When the Curtain Falls

by Carrie Hope Fletcher

  ‘Who are the others for?’ Lenny asked, as Walter shuffled through the other letters and saw that the last one was for Fawn.

  ‘Erm…’ Walter said, turning Fawn’s letter over in his hands. ‘Just… ensemble.’ Walter quickly put her letter in his inside pocket and put the remaining two in their corresponding holes.

  ‘Just ensemble? Don’t let anyone catch you saying that. They’ll have your guts for garters, boy.’

  ‘What?’ Walter said, the letter burning a hole through his pocket and into his chest.

  ‘The ensemble carries a show! Those dance numbers would look pretty empty with only a few principals scattered about. Those choral numbers would sound pretty naff with only two or three voices, wouldn’t they?’ Lenny tapped his cigar, more ash joining the carpet.

  ‘Of course,’ said Walter.

  ‘Then show a little respect inside these walls, all right? It’s the people in the background that matter the most.’

  ‘And who told you that?’ The double doors swung open with gusto and Hamish burst through, his long tan coat swinging about so violently the letters bustled about in their pigeonholes.

  ‘That’s just theatre.’ Lenny shrugged, removing his feet from the hatch. He cautiously rolled his eyes so that only Walter could see.

  ‘A show wouldn’t be a show without its stars.’

  ‘It wouldn’t be a show without the people in the background, neither,’ Lenny said, sucking hard on his cigar.

  ‘If it makes you feel better. As long as you remember your place.’

  ‘And what exactly is my place?’ Lenny stayed seated, but Walter could see his short nails digging into the wood of his desk, the end of his cigar burning bright.

  ‘Perhaps young Wally here can tell you.’ Hamish tapped the end of Walter’s boot with his black silver handled cane.

  ‘Walter,’ Walter said but his voice came out as a crackly whisper.

  ‘What?’ Hamish snapped, and Walter cleared his throat.

  ‘My name is Walter.’

  ‘You’re talking back now too, are you?’ Hamish raised his cane and held the end of it against Walter’s chest.

  ‘No! No, not at all!’ Walter stepped back but Hamish stepped forward.

  ‘Then tell him. Your place is…?’

  ‘… Stage door?’ Walter fumbled.

  ‘Exactly, and your job is…?’

  Walter and Lenny exchanged a vacant look. Hamish pushed his cane harder into Walter’s chest.

  ‘Ahhh… letters?’ Walter offered with a half shrug. ‘And keys?’

  ‘And who do you hand those letters and those keys to, exactly?’

  ‘Actors?’

  ‘Very good, Walter. Actors. Your job is to serve the actors but above all your job is to serve me, the producer.’ Hamish gave Walter a gentle but firm push with his cane before placing it back on the floor with a click.

  ‘Yes, sir,’ Walter said, resisting the urge to rub his chest.

  ‘Your place is to man this door without complaint and do as I say. My key.’

  ‘Please,’ said Lenny.

  ‘What?’ Hamish spat.

  ‘My key… please.’

  ‘Give me the damn key.’ Hamish opened his black gloved palm, waiting for Lenny to obey orders.

  ‘No.’ Lenny folded his arms. ‘Not until you show me the courtesy and respect I deserve as someone who works for you, sir.’

  Hamish’s head whipped around at Lenny so hard Walter almost heard the fluid in his head slosh. ‘I’m warning you,’ he snarled.

  ‘Is it that hard to say please, Mr Producer?’ Lenny answered, taking the keys to dressing room one out from the wooden box on the wall.

  ‘It’d be far easier to have you fired.’ Hamish picked up his cane once more and pushed it into Lenny’s chest so hard he stumbled backwards into the wall, hitting his head on the shelf behind him and dropping his cigar.

  ‘All right, all right! No need for that! I’ve just been trying to teach the boy that a little bit of kindness is free, Hamish, that’s all!’

  With another twist of his cane, which caused the shelf behind Lenny’s head to creak, Hamish pulled away.

  ‘Key.’

  Still reluctant, Lenny placed the key in Hamish’s upturned palm as he snatched it away. ‘Out of my way.’ Hamish swept past Walter, bursting through the second set of doors and down to his stage level dressing room.

  ‘Letters. Keys,’ Lenny mocked. ‘Whose side are you on, kid?’ Lenny brushed his shirt somewhat straight and picked up his cigar, the end of which was surprisingly still glowing.

  ‘I didn’t realise I had to take a side,’ Walter shrugged, rubbing his own chest.

  ‘Well, you do. There’s us, the little people who work our arses off for next to nothing and then there’s them. The people who do very little and have everything to gain from everything that we do. We keep this theatre clean and in good working order, and it’s him who benefits.’ Lenny plonked himself down in his rickety chair. ‘Make yourself useful,’ he said and shooed him away.

  Walter had learnt that make yourself useful actually meant leave me alone so he scurried through the theatre like one of its resident mice, through the backstage corridors, down the stage left wing, through the pass door, down the stairs and into the auditorium and… there she was.

  He hadn’t realised he’d smelt the fresh scent of her jasmine perfume in the corridor, but it was definitely drifting over him now from where Fawn sat in the stalls in row G, rustling through sheets of paper and talking to herself. Walter cleared his throat and Fawn turned her head to the left, saw nothing, and returned to her script. Walter wanted to say something, but Fawn continued, engrossed in her work.

  ‘You’re teasing me, Lars!… Ugh, no… You’re teasing me, Lars. You must stop it immediately or I’ll… I’ll… argh, why can’t I remember this line?’

  ‘Need any help?’ Walter finally plucked up the courage to speak, and Fawn jumped.

  ‘My goodness me! You can’t sneak up on people like that!’ she snapped, a hand delicately laid across the base of her pale throat. Walter couldn’t help but laugh as he walked further towards the centre of the stalls down row J.

  ‘I didn’t mean to startle you.’

  ‘You’re the boy from the other day!’

  ‘Boy?’ Walter laughed again but stood a little taller. ‘I’m twenty-two. I’d definitely consider myself a man.’

  ‘Of course you would.’ She pursed her lips but still managed to smile, her eyes sparkling. ‘Girls are considered to be women through a means of physical changes, it seems. Not about how much they know of the world because they’re not really allowed to know much about the world. A boy, however, becomes a man when his mind is enriched, his heart hardened through experience and he’s had his way with a handful of women. Wouldn’t you agree?’ Fawn shuffled her pages into a neat pile as she talked.

  ‘Well, I…’ Walter took off his flat cap and ran his sweating palms around its rim.

  ‘So, tell me, Walter… are you a man?’ She placed the pile of papers on her crossed legs, leant her elbow on the back of the seat and casually placed her chin in the palm of her hand. Walter took a deep breath.

  ‘Not by that definition, no.’

  ‘Is there another?’ she asked, and Walter took another large breath, not feeling like there was enough space in his chest for both his lungs at once.

  ‘I would say a boy becomes a man when he’s seen enough of the world to know what he thinks of it, can earn an honest and decent living and knows his own mind and heart if ever someone asks one of them a question.’

  ‘What if someone asks both of them a question? Your mind and your heart?’ She brushed her curtain of autumnal hair back from her eyes.

  ‘It’s rare that they have the same answer. You’re better off asking just one of them.’ Walter took a seat in his row.

  ‘How ever do you decide?’

  ‘Depends which one’s better suited for the task! If it’s work or m
oney, you gotta ask my brain. If it’s matters of romance, however, you’ll need to conspire with the ol’ ticker.’

  ‘What if you need to decide something simple, like… what to have for dinner.’

  ‘Ah, see. My eyes are bigger than my belly so sadly, that’s always a lost cause.’ It was then that Walter heard Fawn laugh for the first time and he thought it was a good job he was sitting down because his knees would have collapsed underneath him. It was melodic, almost like she was singing a song, and although Walter hadn’t listened to a great deal of music in his lifetime, he already knew it was the most beautiful song he’d ever heard.

  ‘So what exactly is your job here, Walter?’ Fawn swivelled in her seat to face Walter a little more, bringing her white shoes up onto the red velvet upholstery in front of her and leaning her arms flat across the back of her chair, her cheek resting against the back of her fingers.

  ‘You remembered my name?’

  ‘Well, you know mine, don’t you?’

  ‘Fair enough. Well, Susan…’ he smirked, ‘I’m the stage door manager’s assistant.’

  ‘Are you really an assistant in the sense of the definition or are you one of those assistants that actually does everything your boss should do and receives none of the credit?’

  ‘Bingo,’ he said, firing his fingers at her like hand guns. ‘Well, no, to be fair Lenny does a hell of a job at guarding that key box. I’m not allowed within ten feet of that thing.’

  ‘Oh, and I was so hoping to have at least a moment with you each day.’ The tone of her voice suggested she may have been joking but Walter caught a fondness in her eyes that gave him a glimmer of hope.

  ‘And you still can, as long as your fans keep writing you letters.’ Walter opened his jacket pocket and produced the letter he’d hidden from Lenny earlier, suddenly pleased with himself for having that spontaneous moment of weakness.

  ‘Oooh, how exciting! Pass it here.’ Walter stood and leant as far as he could over the seats but still couldn’t quite reach Fawn’s outstretched hand. He pinched the very edge of the letter between his index and middle finger and tried again but this time it slipped out from his grasp and fluttered to the floor in row H.

  ‘Argh, damn,’ Walter said, as they both lost sight of the letter. He looked up to see Fawn had already sauntered a few seats along to the end of the row, but stopped moving as soon as she noticed he was watching. Walter moved along a few seats too with a nonchalant whistle, but he found it hard to make any noise at all when all his lips wanted to do was stretch into a smile. Fawn hopped one seat along with a leap. Walter did the same. She raised an eyebrow at him and before he knew it she was scrambling along to the end of the row and darting into row H. Walter seized his chance and heaved himself over the rows of chairs between them like he was a hurdles champion, but Fawn got there a split-second sooner. She peeled the letter off the floor and whipped it into the air, catching Walter fully in the nose as her arm came upwards.

  ‘Oh my!’ she wailed as Walter yelped and stumbled backwards a couple of steps, catching his foot on the leg of a seat and landing with a thump on his rear. Holding his nose with both hands, he let himself fall onto his back. Without hesitation, Fawn hoisted up her skirt and went over to him, getting to her knees until she was straddling one of his legs, her hands either side of his chest. Walter’s palms covered his throbbing nose as his fingers tried to staunch the flow of tears streaming from his eyes.

  ‘I’m sorry! I’m sorry! I’m sorry! Are you all right?’ she whispered.

  ‘Fine!’ he lied, but Walter hadn’t realised just how close Fawn had dared to get and as he brought his arms away from his face, he used the momentum to catapult his body into a sitting position… and head-butted Fawn.

  ‘OUCH!’ Fawn sat back on her knees and clutched her head.

  ‘OH, NO!’ Walter instantaneously forgot about his own pain and swivelled his legs underneath him so he could get a closer look at her.

  ‘I’m all right!’ she said, blinking back tears but laughing all the same.

  ‘You’re not, I can already see a lump!’ Walter said, taking her wrists and pulling her hands away from her head.

  ‘Please tell me that’s a joke. Make-up can hide bruises but I don’t think it’ll disguise a golf ball sticking out between my eyes!’

  ‘Don’t worry, I think everyone will be too preoccupied with your smile to notice,’ Walter said and the silence that followed made him wish he could suck the words back into his mouth, chew them up and swallow them before she heard. Fawn looked at him with curiosity.

  ‘Well, that was sweet.’ She smiled, gently shaking her wrists out of Walter’s grasp. He noticed a group of three or four dark circular marks on the inside of her left wrist.

  ‘Where did these come from?’ he asked, carefully taking hold of her wrist and trying to examine the bruises.

  Fawn gently pulled her hand away from his inspection. ‘I may look elegant on stage but I’m not the most graceful of creatures,’ she laughed. ‘Always walking into things.’

  ‘They look like fingermarks, Fawn.’

  ‘Can’t think why.’ She pulled herself to her feet using the theatre chairs to help her stand, but slipped a little when the seat she’d held onto started to flip forwards. ‘Whoops! See. I’m never on my feet for too long before I’ve slipped over again.’

  ‘It’s Hamish, isn’t it?’

  ‘Walter…’

  ‘You can tell me, Fawn.’

  ‘I don’t even know you.’ She backed away from him and skittered back into her original row, gathering up her belongings.

  ‘I know, but —’

  ‘And it’s Miss Burrows,’ she said. Her face had hardened; the bright smile and sparkling eyes had dulled, and Walter could tell, despite not even really knowing her, that she was scared.

  ‘Miss Burrows,’ he took a moment to compose himself, ‘I mean you no harm. I am an employee of this theatre and therefore a friend to you. If ever you need someone to deliver your mail, someone to pop out and get you food between performances… or someone you need to confide in, I’m your man.’

  ‘No,’ she sighed, her eyes searching his for something more than she found, ‘you’re a boy.’

  And she left.

  10

  Fawn

  Fawn Burrows was a woman. Undoubtedly so in her eyes, because everything she was convinced made one a woman she had made sure she had accomplished. However, she had very little chance to prove it as the majority of people around her thought all women were needed for was to care for their man, have his children and learn how to make the perfect Victoria sponge. There was no question that Fawn would potentially disappoint her family in her life choices. After all, when you plan to study your way into a job so you don’t need to rely on a man, you tread a fine line between ‘strong woman’ and ‘disowned little girl’. Fawn persisted regardless and had her sights set on RADA to follow in the footsteps of her favourite actress, Vivien Leigh (despite the fact that Leigh had dropped out) and thankfully, Fawn’s mother and father supported her dreams of being in the spotlight.

  Warren Burrows was a quiet man who spoke only the language of money. And boy, was he fluent. If his little girl wanted to be an actress, she would be an actress. But before Fawn was able to study and train like everyone else and work her way to the top, her father had found a producer named Hamish Boatwright. He had offered to help Hamish fund his new show on the condition that his little girl become a big West End star. Hamish, a man of forty-two with a deceased wife and ambition beyond compare, took one look at Fawn and said yes with a capital ‘Y’.

  ‘You don’t even know whether I can act,’ Fawn said upon meeting Hamish and pulling her hand away from his slippery kiss.

  ‘I don’t need to, and with a face like yours neither does the audience.’ Fawn could see Hamish was trying to compliment her so she smiled and made a mental note of it in her head: He’s ignorant and potentially misogynistic.

  ‘You’ll have a f
ew lines here and there. You’ll be able to manage that, won’t you, sweetie?’ And he’s condescending.

  ‘And when we’re at parties you won’t need to say anything. Let me do the talking, handle all the business, and you stand there and look fabulous.’ Definitely misogynistic.

  Had Fawn been alive when they were at their height of activity, she knew she would have been a largely involved member of the Suffragettes. It always angered her, that despite women being given the vote and the huge toll it had taken for them to be thought of as equal, there were still men like Hamish Boatwright who thought they could tell her that her only job was to be quiet, look pretty and to let men handle her business. Even though Fawn wanted to shout and scream and outwardly fight, her mother had taught her another way.