Midsummer Madness (16 page)

Joe was slumped against me, almost asleep. Somehow I edged my way out from under his weight and put a cushion under his dark head. I took off his handmade shoes and stroked his black silk socks. Then I covered him up to his shoulders with the duvet from my bed.

So this was an affair? Joe on the sofa, as before, me curled up in my teddy bear pyjamas in bed, freezing. Fran didn’t know what she was talking about. She needed to wake up to the real world, and what the hell was my mohair doing in the rubble? I couldn’t remember moving it from Elinor’s dressing room.

It hadn’t got there on its own woolly legs.

Fran Powell pulled a surprise rabbit out of the hat. She appeared on the outback version of the television programme
I’m a Celebrity, Get Me Out of Here!
Her minuscule outfits were too weird for words. Scraps of torn itzy-glitzy material held together with Sellotape and Blu-tak. She was taking this jungle thing a bit too far. I didn’t know how such an air-head managed to get herself on to the show or knew she could have time off from
Twelfth Night
in advance. More little trip-ups?

It was all very suspect but no one could be bothered to work it out. Mark and I saw one hysterical episode where she was in a pit of snakes and rats and worms, in a tiny sequinned bikini, screaming her head off. Mark’s eyebrows went skywards. She never earned food for her team, always too selfish. She got voted off pretty soon, mainly because no one could stand the sight of her.

‘So she’s an actress?’ Mark asked like it was an alien race.

‘Sort of aspiring actress. Understudy for Viola. And lady in waiting, but she didn’t have any lines.’

‘What’s aspiring mean?’

‘Shortage of breath.’

But I heard Fran reappeared instantly at the management office of West Enders demanding that her role of understudy be upped to one matinée and one evening performance a week, on the strength of her new television celebrity status.

‘People will come to see the play because it’s me,’ she said confidently.

‘That’s absolutely outrageous,’ said Elinor, on the phone. ‘I’ve
never heard of such an arrangement. Sometimes it happens when a lead is new and untried and has eight performances a week. An understudy might take over matinées, to give the lead a break. But I’m fine now, and as soon as we move to a new theatre, I’ll be right on the ball. And I shall tell her so.’

A new theatre was in sight. A pretty dreadful play about a man living in a sewer had folded after two weeks of dwindling
stench-retching
audiences, and the management were only too pleased to house Joe Harrison’s flamboyant production of
Twelfth Night
. Special terms and all that. The theatre was plain, functional. I’d have a draught-proof concrete corner. Plenty of room in the wings.

Joe phoned me. I don’t know where he got the number from, somebody doing some clever redialling. My number was circulating like a round robin.

‘We’ll need you back soon,’ he said. ‘There’s going to be a very tight rehearsal schedule before we can reopen. Is your mother getting better?’

‘She’s home now and doing well,’ I said. ‘I’ll come back to London whenever you need me.’

I didn’t want to leave Mark. We were becoming good friends, good pals, often walking the cliff paths together (no adders in sight), cheering on at football matches, had the occasional fish and chip supper when Gran had gone to bed early. The wild sea thrift and gorse on the cliff top hide dozens of plants and flowers on our walks. I tried to remember their names from Botany, but Mark was more interested in their shape and colours. He would examine a petal as if it was under a microscope.

‘This looks like it should be growing under the sea,’ he said, absorbed.

‘Perhaps it was, once, millions of years ago.’

‘I don’t approve of this fried junk food,’ said my mother every day, her tongue no worse for the bits removed from her body. ‘All these E-additives. They are not good for you. Radicals or something.’

‘I don’t think chips have E-additives,’ I said. ‘These were
oven-cooked
.’

Mark kept a straight face. We had talked about food, junk
consumed in moderation. We had talked about almost everything under the sun. I no longer need to hot walk him like a frisky racehorse. But he never asked me about his father. And I wondered why. What had my mother told him? One day I would find out.

I knew this time together was coming to an end and I couldn’t bear it. London no longer held that special magic for me. The hurrying, unyielding crowds made me cringe. I wanted to be saturated in sunlight reflected from the white cliffs. Joe would go back to the States. I started to think about staying in Dorset, finding some job which would keep me nearer to my son while he was growing up. I’d already wasted too much time pursuing my
so-called
theatrical career.

Then a letter arrived from London from the management of West Enders. They were still using the old Royale Theatre stationery and envelopes.

I was stunned. Unshed tears grated like sand in my eyes. I could not believe that the management would act on the tittle-tattle of a posturing, one-dimensional, mediocre actress like Fran Powell, whose entire talent lay in being able to paint her toe nails without smudging them.

Numerous complaints? One complaint surely? Unless Fran had blackmailed half the cast into backing her up. It was disastrous money-wise. I needed a steady income to support Mark and my Mum. The London flat would have to go for a start.

Bill Naughton was out of hospital now, hobbling around on crutches, superintending the rebuilding of the set in the new theatre. He sat on Orsino’s ducal throne, which had been rescued from the rubble, directing the work.

‘So when are you coming back?’ he bawled down the phone, over the sound of hammering and drilling. ‘Rehearsals start next week. Opening night is Wednesday week. You’ll be here?’

He couldn’t hear my reply. ‘What? Can’t hear you. You’ve got a sack, the rack, a bad back?’

‘I’ve been sacked, dismissed, given notice,’ I repeated. ‘I’m not coming back. Lots of the cast complained about my prompting, apparently, not only Fran. I’ve got a letter, giving me a month’s notice in reverse.’

‘Bloody nonsense, I don’t believe it,’ he snarled. ‘This smells worse than the play they’ve just taken off. I’ll find out about it. Does Joe Harrison know?’

‘Don’t know. I haven’t told him. He’s got enough to worry about. He’ll soon find someone else. Prompts are ten a penny. We are not exactly a dying breed.’

‘But you’re worth a solid gold antique sovereign to him and he knows that. He won’t let you go. Mark my words.’

I cheered up momentarily, though I wasn’t sure about the choice of antique. ‘Thanks, Bill. At least I know you didn’t complain about me. I must go now. I’ve promised to help a local school with their musical version of
The Lion, the Witch and the Wardrobe
.’ I nearly said my son’s school, but stopped myself in time.

‘My only complaint is that you never let me get anywhere near you,’ he growled. The phone was sizzling with rampaging hormones.

I spent the afternoon at Mark’s school, trying to sort out a state of chaos, noisy children milling about everywhere, a harassed drama teacher realizing she had taken on more than she could masticate.

Miss Ferguson pounced on me as if I was Andrew Lloyd Webber in drag. ‘Could you hear these children’s words? They don’t seem to understand they are being animals or how to act like animals. And then the Ice Queen? She’s saying her lines as if she’s umpiring
a netball match. I’ll take the chorus through their songs.’

It was quite fun once you got their attention. The children tended to think drama classes were an extension of playtime and it would be all right on the night without having to learn words or know where they came on.

But once I got them acting like squirrels and moles and beavers, they had a whale of a time and the Ice Queen began chipping her words with an ice axe. She was going to make a terrific queen. Mark had a small chorus part but he wasn’t rehearsing with me. He was with Miss Ferguson.

Mark and I cycled home together. I was tired, but happily tired. For a whole afternoon I had not thought about the letter and the problems it brought.

‘Miss Ferguson said you were bloody good,’ said Mark, cycling ahead of me.

‘Don’t say bloody, say very,’ I gasped, going uphill slowly. No gears.

‘Very bloody good,’ he grinned back. ‘She said you could be a drama coach.’

I must talk to him about his language. I didn’t know where he got it from.

It was easier to walk up the last stretch of the lane. My mother was watching television with a tray of tea at her side. She was taking her convalescence seriously. No lifting for six weeks, they said. She could manage to lift a teapot.

‘Some one called Harrison Ford phoned for you,’ she said, not looking away from the screen. It was one of her favourite soaps, new life-threatening situation every five minutes. She lived every moment. Perhaps this was how I got my love of the theatre. I was living my mother’s ambition for her.

‘You mean Joe Harrison?’ Harrison Ford, I could wish. I would walk water for that craggy man.

‘He sounded like Harrison Ford. A very nice man. He said he’d call back.’

‘Did you say where I was?’

‘I said you were helping out with a school play.’

Helping out. It was Sophie do this, Sophie do that, all over again.
I was on the hamster run. A school play was a way to strangle parents with their own umbilical chords. They had to attend, with cameras and videos.

‘I’ve spoken to this man, Joe Harrison,’ said Mark, spreading bread and making mashed tuna sandwiches. Lots of Omega 3. ‘Is he your boss?’

‘He’s the director. He’s famous in New York and came over to guest our production. When did you talk to him?’ This was alarming. I knew nothing about this call. My fragile deception was beginning to unravel. It frightened me.

‘Dunno. You were out somewhere. Yeah, that was it, you were bringing Gran home in a taxi from the hospital. He wanted to know who I was.’

My heart thudded to a stop. What had Mark said? I didn’t dare think. ‘And what did you say?’ I asked, nonchalantly washing and shredding three kinds of lettuce with studied indifference.

‘I told him I was the lodger, occasional handyman, TV repair man, general fixer.’

‘What a nerve,’ I said with a wave of relief and laughter, chopping tomatoes. ‘What fixer? You couldn’t fix a leaking duck in a bath.’

‘I fixed your watch when it needed a new cell battery. Remember?’

‘So you did. And brilliantly, at that. It’s still working.’

It was all I could manage at a stagger for supper, tuna sandwiches and salad. The school rehearsal had drained all my energy. No wonder teachers have nervous breakdowns. Those children needed chains and padlocks and that was only to take the register.

During the evening, Joe phoned again. This was getting a habit. I took the call in the kitchen, propping myself against a worktop for stability. He was furious.

‘Have you seen this damned letter?’ he demanded. ‘Half the cast signed it apparently. They said you were no good, that you let them down, that you gave them the wrong prompts.’

I could barely speak. Tears came into my eyes and I wiped them away with a tea cloth. What had I said, had I done, to make them
hate me enough to get rid of me?

‘I don’t know why,’ I wept quietly. ‘I don’t understand any of this. I’ve always done my best for everyone. They could lean on me. Sometimes I’ve propped someone up for a whole show, when it was a bad night.’

‘I’ve told them that if you go, I’ll go. Straight back to the States and to hell with their contract. You are essential. Management were pretty taken aback, made snide remarks about the gossip going around about you and me. Prove it, you bastards, I said. Two separate flats in the same building does not an affair make.’

‘No, it doesn’t, does it?’ I said feebly.

‘So they have withdrawn your notice, temporarily. So please come back, Sophie. We need you. I need you.’ His voice dropped. ‘Can you come on Friday? That’ll give you another couple of days with your mother. But then, I need you, we need you. Can you do that?’

‘Friday? All right. I’ll be back then. T-thank you for talking to the management. It was very upsetting, getting that letter. I actually need my job. I have several commitments. Expensive commitments.’

I could hear Joe thinking. ‘Is that why you have a lodger?’ he asked.

The lodger had at that moment crept into the kitchen to search for chocolate ice cream in the freezer. I grabbed at his jersey and pulled him against me. He squirmed and wriggled, grinning.

‘The lodger is eating me out of house and home,’ I said. ‘He thinks he owns the place. And he is costing me a fortune. He beats me at gin rummy every evening. I should have taken up references.’

‘I don’t understand a word you are saying,’ said Joe, distantly. ‘The line is breaking up. Shall we see you Friday?’

‘See you Friday.’

I put the phone down. Mark prised the lid off the ice cream carton and got out dishes for all of us. He was looking pleased with himself, grin like a split melon.

‘Was that the boss?’ he asked.

‘The boss.’

‘Cool, man.’

I threw the tea cloth at him. ‘Learn some new words, buster,’ I said. ‘Start reading Shakespeare.’

It was a new theatre, all chromium and stressed concrete and steel scaffolding, nothing like the elaborate Victorian Royale. As I walked in, I wondered how we were going to go evoke the sunlit court of Illyria, more or less Italian, on the east coast of the Adriatic, in this frozen, sterile wasteland.

Perhaps we could use the vague vacuum to somehow capture the essence of Shakespeare. He hadn’t meant a play to be tied down to a vicinity or a place. He’d been a wandering actor, a minstrel strolling from town to town, performing anywhere.

I was shattered by the thought of his convoluted words being spoken in this place. It was so alien. He’d be tearing at his brown beard. (Or was it red?) It would be a marathon for the cast. Joe had an Everest to climb. He had to pull everyone up by their crampons.

I found my space, my colourless corner, tried to curl up in it on a grey plastic chair. Tested the light, turned it for the best beam on to the script. There was no draught but I was still cold. My metabolism was hitting zero. I wanted my son. Still, I would be phoning him this evening. We’d made a pact. I would talk to him first, then my mother and not wait to phone till he’d gone to bed.

‘I want to know everything that’s going on,’ he’d said, very bossy.

‘You’re being nosey, you mean.’

‘Champagne,’ said Joe, his face lighting up as if I was an unexpected rainbow in the sky. ‘Welcome back.’ He was pouring
me a glass of Brut champagne, not in a fancy flute but a plain dressing room tumbler. ‘We’ve missed you, Sophie. Haven’t seen you for weeks. Seems like years.’

He peered down into my face and the bubbles tickled my nose. ‘Hello? Anybody in there?’

‘This is the wrong theatre for Shakespeare. It has no ambiance,’ I said, struggling down to earth. ‘What are you going to do?’

‘Then we’ll have to make it right. Hello?’

‘Hello you, too,’ I said, soaring again somewhere into the ether. I was flying high. Wonderful him. It had to be him. I wanted to touch him, draw his face close. There was no way any of those things could happen. I took the tumbler but if I drank all of it, my prompting would go down the drain or up the flute.

‘Drink it,’ he said, his granite eyes twinkling. ‘You’ll be all right. Nothing is going to start until everyone is here. They are stranded on the Central Line. Signal failure somewhere. Sophie, you look so well and a bit tanned. Not stressed out any more. Dorset must agree with you.’

I nodded. ‘It does. Such pure and wonderful air. Spectacular scenery, the dramatic cliffs, the sea, the Purbeck hills in the distance. There’s space and time. I stand outside the cottage and drink in the fragrance of the sea.’

‘Sounds idyllic. A cottage? With wonderful lodger?’

‘Him too.’ I wasn’t saying anything but already I was smiling and it wasn’t only the champagne. Joe noticed the smile.

‘He sounded very young. A student?’

‘You could say that. Yes, he’s young but also grown up, quite mature.’

Joe hunkered down beside me. His face was older, more lined but so dear to me. And he didn’t know it. He was grinning, a grin I now recognized with a clenching of my heart. I saw his face every day when I was with Mark.

‘I’m glad you have found some happiness,’ he said. ‘But don’t leave me out completely, Sophie. Lodgers grow up and move on.’

‘I know that,’ I said, nodding. I wondered if I dare touch his face. He was so close to me. Then the moment had gone and my thoughts were running away. He stood up as members of the cast
arrived, talking, calling out to each other, waving to me. We parted like the Red Sea, moved on separately. It was back to work.

Fran was struck dumb when she saw me. Her scarlet-painted mouth pinched into a tight, strangled line. She strolled over, sucking in her flat stomach. ‘I thought they had sacked you. Got rid of you.’

‘No, apparently not,’ I said with a secret smile which I knew would annoy her. ‘I’m here, as you can see.’

‘But they said they were going to sack you.’

‘Clerical error. Never believe what you hear,’ I said. ‘Take your place, Fran. You’ll miss your first entrance.’

His words soothed my heart, running on a lodge and a loop. Shakespeare knew how to do it. It was as if he had a vision that one day centuries ahead when he was long gone and dead, a prompt would be clinging to her job, hanging on to his words for dear life. I almost felt him beside me, peering over my shoulder. I could smell cinnamon and spices and old ale. A feather brushed my face. Or I thought it was a feather.

‘Cut,’ Joe shouted over his mike, about an hour later. ‘Take five everyone. That was awful. Go look at your lines.’

He came over to me. He looked weary. ‘Except you, Sophie. Faultless rendition, as always. Your voice is perfect for every part. You could do a one-woman show.’

‘No, thank you,’ I said. ‘I wouldn’t want the hassle.’

‘Supper tonight with me? I want to hear about Dorset.’

‘No time. You know we’ll be here till three in the morning. That arrogant Yankee director will want everything perfect.’

He turned away but he was amused. I could tell from his shoulders. I amused him. Those shoulders, broad and muscular, taking on the burden of this make-believe world. But he had not been there when I needed him.

‘How could they possibly sack you?’ said Elinor, sipping warm water for her throat. ‘I never signed any such letter.’

‘Neither did I,’ said Jessica. ‘Where are all these people who are supposed to have complained? Byron says he never saw any letter. I can only think it’s a few ladies in waiting and courtiers miffed
because they don’t have any lines at all.’

‘Never mind,’ I said. ‘It’s all over for the moment anyway. I’ve got my job till the end of this show.’

‘It can’t run forever,’ said Elinor, being practical. ‘I have the Greek’s wife at Stratford next.
Comedy of Errors
, remember?’

‘And I’m due to start filming in Italy next month,’ said Jessica. We looked at her enquiringly. This was the first we’d heard of a film in the offing. ‘It’s only a small part,’ she said quickly. ‘Suddenly came up. But it’s a start.’

‘Fran will be after both of your parts if you have to leave before it closes,’ I said. ‘Though she could hardly play both at once. She might try. Nothing is beyond her ability to save the day.’

‘She hasn’t got the presence for Olivia. The role needs a touch of blue blood. She’s so picky thin. Her blood must be part distilled water,’ said Jessica.

‘She needs more than a touch of acting,’ said Elinor, going back on stage. ‘And a touch of humility.’ The five minutes were up. Joe was walking round the back of the stalls, thumping the back of the seats.

‘The acoustics are different,’ he said. ‘The Royale soaked up the voice, all that upholstery and drapes. Here, the words bounce off the bare walls. You need to think carefully about your delivery.’

‘I have enough trouble remembering the words without having to think about delivery as well,’ grumbled Byron, waiting to go on. He closed his eyes in desperation. ‘The stage is so big, like a football stadium.’

Fran swept passed me, knocking the script out of my hand with her bunched-up skirts. ‘Don’t think you’ll get away with this,’ she hissed.

‘Late again, Fran,’ I said mildly. ‘Go shoot yourself in the foot.’

‘You worry about your own ridiculous little job and I’ll take care of mine,’ she snarled.

‘Rearrange the face then,’ I said. ‘You’re supposed to look lovely and serene in this scene.’

She shot me a look of pure venom. Straight through the heart, if looks could kill. I glanced down at my front. No blood flowing from a deep knife wound.

‘Smile,’ shouted Joe on the mike. He’d seen her glaring. Fran composed a false smile and went to stand by Olivia. But she was seething. Everyone could see it. The air was taut and it wasn’t with Shakespeare’s plotting.

‘Watch your back,’ said Millie, from behind me. ‘You are in one big trouble with that young minx.’

‘I can take care of myself,’ I said, keeping my eye on the lines. But I wasn’t that sure.

‘That I’ll believe when the cows come home,’ Millie said. ‘They say there was a letter signed by everyone,’ she went on. How does every nuance of gossip spread so fast in a theatre, like it was printed in the programme? Was nothing confidential? ‘I don’t believe a word. I certainly didn’t sign it.’

‘Thanks,’ I whispered, with a smile, hoping she’d take the hint and go away. I couldn’t prompt and chat at the same time.

They were rusty. Joe had to sharpen up the entire production. Some of the sets and moves didn’t fit the new stage. Bill was hopping about like a demented kangaroo as Joe redesigned the set to fill in the gaps. I could hear his caustic comments more clearly than some of cast.

‘Quiet in the wings,’ Joe yelled. I didn’t envy him. He had so much to do in so few days. The rain in the shipwreck scene would only work in a confined area.

But I was falling into the rhythm. This was where I belonged. Even if this was my last show, and it could be my last show. My last ever. If I never worked again, I’d had that one night of pure glory when I played Viola. Now I wanted a lifetime ahead of me with Mark. He was all that mattered. That young, tousle-haired youngster who was the spitting image of his father: face, voice, expressions, with an uncanny ability to draw, to see colours and shapes.

‘Line.’

‘Let thy fair wisdom,’ I said. It was not like Olivia to go astray in mid speech. Something had thrown her. What was it? I tried to snatch a glance at her face but it was as glacial as usual. Then I spotted Fran in the wings, mirroring Olivia’s actions, exaggerating her icy movements.

It was the delayed-timing trick which works on stage, but not in the wings.

The rehearsal was nearly over. We were all shredded, on our knees. I knew Joe was going to take us to pieces. Even me, perhaps. He could say what he liked. I wouldn’t mind. I have a broad back. Well, not that broad.

He gathered us around, his face like granite, edged with despair. I stayed on the fringe, out of sight, where I should be as I was not remotely cast.

‘I don’t have to tell you. You know it. There is a lot of work to be done if we are to reopen on Wednesday. Well done, some of you. You still know your words, your moves. Full marks to those who adapted their moves. What have the rest of you been doing? Selling
The Big Issue
? Drinking? Going to lots of parties?’

There was a stunned, guilty silence. I knew that a couple of the courtiers had picked up some work as film-extras. On set by 6 a.m. I didn’t envy them. All that hanging around, just before dawn, for a ballroom scene or a battlefield.

‘So extra rehearsal this evening and no one goes home until we are back to the level of the Royale. I don’t care if we are here till the small hours. It’s your responsibility. One hour’s break, then back here, with your heads strapped on.’ He slapped his book shut. He was a man on the brink of bolting.

Then he called Fran over for a private word. He had spotted her cavorting in the wings. I couldn’t hear what he said to her, but her face contorted with fury and she flounced off, making a tearful retreat. Maybe she wouldn’t come back.

I went out into the gloomy, cloud-ridden street, searching for some bright light, somewhere to eat, some café that exuded warmth. Where I could sit and forget about the awful rehearsal.

It was a grubby little café, neon lights, formica topped tables and plastic orange chairs. I hated every inch of it but it sold plain food at reasonable prices. I could only afford reasonable. And I needed solid.

It was a plate of penne pasta. No café could go wrong cooking pasta, or could they? The cheese was non-existent. Two shreds of stale cheddar melted in an instant. I went up to the counter and helped myself to two postage stamp-sized wrapped portions of butter.

‘Hey, you can’t do that. You didn’t order a roll.’

‘Charge me,’ I said.

I put the butter on top of the pasta, added salt and pepper, stirred it around, tried to bring some taste to life. I was stirring my life. Across the way was a park. Some children played with a ball, shouting with laughter, done up in bright anoraks and scarves, not caring about the cold.

Joe sat down, opposite me. He’d jumped the queue at the counter. The rich are bad at queueing. He looked so much older, worried, weary with the world. His luxurious New York home was a long way away. All that glitter and gloss waiting for him, to wrap him in comfort. Perhaps he was homesick.

‘So,’ he said, surveying my dish. ‘Pasta à la nothing. What sort of meal is that? No cheese, no chives, no prawns, no sauce, no sort of taste to bring it alive. Pasta is dead stuff, you know. Dead wheat.’

‘This is only a cheap street café. They haven’t any skill beyond putting it on a plate. Pasta is a filling dish.’

‘Is that what you want of life? A filler?’

‘Of course, it isn’t. But that’s all there is time for now. Remember? Back in an hour. The director spoke. Humbler folk hurried away to eat.’

‘The director needs some instant food, too.’

Joe had a fork. He’d picked it up from an empty table. He leaned towards me, his face an image from long ago. Those eyes were still the same. He might be worth several million dollars in the bank and real estate, but at this moment, all he wanted was some of my late, rapidly cooling lunch.

‘We could share, dear,’ I offered with a touch of Katherine Hepburn in
The African Queen
. I often wondered what they ate on that perilous trip down the river. There was no sign of food, only endless tin mugs of strong tea.

Joe got up and pilfered a plastic shaker of parmesan from behind the counter. The cheese flew like shards of chalk over the pasta, shreds of stringent taste that added a touch of Italy to West London.

‘Was this lunch my idea?’ he asked, forking.

‘No, this lunch is my idea,’ I said.