The company was mute with excitement and worry.
‘Thank you all for your work today,’ said Marcus. ‘I don’t know about the rest of you, but I could murder a pint right now. I’ll be repairing to The Marquis of Denby next door, and you are all very welcome to join me. Rosie will give you your calls for tomorrow.’ He turned his gaze to the elfin stage director, admiring her auburn hair and playful dark eyes, as he had on the day they had first met. ‘You’ll join me too, won’t you?’
‘Yes,’ Rosie croaked, as a shiver ran up and down her spine. He was so handsome, yet oddly vulnerable. She looked forward to getting to know him better. Much better.
The first week sped by. The schedule was so hectic that the actors had no real time to develop or nurture rivalries; they were simply too busy nailing down their lines and moves. Richard Hardwicke did, however, have time to notice how much attention Oliver paid to Marcus O’Neill, notwithstanding that he was the director. Beverley Tremayne noticed how much attention Marcus paid to Elysha Bryant. Anthony Dubray noticed how much attention Elysha repaid Marcus. He also hit on the notion that his ex-wife had a different shaped chest now, and resolved on some detective work to prove his theory. Rosie Andrews noticed every detail of attention paid by or to Marcus O’Neill. She found it a torture, even if she was the centre, however briefly, of that attention.
And it didn’t help that a lot of other things were getting on Rosie’s nerves. Alan Larkin took to calling her Mary-Lou, specifically so that he could use his sitcom catchphrase at every possible opportunity. Each time she corrected a line, or reminded him of a movement he would say ‘Well now, Mary-Lou’ in mock horror. Anthony Dubray put a lecherous arm round her shoulders or waist any time he wanted a prompt. Elysha Bryant arrived at rehearsals in ever-shortening skirts, as the weather got hotter. And the two Dicks began to whine about the air-conditioning, their billing on the poster and what dressing-room they would get.
The only one amongst the actors who might have been bearable was the young Ashley Hancock, but he too had his drawbacks. Or at least one major one: the man was a crashing bore. On their first evening in the pub, Rosie had been cornered by him and treated to a history of fishing, and Ashley’s place in its role call of fame. She now knew of the thrill of the cast-off, the waiting, the waiting, the waiting and the waiting, the eventual hooking, reeling, landing and release of the poor unfortunate fish. If he even ate the sorry beggers, thought Rosie, the whole saga might at least have a potentially macabre twist. Ashley Hancock was a model actor and a pleasure to work with, but socially he was to be avoided at all costs.
‘I’m having a lot of trouble with my diaphragm.’
Rosie’s attention snapped back to the rehearsal room, and her eyes honed in on the speaker, Elysha Bryant, who was looking very worried. Rosie could not believe the audacity of the young actress; this was hardly the correct forum to be discussing her chosen method of contraception. Then she realized her mistake. Racy as the comment had seemed, it was in fact an actor ‘talking technical’.
‘I just don’t feel that it’s giving me full capacity. I need a lot of steam to reach the back wall of the theatre here when I’m crying out for help, and I’m not confident about it.’
Anthony Dubray rushed to the rescue. He stood in front of her and gripped her breasts. ‘Don’t breathe from here,’ he said, giving said breasts a squeeze, ‘breathe from here,’ he was now clutching below her ribs. To underline his point, he repeated the exercise. ‘Not here,’ he reiterated, hands on Elysha’s breasts, ‘here,’ hands below ribs.
Marcus O’Neill cleared his throat while contemplating the floor. ‘Yes, Anthony, thank you for that.’
Elysha Bryant looked into Anthony Dubray’s eyes and echoed the director’s words. She seemed genuinely grateful. Rosie turned to her assistant Jonny Brewer, who had buried his face in his script and was choking silently on his own laughter.
‘Actors,’ she whispered, ‘what are they like? He obviously just wanted a quick grope, dirty old goat.’
With that, Beverley Tremayne ran to the middle of the rehearsal space and said, ‘Anthony, could you show me exactly what you mean there? I fear I’ve been using the wrong organs altogether for my breathing.’
Anthony Dubray obliged, as Marcus O’Neill called a coffee break.
By Saturday afternoon, the company was exhausted but pleased with their first week’s work. They decided to celebrate with a drink in The Marquis of Denby. On this occasion, although he paid plenty of attention to the actors, Marcus seemed to position himself easily within Rosie’s reach, and would include her, wherever possible, in his conversation. Was it her imagination, or did he brush past her just a little more than was strictly necessary? Did he meet her eyes boldly, intensely, whenever she spoke? Whatever the answer, it was certainly thrilling and Rosie did not want it to end.
When it came time to leave, she began to assemble her many bags together in preparation for her trek to the tube.
‘Rosie, you’re going my way aren’t you?’ She looked up into Marcus O’Neill’s piercing green eyes.
‘Am I?’ she asked.
‘Don’t you live southwards?’
’Em, yes, eh Vauxhall, actually.’
‘Great. I’m headed towards Clapham Common, so you can share my car. It’s one of the perks of being the director. Mind you, I think Sir Francis laid on the transport because he heard what a crap time-keeper I am, and he wanted me to be punctual for rehearsals.’
After a quick round of goodbyes, Rosie found herself nestled in the back seat of a Mercedes speeding towards the river. Marcus chatted excitedly about the rehearsals, and asked her opinion on various technical matters. She found it hard to put sentences together, and wanted to answer just ‘yes’ or ‘no’ so that she could gaze at him uninterrupted. London was bathed in a hazy light, and the hot weather meant rolling down the car windows. The breeze played with Marcus’s already tousled curls, and Rosie had to fight an unbearable urge to reach out and steady them.
They arrived at her apartment all too quickly. Once again she began to gather her belongings, hoping that her exit from the Merc would not be too awkward with all the excess baggage.
Marcus turned to her and said, ‘So this is it then.’
‘Yes, this is me.’
He reached over to kiss her, and automatically she turned her cheek to him. His hand touched her face and brought it around to his. Then he kissed her full and long on the lips. It was so unexpected that Rosie pulled away slightly and gasped for breath. He was delicious. Her head swam. This couldn’t be happening. Then she reached forward and they kissed again, this time with tongues entwined and searching. It was ferocious, passionate.
When they parted, he smiled and said, ‘I’d better come in, don’t you think?’
‘Yes,’ gasped Rosie. It was a word she would use a lot over the next twenty-four hours.
They had a tacit agreement that none of the company should know of their affair. It would not do to have any awkwardness about it, and the best way to see to that was to keep it a secret. And that’s where the game-playing began. They would read each other’s movements, second guess one another. They began to meet in unlikely places during the day to steal time together. The excitement reached a fever pitch, not least because the opening week was suddenly upon them.
The technical rehearsals were a nightmare. The two Dicks became increasingly cranky, and Rosie suspected that it was not entirely acting-related. Any time Marcus gave a direction to Oliver, Richard would shoot angry looks at both of them. Then he would complain loudly that he was not lit on stage.
‘Everybody in the business with half a brain knows that Frank Williams couldn’t light his way out of a paper bag,’ he announced, well within earshot of the lighting designer. ‘That’s why he’s known as The Prince of Darkness, for crying out loud.’
‘God, but those two are a nightmare today,’ Rosie remarked to Jonny.
‘You missed the fireworks earlier,’ her assi
stant said. ‘I had to go in and break up some fisticuffs, no less. Wardrobe are still trying to get the blood out of Oliver’s original costume.’
Rosie looked out on to the stage. Sure enough, Oliver Dickens was not in his intended attire. He was also swaying alarmingly. Then before her eyes he slumped into a dead faint. She rushed on stage, yelling at Jonny to call a doctor. When they made Oliver comfortable in his dressing-room, a weeping Richard Hardwicke admitted to hitting him so hard across the face earlier that he had dislodged one of Oliver’s teeth.
‘Now he’s lost so much blood that he’s fainted,’ Richard wailed. ‘And it’s all your fault,’ he cried, pointing at Marcus.
‘Oh shut up, you silly old fool,’ croaked a weak little voice. Oliver’s hand wobbled into view and took hold of his partner’s. ‘Don’t you know it’s you that I love. The boy means nothing to me, even if he is a genius. Go now, everyone, I need to rest and I’ll rejoin you as soon as I can. The show must go on.’
True to his word, after a brief snooze and a visit from the doctor, Oliver Dickens was back at work. Strangely enough, just in time for the press conference. ‘I didn’t need the quack,’ he declared. ‘Doctor Theatre was my cure.’
A bank of photographers snapped incessantly as journalists barked questions at the company. An American in the crowd called Beverley ‘Beaverley’ and the name stuck. Elysha was whisked away to pose draped across a coffee table on the set, with Ashley pouting in the background.
‘Beaverley’ sniffed in dismissal. ‘She’ll look like a giant human-shaped ashtray when that’s printed,’ she opined.
‘Any romances in the company?’ asked a tabloid hack.
For the briefest moment Rosie caught Marcus’s eye, then they both looked away. No one else noticed.
Sir Francis laughed and said, ‘How can you ask that when we have one of the most enduring romances under our very noses?’ He gestured to Richard and Oliver, who preened on cue.
‘Mr Dubray,’ called another, ‘any chance of a reconciliation between you and Miss Tremayne?’ Rosie remembered that they had been married for five minutes during the seventies.
Anthony was delighted to be the centre of attention. ‘That is entirely up to the beautiful and talented Miss Tremayne,’ he replied chivalrously. He even surprised himself with his sensitivity.
But attention was quickly diverted when Alan Larkin used that very moment to plant his catchphrase ‘Well now, Mary-Lou’, and the media frenzy turned its spotlight on him.
‘Damn comedians,’ Anthony swore to himself. ‘Can’t bear to be ignored.’
He looked appraisingly at his ex-wife. Not looking too bad, for an old bird, he thought. She might do if there was no one else in the offing, so to speak.
From there on out, matters were a haze of previews, re-rehearsals, more previews, floral deliveries, a first first night (for there would be three in all, as the programme changed), much air-kissing, schmoozing, agent-hugging, TV executive toadying, more interviews, and the inevitable reviews. They were universally good, the box-office was strong and the company was well pleased with itself.
But as the final batch of plays opened, everyone began to get a kind of ‘gate fever’. It was like the experience of prisoners when they know that release is upon them; so close and yet so far. Rosie was charged with organizing a last-night party, some drinks, food and music in the latest hot spot, a bar in Soho called The Sun. She hated every moment of it, because when that was over, so too was the season, and, she supposed, her relationship with Marcus.
He began to act differently towards her. The games had stopped, though he still spent most nights with her. And one day during that last week, he took her aside, ‘to have a proper talk’. Rosie knew what to expect, and her heart was sore in her chest as he began.
‘Rosie, you know that these last weeks have been a very special time for me. I have never felt so passionately about anyone. This has been a rollercoaster. I never believed that I could do some of the things that we have. The abandonment of it, and I suppose the, the …’ he searched for a word, gesticulating with his long fingers as he did, ‘the … wantonness of it, has overwhelmed me. But my feelings for you have changed over the weeks, and I can’t do that any more. Do you understand? I feel something else now, something more profound. And I need to know if you feel it too. Do you? Can we move on, do you think?’
So there it was. She had heard similar speeches before, though perhaps none had been so lyrically obtuse. She blinked back some tears. He wanted to be friends, that hoary, old, deep and meaningful way of ditching someone. What a fool she had been. She really had thought that this was different, that this was real. She was in agony as she fought for breath to reply. Because Rosie Andrews realized there and then that she had fallen in love with Marcus O’Neill.
‘Yes, I understand,’ she said, haltingly. ‘I feel the same way too. Don’t worry, everything will be fine, it’ll be no trouble at all.’ Then she ran away into the darkness of the theatre, and Marcus was sure he could hear her cry. He was bemused. What a strange way to react, he thought, I’ve just told her that I love her, and I didn’t even get a kiss. Perhaps she needed time to come to terms with the situation. He decided to leave her be until she did. But then a terrible thought occurred to him – perhaps she could not return his love. Marcus pushed that to the back of his mind; he could not bear to live with that option.
London had been in the grip of a heatwave for two months and something had to give. On the last night of the season, a massive thunderstorm was forecast.
Sir Francis Birkin was delighted. ‘We’ll go out with a bang,’ he declared to everyone.
The only bang Anthony Dubray longed for was from a different natural source than the one referred to by the company manager. On the half-hour call, he followed Rosie and Jonny into Beverley’s dressing-room. It was not by design. They just happened to be ahead of him in the corridor and he had followed them without thinking. Jonny was carrying a large basket of red grapes for the diva and Rosie was distributing maps of how to get to The Sun later on. When the stage management team left, Anthony and his ex-wife sat in silence, looking at one another, perspiring gently in the clammy heat. Then Beverley stood up and let her flimsy robe fall open.
‘I’m having trouble with my breathing again,’ she said. ‘Could you show me where that damned diaphragm of mine is?’ They became a tangle of limbs and groans, and both of them began to wonder why they had ever separated in the first place.
As they reached Elysha Bryant’s dressing-room, Jonny casually suggested that he would deliver the map. Rosie handed it to him, only half listening. But as the door closed and she heard the words ‘Darling, I’ve been longing to see you all da/, Rosie realized that her head had been firmly stuck in the clouds for far too long.
Richard Hardwicke and Oliver Dickens were washing one another in their shower when she called with their map to the festivities. Happy sounds of laughter and splashing filled the steamy little room. She made no noise to disturb them, but her mind reluctantly strayed to images of the many baths and showers she had taken with Marcus, and she fled the room as her tears began to flow unchecked.
Ten minutes later the first crack of thunder sounded and the old theatre groaned. Rosie sat miserably in a corner by the stage, silently bearing witness to the fact that it was not just the storm that was making the theatre moan so, but also the sounds of pleasure emanating from the many dressing-rooms below the performance area. Her broken heart ached and she wanted to die. She resolved to get very, very drunk later that evening.
The final performance was a triumph, and after the standing ovations, champagne toasts, and dressing for the party, Rosie found herself wedged into a corner of The Sun looking at Ashley Hancock’s favourite fishing photographs. In fairness, they were moving a little in and out of Rosie’s consciousness as the alcohol in her system took effect. She finally escaped him on the pretext of getting them both another drink from the bar.
On her way she enc
ountered Alan Larkin who, predictably enough, arched an eyebrow and uttered, ‘Well now, Mary-Lou.’ Rosie trod heavily on his foot and apologized profusely for her clumsiness. She edged by Anthony and The Beaver, but they didn’t notice, attached to one another as they were in an adolescent snog. She joined Jonny at the bar, and noticed that he was surreptitiously holding hands with Elysha Bryant.
Rosie felt that the black cloud of her misery could get no darker. And then it did. Marcus O’Neill had been scarce all evening, but now he made a grand entrance, with a beautiful blonde on his arm. Rosie let out an involuntary cry of anguish and bolted back the nearest drink she could find. It was a straight vodka, which seemed to burn straight through to her soul, as Marcus O’Neill had done for his own flippant pleasure. How could he do this? How could he be so cruel? Even if he was finished with her, and he had made it clear that he was, why make a statement like this? It was so unnecessary. She was hurt enough without having her nose rubbed in the squalor of it all. Something snapped in her brain and Rosie decided that she had had enough.
‘Jonny, get me a pint, would you? There’s something I have to do.’ With that she hoisted herself on to the bar and called the company to attention.
And when they were all rapt, there, in The Sun, Rosie Andrews leaned over and mooned at the stars. As their shocked, upside-down faces became distinct between her legs, Rosie noticed one in particular coming forward to speak to her.
‘Rosie,’ said Marcus O’Neill, ‘when you’re done there, I’d like you to meet my sister.’
Victoria Routledge
Victoria Routledge worked in publishing for three years before her first novel, Friends Like These, was published. She was born in the Lake District and now lives in London. Victoria’s own hair is the colour of a dunked ginger snap and she goes to a fantastic hairdresser called Caroline, who makes her hair look wonderful and always has great conversation.
The Shell of Venus
Girls' Night In Page 28
