He grinned. ‘Well, maybe we don’t want to go as far as that. But if you could spice the dialogue up a bit…’
‘Well…’
There was a crackling of static from the Tannoy. A gravelly disembodied voice said, ‘Dr James. Dr James. Your fairy godmother is waiting for you at the stage door.’
‘Oh Lord, I’ve got to go!’
‘But, Cass, you will think about it?’
‘Yes, yes!’
Chapter Four
THE shoes were slingbacks made of a very soft, supple black leather. They had a cut-away toe and a slender heel much higher than I was used to wearing. Putting them on changed everything. The shoes seemed to alter my centre of gravity and realign my whole body. The black skirt and the jacket with its mother-of-pearl buttons had looked dowdy a moment ago. Now they looked stunning. The cut of the jacket accentuated my waist and showed off the cleavage that I’d acquired since the birth of Grace. The bulge of my stomach had disappeared. I didn’t look flabby any more. I looked voluptuous. I gazed at myself in the mirror, really seeing myself for the first time for months. I ran my hands through my hair. It was so short that it didn’t need any more than that. I turned my head to one side; the outline of my chin wasn’t quite as sharp as it had once been. I would be forty soon. I didn’t think I looked my age, but then who does? And what was it Gloria Steinem had said when she was told she didn’t look like forty? ‘This is what forty looks like now.’
There was a knocking on the door of the cubicle. Stan’s voice said:
‘How are you getting on?’
I pushed open the swing-door of the changing-room and stepped out.
A big smile spread across Stan’s face.
‘Wow,’ she said. ‘You look like the femme fatale in a film noir. I think it’s the shoes.’
The assistant nodded eagerly.
‘How much are they?’ I asked the assistant.
‘Ninety-five pounds.’
It took me a moment to absorb the shock. I’d never paid that much for a pair of shoes before.
‘They’re a very good leather and they’re made in Italy,’ the assistant said.
‘You’ve got to have them,’ Stan said. ‘Put them on your credit card.’
I couldn’t make up my mind. It seemed an awful lot of money. Since I’d had Grace I’d found vivid memories of my own childhood coming back to me, and often now I saw those episodes through my mother’s eyes. My father had left when I was seven and my mother had struggled to train as an accountant. There hadn’t been a lot of money. I’d had one pair of shoes for everyday, one for best, and boots for winter. I saw myself, a small child trying on shoes with my mother kneeling beside me, pressing her thumb on the toe to see if there was enough room. The memory of her face, anxious and intent, hurt me in a way that it never had before. The shoes had to be right. She couldn’t afford another pair if they weren’t. Having more shoes than was strictly necessary still seemed to me extravagant, profligate even. Sometimes it wasn’t until a pair of shoes were falling apart that I forced myself to buy some new ones. Those days were long gone. My mother worked for a firm of accountants in the city now. She had a terrific sense of style and loved to see me well-dressed. She was all too often disappointed. I knew exactly what she’d say: Go on, darling, treat yourself, or better still, let me treat you.
Still I hesitated.
‘I don’t know what Stephen would think,’ I heard myself saying feebly.
‘Ah, but Stephen’s not here,’ Stan said.
‘That’s right. He isn’t, is he?’
Our eyes met and Stan winked.
‘Burn the receipt. That’s what I do,’ she said.
Comfort shopping? Revenge? Who cared?
‘Sod it,’ I said. ‘I’ll take them.’
‘Bravo. Buy them before you change your mind, and I’ll treat you to lunch.’
As I turned to go into the changing-room, Stan said:
‘There is just one thing, though…’
I looked back. Her face was serious.
‘Yes?’
‘I ought to warn you…’ She shook her head.
‘What?’
‘If you’re not home by midnight, you’ll turn into a pumpkin.’
The assistant was just beginning the credit card ritual when them was a little fanfare followed by a tinny rendering of the opening bars of Lillibullero.
‘I must get that bloody tune changed,’ Stan said. She rummaged around in her capacious handbag and fished her mobile out.
‘Yep, yep, OK,’ I heard her say as I scribbled my signature on the credit-card slip.
‘See you soon then. ’Bye.’ She clicked the off button, pushed the aerial back and dropped the phone into her bag.
‘Gotta go, Cassandra, we’ll have to take a raincheck on lunch. They want me back at the theatre. Belinda’s throwing a wobbly over something. Apparently she’s in a right old state.’
* * *
The green room was just a sliver of a room, reached by a little corridor to the right of the stage door, not nearly big enough to hold all the cast and company at once. There was a little refrigerator, a small scratched table with a few back numbers of The Stage on it, several fold-up wooden chairs and a couple of scuffed leatherette armchairs. As Stan and I approached the open door, the group of figures inside seemed frozen into a tableau. Belinda was slumped in one of the armchairs. She was very white and it was obvious that she was only just holding back tears. Her strong emphatic eyebrows, beautifully plucked and shaped, stood out against the pallor of her face. It was like one of those Victorian problem pictures, The Last Day in the Old Home or When Did You Last See Your Father? Had she gambled away the family fortune, been discovered in adultery, confessed to an illegitimate child? Clive was sitting next to her, holding her hand. Jake was hovering with a white plastic cup of water in his hand. Geoff was standing off to one side with his camera running.
The next moment the tableau broke up. The instant Belinda saw Stan she began to cry in earnest. Clive stood up and looked at Stan as if appealing for help. Jake stood back against the wall to allow us into the room.
Stan took charge immediately. She headed for Belinda and Clive stepped aside to allow her to take his seat. Belinda twisted sideways and put her head on Stan’s shoulder.
‘There, there, sweetie. It’s all right,’ Stan said. She stroked Belinda’s hair. ‘Jake, go and get some brandy, please.’
He hesitated, obviously afraid that he was going to miss something.
‘I don’t know where…’
‘The stage door. Fred’ll have some.’
He dashed off and returned with a glass and a bottle of Courvoisier. Stan poured out a generous measure. After a few sips of it, some of the colour came back to Belinda’s cheeks.
‘Now, what’s all this about?’ Stan asked.
Clive said. ‘Belinda’s had a bit of a shock, poor love.’
I thought for a moment that she was going to start crying again. She pressed her lips together tightly.
‘She wanted to check her moves in the first act,’ Clive went on, ‘so she thought she’d have a quiet half an hour on the stage, and then…’
Belinda took up the story. ‘After a bit I got the feeling that someone was watching me … I went to the front of the stage and peered in the stalls. It was dark, of course, but when my eyes had adjusted a bit, I could see that there wasn’t anyone there. And I was just going to get back to work, when I heard a slight noise. It seemed to come from higher up and when I looked at the dress-circle, I could see that there was someone there after all, sitting in the back row. I called out to them. Asked them what they were doing there. And they didn’t reply. They didn’t say anything at all. It was horrible. There was just this really heavy silence.’
I wondered how frightened she’d really been. It seemed to me that she was enjoying being the centre of attention. But then I remembered the frisson of unease I had felt earlier. An empty theatre is a creepy place, and a theatr
e that’s supposed to be empty and isn’t … well, it was no wonder Belinda had got the wind up.
‘Where exactly was this person sitting?’ Stan asked. ‘At the side? Towards the middle?’
‘He was in the seat on the right of the centre aisle.’
‘You’re sure it was a man?’
‘Well, I thought it was, but I don’t know for sure. Like I said, he didn’t speak.’
‘And then what happened?’
‘He stood up. He was wearing a long black cloak with a hood, and I could see this really white face. It just seemed to kind of float in the dark and then…’ Her voice trailed off.
‘Yes,’ Stan prompted.
‘And then the lights went out. I was in pitch dark. I’ve never been so scared in my life! I was feeling my way off stage on to the dock when I ran into Clive, but of course I didn’t know it was Clive.’ She dabbed at her face with a paper tissue.
‘I got a helluva shock, too,’ Clive said. ‘She screamed her head off! I’d come back for my script. Couldn’t find it in the dressing-room and thought I must have left it in the auditorium. I was half-way across the dock when the lights went off. After fumbling about for a bit, we managed to find the lights and put them back on. We found Jake and Geoff in the green room. I left Belinda with them and had a quick look in the auditorium. Nobody there, that I could see. But then I couldn’t see much. Didn’t have a key to the lighting box, so I couldn’t put the house lights on.’
‘Wait a minute,’ I said. Every head swivelled in my direction. ‘Who was actually in the theatre while all this was happening?’ I asked.
‘Good question,’ Stan said.
‘Ain’t nobody here but us chickens,’ Clive said. ‘Just the four of us left as far we could make out: me and Belinda, and Jake and Geoff. And Fred on the stage door, of course.’ He exchanged a glance with Stan. ‘You don’t think…?’
She gave her head the kind of quick shake that means ‘not in front of the children’. Clive gave a little concurring nod. They both glanced at Belinda as if to see whether she’d registered the interchange. Belinda was too busy looking at her face in a little mirror to have noticed anything.
‘How about some lunch?’ Clive asked her. ‘Come on, I’ll take you somewhere nice. My treat, all right?’
Belinda’s face brightened at this prospect. She got to her feet.
‘That’d be lovely. I’ll just go and tidy myself up.’
She headed for the door.
‘And I’ll pop up to my dressing-room and get my jacket,’ Clive said.
He was about to follow her out, when Stan said, ‘Thanks, Clive.’
He winked. ‘My pleasure.’
‘Ah, the resilience of youth,’ I said.
‘Nothing gets them down for long at that age, does it?’ Stan said, smiling. Then she frowned. ‘All the same it’s not very nice, is it? Hope this isn’t someone’s idea of a joke.’
‘Could someone have wandered in off the street?’ I asked.
‘It’s been known to happen,’ she admitted, ‘but usually the doors of the auditorium are kept locked. So they’d have to have come in by the stage door and Fred would have seen them. I’d better check, I suppose.’
We made our way down to the dock, Jake and Geoff following behind. Geoff was still filming. The dock is a big, cavernous space where the scenery is brought in. One side opened on to the stage and on the other I could see a narrow line of light from under the double doors that opened on to the street.
‘Wait here,’ Stan told Jake. He opened his mouth to protest but shut it again when he saw the expression on her face. She selected a key from a large bunch fastened on to a belt slung round her hips. At the far end of the dock was a door that led to some stairs into the auditorium. We went up them and Stan opened the door of the first box. Stan stepped inside. I followed her. There was a series of clicks as she flicked switch after switch. Section after section of the auditorium leapt forward out of the darkness: the boxes, the proscenium arch, the stalls, the dress circle, the gallery, and finally a blaze of light burst from the chandeliers on the ceiling. We stood there blinking in the bright light. The whole theatre lay spread out before us, a dazzling confection of blue, cream and gold. Cherubs with puffed-out cheeks and trumpets in their mouths balanced insecurely on the proscenium arch; caryatids with beaming faces supported baskets of fruit and flowers; the dress-circle and the gallery were slung with gilded swags and garlands. I hadn’t seen the auditorium properly since the restoration, and I forgot our mission as I craned my neck to look at the ceiling; the huge gasolier was flanked by two exuberant paintings of the Comic and the Tragic Muse. Up there the mode was more rococo: all frothy pink clouds, rosy bottoms and floating limbs. It was bold, it was vulgar, it was unashamedly over the top.
Also, it was completely empty.
‘No one here now,’ remarked Stan. ‘A real little gem, isn’t it? Designed by Frank Matcham. I love his theatres. And it’s not just that it looks wonderful, it works as well. The sightlines – there isn’t a single seat where you can’t get a decent view of the stage. And the acoustics … well…’
‘You don’t seem very worried. First Melissa, now Belinda…’
‘Oh, it’ll all come right. In every production there always a moment when Murphy’s law goes into overdrive and everything starts to unravel. People who were word-perfect fluff their lines. Props fall apart in people’s hands. Someone bangs a door and the set falls down. There’s always a point where you simply can’t imagine how everything’s going to come together.’
‘But it always does?’
‘Oh, yes.’
I wasn’t totally convinced, and I didn’t think Stan was either. But it was her job to sound confident and optimistic, so I left it at that.
‘What was Clive about to say when you shut him up?’ I asked.
Stan looked at me appraisingly as if she was deciding whether or not to tell me. Then she said: ‘He was suggesting that the theatre might be haunted.’
‘He really thought that?’
‘Oh, well, lots of these old theatres are.’ She spoke as casually as if she was talking about an infestation of mice. ‘They’re usually completely harmless. To tell the truth, I’m more worried about the electrics. You see, there’s a working light that’s separate from the stage lights, and I can’t understand them both going off. I’ll have to have a word with the electrician. And there’s something else I’m a bit curious about. What was Clive still doing here? There isn’t another rehearsal until tomorrow morning.’
‘You mean?’
‘Clive and Belinda.’
‘Oh, no, surely not. Not Clive, I mean, uxorious isn’t the word. He never stops talking about – what’s her name? Roberta?’
‘Yeah, you’re right – she’s lovely, actually, and so are those daughters of his. And it’s different now. In the old days before Aids, everyone used to be at it like rabbits, but that’s all changed. In fact, I’ve never known a production with so little social life attached to it as this one. At the first opportunity everyone’s off home like a shot. Even Jake and Geoff. Jake heads north to that girl in Leeds, Geoff is off in that Jeep to his wife in Wales.’
‘Oh, Geoff’s married, is he?’
‘Very devoted, I gather. He and wife run a smallholding together. He showed me a photograph the other day. His wife looked really sweet. And it’s an idyllic place. Tucked away in a valley in Snowdonia.’
She leaned over and with a few clicks the auditorium disappeared. For a moment or two the after-image of the lights blazed on my retina, then they too were extinguished. It was as if Stan had conjured up the whole glorious confection out of nothing and then dissolved it again into darkness. I could almost believe that it really wasn’t there.
We made our way back down to the dock. When Jake was agitated he had a habit of rising up and down on the balls of his feet as if he was trying to compensate for his lack of height. He was doing that now.
‘Well,’ he said e
agerly, ‘Is there someone lurking there?’
Stan shook her head.
Jake’s face fell. ‘Are you sure?’
‘Quite sure.’
‘They might be hiding?’ he persisted.
‘More likely Belinda imagined it. Trick of the light or something.’
Jake was gazing at Stan intently. ‘Wouldn’t it be worth going out front and having a proper look? After all, Belinda didn’t imagine the lights going off. And shouldn’t we have a look under the stage? They could be there – waiting until we’ve gone…’
Stan considered. ‘Perhaps it would be just as well,’ she said at last. ‘I’ll have to go back and put the house lights on. I’d better get a torch as well. We’ll go under the stage and round the other side of the auditorium. If there is anyone there, we’ll flush them out. If I ask Fred to come and wait in the dock, we’ll have all the exits covered.’
There are dressing rooms and the green room on one side of the stage, but on the other there’s only a corridor. To reach it during a performance there’s a passage that runs along the back wall under the stage. We went in single file down a narrow flight of stairs. Stan went first, I followed, with Geoff behind me, still filming, and Jake at the rear. Where the light from the naked lightbulbs touched the wall beads of water stood out on the surface as if it were sweating. The space behind the orchestra pit was used to store props and the path behind them was narrow.
We were half-way through, when Jake said, ‘Jesus, what’s that? I thought I heard something.’
Stan stopped and swung her torch round. The beam of light picked out a jumble of objects in surreal juxtapositions: a hip-bath with an old Singer sewing-machine balanced across it, a rocking-horse, a dressmaker’s dummy draped in a dustsheet. Jake elbowed his way past Geoff, so that he was standing next to me.
‘There’s someone there,’ he said. ‘I know there is.’
‘Don’t be silly,’ Stan said, raking the floor with the torch beam. ‘Look at the dust.’ There was an intricate pattern of paw prints. ‘No one’s been in there for months except the theatre cat. Come on, let’s get on with it.’
Stage Fright Page 4