Olivia's Curtain Call (11 page)

Chapter Twenty-One

Eel squealed and punched the air, and then she high-fived Emmy.

“I take it that you are both quite pleased with the news,” said Alicia drily.

Emmy was jumping up and down with excitement. “So much time has gone by since the last audition, I thought they had forgotten about us.”

“’Well, I’m really pleased for you. You will be the Swan’s first Matildas, and I hope not our last. I’m very proud of you.”

“I’m quite proud of myself too,” said Eel very seriously. “But I always knew we’d get it. It was fate.”

“Oh, I don’t know,” said Alicia. “I think hard work might have had something to do
with it. You know what they say about genius: one per cent inspiration and ninety-nine per cent perspiration.” Then she added hastily, “Not that you two are in the genius league, of course. You’ve both got talent and application, and that’s far better.” She certainly didn’t want Eel getting any more big-headed than she already was.

“I do perspire quite a lot when I’m singing and dancing,” said Eel thoughtfully.

“Mrs Merman, the jazz teacher, says we don’t perspire, we glow,” said Emmy.

“But that’s silly,” said Eel, “because we’re girls, not worms.”

“Well, yes, congratulations,” said Alicia hurriedly. “I’m very proud of you both.”

“I’m going to ring Dad and Livy right away,” said Eel.

“I’m going straight home to tell my mum,” said Emmy. “You can come too, Eel, and have tea with us. My mum won’t mind.”

“That’s fine,” said Alicia, “but be careful crossing the roads together, and ring when you want to come home, Eel, and one of us will come and get you.” She smiled. “Well done again, girls. But remember, we don’t do swollen heads
at the Swan.”

Eel and Emmy rushed off excitedly, and Alicia could hear shouts down the corridor as they shared their good news with their friends. She thought how strange it was the way things turned out: within the next few weeks she would have two granddaughters starring in the West End, and yet less than two years ago neither of them had ever stepped foot on a stage. If only Olivia and Jack could be reconciled, it would all be perfect. She had so much to be thankful for.

She picked up the phone, dialled a number and wandered towards the open window to look idly out. Swans were pouring down the steps and thronging the pavements. She saw Eel in the middle of a gaggle of her friends. They passed a lamppost and Eel swung round it exuberantly. What happened next seemed to unfold in slow motion. Eel swung again, leaned a little too far and lost her grip. She stumbled and took a step out into the road just as a white van drove by. For a second, it looked as if it was going to miss Eel by a hair’s breadth, but then she was scooped up into the air like a doll, falling back floppily on to the van’s bonnet before sliding down it and on to the road. The
white van looked as though it was going to run her over again but stopped just in time.

Eel was lying very still and broken on the ground. Through the window, Alicia could hear the horrified screams of the other children. She saw India Taylor tear down the steps of the Swan, shouting, “Call an ambulance!” followed by Sebastian Shaw, who was already dialling on his phone. Alicia saw the driver stumble from the car screeching hysterically, “I didn’t see her! I didn’t see her!” She suddenly realised that her call had connected and somebody was saying, “Hello? Hello!” at the other end. Alicia dropped the phone and ran for the stairs, her breath coming in short, ragged gasps.

Olivia was alone on the marked-out stage of the rehearsal room, kneeling on a low bed. Juliet was about to take the Friar’s potion, which would put her in a death-like coma and make it appear to her family as if she had died. She
would then be buried in the family vault. The plan was that when she awoke, Romeo and the Friar would both be at the tomb and they would spirit her away.

Olivia didn’t finish the line. There was a kerfuffle at the door and Alicia and Sebastian burst in. Everyone in the room turned, and Jon began to protest but stopped as soon as he saw Alicia’s face. Olivia got off the bed and stared at her grandmother. She looked as if she had aged a hundred years since this morning. Her face was rigid with sorrow. Olivia knew at once that something terrible had happened.

“Oh, Livy,” cried Alicia. “I’m so sorry … I’m so, so sorry … there’s been an accident…”

“Dad? Dad?” The words rose in Olivia’s throat like two great sobs.

Alicia shook her head. “Not your dad, Livy. Eel.”

Olivia fell to her knees as if somebody had simply sliced away her lower legs. She bent double.

“Eel,” she keened, rocking back and forth. “Eel.” She shook her head disbelievingly. “Is she dead?”

“No, Livy,” said Alicia urgently, “not dead. Eel’s still alive. We need to get to the hospital so you can see her. Jack’s there with her. There’s still hope, Livy. But we must hurry.”

Olivia, Jack and Alicia all leaped to their feet as the surgeon walked into the family waiting room. It was almost half past nine, and Eel had been in surgery for nearly three hours. It felt to Olivia as if time had stopped completely. The young woman smiled at them.

“It went well. We patched up her leg and ribs, but our main concern was to relieve the pressure in her head because of the swelling.”

“So she’ll be all right?” breathed Jack, anxiety making his voice crack.

“The next twenty-four to forty-eight hours will be crucial,” said the surgeon. “We’ll only
really know what the prognosis is when, and if, she comes out of the coma.” The word “if” hung ominously in the air. “I wish I could tell you more. But she’s out of immediate danger. I suggest you all go home, and come back in the morning.”

“No,” said Olivia. “I want to see her. I want to see my little sister and stay with her.”

“She’s in intensive care and she looks a bit upsetting,” said the surgeon, turning to Jack for guidance. “There are a lot of tubes and bandages. It may be better—”

“No,” said Olivia stoutly. “I want to see her.”

“We all do,” said Jack.

They followed the surgeon up to the intensive-care ward where they could see Eel through the window. Jack suddenly remembered the night of Eel’s birth, when she had been rushed into special care with breathing difficulties and he and Toni had looked on helplessly through a big glass window. One of the nurses had tried to console them by saying that the child was going to be all right because she was “such a wriggler; more like an eel than a baby”. The nickname had stuck.

Now, many years on, he was once again watching his child fight for her life behind a glass window. He slipped his hand into Olivia’s and squeezed it, and she squeezed back. With her other hand Olivia found Alicia’s gnarled fingers and curled her own young, unblemished ones around them. The three of them stood, joined together like that, watching Eel for what seemed like an eternity.

It was now three days since Eel’s accident. Olivia, Jack and Alicia had spent almost all of their time at the hospital. Eel had been moved out of intensive care to a small side room off the ward. She was still stuffed full of tubes and wires and she had still not woken up. Would she ever? The doctors had told them not to give up hope, but Olivia felt certain that, as every day passed and Eel remained locked in her own world, she was drifting further away from them. How could they bring her back? Instinctively she knew that she should talk to her, and whenever Jack and Alicia were out of the room she poured out her heart to her sister. She told her about Kasha and Abbie being in love, about how she had initially thrown away her chance to play Juliet, and how
sometimes she found herself looking at Tom and feeling as if she was seeing him for the very first time.

They had received dozens of get-well messages and cards. Abbie and Kasha had turned up at the hospital with a big bunch of flowers and each of them had hugged Olivia, but she couldn’t bear to have any real conversation with them, even though both of them had been so kind.

Aeysha, Georgia and Katie had sent Eel a huge “get well” card, and a card for Olivia too, saying that they were there for her and they would come to the hospital the very second she wanted them to, and Jon had left a message saying she wasn’t to even think about
Romeo and Juliet
. He needn’t have worried though – all Olivia could think about was Eel, lying on the bed unmoving: there but not there. The only person she could bear to have close by, other than her family, was Tom. He didn’t make any demands on her, but allowed her to concentrate all her energies on Eel, willing her to get better and show some small sign of recovery.

Olivia was sitting on her own in the room with Eel. Alicia had gone back to the Swan to
shower and change her clothes, and Jack had nipped to the hospital cafeteria to get more black coffee. Olivia shifted her chair even closer to Eel and took her sister’s hand. It was pale and spongy, like uncooked pastry.

“Please, Eel. Please wake up. Please be all right. We need you to be all right because otherwise we’re not going to be all right. None of us could bear it if you didn’t pull through. We need you, Eel, because you’re the one who makes us laugh, who stops the rest of us from taking ourselves so seriously.”

The machines bleeped and Eel still lay unresponsive.

“You were right about me doing Juliet. About doing what I wanted to do and not worrying about what Dad and Gran thought. Of course, it doesn’t matter now. I’m never going to play Juliet. I guess it just wasn’t written in the stars after all. It doesn’t matter now. Falling out with Dad over it seems so utterly stupid and pathetic now. So unnecessary.”

Olivia leaned closer still to her sister. “When Gran turned up at the rehearsal room, mad with grief, at first I thought it was Dad. I thought he had fallen from the wire and was dead. And I
thought he had died thinking that he’d let me down. And I’d have to live the rest of my life regretting that I had been too proud to let him make things up with me when he tried. Kasha told me that I should put things right while I still had the chance, and I hadn’t listened. In that split second, when I saw Gran standing there, I thought, ‘Now it’s too late. I can never make it right again.’”

“But it wasn’t too late,” said a quiet voice behind her. Jack had come into the room while she’d been speaking. He put the coffee down and wrapped his arms around her.

“Oh, Liv, I’m so sorry. I let my own emotions get the better of me. Yes, I was disappointed when you chose Juliet over the tour, but only for me and maybe a bit for Tom. I wasn’t disappointed in you or your choice. I want you to make your own decisions and to grow up to be your own woman. I want you to be happy, and I know that means I must let you go and make your own way in the world. And sometimes the decisions you make won’t be easy for me but whatever choices you make, of course I’ll understand.”

“But why does it have to be one or the
other, Dad?” said Olivia. “I want to do both.”

Jack smiled ruefully. “If I had to bet on anybody pulling that off, it would be you, chick.” He looked down at Eel. “I always thought it was you who was so like Toni, and Eel looked more like me,” he said sadly. “But lying there she looks so like her mother.”

“Do you think she’ll ever wake up?”

“We all have to believe she will,” said Jack, his voice thick.

Olivia looked at him. “Dad, can I ask you a question about you and Mum?”

Jack nodded.

“Would you have given up the high-wire for her in the way she gave up acting for you?”

“Of course,” said Jack without hesitation. “I’d have given up everything for Toni. Even my life. Especially my life. I wanted to stay here in the UK so she could carry on acting. But it was Toni who said that it was better if we got right away and began again. She was right, and maybe she was wrong too. However far away you run, you can’t get away from the pain you’ve caused other people. But I always knew that one day Toni would return to acting. She knew it too. It was in her blood. And I know
that it’s in you too, Olivia. It is part of who you are. You’ve been lucky enough to be given more than one talent, Liv. Use them.”

“Oh, Dad,” said Olivia. “How could I ever have doubted you?”

“I love you and Eel so much,” said Jack. Tears suddenly started to pour down his cheeks. “What if we’ve lost her, Liv? I made a promise to Toni to keep you both safe. I’ve failed.”

Just then Tom walked into the room, but seeing their stricken faces he began to back hurriedly out again. “Sorry, I didn’t mean to interrupt,” he said, looking awkward. But Olivia dragged him into the room and started asking him about what was going on at the Swan. In this extraordinary situation, it was the ordinary that was most comforting.