‘So Waylands, how do you like our little show?’ James sashayed up to them and put his arms around Bella and Olly. Marcus gave Olly an subtle but stern look.
‘It’s great,’ Olly said inscrutably.
‘Lovely costumes,’ Bella said. ‘Aren’t they, Mum?’
‘Who did them?’ Lara asked.
‘Betty. Betty is a marvel.’ James beamed, buoyed by the extravagant praise he had been receiving from other audience members. ‘She does everything: the writing, the musical direction, the costume, the set design.’
‘Why doesn’t she perform any more?’ Olly asked, and Lara wondered if he was being polite or very clever and very cheeky.
‘Stage fright,’ James whispered. ‘A bit of a breakdown. But we don’t talk about it.’
‘How sad,’ Lara said. And she thought for a moment of her own lost potential – from
the
actress of the Sixth Form, to wife and mother in little over a year. What could she have been had life not intervened?
‘Anyway,
avanti
!’ James clapped his hands. ‘Ladies and gentlemen, please eat up your pies now. The show will recommence in five minutes. I don’t want a crumb left!’
A murmur of laughter passed through the audience, then they set to work on what remained on their plates. A red-faced Alyssa appeared at James’s elbow.
‘Uh James, could I have a word, please,’ she squeaked. ‘In the foyer.’ She turned and marched back into the building.
‘Coming, Alyssa my pet. Oops. Looks like I’m in trouble with the lady of the house,’ James whispered to Lara and Marcus. ‘She’s not keen on my impromptu announcements. Thinks it’s her job. God, she’s so
stern
.’
‘He’s in a good mood tonight,’ Olly said as they watched him scuttle across the lawn.
‘The audience seem to like it,’ Marcus said, swigging back a can of soda. ‘God this so-called beer is vile. What sort of root do they use, I wonder?’
‘Come on, let’s go back in,’ Lara said, scooping up Jack who was leaning against her legs, on the verge of falling asleep.
The second act dealt with the happier half of the fictionalised Betty character’s story. She found the love of her life – James, presumably – made it big on Broadway and was stopped by strangers asking for her autograph. The finale had a sequinned June Turpin ascending on a glittering cut-out moon, supported by – so the programme informed Lara – a fully uniformed phalanx of Trout Island’s volunteer fire fighters.
‘What would happen if there was a fire during the finale?’ Lara whispered to Marcus.
Then June Turpin opened her mouth to sing the final song, the theme tune of the show that all the music had been leading up to.
You! You set me on fire
,
Couldn’t get any higher
,
Don’t know no one flyer
,
Now sir, be my sire …
These lyrics, and the sight of the already out-of-kilter actress further destabilised on a dangling moon, set Olly off on a choking giggling fit. Thankfully, the backing music belting out from two speakers at the front of the stage was so loud only Lara noticed.
At the end, the large cast lined up on the small stage and took their bows to rapturous applause. People around the Waylands stood up and called out their bravos.
‘Stand up,’ Marcus hissed, getting to his feet.
‘What the—?’ Olly said.
‘Stand up, or I’ll never, ever give you any money ever again,’ Marcus said.
The family all stood, even Lara, who had a sweaty, sleeping Jack pressed into her shoulder.
‘Bravo!’ Marcus boomed, clapping his hands up high above his head. ‘Encore!’
‘Please God, no,’ Olly muttered.
Betty sashayed on stage and the applause doubled as she dropped into a curtsy. Looking round at the strait-laced audience, Lara wondered how they could so adore someone who was quite so out of the ordinary. Perhaps a little of the famous New York City liberalism had reached up here. Or perhaps they thought the glamorous Betty-woman was for real. And who was to say she wasn’t? Betty and James believed in her, and wasn’t it part of the American dream that you can be whatever you want to be, do whatever you want to do?
If only that dream had stretched over east to Stratford-upon-Avon in the early nineties, Lara thought.
She watched Bella redden as the young man Sean came on stage to present Betty with an enormous bunch of red roses. Sean stepped back, and Lara was certain he caught her daughter’s eye as he did so. Then Betty gestured stage left and James came on slowly, holding out his hands. He leaned forward and kissed Betty, and the two of them beamed out at the audience, who gradually brought their applause to an end.
‘Ladies and gentlemen, boys and girls,’ James said. ‘Trout Island Theatre wants to thank you for your patronage. You will know that our marvellous community theatre receives but a pittance in funding for all the activities we put on for you and your neighbours. We do hope you enjoyed the show. And we hope that, if you did, you will tell your friends. I’d also like to remind you that in three weeks’ time we will be opening our production of William Shakespeare’s Scottish Play. Our star, Marcus Wayland, is with us tonight, all the way from England. Marcus, stand yourself up.’
Marcus stood, turned and, with as much dignity as he could muster, bowed. The audience applauded once again, then James hushed them so that he could continue.
‘As you know, we don’t charge for tickets, but we do ask that if you enjoyed our show, please put your hands in your pockets and give what you can to our actors on your way out. They will be standing at the back with hats to receive your donations. No amount is too small, but …’ and he paused for the audience to smile back at him, ‘no amount can
possibly
be too large.’
Once more, the audience applauded as the actors jumped down off the stage and positioned themselves by the back door, holding hats out for dollar bills, twenties, fifties and even cheques for larger sums.
‘How humiliating,’ Olly said.
‘It’s an old tradition,’ Marcus said loudly. ‘I think it’s marvellous.’ Then he was swallowed up by a crowd of ladies who all wanted to meet him to find out if he was from London, and whether they would know him from the movies.
He was in his element.
Lara and the children wandered outside. She hoped another glass or two of wine when she got to the party would pick her up, but finding any enthusiasm for the night ahead was hard work. Even the thought of the promised surprise – which she supposed would be something camp and lame, some sort of British-themed foodstuff perhaps, or an unwearable hat made by Betty – didn’t help.
‘I need to sit down,’ she said to Bella and Olly.
So the wife and children of the Wayland family sat on the disabled ramp at the theatre entrance, waiting for the husband and father to be free. They watched the audience leave, then, in effervescent groups, the cast. They waited the best part of forty minutes.
JAMES AND BETTY’S FARMHOUSE STOOD A COUPLE OF MILES OUTSIDE
the village. James had said that the Google directions were useless, so he provided them with a sheet written in his own inimitable style.
They first managed to overshoot the correct turning, travelling as far as a reservoir penned in by a rusty dam so vast it was quite out of proportion with the surrounding countryside. At this point – James would surely have mentioned such a landmark in his endlessly annotated instructions – they realised they had gone too far, so they doubled back. Coming from the opposite direction the turning was plain to see. They got on the right road, which swept out to the west and curved round the bottom of a hill. Then, as directed, they turned along an unmetalled track that climbed slowly upwards. They passed a couple of houses, but mostly they were surrounded by trees and bushes.
A deer bounced across the dusty road ahead of the car. Marcus slowed down.
‘Where there’s one, there’s often … ’ As he spoke, a second, smaller deer scurried in front of them. ‘… another.’
‘It feels like we’re going into the deep, dark forest,’ Bella said. ‘I’m not sure I like it.’
‘Nonsense,’ Marcus said. ‘This is nature raw in tooth and claw, that’s all.’
‘Red,’ Olly said from the back.
‘Eh?’ Marcus said.
‘It’s “nature red in tooth and claw”. Tennyson.’
‘Well, guys. That makes me feel
so
much better,’ Bella said, squinting out of the car window.
‘It should be along here, just after that yellow post, in the clearing,’ Lara said.
‘Where all the cars are parked? For the party?’ Olly said.
‘My, you two are on whip-cracking form with the old sarcasm,’ Marcus said.
They drew up at the far end of the twenty or so cars which, in their variety – from a dented red pick-up truck to a brand new Porsche Carrera – signified the mixture of fortunes embraced by actors’ lives.
‘Verrry nice,’ Olly said as they passed the Porsche.
They turned up the driveway and came across one of the most beautiful houses that Lara had ever seen. Hidden from the road, it was, like most of the buildings back in the village, constructed in the Greek Revival style. But, unlike the village houses, this had been beautifully cared for, painted an immaculate powder blue with cream windows and soffits. A wide veranda skirted the visible part of the house and, in the setting sun, it appeared to float on the vast meadow they had to cross to get to it. But most thrilling was its position on the top of a hill that swept down along an expanse of grass, flower and vegetable beds to a pond at the bottom, with forest lurking beyond that. At the far side of the garden, listing as if it might collapse any minute, was a tumbledown barn.
‘No one goes in there, OK?’ Lara said.
‘Wild horses wouldn’t drag me,’ Olly said.
There was quite a crowd. People milled around a fire pit or lolled on blankets on the ground, drinking wine and talking. The sound of laughter and the smell of meat on charcoal carried the hundred or so feet to where the Waylands were making their way across the front garden.
‘How did they all get here so quickly?’ Marcus said.
‘You were ages, Dad,’ Olly said. ‘We thought the old dears had eaten you up.’
‘You have to charm ’em.’ Marcus winked.
‘WAYLAND FAMILY!’ James burst from the crowd like a giant sail, wearing yet more floating white. The chatter stopped and everyone turned to look up at them. Then they broke into a round of welcoming whooping and applause.
‘Bloody Americans,’ Olly said.
‘Damn theatricals, you mean,’ Bella said. She was scanning the crowd, probably, Lara thought, looking out for that Sean boy.
‘Zip it, you two,’ Marcus said. Putting his public smile on, he led his family to James and the mêlée.
‘Darlings,’ James said, again encircling Marcus with a bear-hug and sweeping them on towards the house. ‘What on earth kept you?’
‘Dad had to meet his public,’ Olly said.
‘And we got lost,’ Lara said. ‘This is amazing.’ They had approached the fire pit, a coffin-sized hole in the ground full of white-hot cinders and covered by metal grilles laden with sizzling fish and meat.
‘Isn’t it?’ James said. ‘Betty dug it last year, and we’ve had so many parties around it. We have scallops, shrimp, buffalo wings, burgers and sausages. And of course, the corn is high, so we have our local seasonal delicacy.’ He pointed to a vat full of water and sweetcorn, complete in its husks. ‘Soaking means we don’t burn.
‘But oh my, what am I thinking, introducing the food before the people? Have you met June and Brian, my two fabulous stars for the musical? And here’s Frank, Josh, Shelley, Dana, Nicholas, Dave, Dave and Dave, Sarah, Anne, Tony, Ed, Tot, Peter, Martha, Sylvester, Madonna – no, not
that
Madonna. And Nancy, Darius, Oleanna, Jose, Sol, Johnny, Helene, Janette and Brianna; then there’s Cara, Stacey, Tipper, Madison, Megan, Taylor and Selina.’
‘I’m not sure if I’ll remember everyone’s names straight off, but pleased to meet you all,’ Marcus said.
‘Hi!’ The crowd chorused, holding up their glasses.
‘As you were, everyone,’ James said, steering them towards the porch. ‘They’re mostly musical cast. A few are in the Scottish Play but we’ve got a new lot coming up in a day or two for that. We like to mix it up.’
‘Where’s Betty?’ Lara asked.
‘Oh, she’s inside with Trudi, fussing over the salads. Now then, Waylands,’ James said, ‘are you ready for your surprise? I can’t contain myself any longer.’ He opened the fly-screen door to the kitchen, which was mostly taken up by a table laden with bowls of salad and baskets of bread. Betty was over by the sink, slicing a watermelon. She wore a long lurex halter-neck that could have been worn by Bianca Jagger at Studio 54, but had covered it with a floral fifties pinny.
‘Darlings.’ She put her knife down, took off her apron and hugged and kissed each one of them, a rather stiffened Olly included. ‘Is it time, then?’ she asked James.
‘It’s time,’ James said.
‘Trudi, honey, we’re going to need that champagne now,’ Betty said, and for the first time Lara noticed the woman over the other side of the table. Bulky and dark-haired, she had a scar across her face as if someone had sliced open her right cheek from the corner of her mouth to her ear. Trudi nodded a silent welcome to the Waylands, put down the cutlery she had been wrapping in a napkin, then went over to the walk-in fridge, from where she extracted a silver tray set with a bottle of Dom Perignon, tall, slim flutes and four cans of Diet Coke.
‘Thank you Trudi my darling,’ Betty said, taking the tray from her. ‘Could you just finish wrapping up the silverware, my sweet?’
‘You don’t want me in the parlour?’ Trudi asked, her accent and timbre almost exactly the same as Betty’s.
‘We’re fine, thank you honey,’ Betty said.
After a moment’s hesitation Trudi nodded then returned to her task. She had strange eyes, Lara noticed. Like a lizard’s.
‘Right then, Waylands. Are you ready?’ Betty said. ‘Come this way,
mesdames et messieurs
.’
She led them across a cool, echoing hallway to a set of double doors which James, who was slightly ahead of them, flung open to reveal a huge living room. The blinds were drawn against the dusk, but, thanks to the light of a large fish tank running down almost the entire length of one wall, Lara could make out the figure of a man sitting, legs crossed, in a chair on the far side. Betty put the tray on a side table and James shut the doors behind them.