Midsummer Madness

by Stella Whitelaw

  It was the delayed-timing trick which works on stage, but not in the wings.

  The rehearsal was nearly over. We were all shredded, on our knees. I knew Joe was going to take us to pieces. Even me, perhaps. He could say what he liked. I wouldn’t mind. I have a broad back. Well, not that broad.

  He gathered us around, his face like granite, edged with despair. I stayed on the fringe, out of sight, where I should be as I was not remotely cast.

  ‘I don’t have to tell you. You know it. There is a lot of work to be done if we are to reopen on Wednesday. Well done, some of you. You still know your words, your moves. Full marks to those who adapted their moves. What have the rest of you been doing? Selling The Big Issue? Drinking? Going to lots of parties?’

  There was a stunned, guilty silence. I knew that a couple of the courtiers had picked up some work as film-extras. On set by 6 a.m. I didn’t envy them. All that hanging around, just before dawn, for a ballroom scene or a battlefield.

  ‘So extra rehearsal this evening and no one goes home until we are back to the level of the Royale. I don’t care if we are here till the small hours. It’s your responsibility. One hour’s break, then back here, with your heads strapped on.’ He slapped his book shut. He was a man on the brink of bolting.

  Then he called Fran over for a private word. He had spotted her cavorting in the wings. I couldn’t hear what he said to her, but her face contorted with fury and she flounced off, making a tearful retreat. Maybe she wouldn’t come back.

  I went out into the gloomy, cloud-ridden street, searching for some bright light, somewhere to eat, some café that exuded warmth. Where I could sit and forget about the awful rehearsal.

  It was a grubby little café, neon lights, formica topped tables and plastic orange chairs. I hated every inch of it but it sold plain food at reasonable prices. I could only afford reasonable. And I needed solid.

  It was a plate of penne pasta. No café could go wrong cooking pasta, or could they? The cheese was non-existent. Two shreds of stale cheddar melted in an instant. I went up to the counter and helped myself to two postage stamp-sized wrapped portions of butter.

  ‘Hey, you can’t do that. You didn’t order a roll.’

  ‘Charge me,’ I said.

  I put the butter on top of the pasta, added salt and pepper, stirred it around, tried to bring some taste to life. I was stirring my life. Across the way was a park. Some children played with a ball, shouting with laughter, done up in bright anoraks and scarves, not caring about the cold.

  Joe sat down, opposite me. He’d jumped the queue at the counter. The rich are bad at queueing. He looked so much older, worried, weary with the world. His luxurious New York home was a long way away. All that glitter and gloss waiting for him, to wrap him in comfort. Perhaps he was homesick.

  ‘So,’ he said, surveying my dish. ‘Pasta à la nothing. What sort of meal is that? No cheese, no chives, no prawns, no sauce, no sort of taste to bring it alive. Pasta is dead stuff, you know. Dead wheat.’

  ‘This is only a cheap street café. They haven’t any skill beyond putting it on a plate. Pasta is a filling dish.’

  ‘Is that what you want of life? A filler?’

  ‘Of course, it isn’t. But that’s all there is time for now. Remember? Back in an hour. The director spoke. Humbler folk hurried away to eat.’

  ‘The director needs some instant food, too.’

  Joe had a fork. He’d picked it up from an empty table. He leaned towards me, his face an image from long ago. Those eyes were still the same. He might be worth several million dollars in the bank and real estate, but at this moment, all he wanted was some of my late, rapidly cooling lunch.

  ‘We could share, dear,’ I offered with a touch of Katherine Hepburn in The African Queen. I often wondered what they ate on that perilous trip down the river. There was no sign of food, only endless tin mugs of strong tea.

  Joe got up and pilfered a plastic shaker of parmesan from behind the counter. The cheese flew like shards of chalk over the pasta, shreds of stringent taste that added a touch of Italy to West London.

  ‘Was this lunch my idea?’ he asked, forking.

  ‘No, this lunch is my idea,’ I said.

  CHAPTER TWENTY-SIX

  The letter was circulating the theatre and cast. Even the stage crew were reading it. My face was pink with the humiliation, the loss of dignity, the lack of privacy. I knew what it was all about. The damning, assassination letter with two-dozen signatures. The guillotine letter. Start knitting, folks, I’m being dragged along in a cart. I’d better wear two shirts like Charles I.

  How they got hold of a copy was anyone’s guess. Maybe Joe had demanded to see it. After all, he was the director. The boss man. He had a lot of influence. But it was not in his nature to pass it around like a prize specimen at a flower show.

  I was starting to flag. There was a limit to my concentration and to my energy. Everyone was getting tired and tempers were honing sharp. Even Jessica, who was as cool as an iceberg most of the time, told Fran off twice for standing in front of her. Upstaging.

  ‘Get your butt out of my space,’ she hissed. ‘Who do you think you are? Keira Knightley?’

  ‘There is a resemblance,’ Fran smirked.

  ‘In your dreams, crab-face,’ said Bill, loud enough for everyone to hear.

  ‘Silence,’ Joe shouted. ‘Pick it up at the same line. We’ll take a break at the end of this scene.’

  At some point a catering courier arrived with a huge basket of sandwiches, beers and soft drinks. Joe had ordered them from a local delicatessen. We fell on the basket like starving refugees, tearing open the packets. I managed to get a whole round of granary with tuna, cress and tomato, and a carton of orange juice.

  Joe came over to me to check a new move.

  ‘Didn’t you get any?’ I said, offering half of my sandwich to Joe. He took it and bit into the moistness.

  ‘No, the rampaging mob beat me to it.’

  ‘Never mind. You had a filling lunch.’

  ‘Filling about describes it. Sophie, I’ve seen the letter that was sent to the management about your unreliable work. Apparently Elinor demanded to see a copy and it looks as though practically everyone signed. A few names are missing.’

  My heart did a peculiar jerk. ‘Did Bill Naughton sign it?’

  ‘No, nor had Elinor. But Hilda did and so did Millie. Very odd.’

  ‘I don’t believe it. Hilda and Millie? What do they know about prompting?’ I was shocked. ‘The skill, the concentration, the hard work.’

  ‘Nothing. It seems weird, especially when they are your friends.’

  ‘I thought they were my friends,’ I said bitterly. ‘Now I don’t know who my friends are.’

  ‘Better get started again or we’ll be here all night. OK, folks. Back on stage. Act III. Where’s Bill?’ Joe slapped shut his laptop. The technology was being spiteful and spitting out crumbs.

  ‘He’s gone home, boss.’

  ‘What? He’s gone home? Has the whole world gone crazy?’ Joe spluttered. ‘He’s the stage manager. I need him as much as I need the cast.’

  ‘We can manage for a bit,’ said the crew hopefully. ‘Bill said it was very important. He’s coming back.’

  ‘I suppose I should be grateful for that,’ said Joe, glaring impatiently. ‘Anyone else feel like nipping home? Something important cropped up, fridge to defrost, answerphone to check? Anything more important than the show? To hell with our opening night on Wednesday.’

  There was an embarrassed silence, a few coughs and foot fidgeting. I took the opportunity to finish my juice and try to make my bomb-proof concrete corner more comfortable. It needed the woman’s touch. I made do with water and cough sweets. It was like sitting in an underground shelter, minus the buskers and the trains.

  ‘Let’s get on then. Act III music. Have we a prompt or has she gone off home, too?’

  I didn’t mind if he took it out on me. He knew I was there. He wanted to sh
arpen his tongue.

  ‘Present and almost correct,’ I said, almost Julia Roberts, meaning I’d nearly found the page.

  The sandwiches and beer had done the trick and the rest of the rehearsal was not bad at all. Joe looked halfway pleased. He was nodding to himself as he made electronic notes.

  The cast began to relax and thus their performances flowed, as Shakespeare meant the words to flow. Claud was perfecting the sadness and madness of impossible love. The scenes buzzed with vitality yet had a haunting quality. I even laughed at some of the jokes which I’d heard a hundred times before. They came over fresh and new.

  ‘Well done,’ said Joe at the end, pushing back his hair. ‘A big improvement. Somehow we managed without the Stage Manager. We’ll do new curtain calls tomorrow, making use of the bigger set. You can have the morning off. Have a sleep-in. See you at two o’clock sharp. Thank you all for working so hard.’

  I heard the stage door open and the clump of Bill’s crutches. He’d made good time, used a taxi both ways. The management were paying him expenses while he was on crutches. He was getting a taste for expensive transport.

  ‘Stop. Stop, everyone. Wait a minute. Don’t go yet,’ he called out, coming on to the stage. He was waving a large envelope. Joe was about to say something but then thought twice about it. Bill’s craggy face was thunderous. He looked as if he was about to explode.

  ‘Listen to me. I’ve something to say,’ he said loudly. Plenty of projection from our stage manager. There was a general slow down in hasty exits and the majority of the cast and crew began easing back, curious. It was rare to see Bill so angry.

  He stood centre stage, took a deep breath. He’d never had a speaking part before.

  ‘You’ve all seen the letter sent to management about our inefficient and useless prompt, haven’t you?’ There was a bit of murmuring and disagreement with his harsh words. I curled up, out of sight, shutting out the misery. I wanted to disappear, go home, hibernate.

  ‘The letter was sent and signed by about eighty per cent of the company. But that letter smelt like rotten eggs. I knew there was something wrong with it but I couldn’t work out what it was. Suddenly the answer was there. It came to me in Malvolio’s scene when he reads the forged letter.’

  Bill had everyone’s attention now, including mine. I held my breath. What had he found out?

  ‘Now, that letter was a clever forgery sent by Maria to Malvolio. This letter to the management is the same thing, only the modern equivalent of forgery. Get it? It’s a load of photocopying.’

  ‘What do you mean?’ Voices rose, clamouring. ‘Bill, come on, tell us.’ ‘Spit it out.’

  ‘I wondered why my name wasn’t on it,’ Bill went on. ‘Why not me? Then it dawned on me that my signature wasn’t on it because the whole lot of signatures had originally been sent to me. So I rushed home to get the proof, to show you. And here it is.’

  What was he talking about? It didn’t make sense until he produced a large Get Well card. One of those enormous cards with room for everyone on the planet to sign. On the front was a drawing of a buxom blonde nurse saucily comforting a bandaged patient who had every limb in splints.

  ‘This was sent to me when I was in hospital. Everyone signed it. I didn’t sign it because it was sent to me. Got it? Elinor didn’t sign it because she was taking it easy at home. Easy enough to photocopy the signatures off the card. Print a nasty letter on a sheet of A4, then rearrange the signatures below. Photocopy the whole and pop in the post. I bet if we compare the signatures on the card with those on the letter, we’ll find they are identical in every little dot and flourish.’

  I let out a big sigh. It had to be the explanation. No one had signed the letter. They were the names from the Get Well card sent to Bill. Photocopiers were brilliant these days, producing work as good as the original. No giveaway smudges or hazing.

  I was trembling. My friends hadn’t signed the letter. They didn’t think I was inefficient and useless.

  ‘Let’s hear it for our Sophie,’ Byron shouted.

  They began clapping. They were climbing on to the stage, whacking Bill’s back till he nearly fell over.

  ‘There,’ said Joe, lost for words for once. He patted me awkwardly as if I was a child. ‘Now we know. Photocopied signatures.’

  He leaped on to the stage and was shaking Bill’s hand. They were comparing the card and the letter, nodding and agreeing. They were finding identical signatures, it seemed.

  My legs were not working very well. They had turned to straw. I didn’t think I could make the ten yards to centre stage. Somehow I made the journey, like it was to the Earth’s core. I reached up and kissed Bill’s cheek.

  ‘Thank you,’ I said, blinking back hot tears.

  ‘I’m not just a pretty face,’ he grinned. He put his arm round my shoulder and gave it a rough shake. ‘No crying on stage,’ he said. ‘It’s not allowed.’

  Then I saw he was looking over my shoulder and Millie was easing forward, her face wreathed in smiles. He let go of me and was looking at her as if she was the only person there.

  ‘What a clever old clod of earth you are,’ she said. ‘I shall have to watch you. You could turn out to be brilliant.’

  ‘Hang around, sister,’ he said, winking. ‘I may surprise you.’

  I had to smile. I had turned Bill down so many times, sometimes cruelly. But now he had found someone who liked him. Millie was all smiles.

  Joe was taking me somewhere away from the crowds, his hand under my elbow. I would have fallen down without his support. But people were still crowding around, congratulating me. It was like the first night all over again. This was theatre. This was my life blood. Will Shakespeare would have loved it. The drama of life. He would have written it as a play called, say, What You Will. (Joke) And it would have been a rip-roaring success at The Globe. The prompt corner would have been matting and straw. The script a hand-written manuscript. His hand.

  ‘So who organized this vulgar Get Well card for Bill in hospital and got signatures from everyone, but not mine?’ It was Elinor, who should have gone home by now but hadn’t. She looked radiant, younger, wearing elegantly chic Parisian black and skyscraper heels. She had a new admirer, some high-up executive in late-night television. It was never too late. He was coming by to give her a lift home.

  ‘Yes, who organized the card?’

  It wasn’t hard to guess.

  But Miss Goody Two-Shoes had scurried off into London’s dark streets, down into the sewers where she belonged. We never saw her again for this production. Joe promoted the second lady-in-waiting to first lady-in-waiting and Hilda agreed to alter the grand dresses.

  ‘It’s the least I can do,’ she said to me.

  ‘Are you all right?’ said Joe. ‘Did I say something about having supper? Was that today? I’ve lost track.’

  ‘I don’t remember,’ I said. ‘I couldn’t eat anything anyway. It’s too late. I want to go home and go to sleep.’

  I was nearly asleep. I might fall off the stage.

  ‘That’s a perfect idea,’ said Joe, drawing me close. ‘Would there be room for a frazzled, exhausted, grumpy old director who can’t face his lonely king-sized bed?’

  ‘I don’t know,’ I said, wondering if my hearing had gone. ‘Does this grumpy director snore?’

  ‘How should I know? I don’t keep myself awake.’ He was laughing at me and there was a tenderness in his eyes which I had never seen before. He touched my hair. It was still short and bouncy, as he liked it.

  ‘I don’t believe in sleeping with producers or directors,’ I said. What was I saying? All I wanted was to lay down with his dear face beside me. I only wanted him. ‘I don’t need that kind of career incentive.’

  ‘Quite right, too. It doesn’t work with me. I only sleep with women that I love.’ Joe took my hand and held it against his lips. ‘And since you call’d me master for so long,’ he said, using Orsino’s last Act V words. ‘Here is my hand: you shall from this t
ime be your master’s mistress.’

  Viola had no answer to make, nor had I. There was still a lot to tell Joe and I did not know how to tell him. Or when. It wouldn’t be tonight.

  But I took him home as I had once before on a frosty winter’s night hung with mist, and we climbed the endless stairs to my rooftop flat. The bed was still a single but the rose-patterned duvet was warm and comforting and soft pillows embraced us.

  We left the curtains open so that we could search the sky for stars, wondering if it would snow. If it did snow, then neither of us knew. Sleep took us to separate dreams but we were together even in those dreams.

  ‘You’ve cold feet,’ I said.

  ‘Mmn.’

  CHAPTER TWENTY-SEVEN

  The show closed after a six-week run to full houses. All shows close in the end and Twelfth Night was no exception. It wasn’t a Mousetrap or Sound of Music. The Bard couldn’t run forever. But he would certainly be on the boards again and again. Long after the others were gathering dust on shelves in theatrical museums.

  The last night of the show was one to remember. The audience roared their approval and the curtain calls went on and on. I sat in the prompt corner listening to the applause, hugging the script to me, all my acquired history there between the lines. Joe came round to me and put his hand briefly on my shoulder.

  ‘It’s all over,’ he said. ‘A wonderful show.’

  ‘Magical,’ I said. All over. Joe would be going home for good now. I couldn’t bear to think of it. He’d already made a couple of trips back to discuss new shows. I’d raced down to Swanage for walks and talks and hugs.

  We had a fantastic after-show party on stage, tears and laughter, relief and euphoria. No one wanted to leave. It went on into the small hours. But there was work to do the next day, dismantling scenery, packing props and wardrobe.

  ‘I hate putting a show to bed,’ said Hilda, folding and packing costumes into hampers. ‘It’s so sad. All that work and now it’s finished.’