‘Ch-change where?’ He was shivering.
‘You can change into them at the fish and chip shop. Fancy some fish and chips for supper?’
He came marginally more alive. ‘At the f-fish restaurant on the corner?’
‘Yup. Where’s your bike?’
‘I dunno.’
I pushed his arms into the waterproof jacket, zipped it and pulled up the hood. It was like dressing a flexie doll. ‘We’ll find it. Come along before the weather gets any worse.’
‘I’ve lost my ball.’
‘It’ll get washed up on to the rocks. We’ll look for it later.’
‘How do you know?’
‘I used to live here, remember? Tides. Everything gets washed up eventually.’
We found his bike where he had abandoned it and pushed both bikes to the fish restaurant. I chained them to the quay railing. We went inside into a fog of steam and heat from the fryers. It was like a sauna. The smell rose up, that succulent smell of frying fish, fish freshly caught that day from the sea.
I grabbed a window seat so that we could watch the rain while we ate in the dry. Mark hurried off to the gents clutching his bag of dry clothes. Meanwhile, I ordered cod and chips for two, an orange juice for Mark and a large glass of house red, any vintage, for myself.
I wasn’t too wet, considering. Gran’s mackintosh had stood up to the onslaught. I was damp on the shoulders and where it flapped open. My hair was soaked but it would soon dry in this heat. I wiped the sunglasses and put them back on the top of my head.
Mark came back, half-grinning, in dry clothes and dry socks, carrying his sodden trainers. He had recovered his spirits. ‘Thanks for the mints.’
He looked at my glass of red wine and was about to say something but I got in first.
‘I know. Gran says drinking isn’t good for you.’
‘Do you drink?’
‘Occasionally. Not exactly an alcoholic but I like a glass or two of red. It warms you up, cheers you up and is apparently good for the heart. Medicinal.’
‘Why are you wearing shades?’ he asked curiously.
‘They’re cool,’ I said.
‘Whatever.’
It was a great meal. Mark tucked into his battered cod and chips as if he had never seen a chip in his life before. Dollops of tomato sauce decorated his plate with surrealistic art. He drew in sauce. He even talked, which was a minor triumph. Not a lot, but enough to chalk it up as a civilized meal.
His conversation was mainly speculation about the dinosaur footprints found on the shore, and whether we would see Britain’s only poisonous snake, the adder, on one of our cliff walks. He hoped we would. I was not so enthusiastic. Dinosaurs (footprints only) I could cope with but not snakes.
We waited till the black cloud exhausted itself and blew off to find a new area to lambaste. I hurried across the street to buy new trainers. No way could Mark walk home in that sodden pair. They were coming apart at the seams.
It was getting too dark to look for the lost ball. Mark accepted that. ‘We could look tomorrow,’ he said, pushing his bike uphill. He had said we. It was a small victory. I savoured the word.
I was getting short of clothes to change into. I’d only brought a small bag and had already worn and washed everything twice. My mother’s sweaters and jerseys were too small for me. Nothing for me to borrow. I needed to shop soon.
Mark switched on the television while I made a pot of tea. He wanted to catch the result of some football match, maybe soccer or rugby union. Something that needed a ball and a field for men to run about on. I could hear the newscaster’s tinny voice as I boiled a kettle and set a tray. My mother still used a teapot, milk jug and tray. Not a teabag in sight in her kitchen. She would get on very well with Elinor.
Mark stood in the kitchen doorway, eyeing me warily, as if expecting me to suddenly take off on a broomstick. He’d read all the Harry Potters. ‘That theatre you work for,’ he said. ‘In London.’
‘Yes, in London,’ I agreed.
‘Are you called the West Enders?’
‘Yes, that’s the name of the company, why?’
‘And the theatre is an old Victorian theatre called the Royale?’
‘Is this a quiz programme you’re watching?’
‘No, it’s on the news. Your theatre’s just collapsed down a hole. It’s fallen down. Made a big hole. Pretty cool, don’t you think?’
CHAPTER TWENTY-TWO
It was my awful, awful premonition, happening in slow motion. I felt as if it was all my fault, that I had willed it to happen like some twenty-first-century white witch. A couple of toads and a newt stirred in a cauldron.
They were showing dim shots of the lopsided theatre, tilting to one side, lights hanging off the front like Christmas decorations gone wrong.
No one was being allowed inside, except rescue crews, as it was still too dangerous. They were searching for any trapped survivors. Speculation was being aired of a long-ago abandoned underground tunnel that everyone had forgotten about or maybe an ancient stream that had been diverted and was now bursting its channel due to the heavy rain.
A television reporter in a belted raincoat was standing outside in the rain, under an umbrella, reading from an autocue. Behind him were police cars, fire engines and ambulances, police milling about, the public gawping at a distance at the taped-off area like a mob at a murder scene.
‘It’s a miracle that more people were not hurt,’ he was saying, straight to camera. ‘The West Enders opened only last week with an acclaimed performance of Twelfth Night and they have played to packed houses ever since. Here is Joe Harrison from New York, the guest director of Twelfth Night, designer of the set, artist supremo. Mr Harrison, how are you feeling seeing all this?’
Joe was standing in the rain, no umbrella, drenched. His face was shocked, eyes like granite. Rain dripped off his face, his dark hair flattened to his head.
‘I’m gutted,’ he said.
‘How relieved are you that so few people were injured?’
Joe’s face glazed over at the stupidity of question. ‘Of course I’m immensely glad that the audience had not arrived. But my cast were there and the stage crew.’
I was stunned, seeing Joe again, seeing him so distressed. ‘But who’s been hurt?’ I demanded of the television screen. ‘Tell me, tell me, who’s been injured?’
Mark came over and patted my hand. It was such a sweet gesture. I held on to his palm, feeling the soft young skin with one part of my mind, the other part shouting at the screen.
‘They didn’t say anyone had died, Mum. Some people injured, a few people, they said,’ he said, quite sensibly.
He’d called me Mum. Second time ever. How come a moment of joy and despair could be mixed together? But it was. That was life. It deals you both cards at the same time.
‘So will the show still go on?’ asked the reporter, more inane questions. Did they go on a course for who could ask the most stupid questions?
Joe was obviously restraining himself from knocking the bloke’s head off. ‘Not at the Royale, obviously. We’ll be looking for a new theatre,’ he said. ‘We have a magnificent cast and are sold out for weeks. It’s just a hiccup.’
‘Please, please say who is injured.’ I asked. The screen wasn’t answering. The reporter signed off and returned everyone to the studio where it was dry and warm and plenty of coffee was on hand and the newscasters were wandering about with important sheafs of paper in their hands.
I sank back, despairing. My friends might be injured.
Mark sat me down and was pouring out the tea in a motherly way. ‘You could phone someone,’ he said, taking charge. ‘Have you got their numbers? I’ll bring the phone through. The lead is quite long.’
I was drinking tea but I couldn’t taste it. Joe was safe. It was a shock to find out that I really cared, my thoughts running away, worrying like crazy. Had I, all this time, cared about him? No, not perhaps on that cold and snowy night, long ago. He had be
en a surprise then, a sort of unexpected present. But now, it had all changed. He had come into my life again, a different person, someone I could love.
Mark was nudging me with the phone. ‘Phone someone up, Mum,’ he said, very grown up and bossy. Miraculously he was not one of those children glued to a computer screen or playstation. He could think for himself and for me, now. ‘Shall I get your bag? Are the numbers in your bag?’
I could have hugged him to bits. I nodded before I did something he wouldn’t like. Mark raced upstairs to fetch my shoulder bag, the one I’d brought down with me and barely used since.
Here he was, looking after me when I was supposed to be looking after him. He threw the bag on to the sofa and started to undo the clasp as if this was beyond my stressed-out ability. I found the scrap of paper that passed for a list of friends.
‘How did the theatre fall down a hole?’ Mark asked.
‘Underneath London are masses and masses of tunnels,’ I said. ‘All dug out at different times for different reasons. There’s all the underground train routes, twelve of them, streams diverted under roads and into culverts and tunnels and pipes, then the gas and electricity and phone cables. And there are some underground tunnels which they didn’t use, just abandoned. It’s a labyrinth down there and a wonder any building stays upright.’
‘A bit like Venice.’
‘Not as watery as Venice. More like a honeycomb of holes at different levels, like inside a Crunchie bar. Not very safe.’
The first to hand was Joe’s mobile number. Mark was dialling it. It seemed ironic that Mark was doing it, phoning Joe’s mobile. He passed it to me.
‘Hello, Joe, Joe?‘ I said. It was Joe answering. ‘We saw you on the television, all the news and had to phone.’
‘Sophie, thank God. Is that you? Are you all right? Where are you? We thought you were still inside, trapped. You said it was an emergency but you didn’t say where you were going. We thought you’d come back here to the theatre. They found your mohair in the debris.’ His voice was shaking. ‘Your lilac jersey.’
‘My mohair? What do you mean?’
‘It was downstage right of the stage that collapsed. Your prompt corner has gone. It’s disappeared down a vast crater. Bit more than a nasty draught now. I’ve been out of my mind with worry about you. The firemen won’t go near the hole or let anyone else till it’s been shored up and made safe. They’ve been using some infra red thing that detects body heat.’
Mark was snuggled up to my hip, pressed against me, trying to listen to both sides of the conversation. I didn’t blame him. This was high drama on anyone’s list. ‘My mother had to go into hospital for a major operation,’ I said. ‘It was a last-minute cancellation. I had to come down and look after her.’
‘Your mother? Is she all right? We thought you were at the theatre, doing something. You know, Sophie do this, do that. I thought you were lying somewhere under the rubble.’ His voice broke off, unable to say any more.
I didn’t know how to explain, to put his mind at rest.
Mark took the phone from me. ‘Hello,’ he said clearly and calmly. ‘Sophie’s all right. She’s not down any hole or injured. She’s sitting here with me, drinking tea. But she wants to know who is injured.’
He handed the phone back to me. ‘Hello?’ I said, feebly. ‘Joe?’
‘Who was that?’ he asked abruptly.
‘I want to know who is injured,’ I said. ‘Please tell me.’
‘Bill Naughton, the stage manager. He’s been taken to St Thomas’s Hospital. He was caught by a collapsing wall. Also a couple of stage hands, walking wounded, cuts and bruises, not critical. That’s all. We were very lucky. The cast got out with a few scratches, bruises, all very shocked.’
‘What about your costumes and your beautiful sets?’
‘We’ve lost most of the sets. The costumes are still there, if we are ever allowed to go in to retrieve them. So where are you?’
‘Dorset,’ I said, reluctantly. ‘It was a family emergency.’
‘You could have told me. I’ve been nearly out of my mind.’
‘No, I couldn’t,’ I said. Mark was bright-eyed with curiosity. He loved this insight into adult stupidity. He started making weird faces, hoping to cheer me up, make me laugh. Nothing was a laughing matter and I moved him away, but not too far.
‘Have you got someone there?’ Joe was asking. Mark was grinning from ear to ear, waving his arms about, maniac-style.
‘Yes, I have someone here,’ I said, trying to hold on to normality. ‘But it’s not what you might think, so stop asking questions. This is all personal, private and nothing to do with the theatre.’
‘I want to know where you are and what you are doing,’ said Joe, suddenly all New York and arrogant. ‘I’ve been worried out of my mind, thinking you were in the collapsed part of the theatre. OK, you’re safe and I’m one hundred per cent glad, but where the hell are you?’
‘Swanage,’ Mark yelled. He started to spell it. ‘S … W—’
I couldn’t help it. I was trying to gag him with my hand but Mark was giggling and punching and rolling about on the sofa. Talk about two juvenile idiots. I was upset about the theatre and about Bill Naughton being in hospital, but this boy by my side was the most wonderful person and I loved him more than my own life.
‘I’ll come up to London, as soon as I can, to help with moving the costumes. Another couple of weeks should see this through,’ I said, trying to recover my status as firm mother. Mark was like a wriggling jellyfish.
‘See what through?’ Joe asked.
‘Me, see me through,’ Mark shouted again, thoroughly enjoying himself. He was in such good spirits, I couldn’t tell him off. I’d never seen him acting so ridiculous and childish and downright joyous. He’d grown up before his time and suddenly he had shed all those extra years in a few minutes of wild and wonderful idiot behaviour.
‘Do excuse us,’ I said. ‘I am trying to control a complete idiot. It’s time to put him back in the dungeon and turn on the thumb screws, or I won’t get a moment’s peace.’
‘What?’ Joe was completely bemused.
‘I’ll phone again, soon.’
‘And I’Il beat her again at gin rummy,’ Mark shrieked before I could throttle him. He was falling all over the place, laughing. I put the phone down.
‘That was very silly,’ I said. ‘I was trying to have a serious conversation. People have been hurt. The theatre is a very old Victorian theatre and part of it has been badly damaged. Heaven knows when we’ll get any more money to repair it. I’ll probably be out of a job.’
Mark sobered up a bit. ‘Right. Sorry.’
‘Never mind. No one has died, thank goodness, but I’ll have to go and see Bill Naughton, the stage manager, the one who’s in hospital, and help Hilda move the costumes into storage. They are both old friends.’
‘I could come with you. I’ve never been to London.’
‘It’s not that easy,’ I said, juggling plans, all useless. ‘We’ve got Gran to think of. We can’t go rushing off to London, any old time, and leave her. But I should go sometime. They need me.’
‘I could stay overnight with a friend if you have to go,’ said Mark, tidying the tea tray and taking it into the kitchen. He’d gone back to being a grown-up. ‘You know, a sleep-over like in American movies. I could do that.’
‘Well, that’s a possibility,’ I began, hesitantly.
‘But you will come back, won’t you?’ he asked, a bit off-hand. ‘And not stay away for years and years.’
‘Of course, I’ll come back. I’m never going to stay away years and years.’
‘Promise?’
‘I promise.’ I bent towards him and caught a whiff of grape. ‘Hey, I can smell wine. I think you drank some of my red wine when I went to pay the bill. What a nerve.’
He grinned. ‘Didn’t like it much. Shall we play poker now? Before you put me in a dungeon. You said you were going to teach me.’
&nb
sp; ‘I don’t know that I want to play cards with a secret drinker,’ I said, getting out a pack.
CHAPTER TWENTY-THREE
It took a week for the demolition squad and builders to go in, shore the place up and announce it safe to start removing costumes and props. London seemed like a foreign city. I felt I had been away on a gap year, white-rafting the Amazon. It was so crowded and dirty, millions of busy sharp-suited ants swarming about counting bonuses. Someone was going to tread on me at any moment.
My mother was up and about but they wanted to keep her in a few days longer. It was not like a London hospital where they turf you out as soon as you could reach for your slippers.
‘Of course, you must go,’ she said, quite perky. ‘I’m perfectly all right here. I’ve got my needlework and I’ve made some friends. Just so long as Mark is being looked after.’
Mark was staying a couple of nights with a school friend and had gone off, packed up with clothes and tucker, in high holiday mood.
‘Promise?’ he reminded me as he waved goodbye. ‘Coming back pronto?’
‘I promise,’ I said.
I’d been to see Bill Naughton in St Thomas’s Hospital. He was flirting with all the nurses, and being visited on a regular basis by Millie. He’d broken a leg and an arm, which made him dependent on female help for almost everything.
‘Surrounded by feminine beauty,’ he said, waving me to a chair. ‘I must have died and gone to heaven.’
‘Don’t be too sure,’ I said. ‘That doctor looks as if he’s got a forked tail. You’d better beware of him.’
‘We thought you were buried under the debris. You gave us quite a fright. Especially as it was your prompt corner that went down the plug hole.’
‘I’d hardly be prompting if it happened before a show,’ I said. No way was I going to go on feeling guilty. ‘I don’t have to rehearse being the prompt.’
‘And your fluffy jumper was there.’
Midsummer Madness Page 17