Coming Home

by Fern Britton

  ‘Where have you been? You’ve got ten minutes,’ whispered Sennen as she dragged him to his dressing room. ‘You’re in trouble.’

  He stopped dead in the middle of the narrow corridor and pulled his arm from her grip. ‘I’m the star of the show. It won’t start without me.’

  Sennen wrung her hands, her stomach churning. ‘Please, please get ready or your understudy will be on.’

  Ali pushed his shoulders back and his sunglasses into his hair like an Alice band. His eyes were bloodshot and had dark circles beneath. ‘We’ll see about that.’ And he strode off to his dressing room.

  Somehow, he did get ready, leaving the audience to wait fifteen minutes. When he finally bounded on to the stage, shouting, ‘Hello, boys and girls, mums and dads, my name’s Buttons. What’s yours?’ he got a huge round of excitable applause, mostly from the mums.

  Between shows Sennen fetched him a sandwich from the café next door and a large, strong black coffee. He barely acknowledged her. ‘How’s your throat?’ she asked, leaving a KitKat on his dressing table.

  ‘Sore.’ He made great show of swallowing with painful effort.

  ‘You don’t look very well,’ she ventured.

  ‘I’m fine. Bit of a headache, that’s all.’

  She went to the door. ‘See you later?’

  ‘Maybe.’

  ‘If you need me, just call.’

  After the second show, as she was making her way to his dressing room, she saw him with an older woman in a fur coat heading for the stage door. If he saw her, he didn’t acknowledge her.

  ‘Who was that with Ali?’ she asked the stage doorkeeper, trying to keep her voice light and disinterested.

  ‘His agent, I think.’ He looked astutely at Sennen. ‘Don’t you go falling for him. He’s nothing but trouble. I caught him trying to corner our Cinderella last night. Poor girl, he was like an octopus. All over her.’

  Sennen was outraged. ‘Actually, it was she who was after him. He’s not interested in her.’

  ‘Really? Too old for him, I expect. He likes ’em young. So don’t you go near him.’

  Her walk home was cold in more ways than one. The stars were clear and bright and the cold wind nipped her fingers and nose but there was no snow and no Ali by her side. She went over what had happened the night before. He had told her he liked her, he’d invited her back to his room and been sweet. He was working so hard – no wonder he’d fallen asleep. She was glad she’d been there to get him safely into bed. She would have to be very supportive of Ali. He was carrying the success of the show and he wasn’t feeling well. She wouldn’t put him under any pressure. She would simply be there for him and help him in any way she could.

  All theatres shut their doors on Christmas Day. Actors and crew either spend the day with their loved ones or sleep the clock round. Sennen was tired. She had worked hard looking after her own job, as well as Ali, and it hadn’t gone unnoticed. The company manager, her boss, had praised her and suggested that if she wanted a career in stage management he would be happy to employ her. She dreamt of working with Ali always.

  Her mother woke her on Christmas morning with a cup of tea. ‘Happy Christmas, darling.’

  Sennen turned over without opening her eyes. ‘I’m tired.’

  ‘It’s ten o’clock.’

  ‘So?’

  ‘It’s Christmas morning and Father Christmas has been.’

  ‘Let me sleep.’

  ‘Just another ten minutes. Don’t let your tea go cold. We are all waiting downstairs to open the presents.’

  ‘I’ll be down later.’

  ‘Your tea is right there.’

  ‘Mum! Go. Away.’

  Time ran like quicksilver. Christmas came and went; New Year was celebrated and Sennen became a slave to Ali. He mostly ignored her, but threw her the odd crumb of a compliment which she savoured and took home to replay in her endless fantasies. Finally, in the middle of January, the panto run was up.

  Sennen always stood in the wings to watch Ali’s audience participation scene before the finale. She absorbed every joke, every glance, every move.

  Ali would pick three children from the audience and bring them up onto the stage. Kneeling down to their height he would ask them silly questions and make eggs appear from behind their ears and pound coins from under their tongues.

  When they were finished, she was the person who handed over a marvellous and always huge teddy bear as a prize so that every child in the audience was instantly jealous.

  When the children had been safely delivered back to their proud parents, Ali would shout, ‘Ladies and gentlemen, boys and girls, Cinderella, my best friend, is marrying Prince Charming and we are all invited to the wedding! See you in a minute!’

  Running off stage his dresser would wrench off his costume and speedily Velcro him into his sparkly wedding outfit.

  Sennen always had a small towel ready for him to mop the sweat running from his scalp. Usually he took it from her without a word, but that night, the last night of the run, he said, ‘In my dressing room there are some gifts. They’re labelled. Bung them round to the right people, would you?’ He winked as he said it and gave her hand a squeeze then ran back on stage for the wedding finale and curtain calls.

  She dashed to his room and found a pile of seven identically shaped parcels. She read the labels. One each for the principal members of the cast and one for her. She held it in her hands and pressed it against her chest. He had thought of her. Now he was acknowledging their relationship. She opened the parcel. A book. Ali A’Mayze’s Simple Magic Tricks. It sold in the foyer for £4.99.

  She felt a little let down.

  She flicked through the pages back to front and then saw his handwriting on the first page. He had dedicated it to her.

  Dear Sally,

  Thanks, Doll,

  Ali A’Mayze

  And he’d drawn a little heart with a magic wand waving above it.

  The dressing-room door opened and he walked in. ‘Jesus, that was something. God, they couldn’t get enough of me. Eight curtain calls. Love it. Get me a drink, would you?’ He sat down at his dressing table and looked at himself in the mirror, checking his hair and teeth.

  ‘What would you like?’ she asked.

  ‘There’s some champagne in the fridge.’ He pointed to the small fridge by the daybed. ‘Pour yourself one, doll.’

  ‘Thank you.’ She smiled. She knew he really did remember her name. ‘And thank you for my book.’

  He was creaming the make-up from his face. ‘They’ll be worth a lot of money when I’m in Vegas.’

  She went to the fridge and found the champagne, already open, and poured it into two tumblers. ‘Why did you write Sally inside it?’

  ‘Did I?’ He took the tumbler from her. ‘Just a little joke. You are my mystery girlfriend, aren’t you?’ He patted his knees, inviting her to sit on them. She did and immediately thought back to when her father used to do the same.

  ‘This is nice,’ he said, jiggling his knees up and down to make her giggle. ‘Drink your champagne up and we can have another.’

  He was so gentle as he stared into her eyes. Whispering loving words as his hand crept up inside her T-shirt and gently stroked her breast. His kisses were lingering, soft but passionate. He carried her to the daybed and took off her jeans and knickers before caressing her stomach and inner thighs. He was still dressed in his costume. The lace and taffeta of his knickerbockers scratched against her thighs as he told her how much he loved her.

  When he had finished, he rolled off her and patted her arm. ‘Well, that was very nice.’

  Sennen’s head was swimming with a mix of happiness and alarm. She understood what had just happened and she was proud of it. She had lost her virginity. To a man. Not a boy. A man who had told her he loved her.

  He got up and kicked off what remained of his costume. ‘Right, I’m off to the party.’ He saw the undelivered presents. ‘Haven’t you done those yet? Hurry
up.’

  She didn’t make the party. Being part of the backstage crew she had to pack props and costumes into the huge wicker travelling skips and load them onto the pantechnicon that had reversed into the scene dock ready to take it all back into store for next year. By the time she had done everything and made a final check that every dressing room was empty and the stage clear, it was almost 3 a.m.

  When she got to the stalls bar, it was dark. She saw the shadows of empty glasses and beer bottles and could smell the thickness of tobacco’d air, but there was not a soul to be seen.

  She called out, ‘Ali?’ She ran to the silent auditorium. ‘Ali?’ she called again. She heard footsteps on the stage and turned quickly in relief. ‘Ali! I’m here. I thought you had gone.’

  He was holding a torch and she couldn’t see him behind it.

  ‘Come on, whoever you are,’ a gruff voice said. ‘You got no home to go to?’

  It was the stage doorkeeper on his rounds. He shone the light on her face. ‘Is that young Sennen? If you’re looking for young fella-me-lad, he’s long gone. Come on, let me see you off the premises.

  13

  It was three weeks short of her fifteenth birthday, when she had already missed two periods and was regularly sick after breakfast, that Adela, who had hovered on the landing listening at the loo door, asked her if she was bulimic.

  ‘Darling, I know that there is a lot of peer pressure to be slim nowadays, but you are lovely just the way you are.’

  Sennen scowled and pushed past her mother to get to the sanctuary of her room. As she went to shut the door behind her, Adela put her hand out stopped her. ‘Sennen, I’m worried for you. Don’t shut me out. Would you like to see the doctor?’

  Sennen flounced to her bed and fell face first into the pillow. ‘No,’ she mumbled.

  ‘Darling, talk to me.’ Adela sat on the bed and stroked Sennen’s hair. She was feeling out of her depth. She tried again. ‘You can tell me anything.’

  She waited patiently for an answer, then shook her daughter’s shoulder. ‘Tell me. Please. Is it school? I know you didn’t like it at first, but it’s okay now, isn’t it?’

  She felt Sennen breathe deeply, then expel the air loudly. ‘I’m pregnant,’ she mumbled.

  ‘What?’ asked Adela gently. ‘I couldn’t hear you.’

  ‘I’m pregnant.’

  If asked, Sennen wouldn’t have been able to say what she thought would happen next, but what she hadn’t expected was the calm acceptance of her parents and their incredible support.

  The doctor confirmed the pregnancy and then offered her solutions. A termination, an adoption, or keep the child. When he said this, in the clinical serenity of his consulting room, Adela and Bill were sitting either side of her. They said nothing, allowing Sennen to make her decision. Eventually she murmured, ‘I want the baby.’

  Adela beamed and clasped Sennen’s hand. ‘Good,’ she said.

  The doctor watched her over the frames of his half-moon glasses and asked the question her parents hadn’t felt able to ask. ‘And the father? Will he have any part in the baby’s life?’

  Sennen shook her head.

  ‘May I ask who the father is?’

  Again, Sennen shook her head.

  ‘I see. Does he know that he has a child on the way?’

  Bill gripped Sennen’s hand tightly.

  ‘No,’ she said.

  The doctor looked down at her notes on his desk and thought for a moment. ‘You are very young. Your life will never be the same again.’

  ‘She has us,’ said Adela firmly.

  The doctor frowned. ‘That is true, but Sennen is a minor and the boy who did this to her was breaking the law.’ He looked at Sennen and in a serious voice asked, ‘Tell me, were you forced into having sex? Or did you know what you were doing? And did you do it willingly?’

  Sennen closed her eyes and thought of that night and how Ali had made her feel. She nodded.

  ‘You weren’t forced into doing something you didn’t want to do?’

  She shook her head.

  ‘Are you still seeing the boy?’

  She shook her head again.

  ‘Because if you are, I shall prescribe you some contraception. You do know what that is, don’t you.’

  ‘Of course she does,’ Bill said. ‘She won’t be needing it.’

  ‘Well, then.’ The doctor sat straight and clasped his hands. ‘I will write to your school and explain your circumstances. There is no need for you to give up your studies – indeed, your child will need a mother who is well-educated. Look after yourself: no smoking or drinking, be kind to your parents and I’ll see you in four weeks.’

  Henry Alan William Tallon was born at the end of September, 1991, with both his grandparents in attendance.

  It was decided that Sennen would stay at her school in Truro to finish her exams and come home at weekends to be with Henry. In the meantime, Adela and Bill would care for him.

  Back at school she was ostracised. Girls whispered about her as she walked the corridors or queued for lunch. Even her small coterie of daredevil friends shrank from her. No one asked her, and she told no one about Ali.

  Thinking back, she realised that this was the time when she had begun to feel something that made her more than different. Of course she was different; which other of her friends had a baby? But a new and dangerous pit of teenage melancholy opened up in front of her. Who was she? She was neither child or parent. Her own parents had taken control with ease and efficiency. Henry was more theirs than hers. All her waking thoughts and sleeping dreams were filled with the desperate anxiety of trying to find Ali. If only she could contact him, he would come and sort all this mess out. He loved her. He had told her so, hadn’t he? She longed to confide in Adela. To tell her about Ali. To have her help her find him. But she didn’t know where to begin. And she had an uncomfortable suspicion that they would turn against him. They would accuse him of … well, she wasn’t quite sure. He had not taken advantage of her. That was a fact. She had wanted him. But why hadn’t he tried to contact her?

  As soon as she knew about the baby she had asked for the address of his London agent from the Pavilions Theatre and written to him, asking if he could phone her as she had some news. After a few weeks she received a letter from his agent’s secretary, thanking her for ‘her interest’ and enclosing an unsigned cheesy postcard photo of him.

  When Henry was born, she wrote again, and this time received a leaflet with the dates of the Ali A’Mayze On The Road tour. She scoured the schedule and her heart sang when she saw that, for one Sunday night in November only, he was coming to the Pavilions.

  She planned how she would tell him about Henry. He would be so happy. He would hold her and promise to take care of her. He would be so sorry that he hadn’t been there for her, but now, everything would be all right.

  She took fresh interest in Henry and whispered her secret to him when she bathed him or took him for walks on the harbour.

  Adela and Bill noticed how much happier she was. ‘She’s doing so well, isn’t she?’ said Adela, watching from the kitchen window as Sennen showed Henry the late butterflies on the buddleia.

  Bill slipped his arm around Adela’s shoulder. ‘She is. And so are you.’

  Sennen counted the days to seeing Ali again. She’d asked at the theatre if they needed any backstage help for the show. They didn’t, but she could work front of house as an usherette.

  At last the day arrived. The dress code was black trousers or skirt with a white blouse. She had a stretchy mini skirt that was a little too tight over her baby tum and borrowed a white shirt from her mother. She bought some sheer black tights and wore her old knee-high black leather boots. By the time she’d wound her hair into a bun and put on a little eye make-up and lip gloss, she looked very presentable.

  ‘My word, you do look smart,’ said Bill when she came into the sitting room. ‘I’m very proud of you. Not many girls with a baby and exams would want to
go out and earn a little money. Very proud indeed.’

  ‘Thanks, Dad. Would you give me a lift down?’

  ‘Yep. Let me just find my keys.’ He wandered off into the hall.

  Her mother came in from the kitchen with Henry on her hip. ‘Let’s have look at you.’

  Henry blinked and burped.

  Adela patted his padded bottom. ‘Very high praise for your mummy indeed, Henry. Now say goodnight to her and say “See you later, Mummy”.’

  Sennen kissed them both, told them she loved them, and with a happy, hammering heart, left the house.

  Standing at the back of the stalls as the house lights dimmed, leaving just a single spotlight on the crimson velvet curtains, Sennen’s breathing was shallow and ragged with anticipation.

  Prerecorded rock music blasted through the auditorium and a deep, slow voice announced ‘Ladies and Gentlemen, you are about to witness incredible things. Things that will shock you, and fill you with awe. Tonight is a night you will speak of in hushed tones as your children, grandchildren and great-grandchildren beg you to tell them the story. The story of the night you witnessed real magic.’ The audience gasped and giggled as the single spotlight snapped out and they were left in a silent blackness . ‘Ladies and gentlemen, for one night only I give you: Mr Ali A’Mayze.’ The voice dragged out the last syllables as a deafening peal of church bells rang through the audience. From the roof above them a spotlight revealed a coffin, lowering itself towards the stage.

  Sennen had her heart in her mouth. Any moment now she’d see him.

  The coffin stopped about a metre from the stage floor and floated free of any wires that she could see. A female undertaker walked slowly from the wings to the spotlit box. She drew a glinting silver sword from a scabbard beneath her cloak and proceeded to wave it all over the box to prove it was merely hanging there in space. A curdled scream came from the back of the stalls and made Sennen jump out of her skin. She and the entire audience turned to see what it was and, in that split second, the coffin crashed to the ground and from it leapt a powerful scarlet motorbike with Ali sitting astride it, revving the engine.