by Pamela Brown
Maddy nodded and went inside. It seemed empty until she saw a little grey, elderly man, who was so much the colour of most of the stock that he seemed to merge into the junk piled in the corners.
“Well, my dear,” he asked in a crackly voice.
Maddy put her hands behind her back and said, “Do you like concerts, Mr. Smallgood and Whittlecock?”
“Er – yes – yes.” Mr. Smallgood and Whittlecock seemed surprised.
“Very much?”
“It all depends who is giving the concert,” he hedged.
“I am.” Maddy waited for him to say something.
“I’m sure it will be a nice one,” the little man said at length.
Was this child mentally deficient or was he?
“Would you like to come?
“Very much, I’m sure.”
“How much?”
The antique seller was stumped. Never a man of many words, his vocabulary did not run to such fine points as this.
“Enough to lend me that spinning-wheel?” questioned Maddy eagerly, her end in view.
Anything to get rid of this peculiar child, thought her victim.
“Yes, yes, certainly, for as long as you like.”
“Oh, thank you, dear Mr. Smallgood and Whittlecock.”
Maddy thrust the programme into his hand, picked up the cumbersome spinning-wheel, and staggered off towards the theatre. He wiped his brow.
On Tuesday of the next week the girls broke up. Vicky, Lyn, and Sandra sat next to each other on wooden chairs in the suffocatingly hot assembly hall, while the headmistress read out tedious lists of order marks, untidy marks, and exam results. A few rows in front of them sat Maddy, a vacant stare on her face. She was mentally going through her tap dance. Tonight it was the dress rehearsal, and she must not make a mistake. Last time she had done it well, and Nigel had said, “We’ll have our Maddy a dancing-star yet.”
“… And the essay prize goes to Madelaine Fayne in the Junior School,” said Miss Maclowrie.
“Tap – shuffle – hop – turn,” Maddy was thinking.
“The subject was a description of scenery typical of some country. Madelaine chose Spain, and her essay, although untidy, was the most interesting one received.”
“Stamp right – stamp left – shout,” muttered Maddy.
Her next door neighbour poked her.
“Go on, Maddy,” she whispered.
Maddy awoke from her tap dance with a start and gazed wildly round her. Go where? Then she saw Miss Maclowrie smiling down at her and holding out a book. She got up, pink with confusion, and received the prize. It was a book on Peoples and Homes of Many Lands. She sat down, still wondering how she got it, and looked on the fly leaf. In her headmistress’s neat script was written, “Madelaine Fayne. Prize for Essay on ‘A Typical Scene in Spain’.” Then she remembered how she had dashed it off one night before rehearsal, just by describing the scene of Spanish Inn. “What a bit of luck,” she thought. “If only my luck will hold.” And it did.
The dress rehearsal that night was, as Sandra said, “Too good to be true,” and Maddy’s dance was the star turn. The little staccato tune just suited her personality, and tonight her steps were neater and more carefully executed. To make contrast with the other dances it did not speed up towards the end, but slowed down and became firm and measured. There was a long wait before the last beat, and Maddy was supposed to stand on one leg with the other held in the air at the side, and at the final chord, which was heavy and crashing, to bring it down with a stamp. Usually she giggled, and could not balance enough, but tonight she held it, beaming wickedly at her non-existent audience, and finished with a stamp and a flourish of her broad, black hat. The rest of the rehearsal went as splendidly as Spanish Inn. Lyn managed real tears when she broke her engagement with Jeremy, and Nigel’s moustache did not come off. Vicky’s dance was not as good as usual, as she had practiced so hard before coming out that she twisted her ankle, and it still hurt. Sandra told her she must not dance another single step until Thursday night.
It was nearly ten when they left the theatre, and they were so tired that they left their make-up on. They walked home through the dark streets, arm in arm and in an uplifted mood. The stars were out, and there was a shaving of a moon. Lyn gazed up into the sky.
“Please God,” she prayed, “make me an actress!”
8
APPLAUSE
The day after the dress rehearsal was nerve-racking. There were several little jobs to be done at the theatre, but not enough to keep them busy, consequently they were round there all day, fidgeting and getting bad attacks of nerves. Sandra developed a sore throat, mostly brought on by worry, and Vicky’s ankle got steadily worse. Maddy made herself a nuisance, and Jeremy, who had nothing to do, teased her and made her lose her temper.
When they left the theatre in the evening there was not a single job waiting to be done the next day. Everywhere was dusted and swept, the chairs were set out, blue hassocks neatly placed on back rows to add extra height to the seats, and all the clothes re-ironed and hung in the neat dressing-room. The table, which was half on one side of the curtain and half on the other, was laid out with mirrors, cosmetics, and brushes and combs. Sandra had sensibly collected as many of these as possible, knowing that in the rush many would get lost. Nigel had pinned up all the backcloths on top of each other. The Spanish Inn was on top; then the window, showing a view of roof-tops for Madame Popoffski; then the arbour, then the French windows; then the cottage fireplace for Red as the Rose. In this way scene-shifter Bulldog had only to take out several drawing-pins each time to change the backcloth.
Pinned on the dressing-room door was a list of furniture for each scene, and the kind of floor covering to be used. For Spanish Inn they had green baize to represent grass, but this was only at the back of the stage, to allow enough bare boards for dancing. This baize was removed for the dancing-class sketch, but laid down again for the arbour. The same rug did for Sir William Whitney’s mansion as for the Dutch cottage. In the dressing-room Sandra had procured bowls for each person, so that make-up could be removed easily, and everyone had a jar of cold cream to help with their ablutions.
No detail had been forgotten, so that when they woke on Thursday morning they had the whole day before them with nothing to do. Nigel rounded them up at about eleven o’clock and said, “Put on something decent and we’ll go into town and have something to celebrate with, at the milk bar.”
A lot of people in Fenchester turned that morning to take a second look at the little group of boys and girls strolling down the High Street. They looked so neat and cool and tidy, the boys in well-pressed flannels and their school blazers, the girls in gay cotton frocks and boleros. Those who knew them thought, “So they’ve stopped rushing about in peculiar clothes, looking busy, and are ‘men and women about town’ again.” But, although their outward appearance was cool, they were in a ferment inwardly, each one feeling his or her own particular brand of excitement. In the milk bar they sat on high stools and drank pink milk shakes in tall glasses. Nigel proposed the toast.
“To us, the Blue Door Theatre Company; may we make a name for ourselves and never lose it.” Solemnly they clinked glasses, to the amusement of the servers. Out in the sunshine again they made their usual round – Woolworth’s, Marks and Spencer’s, the public library, the park, and the market.
At dinner Mrs. Fayne said firmly, “Now, this afternoon, Maddy is going to rest.” Maddy said, equally firmly, “No. Please, Mummy, I must go out with the others.”
“You’re staying in this house on your bed.”
Maddy turned down the corners of her mouth preparatory to crying, but Sandra put in, “We’re all going to rest, Mummy, but not indoors; in the fields.”
“That’s very silly of you. It’s much hotter up there.”
“But we’re going under the tree on top.”
Mrs. Fayne shrugged her shoulders. “If Maddy is too tired to act tonight don’t blame me.�
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All afternoon they lay on their backs staring up at the tree and the sky, playing lazy, futile games of their own invention. There was “Colours”. Someone said a colour and the first person to see it in their surroundings and shout “Seen” said the next colour.
“This is too much strain on my mentality,” murmured Jeremy, blinking his eyes in the dappled sunlight, that fell between the leaves. Next they played “Relations.” Someone said, for instance, “Who is So-and-so’s aunt’s mother’s son-in-law’s daughter,” making as long a string as possible, and the person who arrived at the right conclusion asked the next question.
About half-past three they began to get restless and giggly, and Maddy started fighting with Jeremy, so they retired to different corners of the field to get some real rest. Maddy fell asleep, Bulldog chewed grass stems and wondered whether his song would be all right. Vicky massaged her ankle, Lyn had a long and intimate talk with herself, and came to the conclusion that the rest of her life depended on whether she did well in the evening. Sandra dozed and tried to think of a new way to keep Nigel’s moustache on. Jeremy had a most awful fit of nerves; he gritted his teeth, clenched his hands, and turned hot and cold all over. Nigel was the only one who could, and did, turn off his thoughts and drift in a relaxed state of a coma without sleeping. At half-past four they went home, and Nigel ordered everyone to eat enough tea to keep them from feeling faint during the evening.
On the walk to the theatre they discussed how they felt. Maddy said she felt just ordinary, but this was only bravado, for she was shivering violently, though the evening was anything but cold. Lyn said she felt excited and “wound up inside”. To herself she was pretending that it was her first “first night” on a West End stage. Sandra, when asked, could only reply, “I feel worried,” and did not disclose her physical feelings. The boys said they felt “a bit het up”, and judging from the pinkness of Bulldog’s complexion he suffered most.
Outside the theatre they looked up at the sign.
“Tons of people will be seeing this for the first time tonight,” remarked Sandra. “I wonder what they’ll say?”
Their footsteps echoed as they walked up the side of the hall, that had an expectant, waiting look, with the chairs facing the drawn curtains. They went into the dressing-room, neat and tidy at the moment.
“How different it will look at ten o’clock tonight,” said Lyn.
“But not too different,” warned Sandra, “or you’ll hear about it. Now start getting dressed, and this is the only time you’ll be able to dawdle tonight.”
They got themselves into their Spanish clothes and Sandra made them up. Maddy screwed up her face.
“It feels all stiff and cracky,” she grumbled.
“You look sweet. Now go and sit quietly somewhere.”
Maddy found a chair and sat down on it. Her stomach seemed to be making violent efforts to escape. When Bulldog was ready he went out on to the stage and tested the curtains, then arranged the properties – low benches and a barrel supposed to contain wine. Jeremy, white underneath his tan make-up, came across to the piano, which stood on the opposite side of the stage covered by the curtains, and arranged his music and tuned his violin. The familiar feel of it under his chin restored his confidence. Lyn was gazing at her face in the mirror with a haunted look in her eyes; she now knew what stage fright was. Sandra, her hands clasped under her chin, was pacing up and down like a caged lion. Although none of the audience had arrived they spoke in whispers.
There was a knock on the back door, which was in the corner by the piano. It was Mr. Fayne, stoutish and jovial, and Mr. Darwin, an elder edition of Jeremy, who had been roped in as “sidesmen.” Bulldog explained the lights to them.
“Now, when I give the signal, a rattle of the tambourine, one of you switch off the hall lights, which are at the back by the main door, and when I give it again switch on the stage light. The switch is on the other side of the door all by itself. When the curtains are drawn to, you put on the auditorium lights and the stage one off.”
“And what about the boxes and the circle and the gallery?” asked Mr. Fayne facetiously, trying to break the nervous tension in the air.
They laughed longer and louder than the joke deserved, but felt better for it.
Through the blue door waddled little old Miss Jones, always a first-comer wherever she went. She planted herself on the middle chair of the front row.
“Go and tell her gently but firmly that the front row is reserved for parents and Mr. and Mrs. Bell,” Jeremy told the stewards.
Miss Jones moved into the second row, and a few more of the audience began to trickle in. They sat down and started to talk in subdued voices, unaware of the seven pairs of eyes that peered through gaps in the curtains at them. At a quarter to seven the hall began to be quite full of people studying the white programmes in their hands and looking at their wrist watches. At ten to seven Mr. and Mrs. Bell arrived, and with them a tall, thin, clerical figure in gaiters.
“Who is it?” hissed Maddy to Nigel, who occupied the gap next to her.
Nigel’s eyes were goggling.
“It’s the bishop; the Bishop of Fenchester. Come into the dressing-room!” He pulled them away from the curtains. “Listen, we must do it well, the bishop is here!”
“The bishop? Do you think he’ll like Madame Popoffski?” asked Vicky doubtfully.
“He’ll have to. We can’t cut out anything now.”
Mr. Fayne came in holding a slip of paper. “A note for you from the vicar. Do you know the bishop’s here?”
“Yes, isn’t it extraordinary?”
They read the note. The vicar had written: “The bishop wishes to say a few words afterwards.”
“Wait a minute, please, sir,” said Nigel, “while we think of a suitable reply.”
“Just say ‘Thank you’,” advised Sandra.
“How does one address a bishop?” Nigel was puzzled. “Your highness or your lordship?”
Mr. Fayne told him.
“We thank your lordship very much,” wrote Nigel.
The hands of the clock pointed to two minutes to seven.
“If you forget your exact words, say something that means the same thing, but above all act,” urged Lyn.
“We go on in one minute!”
Maddy clutched hold of Jeremy’s hand. “I can’t!” she whispered. “I shall be sick!”
Jeremy gulped and squeezed her hand reassuringly. “I feel like that, too, Maddy, but we’ll be all right after the first few minutes.”
“Our parents have arrived,” Vicky informed them, and they crowded out on to the stage to have a peep at them. They sat in the front row wearing their Sunday clothes. Mrs. Halford sat at the end of the row in her wheelchair looking frail but excited; her hair was the same colour as Vicky’s. Her husband, a grave, dark man, sat next to her. Bulldog decided that he must put up a good show for his mother’s sake, as she had been looking forward to the concert for weeks.
Mr. Fayne said, “Seven o’clock.” Vicky squeaked “My castanets!” and dived back into the dressing-room for them.
The boys lined themselves up on the front of the stage for the opening chorus. Jeremy played the first few bars and someone rattled a tambourine. Instantly the hall was in darkness. The boys stepped in front of the curtain. Vicky rattled the tambourine, and on went the stage lights.
The children’s parents received yet another shock on this evening of surprises. They had arrived at the theatre expecting to find a little dilapidated room with some of their children’s friends as the audience, and found instead a smart new theatre, with quite important people about, including the bishop. And now, when the lights went up, expecting to see characters dressed as in charades at a family party, they saw four dashing, gaily dressed Spanish men singing a swinging tune to an excellent violin accompaniment. At the end of each verse the muleteers clapped their hands and stamped, off-stage castanets were rattled and tambourines crashed. During the last verse,
“We will be so gay,
Guitars will start to play;
Please don’t make delay,”
Maddy and Bulldog pulled aside the curtains and rejoined the others, in time for the final shout,
“Come to the Inn.”
They then stepped aside and sat on the benches, but Jeremy stood, still playing while the audience craned their necks to see the scenery better.
Bulldog had put blue paper round the electric light bulb to give an effect of dusk, and in this light the inn and the mountains made a silhouette in the background. Maddy, sitting astride her bench, felt happier. They had got through the song all right, and she had struck the right note at the end, where she usually went wrong. She allowed herself to smile.
“Doesn’t Maddy look sweet?” whispered a fond aunt to a less fond uncle.
Lyn and Vicky entered, tapping their high-heeled shoes on the boards, and sang their Dolores and Marquita song with many coquettish glances at the muleteers. Neither voice was good, but they managed to give a southern impression.
“Never knew Darwin’s sister was such a beauty!” whispered one of Jeremy’s friends to his companion.
Bulldog beckoned to Lyn at the end of the song, and she went and sat by him, spreading out her full skirt around her. Jeremy was at the piano. Vicky began her tarantella.
Up till now the audience had been merely politely appreciative, but when this red-haired señorita, with flying skirts and snaking body, whirled into her dance they sat up and drank it in. Vicky responded to Jeremy’s playing as if there were a link between their brains. Her heels stamped faster, her castanets clapped, and she was a coloured spinning-top. Her audience on the stage stamped in time to the music and shouted encouragement in words gleaned from a Spanish dictionary. With the final chord she stopped dead still, one toe pointed to the side of the stage, one arm curved over her head, the other behind her back, smiling over her shoulder at the applauding audience. Flushed, and trying not to gasp, she sank on to a bench, and Maddy handed her a glass of raspberry juice. She held it up to the light and it flashed ruby-red, then she swallowed it thankfully down.