Golden Pavements

by Pamela Brown

  Everyone came on for the curtain call, and the audience clapped and clapped, and Lynette could see dimly the front row of faces in the stalls and noticed that they had the beaming, escaped sort of look of people who have been taken out of themselves and away from their own worries and tragedies for a little while. Marcia stepped forward to acknowledge her applause, and then held out a gracious hand towards Lynette, who blushed and bowed. They took six curtains and then retired. Lynette was nearly dropping with exhaustion. Timothy helped her gallantly up the stairs, telling her how good she was. He was brimming over with delight.

  “They liked it, Lyn,” he kept saying. “I was standing in the foyer and I heard people saying, ‘What a good play,’ and ‘Oh, I did enjoy it.’ Lynette, I think it will be all right. Oh, you were lovely—simply terrific. You made me cry, and I ought to be hardened by this time.” He whispered in her ear, “You were better than Marcia. Do you know that?”

  “Don’t be stupid,” said Lynette tersely.

  “Everyone was asking who you were. And De Whit says he wishes we’d asked the Press tonight, as it’s gone so well. He’s afraid the first night won’t be so good, as the dress rehearsal went so amazingly well.”

  “Oh, that’s just superstition,” said Lynette confidently.

  The call-boy came running up. “Oh, Miss Darwin, Miss Meredith requests any of the company who are not otherwise engaged to have supper with her at the Wiltshire Grill.”

  “Oh, thanks. How lovely.”

  She ran along to her dressing-room, and before she had got very far with removing her make-up Helen, Miss Smith, and Mrs. Bertram and Mrs. Bosham arrived. They were all enthusiastic about the play. Helen shook her hard by the hand and said gruffly, “Didn’t think you could do it.” Miss Smith said, “Excellent, Lyn. Mr. Whitfield and Mrs. Seymore will be so pleased with you.” Mrs. Bertram told her that she had looked the best-dressed person on the stage, and Mrs. Bosham said, “What a luverly play, eh? Oh, I did ’ave a good cry. Enjoyed meself something chronic.”

  In Marcia’s dressing-room a crowd of Marcia’s satellites surrounded her, mainly one-time actresses, who had either married and left the stage, or in some way had not quite made the grade.

  “Lovely, darling,” they told her, and enveloped her in embraces redolent of fox fur and Chanel Number Five. And then some seconds later, “But who’s this new girl? She’s very good.” One of them said, “Of course, dear, you have a very unsympathetic part. Do you think it’s a good idea? Do you think that the public will like it?” “Yes,” joined in another, “I mean they’re used to seeing you being your charming self, not a poisonous type of harridan. That girl has got the sympathetic part. She’s the person that the matinee matrons are going to coo over.”

  “But it’s a good idea to have a change of part occasionally,” put in Marcia. “It’s fun.”

  “Yes, dear. But is it wise in your position?” (“At your age” was implied.)

  Marcia pretended not to listen and changed the conversation, but all the rest of the evening it was churning backwards and forwards in her mind. At the Wiltshire Grill she was gay and entertaining. Most of the company had come along, and many of their friends. They ate hungrily and talked a lot, filled with relief and exhilaration. Marcia watched Lynette, who had a flush of excitement in her usually pale cheeks. She looked so young. And it was this child, no more than a schoolgirl, whom people came first to congratulate. “You stole the show, my dear,” Marcia heard De Whit tell her. And while she ate and drank and talked there were thoughts coiling like vipers round the brain of the ageing actress.

  Lynette was having the time of her life. She was thankful that she had thought to put on a fairly decent dress that day, and could dance on the tiny floor space when invited. Everyone made a fuss of her, De Whit called her his “honey child”, and introduced her to several of his friends as his discovery. Timothy claimed her attention whenever possible, but he was suddenly being treated as the eminent young author by everyone. A gossip column writer came up and chatted with them all.

  “Oh, I know all about Miss Meredith, don’t I?” he laughed, and turned to Lynette. “Now, little Miss Darwin, if you could let me have some details about your career.”

  “What do you want to know?”

  “How you started—all that sort of thing.”

  “How I started?”

  Lynette suddenly realized that here was a wonderful chance of boosting the Blue Doors, and she started to tell him some of the stories of their early amateur days. Half an hour later she was still talking, and the whole table was listening in delighted silence, with occasional bursts of laughter.

  “I must go home now,” Lyn said at last, anxious for a good night’s rest.

  “Just one more dance,” Timothy pleaded. As they danced a press camera flashed, and Timothy said to Lyn, “I think we’ve done it. I think we’re a success. Thank you for being so brilliant tonight.”

  “Thank you for writing such a lovely part,” retaliated Lynette. They danced as happily as they could on the crowded, smoky floor. Lynette closed her eyes to savour her happiness.

  “I might still have been at school,” she thought, “swotting to pass exams that would have got me nowhere. Oh, I’m lucky, I’m lucky.”

  At last she managed to break away from the merry party.

  “Goodnight, darling,” cried Marcia. “Sleep well. You look very tired, poor dear.”

  “I think you look smashing,” Timothy told Lyn shyly.

  They caught a bus home, watching the flashing neon lights from the top deck. Lyn felt strangely as if she had been through a critical operation and recovered. Everything that had been blunted and jaundiced by anxiety had regained its savour. They sang silly songs going down Fitzherbert Street, and Lynette had to knock on the door of No. 37 because she had forgotten her key. Mrs. Bosham appeared in an incredible woolly check dressing-gown, with a scarf tied round her head in a bow under her chin as though she had toothache.

  “This is Mr. Carew,” said Lyn.

  “Oh, the author, eh? Come in, do, and I’ll make you a cupper tea.”

  They sat in Mrs. Bosham’s basement by the fire, for it had turned chilly, and Mrs. Bosham raved over the show.

  “What a clever young man,” she kept saying. “And you look such a baby, too. Well, well.”

  When Lynette saw Timothy out of the door he said, “Be as good again tomorrow, won’t you?”

  “I’ll try,” said Lynette. She watched him down the road, then looked up at the starry sky. “I’ll try with all my might.”

  16

  FIRST NIGHT

  Lynette dreamed that it was exam time at school, and she woke with that sick feeling in her stomach. The rain was beating greyly down and her porridge was lumpy. Then she remembered that she was lunching with Timothy at a famous theatrical restaurant. It was the first time that either of them had dared to go there, for one had almost to produce one’s pedigree to secure a table. While she was dressing there was a phone call for her. She ran down the stairs in her house coat. Maddy spoke from a long way away.

  “Hullo, Lyn. I’m speaking on behalf of the Blue Doors, your parents, my parents, the Halfords, and the Bishop, and—oh, ooms of people in Fenchester. We just want you to know that we’re thinking about you—and wishing you all the best for tonight. They wanted us to ring you this evening at the theatre, but we knew you’d be in an awful flap by then.”

  “It was awfully sweet of you to think of it,” said Lyn gratefully.

  “How did the dress rehearsal go?”

  “Fine. Terrific.”

  “Good. We saw a lovely picture of you in that magazine.”

  “How’s the Blue Door Theatre going?”

  “We’re nearly ready to open. Gosh, we’ve been working round the clock.”

  “What are you opening with?”

  “We’re not quite sure. But we’re going to do all the things we know first.”

  They chatted for a long time, until the pip
s became too insistent, and Maddy rang off with final wishes for good luck.

  “Gosh,” thought Lynette, “I’m glad Maddy has come round a bit. She had every reason to feel a bit mad at my letting them down.”

  She dressed in her best dress, and Timothy called for her at midday. As ever, he was in a state of nerves, but she managed to calm him down enough to enjoy his lunch. The restaurant was crowded with actors and actresses, writers, painters, and musicians, and they had such fun picking out people that they did not realize that people were looking at them and wondering who they were. The lunch was delicious: pâté, and pheasant, and an enormous ice-cream trifle, and black, sweet Turkish coffee. They sat over their empty cups talking for a long time. De Whit, with a crowd of friends, came over to speak to them.

  “Hullo, children. Stoking up for tonight?”

  “Yes, rather!”

  “Mind you have a rest this afternoon, Lyn dear. You look tired.”

  “Yes, I’m going home to rest now.”

  “Good girl.” And off he shot to chat and laugh at all the neighbouring tables.

  Lyn walked slowly back to No. 37 and put her alarm on for four-thirty. “And, please, Mrs. Bosham, knock me up as well. It would be awful if I overslept.” But she did not sleep at all. There were so many thoughts and images and worries and fancies in her brain that she just lay on her back and studied the cracks in the ceiling that she thought looked like a rabbit, and that Maddy had held strongly were a lion.

  Before four-thirty she was up and dressing again in her best in case they should go out afterwards to celebrate. She took a taxi to the theatre, thinking, “After all, it’s a day on which to be rash.” The doorkeeper greeted her with, “Nice batch o’telegrams for you, miss.” She fell on them and carried them up to her room. They were from the most surprising people. People whom she thought had forgotten her years ago, vague aunts and distant cousins. There was one from Terry, the scenic artist at Tutworth, another from Miss Gaunt, her old school mistress, and piles from people at the Academy. She put them up round her mirror and surveyed them happily, then began to get made up. De Whit popped round to tell her that the house would be packed out and even some people standing.

  “A very distinguished audience, too,” he remarked. “Good luck, dear.”

  Others of the company came in to wish her good luck, and she popped along to Marcia and Vivian Conroy. Marcia, apparently completely unconcerned, was already entertaining some of her friends, talking sixteen to the dozen as she put on her make-up. When Lynette returned to her dressing-room she gasped with delight, for there was a mass of flowers which Mrs. White was arranging.

  “Aren’t they beauts?” the dresser said happily. “I’ve left the cards on them so that you can see which is which.”

  There were yellow roses from De Whit, red roses from Timothy, chrysanthemums from Helen, and a pathetic bunch of Michaelmas daisies from the garden of No. 37 from Mrs. Bosham.

  “How kind people are,” she thought, and began to put on her first act dress with Mrs. White’s assistance. It was then that the full realization of what was before her rushed over her.

  “Last night was all right. But that doesn’t help tonight. Gosh, I must be good. There are so many people I mustn’t let down. Timothy, and the Blue Doors, and my parents.” She was still trembling all over, and when Timothy came round to wish her luck he too was shaking so much that they just looked at each other and roared with hysterical laughter.

  The calls came with relentless regularity, the half, the quarter of an hour, five minutes please, overture and beginners. Lyn kept thinking of the enormous auditorium—row upon row of hungry faces, ready to criticize her, to ruin her, or to make her. She ran down into the wings, her coat thrown round her shoulders to stop the shivers. In the wings there were more hurried wishes of good luck from the stage management and stage hands. The overture was blaring out, and then it began to fade. Lyn found herself wishing desperately that it would continue.

  The music disappeared altogether, there was a few seconds of breathless silence, filled only by the thumping of Lynette’s heart, and then the curtain rose. There were murmurs as the audience admired the set, late-comers banged and shuffled into their seats, and then Marcia entered. There was a vigorous burst of applause, and the show had started. Lyn’s cue came, and she walked on, icy cold, and more frightened than she had ever been in her life. She did not remember saying the first five minutes of dialogue, but she must have done, for Marcia sailed gaily on, playing up with verve and charm, and all the tricks of her trade. Tonight’s audience were definitely more sticky than the previous evening’s, and the laughs were not so frequent. When Lyn ran up to change for the second act she was still shaking and uncertain.

  “Oh, yer ’ands are cold, Miss Darwin,” cried Mrs. White. “Here, stick them under the hot water tap.”

  Neither Timothy nor De Whit came round between the acts. “That means they’re—not sure,” Lynette thought fearfully.

  It was when she entered in the second act that she realized something was wrong. In the wings everyone had had a rather strained appearance, and when she began to act with Marcia she realized why. The leading lady had entirely changed the reading of her part. Instead of a poisonous, difficult harridan she was playing the role of a delightful, middle-aged woman; in fact, the kind of part that she always had played previously, the part in which the audience knew and loved her. All the unsympathetic lines she played with a delicious gurgle in her voice that turned them into comedy lines and the audience roared with laughter. Consequently all Lynette’s lines, in fact her whole character, missed fire, and she knew that she was going for nothing, that Marcia was acting her off the stage. All the tricks and wangles that the ageing actress had ever learnt came into play. She edged upstage, so that Lynette had almost to turn her back to the audience to address her, she cut all Lyn’s best lines, she did bits of comedy “business” during Lyn’s longer speeches, and the characters turned into a lovable, witty-minded mother, and an unsympathetic, spineless, dreary daughter. Soon Lynette was completely put off her stride and disheartened. Tears were not far off, and her voice was muffled and indistinct. Marcia continued to charm the audience and carry them with her, to take the centre of the stage, and to play to the gallery. In the wings the little stage director was literally dancing with fury, and the company looked on aghast. At Marcia’s exit there was terrific applause, and Lynette heaved a sign of relief.

  “Now, perhaps, I shall have a chance,” she thought. But poor Vivian Conroy was so put off by the extraordinary performance he had witnessed that he fluffed and dried and perspired heavily under his make-up. The audience were obviously not interested in any other character but the mother, and there was even a loud yawn from the gallery. They hurried through their scene, and at last the second act curtain fell. Vivian Conroy sat heavily on the sofa.

  “What on earth has come over the woman?” he demanded, wiping his face with his handkerchief. Lynette could not speak. She walked dimly up the stairs, conscious of alarmed whispering round every corner.

  “Why, ducky!” cried Mrs. White as Lyn entered like a ghost.

  De Wit flew in, seething with rage, his spectacles glinting furiously.

  “I’m so livid—so livid. Oh, you poor darling—but, dear, you must play up. This act will be agony if you don’t.”

  “But what can I do?” Lyn asked, breathlessly calm. “She won’t let me do anything.”

  “I know, dear, I know. She’s ruining the play, even if she is snatching a rather precarious success for herself. I’ve tried to talk to her, but she won’t even open her dressing-room door. Oh, Lynette, you must be a brave, brave girl,” and he darted off to try to calm everyone else. A deathly pale wraith then appeared in the doorway. It was Timothy. They stood and looked miserably at one another. Then Timothy sank down on a chair.

  “I can’t watch any more,” he said brokenly.

  “I’m sorry. So sorry,” said Lyn softly.

  “It�
��s not you! It’s that—viper! How could she? How could anyone?”

  “Act Three beginners, please,” shouted the call-boy in a maddeningly cheery voice.

  “I can’t,” said Lynette pathetically, frightened and feeble.

  “You must, I suppose.”

  “Yes, I must.”

  On the stairs, members of the cast were standing looking at one another, horror-stricken. Marcia was still in her dressing-room. When she swept on to the stage for the first scene of the third act she got another round of applause. But soon even the audience realized that there was something wrong. The third act was written so strongly that it was completely ruined by Marcia’s refusal to play in any other way than sweetly and whimsically. Everyone attributed the faults to the play, and Lynette’s attempts at emotion and hysteria became entirely unnecessary and out of place. Marcia purred and laughed and used her most endearing charms, but of no avail. The audience began to shuffle and cough and several seats banged as people got up to go out.

  Lynette tried so hard. She pretended that she was back at the Academy, acting with someone who was doing it all wrong, but she must not let it affect her. And yet, when she did manage to get her words out as they should have been, they made the play even more senseless. The third act wore on, and Lyn, Loraine, and Roger Revere did their best to restore a little balance, but by this time the audience had lost patience. Lyn just did not bother to scream and sob as she should have done, for inside her she was cold and dead as stone. Left alone on the stage she panicked and made her exit before the curtain fell instead of holding the stage and waiting for it. They took their bows stiffly, all except Marcia, who was smiling as graciously as ever. Someone in the gallery shouted out, “A lot of rot.” And the curtain fell and did not rise again.

  “Only one curtain call? On a first night!” Marcia complained.

  De Whit strode on to the stage.

  “Yes,” he shouted. “And that’s more than you deserve, Marcia Meredith.”