After Ever After (22 page)

‘Wow! You look fabulous,’ I say as I take in the cut of her top and skirt. Gareth was wrong – Clare is not solid and square at all. In fact, when she’s not covered from head to foot in a man’s outsize roll-neck jumper she’s got a lovely figure, the sort of figure that Gareth would compare to the contours of a newly created flowerbed.

‘Hefty, my arse,’ I mumble as I lead Clare and Ted to Fergus and Ella.

‘Pardon?’ she says.

‘I mean, hefty, my arse, isn’t it?’ I say stupidly. ‘In these trousers. I wish was all got-up like you now.’

As we enter the kitchen, Fergus is gingerly dabbing carrot and wholewheat pasta from around Ella’s mouth as if it is radioactive material.

‘She’s not very keen on lumps,’ I tell Clare, ‘but I’m not too worried because for about three months she wasn’t very keen on food, so it’s progress at least.’

Clare smiles shyly at Fergus.

‘Hi,’ she says like a schoolgirl, making me feel the seven years older than her that I am.

‘Sorry, Clare, how rude. Fergus, Clare. Clare, Fergus.’

Fergus reaches out a hand to her and drops a kiss on her cheek. He’s the sort of man to kiss anyone in passing, but Clare’s cheeks grow rosy and she lowers her eyes as she composes herself.

‘Um, this is Ted. He looks like a right terror, but he’s not so bad. Oh, who am I kidding, he’s terrible, he was born with all that hair so I haven’t been able to tell if he’s got 666 tattooed behind one ear or not!’ She laughs but Fergus looks uneasy. ‘He’s had his tea and he had a poo this afternoon, so hopefully you shouldn’t have to worry about that.’

I can see from the look on Fergus’s face that the thought hadn’t even occurred to him until that moment.

Clare continues, ‘He’s not slept all day so he should go down to sleep and hopefully stay that way, but I must warn you that he has the superhuman ability to go for twenty-four hours without sleep if he thinks there’s something more interesting to do, and he’s not really used to men, so you might qualify.’ By the time she’s finished her speech, all her schoolgirl bashfulness has gone and instead she’s the smart and sassy single mum that I have begun to know and like. In that one moment, though, I can see exactly how Clare was led up the alley by Jamie – she’s just like I used to be. The kind of person whose years of toughly constructed defences can be swept away by some pretty eyes and the promise of some longed-for romance.

She hands Ted over to Fergus, who smiles at him matily and ruffles his blond curls.

‘All right there, mate? We’ll be all right, won’t we, eh? Blokes together, we can watch the footy.’ Ted pokes Fergus’s chin curiously but generally seems quite happy. Meanwhile a highchair-bound Ella bangs her still full bowl jealously against the table, sending orange lumpy mush everywhere. Just as I reach for a cloth the doorbell chimes.

‘Ah, that’ll be Mr Crawley. I’d better go.’ A brief look of panic passes over Fergus’s face.

‘You will be all right, won’t you?’ I say anxiously. ‘Because if you think it’s too much, then I won’t go …’

‘I’ll be fine.’ Fergus puts Ted down in a patch of mush. ‘Oh. Bugger.’

‘He’s got his jammys in his bag,’ Clare says helpfully. The doorbell chimes again. Fergus reaches across the mayhem and kisses me.

‘Just go! I’ll be fine, I promise!’

I gingerly kiss my sticky baby and we head out into the refreshingly cool air of the night.

The moment we close the door Clare grabs my arms a little too tightly.

‘He’s fucking gorgeous, you lucky cow!’ she giggles. ‘You are married to a fucking gorgeous man. You have a fucking gorgeous gardener. You bastard, how did you do it?’ I smile and try to look modest, but the combination of her appreciation of my husband and his determination to manage with those babies has started a small warm glow in my tummy. Maybe when I get back home tonight my libido will have taken up residence again.

‘Yeah, well, I was five years older than you are now when I met him, so don’t write yourself off yet, okay?’

Clare smiles but seems a bit downhearted. ‘He wasn’t there then, Gareth? I thought it’d be too late for him to be hanging about, but I did my make-up and everything. I feel a bit stupid now.’

Mr Crawley opens the rear passenger door to his four-wheel drive as if he is our chauffeur.

‘Ladies, your carriage awaits. Ready for an evening of music, song and Mrs Ponsenby’s wailing, I hope?’ he enquires pleasantly.

‘Yes!’ we chorus with a giggle.

‘Good, I’m going to put on some opera and warm up the old tonsils a bit. I hope you don’t mind.’

‘Not a bit,’ I say, and as Mr Crawley begins to join in with an Italian opera in a home counties accent I lean closer to Clare. ‘You’re not stupid,’ I whisper as I slide next to her. ‘Anyway, he mentioned you today, specifically, without any prompting, I might add.’

Clare twists in her seat and stares at me. ‘Never! Did he? What did he say?’

I catch the reflected light from her shining eyes and wonder if my little white lie was entirely wise.

‘He said he thought you had lovely eyes,’ my mouth says before my brain kicks in.

Clare deflates a little. ‘Oh, that’s what everyone says to fat people. Lovely eyes, nice hair, ’cos it’s the only part of your body that can’t put on weight.’

I stand at the crossroads of honesty and deceit and decide to take the more trodden path. If anyone needs some shiny-eyed moments in her life, it’s Clare, even if they’re not entirely based on fact.

‘Yeah, but then he said he thought you were really pretty!’ I nudge her with my shoulder and nod in affirmation. Clare’s face is a picture of delight, and for the rest of the journey she stares out of the window lost in dreams.

We enter the town hall and the murmur of the Berkhamsted Players gradually grows louder as we approach the hall the auditions are to be held in. Clare and I follow Mr Crawley in, feeling like it’s our first day at school.

The conversation in the hall may dip slightly as we enter, or the implicit lull might be in my imagination, but whether it is or not I feel like I have about fifty pairs of eyes trained right on me, going, ‘That top with those trousers and those hips?’

‘Right, ladies, first things first.’ Mr Crawley looks around the hall. ‘Let’s get you down on the list now, both of you, for singing and any other …’

‘Clare! Clare Brown as I live and breathe.’ A booming voice cuts through the air and seems to knock Clare physically off balance. ‘What are you doing here, my love? I thought you’d be treading the boards by now? West End, Broadway, that was your plan, wasn’t it?’ In the time it takes for this man to finish his sentence Clare regresses by about, I’d say, approximately ten years.

‘Hello, sir,’ she says with weary resignation, avoiding his eyes and turning the toe of her boot in a little. ‘How are you?’ I fully expect her to produce an excuse as to why her homework is late any second.

‘Ah, Bill, glad you could come on board again,’ Mr Crawley says a little cautiously as he stretches his hand out and shakes Bill’s enormous hands. ‘Kitty, this is Bill Edwards, retired music teacher and sometime musical director of the Players, though I must say, Bill, I rather thought that after last year’s “episode” you wouldn’t be showing your face again?’

Bill Edwards laughs thunderously and tosses a long, steely grey ponytail, yellowing at the ends with nicotine and slicked back with some kind of gel that may be grease, over his shoulder. It’s the kind of capricious gesture that I had hitherto only ever attributed to supermodels and ponies. He must be well over six foot in height, and possibly as many feet around the middle. His booming laugh descends, and he gives a low, gravelly chuckle as he remembers the ‘episode’ in question.

‘Ah yes, Ian, a woman scorned and all that, but never let it be said that Bill Edwards has not stood in the face of a woman’s wrath and lived to tell the tale!’ He finishes with an Olivier-style flourish and then bends his head towards mine. ‘Anyway, her husband forgave her and last time I saw him in the pub he told me he was glad I’d taught her a new trick or two!’

I smile anxiously and take a discreet step back out of the haze of whisky. Unabashed, Bill blunders merrily on.

‘So, Clare, what happened then? Changed your mind about what you wanted to do?’

Clare looks perfectly dismayed as her buried teenage dreams are cruelly exhumed and flung in her face. ‘Something like that, sir,’ she says with a small empty smile.

Bill Edwards lays his heavy, fat-fingered hand heavily on her shoulder.

‘This girl, this girl here gave me hope in the midst of chaos and despair. She was my only shining light during two decades,
two decades
, of Kylie Minogue cover versions. God help me.’

Clare looks as if she might be about to sink under the weight of his hand.

‘Right, well then.’ Somehow Mr Crawley manages to disengage Bill’s grip on Clare with zero fuss. ‘Let’s get you two down on the list then, shall we, before our esteemed director, Ms Caroline Thames, frightens you off? See you a bit later on, Bill,’ Mr Crawley says, deliberately leading us away through the mêlée.

‘So you can sing then, can you, you dark horse?’ I say to Clare as we thread our way through the crowd.

‘Oh, a bit, not as good as he was saying.’ Clare sighs. ‘It’s
his
fault, kept going on and on about what a great talent I was and how I should work at it, had me round his house for extra lessons after school, really built me up until I believed it. Stupid fool that I was I thought I really could be someone, but that sort of thing doesn’t happen in real life, does it? Not to real people. Not to me, anyway.’

I push my hands into my pockets and try to think of something positive to say.

‘Well, I mean, look at all those TV talent searches. You could go on one of them.’

Clare snorts. ‘I could have about two years and three stone ago.’ She shrugs. ‘Anyway, he was exaggerating. I was never that good – I was just a bit better than the rest of my class.’

‘Colin.’ Mr Crawley leans over a trestle table and shakes the hand of a tall man in his mid-forties with a thick shock of greying black hair that has been styled in the manner of a breakfast TV presenter. ‘This is Kitty Kelly and Clare Brown, I bring you new talent!’ he says in full am dram mode.

‘Kitty, Clare.’ Colin shakes both our hands and I try to catch his eye and fail. ‘Colin Davies, Assistant Director in charge of casting.’ He looks us both squarely in the chest. ‘I must say it’s nice to have some fresh talent in the house, most people your age think this is all too dull for words.’ His gaze remains exactly one foot beneath Clare’s eye line. ‘Very refreshing indeed. So I’ll put you both down for the singing audition for a part and any other talents I might be able to make use of?’

Clare and I exchange an alarmed look.

‘I’ve got a sewing machine, so I could help with costumes?’ Clare says hesitantly.

‘Marvellous. Mrs Crosby’s had to give it up this year – arthritis, terrible shame, hems all over the place.’ He tears his eyes away from Clare’s chest and returns his attention to my torso.

‘And Kitty?’ He ogles me openly and I really can’t believe that a man can be so lecherous without any hint of embarrassment. Maybe he’s used to the female members flinging themselves at him in the hope they get a walk on part with a line.

‘Do you mind?’ I say tartly, feeling unusually compelled to make a fuss. My sharp tone regains Mr Crawley’s attention and he quickly appraises the situation.

‘I beg your pardon?’ Colin asks my left breast.

‘Oh, ah, Kitty …’ Mr Crawley tries to intercede but for once I decide to make a stand.

‘If you are going to engage me in conversation, do you think you could look me in the face occasionally in between ogling my tits?’ In my anger, the remnants of my Hackney accent creep into my voice. Colin’s breakfast smile freezes on his face and then falls. Mr Crawley’s face is a picture of dismay, and even before Colin speaks I suspect I’ve let him down somehow.

‘Ah yes, Kitty, you see Colin has a …’ he begins.

‘Severe sight disability,’ Colin finishes with his swiftly reinstated stellar smile. ‘Terribly sorry, should probably have mentioned it, but everyone here is so used to me by now that I’d almost forgotten about it. I have some sight but I am registered blind, I was born with a congenital defect. Although I look like I’m staring at your, um, middle, I’m really “seeing” your face, although admittedly a very fuzzy one. Odd, isn’t it?’ he says kindly.

I bite my lip hard as the only immediately available means of punishment and wonder if, when I’ve stopped picking on a blind person, I could maybe kick over a sick child or something?

‘Oh, oh, I’m sorry. I’m really, really sorry …’ I begin.

Colin shakes his head and his perfect hair doesn’t move.

‘No need to be, it’s quite refreshing actually. Some people are too embarrassed to ask and many are more likely to accept that I’m an old pervert rather than ask any questions, so at least you’ve cleared the air – but just for the record, even if I could see your bosoms they would hold little allure for me. I bat for the other side. Now you’re both on the list, so …’

I exchange a puzzled glance with Clare.

‘Colin, if you don’t mind me asking, if you can’t see very well then how do you know who to cast?’ I ask him in the spirit of refreshment.

He laughs and momentarily sucks on the end of his pen.

‘Well, Caroline does all the visual stuff. My sense of hearing is more acute and also, kooky though it may sound, I seem to be able to sense when we have exactly the right person, which is why over the last decade the Berkhamsted Players have consistently outperformed that band of amateurs in Tring, at least in my humble opinion.’

‘Don’t you and Caroline ever disagree?’ Clare asks him, and his smile wanes a little.

‘No one ever disagrees with Caroline …’ he begins before the woman herself confirms his statement.

‘Right, everyone, quiet please!’ Caroline, a tall, red-haired woman with a paisley printed pashmina flung round her shoulders silences the room instantly.

‘Caroline Thames, Director, Dictator and Despot,’ Mr Crawley whispers in my ear, with the merest hint of affection. ‘Screeching old harridan and control freak, but she certainly seems to get results.’