Every Vow You Break

by Julia Crouch

  Olly was near the head of the line, towering over the ladies in front of him. He looked exasperated.

  ‘Mum,’ he said loudly, as he came through the door. ‘Where the hell did you get to?’

  One of the ladies turned and tutted at his choice of language and attitude.

  If only she knew the half of it, Lara thought.

  ‘We’ve been stuck out here with Jack and he’s had an accident,’ Bella said, manoeuvring herself and her little brother out from behind an elderly man in a cowboy hat.

  ‘Oh, poor mite,’ a woman with jelly arms said as Bella handed him through the crowd.

  ‘It’s runny, Mum,’ Jack said, holding on to his bottom.

  ‘Poor you.’ Lara took him by the hand and led him through into the toilet with the changing mat. Jack had a delicate stomach, and any variation in diet, or even water, could lead to upsets. Luckily his underpants had caught the worst of it, so she took them off and cleaned him up the best she could.

  ‘I’ll get rid of these,’ she said, balling up his pants, ‘and you can just wear your trousers and go commando.’

  ‘Cool,’ Jack said.

  She wrapped the offending item in paper towels and went back out into the foyer.

  ‘Excuse me Alyssa,’ she said, motioning to the stinking bundle she held down at her side. ‘Is there anywhere I can leave this?’

  Alyssa wrinkled her nose. ‘There’s a dumpster round back,’ she said, pointing. ‘Just be sure and close it up after or the racoons’ll get in.’

  Leaving Jack with Olly and Bella, Lara went outside and round the building. On the other side of the large dustbin she could see two actors, a man and a woman, sitting on an old sofa by what must be the stage door. They were leaning against one another, smoking. Lara crouched down slightly, so she couldn’t be seen.

  ‘Well I don’t give one shit,’ the woman was saying. ‘I’ve told my agent I’m never going to come up here again, even if they did manage to pay me properly.’

  ‘I know, honey, I know. But we’ve got to give it our best now we’re here. It wouldn’t be professional otherwise.’

  ‘How dare she tell me I got fat. Did I get fat, Brian?’

  ‘June. You know you aren’t fat. You have a beautiful body. You know I love your beautiful body.’

  ‘Oh Brian.’ June blew away her smoke and leaned in towards him, cupping his head in her hand and pulling his face towards hers. They locked mouths and Brian’s hand worked its way into June’s dressing gown, exposing the most enormous, round and rigid breast Lara had ever seen. He twirled the nipple between his thumb and forefinger, as if he were one-handedly rolling a short cigar.

  A tall good-looking boy appeared in the stage doorway and coughed into his fist to alert them to his presence. They unglued their faces to look up at him, but Brian’s hand remained firmly on June’s exposed breast.

  ‘Yes Sean?’ June asked, drawing on her cigarette and looking up at him.

  ‘Just to let you know, June and Brian, that the house is now open and this is your fifteen-minute call. I guess you didn’t hear it over the tannoy.’

  ‘I believe it’s customary for stage management to address us as Miss Tarpin and Mr Weinberg,’ June said, flaring her nostrils. ‘For our calls.’

  ‘Now you two get your asses inside and into costume.’ Betty appeared behind Sean, moving him aside. ‘I have loosened the dress for you tonight, Miss Tarpin, so you have absolutely no excuse for bum notes. And Mr Weinberg, I would thank you mightily if you removed your hand from Miss Tarpin’s appendage and – uh – ceased from corrupting my sweet innocent assistant here.’

  ‘Ain’t nothing he ain’t seen before.’ Another actor – thirty-something and all Italian handsomeness – sauntered past Sean and ruffled his hair. He threw himself on the sofa, nearly on top of June, and lit a cigarette.

  ‘Please, ladies,’ Betty cried. ‘Are we going to do any acting tonight, or are we simply going to smoke?’

  ‘This is a genuine choice you’re offering?’ The Italian leaned back and exhaled, squinting his eyes up against the smoke.

  Betty sighed deeply and shook her head. ‘I expect you to be standing by, with your costumes on, at the five.’

  She turned and went back into the theatre.

  ‘You told him, Tony,’ Brian said, finally taking his hand away from June’s breast.

  ‘Asshole,’ Tony said to Brian. Then he took one last drag on his cigarette, stamped it out on the bare earth and disappeared inside the building.

  ‘Come on, honey,’ June said, getting up and adjusting her dressing gown. In doing so, she managed to flash everything she had at the stage manager. It looked to Lara like a deliberate move, but the young man remained remarkably composed.

  He watched the pair go inside, then he moved smartly around the sofa, picking up the empty drinks cans, cigarette butts and plastic cups that the actors had just left there. Lara felt like she had stooped behind the dumpster for too long, so she lifted the lid and threw her bundle in, where it landed with a clatter.

  ‘Oh, hi,’ Sean said, looking over at her.

  ‘Hello,’ Lara said. ‘Sorry, I didn’t mean to—’

  ‘No, that’s fine. You have to be Bella’s mom.’

  ‘I am. How did you—?’

  ‘I met her in the shop earlier on. You’re very like her.’

  ‘I’ll take that as a compliment,’ Lara said, smoothing her hair. So, then. This was the ‘big boy’. He had the bluest eyes she had ever seen, and a smile to melt a young girl’s heart. She hoped Bella wouldn’t lose her head, though. ‘Quite a handful you’ve got there,’ she said, motioning to the stage door.

  ‘You’re not kidding. June and Brian are a total nightmare. I’ll be glad to start working with a saner cast.’

  ‘They’re not in the Shakespeare?’

  ‘No, thank God. They’re strictly musical theatre.’

  Lara was silently relieved on Marcus’s behalf. ‘Are you stage-managing Macbeth too?’

  ‘A bit, but I’m also on stage,’ he said. ‘Just Ross and the Doctor. Nothing great, but it’s all experience.’

  ‘So you want to act?’ Lara felt like she was interviewing a prospective son-in-law. An actor was not what she hoped for her daughter.

  ‘Of course. I’m off to Juilliard in the fall. I’ll be leaving Trout Island at last.’ He leaned past Lara and put the rubbish he had collected into the dumpster, on top of Jack’s underwear.

  He really was very handsome indeed, Lara thought.

  ‘Sean? Where’s my Sean?’ Betty bustled out of the stage door. ‘Oh, you’re with little Mamacita. Hi honey.’ She went to Lara and kissed her on the cheek, as if they were the best of friends. ‘Have we got a surprise for you later on.’

  ‘So I heard,’ Lara said.

  ‘Have you got any idea what it might be?’

  ‘Not a clue.’

  ‘My lips are sealed, honey.’ Betty put a manicured finger to her lips. ‘Now come along Sean, my darling, this show won’t run itself, you know. We need you.’ She put a hand round his shoulder and guided him in.

  On her way back to the foyer, Lara decided not to tell Marcus about what she had just witnessed. But it had shown that Betty had style and wit, so perhaps she and James had managed to craft a work of substance.

  As it turned out, they hadn’t.

  Set Me On Fire! held few pleasant surprises. It was a predictable rags-to-riches tale of a Southern girl who – through a mixture of sheer determination and an encounter with an angel who assured her she would become famous – fought her way up past brutal boyfriends, unscrupulous managers and downright rude hick-bar audiences to Stardom. Lara was certain Betty’s real story was far more interesting than this anodyne song-and-dance fest suggested, not least because, unlike the character in the play, she wasn’t actually a girl.

  As Pearl, the lead character baggily based on Betty, June Turpin was at least thirty years too old at the beginning, when she should have been sixteen. H
er costume, a loose, raggedy dress and plaits, drew a guffaw from Olly that June, from the fleeting dagger stare she shot his way, clearly heard.

  The rest of the audience, however, loved Set Me On Fire! The dances weren’t the worst of it, Lara had to admit, and each piece was met with a near standing ovation.

  The clapping was the only part Jack enjoyed, so Lara had her work cut out keeping him quiet and still during the other bits. A veteran of taking small children to theatres, she had packed three small toffee lollies, which went some way to keeping him busy, or at least quiet, unlike his big brother who seemed unable to sit still.

  ‘Could you please stop fidgeting around?’ Marcus whispered, leaning across Lara and tapping Olly on the knee.

  As the house lights came up for a well-earned interval, Lara looked sideways at Marcus. He was visibly fighting hard to maintain the illusion that this place was going to be the making of him.

  ‘Oh my,’ a woman with an immaculate shiny white bob said to her companion as she squeezed out of her row of seats fanning herself with her programme. ‘Wasn’t that just something?’

  From the Wayland family seats near the front of the auditorium, Lara looked around at the audience as they moved out of the theatre. There were no New York agent types to be seen. Apart from a couple of dragged-along teenagers emitting a truculence even more finely honed than Olly’s, there was hardly anyone in the room under the age of sixty.

  The Wayland family were the last to remain seated, a little out of place in their youth, Englishness and suitcase-crumpled clothes. As the last old lady waddled out of the exit – bound, no doubt, for the cake stand – Lara felt the back of her neck prickle, as if someone were standing right behind her.

  She turned in her seat and looked at the empty auditorium. The banks of brand-new red velvet seats stood blank-faced and tipped up. Then a slight movement drew her eye to the shallow balcony at the very back of the room. Supported by ornate metal pillars, it spanned the width of the room. The angle from her seat to the platform was such that she couldn’t pick out much, but as she looked up Lara saw the tall outline of a man silhouetted and haloed from a house light directly behind him. She couldn’t be certain, but she had the feeling his eyes were right upon her. As soon as she saw him though, he stepped back into the shadows and out of her sightline.

  ‘Did you see that?’ she said to Marcus, who had finally stood up.

  ‘What?’

  ‘There was a man …’ She pointed to the balcony.

  Marcus looked. ‘Probably the lighting operator.’

  ‘Probably,’ she said.

  ‘Or you’re seeing things. Wouldn’t be the first time. Now then, who wants a slice of pie?’ Marcus said.

  On their way out to the cake stand Lara looked up at the balcony again, but there was no one there. Perhaps Marcus was right. Even with her contact lenses in, her Mac-strained eyesight didn’t do too well in dim light; more than once she had found herself greeting complete strangers in theatre bars.

  Out on the lawn, the first act of a glorious, golden sunset was kicking off, and the still air was full of bugs cruising the audience for bloody snacks.

  ‘Look how black the trees are,’ Bella said to Lara, pointing at the ridge of outlined maples on top of the hill behind the village. ‘I wouldn’t want to be up there now.’

  ‘Bllllairrrr Witch.’ Olly loomed over her.

  ‘Piss off.’ Bella pushed him away from her.

  ‘It’s a different world indeed,’ Lara said, feeding a slice of pie to Jack and trying to stop it spilling down the front of his Chinese jacket. The ‘cherry’ filling was too impossibly red to be anything other than permanently staining.

  ‘So Waylands, how do you like our little show?’ James sashayed up to them and put his arms around Bella and Olly. Marcus gave Olly an subtle but stern look.

  ‘It’s great,’ Olly said inscrutably.

  ‘Lovely costumes,’ Bella said. ‘Aren’t they, Mum?’

  ‘Who did them?’ Lara asked.

  ‘Betty. Betty is a marvel.’ James beamed, buoyed by the extravagant praise he had been receiving from other audience members. ‘She does everything: the writing, the musical direction, the costume, the set design.’

  ‘Why doesn’t she perform any more?’ Olly asked, and Lara wondered if he was being polite or very clever and very cheeky.

  ‘Stage fright,’ James whispered. ‘A bit of a breakdown. But we don’t talk about it.’

  ‘How sad,’ Lara said. And she thought for a moment of her own lost potential – from the actress of the Sixth Form, to wife and mother in little over a year. What could she have been had life not intervened?

  ‘Anyway, avanti!’ James clapped his hands. ‘Ladies and gentlemen, please eat up your pies now. The show will recommence in five minutes. I don’t want a crumb left!’

  A murmur of laughter passed through the audience, then they set to work on what remained on their plates. A red-faced Alyssa appeared at James’s elbow.

  ‘Uh James, could I have a word, please,’ she squeaked. ‘In the foyer.’ She turned and marched back into the building.

  ‘Coming, Alyssa my pet. Oops. Looks like I’m in trouble with the lady of the house,’ James whispered to Lara and Marcus. ‘She’s not keen on my impromptu announcements. Thinks it’s her job. God, she’s so stern.’

  ‘He’s in a good mood tonight,’ Olly said as they watched him scuttle across the lawn.

  ‘The audience seem to like it,’ Marcus said, swigging back a can of soda. ‘God this so-called beer is vile. What sort of root do they use, I wonder?’

  ‘Come on, let’s go back in,’ Lara said, scooping up Jack who was leaning against her legs, on the verge of falling asleep.

  The second act dealt with the happier half of the fictionalised Betty character’s story. She found the love of her life – James, presumably – made it big on Broadway and was stopped by strangers asking for her autograph. The finale had a sequinned June Turpin ascending on a glittering cut-out moon, supported by – so the programme informed Lara – a fully uniformed phalanx of Trout Island’s volunteer fire fighters.

  ‘What would happen if there was a fire during the finale?’ Lara whispered to Marcus.

  Then June Turpin opened her mouth to sing the final song, the theme tune of the show that all the music had been leading up to.

  You! You set me on fire,

  Couldn’t get any higher,

  Don’t know no one flyer,

  Now sir, be my sire …

  These lyrics, and the sight of the already out-of-kilter actress further destabilised on a dangling moon, set Olly off on a choking giggling fit. Thankfully, the backing music belting out from two speakers at the front of the stage was so loud only Lara noticed.

  At the end, the large cast lined up on the small stage and took their bows to rapturous applause. People around the Waylands stood up and called out their bravos.

  ‘Stand up,’ Marcus hissed, getting to his feet.

  ‘What the—?’ Olly said.

  ‘Stand up, or I’ll never, ever give you any money ever again,’ Marcus said.

  The family all stood, even Lara, who had a sweaty, sleeping Jack pressed into her shoulder.

  ‘Bravo!’ Marcus boomed, clapping his hands up high above his head. ‘Encore!’

  ‘Please God, no,’ Olly muttered.

  Betty sashayed on stage and the applause doubled as she dropped into a curtsy. Looking round at the strait-laced audience, Lara wondered how they could so adore someone who was quite so out of the ordinary. Perhaps a little of the famous New York City liberalism had reached up here. Or perhaps they thought the glamorous Betty-woman was for real. And who was to say she wasn’t? Betty and James believed in her, and wasn’t it part of the American dream that you can be whatever you want to be, do whatever you want to do?

  If only that dream had stretched over east to Stratford-upon-Avon in the early nineties, Lara thought.

  She watched Bella redden as the yo
ung man Sean came on stage to present Betty with an enormous bunch of red roses. Sean stepped back, and Lara was certain he caught her daughter’s eye as he did so. Then Betty gestured stage left and James came on slowly, holding out his hands. He leaned forward and kissed Betty, and the two of them beamed out at the audience, who gradually brought their applause to an end.

  ‘Ladies and gentlemen, boys and girls,’ James said. ‘Trout Island Theatre wants to thank you for your patronage. You will know that our marvellous community theatre receives but a pittance in funding for all the activities we put on for you and your neighbours. We do hope you enjoyed the show. And we hope that, if you did, you will tell your friends. I’d also like to remind you that in three weeks’ time we will be opening our production of William Shakespeare’s Scottish Play. Our star, Marcus Wayland, is with us tonight, all the way from England. Marcus, stand yourself up.’

  Marcus stood, turned and, with as much dignity as he could muster, bowed. The audience applauded once again, then James hushed them so that he could continue.

  ‘As you know, we don’t charge for tickets, but we do ask that if you enjoyed our show, please put your hands in your pockets and give what you can to our actors on your way out. They will be standing at the back with hats to receive your donations. No amount is too small, but …’ and he paused for the audience to smile back at him, ‘no amount can possibly be too large.’

  Once more, the audience applauded as the actors jumped down off the stage and positioned themselves by the back door, holding hats out for dollar bills, twenties, fifties and even cheques for larger sums.

  ‘How humiliating,’ Olly said.

  ‘It’s an old tradition,’ Marcus said loudly. ‘I think it’s marvellous.’ Then he was swallowed up by a crowd of ladies who all wanted to meet him to find out if he was from London, and whether they would know him from the movies.

  He was in his element.

  Lara and the children wandered outside. She hoped another glass or two of wine when she got to the party would pick her up, but finding any enthusiasm for the night ahead was hard work. Even the thought of the promised surprise – which she supposed would be something camp and lame, some sort of British-themed foodstuff perhaps, or an unwearable hat made by Betty – didn’t help.