Olly tutted then turned and went to his bedroom.
‘Bugger,’ Lara said, as Jack reached up and batted her hand, causing her to wreck her eye make-up yet again.
By quarter past four, Marcus had assembled the Waylands on the two living-room sofas for a briefing. The afternoon heat buzzed, adding steam to the dusty air so it plastered itself all over any exposed skin. Lara had experimented earlier with propping open the front- and back-door fly screens to coax a little air into the place, but the house soon filled with black flies and buzzing mosquitoes. The Waylands were already so covered with insect bites that, as they sat there together, the predominant sound in the room was of nails scratching skin. It wouldn’t do to encourage more creatures in to drink their blood.
But, bleeding and blistered lumps aside, the family looked fine. Both twins had caught the sun and already appeared polished and in holiday mode. Bella had on a tiny cotton lawn smock and Olly, who was strumming his guitar, wore surfer shorts and the Hawaiian shirt Lara liked him in so much. Marcus had chosen the contentious Paul Smith shirt for the evening, and Jack looked sweet in a Chinese brocade shirt and shorts she had found in a charity shop back in Brighton. With her finally straight eyeliner, the Boden thing and amber necklace, Lara thought she completed the Wayland cast well.
‘What a handsome family,’ she imagined people might whisper as they sauntered past.
‘So then,’ Marcus said as they sat in a line facing him. ‘Olly, can you put the guitar down for a minute? Thanks mate. As you know, James is my old tutor.’
‘We know, Dad,’ Olly sighed, as the guitar landed on the floor with a twang and a clatter.
‘And his partner is Betty. Who is, as you’ve probably guessed, a man.’
‘Why’s he called Betty then?’ Olly said.
‘It’s complicated. But all you need to know is she’d rather people referred to her as a woman,’ Marcus said. Standing with his hands behind his back, he looked like his own father, a military man who didn’t have it in him to take his only son seriously. ‘And I want you to do so too.’
Olly smirked.
‘And that look on your face is exactly why I’m telling you this now, young man,’ Marcus said. ‘So we don’t get another display like we did the night we arrived.’
‘What do you mean?’ Olly spread his palms out, protesting his innocence. ‘I didn’t do nothing.’
‘I didn’t do anything,’ Marcus corrected him. ‘The way you behaved was bordering on the homophobic, and I won’t have a son of mine being like that.’
On top of pleasure at how her family looked, Lara added the novel sensation of pride in her husband. Her eldest boy was such a force of nature she was rarely able even to start addressing his behaviour. But here Marcus was, meeting him head on. She tried not to mar the moment with wishing he did it more often.
‘I was only joking,’ Olly said.
‘Well, it was in very poor taste,’ Marcus said. ‘I won’t have any of that tonight. The Wayland family is on public show here and I want you to be as polite and as charming as I know you can be. You will laugh at the jokes and applaud the songs, whatever you really think of them. And if you fuck up, big boy, you are going to be grounded in this house until you prove you know how to relate to people in a social situation.’
‘Wow,’ Olly said.
‘I think he means it, Oll,’ Bella said.
‘Damn right I mean it,’ Marcus said, smoothing down his shirt-front. ‘Right then. Lesson over. Ladies and gentlemen: shall we go to the ball?’
He went out of the front door to the street and the family followed him. Lara had just glimpsed a slice of the old Marcus, the part of him she was hoping to rediscover this summer. Perhaps it was having the lead role that gave him this confidence. Whatever it was, it seemed the stakes were high for him in Trout Island, and he was pretty determined to succeed.
Lara was pleased. She liked a bit of drive in her man.
THE SUN SNAKED TOWARDS THE WEST OF MAIN STREET, LENGTHENING
the Waylands’ shadows as they made their way to the theatre. But it was still hot, and, even before they had covered the five hundred or so yards lying between them and their destination, their clothes began to wilt and stick to their bodies.
From her position at the rear, Lara observed her family. Tiny Bella and long Olly were bickering about something or other. At the front, Jack skipped along hand in hand with his father, talking constantly. From the tone of Marcus’s interjections – ‘really?’ and ‘you don’t say’ – she knew he wasn’t listening to a word the boy was saying.
For a moment, Lara saw them as if she weren’t there – as if a part of her was still only halfway across the Atlantic, not yet fully arrived. She looked at them all and imagined they were getting on very well without her. It felt rather comforting.
She stopped, stretched out her arms and yawned, opening her eyes and mouth as wide as she could, drinking in the warm, tree-scented air as if it were a medicine to stitch her back together.
‘Stopping?’ Marcus turned and asked.
‘Just taking it all in,’ she said.
‘You really should’ve had a nap this afternoon,’ he said. ‘You’ve been on the go all day.’
‘Look, the library,’ Lara said, as they approached the white, Doric-columned building.
‘
Wow
,’ Bella said. ‘The
library
.’
‘That really is the lowest form of wit,’ Marcus said.
Lara climbed the stone steps up to the entrance and tried the door, but it was locked. An A-board stood on the porch, bearing an ineptly executed poster. If they ever decided to stay on in the typographically impoverished Trout Island, she thought, she wouldn’t be short of business opportunities. The poster listed library events for the summer and she bent closer to read the tiny, curlicued script.
‘There’s a children’s show every Thursday,’ she called down to the others, who had stopped on the pavement beneath her. ‘This week it’s
Foxy Loxy and Chicken Licken
. We’ll go to that, Jacko.’
Jack gave a cheer.
‘I think he’ll enjoy that more than he’s going to like tonight,’ Bella said as Lara rejoined them on the pavement.
‘Come on now, it’s going to be marvellous,’ Marcus said, as they turned into the street where the theatre was. ‘And look: the whole village is out!’
Indeed, First Street was lined with cars. Groups of people milled on the lawn outside the building. Some were dressed, incongruously for daylight hours, as if they were going to the opera. The women wore long skirts and blouses, the men shiny suits. Others were more casually turned out in what a department store might label ‘leisurewear’.
Moving on to the grass, into the blue shade provided by the theatre building, was like entering a garden party. All around people laughed, greeted, kissed and shook hands. A couple of elderly women, stationed behind two tables, were doing a roaring trade in baked goods: brownies, big slabs of cherry pie and what looked like carrot cake. Lara wondered how it was possible to eat a great hunk of cake in this sweltering heat.
‘I could kill a beer,’ Marcus said, leading them all up to the end of the porch, where a lone old man in a green sun visor was selling cans from a coffin-sized cooler box. But when Marcus asked, the man laughed, revealing impossibly white and even teeth.
‘Heh, hell, don’t let Martha hear you ask that,’ he said, gesturing to the larger of the cake ladies. ‘We’ve been dry in Trout Island for the best part of a hundred years.’
‘Dry?’
‘No alcohol sales allowed, sir.’
‘But I’m sure they had beer in the shop,’ Bella said.
‘Well now, they managed to push that through last summer, I’ll grant you,’ the old man said, scratching the lemon yellow sleeve of his polyester shirt. ‘But Martha ain’t having none of it. Says that’s what brung all the trouble last year, the beer.’
‘Trouble?’ Olly said.
‘With the young folk,’ the old man said. ‘Some shenanigans with a gun, a hunting party gone wrong, you know the kinda thing. But you’re not from round here are you? Not with them accents.’
‘We’re from England,’ Lara said.
‘You don’t say? Well now, you wouldn’t happen to be acquainted with a fella called John Whitely would you? Lives in London.’
‘Waylands! Darlings!’ James swept along the porch and put a hand each on Bella and Olly’s shoulders. ‘Now then. Is it acceptable with you young ones if I take your mama and papa inside? I need to have a word. Hiram, would you please set these youngsters here up with a can each of their favourite soft beverages? It’s on the house, darlings.’
‘You’ll pay us back?’ the old man asked James.
‘Of course. At the end of the evening.’
‘Just make sure you do. Martha don’t like things not tallying. Now,’ he said, turning to the young Waylands. ‘What can I tempt you with?’
James put one arm around Lara and the other around Marcus and steered them towards the theatre entrance.
‘I’ve got some lovely chilled Prosecco inside,’ he whispered when they were out of earshot of the refreshment salespeople. ‘Contraband.’
He let them into the foyer, which hadn’t yet opened to the public, and Lara immediately felt the relief of the air-conditioned interior.
‘It smells wonderful in here,’ she said.
‘Beeswax,’ James said. ‘Our marvellous volunteer front-of-house team make sure all the wood panelling is beautifully polished for an opening night. These things are important in Trout Island.’ He sat at the desk by the front door, exhaled deeply and stretched back, running his pudgy fingers through his long, thinning hair. With the air out of him, he looked exhausted.
‘How’s it going?’ Marcus said.
‘Don’t ask. We may get through tonight, but it’ll be by the skin of our teeth. To be honest,’ he lowered his voice, ‘and swear you’ll never repeat this to a soul: I’m rather looking forward to working with Mr Bill S’s fine verse after doing battle with Betty’s book.’
‘But you’ve got a lovely big audience,’ Lara said, leaning back against the smooth, cool wood.
‘Oh yes. They’re very loyal. And they’re pretty forgiving most of the time. It’s not as if we have much competition. We’re the only theatre for about forty miles. For some of them we’re the first theatre they’ve been to. And for many we’re likely to be the last.’
‘What about the library shows?’ Lara asked.
‘Well, my darling. I would hardly classify that as
theatre
.’ James fluttered his eyelids. ‘What’s the matter, Marcus? Cat got your tongue?’
‘You mentioned something about wine?’ Marcus said, forcing a smile.
‘Oh, please forgive me. Brain like a sieve right now.’ James got up and swanned across to the other side of the foyer, where he opened a cupboard to reveal a mini-kitchen. He reached a chilled bottle out of the fridge, popped the cork and poured three flutes of bubbling, straw-coloured Prosecco. While he was doing this, Lara stole a glance at Marcus. He looked like he wanted to run away. She really hoped, for his sake, the show was going to be all right tonight.
‘There we go,’ James said, passing round the cold-clouded glasses.
Lara let the biscuity liquid prickle down her throat to pick her up after her afternoon glass of red.
‘Lovely,’ she said.
A door underneath the sweeping, polished staircase burst open. The calm of the pre-show foyer was shattered by a towering six-and-a-half-foot figure – all black lace, high hair and startling crimson lips – brandishing a spiralled dress of boned black satin.
‘Betty darling. Prosecco?’ James drawled.
‘Can you talk some mother-fricking sense into that be-Jesused bitch?’ Betty threw the satin spiral across the floor, where it landed at James’s feet, sending a ripple of dust-motes into the beams of evening sunlight that sliced into the room. The voice was smooth, dark and Southern, a Blanche Dubois intonation to match the bedroom furniture back in the Waylands’ grimy home from home.
‘Oh not still,’ James sighed. ‘I thought we’d done with
that
.’
Betty acknowledged Lara and Marcus with a slight, lip-pursed incline of the head. ‘Hi. I’m Betty. You must be Marcus and Lara. Charmed to meet you.’ She nodded and turned back to James. ‘Madam says she can’t sing in it. Says she can’t
breathe
. I told her it’s just a matter of control. This is exactly the same style of dress I wore in
Marguerite
at the Cavern Club Theatre in Silverlake. Sang in it six nights and two matinées every week for an eight-month run. It’s just she’s put on so much fricking
weight
since I measured her and now the damn thing’s too tight.’ Betty stooped and picked the spiral up, holding it against her own piece-of-string form. ‘Besides which, there’s no alternative. She’s got to wear it. Oh, James, sweetie, would you go and tell her? I’ve had it up to my tits.’
James puffed out his cheeks, took the dress from Betty, and went through the door under the stairs.
‘And
he’s
started now, too. Says his shoes pinch. I’m giving up on the lot of them,’ Betty grumbled, following James down the stairs. ‘I tell you, James, honey, this is the last time I’m working with this bunch of—’
The door slammed behind them, mercifully cutting off Betty’s last word and leaving Lara and Marcus alone in the foyer. For a moment, the only sound was the faint mechanical click of the ceiling fan as it circulated and cooled the air, making welcome goosebumps prickle on Lara’s arms.
‘More wine?’ Marcus said, going over to the bottle and pouring them both another glassful.
‘Cheeky,’ Lara said. ‘So that’s Betty then.’
‘Yep.’
‘Formidable.’
‘Indeed. The musical’s supposed to be her life story, with a few flourishes.’
‘I shouldn’t imagine she’d need too many.’ Lara suddenly felt very pedestrian standing there in her flattering Boden thing. Like a daisy in front of an orchid. She took a gulp of her wine then slowly climbed the stairs leading up the side of the foyer, surveying the framed posters of past Trout Island Theatre Co. productions that lined the wall.
‘These are really all quite hideous,’ she whispered to Marcus who came up to join her. They were all the same style: literal, stiffly posed photographic treatments of the plays’ subject matter.
Hamlet
had a man holding a skull,
Hedda Gabler
a woman holding a gun. Unsurprisingly, the typography was a mess – Lara spotted seven different fonts on one poster, including the dreaded Comic Sans.