After Ever After (23 page)

‘First of all, thank you for coming,’ Caroline tells us with brisk insincerity. ‘I’m glad to see a few new faces in the crowd,’ she carries on with the tone of a permanently slightly angry person. ‘Lots to get through. Let’s get the auditions over first, and then we can get back to having a drink and a chat. Take your seats please and be quiet. Andrew! Lights, please! Bill, put that glass of wine down and get to the piano while you can still remember how to play. Colin, who’s first?’

Clare, Mr Crawley and I shuffle into the middle of one of the rows of plastic chairs that have been set out before the stage area.

‘Barbara Ainsley!’ Colin calls out, and a slender woman with a neat brown bob and calf-length print dress walks into the spotlight.

‘Barbara,’ Caroline Thames’s voice booms out of nowhere. ‘Nice to see you – how are the children? Good.’ She doesn’t bother to wait for a response. ‘What number have you chosen to entertain us with?’

‘Um, the kids are fine and, um, I thought I’d do “Secret Love”, if that’s okay?’ An audible groan can be heard from the area of the piano, and Barbara’s cheeks pinken as the first bar of the song is played.

Caroline Thames lets her sing one verse before stopping her and shouting, ‘Who’s up next, Colin?’

And the parade continues. Clare and I count six ‘Secret Loves’ four ‘Windy Cities’ and three ‘Deadwood Stages’. Oh, and one husband and wife act do a sort of barber-shop version of the ‘Black Hills of Dakota’.

‘Don’t reckon you’ve got too much to worry about,’ Gareth Jerome says in my ear. I blink and spin round in my seat. He really is there. Somehow he has managed to occupy the middle seat of the aisle behind us without us noticing. I glance at Clare, who is frozen rigid and sunk as low as possible into her chair. Mr Crawley eyes him with a hint of disapproval and returns his gaze to the stage.

‘What are
you
doing here?’ I whisper. ‘Didn’t think this was your kind of thing.’ Gareth shrugs and smiles.

‘I didn’t think it was yours either, until tonight.’ He stretches his arms along the backs of our chairs until he encompasses both Clare and me within his long-limbed reach. ‘No, I heard Mr Crawley tell you about it and you and Clare talking about it and I, well, I thought I’m still quite new in town so I might as well come along and volunteer for some scenery painting or something, meet a few new people, charm a few old ladies, pick up some work. Can’t hurt, can it?’ The breath of his whisper tickles the back of my neck. ‘Besides, I thought it might be a laugh.’

Mr Crawley twists in his seat. ‘Gareth, can I suggest you keep it down?’ he says as if admonishing a small boy.

Gareth catches Clare’s eye and winks at her before sinking back into the shadows. In the dark I reach for her hand and judge her reaction by the fierce grip with which she squeezes my fingers. If she’s happy he’s here, then so am I.

Mr Crawley takes his turn with all the aplomb I have come to expect from him. Within seconds he’s transformed himself before our very eyes from the tall and faintly aristocratic epitome of old-school Englishness into a rotund, bawdy, over-the-hill cowboy singing for all he’s worth.

‘He’s good, isn’t he?’ I whisper to Clare.

‘Yeah, it’s like magic. I mean, you can see it’s Mr Crawley, but it’s like it’s another person entirely!’

We are both still congratulating him on a virtuoso performance when the crunch comes.

‘Clare Brown!’ Colin shouts, and Clare jumps in her seat.

‘Oh, bloody bugger,’ she says, immediately frozen to the spot, the terrified whites of her eyes luminescent in the gloom.

‘CLARE BROWN!’ Caroline Thames breaks the sound barrier.

‘Go on, you’ll knock the socks off this lot!’ Gareth says encouragingly, squeezing Clare’s shoulders.

She smiles over her shoulder at him and squeezes along the row of chairs before climbing up on to the stage with about as much grace as one can muster when it involves clambering via a plastic chair.

‘At last, someone who won’t contribute to my early death. What are you going to sing, Clare?’ Bill asks, his voice warm with genuine affection.

‘Um, well, I thought …’ Clare clearly hadn’t thought about it until this moment.

‘“Secret Love” of course! Show all these silly women how it’s done!’

Clare’s sensitive cheeks pinken immediately and a ripple of consternation runs through the hall, but before it can gather pace Bill has played the opening bars and Clare has begun to sing.

In seconds the hall falls totally silent. Coughs cease, whispers abate and sniffs dry up.

Clare has a beautiful voice, an incredible voice. Rich and pure, each word she sings carries to the back of the hall, ringing in the air like a perfectly tuned bell.

‘She’s amazing,’ Gareth breathes in my ear, and I turn to look at his profile. He’s spellbound. I smile to myself: at last, a genuine development to report to Clare.

‘Tricky last verse coming up,’ Mr Crawley says quietly. ‘A real test of her mettle.’

Clare’s voice soars to the challenge and then re-enforces the melody with breathtaking power before letting her tone drop to a gentle whisper. She lives each word of the lyric, her face a shining picture, and as the last note echoes in the rafters she folds her hands over her heart and closes her eyes.

I glance at Gareth again and think, ‘No wonder she sings it with such meaning – she has her own secret love, one I’ve created for her out of thin air.’

A second’s silence follows her performance before the hall erupts into applause. Clare puts her hand over her mouth and giggles before climbing down from the stage and returning to her seat.

‘You were fabulous. Fabulous!’ Mr Crawley tells her and kisses her on the cheek.

‘Bloody hell, Clare, I thought you said Mr Edwards was exaggerating!’ I say warmly.

Gareth puts a hand on each of her shoulders. ‘You were amazing, really amazing,’ he says, his amber eyes focusing on her.

Clare glows, her eyes sparkle and her smile lifts her whole face. She looks beautiful.

‘Kitty Kelly!’ Colin calls and my blood runs cold.

‘Kitty Kelly? Is that a stage name or an unfortunate coincidence?’ I hear Caroline ask Colin as I head for the stage. Now that it’s come to it, I can’t think what on earth I thought I was doing.

‘Um, “Windy City”,’ I mumble miserably. Somehow, as Bill kicks in the opening um-pa-pa, I find Mr Crawley’s face shining in the gloom of the auditorium as if it has somehow been illuminated just for me. He smiles at me and nods his encouragement, and although he must only be mouthing the words, I’m sure that I hear him say in my ear as clear as day, ‘Just enjoy yourself – have fun and enjoy the moment.’

I fix my gaze on him and pretend we’re at home in the kitchen. I know that my voice alone isn’t going to get me anywhere, so I throw caution to the wind, jut out my chin, bow my legs and lower my voice, imagine that I
am
Calamity Jane and slap my thigh. Five minutes later I find that everyone in the room is laughing, two minutes after that I realise they’re laughing because they think I’m funny and not because they think I’m crap. My spirits lift and I throw any remnant of reserve to the crowds and clown it right through to the bitter end. There’s no rapt applause like there was for Clare, but as I make my way off the stage there are many friendly comments. ‘Very good!’, ‘What fun!’ and ‘Well done’ follow me as I return to my seat. Caroline Thames strides out on to the stage.

‘Well done, everyone,’ she says briskly, without the slightest hint of sincerity. ‘As you know, we believe in working on instinct in this company and making gut decisions, so
we
won’t be keeping you waiting for a week while we wait for someone to type the cast list – we’re not the Tring Troubadors after all!’ For reasons that I’m just beginning to understand, that comment rouses a competitive cheer. ‘Colin and I will nip into the office now and discuss our findings and be back in half an hour with a decision! In the meantime there’s more wine and biscuits, so enjoy, because this is where the fun ends and the hard work begins!’

‘Yeah,’ Gareth says as we ease our way out of the chairs, ‘right here is where you start paying!’ Clare and I giggle and exchange delighted glances as he invites Clare to go with him to fetch us some wine.

Mr Crawley watches him as he goes, a slight frown on his face.

‘Mr Crawley, um,
Ian
, is there a problem? Where’s Tim tonight, anyhow?’ I ask him.

For a second his eyes remain fixed on Gareth’s back, and then he returns his attention to me with his usual charming smile.

‘Flu, his mother tells me. To be honest with you, I think it’s far more likely that he’s got a girlfriend. It was bound to happen sooner or later. I just hope it doesn’t distract him from his grouting.’

I can’t tell if he’s joking or not, so I smile at him and remember my sudden vision of his face just as I was about to sing.

‘Do you know, the strangest thing happened up there …’ I begin, gesturing at the stage. ‘I sort of heard your voice in my head and …’

Mr Crawley tips his head to one side and looks at me.

‘Did you? Must have been nerves or something,’ he says, displaying the kind of attention he usually reserves for Ella. ‘Oh Lord, there’s Mrs Ponsenby, I’ll go and say hello to her now before she finds out she hasn’t got the lead this year and goes into full-on diva mode.’ He disappears instantly into the throng; like me he must think that Clare’s bound to have got the lead.

As I wait for Clare and Gareth to return, I scan the faces of the Berkhamsted Players as they chat, laugh, gossip and bicker. They are somehow different from what I had imagined. I suppose I thought they would all be caricature versions of Fergus’s mum, or stout and angry women sporting tiaras and minks. Although Mr Crawley said they needed fresh talent, Clare and I are not the only people under thirty-five here, even if we are heavily outweighed by older members. There are more women than men, it’s true, but rather than the stiffly desperate and sad brigade of divorcees that I had expected, they are all different, all rather beautiful in a way I hadn’t imagined. And the male members seem terribly brave to me, almost heroic for carving out this place for themselves in a world where it is far easier to be alone and bored. For no particular reason that I can think of, this collection of ordinary people are oddly touching, and for a brief moment the threat of tears stings my eyes. I sniff and swallow hard, and put my sentiment down to my good old hormones.

‘I must say – Kitty, is it? You were fab.’ I blink hard and smile at the woman next to me. It’s Barbara Ainsley. ‘And your friend, Clare, well, makes me realise my pretensions to anything grander than the chorus were somewhat unfounded. Amazing!’

‘Thanks,’ I say.

Barbara leans in a little closer to me. ‘I hope you don’t mind me asking, but I couldn’t help but notice that you came with Mr Crawley. Are you very good friends? It’s just that he’s a terribly good catch, you know, and half of Berkhamsted’s single ladies are here tonight, so if there’s no hope we’d all like to know.’ She gives me a sweet little smile and a wink indicating that either way there would be no hard feelings, even if he was my … um … ‘lover’.

‘Oh God, no!’ I say quickly, feeling my face burn. ‘No, he is my friend, yes, but strictly platonic. More of a … good fairy, really!’ I say, thinking of his shining face in the crowd when I auditioned. ‘Oh, but not a fairy, not in the Colin, oh fuck. I mean, oh dear. Oh sorry, Barbara.’

Barbara laughs uproariously. ‘You’re very amusing,’ she says, and just in case she thinks I meant to be, I leave it at that, firmly buttoning my lip.

‘I said to Harriet, that’ll be it, he’ll be being kind. If he’s not flung himself about since his wife passed all those years ago, he’s hardly about to start now with a floozy half his age …’ She claps her small hands over her mouth before saying, ‘I
do
beg your pardon, of course I didn’t mean you …’ She looks at me for one second more. ‘Well, I did mean you, but obviously I was totally wrong, and anyway we should have known better. Mr Crawley is always helping someone. It just seems to be in his nature!’ She bobs her head, almost as if she is taking a bow, and then excuses herself, no doubt to impart the good news to her friends.

My friends return en masse and I take a warm glass of white wine from Clare. It tastes of cardboard.

‘You two took your time,’ I say. ‘I’ve had a delegate from the Mr Crawley appreciation club over here interrogating me as to the nature of our relationship.’

‘Told you he was a dirty old man,’ Gareth jokes, his golden eyes half closed. Clare giggles and flutters her lashes, flirting without any trace of subtlety. I leap to Mr Crawley’s defence, deciding not to take Gareth’s comment with a pinch of salt.

‘He
is
not … Oh look, here she comes. Get ready for local celebrity, Clare!’ I say.

The conversation dies instantly the moment Caroline Thames takes the stage, and I must say that considering she only rules the am dram club in a small home-counties town, she does cut a fairly impressive figure.

‘QUIET!’ she shouts at a hushed congregation. ‘Right, well, Colin and I have discussed this at some considerable length and I won’t beat about the bush – the role of Calamity Jane came down to two new members …’ Clare and I exchange glances. ‘Now, I’m sure we all agree that Clare gave us an exquisite performance earlier on, one that moved us all …’ I nudge Clare and she bites her lip. ‘However, in musical theatre it is not merely the quality of the singing but the overall performance that’s important, and, to be frank, that the character looks the part. So we’re going to give the female lead to Kitty Kelly, with understudy and a chorus part to Clare. Oh, and Clare, I understand you have a sewing machine, so I’m putting you down for costumes, okay?’ A murmur of dissent rumbles in the crowd.

‘Bloody fucking ridiculous!’ Bill Edwards’s voice booms out of the crowd. ‘What the fuck do you think you’re doing, woman? The person with the best voice should get it, not the one who can ape about like an idiot. Fucking ridiculous!’ He points at me. ‘If she gets it I’m quitting, no offence, Kitty.’

Caroline rolls her eyes and folds her arms over her chest.