Olivia's Curtain Call

by Lyn Gardner

  Now Olivia looked up at the portrait of her mother.

  “It’s so hard, Mum. I want to do the right thing. But whatever I decide, I know that I’m going to end up upsetting and hurting somebody. I don’t know what to do. I wish you were here; I wish you were here to help me. Because you once had to make a big decision: to stay and maybe be the greatest classical actress ever or give it all up and go with Dad.”

  In the morning Jack, waking early to go for a run, found her fast asleep on the sofa under the portrait. He went to put a blanket over her but she stirred and opened her eyes.

  “I’ve decided, Dad,” she said. The air felt thick between them. “I’m going to do Juliet.” Olivia saw her father desperately try to hide a flash of disappointment, and fail. It broke her heart.

  “Of course,” he said. “I respect your decision, Liv.”

  But his voice was a touch too tight. Olivia stared at him. She didn’t want him to respect her decision. She wanted him to step up, tell her that he loved her and that she had made the right decision. Only a heartbeat passed before he moved towards her with his arms open, but somehow it was too late.

  “You don’t understand, do you?” she shouted. “I’m not just your daughter. I’m Toni’s daughter too. You want me to be like you, but I’m like her as well. I’m a tightrope-walker but I’m also an actress. You want me to choose one over the other, like Mum had to choose between her art and you. Well, I won’t and I can’t. You’re being so unfair.”

  With a huge sob, she ran into her bedroom and slammed the door. No amount of coaxing from Jack would bring her out, and when she emerged almost an hour later, ready and dressed to go to the Clapham rehearsal room, her face was white and she walked straight past the anguished Jack without saying a word. He watched her go. He knew that at the crucial moment he had failed her, because in trying to hide his own disappointment he had failed to show her how proud he was of her. He just hoped she would give him a second chance.

  Chapter Twenty

  Olivia watched as Kasha climbed down from the balcony. He glanced back at her and his face was suffused with wistful love as if he knew that he would never see his Juliet alive again. She began to speak as she watched him go.

  “Oh fortune, fortune! All men call thee fickle: If thou art fickle, what dost thou with him That is reknown’d for faith? Be fickle, fortune; For then, I hope, thou wilt not keep him long, But send him back.”

  Olivia said, “Send him back” with such simple sincerity that several people in the room felt quite teary.

  “Great,” said Jon. “We’ll leave it there. Everyone go and get some lunch and we’ll look at Act Four, Scene One straight after the break.”

  Jon watched Olivia and Kasha head off together. It was clear that they were going to be a terrific Romeo and Juliet. The on-stage chemistry between them was electric. Anyone watching them in the audience would be convinced they were madly in love. From looking like being the worst disaster of his career, Romeo and Juliet just might be his greatest success, and if it were, he would have Olivia and Kasha to thank. Jon’s only concern was that they were going to peak too soon; he was determined to make sure that they were both well looked after.

  He realised that her decision had cost Olivia. When he asked her about Jack’s reaction, she clammed up immediately.

  And Jon knew that Kasha was worrying about Abbie. She was making good progress, although her concern for her father wasn’t helping. He was anxious about the business, which was still doing badly. Jon had said that he would get his accountant to take a look at the books if it would help.

  “I’d hate it if the business went under,” she’d told Kasha. “It was so much part of my childhood, playing in the office while Dad worked. I even had my own little hidey-hole. I think Dad hoped that one day I’d take over from him. Cardew and Daughter. He was always teaching me how to read the spreadsheets, but I was more interested in acting.”

  Liz had turned out to be right. The interest in a fourteen-year-old playing Juliet was massive. There had been several blogs by well-known critics saying it was doubtful that Olivia Marvell would be able to carry it off, and although Jon had insisted that Olivia should do no interviews during the rehearsal period, the papers had found other things to print. There had been several features about Olivia’s mother. Another paper had done a big article on the Swan calling it “The School That Makes Stars”. One of the tabloids had even found some pictures of Jack and Olivia on the wire together in the Swan Circus.

  A few ticket-holders demanded their money back when it was announced that Abbie was pulling out, but replacing her with such a youthful Juliet had been box-office magic. Romeo and Juliet had the biggest advance sales of any West End Shakespeare production ever, which Howard Franks said was just as well as Olivia’s age and Kasha’s commitments meant that the show was going to have a very limited run; they needed to sell every ticket to make any money.

  Olivia and Kasha had found themselves a tiny little café down a maze of small back streets five minutes’ walk away from the theatre. They liked it there because they were unlikely to be bothered by the media, who were occasionally to be found hanging around outside the rehearsal room. Olivia had twice walked out of the rehearsal room to find a camera stuck up her nose, and she had even been asked for her autograph on the Tube, which Olivia found incredibly embarrassing. It made her wonder whether it might be a taste of what was to come if Romeo and Juliet was a success. If it was, she wasn’t sure that she was going to like it. But of course it was Kasha who attracted most interest.

  “How’s Abbie?” Olivia asked, once they had settled at a little corner table and ordered mushroom risotto for her and egg and chips for Kasha.

  “She’s coming out of hospital tomorrow,” said Kasha, and his face broke into such a big smile it was as if somebody had suddenly turned up all the lights in the café. “And more good news is that Tyler seems to have backed off a bit. Abbie thinks it might be because he’s so preoccupied with the business. But it suits us. We might actually be able to spend some time together without constantly looking over our shoulders. Although we’re still going to have to be discreet.”

  “And what will Hamo say about that?” asked Olivia.

  Kasha shrugged. “Surprisingly little. Being attacked by Tyler was a bit of a shock. He actually said that he’s going to stop badgering to see the books and not pursue it any further. Said he thought his life was worth more than money. He’s going to be a dad, Olivia! His wife’s pregnant. It’s as if it’s made him realise there’s more to life than profit. Mind you, I expect the poor little tyke will end up being forced into the family business.”

  They both looked up briefly to say thank you as the waitress put their food down in front of them.

  “Like Dad just expected that I’d be a tightrope-walker like him,” said Olivia stonily.

  “Oh, Livy, maybe you should give your dad a break. He adores you and Eel. He’d do anything for both of you. Maybe he did let you down when you decided to do Juliet, but maybe he just couldn’t hide how he felt. It’s perfectly possible to feel happy for someone else and sad for yourself all at the same time. I bet in his heart, he’s really happy for you and the fact you are doing something you desperately want to do. Keeping up a feud with him is just plain silly. Make it up, while you’ve still got the chance.”

  Tears began to fall down Olivia’s face. “I know you’re right. I just don’t know how. I saw how devastated he was when I batted away his attempts to make friends, and now he seems to have given up trying. Maybe it’s too late.”

  Kasha leaned across the table and picked up her hand. He held it to his lips and kissed it.

  “Oh, silly Livy,” he said with a mixture of brotherly affection and exasperation. “It’s never too late.”

  Chapter Twenty-One

  Eel squealed and punched the air, and then she high-fived Emmy.

  “I take it that you are both quite pleased with the news,” said Alicia drily.

 
; Emmy was jumping up and down with excitement. “So much time has gone by since the last audition, I thought they had forgotten about us.”

  “’Well, I’m really pleased for you. You will be the Swan’s first Matildas, and I hope not our last. I’m very proud of you.”

  “I’m quite proud of myself too,” said Eel very seriously. “But I always knew we’d get it. It was fate.”

  “Oh, I don’t know,” said Alicia. “I think hard work might have had something to do with it. You know what they say about genius: one per cent inspiration and ninety-nine per cent perspiration.” Then she added hastily, “Not that you two are in the genius league, of course. You’ve both got talent and application, and that’s far better.” She certainly didn’t want Eel getting any more big-headed than she already was.

  “I do perspire quite a lot when I’m singing and dancing,” said Eel thoughtfully.

  “Mrs Merman, the jazz teacher, says we don’t perspire, we glow,” said Emmy.

  “But that’s silly,” said Eel, “because we’re girls, not worms.”

  “Well, yes, congratulations,” said Alicia hurriedly. “I’m very proud of you both.”

  “I’m going to ring Dad and Livy right away,” said Eel.

  “I’m going straight home to tell my mum,” said Emmy. “You can come too, Eel, and have tea with us. My mum won’t mind.”

  “That’s fine,” said Alicia, “but be careful crossing the roads together, and ring when you want to come home, Eel, and one of us will come and get you.” She smiled. “Well done again, girls. But remember, we don’t do swollen heads at the Swan.”

  Eel and Emmy rushed off excitedly, and Alicia could hear shouts down the corridor as they shared their good news with their friends. She thought how strange it was the way things turned out: within the next few weeks she would have two granddaughters starring in the West End, and yet less than two years ago neither of them had ever stepped foot on a stage. If only Olivia and Jack could be reconciled, it would all be perfect. She had so much to be thankful for.

  She picked up the phone, dialled a number and wandered towards the open window to look idly out. Swans were pouring down the steps and thronging the pavements. She saw Eel in the middle of a gaggle of her friends. They passed a lamppost and Eel swung round it exuberantly. What happened next seemed to unfold in slow motion. Eel swung again, leaned a little too far and lost her grip. She stumbled and took a step out into the road just as a white van drove by. For a second, it looked as if it was going to miss Eel by a hair’s breadth, but then she was scooped up into the air like a doll, falling back floppily on to the van’s bonnet before sliding down it and on to the road. The white van looked as though it was going to run her over again but stopped just in time.

  Eel was lying very still and broken on the ground. Through the window, Alicia could hear the horrified screams of the other children. She saw India Taylor tear down the steps of the Swan, shouting, “Call an ambulance!” followed by Sebastian Shaw, who was already dialling on his phone. Alicia saw the driver stumble from the car screeching hysterically, “I didn’t see her! I didn’t see her!” She suddenly realised that her call had connected and somebody was saying, “Hello? Hello!” at the other end. Alicia dropped the phone and ran for the stairs, her breath coming in short, ragged gasps.

  “Farewell! God knows when we shall meet again.

  I have a faint cold fear thrills through my veins, That almost freezes up the heat of life.”

  Olivia was alone on the marked-out stage of the rehearsal room, kneeling on a low bed. Juliet was about to take the Friar’s potion, which would put her in a death-like coma and make it appear to her family as if she had died. She would then be buried in the family vault. The plan was that when she awoke, Romeo and the Friar would both be at the tomb and they would spirit her away.

  “How if, when I am laid into the tomb, I wake before the time that Romeo Come to redeem me? There’s a fearful point! Shall I not then be stifled in the vault, To whose foul mouth no healthsome air breathes in, And there die…”

  Olivia didn’t finish the line. There was a kerfuffle at the door and Alicia and Sebastian burst in. Everyone in the room turned, and Jon began to protest but stopped as soon as he saw Alicia’s face. Olivia got off the bed and stared at her grandmother. She looked as if she had aged a hundred years since this morning. Her face was rigid with sorrow. Olivia knew at once that something terrible had happened.

  “Oh, Livy,” cried Alicia. “I’m so sorry … I’m so, so sorry … there’s been an accident…”

  “Dad? Dad?” The words rose in Olivia’s throat like two great sobs.

  Alicia shook her head. “Not your dad, Livy. Eel.”

  Olivia fell to her knees as if somebody had simply sliced away her lower legs. She bent double.

  “Eel,” she keened, rocking back and forth. “Eel.” She shook her head disbelievingly. “Is she dead?”

  “No, Livy,” said Alicia urgently, “not dead. Eel’s still alive. We need to get to the hospital so you can see her. Jack’s there with her. There’s still hope, Livy. But we must hurry.”

  Olivia, Jack and Alicia all leaped to their feet as the surgeon walked into the family waiting room. It was almost half past nine, and Eel had been in surgery for nearly three hours. It felt to Olivia as if time had stopped completely. The young woman smiled at them.

  “It went well. We patched up her leg and ribs, but our main concern was to relieve the pressure in her head because of the swelling.”

  “So she’ll be all right?” breathed Jack, anxiety making his voice crack.

  “The next twenty-four to forty-eight hours will be crucial,” said the surgeon. “We’ll only really know what the prognosis is when, and if, she comes out of the coma.” The word “if” hung ominously in the air. “I wish I could tell you more. But she’s out of immediate danger. I suggest you all go home, and come back in the morning.”

  “No,” said Olivia. “I want to see her. I want to see my little sister and stay with her.”

  “She’s in intensive care and she looks a bit upsetting,” said the surgeon, turning to Jack for guidance. “There are a lot of tubes and bandages. It may be better—”

  “No,” said Olivia stoutly. “I want to see her.”

  “We all do,” said Jack.

  They followed the surgeon up to the intensive-care ward where they could see Eel through the window. Jack suddenly remembered the night of Eel’s birth, when she had been rushed into special care with breathing difficulties and he and Toni had looked on helplessly through a big glass window. One of the nurses had tried to console them by saying that the child was going to be all right because she was “such a wriggler; more like an eel than a baby”. The nickname had stuck.

  Now, many years on, he was once again watching his child fight for her life behind a glass window. He slipped his hand into Olivia’s and squeezed it, and she squeezed back. With her other hand Olivia found Alicia’s gnarled fingers and curled her own young, unblemished ones around them. The three of them stood, joined together like that, watching Eel for what seemed like an eternity.

  It was now three days since Eel’s accident. Olivia, Jack and Alicia had spent almost all of their time at the hospital. Eel had been moved out of intensive care to a small side room off the ward. She was still stuffed full of tubes and wires and she had still not woken up. Would she ever? The doctors had told them not to give up hope, but Olivia felt certain that, as every day passed and Eel remained locked in her own world, she was drifting further away from them. How could they bring her back? Instinctively she knew that she should talk to her, and whenever Jack and Alicia were out of the room she poured out her heart to her sister. She told her about Kasha and Abbie being in love, about how she had initially thrown away her chance to play Juliet, and how sometimes she found herself looking at Tom and feeling as if she was seeing him for the very first time.

  They had received dozens of get-well messages and cards. Abbie and Kasha had turned u
p at the hospital with a big bunch of flowers and each of them had hugged Olivia, but she couldn’t bear to have any real conversation with them, even though both of them had been so kind.

  Aeysha, Georgia and Katie had sent Eel a huge “get well” card, and a card for Olivia too, saying that they were there for her and they would come to the hospital the very second she wanted them to, and Jon had left a message saying she wasn’t to even think about Romeo and Juliet. He needn’t have worried though – all Olivia could think about was Eel, lying on the bed unmoving: there but not there. The only person she could bear to have close by, other than her family, was Tom. He didn’t make any demands on her, but allowed her to concentrate all her energies on Eel, willing her to get better and show some small sign of recovery.

  Olivia was sitting on her own in the room with Eel. Alicia had gone back to the Swan to shower and change her clothes, and Jack had nipped to the hospital cafeteria to get more black coffee. Olivia shifted her chair even closer to Eel and took her sister’s hand. It was pale and spongy, like uncooked pastry.

  “Please, Eel. Please wake up. Please be all right. We need you to be all right because otherwise we’re not going to be all right. None of us could bear it if you didn’t pull through. We need you, Eel, because you’re the one who makes us laugh, who stops the rest of us from taking ourselves so seriously.”

  The machines bleeped and Eel still lay unresponsive.

  “You were right about me doing Juliet. About doing what I wanted to do and not worrying about what Dad and Gran thought. Of course, it doesn’t matter now. I’m never going to play Juliet. I guess it just wasn’t written in the stars after all. It doesn’t matter now. Falling out with Dad over it seems so utterly stupid and pathetic now. So unnecessary.”

  Olivia leaned closer still to her sister. “When Gran turned up at the rehearsal room, mad with grief, at first I thought it was Dad. I thought he had fallen from the wire and was dead. And I thought he had died thinking that he’d let me down. And I’d have to live the rest of my life regretting that I had been too proud to let him make things up with me when he tried. Kasha told me that I should put things right while I still had the chance, and I hadn’t listened. In that split second, when I saw Gran standing there, I thought, ‘Now it’s too late. I can never make it right again.’”