‘I’ve just been giving a hand with the refreshments for tonight,’ she says, which isn’t an answer to my question. ‘A friend of mine’s on the PTA.’
‘I was sorry to hear about Hector,’ I say.
She looks at me, dull-eyed. ‘It’s her I worry about. Glenys. I’m so afraid she’s done the same as him.’
Not on your life.
‘Oh I shouldn’t worry about that,’ I say. ‘She’s pretty tough, isn’t she?’
‘No, she’s not!’ She startles me with her vehemence. ‘She’s that fragile, nobody realises. She needs looking after. I don’t know how she’ll manage with Hector gone and Edmund –you know –’
‘Do you have any idea where she might have gone?’
She gives a sharp laugh. ‘I was just going to ask you the same. You’re friendly with that chief inspector, aren’t you? Don’t you know anything?’
What I know, Renée, will break your heart.
‘No,’ I say. ‘I don’t know anything.’
I go in through the side door and make my way, via the kitchen and the canteen, towards the hall. As I’m walking past the backstage area, I hear hammering and I stick my head in, in case it’s Ellie having some last-minute panic. What I see is Eve, up a ladder, nailing fronds of paper ivy to a flat representing a nicely distressed, old stone wall. I’m about to withdraw when she says, ‘Hello Gina,’ without turning her head.
‘Eyes in the back of your head?’
‘Years of practice.’
She climbs down the ladder and turns to survey me.
‘Nice hair,’ she says. ‘Makes you look thinner.’ Which makes me notice that she looks thinner. Her face has lost its plump bloom; she looks literally deflated. It’s undersold, I think, the grief diet, though I did hear a woman in Marks and Spencer’s the other day say to her friend, ‘The great thing about my divorce was I went down two dress sizes.’
‘Thank you,’ I say.
I should probably explain about the hair. You will recall that Glenys set fire to it with a flaming missile, so I presented myself at the hairdresser’s with an unconvincing story about a candle going out of control and asked Tracey to do her best to even it up. Well, Tracey’s best was to cut most of it off. I was briefly traumatised. I thought it was going to make me look fatter. I’ve always thought I needed the big hair to balance the bosom, but actually it gives me a longer neck and I quite like it. Admittedly, the neck is under wraps at the moment, as it’s pretty scabby. I didn’t fancy wearing my coat when the police finally returned it to me, so I donated it to the hospice shop and splashed out on a new one with a high collar, above which only the tip of my scorched ear is visible.
‘How’s Colin?’ I ask.
‘Oh, you know, relieved I suppose, but humiliated. Today’s Gazette has hit him hard.’
‘And he’s definitely going to retire?’
‘Oh, yes. We can’t stay here now. We’ll take ourselves off.’
She sits down on a faux stone bench and I join her.
‘Where?’
‘Well, as it happens, Laura and her husband have bought a smallholding in Donegal. Martin wants to raise rare breeds and Laura thinks she can start up a craft centre. It may all fall flat on its face, of course, but we’re thinking we might go over and join them. We can look after the children, at least, even if we’re not much good for anything else.’
‘It could be lovely.’
‘Yes, it could.’ She puts a hand on my arm. ‘I’m not coming round to watch tonight, sweetheart. Cowardly, I know, but I can’t quite face all those eyes. I’ve told Ellie I’ll stay back here and cope with emergencies. Then she can watch from the front.’
‘OK.’ I stand up and drop a kiss on the top of her head. ‘I’ll talk to you soon,’ I say. ‘Tell Colin –’
‘What?’
‘I don’t know. Tell him I hope – ’ I’m saved from continuing by my phone ringing. ‘Sorry. I’d better –’ I fish it out of my bag.
‘Gina?’
‘David?’
‘I thought you’d like to know we’ve got her.’
‘Glenys?’
‘Yes.’
‘Where? How?’
‘Where is somewhere unpronounceable on the west coast of Wales. How – she phoned Edmund.’
‘And you were bugging his phone?’
‘We’ve got his phone.’
‘Are you allowed to do that?’
‘No, but we thought we’d do it anyway. What do you think?’
‘I just thought –’
‘That possession of a mobile phone is a fundamental human right? I don’t think so.’
‘You’d think she’d have realised that you’d be monitoring his calls.’
‘I’d think that maybe she loves him.’
‘Her Achilles’ heel.’
‘Something like that.’
‘Well.’
‘As you say. Well.’
I put my phone away and turn to speak to Eve, but the bench is empty.
In the hall, Ellie has reserved a half row for us. Eight seats. By my calculations, there are only five of us. Who else is she expecting? Annie and my mother are the first to arrive, Annie performing her role of solicitous granddaughter with serious attention. Andrew arrives, not at the last minute for once and bringing Lavender with him. She is gazing about her in some bewilderment and it occurs to me that this may be the first time she has been inside a state school, but it is good of her to come and I greet her with enthusiasm. At the last minute, Ellie slips into a seat at the far end of the row, with a dark-haired chap, who must be Ben Biaggi, beside her. There is a spare seat on the end of the row next to me and I hope no-one will sit in it because the heating is on in here and I shall have to take my coat off and I don’t want to frighten anyone with the state of my neck.
No-one has arrived by the time the houselights go down and I sit back and try to relax. I’m on tenterhooks through the first two scenes but it comes alive with Sir Toby, Maria and Sir Andrew, who are full of bounce and get the audience going beautifully, so I’m just beginning to enjoy myself when someone slips into the seat beside me. I decide not to worry about the view of my crusty neck since it’s pretty dark, but I sneak a glance to see what sort of a person it is and find that it’s David.
Ellie doesn’t allow any flagging between scenes but I seize a moment when one lot of actors is speeding off and another arriving to hiss, ‘What are you doing here?’
‘Ellie asked me,’ he says.
It’s after the interval that something odd starts to happen to me. I come over all emotional. I am overwhelmed by the sheer effort these children are making, the seriousness of their endeavour. I know them well, these flaky adolescents with their attention deficit, their whims and moods, their chaotic home lives and unimagined futures. And my Ellie has cajoled and coerced them, bullied and flattered, and they have turned up to rehearsals week after week, and now they are acting their hearts out, navigating the language like tightrope walkers, performing as if for their very lives. I wipe away a tear or two and feel David turn to give me a glance.
And now we’re at the reunion scene and I’m at it again. Viola and Sebastian, orphans, shipwrecked brother and sister, have found one another and we all watch, hushed, as they stand, eyes locked, and allow themselves to believe that it’s true. Marina Carson has been in my mind all evening. I assume Hector named her after Shakespeare’s Marina, from Pericles, another lost heroine like Viola, like Perdita, like Imogen. No reunions for Hector’s Marina, though, no miraculous return from the dead, no loving brother to take her in his arms.
Then it’s all over. Feste, a black boy with a husky, rawedged voice, sings his final song:
‘A great while ago the world began
With a hey ho, the wind and the rain,
But that’s all one, our play is done,
And we’ll strive to please you every day.’
The audience explodes into applause; the cast troops on, messily, unsmiling,
slightly stunned, it seems, by what they have just done. Friends whoop and cheer, a few enthusiastic parents jump to their feet, the actors bow out of sync and, finally, break into smiles. As they shuffle off, I push my way along the row to hug Ellie. I shake hands with Ben Biaggi, give Andrew a see what she can do look, receive a fragrant embrace from Lavender, hug Annie, kiss the top of my mother’s head, and then, because you have to fight back against the wind and the rain, I take hold of David and I kiss him.
A Note
For those who are interested, all chapter heading quotes are taken from Twelfth Night as follows:
CHAPTER 1:
And what’s her history? (Act 2, Scene 4)
CHAPTER 2:
He was a bachelor then. (Act 1, Scene 2)
CHAPTER 4:
Youth’s a stuff will not endure (Act 2, Scene 3)
CHAPTER 7:
Bring your hand to the buttery bar and let it drink (Act 1, Scene 3)
CHAPTER 8:
O had I but followed the arts! (Act 1, Scene 3)
CHAPTER 11:
If she be so abandoned to her sorrow
As it is spoke, she never will admit me (Act 1, Scene 4)
CHAPTER 13:
The rudeness that hath appeared in me
Have I learnt from my entertainment (Act 1, Scene 5)
CHAPTER 15:
For I myself am best
When least in company (Act 1, Scene 4)
CHAPTER 17:
‘Tis not that time of moon with me
to make one in so skipping a dialogue (Act 1, Scene 5)
CHAPTER 18:
And the rain it raineth every day (Act 5, Scene 1)
CHAPTER 19:
No more cakes and ale (Act 2, Scene 3)
CHAPTER 20:
I have not seen such a firago (Act 3, Scene 4)
CHAPTER 22:
She hath abjured the sight
And company of men (Act 1, Scene 2)
CHAPTER 23:
Most provident in peril (Act 1, Scene 2)
CHAPTER 26:
Daylight and champaign discovers not more (Act 2, Scene 5)
CHAPTER 27:
Nature with a beauteous wall
Doth oft close in pollution (Act 1, Scene 2)
CHAPTER 29:
Then come kiss me sweet and twenty (Act 2, Scene 3)
All the Daughters Page 29