Free What Bloody Man Is That by Simon Brett Page B

found a welcoming environment. They entered a large, glass-fronted foyer, which housed Sandra Phipps’ Box Office. Staircases on either side of this took the visitors up to Norman Phipps’ bar, at either end of which were the two main entrances to the auditorium.
    The bar was directly above the dressing room area, which was thus behind and under the auditorium rather than in the traditional backstage position. Passages led along the sides of the theatre to the wings, and there were pass-doors at the corners of the auditorium.
    In the course of that first Saturday morning run-through, Charles Paris got to know this geography rather well.
    It was a somewhat giggly occasion for those of the company prone to giggling (in other words, everyone except Gavin, who was too busy, and Felicia, who didn’t know how to . . . oh, and Russ, whose devotion to Felicia would not allow him to).
    Faced with the enormity of the whole play, George Birkitt’s performance slipped down the few notches it had so laboriously climbed during the previous week. Apart from anything else, he was distracted; his mind was on the next day’s filming in Paris, and he continually glanced at his watch or peered out into the auditorium for the outline of a hire-car chauffeur.
    The interval break was brief, because of the pressure of time, and the company struggled into the Green Room to make themselves coffee from an inadequate number of electric kettles. Charles decided to avoid the crush; he’d wait till lunchtime and have a proper drink then. A good few proper drinks. After all, there’d be no more work till the Monday morning. He looked forward to the weekend. A few days before he had contemplated another attempt to make contact with Frances, but since then he’d discovered that John B. Murgatroyd had a car, and they had agreed to devote the break to an in-depth investigation of the pubs of Wiltshire.
    As Charles came out of his dressing room, trying to remember what the hell character he had to play next, he encountered Norman Phipps and his son staggering along under the weight of a large metal beer keg. They were carrying it from the delivery door to a small storeroom where the bar supplies were kept.
    â€˜Can I give you a hand?’
    Norman accepted the offer gratefully. ‘There are three more outside. And a few crates. Why they have to deliver on a Saturday I don’t know.’
    The keg was heavy. Charles took over one end from Stewart and Norman backed into the store-room. ‘Watch out, Charles. There’s a little step down.’
    They collected the other three. After his multi-character exertions in the first half of
Macbeth
, Charles found he was quite puffed as they wheeled the last keg clattering into position. He leant back against a padlocked cupboard in the storeroom.
    â€˜Thanks very much,’ said Norman. Stewart had run off as soon as he saw his father had alternative assistance. The boy seemed to run everywhere. He was in the state of high stage-struck excitement, and, until the moment for his big scene came, just couldn’t see enough of what was going on backstage. He seemed to have lost his initial shyness and now chattered away cheerfully to anyone and everyone in the company.
    Charles looked around the store-room. There were gas cylinders beside the kegs and from the top of each keg thin translucent tubes ran up to holes in the ceiling.
    â€˜That’s how the beer gets pumped up?’
    Norman nodded, as he clamped the fixture at the end of one of the tubes on to a new barrel. There was a little hiss of escaping gas. ‘Yes, for the ones who like their beer fizzy. The Real Ale specialists don’t like the idea of CO 2 near their beer. Theirs is done by hand-pumps.’
    â€˜Do you get much call for Real Ale?’
    The Bar Manager shrugged. ‘Not as much as there was a few years ago. The campaign seems to have died down a bit.’
    â€˜What do you keep in