Midsummer Madness (9 page)

That was new. He hadn’t read my body language before, that night. In fact, he had been totally illiterate, not understand what it had meant to me.

‘Don’t ask me to do it again.’

‘Don’t worry, I won’t. Both our actresses hope to be fully recovered by tomorrow and back onstage. A day in bed, lots of hot drinks, aspirins. It works wonders. Take five.’

‘I’d like to take a hundred and ninety-five.’

‘Then pick your cards up on the way out.’

It was like a cold slap in the face. I hadn’t meant what I said. Another of my useless, zany remarks gone astray.

I collected my things, coat, bag, bottle of water, and stumbled my way to the stage door, a smile welded on with superglue. It was sort of sleep walking. Someone handed me my scarf. Another patted me on the shoulder. How could Joe be so cruel?

‘You don’t mean this,’ said Bill, blocking my exit. ‘Where are you going?’

‘I’ve had it,’ I said. ‘I can’t take any more. Did you hear what he said? He thanked me for reading the part, then told me to pick up my cards. Wasn’t he listening? I didn’t read the part. I
was
the part. I
was
Viola.’

‘I know, I know. He didn’t mean it. Walk around, girl. Go shopping. Do something different. The show isn’t the end of the world. But we can’t do without you, Sophie. Think of the others, they all need you.’

‘I’ll go and walk by the river,’ I said. ‘And think of ice fairs and ferrymen. They found dead people in the river every day in those days. They fell in when they were drunk or weak with hunger.’

‘Don’t fall in. Come back, please Sophie.’

‘I could get work as an extra, on TV, costume dramas. They are always looking for people. There are adverts in
The Stage
.’

‘Oh yes? Do you want to get up and be out before dawn, lining up with hundreds of others for your costume, waiting around for hours for awful food at the canteen? You’d hate it. Be honest, would you really like that?’

‘No, I wouldn’t. That’s true.’

I took a walk by the Embankment, stopping to read the poems on the paving stones, watching the laden barges sailing under bridges. He had been long gone before they laid the stones. Well, I couldn’t find any of his sonnets.

Why didn’t they include him? He’d been around, walking to his theatre, The Globe, along this bank of the river from his lodgings. These were his footsteps.

I was walking by the Thames, thinking. My wardrobe needed a significant makeover. That jazzy red flapper dress had given me ideas beyond my means. But I wasn’t going to turn into a dolly shopaholic. Twice a year was twice too often. Most shop assistants gave me the creeps, long nails and short noses and Bambi-sized clothes. I longed to be served by a normal-looking, jolly lady who said she had a daughter just like me.

Charity shops are thin on the ground in central London. Forget Oxford Street, forget Regent Street. But there was one surviving in Edgware Road, a bit trendy, fairly expensive, lots of good stuff donated from the nearby high-class blocks of flats.

I found some Ralph Lauren black jeans that fitted, several Jacques Verte shirts that were abandoned luxury cruisewear (did they get too seasick?), a floppy lilac mohair jersey that must have cost a bomb. The label alone was impressive. And a vibrant blue velvet scarf that changed colour with every movement. I had to have it. The entire lot wiped me out of ready money but I didn’t care. This was the new me, not exactly colour coordinated but bright. Pulsating with energy.

It was the first time that I hadn’t wanted to go back to the theatre. I was dragging my heels like a reluctant puppy who didn’t want to go walkies. Normally, I can’t wait. I’m drawn like a magnet but the scene offstage had unhinged me. A trip abroad might be a suitable change of plan. EuroStar was not far away at Waterloo Station. They would take plastic. The train leaves every hour. I could be in Paris in three hours.
Parlez-vous Français
? I could go and see the Mona
Lisa. We had similar smiles and maybe the same secrets.

But I was where I was and I couldn’t cut and run. My new clothes would help bolster my confidence, I hoped. The old downtrodden image was gone, and my new bright appearance, when I appeared flashing designer labels, was ready to prompt. There was an unused dressing room near Wardrobe. I might even wear daytime mascara.

Surely Elinor would recover in time for the show? She was a real trooper. But Fran would be eager-beaver at the starting post to take over. It was her one and only chance of fame. She’d play Viola even if she was gargling with TCP between every scene and had cottonwool stuffed up her nose.

‘What’s the news?’ I asked Bill as I slid in backstage, hoping not to be seen, laden with bags.

‘Elinor is still prostrate, in bed, really ill apparently. Fran is running a high fever, but it may miraculously cure itself. You know Fran, any going virus for a bit of high-voltage drama.’

‘Maybe she’ll arrive at the last moment, dragging herself from her sickbed to save the show, etcetera. First night heroics,’ I added.

‘Or, if they are both too ill to perform, then Joe may have to cancel the opening night. It’s happened before, many times. Shows do get postponed and people get their money back.’

‘He would be devastated.
Twelfth Night
means a lot to him. He’s done so much work, loves every line.’

‘But Fran would love it more if the show had to be cancelled,’ said Bill, shrewdly. ‘Although she wants to play Viola, be an instant new star, to actually have to do it would be putting her to the test. Not a rehearsal this time. She’d have to go out there in front of a critical audience and play Viola. I don’t think she can do it – she doesn’t have the talent. Maybe she knows she couldn’t do it.’

‘Bill, that’s awful but you might be right. She’s so full of bounce and confidence that we are all taken in, but maybe she’s not really up to it.’

‘Let’s see what happens. This is getting more interesting than Shakespeare. Pity he’s not around. He’d have written another damned good play about it.’

Bill went off somewhere into the murky backstage pong of dust and glue-size. A knife-cutting draught came from some open door.
There was always a lot to do backstage, as I knew from my humble ASM days. At least I had moved on from then, had my own corner. If I knew where it was. I was stirring myself into a sour look mood, ready to hurl a few at him when Joe appeared.

So where was Joe going to put the prompt now? I didn’t want to know. I had a feeling I was going to be annoyed, upset, desperate, or possibly all three.

I found the empty dressing room. It was veiled in cobwebs, hadn’t had any polluted London air for months. I cleared a chair and draped my new clothes over the back. It didn’t take me long to change. The lilac mohair was gloriously warm and the velvet scarf lay in shimmering folds round my shoulders; the black jeans clung, sex on legs. Mascara would be over the top, I decided. I didn’t need it. Lashes are superfluous to prompting. They get in the way of page turning.

The cast were arriving back carrying take-away burgers and curries. The spicy smell filled the theatre. I’d forgotten food. I’d forgotten quite a lot of things and didn’t know what Joe had decided to do for the rest of the day. He came in and dumped his gear in Row D.

‘Because Elinor is not with us today, this doesn’t mean slacking off and going home early,’ said Joe. He was eating an apple. There was a bag of fruit on his desk in front of him. ‘We are going to pick out the weak scenes and sharpen them up. Letter scene first, Act II, scene 3. Sir Toby, are you ready?’

Viola was not in this scene so I settled myself in the prompt corner, draping the scarf. I felt different. I began to relax, breathing evenly. No more being Viola for a while. She had time off. She could go sightseeing round Illyria.

‘Much better,’ he said, coming up on stage. ‘Give Feste room for his song. Don’t crowd him even when you are making fun of him.’ He wandered over to the prompt corner and looked down his nose at me. ‘Well, well, who are you? Such glamour. Have we met?’

I was not amused. My face hadn’t changed, nor my red hair. It was a touch tousled and dishevelled. ‘How sad, Mr Harrison, have you lost your long-distance spectacles? Or is this an early senior moment?’

‘You’re wearing girly clothes.’

‘How would you know?’

‘I recognize certain clothes, certain designers. They have a look, a label.’

‘So, have I got that label look?’

He peered closely at me, squinting. ‘Good heavens, it’s Sophie, our delightful prompt. What a gorgeous transformation. She has joined the real world of clothes. Well done, full marks.’

He sounded so aloof and patronizing I could have hit him with my book. But I kept my cool. He was my neighbour and it would not be a good idea to antagonize him. A neighbour from hell could make life unpleasant. He might block the stairs, hide the dustbins, tamper with my mail.

And I was an essential part of the production team. I didn’t want my prompt corner moved to the foyer. I’d be selling programmes next.

‘Like the scarf, great colour, suits you,’ he said as he turned away. ‘Want a satsuma?’ He put the fruit in my hand. He was smiling, not a patronizing smile now, but something more genuine, a smile that reached his eyes. Did I have time to eat it? ‘There’s time,’ he said, reading my thoughts.

The satsuma was refreshing. Did he have another one to spare? Tomorrow I could bring in a crate. They were perfect snack material. I rolled the skin up into a smaller orange ball.

I went home alone in my new glory. Joe had gone to visit the two influenza sufferers, hopefully with offerings of flowers and grapes. The Edwardian house seemed tall and empty. I didn’t even know the occupants of the basement or the ground-floor flats. Absolutely nil communication. Not even the occasional Post-it note.

The second floor had an Arab tenant and I never saw him either. He paid the rent and then disappeared to Dubai where he ran some business.

My flat felt like an old friend, a welcoming cocoon. I put crumbled stale bread out for the birds on the roof. Lots of brown London sparrows hopped around in eager anticipation, not too many greedy pigeons. Though I loved the gleam of their greeny-blue
neck feathers.

The evening was mine, or what was left of it. Cuppa soup and some late night telly. None of this nauseating celebrity stuff, get me out of here, some Congo jungle or prison-like flat full of rumpled beds, dormitory style, swopping sex. I wanted to see a good film,
The Shipping News
, a documentary or something intellectual about art which I could pretend to understand.

I was practically asleep, nodding, had lost track of the plot, when the doorbell rang. Not many people managed the climb to my flat. They might need oxygen.

‘Hi,’ I said, without removing the chain on the door. It was ajar about two inches. It was too late at night to open the door. No room for a machete.

‘It’s me. Joe. Let me in.’

‘Joe who? Password, please.’

‘Quit joking, Sophie. I know it’s late. Joe Harrison. Director.
Twelfth Night
. Take your choice.’

It was very late but I was still wearing the Ralph Laurens jeans and a jazzy cruise shirt, so I looked reasonably presentable. I let him in. Joe was absolutely shattered, worn out, passed his sell-by date. He fell on to my couch, legs over the arm, his face pale and gaunt. He needed a drink.

‘What’s the matter?’

‘Can I talk?’

‘Sure, talk. But I’ll get you a drink first.’

The wine had all gone. I didn’t keep a wine cellar under the stairs. No stairs. But there were odds and ends left over from Christmases long past. Those liqueurs which were brought back duty-free but no one wanted to drink, even in punch.

I made him a mug of hot chocolate laced with schnapps. That should blow his mind sideways. Joe was laid out on my couch and no one was on top of him.

‘Tell me,’ I said. ‘I’m tired, but sober.’

‘Elinor is really ill. There’s no doubt. She’s not faking it. High temperature, aches and pain, influenza, no voice, streaming, poor soul. The doctor says she can’t go on. She can barely make it to the loo.’

‘And Fran?’

‘Ah, Fran, the luscious Fran, is about the same. Same symptoms. Yet I don’t know about Fran.’ Joe lay back on my couch, sipping the hot chocolate laced with schnapps, his eyes closed. He seemed to like the taste of it. Some of the snarl had gone out of his mouth. He had a mouth that could curl. But I knew it could kiss.

‘Fran has influenza, yes?’

‘I think Fran has influenza. It looks like the flu and sounds a lot like it, but there’s nothing that confirms the diagnosis. She says she’ll come if she possibly can, but that’s not good enough for me.’ He heaved himself up on his elbow. ‘So, Sophie, what do you think? Could you play the part?’

Something happened to me then. I went into a sort of terrified spiral. My mind was working on a different planet. I was a prompt, not an understudy. I remembered nightmares of past shows, of forcing myself to go on stage with churning sickness. I was a victim of stage fright of the worst kind. This was a scene straight from the cauldrons of hell.

‘It isn’t fair,’ I said, gathering a shred of courage. ‘You can’t ask me.’

‘There’s the full dress rehearsal first. You could get everything sorted out then. You know the words by heart. You really can act, no problem. You are quite perfect in the part. A natural. The way you walk, the way you talk, everything.’

‘No,’ I said, trembling. ‘I can’t do it.’

‘Please, Sophie. Please help me out.’

‘I won’t do it.’

‘What do I have to do to make you do it?’ he asked. There was fear and anger on his face. He was thinking of the consequences. The show would flop. He would have to cancel. Crawl back to New York.

‘You didn’t help me when I needed you,’ I said, all the long ago trauma hung over my head like a gathering dark cloud. ‘I had to stand on my own, survive somehow, without you.’

‘I don’t know what you are talking about,’ said Joe, heaving himself up with anger. ‘Sometimes you talk complete rubbish.’ But he went into the kitchen and made himself some more hot
chocolate. It was getting late. I wanted to go to bed.

‘You can’t let the show down,’ said Joe, following me into the bathroom. I was cleaning my teeth and washing my face. I certainly wasn’t going to floss in front of him. ‘It has to go on.’

‘Go away,’ I said. ‘I have to go to bed.’

‘This is an emergency,’ he urged.

‘Not till tomorrow, it’s not,’ I said. ‘Fran will recover, you’ll see. Remember, she’s a budding star, waiting for her chance.’

‘A budding disaster, you mean. She wants to be a star but she doesn’t want the work that goes with it. Instant stardom is her aim. Not twenty-four hours of horrendously hard work and rehearsal.’

‘She might surprise you.’

‘I don’t want those kind of surprises. I’d rather have you playing Viola.’

‘Fran would knife me in the wings rather than let me go on. Do you want blood all over the set?’ I said, spitting out the toothpaste. ‘Now, if you’ll excuse me, I’m going to bed.’

‘Shall I turn off the telly, tuck you in bed, turn off the lights?’

‘No, thank you. I can manage,’ I said.

‘Goodnight, Sophie. Dream of sunny Illyria, off the shores of the Adriatic.’

He seemed to hover, not knowing what to say.

‘I’d rather dream of Skegness on a wet and foggy Sunday, thank you,’ I said.

Then he had gone, as he had before, leaving the nightmare behind. It was still with me. He’d left it on my pillow, like a nasty, squashed frog.