Beauties and the Beast Read Free Page A

I’m a muso too,” he said. He paused and studied the guitar and then Billy. “You must be here for the auditions.”
    â€œNot if you’re going to be in the show,” retorted Billy. He glared at Mickey aggressively, but then stepped back as he saw the little man coming closer. “What’s wrong? What’re you up to?”
    Mickey shook his head and smiled again. “I know who you are. You’re Billy Winter, the heavy metal bloke. Hey, hear about the Rock’n’roll singer who fell off the stage?” He stopped and laughed. It was a high-pitched titter that Billy felt scrape against his brain. It was like chalk on a blackboard. Mickey stopped the laughter and continued. “He looked up at his mates and said ‘hey you guys give me a hand will you’ and they all went... ”
    Mickey began to clap his hands, but Billy beat him to it. It was a slow handclap that indicated complete derision. Mickey felt what was left of the power draining away. It drained up into the lights. He stood, palms oozing droplets of sweat - or was it blood? He flinched at the weird thought and checked his hands again. It was just sweat.
    That’s what audiences wanted these days, he thought, blood. You couldn’t call a stage a stage any more. It was a bloody amphitheatre, and everybody was ready with to turn the thumbs down. It was like being a Christian thrown to the lions. Christian? A smile twisted his lips, hardly. He sat down on the dusty seat.
    Billy strode to the edge of the stage. His tension whistled through Mickey. It ripped the atmosphere.
    â€œWhy would bloody Genghis send me here,” he muttered savagely. “It’s a piss hole. I’m a super star, man. A rock’n’roll legend.” His words were a wolf howl lost in the wind.
    Mickey picked up on the strange word. “Genghis?”
    Billy whirled round and fixed Mickey with a malevolent stare. “Don’t you know anything? Genghis Khan, my manager.”
    â€œNice,” said Mickey. “Bit of a Tartar is he?”
    The joke went winging over Billy’s head. “It’s his nickname” He swept to the wings and stared into the gloom but could see nothing. He sloped to the edge of the stage and glared into the lights. “Why would he send me here? It’s nothing. You couldn’t get my Jamaican fan club in this place.”
    â€œThey reckon it’s going to be the greatest show ever produced,” ventured Mickey.
    There was a noise. Shuffling and groaning sounds came from inside the passageway. They both gazed fearfully at the entrance to the passageway. Two mouths dropped as one as the black robed figure loomed into the light.
    When he recovered his balance Thornton saw the two men. They looked to him like Laurel and Hardy or Abbott and Costello: the tall and the short; the thin and the fat. One gaunt and haunted, the other lined, and sagging. Both looked just this side of death.
    He didn’t like what he saw, so he ignored the scene. His manner, grand as he strode to the other side of the stage, stated that he hadn’t seen anyone. He struck a pose, a grand Shakespearean pose, an unsure actor’s pose.
    Then the famous voice boomed. “My God, what is this place? What is this flea pit of a mausoleum?”
    Mickey gaped in awe, Billy in bewilderment. But two sets of vocal chords were silenced by the phenomenon. Thornton swirled round; the coat became Batman’s cape, the hat a covering of darkness.
    â€œWell?”
    He glared. The men stood mesmerised; the snake and the rabbits. “Answer me. What is this black Hell hole of mouldering timber and rotting mortar?”
    Mickey Finnegan was the first to regain the use of his voice. “It’s a theatre, mate.”
    Thornton fixed him with a baleful, disbelieving stare. He took a deep breath. He stepped closer to the comic, towering over him. “A theatre, a theatre! La Scala Milan is a