Midsummer Madness

by Stella Whitelaw

  I smiled back at him, tremulous with joy. Olivia hugged me with genuine warmth, her face alight.

  ‘A sister! You are she,’ she said.

  The words rolled over my head, the sick panic ebbing away. These were the last few pages of the play. It was almost all over. I had nothing more to say, could stand and listen to everyone going through the last lines. The relief was washing over me in crashing waves. It was like the shipwreck in reverse.

  I was still in one piece, but shredded. Literally fed through a shredder and churned out in little pieces. I had sweated buckets, wept and cried, hyperventilated, swallowed litres of water, remembered very little of what happened. It had been words, hundreds and thousands of words, spilling out of my mouth.

  If I never said another word on stage again, I had had this night. I had this moment. Somehow I had got through it, played Viola, been Viola.

  Then I found myself waiting in the wings and the audience was clapping, cheering. I wasn’t certain of the order of the curtain calls. I was pushed and pulled in all directions by other members of the cast.

  ‘Smile, girl’ said Byron, grinning. ‘Bow. We’ll take the cue from you. It’s all over now. Step forward, that’s it, smile, another bow. Good girl.’

  I smiled shakily but radiantly in all directions, any direction. I was amazed at the size of the audience. The theatre was full, not a seat left unoccupied. They were standing and clapping madly. It was an amazing sight. Any minute now the cherubs might wave and clap.

  Joe came on stage now, taking his bow as the guest director. He hadn’t wanted to do this but it was traditional on opening night. He turned to me and flashed a smile of such warmth and gratitude that my serrated heart nearly melted. The sun had come out, so I thought. But it was all the stage lights, dazzling.

  There were flowers arriving on stage now, both for Olivia and me. I didn’t know I was going to get flowers. They were gorgeous. I buried my face in their fragrance, nearly choking on the perfume. I hoped they were personal from Joe, not the management, and did I get to keep them?

  We took second calls and a third. It was never ending. I was so tired, I could barely keep the smile fastened to my face.

  Then the curtain came down for the last time. Joe swept me up in his arms and spun me round. My new short hair flew out like electric sparks. I was switched on and laughing.

  ‘You did it, girl. You bloody did it.’

  I hung on to him for a moment, relishing his closeness.

  He sounded like Professor Higgins and I was his Eliza. I could have danced all night. Perhaps we would go out dancing.

  Everyone was hugging and kissing everyone else. I got loads of hugs and kisses and genuine, heartfelt congratulations. The cast really meant it. I had saved their day, the Royale’s day, Joe’s day.

  But at what cost? I was on the point of collapsing from exhaustion. Millie appeared with a cup of tea, properly brewed in the dressing room in a teapot, none of the awful machine stuff.

  ‘Get this down you, before you fall down,’ she said. ‘You look done in.’

  ‘Thanks,’ I said tremulously. ‘And thank you for helping me, Millie. You were wonderful. I couldn’t have done it without you.’

  ‘It was a pleasure,’ said Millie. ‘Elinor would have been proud of you.’

  ‘And I’m so proud of her,’ said Joe, giving me another big hug, nearly spilling my tea. He was obviously on a terrific high, despite the darkness of stubble on his chin. And so he should be. It was a spectacular production with sets and designs to kill for. All his work, his unique imagination, as if he had a direct line to the Bard and they had worked as a team.

  I wanted to go home to the craven safety of my bed, and go to sleep, a deep, deep sleep but, of course, there was going to be a party. There’s always a first night party, I’d forgotten, so everyone could wind down. It was drinks on tap at The Stage Door pub, as we were all too drained to walk far. Joe had to stay behind to talk to the media. I nipped out in case they wanted to talk to me. No comment.

  I didn’t remember walking to the pub. A wave of chattering people carried me along. I checked that I had my own clothes on. All present and correct.

  The stage crew were late joining us as they had to get the set ready for the next performance. Bill came straight over to me, a bottle of champagne in his hand. He took advantage of the serial kissing going on.

  ‘To our new star,’ he said, waving the bottle. ‘Our wonderful Viola. A star in the making.’

  ‘Pack it in, Bill. Don’t be daft,’ I said wearily. ‘A one-night wonder. The understudy’s understudy.’

  ‘Get a glass of bubbly down you,’ he said, pouring out a flute of golden bubbles. ‘You’ll feel better.’

  And I did. Several glasses later and I was feeling better. By the time Joe arrived, I was really a lot better, ready to face the world with a shaky smile. It was all over.

  Joe did the rounds first. He had a good word for every member of the cast and crew. He didn’t leave anyone out. Even Hilda had stayed for a port and lemon, the price of a taxi home in her pocket. I could guess who had slipped her that. I tried not to look at him but he was glowing with the success of the show and I was glad for him. Those dark eyes were sparkling, a sparkle I’d seen once before, a reflection of the stars.

  He sat beside me the moment Bill got up to get another round for the party, like grown-up musical chairs. Bill was spending his week’s pay without a moment’s hesitation. He was tonight’s big spender.

  ‘So how’s my star, my Viola?’ Joe asked softly.

  ‘Sozzled,’ I said. ‘I think this is my third glass of champagne on an empty stomach.’

  ‘You deserve every bubble. You were wonderful, Sophie. Every line was perfect. I couldn’t have given you any direction though perhaps a few hesitant smiles, here and there, as you fell in love with Orsino might have been appropriate.’

  ‘I was hiding my feelings.’

  ‘You hide them very well.’

  ‘It’s a habit I have.’

  ‘Do you always hide your feelings?’ he asked, peering at me. Suddenly it seemed he wasn’t joking.

  ‘Yes, always,’ I said. ‘It’s too dangerous to let anyone know how you feel. They could hurt you.’

  ‘I’d never hurt you,’ he said.

  Oh, but he had. He had. I turned my head away so he would not see the sudden tears. Oh yes, he had hurt me so much, like being pierced with burning arrows. I remembered the misery, feeling so empty and alone. I had once tried to hate him but he was a difficult man to hate.

  ‘Can I have that in writing,’ I tried a joke, very Goldie Hawn. ‘I’m safe, then, from a broken heart?’

  ‘Absolutely. I shall nurture your budding talent and when you are a big star with your name in lights on Broadway, I shall tell everyone that I discovered you in a prompt corner, wrapped up in blankets and ponchos.’

  ‘No Broadway, no big star,’ I said firmly. ‘I’m a one-night wonder and that’s all. I did your opening night for you. That very important night. Elinor will be back next week, I’m sure, and till then you have got your official understudy.’

  The sparkle snapped out of his eyes. He was glaring at me as if I had handed him a closure notice from the Lord Chancellor. He was drinking juice. He thumped the glass down on the table, spraying orange droplets.

  ‘Am I hearing this correctly, Sophie? I’ve just given you your biggest acting role, your chance of fame, a giant leap for womankind, and you’re saying you won’t go on again, won’t go on tomorrow?’

  ‘Don’t make out you were doing me a favour,’ I said hoarsely. ‘You practically forced me at knife point. I never wanted to do the role, to go on stage in front of all those people. I did it for you, to save your precious skin, to keep the show on the road, to salvage your reputation.’

  ‘I don’t need you to salvage my reputation,’ he said, his eyes dark and dangerous. ‘My reputation can stand up for itself, something I’ve worked night and day for years to achieve. S
o don’t ever think that I need you, because I don’t. But the show needs you, the cast and crew need you, at least till the end of the week, till Elinor returns.’

  ‘But I can’t do it—’

  ‘Can’t, can’t, can’t … that’s all you ever say, Sophie. If you’ll excuse me, I’ll leave you to nurse your tender ego. I’ve more interesting people to talk to.’

  He stood up abruptly and joined a crowd at the bar, not looking back once. I sat in total shock, the champagne bubbles bursting flat. Bill nipped in and regained his seat. He’d had quite a jug full. He slid his arm along the back of my chair, brushing the bare skin on the back of my neck. No hair now.

  ‘How’s my gorgeous girl?’ he said, all lovey-dovey.

  ‘Dead tired,’ I said, without thinking.

  ‘Shall I take you home and tuck you up in bed?’ he said, his eyes glazing over with the thought. ‘You need someone to tuck you up all nice and cosy and cuddly and to whisper sweet dreams in your tender ears.’

  I needed to be tucked up and cuddled up by Bill like I needed a lobotomy. But I did want to go home and it was very late. A taxi with Bill might be manageable if I was in charge of the situation.

  Hilda. But a shared taxi home with Hilda would be ideal. I got up to find her. I searched the pub, the cloakrooms, ran out to the entrance. But someone told me she had already gone home, to put her soap-addicted mother to bed.

  I stood there, hoping another taxi would come along, hugging my labelled mohair round me but I was starting to shiver. I willed one to come, to rescue me, to take me home. It was getting late, even the street lamps were darker and murky looking. It was starting to feel scary. Taxis didn’t cruise around late at night these days. Too many rowdy drinkers. The drivers preferred to be safely in their marital beds, or non-marital, whatever.

  Bill Naughton lurched into the entrance of the pub, grinning, swaying like a palm tree in a force eight gale.

  ‘There’s shmy girl,’ he said. ‘I’ve phoned forra cab. There shoobe one along any minute.’ He tucked my hand into his arm and gave it a squeeze. ‘Shoon be in bed, sweetheart.’

  That’s what I dreaded. I was getting myself into a tricky situation. It was like a replay, only much worse. But this time I was going to take good care of myself. I was stronger, older, considerably more sensible. Bill Naughton was going to get a surprise.

  A mini-cab arrived. It was not a normal black cab. I never used mini-cabs unless they were from a firm that I knew. I climbed into the back seat and Bill followed me, all clumsy and falling about. With a little luck, he’d be dead to the world soon. He gave his address to the cab driver, not mine, thank you. I didn’t like that one bit. He lived the opposite side of London.

  ‘Hey, I’ve left my bag at the table. I won’t be a moment,’ I said, getting out the other side of the cab, hitting the roof for take-off and hurrying back into the pub.

  I ran inside but there were few of our people left. They were all dead tired and drifting away. Joe had disappeared too. Without a word, he had left. Perhaps he thought I had gone with Bill.

  I sat down on a chair, almost too weary to move. It was late and too far to walk. Hopefully the mini-cab driver, tired of waiting for me, would have taken Bill southwards by now.

  This was a strange way to end the evening. Alone and abandoned, it seemed, left to fend for myself, as usual.

  I had to sleep somewhere. I was desperate to sleep, to put an end to the day. Most London hotels were beyond my means. But there was somewhere I could sleep and no one would mind. I’d had my own key for months and the Royale’s eerie midnight emptiness didn’t scare me. If I saw a ghost, we’d be on nodding terms. Maybe I’d even prompt his lines.

  If I could hear them.

  CHAPTER SEVENTEEN

  There was an old couch in Elinor’s dressing room, a small crocheted blanket and a hot water bottle in the cupboard. Elinor, bless her, believed in home comforts.

  It was a hard couch but the hot water bottle, held close to my mohair chest, was as effective as Nytol Herbal. The warmth flooded through me.

  This was a day I did not want to happen again. Speaking the lines of Twelfth Night were a reluctant joy but the circumstances had been a nightmare.

  I slid down into the deepest sleep, only remembering in the last seconds that I had not made my usual evening call to my mother. But she would soon find out why if she saw a newspaper. If she ever bought a daily newspaper, that is.

  ‘So this is where you’ve been hiding. Wake up, it’s morning.’

  I knew the voice without opening my eyes. I was stiff and cold and the water bottle was clammy and like a rubbery fish. I let it fall to the floor.

  ‘Oh, so it’s you,’ I mumbled, scrabbling at the blanket. It barely covered my knees. ‘What are you doing here?’

  ‘I looked for you last night. I saw you get into a cab with Bill Naughton.’

  ‘Well, you saw wrong,’ I said, blinking against the cheerless, airless morning light. ‘Maybe you saw me get into a cab but you didn’t see me get out the other side and return to the pub, did you? Everyone had gone. It was too late to find a taxi, too late to walk home, too late for any form of public transport. Then I remembered Elinor’s couch.’ I was so stiff, I could barely move.

  ‘Why didn’t you phone me? I’d have got you home.’ He sounded angry.

  ‘We were not exactly on speaking terms at the time.’

  ‘You don’t think much of me, do you? I wouldn’t leave any member of my theatre team stranded at night, especially female and alone. Whether I was speaking to them or not,’ he added.

  ‘I didn’t think of you,’ I said honestly. I hadn’t been thinking of him. I’d been beyond coherent thought. Getting my head down was all I wanted to do.

  ‘Well, I was thinking of you and talking about you.’

  ‘Oh?’ I was not interested.

  ‘With Elinor. I went to see Elinor. She said she would stay up and I was to come round any time and tell her all about. So I did.’

  ‘Oh, that was nice,’ I said again, pulling together a polite enquiry. ‘How is she? How’s Elinor?’

  ‘Getting better, but slowly. She’ll need a few more days to get her strength back. She’s still weak and coughing a lot. She was thrilled to hear how well you did. Genuinely pleased. She sent you her love and good wishes.’

  I stiffened. ‘That’s nice of Elinor but I don’t want to talk about the show.’

  ‘Who said anything about talking about it?’ said Joe, spotting the kettle. He filled it with water and switched on. ‘I always seem to be making you tea. Get up and have a wash and I’ll take you out for breakfast. I know a little place that serves a real American style breakfast. Not a fry up in sight.’

  ‘I won’t be able to clean my teeth.’

  ‘I wasn’t going to check. Use a twig.’

  Early morning London, even when it is cold, has a special feeling. A swathe of commuters were falling out of trains, huddled in scarves, barely awake. The night’s debris was being cleared away by yellow-coated refuse truckers with grim faces. Huge decrepit and grimy delivery vans coughed their way to shops and stores, unhindered yet by the day’s traffic deadlocks.

  Joe walked me briskly, getting the circulation going. He held my arm as if I was being taken into custody. He’d seen too many late-night thrillers.

  It was a sparkling clean café in Soho with an outrageous stars and stripes American atmosphere. Even at 8 a.m in the morning, the neat waitress was smiling brightly and pouring out glasses of water the moment we sat down at a window table. I half expected a lookalike Lincoln to be sitting at the next table.

  ‘Good morning,’ she said. ‘Are you ready to order?’

  ‘Orange juice, waffles, scrambled egg and coffee, for two,’ Joe ordered without asking me. He didn’t even look at a menu.

  ‘How can she be that cheerful so early in the morning?’ I groaned. I still wasn’t properly awake, despite splashing water everywhere. I’d forgotten my shorn hair. It g
ave me a shock to see it so short and sharp in the mirror. Was this really me? I searched my face for other changes but I could only see the same terrified gaunt face. It wasn’t a face I wanted to wear.

  ‘It’s an American trait. Because she likes her job, because she likes serving people and enjoys wishing people a nice day.’

  ‘Are all Americans like this?’

  ‘Would you like to come over and see?’

  Was this Joe’s strange idea of small talk first thing in the morning? Maybe I had a hangover. I didn’t remember how many glasses of champagne I had drunk at The Stage Door party or perhaps there had been more bubbles than alcohol.

  ‘Sorry, don’t have a free weekend,’ I said, sipping the juice which arrived in an instant. Service in most cafés is long and lugubrious, waiting time stretched into mind-numbing lethargy while waitresses gossip, do their nails, make phone calls. Thought: don’t have a valid passport, don’t have the money, don’t want to go anywhere with you. Especially you, Joe Harrison.

  ‘The States are worth a visit,’ he was saying. ‘It’s a different world.’ I was barely listening to what he was saying. Joe was relaxed and darkly good-looking, at home in the little café. Those glinting eyes, that fine hair, the jutting chin. I searched his skin for spots, wanting to find some imperfection, some pulsating flaw. But there was only that eyetooth that was a little out of line and that tiny scar. He had resisted going to an orthodontist to have the tooth straightened out.

  ‘Everyone in the States wears braces, don’t they?’ I said. ‘Like that baddie in a Bond film. Goldfinger?’

  ‘Do they?’ he said, amused. ‘I hadn’t noticed but obviously you are more observant than me. Yes, perhaps they do. Straight teeth are a prerequisite.’

  ‘How did you get that little scar?’ I asked.

  ‘A chisel flew out of my hand. I was making some scenery. I’ve forgotten the show. A fluke. Any more questions? Is this a medical questionnaire?’

  ‘Why does your back hurt so much?’

  ‘You’ve noticed? A late-night car accident, swerving to avoid drunks in another car. Whiplash injury. Very late at night. I couldn’t move for weeks.’