Stagefright (18 page)

Velvet’s Aunt Evelyn lived in a sixth-floor apartment overlooking the river. It was modern and sparsely furnished, and bigger than the house Velvet and her parents were living in.

“Looks like something out of a magazine,” Taleb said, kicking off his runners before he walked on the pale carpet. “Your aunt must be rich.”

“She’s a lawyer.”

“And it’s okay for us to hang out here?”

“I rang her to let her know I was coming. She told me it was okay, anytime I wanted some space.” Velvet hadn’t mentioned that Taleb would be with her.

“I thought we could listen to a couple of soundtracks all the way through. You can hear how things link and how the finales work.” Velvet opened a cupboard. It was full of CDs. “Let’s start with …” she ran a finger along the shelves, “…
The Lion King
.”

“Isn’t that a cartoon?”

“It started off as a Disney animation, then it was adapted for the stage.”

Taleb looked dubious.

“It’s been running on Broadway for fifteen years.”

“Okay. Let’s hear it.”

Velvet worked her way through her favourites from relatively recent musicals –
Hairspray
,
Wicked
,
Billy Elliot
– to her favourites from the past –
Chicago
,
Oliver
,
Porgy and Bess
.

“This is one of my all-time favourites. It’s old, but I love the jazzy Fifties music.”

She played the prologue to
West Side Story
. She could tell that Taleb liked it too, so she found the dance sequence from the movie on YouTube. It was all she could do to stop herself dancing around the apartment.

“I wish we could have finger-clicking in our musical,” Velvet said, “but I guess it’s not very medieval.”

Velvet made lunch. It was a nice day, so they ate it on the balcony overlooking the river. She felt very mature. Taleb played his guitar and wrote down ideas.

“Play some more finales.”

Velvet selected more CDs.

“No Andrew Lloyd Webber though.”

She’d made sure not to include any in her favourites.

“I don’t know why you’re so allergic to him.”

“I have my reasons,” Taleb said.

“What?”

“Apart from the fact that his music’s crappy and clichéd, in Grade 5 the music teacher spent the whole year teaching us an Andrew Lloyd Webber medley. I must have heard those songs a thousand times. And she always sang along with us.” He shuddered. “It makes my skin crawl when I hear them.”

Velvet washed the dishes before they left, so there was no evidence that she hadn’t been alone.

“Do you know what the date is today?”

“Nah.”

“Is it somebody’s birthday?”

It was the first cultural studies class after the holidays.

“No, it’s the fifteenth of October!”

“So?”

“I think what Velvet is trying to point out,” Mr MacDonald explained, “is that it’s only four weeks until the performance.”

“Four weeks! Are you sure?”

“Yes. The jubilee celebrations are taking place over the second week in November.”

There was a silence as the reality of this hit everyone. It had been fun so far, singing and acting in T6 and in the practice room behind the stage, but in a few short weeks they had to do it in front of an audience.

“When’s the actual performance?”

“It’s set for the Friday afternoon.”

“That’s not Friday the thirteenth, is it?”

Velvet looked at her school diary. “Yes.”

“Great.”

“Can’t we change it to another day?”

“What, reschedule the school’s jubilee?”

“Slinky would be rapt.”

“Thirteen is a lucky number in some cultures,” Mr MacDonald said. “Let’s work out a schedule.”

He started scribbling dates on the board. It was the first time Velvet had seen him use a whiteboard.

“You’ve got five Thursday afternoons before the performance. You can do a full run-through this week and next week. Then a dress rehearsal. After that there’ll be two sessions to refine it.”

“Refine it? We haven’t finished writing it yet! There’s still something missing in the second half.”

“It’s time you found out what it is then. Let’s get to work.”

The first run-through didn’t get off to a good start. Drago refused to sing. They’d been so concerned about the band, the hole in the second half, the costumes, Hailie’s singing and Mei’s elocution that it hadn’t occurred to them that they’d never actually heard Drago sing the soliloquy song that opened the show.

“I don’t want to sing.”

“You have to.”

“I can’t.”

“Now he tells us!”

“You can act, Drago. It’s the same thing.”

“No, it’s not.”

“You have the main part,” Velvet said. “If you’ve got stage fright here in T6 with nobody but us around, we’ve got serious problems.”

“Why didn’t you tell us before?”

“I didn’t know till now.”

“I’m gonna strangle you, Drago.”

It looked like another brawl was looming.

“Why don’t you all sing the soliloquy song together?” Mr MacDonald suggested. “Help him get into it.”

Taleb started playing the song. “Does everyone know the words?”

Velvet sang along with Taleb. They went through it again and the others slowly joined in. At the fourth attempt Drago finally sang, only so quietly that no one could hear him.

“I’ve never sung before,” he said defensively.

“You have too! What about the rude version of the school song?” Jesus said.

“Yeah,” Roula said. “I’ve stood behind you at assembly. You can sing loud enough then.”

“That’s different.”

“Why is it different?”

“You know. I’m not supposed to.”

“So you can do anything if it’s against the rules?”

Drago shrugged.

Taleb had an idea. “Treat the song the same. Richard likes to break the rules. I’ll spice it up a bit. It can be a defiant song rather than a sad song. You know, ‘I’m not a pretty boy, so who cares?’ I can make it like a rap song.”

Taleb sped up the tempo and changed the key. Drago got the idea and half-sang, half-shouted the words. It wasn’t quite what everybody had had in mind, but at least Drago was singing.

They stumbled through the rest of Act I. Taleb’s acting in the dream scene was appalling. They didn’t have anyone for the roles of the murderers and spent twenty minutes arguing about who could play them.

“We’ve already got to have a couple of kids as the princes,” Peter said. “I reckon that’s enough outsiders. What if they don’t turn up?”

“Okay. Peter,” Velvet said, “you’re not in that scene, you can be a murderer. You too, Jesus.”

That was one problem solved, but Velvet was already worrying about another.

“I don’t think anybody is going to understand what’s going on.”

“We don’t,” Drago said. “Why should the audience?”

“We haven’t explained properly that Richard is doing all this mean stuff because he wants to be king.”

“Nobody expects to understand Shakespeare,” Hailie said.

“I know!” said Peter. “We could have Drago eyeing off the crown while Edward’s sick and dying. You know, picking it up and polishing it, trying it on when no one’s looking.”

“That’s great.”

“Except that we haven’t got a King Edward.”

“We have to have one. It’s such a good idea.”

“King Edward died because he ate and drank too much,” Velvet informed them. “He doesn’t even have to speak.”

“All we need,” Roula said, “is someone to lie around looking fat and then lie around looking dead.”

There was a sudden silence as the same idea hit everyone at once. They all turned to Mr MacDonald who was in his customary place at the back of the room eating an iced doughnut.

“What?” he said, wiping hundreds and thousands off his chin.

Hailie put on her sweetest smile. “We want you to play King Edward.”

“Please.”

“You don’t have to say anything.”

“Go on, sir. You’d be great.”

“Say yes.”

Mr MacDonald didn’t have a hope in the face of all that enthusiasm. “All right, I suppose so.”

Everybody cheered.

They worked out a whole routine with the Duke of Clarence and Richard both admiring the crown. Taleb wasn’t a good actor, but, as Velvet had predicted, Drago was great as the villain. They decided to continue the theme into the next scene and have Richard carrying the crown when he meets the little princes.

“And the prince who is heir to the throne wants to try it on,” Peter suggested, “but Richard won’t let him.”

“That’s not in the play though.”

“Jesus, I think we’re way past worrying about that,” Velvet said.

“The prince could say it’s got to be made smaller to fit him.”

“Then in the coronation scene when Richard finally gets to put on the crown it’s a really big moment.”

“God, we’re brilliant.”

“Yeah, I hope Miss Ryan’s cardboard crown will make the distance.”

Act I needed so much work, they didn’t have time to get to Act II.

“Next week we’ll finish going through the second half.”

Drago was swanning around in his new coronation cloak, which Miss Ryan had made out of purple curtain material from the remnants shop. It had a fake-fur trim. They had only just started the run-through of the second act when they ran into problems.

Velvet was reading from her script. “‘Richard is sitting on the throne with his cloak swirling around in front of him.’”

Drago sat in an old armchair salvaged from someone’s shed, and his cloak didn’t quite reach the floor.

“‘Buckingham puts the crown on his head. Everybody sings the coronation song.’” Velvet sighed. “It’s very static. Maybe we could choreograph this.”

“I’m not dancing.”

“I didn’t say anything about dancing, Peter. I just mean moving around the stage in a set way, weaving in and out.”

“There’s a bigger problem, Velvet,” Taleb said.

“What?”

“Drago and Peter are the only ones on the stage. Everyone else is in the band for this song.”

“Oh.”

“I’ve got to have more than one person at my coronation,” Drago complained.

“Anne’s got to be there, at least,” Velvet said. “She’s the new queen.”

“Did we get married already?”

“Yes, Drago.”

“Where’s it say that in the play?”

“It doesn’t. Remember, more than ten years have passed since the scene when Richard woos Anne. They have a son.”

“I missed that bit. Could we run through that again, Corduroy?”

“Shakespeare makes it all seem like it happened in a couple of weeks,” Hailie said.

“I know. It’s all part of the plot to make Richard seem mean and ruthless.”

“Forget about the domestic arrangements,” Taleb said. “What are we going to do about this scene where you all have to be in two places at once?”

“I dunno. You’re the musical director.”

“If we had a proper keyboard we could program something in and it would just keep repeating. Velvet could play the first bit and then walk onto the stage and leave the keyboard cycling.”

“I don’t think the Casio is up to that somehow.”

“I forgot to tell you,” Mr MacDonald said. “I’ve borrowed a keyboard from a friend of mine. It’s out in the car.”

He sent Jesus to get it.

Jesus came back with the keyboard wrapped in an army blanket.

“I hope it’s not another Casio,” Taleb said.

Mr MacDonald pulled the blanket off with a flourish and Taleb’s face lit up.

“It’s a Yamaha DX7!” he said. “I’ve read about these.”

“All the good Eighties bands used them.” Mr MacDonald dusted it off and plugged it in. “Talking Heads, Depeche Mode, Queen.”

“It looks like a real dinosaur to me,” Peter said.

Taleb inspected the buttons enthusiastically. “Try it, Velvet. Play your organ bit from the coronation song.”

Velvet played the stirring melody.

“Sounds great!”

Velvet felt like a real musician. She played a medley of Beatles’ songs to try out the different sounds on the new keyboard. Jesus joined in on percussion, and everybody bopped along, until Taleb made them go back to work. The Yamaha didn’t have a stand, so the boys spent an hour figuring out what to put it on. Roula suggested an ironing board. The girls worked on the choreography for the coronation song.

“We need a song for us girls to sing,” Hailie said. “The queens. Together.”

“What will you sing about?”

“I dunno. Aren’t they bummed that Richard’s bumping everyone off?”

“That’s it!” Velvet was leafing through her script. “Hailie, you’re a genius.”

“Really?”

“That’s just what we need to fill in the hole in the second half!” She found the scene she was looking for. “The women get together and lament all the deaths. It’s actually two separate scenes, but –”

“We can squish them into one,” Hailie said.

“Exactly!”

“What sort of song did you have in mind?” Taleb asked.

“You know those sixties girl groups?” Velvet had seen the movie version of the Broadway musical
Dreamgirls
.

“No.”

“They all wore the same outfits and had bouffy hair,” Velvet said. “Their songs were poppy, with harmonies.”

Taleb looked at Velvet dubiously. “Okay, so you want something up-tempo with harmonies about lamenting deaths.”

“You’ll think of something.” Velvet had complete confidence in his musical ability. “I’ll lend you the DVD.”

“You’re not a queen, though, Roula,” Hailie said. “You can’t be in it.”

“She’s a duchess, Richard’s mother,” Velvet said. “That’s close enough. She’s in.”

Mr MacDonald brought them all back to earth. “You know there’s only three weeks to go?”

Taleb had two songs to write, the band needed heaps of rehearsal and they didn’t have any scenery.

“We’ll never be ready.”

“There’s no need to start panicking,” Mr MacDonald said. “Everything’s going pretty well.”

“Don’t say that. It’s bad luck.”

“It’s time for a dress rehearsal,” he said. “All the way through, from beginning to end.”