keen on cricket too?'

‘Oh yes,' Hester replied, a note of weariness in her voice. ‘And football and tennis and squash.'

‘What about you? You do a lot of sport?'

A wrinkling of the lips suggested the answer was no. ‘I play a bit of genteel tennis with some friends, that's about the limit of my involvement. Unless, of course, you count the hours I have put in making cricket teas, ferrying Mike and the boys to various matches and tournaments, helping to score in pavilions, shrieking encouragement on chilly touchlines.'

‘Sounds like you've served your time.'

‘Hm. Maybe.'

Jude was again struck by the incongruity of this normal – even banal – conversation going on with a woman whose right wrist was dressed with a bandage covering the cuts she had inflicted on herself. They weren't very deep, but even so they must reflect some profound malaise within Hester Winstone. But maybe she just came from that class of women who'd been trained from birth to avoid talking about life's unpleasantnesses.

‘From what you say,' Jude began cautiously, ‘you could be suffering from Empty Nest Syndrome.'

‘Oh, I don't believe in Syndromes,' said Hester Winstone dismissively. ‘All psychobabble, so far as I'm concerned.'

‘Hm,' said Jude gently, ‘but, whether it's a Syndrome or not, things aren't right with you, are they?'

‘What do you mean?'

‘Look, you cut your wrist in the car, didn't you?'

‘Oh yes, I just got over-emotional.' She dismissed the incident as if it were some minor social lapse, like sneezing before she'd got her handkerchief to her nose.

‘But why did you get over-emotional?'

For a moment Hester Winstone was about to answer, but then she reached for her handbag, saying, ‘I must be getting home. Really appreciate your helping me out.'

‘I'm sorry,' said Jude firmly, ‘but I really don't want you to go home straight away.'

‘What do you mean?' She sounded affronted now. ‘What business is it of yours?'

‘It's my business,' came the calm reply, ‘because I found you in your car, having just cut your wrists. And I don't really want you to be on your own until I'm sure you're not about to finish what you started.'

‘And what makes you think I'd do that?'

‘Because you've done it once.'

‘Oh, that was an aberration. As I said, I just got over-emotional.'

‘Listen, Hester, I don't have any medical qualifications, but I work as a healer so I do come across a lot of people who've got troubles in their lives. And I'd be failing in my duty to my profession – not to mention in my duty as a human being – if I were just to let you go straight home.'

‘But I'm fine.'

‘Look, just think how I'd feel if I heard on the local news tomorrow that you'd committed suicide.'

‘But I'm not about to commit suicide.'

‘That's exactly what someone planning suicide would say.'

Hester Winstone was suddenly on the verge of tears as she said, ‘Can't you just leave me alone!'

‘No, I really don't think I can.' There was a silence, broken only by Hester's suppressed sobs. ‘Look, if you won't agree to talk to me, I'll have no alternative but to call an ambulance.'

‘But I don't need an ambulance. You've seen my wrist – it's only a scratch.'

‘The fact remains that it's a scratch which you inflicted on yourself. If you were to go home, you'd be on your own, wouldn't you?'

‘Yes,' Hester admitted grudgingly.