‘Do you buy that?’ Gray looked doubtful.
Juliet thought for a moment. ‘Yes, I think I do. I’ve always known there was no grand passion between those two. It was the love of the business that kept them together, although they are very fond of one another in their own way. I’m not convinced that sharing the house will work but they can always move on later if it doesn’t.’
The way Andrea had described her feelings made perfect sense, once Juliet had recovered from her friend’s shock announcement. Why should she give up her career and her beautiful home when it was only her pride that had taken a battering, not her heart? Who was to say Andrea wouldn’t find love, real love, elsewhere? Perhaps she already had.
‘Andrea dropped a few hints about someone at Confer she’d made a connection with.’ Juliet smiled, remembering. ‘Her eyes went all soft and twinkly when she mentioned him. She didn’t go into detail but she’ll tell me when she’s ready. She really needs this - I do hope it works out for her.’
Gray nodded. ‘So do I. What about Declan? What’s his take on all of this?’
‘The same as Andrea’s, so she says. They had a long conversation on the phone the other night, sorted a few things out, and they’ve taken the house off the market.’
Gray grinned gleefully, rubbing his hands together.
‘You know what this means, don’t you? I get my office back. About bloody time too.’
‘Gray, can I ask you something? About Andrea?’
‘What about her?’
‘I know you don’t want to go over ground and I don’t either but I’d like to know why you wanted her to move out. You said it, you remember, when we were at the Alhambra?’
‘Of course.’ Gray thought for a moment. ‘I felt as if my whole life was slipping away from me. You, us, my work, everything. I grabbed at the only thing I thought I might have some control over. I didn’t want her to go, not really. I just wanted to see if I could still make something happen. Does that make sense?’
‘Yes, perfectly,’ she said, truthfully. ‘Thank you for telling me.’
Gray switched the television off, hitched himself out of the chair and came and sat down next to her on the sofa. She smiled in surprise. ‘What?’
‘My turn,’ Gray said, turning a bit pink. ‘I’ve got something I want to ask you.’
‘A baby? At your age?’
The mug Andrea was drying slipped out of her hands and clonked on to the draining board.
‘What do you mean, at my age? And keep your voice down!’
Juliet dried her hands on the tea cloth, went over and closed the kitchen door. It was Saturday morning. Gray had gone into work for a couple of hours and Rachel, as far as she knew, was still fast asleep in bed but even so...
‘I’m still in working order, as far as I know. Anyway, plenty of women have babies when they’re over forty – look at Nicole Kidman and what’s-her-name, Sian Williams, and Karina’s just had one and she’s nearly forty.’
‘Thirty-eight, and she’s had more practice than you, recent practice I mean.’ Andrea bent down and retrieved two rather overdone croissants from the oven. ‘Damn!’ She sucked her burnt finger, slid the croissants on to the bread board and dropped the baking tray into a sink-full of cold water where it sank with a sizzle of twisting metal. Tonight was the opening of the play and Andrea’s nerves were, as she so succinctly put it, completely buggered.
‘It’s perfectly understandable that Gray should want a child of his own.’ Juliet split the croissants and haphazardly buttered them. She picked one up and took a bite. ‘It would be heaven not to have to worry about my figure for nine months.’
‘If that’s the prime reason for getting up the duff, how come I didn’t do it?’ Andrea stuffed the other croissant into her mouth and waved a buttery hand. ‘No, don’t answer that.’
‘It is romantic, though, isn’t it? Him wanting us to make a baby together.’ Juliet sighed.
‘So did you say you would?’
‘No, I’m not that daft. He caught me on the hop. He couldn’t very well expect a decision on something that big straight away. I said I’d think about it.’
‘Yes, well, mind you do, and when you’ve thought, think again. I’m going up for another little kip. Gird myself up for this evening.’
‘Do I have to come?’ Gray said when Juliet presented him with dinner an hour and a half earlier than usual. ‘It’s bound to be dreadful. These amateur things always are.’
‘You must. We’ve got the tickets and I think you’ll find the Clifton Players are a cut above. Anyway Andrea would be hurt if you’re not there on her big night.’
‘I doubt that. It’s not as if she’s the leading lady is it?’
Not in the traditional sense, no, Juliet thought.
Gray waved his fork at the empty place at the table. ‘Where’s Rachel? Isn’t she coming? If I have to suffer then so should she.’
‘Of course she’s coming.’ Juliet brought her own plate to the table and sat down. ‘She only wanted toast. Couldn’t wait to get upstairs and test out her phone.’ Juliet smiled. ‘I’ve never seen her so excited about a present since she got her first bike, and it was high time she had one, of course. I hope she thanked you properly.’
Gray nodded. ‘She did. I even got a kiss.’ He smiled, turning a bit pink. ‘I love that girl, you know.’
‘I know. She loves you too.’
‘Does she?’ Gray looked a little bemused.
‘Of course.’
Juliet let Gray eat his meal in peace for a few minutes while she mentally rehearsed the next stage of the conversation. She had to get this in now, before they got to the theatre. Gray knew, in a vague kind of way, that Andrea had been seeing someone, but that was all, and Juliet had put off colouring in the details just in case he took it into his head to evict her friend and all her belongings on the spot. Now, with Andrea having already left for the theatre and Rachel out of earshot, the moment had arrived.
‘Well isn’t that just fine and dandy,’ Gray said, when Juliet had finished. ‘Not only does Andrea pick on some poor married sod to have her bit of fun with, she has to pick one who lives in the same street as us! Talk about doing it on your own doorstep – I’d say that’s pretty priceless, even by her standards.’
‘I know, but don’t say anything to her, will you? Not before the play anyway. She’s embarrassed enough about it as it is.’
‘Wait a minute. Do you mean we have to sit there tonight with everyone pointing at us and whispering?’
‘No, of course not. No-one knows anything about it and even if they do they won’t know who we are.’ Juliet crossed her fingers beneath the table.
‘Guilty by association.’ Gray gave a firm little nod.
The small, slightly down-at-heel, theatre was packed, mainly, Juliet suspected, with family and friends of the cast. The play was running for three nights and the first night, according to Andrea, was a sell-out. Their seats were in the third row from the front, Juliet on the end, adjacent to the centre aisle. Surreptitious scanning of the assembled throng revealed that there weren’t too many faces she recognised, and those she did were seated well away on the other side of the aisle. Gray’s earlier remark, although she’d dismissed it at the time, now seemed uncomfortably prophetic.
She sank down in her seat, wishing the lights would go down and praying that Andrea’s stage debut as the dead body would be short, sharp and instantly forgettable and that the post-woman, the waitress and the horsey woman had all made it to the theatre in one piece, precluding the need for Andrea to put in a live appearance.
‘How long till curtain up?’ Gray said, across a yawning Rachel.
Juliet checked her watch. ‘Should be any minute. Oh look, it’s starting.’
The lights in the auditorium dimmed and David Wellman strode on stage to thin applause, the spotlight silvering his hair and displaying the inexpert stitching skills of whoever had patched the curtain before which David stood.
/> ‘As director, I’m very pleased to welcome you all to the opening night of our production,’ he began, clasping his hands together like a vicar.
‘He might well pray,’ Gray said loudly.
Rachel perked up. ‘Why? What do you mean?’
‘Sshh, the pair of you,’ Juliet whispered, shooting Gray a warning look.
David’s little speech was all but finished when there was a crash and a scuffle at the back of the hall and all heads turned. The woman who stood between the flung back double doors and who was clearly having no truck with the stewards who remonstrated with her in hushed, urgent tones, was not instantly recognisable. The lights snapped on again as, advancing into the auditorium, she cat-walked down the centre aisle on four-inch grey patent stilettos, her blonde-highlighted head held high. The narrow-skirted dress that enhanced her figure to perfection was bubble-gum pink with folds in it, like origami. The last, and only, time Juliet had seen such a dress it had been in a magazine, on Victoria Beckham.
‘My God, it’s Fiona!’ Juliet said, forgetting to whisper.
Fiona Wellman looked sensational – and terrifyingly purposeful – as she reached the edge of the stage and stood before David, whose face was now as white as his hair.
‘Take a good look, ladies and gentlemen.’ Fiona turned to face the stunned audience and made a sweeping gesture towards David. ‘You see before you the man who has betrayed me, over and over, the man I am ashamed to call my husband, and whom I, like a fool, have forgiven as many times, but no more. No more.’
Fiona paused for breath and a rustle of excitement ran through the crowd like wind through leaves as David vaulted down from the stage and tried to manhandle his wife away from the spotlight she now occupied. Fiona was having none of it.
‘Get off me!’ Juliet heard her say, as she wrested her arm from David’s grasp.
‘In fact,’ Fiona said, addressing her public, ‘you might be interested to know that my so-called husband’s latest squeeze is right here, behind that curtain!’
Juliet’s face was on fire. She felt sick. She looked at Gray for reassurance but he was helpless with laughter, as was Rachel, even without benefit of the punch-line.
‘Good on you, Fiona!’ someone shouted from behind.
‘Go girl!’ came from the other side of the aisle, as the swell of excited chatter filled the auditorium.
Giving up the futile fight to remove Fiona, David clambered back on to the stage and flapped his hands up and down in a hushing gesture.
‘Quiet! Quiet please, everyone. I do apologise for the, err, interruption. My wife, as you see, is somewhat overwrought and I ask for your indulgence while the situation is dealt with...’
‘Bastard!’ a woman in front of Juliet stage-whispered to her companion.
Clearly David hadn’t spotted that Fiona had mounted the steps at the side, picked her way across the cables and was heading straight for centre stage.
‘Overwrought? I’ll show you who’s overwrought!’
David spun round. He tried to sidestep out of way but he wasn’t quick enough and Fiona hitched up her skirt and kneed him smartly in the groin. The crowd went wild, stamping, clapping, cheering, and no doubt congratulating themselves on eight pounds fifty ticket money wisely spent. With one hand between his legs and his shirt darkening nicely in the underarm area, David scuttled off into the wings.
All eyes were now on Fiona, who, having watched her husband’s exit, stage left, with a satisfied look on her face was now making a much more dignified exit of her own, stage right, but as she reached the steps she hesitated and glanced towards the backstage area. Juliet thought later that Fiona might just have made it down those steps and out of the theatre if someone hadn’t at that precise moment decided to open the curtains. At the same time there was much indecisive flicking on and off of the auditorium lights, ending with them off.
Whether the operator of the curtains was naturally over-eager in his approach to his duties or whether the novel opening to tonight’s performance had thrown him as much as it had the lighting technicians was impossible to tell, but the curtains flew back, much too far, to reveal not only the stunned actors riveted into position for the first scene but a gaggle of cast and crew in the wings, including, to Juliet’s horror, the prompt.
Andrea squatted on a tiny camping stool, knees inelegantly raised, script on lap. The black, off-the-shoulder dress she was wearing, so tight she must have been catapulted into it, had ridden up to mid-thigh, affording those members of the audience seated at the right angle a clear view of red lace gusset.
Gray gave a great guffaw and Rachel let out a fresh peal of giggles as she bobbed about in her seat to get a better view. Juliet just wanted to die.
Even if Andrea hadn’t actually seen what had occurred out front, she must have heard it all, as everyone else behind the curtains surely had. Her eyes were as big as dinner plates as, having been projected so unceremoniously into the limelight, she spotted Fiona at the exact moment that Fiona spotted her.
Juliet reached over and grabbed Gray’s arm. ‘Gray, quick, do something!’
‘Like what?’
‘I don’t know, but something!’
‘Why? What’s it got to do with us?’ Rachel asked.
She didn’t get a reply. Along with everyone else, Gray and Juliet watched as Fiona stalked up to Andrea and pointed an accusing finger.
‘You! I know all about you and what you’ve been up to with my husband! You’re no better than a...’
Fortunately, the rest was drowned out by renewed cheers, cat-calls and applause but Juliet was sure she lip-read the words ‘common’, ‘tart’ and ‘slut’.
At least Andrea had the sense to remain silent throughout this onslaught. With no visible escape route, she sat it out with as much decorum as the camping stool allowed. At one point she peered out at the audience, scanning the faces. Looking for her, no doubt, Juliet thought, but there was no way on this earth she was going to draw attention to herself by waving. Friendship was one thing – social suicide quite another.
Having said her piece, Fiona left the stage and, to more vocal support from the over-excited audience, sailed up the aisle and made a triumphant exit through the doors from whence she came.
Rachel was beside herself with glee. ‘I always wondered what Andrea actually did at the drama thing and now I know – she’s been shagging the director! This is so wicked! I can’t wait to text Sarah!’
‘You will do no such thing!’ Juliet said, as her daughter’s giggles subsided into hiccups, and then seeing Gray’s face, she burst into laughter.
Gray grinned from ear to ear. ‘You have to hand it to Fiona. She handled that superbly. What a star – it’ll be the best performance of the night.’
Juliet agreed. She’d felt sorry for Fiona before but not now. Fiona didn’t need sympathy. Neither did Andrea, or if she did, she wasn’t going to get it. Juliet did hope she’d learned her lesson, though.
An air of uncertainty prevailed as the audience simmered down and forgotten programmes were retrieved from the floor. There was some movement up on stage as the actors awoke from their transfixed state and someone tweaked the curtains into position, obscuring the wings, and Andrea. The opening lines seemed about to be spoken but the actor, unsurprisingly, had plainly forgotten what they were. An embarrassed silence followed until Andrea, having obviously pulled herself together, gave the prompt, somewhat loudly, and the play commenced, grinding on through three leaden acts.
‘Shouldn’t we wait for Andrea?’ Rachel asked later as they trooped out of the theatre.
‘I think Andrea can look after herself,’ Gray said.
‘Good. I’m starving. Can we get chips?’
25
In the courtyard in front of the library, a low-key, expectant buzz emanated from the five-deep crowd lining three sides of the roped off area. Music began to play, softly at first, growing louder as the first traceurs broke free of the huddle on the library steps and took
up their positions within the elaborate construction of towers and tunnels, steps and bridges.
A second group burst out of the shadows to join the first, completing the tableau of human statues. The stillness of the scene before them, the aura of pent-up energy, silenced the onlookers. They pressed forward, dispersing and re-grouping to gain the best positions.
The music changed tempo and the traceurs sprang up and away. Leaping, diving, twisting, tumbling, they took ownership of the mini-city as they moved through complex sequences – rehearsed or improvised? – impossible to tell – up and down and over and through the obstacles, every movement precise and focussed and elegant.
In the centre of the thickest part of the crowd but with a straight view through it, Juliet clicked away with her camera. Beside her, Andrea, brought along for extra protection, stood uncharacteristically quietly, giving the display her full attention.
Occasionally one of the participants would stop and hunker down out of the way, arms loose, head bowed and chest pumping, then set off again after a minute or two, seamlessly rejoining the sequence. Sometimes the whole group stopped and re-started, reversing their previous moves, bidden by some hidden signal or music change.
Juliet stopped snapping for a while and just watched. She followed the progress of one of the girls who, every time she reached the top of the tallest tower, effected a ballerina pose for an extraordinary length of time, the toes of her tiny trainers gripping the narrow rail with apparently no effort, arms delicately outstretched, oriental features turned upwards to the sun.
There were other extraordinary moments, too, when half way through a movement a traceur would freeze, one hand on a rail, the rest of him suspended impossibly in mid-air while the crowd drew in its collective breath.
Falling to Earth Page 26
