by Lyn Gardner
Katie felt a pang that her name would never appear there. She looked at the clock. It was getting late, and she still had to go to the cashpoint and get out some money on her mother’s card so she could go to the supermarket on her way home. After that she would cook a supper that her mother would barely touch, and then she would have a pile of homework to do, and some lines to learn for acting class tomorrow.
She wished Mrs Gibbs would hurry up so that she could be signed out and go. She didn’t dare leave without Mrs Gibbs’ signature because otherwise Miss Hanbury would be on her case in a flash. She looked at the clock again and wondered how many buses she was missing. At least she could save some time by going to the machine a few doors up from the Swan and get that done while she waited for Mrs Gibbs to get back. She dumped her stuff by the desk, got her purse out of her pocket and went to the bank. The street was deserted. She put in her mum’s pin number, carefully protecting it with her hand, selected cash and twenty pounds. It was, bar a few pence, the last of the money in her mum’s account until Thursday, which was two days away. She knew it was going to be tough to make it last. It had turned colder, and the gas and electricity meters seemed to eat money like ravenous tigers. She needed to buy soap powder for her dance kit and washing-up liquid for the dishes too. There was almost no food in the flat.
She took her mum’s card out of the machine and tucked it away in her purse for safety while she waited for her cash. She sensed movement behind her as two crisp ten-pound notes appeared out of the slot. She went to take them from the machine before she was roughly pushed aside. A man grabbed the money, turned and ran, dropping one of the notes in his rush to escape. Katie screamed, but there was nobody around so no one heard her or came to help.
Her hand was shaking badly as she bent to retrieve the ten-pound note. The man could have hurt her. Her eyes misted with tears as she walked back to the Swan and she wiped them fiercely away. Her mind was in overdrive. Just ten pounds to last two whole days! How would they manage? She couldn’t bear to tell her mum. She was too fragile. She wished she knew if there was somebody you could ask if you ran out of money. She was sure Miss Swan would know. But she was worried that it would appear as if she was begging. As it was, Miss Swan had given her a scholarship so she could come to the school, and that even covered her uniform and practice clothes. She didn’t want to seem ungrateful. Besides, she didn’t want anyone at the Swan to know how desperate things were at home. The Swan was her haven, and she didn’t want that to change.
She walked back into reception. Mrs Gibbs was still not around. Katie swallowed hard. All luck seemed to be against her. She felt like one of those people in the old Greek myths she used to love so much who the gods had cursed and who experienced misfortune at every turn.
She knew her mum was relying on her but everything seemed to be set against her. Well, she thought fiercely, she wasn’t going to be beaten. She would just have to make her own luck. She moved in front of Mrs Gibbs’ computer and looked at the screen. The open email was still there. It felt as if it was teasing her. She listened hard. There was no sound of Mrs Gibbs’ approach. She leaned over the keyboard, moved the cursor higher up the long list of names that Mrs Gibbs had already typed and six names from the top she inserted the name Kate Carmichael, putting her mobile phone number next to it. She then moved the cursor down the list to where it had been hovering just under Georgia’s name.
Katie felt a rush of fear, and all her fury drained out of her. She was being an idiot, she knew, dicing with her own future. She’d never get away with it, and she was in danger of destroying all the trust that Miss Swan had put in her. She moved back towards the keyboard intending to delete the name, but at that moment she heard the distinctive sound of Mrs Gibbs’ high heels approaching.
Mrs Gibbs looked flustered when she saw Katie.
“I quite forgot that I was supposed to sign you out when you’d finished your detention. Miss Swan called me to her office and we got talking. I’m sorry, Katie. Off you go.” She looked at the clock. “I must just finish writing this email and get off myself, or I’ll miss my train.”
Katie gathered her things slowly. She felt the urge to shout “Stop” and confess what she’d done. But her mouth was dry and she felt shaky.
Mrs Gibbs’ fingers were flying over the keyboard. “There! All sent,” she said with a smile at Katie, and she began to shut down her computer. Katie walked down the steps of the Swan in a daze. She didn’t know whether to laugh or cry. She felt both exhilarated and appallingly guilty.
Chapter Eight
“Look!” said Olivia pointing at the stage. “A tightrope. It’s as if it’s there specially. Just waiting for us. Let’s go down.”
“Don’t be dumb, Olivia. We need to get out of here,” said Tom brusquely. But Olivia had already disappeared through the door into the gallery looking for a way down to the auditorium and the stage. Tom chased after her and as he did so, he felt as if someone had run a finger down his spine. He shivered and caught up with Olivia as she entered the auditorium. Her eyes had a slightly glassy look as if she was in a trance. Tom could feel his heart thumping inside his chest. He was sure they were being watched.
“Come on, Liv, let’s get out of here,” he whispered urgently, and took her hand. It felt fluttery in his, as if he was holding a small bird. But Olivia didn’t move. It was as if she was hypnotised. She was staring at the candle in the jam jar and the high-wire and the painted backdrop behind it of dark, mysterious woods with a distant turreted castle as if she was trying to work something out.
“It’s so odd,” she said wonderingly. “The rest of the building is crumbling away, but the theatre itself is still perfect as if somebody has been looking after it with real love. Look! The mirrors are polished. There’s not a speck of dust. The seats have been patched and mended. The stage is set and ready. I bet the stage machinery works too. It’s as if the entire place is stalled in time and is just waiting for an audience to appear and a performance to begin.”
“Well, I don’t want to be here when it does,” said Tom firmly, glancing nervously over his shoulder. “Come on, Liv. We shouldn’t be here. Whoever owns this place is going to be furious when they find us wandering around here without permission.” But Olivia had run up on to the stage and tested the wire with her hand before leaping on to it.
“Liv!” he hissed. “Liv! Come down. It might not be safe. This is definitely one of your stupider ideas.” She didn’t respond. Tom shivered again. He felt as if Olivia couldn’t hear him. She had a look on her face as if she was listening to someone or something far away. Tom sighed. The sooner she did what she wanted, the sooner they could get out of there. He climbed up on to the wire too. Tom wobbled a little, but Olivia moved with a fluent grace, almost dancing along the wire. Her pleasure in being in this beautiful space made her laugh out loud and her face was so radiant and her laughter so infectious that for a second it made Tom forget his fear and he laughed too. For a tiny fraction of a second he thought he could hear children giggling with them, but then it was gone. When Olivia met him in the middle of the tightrope, she flipped on to her hands and raised her legs for Tom to catch. As he did so, they were both suddenly caught in a spotlight. Tom gave a little screech, but held his balance as Olivia swiftly returned to an upright position.
“That’s it, Liv. I’m going. I don’t like this place. It’s definitely haunted.” Tom dropped awkwardly off the wire, eager to be away.
“All theatres are haunted, but some more than most,” said a quiet voice from the front of the gallery. “That’s why we keep the ghost-light burning. To let the ghosts know that we have not forgotten them and never will.” The children, blinded by the spotlight, stared upwards into the gallery but could see nothing. Olivia jumped off the wire and ran to Tom and clutched his hand. Tom was quite pleased to find it was clammy. For all Olivia’s bravado, he clearly wasn’t the only one who was scared.
“Arthur! Lights, please,” came the woman’s voice a
gain. The spotlight disappeared and a few seconds later the huge chandelier blazed into dazzling, brilliant light. The entire theatre blinked and sparkled. A second or two after that, an elderly woman appeared framed in a doorway at stage level and made her way slowly to the front of the stage. She had tears in her eyes.
“My babes in the wood have found their way home,” she whispered to herself. “Lizzie and Davey, have you forgiven me, my lovely girl and boy? Please tell me you forgive me. I never meant to hurt you. If only I could turn back the clock before it struck midnight.”
Olivia and Tom looked at each other. Was this old woman mad? Was she a ghost?
“Actually,” said Olivia very gently and trying to keep her voice from shaking, “we’re not Lizzie and Davey.” As she said it, she thought she heard the tinkle of children laughing, the sound of running feet and a girl calling, “Davey! Davey! You can’t catch me!”
“Did you hear that?” she asked Tom sharply.
“Hear what?” said Tom, eyeing Olivia anxiously.
The old woman’s eyes widened and she took a step towards them. She looked fragile, as if her bones were made of feathers and her skin of parchment. She was wearing an old-fashioned evening dress and a feathered diamanté cap. Suddenly her mood seemed to change, and not for the better. Her eyes clouded with suspicion and she pointed a bony finger at them that made Olivia think of a witch in a fairytale. Then she cried, “What are you doing here? Why have you come? Spies. Spies! Lock the doors, Arthur! Call the police! They’ve come to steal my inheritance. They’ve come to close us down! Trespassers and thieves … trust nobody … you only get hurt … lock your heart … keep love out…”
She was becoming more and more agitated. Olivia and Tom were really frightened. The old lady’s face drained of all colour and she looked as if she might be about to have a heart attack. There was the sound of feet on the stairs and a man a few years younger than the woman stumbled into the auditorium and put his arm around her shoulders protectively and rubbed them soothingly.
“Calm yourself, Ella. They are not spies. They’re just a couple of kids. They mean no harm.”
The woman peered at Olivia and Tom through misted eyes. Her anger disappeared as quickly as it had arrived. “You children are from the Swan theatre school, aren’t you?” They nodded. “I’ve sometimes seen you boys playing football in the alley. I like to watch you all playing.”
“I’m sorry, we’re trespassing,” apologised Tom. “We didn’t mean to. We thought the building was abandoned and empty. We only came in to retrieve my glider. It accidentally flew in one of the windows.”
Olivia still appeared to be in a daze. “It’s so beautiful,” she said suddenly. “It’s the most beautiful theatre I’ve ever seen. It’s magical. Is it yours?”
The woman beamed, delighted by Olivia’s pleasure in the theatre. She put out her hand graciously.
“Ella Campion,” she said, “of Campion’s Palace of Varieties,” and she gave a low curtsy. “And this is Arthur. Arthur Tuttons, the best stage manager in the business. There’s no one to touch him, not even up West in those fancy theatres and nightclubs.” She snorted disapprovingly.
The man nodded pleasantly at the children. “Don’t mind Ella. She can get a bit confused. Lives in the past a bit. Other times she’s sharp as a pin. But you’d never hurt a fly, would you, princess?” He gazed at her with such affection that his eyes shone. “What are your names?” he said, turning back to the children.
“I’m Olivia and this is Tom,” said Olivia. She took a step forward and almost knocked over the flickering nightlight.
“Mind the ghost-light,” said Arthur. “We don’t want the whole place going up in flames.”
“What exactly is a ghost-light?” asked Olivia curiously.
“It’s a light always kept lit in a theatre so that the ghosts can see to perform when the actors are not on stage,” said Ella.
“Is this theatre really haunted?” asked Tom nervously. Ella fixed her sharp eyes on him and there was something cloudy and sad lurking in their bottomless depths.
“All theatres are haunted, if only by the spectres of all the performances that happened there long ago. One performance is never like another; it’s an ephemeral thing. And it can never really be captured, even on film. You have to be there to really see it. No theatre is ever completely empty either. Its walls echo and whisper with lines from scripts delivered by long-dead actors, the cheers, applause and laughter of audiences no longer with us and the music played by orchestras who have fallen silent. It is always waiting, waiting to be full again and come back to life. In the meantime, we keep the ghost-light lit to welcome the ghosts so they won’t curse us and they can play and laugh on the unoccupied stage.”
The old lady seemed to slip into some reverie of her own. Olivia heard a sudden gurgle of children’s laughter. “Davey. Davey. You can’t catch me.”
Olivia whirled around. “What was that? Is there somebody else here? Some other children?”
Tom gave a nervous little laugh. “You must be hearing things, Liv.”
But Ella eyed Olivia very thoughtfully.
“You children look as if you need some tea. Will you join us?” She waved an arm. “There are trunks full of old costumes. Even a pantomime horse somewhere. You can take a good look. It would be nice to hear the sound of children within these walls again.”
Olivia’s eyes were shining. A pantomime horse costume! It felt as if fate had brought her and Tom to this strange, magical place. Tom clearly wanted to get away as soon as possible but Olivia said loudly and firmly, “Thank you, we’d love that. I just need to text my gran and tell her we won’t be back for a while.”
Chapter Nine
“Ella Campion? Surely not?” said Alicia, frowning. “She must be long dead.”
Olivia and Tom shook their heads. “She’s not. She’s very much alive,” said Olivia. “But she’s ancient. Maybe ninety or even a hundred. Do you know her?”
Alicia laughed. “I know I must seem very old to you, Livy, but I’m not quite that old. No, Ella Campion was in the business long before my time. Campion’s closed down before I was even born. I can’t remember the details, but I think that something bad happened. Some kind of tragedy. You should look it up on the Internet. I can remember my grandfather telling me about Campion’s when I was a girl. It was famous and Ella Campion was a legend. She was running Campion’s before she was twenty and that must have been during World War Two. She put on everything, from Shakespeare to variety and pantomime. Of course, Campion’s was originally a music hall back in Victorian times when her family first owned it. I think part of the draw in its latter days was that it had remained much as it was, almost untouched since the nineteenth century. But it must be over fifty years since it closed. After the war people didn’t want that old kind of entertainment. They wanted cocktail lounges and American crooners. There was a West End club my parents used to go to when I was a child. The Glass Slipper. It was considered the height of sophistication. I don’t think places like Campion’s could compete.”
“Campion’s Palace of Varieties,” said Olivia, rolling the words around her tongue with pleasure. “Ella said that in her grandfather’s day it was a bit like the circus. There were trapeze acts and high-wire walking as well as cancan dancing and even a performing horse. I’m not sure if she meant it was a real horse or not.”
“It might have been real. In the nineteenth century the old Hippodrome in Leicester Square had novelty acts like polar bears and tigers, and the Alhambra had real waterfalls on stage. My great-grandfather used to go there at the turn of the twentieth century. The toffs came over in their carriages from the West End. It was considered a bit naughty because you could see the chorus girls’ ankles, which was considered rather shocking in those days.
“To think Ella Campion’s still alive! How did you meet her, Livy? She’s a living piece of theatre history.”
Olivia shifted slightly uncomfortably and shot a warning
glance at Tom. She wasn’t sure her gran would be pleased to hear that she had been climbing into apparently derelict buildings. She thought maybe it might be better to sidestep the question.
“Oh, Tom and I just sort of bumped into her in Hangman’s Alley,” she said as casually as she could.
Alicia frowned again. “I wish you children wouldn’t hang around there. It’s so bleak and isolated with all those boarded-up old buildings, like a ghost town,” she said. “Still, it’s nice to think that old Ella is alive and well, even if Campion’s has long bitten the dust. It’s a pity the way all that old theatre history and buildings have been lost, swept away by new flats and office blocks. Such a shame.”
Olivia was about to interrupt her and explain that Campion’s Palace of Varieties was still there in all its glory, but then remembered she might have to explain about getting into the building in the first place. She decided to wait until they had been back to Campion’s to see Ella a few more times. Then perhaps they could take Alicia round as a surprise. She couldn’t wait to see her grandmother’s face when she saw the perfect theatre and the stage machinery. Ella and Arthur said it was all in complete working order even though it hadn’t been properly used for years.
Alicia was still talking. “We should invite her to the Swan. She could come to see the pantomime.”
“OK, we will,” said Tom. “I think she might like that. She knows about the Swan. But she doesn’t go out much. She looks as if a gust of wind might blow her away, and she seems to get a bit confused at times.”
Alicia opened her mouth to ask some more questions so Olivia quickly interrupted with one of her own. “Gran, do we have a ghost-light in the Swan theatre?”