For a moment Quilley thought Litvak had finished. But he was only selecting a different finger to hold on to.
"We use classic theatre plays, Mr. Quilley, out of copyright, low cost all the way. We barnstorm. We use new, relatively unknown actors and actresses, now and then a guest star for mileage, but basically we are promoting new talent and inviting that talent to demonstrate the whole range of its versatility over a minimum four-month period, which hopefully is extended. And re-extended. For the actors, great exposure, great publicity, nice clean shows, no dirt, see if it goes. That's our concept, Mr. Quilley, and our backers seem to like it a lot."
Then, before Quilley even had time to offer his congratulations, a thing he always liked to do when someone told him an idea, Kurtz had stormed back into the act.
"Ned, we want to sign your Charlie," he announced; and with the enthusiasm of a Shakespearian herald bearing news of victory, he swept his whole right arm up into the air and held it there.
Very excited, Ned made to speak, only to find Kurtz was once more talking clean through him.
"Ned, we believe that your Charlie has great wit, great versatility, fine range. If you can reassure us on a couple of slightly urgent points we have--why, I think we can offer her the opportunity of a place in the theatrical firmament which you and she will surely not regret."
Yet again Ned tried to speak, but this time it was Litvak who got in ahead of him: "We're all set to go for her, Mr. Quilley. Give us a couple of answers to a couple of questions and Charlie's up there with the big ones."
Suddenly there was silence, and all Ned could hear was the song in his own heart. He blew out his cheeks and, trying to appear businesslike, tugged at each of his elegant cuffs in turn. He adjusted the rose which Marjory had that very morning put into his button-hole with her usual instruction not to drink too much at lunch. But Marjory would have thought quite differently if she had known that, far from wanting to buy Ned out, they were actually proposing to give their beloved Charlie her long-awaited break. If she had known that, old Marge would have lifted all restrictions, of course she would.
Kurtz and Litvak drank tea, but at The Ivy they take such eccentricities in their stride, and as for Ned he required little persuasion to choose himself a very decent-half bottle from the list and, since they seemed to insist upon it, a big, misted glass of the house Chablis to go with his smoked salmon first. In the taxi, which they took to escape the rain, Ned had begun to relate to them the amusing story of how he had acquired Charlie as a client. In The Ivy he resumed the thread.
"Fell for her hook, line, and sinker. Never done such a thing before. Old fool, that's what I was--not as old as I am now, but still a fool. Nothing much to the show. Little old-fashioned revue, really, dolled up to look modern. But Charlie was marvellous. The defended softness, that's what I look for in the gals." The expression was in fact a legacy of his father's. "Soon as the curtain came down, I popped straight round to her dressing-room--if you could call it a dressing-room--did my Pygmalion act, and signed her on the spot. She wouldn't believe me at first. Thought I was a dirty old man. Had to go back and fetch Marjory to persuade her. Ha!"
"What happened after that?" said Kurtz very pleasantly, handing him some more brown bread and butter. "Roses all the way, huh?"
"Oh, not a bit of it!" Ned protested guilelessly. "She was just like so many of ‘em at that age. Come bouncing out of drama college all starry-eyed and full of promise, get a couple of parts, start buying a flat or some stupid thing, then suddenly it all stops for ‘em. The twilight time we call it. Some pull through it, some don't. Cheers."
"But Charlie did," Litvak softly prompted, sipping his tea.
"She held on. Sweated it out. It wasn't easy, but it never is. Years of it, in her case. Too many." He was surprised to discover himself so moved. From their expressions, so were they. "Well, now it's come right for her, hasn't it? Oh, I am pleased for her! I really am. Yes, indeed."
And that was another odd thing, Ned told Marjory afterwards. Or maybe it was the same thing over again. He was referring to the way the two men changed character as the day wore on. Back in the office, for instance, he'd hardly got a word in edgeways. But at The Ivy they gave him centre stage and nodded him through his lines with hardly a word between them. And afterwards--well, afterwards was another damned thing completely.
"Terrible childhood, of course," said Ned proudly. "A lot of the gals have that, I notice. It's what sends ‘em towards fantasy in the first place. Dissembling. Hiding your emotions. Copying people who look happier than you are. Or unhappier. Stealing a bit of ‘em--what acting's half about. Misery. Theft. I'm talking too much. Cheers again."
"Terrible in what way, Mr. Quilley?" Litvak asked respectfully, like someone who was researching the whole question of terribleness. "Charlie's childhood. Terrible how, sir?"
Ignoring what he only afterwards saw to be deepening gravity in Litvak's manner and in Kurtz's gaze as well, Ned entrusted to them whatever knowledge he had incidentally acquired during the little, confessive lunches he occasionally gave her upstairs at Bianchi's, where he took them all. The mother a ninny, he said. The father some sort of rather awful swindler chap, a stockbroker who'd gone to the devil and was now mercifully dead, one of those plausible liars who think God put the fifth ace up their sleeve. Ended up in jug. Died there. Shocking.
Once again, Litvak made the mildest intervention: "Died in prison, did you say, sir?"
"Buried there too. Mother so bitter she wouldn't waste the money moving him."
"This something Charlie told you herself, sir?"
Quilley was mystified. "Well, who else would?"
"No collateral?" said Litvak.
"No what?" said Ned as his fears of a takeover suddenly revived.
"Corroboration, sir. Confirmation from unconnected parties. Sometimes with actresses--
But Kurtz intervened with a fatherly smile: "Ned, you just ignore this boy," he advised. "Mike here has a very suspicious streak in him. Don't you, Mike?"
"Maybe I do, at that," Litvak conceded, in a voice no louder than a sigh.
Only then did Ned think to ask them what they had seen of her work, and to his pleasurable surprise it turned out that they had taken their researches very seriously indeed. Not only had they obtained clips of every minor television appearance she had ever made, they had actually traipsed up to beastly Nottingham on their previous visit to catch her Saint Joan.
"Well, my goodness what a sly pair you are!" cried Ned as the waiters cleared their plates and set the scene for roast duck. "If you'd given me a call, I'd have driven you up there myself, or Marjory would. Did you go backstage, take her out for a meal? You didn't? Well, I'm damned!"
Kurtz allowed himself a moment's hesitation and his voice grew grave. He cast a questioning glance at his partner, Litvak, who gave him a faint nod of encouragement. "Ned," he said, "to tell you the truth, we just didn't quite feel it was appropriate in the circumstances."
"Whatever circumstances are they?" asked Ned, supposing he was referring to some point of agents' ethics. "Good Lord, we're not like that over here, you know! You want to make her an offer, make one. Don't have to get a chit from me. I'll collect my commission one day, don't you worry!"
Then Ned went quiet because they both looked so bloody solemn, he told Marjory. As if they'd swallowed bad oysters. Shells and all.
Litvak was carefully dabbing his thin lips. "Mind if I ask you something, sir?"
"My dear chap," said Ned, very puzzled.