a very stupid thing. I wrote a short letter, went out to the post office, bought an envelope big enough to hold Bill’s, sealed it securely and got it weighed and stamped. Then I addressed it to the safest place in the world and put it in the postbox.
Back home I put the kettle on, smoked another fag and started to pack.
THE MAN WHO ran the cabaret was a German called Ray. He was the opposite of Bill, a soft-bellied doughy-faced rectangle of a man. He had blond hair shot through with grey flecks that looked too artful to be natural. And a tense smile hedged beneath a shaggy moustache I was willing to accept as German fashion, but at home would have made me think he was a gay man on a retro kick.
I put out my hand and he took it hesitantly, giving it the briefest of shakes.
‘How was your journey?’
‘Fine.’
Ray nodded. ‘Good.’ He looked me up and down. ‘I’d hoped you’d be able to perform in our opening number with the rest of the ensemble but …’ He shook his head sadly and smiled like a man who had faced enough disappointments to know that he would face many more. ‘Never mind.’
‘Try me.’
He shook his head.
‘We will manage. So, I guess the first thing is to show you around the theatre.’ I followed him from the tiny ticket office and out into the auditorium. ‘This is our hall.’
Ray paused, waiting for my reaction at my first glimpse of his kingdom.
I’m used to the abandoned atmosphere empty theatres take on during the day. Deserted by audiences they lose their sheen. When the house lights go up the grandest chandeliers can look cobwebbed, the finest gold-framed mirrors age-spotted and marred. The red velvet seats where theatregoers dream themselves onto the stage night after night reveal frayed gold trim and balding nap. But I knew that, like the leading man who arrives grey-stubbled and sour-breathed, or the femme fatale who dares to bare her pockmarked face to afternoon rehearsals, come curtain-up great theatres are ready to wow them all the way to the gods.
Still, I had my doubts about the Schall und Rauch. When I’d called him back to accept the gig Rich had built the revue into something between the Royal Festival Hall and the Hot Club of France. I’d known he was exaggerating, but I hadn’t realised how much.
The auditorium smelt of mildew, tobacco and wet coats. Its dirty pine boards were still littered with the debris of last night’s performance. Small tables, spattered with red candle wax and equipped with bentwood chairs, were regimented across the hall in diagonal rows. The formation was an optimistic attempt to create an unimpeded view of the stage, but it made me think of a desperate army making its final stand.
The safety curtain was up, the unoccupied stage littered with random props, a large ball, a tangle of hula-hoops, and, somewhere near the back, a trampoline. The stage was deep, its rake steep, but it was the ceiling that revealed this had once been a truly impressive building. High above our heads plaster cherubs toyed with lutes and angelic trumpets amongst bowers of awakening plaster blooms. Remnants of white paint still illuminated some of the chubby orchestra, but most of them had sunk into the same mouldering grey that covered the rest of the ceiling. In its centre, half hidden by the lighting rig, was a chipped but still elaborate ceiling rose marred by a half plastered hole where I guessed a massive chandelier had once hung. Cracks fractured out from the damaged rose and into the outskirts of the ceiling. Not all of them were linked, but they gave the impression of being connected, like irrepressible tributaries sinking underground when the earth turns to stone, but always resurfacing.
‘Have a seat,’ Ray pulled out a chair and lowered himself into it, ‘see what it’s like to be one of the audience.’
I drew up a chair, turning at the hollow sound of footsteps on the wooden floor. A slim, dark-haired girl strode in and started to wipe the tables, putting debris of crumpled tissues, abandoned leaflets and empty fag packets into a tin bucket as she worked. I smiled but she looked past me to Ray, shooting him a sour look. Ray attempted a smile.
‘So, what do you think? Maybe not as big as you’re used to, but it has a certain charm?’
The girl saved me from answering, calling something in German across the hall. Ray answered quick in a tone that might have been friendly or harsh. She turned away from him, reciting a few words in a singsong voice, then tucked the cloth into the back of her jeans and walked towards the exit. Ray shook his head, ‘Women, the same across the world, impossible and irreplaceable.’ He smoothed the grey moustache slowly, like he was calming himself. ‘I know your agent negotiated a few days of freedom before you start…’ I could feel it coming, the not-quite-deal-breaker the management hits you with to soften you up for the rest of the betrayals. ‘But in this business we have to be flexible.’
He paused and I gave a noncommittal smile. On the stage behind him a well-built man in cut-off sweats started going through a warm-up, easing into some stretches, then lifting his leg high in a balletic pose. I nodded towards him and said, ‘I’m not sure I could manage that level of flexibility.’
Ray frowned then turned to look at the man.
‘Acrobats aren’t worth the trouble. You invest in them, break your back helping them, then they go and do the same, only they break their backs for real. Kolja is talented, but acrobats have short lives; he’ll be walking with a stick or teaching sports in a kindergarten before he’s thirty.’
‘Seems harsh.’
Ray shrugged his shoulders. I could imagine him sending a ten-year-old to drown a sack of kittens with the same shrug.
‘It’s a fact. These kids go to circus school. They know the odds, but still think they’ll live forever. That is natural too.’
On the stage Kolja stopped his stretch to watch us. I thought I saw amusement in his face, but he turned away too quickly for me to be sure. Perhaps Ray saw it too, because he leaned back and shouted something in German towards the athlete. The young man made no reply, but his mouth set into a stiff smile as he punted himself down from the stage.
‘There’s no time for you to go to your lodgings now. He’ll put your luggage in the dressing room.’
I got to my feet.
‘I’ll do it myself.’
Kolja walked past without glancing towards us, leaving me standing awkwardly by the table. I sat back down and lit a cigarette. Ray shrugged. He sounded tired.
‘He’s proud of his muscles, let him use them. Come on, let’s finish our business, then perhaps you’ll do some prepa rations.’
‘Perhaps.’
Ray smiled and led me through to his office.
‘So this is my sanctuary. Anytime you need to find me, you start looking here.’
Ray’s sanctuary was cramped. A workbench ran the length of the far wall, hidden beneath stacks of paper and some surprisingly new computer equipment. A small window above the bench looked into the ticket-booth where the girl who had been clearing the tables was now busying herself behind the desk. Beyond her
