Stage Fright

by Christine Poulson

  ‘Are you all right?’ I asked.

  ‘Jet lag. I always suffer really badly. Just felt a little dizzy there for a moment. Guess I should be heading back to my hotel.’

  ‘Would you like us to take you?’

  ‘No, no,’ her voice was firmer now. ‘I’ve ordered a taxi.’ She looked at her watch. ‘In fact he’ll be waiting right now.’ She hesitated, then took one of my hands in both of hers and squeezed it. ‘You know, I’m so grateful for what you’ve been doing for Agnes. I’ll ring you tomorrow, OK?’

  ‘You’re sure you’re all right?’

  ‘I’ll be fine.’ She looked round. Stan and Joe had drifted a little way off and were deep in conversation. ‘I’ll just slip away. Say goodbye to Stan for me.’

  I watched her make her way to the exit, attracting puzzled looks from several people, who obviously thought she looked familiar.

  As I turned to Joe and Stan I heard Stan say:

  ‘So how long have you and Cass known each other?’

  ‘Oh, we’re very old friends,’ he replied, giving me a sideways smile.

  ‘Really?’ Stan gave an enormous yawn. ‘Oh, do excuse me.’

  ‘What time did you manage to get to bed last night?’ I asked.

  ‘The dress rehearsal didn’t finish until one o’clock. And that wasn’t the half of it. I had Belinda crying on my shoulder half the night. I was seriously worried about whether she’d be able to go on tonight.’

  ‘She’s as upset as all that?’

  ‘Well, you knew it had been going on for about six months with her and Kevin?’

  ‘No!’

  ‘Apparently it started when she auditioned for her part in the play. The good old casting couch!’

  ‘You mean…?’

  ‘Yes, that’s right. When Melissa was in hospital with Agnes.’ Her voice was grim. ‘Aren’t men bastards?’

  ‘Kevin gave me the impression it was a one-night stand!’

  ‘Oh, no, no, no. Belinda was in deep. She’s not the sharpest knife in the box and she really thought he cared about her. All that languishing with unrequited love in the first act? Well, let’s put it this way. Not much acting skill was required there. They never learn, do they? Kevin dropped her like a hot potato when Melissa disappeared.’

  I thought about those anxious days in the premature baby unit, those vulnerable little bodies in incubators, Melissa and me in dressing-gowns. My heart ached just thinking about it. And all the time Kevin was …

  ‘You know,’ I said, ‘this kind of thing really does make me think men must be a separate species – or even from a different planet.’

  ‘A lower form of life, that’s for sure,’ Stan said, smiling sweetly at Joe.

  ‘Hey, leave me out of this,’ he protested. ‘I’m as disgusted as you are.’ He looked it too. I’d forgotten about that scowl of Joe’s. ‘Any decent guy would be. But there’s something I don’t understand. Kevin ended up spending hours at the police station. Is that right? Well, why didn’t he tell the police straightaway that he had an alibi. Surely he wasn’t trying to protect Belinda?’

  ‘God, no.’ Stan gave a snort. ‘Don’t you see? There he was, playing the pathos card, the devoted husband, clutching his motherless baby to his breast, hardly able to hold back the tears. He certainly wasn’t going to admit – unless he absolutely had to – that when Melissa did a bunk, he was between the sheets with another woman. That wasn’t going to play very well with Hello magazine, was it?’

  ‘Would you believe it?’ Joe shook his head.

  ‘Oh, well, according to Richard, we must look on the bright side,’ Stan said.

  ‘There’s a bright side?’ I said.

  ‘Oh, yes.’ She gave a cynical laugh. ‘The accountants are wetting themselves with excitement. We couldn’t have got more press coverage if we’d paid for it. We’re sold out for the entire run.’

  ‘I thought people might ask for their money back now that Melissa’s not in it.’

  ‘Well, Phyllida’s pretty well known, but really of course it’s Kevin they’re interested in. The drama offstage is even more fascinating than the one on it. They’re hoping to get some of both. Oh, well, I’d better go. I only popped in for a glass of champagne. I’m going to check that everything’s in order backstage. Then I’m going off home.’

  ‘Shall we be going, too, Cass?’ asked Joe.

  I nodded. I looked around for Kevin. He was nowhere in sight, but I could leave a message at the stage door. The bar was packed now and loud with the buzz of conversation. Joe turned sideways and began to edge his way through the crowd. We were briefly separated when Phyllida’s pin-striped friend ploughed in front of me on his way to the bar. I reached forward to grab Joe’s hand. We threaded our way through to the double doors that led to the red-carpeted stairs down to the foyer. They’d been propped open. People had spilled out of the bar and were standing chatting in little groups on the landing. We were on the top step when I felt a hand on my shoulder. I looked round to see Kevin.

  ‘You’re not going yet, are you?’ he said.

  He came closer – close enough for me to smell a very expensive cologne – and put his hand on my waist.

  ‘Cassandra’s tired. I’m taking her home,’ Joe said.

  ‘And you are?’ asked Kevin. His voice was cool. His eyes flicked down to where Joe was holding my hand and flicked back to Joe’s face. The two men stared at each other as if I wasn’t there. I made an effort to take control of the situation.

  ‘Kevin, this is Joe Baldassarre. Joe, Kevin.’

  Joe nodded curtly, his face impassive. His gaze dropped to where Kevin’s hand was still on my waist.

  ‘Take your hand off her,’ Joe said. He spoke as if this was some unremarkable neutral request. He could have been asking Kevin to pass the salt.

  ‘I thought I was giving you a lift home,’ Kevin said to me, his eyes fixed on my face. It was as if we were alone together. His voice was low and intimate. The people nearest to us had stopped talking and were looking around as though they had sensed the tension. Behind Kevin I saw Jake and Geoff, Jake’s eyes widening in avid interest.

  ‘Did you hear me?’ Joe asked pleasantly. Kevin looked at him. His hand stayed where it was. I was intensely conscious of the heat of it though the thin material of my blouse. I looked at Joe and saw what Kevin was seeing: a middle-aged man, overweight, balding, about the same age as Kevin but much shorter and without the muscular definition that comes from working-out in a gym twice a week. Something about the way he was standing triggered a memory twenty years old: a party at which a drunken rugby player had tried to get too friendly with me. He’d laughed when Joe objected, not imagining that he had anything to fear from a little guy with a physique like Woody Allen. Kevin was about to make the same mistake. Another moment and he’d be sprawling down the stairs.

  I shook myself free of both of them and stepped between them.

  ‘I’m getting a lift home with Joe. I’ll speak to you tomorrow, Kevin.’ For a moment or two it was as if hadn’t spoken. They went on staring at each other like two dogs facing each other in the street. Then Kevin turned and without a word began to shoulder his way through the crowd.

  Chapter Fifteen

  ‘THE son-of-a-bitch,’ Joe said. ‘Seems to thinks he owns you.’

  It was only then that I realized I had been holding my breath. I let it out.

  ‘Oh, and you don’t?’ I said. ‘You’re not married to me now, you know, and even if you were—’

  ‘Oh, come on, Cass, he was completely out of order.’

  ‘That’s not the point. I’m a big girl now. I’m capable of fighting my own battles.’

  ‘I hope you’re right. Because to my mind what that guy needs is a smack in the face.’

  ‘Joe!’

  ‘Sorry, sorry. Look, I guess I’d better take you home.’

  We didn’t say much as we went out to Joe’s hire-car and set off on the half-hour journey into the fens. The adrenali
ne rush that I’d felt when Kevin and Joe were confronting each other had subsided, leaving me deathly tired. I kicked my shoes off and slumped back in my seat. A wave of depression swept over me. I felt empty and depleted. It wasn’t only Melissa being missing, and the episode between Joe and Kevin. It was that something was finished, something which had taken up everything that I had to spare from Grace over the last few months. The first night was over and with it my close connection with the theatre and the group of people I’d seen virtually every day for weeks. I felt a pang at that thought. Soon I’d be back in college and the world of the play and the company would be distant and unreal.

  And Melissa, how long could I go on worrying about her at this level of intensity? If she didn’t show up soon, would I start to forget her, too? No, not while there was Agnes. Surely, surely there’d be a phone call soon, a message from Melissa … The lights of the car on the road, the rhythm created by the broken white line: the effect was hypnotic and I felt my eyelids sinking. The next thing I knew Joe was shaking my shoulder. We were at the Old Granary. I stretched and yawned.

  Joe reached over and put a hand on my arm.

  ‘Cass…’

  ‘Mmm … what is it?’ I was still half-asleep. When he didn’t reply, I turned towards him. It was so dark that I could see only his profile.

  His voice was serious. ‘What you said earlier. I know I’m not still married to you, but sometimes I wish…’

  It was like a warning bell going off. I was suddenly wide awake.

  ‘Don’t.’ I put my hand on his mouth.

  He put his hand on mine, pressed my fingers to his lips. We sat there like that in the dimness of the car. Then the security light outside my front door came on, flooding the car with light. Tilly had opened the door and was standing on the doorstep, shielding her eyes against the glare with her hand.

  ‘I must go,’ I said.

  Joe nodded and released me.

  ‘Look,’ he said, ‘I’ll be back in a few days. Don’t know exactly when yet, but if you want to talk, ring me on my mobile, OK?’

  I nodded. ‘Thanks for coming to the opening with me.’

  ‘My pleasure.’

  I got out of the car.

  He called after me. ‘Hey, no chance that Kevin will be hanging around here, is there?’

  I shook my head. ‘His car isn’t here. And anyway I’m sure he won’t want to see me after what’s happened. He’ll have already collected Agnes.’

  I watched him reverse and drive off. It was only as his lights disappeared and I turned to go into the house that I realized that I hadn’t got his mobile number.

  * * *

  I tiptoed into my study where Grace was asleep in her cot. Tilly had changed her and fed her shortly before I’d got back, so with any luck she’d sleep for a few hours. Kevin had been and gone as I’d guessed. He’d arrived a full quarter of an hour before me: he must have driven like the clappers. I bent over Grace in the semi-darkness and breathed in the warmth of her sleeping body. When I kissed her she gave a little whimper. Then with a sigh she lapsed back into sleep.

  I climbed up the narrow stairs to my bedroom leaning heavily on the handrail. I left my new clothes on the floor where they fell and got into bed without taking my make-up off. Sleep came instantly but it was far from restful. Scenes from East Lynne played themselves over and over in my head. It was like the sensation you have of the road coming up to meet you when you try to sleep after a long drive. I was stuck in a loop, going through the play over and over again. The thing was that the performance had to be perfect. If there was even the tiniest mistake we had to go back to the beginning. I was playing Lady Isabel. Again and again we got nearly to the end but then I would forget a line and realize with a sinking heart that we had to do it all over again. At one point I woke up and knew that I had been dreaming. But immediately it seemed, I was back on stage, again as Lady Isabel. And this time Melissa was there in costume as Madame Vine. I was puzzled: Lady Isabel and Madame Vine couldn’t be on stage together, could they? Then I forgot about that, because Melissa was telling me something very important. She was explaining that acting was terribly dangerous, because it involved the transfer of souls. The risk was that you would change into the character you were playing and not be able to get back into your own body. And even as she spoke her own features were dissolving and reforming.…

  I came out of the dream with a jerk. The clock said ten past seven. Downstairs I could hear Grace making conversational little noises. She was talking to herself. She would soon get tired of that and demand to be fed, but I had a few minutes respite. I settled back on the pillows and thought about the dream. What could it mean? Why was I playing Lady Isabel, the jealous wife who had abandoned her children? That was Melissa’s role – in East Lynne and in real life. But then a startling thought occurred to me. It wasn’t Melissa, was it, who was living with a nice reliable lawyer like Archibald? That was me. And was I also being tempted into adultery by an old love? That idea gave me a jolt. A moment or two’s reflection and the analogy with East Lynne broke down. I couldn’t see Joe as a murderer and the villainous seducer of young women. And how old was Lady Isabel? Twenty-five, tops, when she runs off, whereas I was nearly forty and had been married twice. And why was I entertaining these ridiculous thoughts anyway? I wasn’t Lady Isabel and neither was Melissa, because Lady Isabel didn’t exist. She was a character in a work of fiction. It was time I returned to the real world and got up and fed my baby.

  But for all my rationalization, one question still remained. What was I going to do about Joe? If I wasn’t going to let things go any further, there was something I had to do, and the sooner the better. After breakfast my chance came. The phone rang. At first there was just a crackling sound.

  Then: ‘Cass? It’s me. How did it go last night?’ It was Stephen.

  ‘Fine! It went fine. Well, up to a point. I mean there’s still no word of Melissa. But Phyllida came up with the goods in the end.’

  ‘Oh, I’m glad.’ His voice faded away and I caught only snatches of what he was saying. ‘… fantastic here … the silence … bigger than the Statue of Liberty.’

  ‘The silence is bigger than the Statue of Liberty?’

  ‘Don’t be silly. The redwoods. Some of them grow taller than the Statue of Liberty.’ His voice came back so loudly that I had to hold the phone away from my ear. ‘– left the Big Sur Inn this morning. We’re spending a night in a cabin in the forest. Going back to LA tomorrow. I’m on Bob’s mobile.’

  I took a deep breath. ‘I’ve got something to tell you.’

  ‘I can hardly hear you. The signal’s not very good.’ His voice seemed to be flickering on and off. It was like listening to a badly tuned radio.

  ‘I said, I’ve got something to tell you!’

  ‘Speak up then!’

  ‘I took my ex-husband to the opening last night!’ I shouted.

  ‘You exhumed what?’

  ‘No, no! my ex-husband, my first husband. You remember! Joe! He’s in Cambridge on sabbatical and he came to the opening with me.’

  There was no response, but I couldn’t tell whether it was because the signal had faded or because Stephen hadn’t spoken.

  ‘Hello! Hello!’ I bellowed. ‘Are you there?’

  Stephen’s voice came back weakly … ‘a turn-up for the book … nice that you weren’t on your own…’

  ‘Also: he lost his rag with Kevin and nearly punched him!’

  There was a brief buzzing sound, then quite suddenly his voice was as strong and clear as if he had been standing next to me.

  ‘Tell him not to hold back next time. He can land one on Kevin for me. Oh, God, the signal’s going again. I’ll speak to you again very soon. When I get back to LA. Miss you. Love you. Love Grace.’

  ‘Love you, too. Take care.’

  ‘You, too. ’Bye then.’

  ‘’Bye.’ And he was gone.

  As I hung up, I didn’t know whether to feel relieved or aff
ronted. Didn’t he realize that I had been on the point of falling in love with another man? Or perhaps he didn’t care? But I knew I’d be kidding myself if I pretended I thought that. I knew what he’d say if I pressed him. If I don’t trust you, then that’s the whole foundation of our relationship gone. Sure, you might let me down – my ex-wife did after all – but a life lived in fear of that happening again is no life at all. Wasn’t that more or less what I’d decided myself a few days ago?

  I went down to the kitchen to put the kettle on. While I waited for it to boil, I wondered if it’s better to have a man who’s too interested in you – or not interested enough? When I was twenty the question would have seemed absurd. I’d taken possessiveness and jealousy as signs of love. It’s flattering to have all someone’s attention. But would I really like Stephen to be the kind of man who wanted to know where I was and what I was doing all the time? It would be intolerable. And how close really was I to falling for the Joe of today? It was the Joe of twenty years ago that I was longing for – and the Cass of twenty years ago: the young woman who had been ardent and carefree, who could spend hours reading War and Peace in the bath, topping up the water again and again until her fingers were as wrinkled as prunes; the Cass who had been able to survive for days on bacon sandwiches and apples and black coffee; above all the Cass who had everything before her. I was mourning my lost youth, it was as corny and as clichéd as that. I was grieving because I’d lost my flat belly, my chin was getting blurry, and I’d never again go to a party and end the evening slow-dancing with a stranger. I felt an aching nostalgia for those days. But would I go back even if I could? What was that saying? that if everyone’s life was put on the table, most people would pick up their own? A life without Grace was unthinkable. Stephen too was part of that life and he’d soon be home.