Midsummer Madness

by Stella Whitelaw

  Joe’s face was clouding over. He was fuming. It was going into terminal fusion. A terrible dress rehearsal usually meant a good first night but he couldn’t see it happening. The range of lighting moods were working, at least.

  ‘What’s the matter with you, Viola? You’re supposed to be madly in love with him. Where’s the emotion, the hidden emotion? You know, heartbeat stuff.’

  ‘What heartbeat stuff?’ I said. The feather was tickling my nose. ‘You’re asking me to act? I’m reading the lines. This isn’t the opening night.’

  ‘Viola, think of the meaning of these words. You’ve spoken them a hundred times before, with real feeling. Yet now you’re as dead as a lump of North Sea cod. What’s the matter with you?’

  I heard a sort of squeaking, squeaky noise. It meant nothing but I saw a few heads swivel round. There was some movement at the back of the theatre but it was too dark to see properly what was happening. Stage lights cut off the auditorium. Black as a bat.

  A wheelchair came into sight. Fran was sitting in it, done up to the nines in white fur and clouds of Chanel Number Five. Her make-up was immaculate. Must have taken hours. She didn’t look ill. She didn’t look as if she had suffered more than a passing sneeze. Maybe she had caught the scent of fame.

  ‘Stop this charade. Get off the stage and back where you belong in the prompt corner,’ she shouted at me. ‘I’m here now. I’ll take over.’

  She got up off the wheelchair and took the side stairs to the stage. She tottered past, throwing me a looking of distaste. ‘Where’s a script? I’ll need a book. I’ve been so ill. I don’t remember any words.’

  ‘Are you sure you’re well enough to go on?’ Joe was lost, scrambling for some sense. It was not often that happened. He had not expected Fran to turn up at this late moment. ‘Shall we break for your costume change?’

  ‘The show must go on,’ she said, dazzling him with a smile outlined in crimson gloss. ‘I would never let you down, darling. Let’s start. Prompt, line.’

  ‘Hath for your love as great a pang of heart,’ I said, hardly audible. I was trying to find my corner as if I had forgotten where it was. Joe hadn’t given me a new place. Perhaps he’d had second thoughts.

  ‘Louder, prompt,’ said Fran, flicking her hair. ‘Sophie thinks she’s an actress but no one would hear her mumblings beyond row A.’

  ‘No talking, please,’ said Joe.

  Fran was certainly an actress of sorts. She could act feeling faint, struggling to get out of a chair, holding on to an arm for support, gasping for breath. It was quite a performance. I had to hand it to her. The dress rehearsal was Fran’s greatest achievement. She was every inch a star making the supreme sacrifice so that the show could go on. Hand her an Oscar. A plastic one.

  She dabbed away at imaginary sweat, licked her lips, called weakly for water. Millie fed her mineral water between scenes and provided a chair in the wings to rest on. If she had been physically capable, Fran would have been making circuits of the stage with a knife, with me as the main target.

  ‘Bravo, bravo,’ Bill called from the wings. There was a certain irony to his voice. ‘What kind of water do you want? Thames still or sparkling from the Glens of Scotland?’

  ‘Still,’ she said with heroic fortitude. ‘I’ll manage with still.’

  It was really cold in the prompt corner. The velvet pageboy outfit which I was still wearing, was a brief tunic and stockings, buckled shoes. I missed my boots and mohair and layers of Damart.

  ‘Take five,’ said Joe, slamming his book shut. He strode backstage to find out what gremlin was lurking in the wings. The theatre was said to be haunted but no one had ever seen or heard anything. No Victorian thespian in caked make-up taking a last curtain call. But I was sure they were there, having a laugh.

  I felt a fleece being thrown roughly round my shoulders. Joe was rocking on his heels, hands thrust in his pockets, staring into the footlights. ‘They’ve never fixed the draught,’ he said. ‘It’s probably an iceberg at the Thames flood barriers.’

  ‘Not high on the list of priorities.’

  ‘Enjoy being the prompt again?’ he asked, falsely hearty. ‘Feel safe in your corner? Nothing too demanding for you?’

  ‘No, not exactly feeling safe. I feel like there’s a time bomb somewhere, timed to go off any minute. I didn’t know she was going to turn up.’ There were tears like ice in my eyes. I knew he was disappointed. I knew I had let him down.

  Joe shuddered. ‘No one did. Let’s hope your time bomb is wrong. I can do without that kind of feminine intuition.’

  He said nothing about Fran’s performance and I applauded him for his loyalty to any member of his cast, good, bad or mediocre. He would support her if she was all he had. Perhaps some personal coaching was planned, the kind that included champagne and soft lights. I thought a miracle was more in line.

  I put my arms into his fleece and zipped it up. He wasn’t getting it back yet. He’d got his temper to keep him warm. The rehearsal was pretty much under control at the moment, but strained. He couldn’t afford to upset the fragile Fran.

  The dress rehearsal limped to an end. Even Feste, the jester, sang a flat-noted song. There was some penguin flapping of hands, token applause, totally without enthusiasm. They shuffled to their feet. The small invited audience were not staying behind.

  ‘I’m not going to say anything,’ said Joe, looking round for his fleece. He’d forgotten that I had it. ‘Everyone is tired and you all need a good night’s rest. It’s going to be a great first night tomorrow. I know you can do it. The critics will all be here and this Twelfth Night is going to stun them.’

  I didn’t think stun was quite the right choice of word. The audience was going to die of disappointment, if they stayed at all after the interval.

  If Fran hammed it up, as was possible with cliche gestures and expressions, then the audience might be on the verge of hysteria. It was so easy to go over the top. Guilt engulfed me in several layers of despair. It was beyond me to do anything. I could only watch and wait. A bit of praying might help.

  But I could give Joe his fleece before I changed back into my own clothes and went home. I thought I was looking where I was going. I went down the steps into the auditorium, slotting my notes back into the script, unzipping the zip, avoiding a sand bucket which had been left in the wrong place.

  There was a sudden, piercing scream. It echoed through the theatre. I didn’t know what it was or who it was. It just happened. Like that famous scream painting of a wide open mouth, the valuable painting that got stolen.

  Fran was right behind me, writhing in agony on the floor, clutching her leg, her face contorted. She could contort.

  ‘You fool, you blithering idiot, look what you’ve done,’ she howled at me. ‘Why didn’t you look where you were going? Oh God, I think it’s broken. My leg’s broken.’ She began to sob loudly.

  There was soon a crowd gathered round her. Joe was on his knee beside her, clearing the crowd away to give her air. Millie brought a blanket. Someone phoned for an ambulance. The paramedics arrived in no time, fixed a split, had her on a stretcher, put her on a drip, said how brave she was, asked for her autograph.

  It was a performance that outshone anything she did on stage. Fran knew how to act a broken leg to perfection.

  I sat in row A, watching miserably. I hadn’t seen her. She hadn’t been behind me, I could swear. So there had been a time bomb waiting to go off. Fran was the bomb. And there hadn’t been time for me to take cover.

  CHAPTER FOURTEEN

  Joe went with Fran in the ambulance to the chaos of the A&E Department at St Thomas’s Hospital. I walked home alone, nerves jangling like wires, mildly alarmed by anyone coming towards me and crossing over almost immediately. I zig-zagged the dark streets, hoping to be only slightly mugged. It would be a lesser torment than having to go on stage.

  ‘I am not going on,’ I said with conviction.

  I could run away. I could go AWOL. Lots of peop
le did it. They simply disappeared into the night when things got too much for them and were not found for months or years. The country was populated with missing persons, all wandering about, sleeping in cardboard boxes, queueing at midnight soup vans run by City high flyers in Armani suits. I could start a poetry group on the Embankment. We could write emotive lines on stolen scraps of paper, wrapped in our lumpy sleeping bags, drinking cheap cider. Homeless Poems, we’d call it. They might even get published.

  Or I could disappear to Dorset. No one knew about Dorset. No one would know. A job at Boots sounded quite inviting. I could stick on price labels, learn to work the till, advise customers about the range of No 7 cosmetics for their dry, normal, oily skin. I wondered if the current uniform would suit me. Navy and white was pleasant enough.

  My flat was a shambles. I had never rehoused all the stuff hidden when Joe came to supper. The carrier bags were bursting from their hiding places like rampant helium balloons. Another reason to disappear.

  My rent was paid until the end of the month. I could disappear, reappear casually without fanfare, get another job in a different theatre. Joe would have returned to the States. Twelfth Night would be on a run with the recovered Elinor in all her mature glory.

  But who would give me a job? My desertion would be legendary. No management would look at my disloyal CV. A new name, that was the answer. People changed their names all the time. I knew an actress who changed her name three times but always used the same initials so that she had some idea who she was when autograph signing. That didn’t make too much sense.

  The newly purchased bottle of brandy in the kitchen was for medicinal purposes. This was definitely a medicinal situation. I slurped in some orange juice to take away the taste of the brandy. I was not a natural alcoholic.

  It didn’t take long to pack a bag with a few essentials. Thank goodness I didn’t have a cat or a hamster or anything dependent. As yet I didn’t know whether I was heading for Dorset or a cardboard box.

  ‘She is drowned already, sir, with salt water,’ I said to myself as I poured another tumbler of brandy. One of my favourite lines. ‘Although I seem to drown her remembrance again with more.’ So moving. I could have wept.

  Perhaps I ought to have a shower before I disappeared. No saying when I might get a chance for another wash. Cardboard city didn’t have many amenities. No tiny soap samples and stuff like that.

  I turned on late TV, wrapped damply in my bathrobe. It was a riveting programme about mechanical sex aids, like a penis pumping machine and grown-up, life-size movable dolls. One of them looked remarkably like Fran. I didn’t know such things existed. It was amazing. But not amazing enough to keep me awake.

  Such riveting information plus the brandy soon had me nodding off. The sofa was comfortable but I knew I would wake up with a stiff neck. I forced myself to think about the day. Too late for a cardboard box tonight.

  ‘Wake up, you idiot. You can’t go to sleep in a wet bathrobe. Don’t scream, please. You didn’t lock your front door. You should always lock your front door.’

  It was Joe. He looked knackered and creased. I wondered how long he had had to wait at A&E with the fragile Fran.

  ‘How’s Fran?’ I asked, as if I could care less. I hoped she was plastered up to the thigh. ‘Is she all right?’

  ‘They are keeping her in overnight, just in case. Not a broken leg. It’s been X-rayed. Prognosis: a bad sprain.’

  ‘I could have told you that. I know what a broken leg looks like. Bits of gruesome bone sticking out.’

  ‘But she won’t be able to go on tomorrow, our opening night. The doctor recommended several days complete rest.’

  ‘Clearly a besotted male,’ I said, not taking in the implications.

  ‘Yes, he was clearly besotted,’ Joe agreed. ‘She was loving every moment of star treatment. Private side room. Even a menu to choose from. I didn’t know hospitals served food from menus.’

  ‘It’s the new NHS. Healthy eating so you don’t get sick and have to go to hospital.’

  ‘And you need a healthy night’s sleep so that you’ll be fresh for tomorrow. Opening night. Your great chance, Sophie, something that you have been waiting for all your life. I’m depending on you.’

  I tightened my belt hoping it would cut off my blood supply. It made me gasp and swallow hard. I had not been waiting for this all my life.

  ‘Joe, I can’t do it,’ I said. ‘You must know by now that I suffer from terminal stage fright. I get so sick with nerves that I can barely move, let alone say a line. In rep they used to put a bowl in the wings so that I could keep running off and be sick.’

  ‘I can arrange for a bowl,’ he said.

  ‘It isn’t funny,’ I said, gritting my teeth. ‘I am physically ill with the thought of going on stage in front of all those people. No one but a monster would ask me to do it.’

  ‘I’m a monster.’ He made a monster growling noise.

  ‘You will have to postpone the opening until Elinor is better.’

  ‘Too late now. It’s going ahead. No time to cancel.’

  ‘Then you will have to get someone else to take the part. Phone the National.’ I was sinking into an abyss, losing a grip.

  ‘There’s no one available. Besides, Sophie, you know you are perfect for the part. You know every line backwards. You act with a simplicity and passion. Your Viola will be an outstanding success. A new star discovered.’

  ‘I don’t want to be discovered. I want to dig a hole and disappear down it. I’m not going to argue with you any more. Go away and leave me alone.’

  ‘No way. I’m not leaving you. I spotted the bag packed in the hallway. So you can put any thoughts of a walkabout right out of your head. You’re staying here, with me, until it’s time to go to the theatre. We’re both staying put. I’m keeping an eye on you. We’ll go a bit early to make sure the altered costumes fit. Any scenes you’d like to go over?’

  ‘Yes, the drowning scene. Only I won’t come up for air.’

  I flounced off to my bed and pulled together the flimsy communicating door. I would barricade the door if I could move any of the furniture. But the wardrobe was fitted and the oak chest of drawers so heavy I could barely open a drawer. The bedside table wouldn’t stop a rabbit trying to get in.

  ‘I hate you, I hate you,’ I shouted furiously.

  ‘Good,’ said Joe from the other side of the door. ‘I like a Viola with a bit of fire in her.’

  The brandy put me to sleep, plus despair and murderous thoughts. I didn’t care where Joe slept. I hoped the sofa was a torment to his bad back. I hoped he didn’t get a wink. I hoped he had pins and needles, cramp and restless legs all at the same time.

  I was woken with a mug of tea. Joe was showered, shaved, freshly clothed and he looked serious, but rested. It was a big day for him.

  ‘In case you were worried, I slept perfectly on your floor, good for my back. And I fetched a pillow and my own duvet so I wasn’t cold. I’ve brought up some muesli and bananas and croissants that heat in a flash in the microwave. You need a breakfast to start the day, especially today.’

  I pulled the duvet up to my shoulders but took the mug with an outstretched hand. It smelt good and hot. I wondered how I was going to hold out against this determined man. I hadn’t managed too well that other time.

  ‘I have told you till I’m puce in the face that I get chronic stage fright,’ I said.

  ‘Blue in the face,’ said Joe.

  ‘I can go any colour I like,’ I seethed.

  ‘Stage fright is good for you. I’d be more worried if you said you didn’t get stage fright. It’s the edge of danger. It sharpens your performance.’

  ‘Sharpens?’ I scoffed. ‘It cuts mine right off.’

  ‘All the best actors get stage fright. I’ve heard of really famous actors walking the streets of London, reciting their lines, before curtain up, all in fear of going on stage. You are not alone in this, Sophie. Take lots of deep breaths before you go o
n stage and—’

  ‘Don’t patronize me,’ I cried. ‘I’ve taken enough deep breaths to launch an ocean liner.’

  ‘I’ll be there for you,’ he said suddenly, as if he understood. ‘I’ll hold your hand. I won’t leave you.’

  ‘Wonderful,’ I choked. ‘So you’ll follow me on stage and we’ll do all the scenes hand in hand? That’ll wow the critics. Totally new interpretation. Viola à la deux. The tabloids will love it. Viola and Nanny.’

  Joe swung round on his heel. ‘Save your voice. How about soaking in a hot bath? Got any lavender? It’s very calming.’

  Breakfast was a taut affair. I wasn’t speaking. Joe was on his phone most of the time, pacing the small space. He escorted me in a taxi to the theatre as if I was a prisoner in custody. He didn’t trust me out of his sight. It’s a wonder I wasn’t handcuffed.

  ‘You’re a dead ringer for Kojak,’ I said nastily.

  ‘More hair,’ he said.

  The theatre was in opening night overdrive. I usually loved this time. Flowers were being delivered for flamboyant displays in the foyer. The freshly printed programmes being unpacked. Everywhere being determinedly vacuumed and polished. Supplies were arriving for the bars. We were swamped with staff for front of house, for the bars and cloakrooms, ticket office staff, programme sellers. The cast became quite secondary to this influx of workers, the essential mechanics of show business. The actors and actresses were lost in the crowd.

  The fire curtains were being tested. I glimpsed the sea scenery of the shipwreck. Joe had painted the backcloth of waves. They were huge and realistic, dripping with glistening spray. They’d even managed to produce the effect of moving waves on the floorboards. It was fiendishly clever.

  I stared at the set and went completely cold. There was no way I could take a single step on that stage. My skin was in a cold sweat, clammy. My tongue furred up and my lungs were tightening with shallow breathing. My legs no longer belonged to me. They wouldn’t obey any orders to move.