Midsummer Madness (15 page)

It was my awful, awful premonition, happening in slow motion. I felt as if it was all my fault, that I had willed it to happen like some twenty-first-century white witch. A couple of toads and a newt stirred in a cauldron.

They were showing dim shots of the lopsided theatre, tilting to one side, lights hanging off the front like Christmas decorations gone wrong.

No one was being allowed inside, except rescue crews, as it was still too dangerous. They were searching for any trapped survivors. Speculation was being aired of a long-ago abandoned underground tunnel that everyone had forgotten about or maybe an ancient stream that had been diverted and was now bursting its channel due to the heavy rain.

A television reporter in a belted raincoat was standing outside in the rain, under an umbrella, reading from an autocue. Behind him were police cars, fire engines and ambulances, police milling about, the public gawping at a distance at the taped-off area like a mob at a murder scene.

‘It’s a miracle that more people were not hurt,’ he was saying, straight to camera. ‘The West Enders opened only last week with an acclaimed performance of
Twelfth Night
and they have played to packed houses ever since. Here is Joe Harrison from New York, the guest director of
Twelfth Night
, designer of the set, artist supremo. Mr Harrison, how are you feeling seeing all this?’

Joe was standing in the rain, no umbrella, drenched. His face was shocked, eyes like granite. Rain dripped off his face, his dark hair
flattened to his head.

‘I’m gutted,’ he said.

‘How relieved are you that so few people were injured?’

Joe’s face glazed over at the stupidity of question. ‘Of course I’m immensely glad that the audience had not arrived. But my cast were there and the stage crew.’

I was stunned, seeing Joe again, seeing him so distressed. ‘But who’s been hurt?’ I demanded of the television screen. ‘Tell me, tell me, who’s been injured?’

Mark came over and patted my hand. It was such a sweet gesture. I held on to his palm, feeling the soft young skin with one part of my mind, the other part shouting at the screen.

‘They didn’t say anyone had died, Mum. Some people injured, a few people, they said,’ he said, quite sensibly.

He’d called me Mum. Second time ever. How come a moment of joy and despair could be mixed together? But it was. That was life. It deals you both cards at the same time.

‘So will the show still go on?’ asked the reporter, more inane questions. Did they go on a course for who could ask the most stupid questions?

Joe was obviously restraining himself from knocking the bloke’s head off. ‘Not at the Royale, obviously. We’ll be looking for a new theatre,’ he said. ‘We have a magnificent cast and are sold out for weeks. It’s just a hiccup.’

‘Please, please say who is injured.’ I asked. The screen wasn’t answering. The reporter signed off and returned everyone to the studio where it was dry and warm and plenty of coffee was on hand and the newscasters were wandering about with important sheafs of paper in their hands.

I sank back, despairing. My friends might be injured.

Mark sat me down and was pouring out the tea in a motherly way. ‘You could phone someone,’ he said, taking charge. ‘Have you got their numbers? I’ll bring the phone through. The lead is quite long.’

I was drinking tea but I couldn’t taste it. Joe was safe. It was a shock to find out that I really cared, my thoughts running away, worrying like crazy. Had I, all this time, cared about him? No, not
perhaps on that cold and snowy night, long ago. He had been a surprise then, a sort of unexpected present. But now, it had all changed. He had come into my life again, a different person, someone I could love.

Mark was nudging me with the phone. ‘Phone someone up, Mum,’ he said, very grown up and bossy. Miraculously he was not one of those children glued to a computer screen or playstation. He could think for himself and for me, now. ‘Shall I get your bag? Are the numbers in your bag?’

I could have hugged him to bits. I nodded before I did something he wouldn’t like. Mark raced upstairs to fetch my shoulder bag, the one I’d brought down with me and barely used since.

Here he was, looking after me when I was supposed to be looking after him. He threw the bag on to the sofa and started to undo the clasp as if this was beyond my stressed-out ability. I found the scrap of paper that passed for a list of friends.

‘How did the theatre fall down a hole?’ Mark asked.

‘Underneath London are masses and masses of tunnels,’ I said. ‘All dug out at different times for different reasons. There’s all the underground train routes, twelve of them, streams diverted under roads and into culverts and tunnels and pipes, then the gas and electricity and phone cables. And there are some underground tunnels which they didn’t use, just abandoned. It’s a labyrinth down there and a wonder any building stays upright.’

‘A bit like Venice.’

‘Not as watery as Venice. More like a honeycomb of holes at different levels, like inside a Crunchie bar. Not very safe.’

The first to hand was Joe’s mobile number. Mark was dialling it. It seemed ironic that Mark was doing it, phoning Joe’s mobile. He passed it to me.

‘Hello, Joe, Joe?‘ I said. It was Joe answering. ‘We saw you on the television, all the news and had to phone.’

‘Sophie, thank God. Is that you? Are you all right? Where are you? We thought you were still inside, trapped. You said it was an emergency but you didn’t say where you were going. We thought you’d come back here to the theatre. They found your mohair in the debris.’ His voice was shaking. ‘Your lilac jersey.’

‘My mohair? What do you mean?’

‘It was downstage right of the stage that collapsed. Your prompt corner has gone. It’s disappeared down a vast crater. Bit more than a nasty draught now. I’ve been out of my mind with worry about you. The firemen won’t go near the hole or let anyone else till it’s been shored up and made safe. They’ve been using some infra red thing that detects body heat.’

Mark was snuggled up to my hip, pressed against me, trying to listen to both sides of the conversation. I didn’t blame him. This was high drama on anyone’s list. ‘My mother had to go into hospital for a major operation,’ I said. ‘It was a last-minute cancellation. I had to come down and look after her.’

‘Your mother? Is she all right? We thought you were at the theatre, doing something. You know, Sophie do this, do that. I thought you were lying somewhere under the rubble.’ His voice broke off, unable to say any more.

I didn’t know how to explain, to put his mind at rest.

Mark took the phone from me. ‘Hello,’ he said clearly and calmly. ‘Sophie’s all right. She’s not down any hole or injured. She’s sitting here with me, drinking tea. But she wants to know who is injured.’

He handed the phone back to me. ‘Hello?’ I said, feebly. ‘Joe?’

‘Who was that?’ he asked abruptly.

‘I want to know who is injured,’ I said. ‘Please tell me.’

‘Bill Naughton, the stage manager. He’s been taken to St Thomas’s Hospital. He was caught by a collapsing wall. Also a couple of stage hands, walking wounded, cuts and bruises, not critical. That’s all. We were very lucky. The cast got out with a few scratches, bruises, all very shocked.’

‘What about your costumes and your beautiful sets?’

‘We’ve lost most of the sets. The costumes are still there, if we are ever allowed to go in to retrieve them. So where are you?’

‘Dorset,’ I said, reluctantly. ‘It was a family emergency.’

‘You could have told me. I’ve been nearly out of my mind.’

‘No, I couldn’t,’ I said. Mark was bright-eyed with curiosity. He loved this insight into adult stupidity. He started making weird faces, hoping to cheer me up, make me laugh. Nothing was a laughing matter and I moved him away, but not too far.

‘Have you got someone there?’ Joe was asking. Mark was grinning from ear to ear, waving his arms about, maniac-style.

‘Yes, I have someone here,’ I said, trying to hold on to normality. ‘But it’s not what you might think, so stop asking questions. This is all personal, private and nothing to do with the theatre.’

‘I want to know where you are and what you are doing,’ said Joe, suddenly all New York and arrogant. ‘I’ve been worried out of my mind, thinking you were in the collapsed part of the theatre. OK, you’re safe and I’m one hundred per cent glad, but where the hell are you?’

‘Swanage,’ Mark yelled. He started to spell it. ‘S … W—’

I couldn’t help it. I was trying to gag him with my hand but Mark was giggling and punching and rolling about on the sofa. Talk about two juvenile idiots. I was upset about the theatre and about Bill Naughton being in hospital, but this boy by my side was the most wonderful person and I loved him more than my own life.

‘I’ll come up to London, as soon as I can, to help with moving the costumes. Another couple of weeks should see this through,’ I said, trying to recover my status as firm mother. Mark was like a wriggling jellyfish.

‘See what through?’ Joe asked.

‘Me, see me through,’ Mark shouted again, thoroughly enjoying himself. He was in such good spirits, I couldn’t tell him off. I’d never seen him acting so ridiculous and childish and downright joyous. He’d grown up before his time and suddenly he had shed all those extra years in a few minutes of wild and wonderful idiot behaviour.

‘Do excuse us,’ I said. ‘I am trying to control a complete idiot. It’s time to put him back in the dungeon and turn on the thumb screws, or I won’t get a moment’s peace.’

‘What?’ Joe was completely bemused.

‘I’ll phone again, soon.’

‘And I’Il beat her again at gin rummy,’ Mark shrieked before I could throttle him. He was falling all over the place, laughing. I put the phone down.

‘That was very silly,’ I said. ‘I was trying to have a serious conversation. People have been hurt. The theatre is a very old
Victorian theatre and part of it has been badly damaged. Heaven knows when we’ll get any more money to repair it. I’ll probably be out of a job.’

Mark sobered up a bit. ‘Right. Sorry.’

‘Never mind. No one has died, thank goodness, but I’ll have to go and see Bill Naughton, the stage manager, the one who’s in hospital, and help Hilda move the costumes into storage. They are both old friends.’

‘I could come with you. I’ve never been to London.’

‘It’s not that easy,’ I said, juggling plans, all useless. ‘We’ve got Gran to think of. We can’t go rushing off to London, any old time, and leave her. But I should go sometime. They need me.’

‘I could stay overnight with a friend if you have to go,’ said Mark, tidying the tea tray and taking it into the kitchen. He’d gone back to being a grown-up. ‘You know, a sleep-over like in American movies. I could do that.’

‘Well, that’s a possibility,’ I began, hesitantly.

‘But you will come back, won’t you?’ he asked, a bit off-hand. ‘And not stay away for years and years.’

‘Of course, I’ll come back. I’m never going to stay away years and years.’

‘Promise?’

‘I promise.’ I bent towards him and caught a whiff of grape. ‘Hey, I can smell wine. I think you drank some of my red wine when I went to pay the bill. What a nerve.’

He grinned. ‘Didn’t like it much. Shall we play poker now? Before you put me in a dungeon. You said you were going to teach me.’

‘I don’t know that I want to play cards with a secret drinker,’ I said, getting out a pack.

It took a week for the demolition squad and builders to go in, shore the place up and announce it safe to start removing costumes and props. London seemed like a foreign city. I felt I had been away on a gap year, white-rafting the Amazon. It was so crowded and dirty, millions of busy sharp-suited ants swarming about counting bonuses. Someone was going to tread on me at any moment.

My mother was up and about but they wanted to keep her in a few days longer. It was not like a London hospital where they turf you out as soon as you could reach for your slippers.

‘Of course, you must go,’ she said, quite perky. ‘I’m perfectly all right here. I’ve got my needlework and I’ve made some friends. Just so long as Mark is being looked after.’

Mark was staying a couple of nights with a school friend and had gone off, packed up with clothes and tucker, in high holiday mood.

‘Promise?’ he reminded me as he waved goodbye. ‘Coming back pronto?’

‘I promise,’ I said.

I’d been to see Bill Naughton in St Thomas’s Hospital. He was flirting with all the nurses, and being visited on a regular basis by Millie. He’d broken a leg and an arm, which made him dependent on female help for almost everything.

‘Surrounded by feminine beauty,’ he said, waving me to a chair. ‘I must have died and gone to heaven.’

‘Don’t be too sure,’ I said. ‘That doctor looks as if he’s got a forked tail. You’d better beware of him.’

‘We thought you were buried under the debris. You gave us quite
a fright. Especially as it was your prompt corner that went down the plug hole.’

‘I’d hardly be prompting if it happened before a show,’ I said. No way was I going to go on feeling guilty. ‘I don’t have to rehearse being the prompt.’

‘And your fluffy jumper was there.’

I shook my head. ‘I don’ t know why you thought it was me in it. I remember that I’d left my mohair in Elinor’s dressing room and went home wearing my poncho.’ I didn’t mention that I’d slept on Elinor’s couch and then had breakfast with Joe. ‘Have they found out yet what caused the collapse?’

‘There’s going to be an enquiry, so that’ll take months, years even. You know what enquiries are like. Drag on and on.’

‘I’m sorry you got hurt.’

‘I’m a hero, really,’ he said casually. ‘I was throwing myself at the prompt corner in order to save you. I thought you were inside the fluffy jumper.’

‘Thank you, Sir Galahad.’

‘And I’ve found out something you’ve got to know about. Someone has got it in for you.’

‘Some people always have it in for me.’

‘She’s been up to some pretty dirty work. You won’t like it. The fragile Fran has been sharpening her nails on a grinder. Are you wearing police-issue body armour?’

I patted myself all over. ‘No.’

‘Well, you’d better get some.’

At least Bill’s sense of humour hadn’t been injured. Millie arrived with a puzzle book and a happy smile.

‘We’re working our way through this puzzle book,’ she said. ‘I’m trying to keep his brain alive.’

‘A worthy cause,’ I said, rising and leaving. They didn’t need me. It took me ten minutes to find my way out of the multistoried labyrinth. It’s a wonder I wasn’t X-rayed and wheeled on a trolley to geriatrics with a plastic label on my wrist.

I stood on the pavement outside the Royale Theatre, aghast at its derelict appearance. My heart spiralled down, its edges ripping. The builders had shored up every wall and there was only one
small entrance through the side stage door. It bore no resemblance to a theatre at all. Within a week the walls would be covered in boldly signed and sprawling graffiti.

‘Sophie. God, am I glad to see you. You’ve come back, then,’ said Joe, getting out of a taxi. He looked weary. There were lines on his face that I’d never seen before and the shadows said he hadn’t been getting much sleep. I wanted to touch him, console him. But I didn’t. ‘I’ve missed you. How long are you here for?’

‘A couple of days. My mother is still in hospital but doing very well. She’s bustling round the ward, organizing everyone. She’ll be allowed home soon.’

‘Where’s home?’

‘A very small, windy cottage on the top of a dramatic cliff,’ I said, ignoring what he wanted to know. ‘Do you need any help?’

‘Yes, all the help we can get. There’s a lot of stuff to move before it deteriorates. I’ve found a warehouse we can rent for a few weeks while we find a new theatre. The show must go on,’ he said, adding the cliché drily.

‘I’m really sorry,’ I said inadequately. ‘It’s quite awful.’

‘Do you think Fran could have done this?’ His voice was bitter. ‘Is she up to this degree of sabotage? I know her loyalties are suspect, but this would take the skill of a bomb expert.’

‘It’s probably an old tunnel that’s collapsed,’ I said. ‘There are hundreds criss-crossing under London. They excavated everywhere when they were building the underground, and sometimes abandoned ones that weren’t suitable. No one knows where half of them are. Huge water pipes come from the reservoirs, and gas and electricity cables are all buried under the ground. And dozens of rivers were diverted. The Fleet was one of them and the Tyburn and the Walbrook. There’s miles of water flowing down below that used to be up above.’

A smile flitted across Joe’s face. ‘You are so articulate, Sophie. That’s what I like about you. All this information stacked in your head.’

I still felt so guilty. My thoughts had predicted this catastrophe. Had I somehow caused it to happen? Was that possible?

He took my arm. ‘I’ll escort you inside in case you fall down a
hole and into a river. Can you swim?’

The interior was practically unrecognizable. We stepped carefully over the boards laid for us to walk on. The stage had been cordoned off, a voluminous dusty black area. My prompt corner was lost behind a boarded screen billowing with grey tarpaulin. Goodbye corner. No need to project now.

Joe took me downstairs to the basement which had been declared stable. Hilda and some stage crew, Alf and Bert, were packing costumes, boots, swords into coffin-like boxes. She threw me a weary smile. She’d been at it for hours.

‘Everything has to be brushed down before packing,’ she said. ‘Don’t want to take the dust with us.’

‘I’ll help,’ I said, taking off my anorak. This had to be done before these priceless costumes were ruined. Joe was looking at me in a weird way, as if I might disappear in a puff of smoke, pantomime genie style.

‘Will you still be here later?’ he said as if scared to hear my answer. He was echoing Mark.

‘I’m staying for two days,’ I repeated. ‘I’ll be back at my flat. You’ll know where to find me.’

‘I have to talk to you.’

‘OK. Any time.’

‘You’re speaking in your own voice. It sounds nice. You should use it more often.’

That threw me but I laughed. ‘I’d almost forgotten how.’

Hilda gave me the low-down as we worked together. Fortunately, not many people had been around, mostly stage crew getting the set ready for the performance. A few cast had arrived but not Elinor or Fran. Jessica had been at the stage door, signing autographs, always early. Getting into her part, she’d said.

‘There was this almighty groan and then a crash, like in the blitz or something, and dust flying everywhere. Everyone was coughing and choking. We didn’t know what had happened. No one could see anything and we were too scared to move. We thought it was an unexploded bomb, y’know, left over from the war.’

‘It might have been, quite possibly,’ I said, folding Jessica’s dress into mountains of tissue paper after brushing every inch. ‘They
don’t know anything yet, do they?’

‘There’s an enquiry and you know how long that’ll take.
Twelfth Night
will be
Fifteenth Night
by the time they decide anything. It’s Joe Harrison that I’m sorry for. Poor soul. He’s a lost soul without his play. Or whatever he’s lost.’

Hilda still had her sense of humour despite the extra work. I should imagine Joe was making sure she got paid for the extra hours and taxis home out of his own pocket. Management were not overgenerous with expenses. Profits before people was the rule they lived by. And now they had to get their lawyers on to complicated insurance claims.

‘You want to look out,’ said Hilda, hours later when I was flagging. ‘Fran’s got it in for you. She’s been spreading nasty stories about you and Mr Harrison. I mean, just because you have flats in the same building, doesn’t mean that anything’s going on, does it? I mean, that’s just jumping to conclusions, isn’t it?’

‘Nothing’s going on,’ I said wearily. ‘I wouldn’ t have the energy. My flat is two floors higher. In the roof, among the pigeons.’

‘She’s cooking up something. I’ve got that feeling.’

‘Probably laced with a toxic substance.’

‘Want a Jaffa cake?’ said Hilda, offering me the packet. ‘You can’t work on an empty stomach. I don’t suppose you’ve eaten.’

My evening call to Dorset was taken by a young man tripping over things to tell me. He was practically bounding down the phone.

‘So how is Superman this evening?’ I asked.

‘High altitude flying. Rescued a few screaming damsels in distress. Saved a couple of buildings from total destruction by aliens. The universe is next.’

‘Save the universe.’

‘How’s your precious Royale Theatre?’

‘It looks as if a bomb has hit it. Maybe it was an unexploded bomb from the Second World War. I’ve been dusting down and packing costumes all day.’

‘You are coming home, aren’t you? You said.’

‘Of course. One more day here, working, and then I’m coming home. I promised, didn’t I?’

‘Gran will be coming out of hospital soon.’

‘Good. I’ll give her a quick call before they put the lights out. We’ll be there to fetch her. Be nice to everyone, say polite pleases and thank yous. Miss you.’

‘You bet. They’ve got two hamsters here. Real cool.’

He rang off. I would have to teach him some new words. He had to be rescued from word starvation.

Hilda had been listening to my half of the stilted conversation. She looked at me enquiringly, trying to make out the age of whom I was phoning. I didn’t enlighten her. I wasn’t ready to share Mark with anyone.

I walked back to my flat, almost legless, but not a unit consumed. I was exhausted. Who says the theatre is glamour? It’s bloody hard work. Forget your name in lights. I climbed the stairs to my flat on autopilot, almost beyond the designated floors. Inside was a damp, chilly reception and a pile of junk mail someone had kindly brought up. No heating or fresh air for days. Go pile on the thermals.

There was some warmth from the electric fire. It said a mellow, dusty hello. I fell down in front of it, like a humble disciple of Buddha. My bones were dissolving with exhaustion.

I curled up on the rug like a dog, only I didn’t have a dog. If I lived in Dorset, we could have a dog, and a cat. I’d like a cat, a
knee-hugging
cat, all purrs and claws, like a breathing hot water bottle. Mark would like a cat and a dog, a hamster, anything that moved.

There was a knock on my door. I knew that knock. It was Joe so I opened the door without checking.

Joe was holding a big bag of groceries. ‘Long ago I promised you a meal,’ he said. ‘So here it is. Can I come in?’

‘Any bringer of gourmet food can come in,’ I said. ‘This is a food desert, Mother Hubbard land, the empty cupboard. The most I can offer is two packets of out-of-date crisps.’

‘Crisps and caviar? How does that strike you?’

‘The caviar sounds good.’

Joe tipped out his carrier bag like some contestant on
Ready, Steady Cook
. There was scampi, rice, peppers, caviar and a bar of dark chocolate.

‘So what are you going to do with that?’ I asked.

‘Watch me. I am trained,’ he said, taking off his jacket and going into the kitchen.

Now, I did have a bottle of red Merlot hidden away for emergencies and this was definitely an emergency. Joe had shed his coat and was rolling up his sleeves. But he was tired. I opened the caviar so it could breath, put out a dish of crisps.

He was cooking rice with peppers in the microwave, scampi in a pan of olive oil. I opened the wine and poured it into two of my best cut glass.

‘Do you know that Fran has sent a letter to the Press saying that you and I are having an affair which is apparently jeopardizing the success of
Twelfth Night
,’ he said, stirring. ‘How having an affair could create a hole that size, I fail to see.’

‘A dynamic affair perhaps? She’s an idiot. Nobody cares about affairs these days,’ I said, wishing it were true. I’d like an affair with Joe. Never mind the stairs. I’d crawl up or down them, to be with him, whichever way I had to go.

‘You don’t mind the gossip?’ He looked at me wonderingly. ‘People talking about us.’

‘I don’t care about people talking. Who’s interested? It’s only gossip for the tabloids. Twenty miles out of London and nobody reads it. I don’t mind what letters she writes. I’d be more concerned if she tried to get me the sack.’

There was a split second of softness between us but then it had gone.

‘That, too.’ Joe was heating dishes. I rushed about laying the table with my best as if royalty were coming. ‘She’s written a complaint to the management.’

That stunned me. I wanted my job. I loved it and I needed it. I had to keep young Mark in trainers and bicycle tyres. And there was no reason for a complaint. I had done nothing wrong. Quite the reverse, I had supported her poor performance all along the line, to the limit. She ought to be grateful I’d not thrown the book down and gone off in a huff.

Joe was dishing out scampi and rice on to plates. It smelt gorgeous because the scampi was fresh and he had thrown in some
herbs. My basil. We sat down at the dining table and faced each other.

‘Eat,’ he said. ‘Before we both fall down with exhaustion.’

We ate and talked. It was a lovely meal, wrapped in being together. I don’t know what he planned to cook with the bar of dark chocolate, but we ate it straight from the silver paper, on the sofa, watching late-night television. Don’t ask me what the programme was. Some flickering classic film resurrected from the archives.