by Gemma Fox
‘Yes,’ said Leonora, ‘yes, I suppose you have.’ And then, as if she was walking away from the edge of a bad dream Leonora put down the phone, went back to the nursery, picked up the baby and carefully eased a nipple into the soft hungry little mouth. Maisie began to suck and as she did Leonora felt a great big tear roll down her face, one and then another and another until the flow was seamless. How could Gareth do this to them? To any of them?
Leonora didn’t make any attempt to stop the tears. There were so many that she wondered if they would ever stop, even if she wanted them to. One dropped off her chin and splashed on to Maisie’s face. For an instant the tiny baby pulled away and opened her eyes in surprise and indignation. Then, squinting Leonora’s face into focus, she smiled and, snuggling close, carried on feeding.
Leonora stroked the little crystal smear away. Sweet little thing. Her heart ached so hard she thought it might burst. How could Gareth do this to them?
It was well after lights out in the girls’ dormitory at Burbeck House, not that Carol was asleep. Oh, no. Fiona snored—come to that, so did Netty—and periodically Jan snuffled and scratched and expelled a peculiar little hissing breath that sounded as if she might have sprung a leak.
God alone knows what Diana was doing. Carol suspected that she might be awake as well but, sleep deprived and getting colder and more uncomfortable with every passing minute, Carol was far, far too grumpy to ask. She pulled the pillow up over her head, put her fingers in her ears and closed her eyes. The mattress on the bunk bed was so thin that she could feel every spring coiled in the frame, and Adie had managed to sneak in somehow and was stretched out on the bottom bunk near the window, wearing black silk pyjamas and looking like an ad from a Sunday colour supplement. He didn’t so much snore as gurgle horribly, like a bath slowly emptying through a blocked plughole.
Between her particular friends and the rest of the room’s occupants, they created a nocturnal symphony that Carol could have done without. Worse still, every time Carol did manage to slip into sleep her brain switched on a dream reel that featured Gareth Howard in glorious Technicolor, intercut with various conversations with Raf, up to and including a full white wedding where she was standing at the altar and still had no idea which of them was the groom. It had been a long night so far.
Fiona had taken sleeping pills and a lot of trouble over her presleep preparations. She was now lying on her back with her mouth open, on the top bunk near the window. She was caught in a spotlight of moonlight, wearing an opaque purple satin eye mask that covered almost all of the top half of her face, giant green foam rollers and a thick face cream that looked as if it might eventually dry to a crust. She looked like the classic cartoon of a sleeping woman.
Adie had borrowed some of her face cream.
‘Psst.’ A noise cut through the gloom like a blowtorch through butter.
Carol decided the sound had got nothing to do with her. Ignored, it might go away, and anyway, amongst the rest of the noises it could be anything: mice, a squeaky board, one of the other sleepers—possibly Jan—had upped the ante when it came to leaking noises, or maybe Carol had just imagined it.
‘Pssssssssssst.’ The same noise again, longer and louder this time and followed by sharp rapping. Carol peeled the pillow off her face and opened one eye.
Out on the fire escape stood a figure, hands cupped around his face as he peered into the girls’ dormitory. Carol froze for a split second. Was it a peeping Tom or a burglar? Surely they didn’t normally attract attention to themselves by tapping and calling. Or did they? Did they want to be seen?
‘Carol? Carol? Psst. Are you awake? I know you’re in there.’
Not many burglars knew her by name.
She would have ignored him but he was getting louder and on the top bunk Fiona was beginning to stir.
Carol slipped out from under the covers, clambered down off the bunk and padded across to the window, wondering just how rough she looked and how Gareth felt about blue and white checked pyjamas. She rummaged through her hair, hoping it would look sexy and tousled rather than just sticking up at the back and flat on one side.
‘What do you want?’ she said through the closed window. It sounded a lot grumpier than she had intended but it had to be three o’clock in the morning, so what did the man expect?
‘Hi,’ he said with a big grin. ‘I couldn’t get to sleep.’
‘Ssssh,’ she said, trying to wave the sound of his voice away. ‘You’ll wake everyone up.’
‘Open the window,’ he said, miming as he spoke.
‘This is the girls’ dormitory.’
‘Adie’s in there.’
Carol slid the sash up. ‘Exactly…’
He leaned in and before she could stop him, he kissed her. ‘I thought maybe we could talk,’ he said. Gareth was dressed, jeans, a white Tshirt, tan leather jacket. He looked almost edible, even at three o’clock in the morning. He grinned. ‘Fancy a walk?’
‘A walk?’ she growled. ‘Are you nuts?’
‘Possibly, come on, why not? It’s the most beautiful night. Don’t you trust me?’
‘I don’t re ally think so…’ Carol began thinking rapidly. It wasn’t him she was worried about. Did she dare trust herself?
He offered her his hand.
‘Where are we going?’
He grinned. ‘Wherever you like. If you’re worried about wandering off into the night with strange men we could just sit out here on the fire escape and chat amongst the dog-ends.’
Carol looked round the dormitory, wondering how long it would be before someone woke up and heard them. As if reading her mind Gareth said, ‘Or we could go for a proper walk—it’s lovely out here. How about we go down to the lake? Look at the moon on the water. Or we could go for a swim. How do you feel about skinny-dipping.’
‘No skinny-dipping.’
He laughed. ‘OK, a walk then.’
Carol considered for a moment or two. Why not? Who would know? What harm would it do? What could they get up to on a walk? Even as she thought it, Carol’s brain came up with about fifty different possibilities—ranging from innocent to positively pornographic and back. Even so, some of them, it had to be said, were far from unattractive.
‘Just a minute,’ she said. ‘I need to get something.’ Back at her bunk Carol pulled on a dressing gown and slipped on her shoes.
‘And just exactly where do you think you’re going?’ hissed a little voice.
Carol swung round. ‘Go back to sleep, Adie, your face cream’ll crack,’ she hissed right back.
At the other end of the corridor Callista Haze was also wide awake and staring up at the ceiling. Institutional staff bedrooms on the whole always had a kind of spartan charm—this one being no exception. There was a single bed along one wall with a cabinet and lamp alongside it. Opposite the bed was a wash basin, an oak bookcase with a selection of religious tracts and a Bible on the top shelf. By the far wall stood a writing table and chair and an armchair set to one side of a fireplace, which had been boarded up with a sheet of plywood and then painted battleship grey to match the rest of the room. In front of the plywood was propped a two-bar electric fire. Someone had added a little posy of silk flowers in a jam jar on the windowsill, which was now picked out in moonlight. At least there were no bears.
Before she had got into bed Callista had taken the precaution of slipping a chair under the handle of her bedroom door, just in case George took to sleepwalking.
Slipping in and out of sleep she had been wondering if it was an overreaction, a foolish thing to think after all these years, let alone to do, when—in the small hours—the doorknob rattled violently. There was a grunt of frustration from outside and then another little push and jiggle before her would-be visitor conceded defeat.
‘Good night, George,’ she called cordially.
‘Ah, oh yes, good night, Callista,’ he said. ‘Sorry about that, m’ dear. Just on my way back from the bathroom. Didn’t mean to disturb you. Wrong room. Easy mistak
e to make. See you in the morning. Sweet dreams.’
All alone in the darkness Callista smiled to herself; it was almost convincing, or at least would have been if her name hadn’t been tacked to the outside of the door on a large sheet of laminated card.
Callista turned off the lamp, and pulled the bedcovers up over her shoulders; some things never change. It was quite sweet, re ally. Did George seriously think that after all these years he would bring her back into the fold with a late night little seduction? She smiled as she settled down. Poor George. It had been touch and go when he was in his prime.
‘Right,’ said Mr Bearman the following morning, clapping his hands as he brought the rabble in the main hall to order. ‘If you would like to take your seats, ladies and gentlemen, then Miss Haze and myself will get this show on the road—again.’ He laughed at his own attempt at a joke, and as the crew and cast settled down Miss Haze got to her feet and took up a place behind the lectern. With the slightest nod of acknowledgement to Mr Bearman she began to speak.
‘Hi and good morning, everyone. First of all I wanted to say how very nice it is to see you all again. I have very fond memories of the Belvedere summer drama tours and of this group in particular. Although at the time I doubt anyone in the cast was aware of it, your production of Macbeth was my very first major show at Belvedere High School, and my very first tour, and I was incredibly nervous. I have to say that on the opening night as the curtains came down to a standing ovation I have never felt more proud or more relieved in my entire life.
‘I feel a little bit of that same nervous excitement today. We’ve got an awful lot of work ahead of us so I don’t propose to waste too much time on reminiscing but I just want to tell you how very pleased I am to be invited back and to be involved all over again. I am also quite certain that if you are half as good as you were first time round then we’ll bring the house down.’ Miss Haze smiled, waited for silence and then, opening a file on the lectern, said, ‘Right, well, given that it’s been quite a few years since our last performance I thought we’d begin by taking a look at the play and then we’ll talk about what we’re going to do over the weekend. We’re on a very tight schedule, so I do hope you’ll bear with us when we start bullying you.’
There were muted cheers and laughter from the cast and crew.
Carol stared up at Miss Haze. She was quite small, maybe five foot two or three at the very most, whip thin and packed full of vitality, her face alight with enthusiasm. The younger Miss Haze, just fresh out of drama school, so sexy, so elegant, so very eloquent and talented, had seemed the height of sophistication, a role model if there ever was one. Carol remembered being hugely impressed by her—and it seemed that she wasn’t alone.
Alongside her Adie was staring up at the stage totally entranced. ‘Leather trousers,’ he purred. Carol laughed and poked him sharply in the ribs. It didn’t seem all that long ago since he’d said it for real.
Twenty years ago it had been just the same: there had been him, Jan, Netty and Diana, all standing in a row surrounded by the rest of the cast and crew. Carol looked over her shoulder. Nothing it seemed had changed that much except for the fact that back then everyone had had all their hair, almost everyone had had a waistline and none of them had been in the slightest bit grey.
It felt to Carol that Miss Haze had said almost exactly the same things then too.
Picking up her notes, Callista Haze walked away from the lectern so that everyone could see her more clearly and then began to talk slowly in a warm, expressive, almost melodic storyteller’s voice.
‘Macbeth is one of the most popular and famous of Shakespeare’s plays—and I’ve always thought it is one of his best pieces of writing. The story is emotive and magical and very powerful, and stands up even after all these years. Macbeth, a Scottish warrior, encouraged by his wife—an ambitious, ruthless and ultimately unstable woman—and by the prophetic words of three witches, murders his king, Duncan, and then seizes the throne for himself.’
Carol glanced around the room. Just like all those years before, Miss Callista Haze had the troupe’s undivided attention. They were hanging on her every word.
‘So…’ said Miss Haze, her voice dropping to a conspiratorial purr as she continued the story.
‘So where did you get to last night, then? And when are we going to hear all the sordid details?’ whispered Adie, leaning a little closer to Carol. Carol blushed crimson. Adie smirked, lifting his eyebrows to emphasise the question. On the stage Miss Haze was still explaining the story of Macbeth—not that Carol heard a word.
‘Well?’ pressed Adie.
Carol stared at him. Whatever she said she knew that no one would believe it. Hadn’t it been just the same first time around too?
‘No comment,’ she said and turned her attention to the sheets of paper Diana had handed out.
Netty elbowed her.
‘Not you too. We were only talking,’ snapped Carol angrily.
Netty pulled a face. ‘What?’
‘You heard me,’ hissed Carol. ‘Nothing happened, zilch—nada—Gareth and I, we were only talking.’
‘What are you on about? Miss Haze just said she wants you and golden boy to go down the front and for us to pick up our props and scripts.’
Carol stared at her, bluster gone in an instant. ‘Oh right, sorry,’ she said.
‘Come on, we haven’t got all day,’ said Netty.
Meanwhile, Adie was also on his feet and scurrying down towards the stage, only too eager to go rootling through the dressing-up boxes. After a few seconds he emerged triumphant, clutching a long grey cloak and a huge plastic sword. Carol made the effort to regain her composure while going down to where Diana and a stagehand whose name Carol couldn’t remember were rummaging through another box of oddments.
‘I know they’re in here somewhere,’ Diana was saying, turfing out a shield and horned helmet. ‘I put them in myself.’
‘What exactly are we looking for?’ asked Carol, peering at the growing heap of discarded paraphernalia.
‘Ah, here we are. These,’ Diana said with delight, and pulled out a couple of very convincing rubber daggers and handed them to Carol. From up on the stage Miss Haze beamed.
Carol could sense that Gareth was right behind her but didn’t turn round.
‘Hi,’ he said. ‘Sorry I’m late. I overslept. How are you this morning?’
‘Fine,’ she said, without looking round. ‘How about you?’
Before he could say anything else Miss Haze clapped her hands and said, ‘Right, well, I think we re ally ought to make a start. We’ve got an awful lot to get through today. I thought we’d just go for a straight read-through from the beginning; see how it goes. So if you’d all like to gather round, pull the chairs into a circle…’ She waited a few moments for everyone to settle down and then looked up at the three witches, Netty, Diana and Jan, who were sitting in a huddle, cradling a huge plastic cauldron between them.
‘Well, ladies and gentlemen, if we’re all set?’ She waited for any protests and when there were none said, ‘In that case then here we go.’ With a broad smile and reading from her script she began, ‘“Act one, scene one. Thunder and lightning. Enter three Witches.”’
For a moment there was an expectant lull—a strange heady quiet—and then Diana pulled a piece of tissue from her pocket and unpeeled what looked like a rather nasty piece of chewing gum from inside it. The wart. Unhesitatingly Diana pressed it onto her chin. There was a muted cheer and as it died back to silence she began to read. ‘“When shall we three meet again?/In thunder lightning, or in rain?”’
‘“When the hurlyburly’s done,/When the battle’s lost, and won.”’ answered Netty.
‘“That will be ere the set of sun.”’ Jan.
‘“Where the place?”’ asked Diana, hunched now over the cauldron.
‘“Upon the heath,”’ answered Netty.
Carol’s eyes filled with tears. Or in some Christian retreat miles from any
where and twenty years on, she thought wistfully.
As the voices rose and fell, the years seemed to vanish and it was easy to imagine that they were all teenagers again.
Carol could remember the first read-through very clearly. She had re ally wanted to be a witch and had hung back and stayed with the rest of the gang, much too self-conscious and far too unsure of herself to go and sit anywhere near Gareth Howard, despite having spent the previous lunchtime with him on the veranda of the cricket pavilion.
Miss Haze had looked up as they’d settled themselves down in a loose circle around the stage, blissfully unaware of any nerves or selfdoubt.
‘Right, Carol, if you’d like to go over there and pair up with Gareth and the rest of the Macbeth household.’ She had waved her over. Carol had bitten her lip and shuffled forward, although at least now their pairing had some kind of an official sanction. ‘And Adrian and Fiona?’ Miss Haze continued, ‘I know in the play you don’t even speak to each other but I want us to think about characterisation. After all, it is your death, Fiona, that ultimately brings about Macbeth’s death. As Lord and Lady Macduff we need to consider the relationship between you.’
Carol grinned. There was not much chance of a relationship between those two. As they settled down alongside each other, Adie pulled a face that suggested he had some kind of terrible abdominal pain while Fiona picked up the script and, oblivious to what the rest of them were doing, started to read her part aloud. It was a match made in hell.
‘So, if you’d all like to get into your groups. Witches down here, please.’ Netty teetered off on stack heels that only just squeaked in under the suitable footwear rule.
Miss Haze had clapped her hands and everyone changed positions. Carol had watched the witches moving away to go through their parts until she was left alone with Gareth and his household. She shifted uncomfortably from foot to foot feeling—although there was no evidence to back it up—that everyone was looking at the two of them.
Carol came to with a jolt as she realised that the play—the one at Burbeck House in the here and now—was rapidly heading her way and she hadn’t got a clue where the hell they were. It was like one of those awful dreams where you are standing there, centre stage, spotlights on, naked except for your slippers and a tiara with no idea what the play is or what your lines are.
