An Awfully Big Adventure Part 7

She thanked him without warmth and stuffed the notes casually into her bag. Rose had already given her two weeks' salary. 'That girl,' she said. 'Her mother left her alone in an empty house. You want to keep an eye on her. She's trouble.'

'Well,' he said, 'I must be off.' And he escaped onto the platform, praying for the whistle to blow. At the last moment, when the engine blew steam, she let down the window and handed him an envelope addressed to St Ives; she looked at him with the eyes of one waking from a dangerous dream. 'G.o.d speed,' he cried, and ran a few steps alongside the departing train to show it wasn't just a question of out of sight out of mind. She stared straight ahead as she slid away.

He opened the envelope on his way back to the theatre. The sc.r.a.p of paper it contained, torn from a telephone pad, was wrapped round the musical lighter.

He read the letter not out of curiosity but to spare St Ives further embarra.s.sment the last thing he needed in his present introspective state was a love letter from Dawn Allenby.

St Ives blamed himself for what had happened. In the interval she had apparently asked him to have supper with her, and he'd mumbled something about wanting an early night. He couldn't recall his exact words he suspected they were cutting but he did remember holding his fingers against one nostril to blot out the stench of her Cologne. The memory of that gesture would never cease to haunt him. How could he have been capable of such cruelty?

Dotty had sat up all night a.s.suring him that Dawn wasn't his responsibility. If he had accepted her invitation to supper she would have taken it for encouragement; he would simply have put off the evil day. Besides, she had only pretended to take an overdose. She was just drunk and seeking attention. Young Stella had said she was quite cheerful earlier in the evening, before she had her hysterical attack, and had talked of nothing but her sister's new baby. St Ives's name had never crossed her lips.

St Ives said it was a mercy he hadn't after all approached Meredith and asked him to give her the push. Thank G.o.d he hadn't got that on his conscience. Still, he would have done if it hadn't slipped his mind, and surely the intention made him culpable. Dotty told him he was worrying needlessly seeing he was a Methodist, a belief which favoured an artificial rather than a natural cla.s.sification of guilt.

She herself had spent a distressing and hectic ten minutes in Rose Lipman's office helping to remove Dawn's costume and b.u.t.ton her into her street clothes. Dressed, Dawn could be pa.s.sed off as a member of the audience. Dottie wasn't at all sure the poor woman shouldn't have been left in the telephone box until the ambulance arrived, rather than carried by George across the square in a fireman's lift under an old blanket, but Rose had convinced her that a scandal must be avoided at all costs.

The letter was brief and lacked punctuation Dear Swine, I have no money no job no friends I hope you and the girl are satisfied Hail Caesar use this in memory of me Dear Swine, I have no money no job no friends I hope you and the girl are satisfied Hail Caesar use this in memory of me.

Bunny dropped the lighter into a china vase in the c.o.c.ktail cabinet in the prop-room and burnt the letter on the fire. Then he washed his hands.

Christmas was approaching and the shop windows began to fill with seasonal tableaux. In George Henry Lee's an angel with silver wings spun above three Wise Men kneeling in cotton wool snow. A sixty-foot tree, a gift from the people of Stockholm in recognition of the hospitality shown to Swedish seamen during the war, arrived at the Docks and was ceremoniously welcomed by the Lord Mayor. In the middle of the Thursday matinee a Salvation Army band began to play carols in the square and Rose sent out a donation with a request for them to move further off.

At home, Uncle Vernon ferreted out the laundry box from under the stairs and dusted off the streamers and the loops of coloured paper. He draped tinsel round the pink lampshades on the table. Lily took them off again. Most of the shades hung crookedly and were scorched on one side, and she said the tinsel const.i.tuted an added fire hazard.

'It's festive,' he argued, 'it's Christmas.' And she pointed out that not everybody wanted to be reminded of the fact. 'Some people,' she said, 'would prefer to sleep through it.' He could tell by the look on her face that she counted herself among them. He decided to take it personally and went straight out with the intention of buying a tree, just to spite her, until her remembered he could get one cheaper nearer the time.

Lily wasn't the only one who grew melancholy at the seasonal preparations. All of it, the tinsel and the trees, the hurrying shoppers with their packages wrapped in s.h.i.+ny paper, the children queuing to visit Santa Claus, the Star of Bethlehem on the roof of Blackler's store, below which at dusk a crowd gathered and sighed with wonder as light ran through its six points and burned against the sky, made Stella more unhappy than ever. What was the point of living, let alone Christmas, now that Meredith ignored her?

She'd noticed the change in him as soon as they began rehearsing in the theatre. She stood on the stage four mornings in a row, note-pad prominently displayed against her overall, waiting for his summons, and when it didn't come she watched the smoke from his cigarette curling above the upturned seats and felt she herself was drifting into darkness. I'm cast out, she thought. I'm one of those souls in purgatory.

He no longer bothered to talk to her when she brought him his coffee. He thanked her politely enough, but his smile was dismissive. When she pa.s.sed him on the stairs his expression told her he scarcely knew she was there.

She realised he was under a strain. The stage hands grumbled at the furious pace they were expected to work. Often George came in at five o'clock in the morning to hammer away at the pirate s.h.i.+p in the carpenter's shop. He took a pride in his job and he didn't mind how many hours he put in as long as he got paid for them. There was the rub Rose Lipman complained they were exceeding the estimates. He'd demanded a man in charge of each wire and Rose had baulked at the expense. He'd told her he wouldn't be responsible for safety if he couldn't have them. The slightest kink in a wire and it would snap like a violin string, plummeting the flyer to the stage.

Grace Bird reported that Rose was critical of Meredith mounting two big productions one after the other. In her opinion it was an error of judgement. Nor was she altogether satisfied with the box-office receipts for Caesar and Cleopatra Caesar and Cleopatra. It was all very laudable wanting to bring culture to the ma.s.ses, but if the ma.s.ses chose to turn their backs on the enterprise it was the shareholders who stood to lose. At the rate things were going Meredith could swallow up the budget for the entire year before the season was a quarter way through.

Stella was forced to hold her tongue when Dotty or Babs...o...b..rne spoke slightingly of Meredith. She let fly at Geoffrey.

'He's sensitive,' she shouted, after Geoffrey had recounted an incident in which Meredith had supposedly scuttled into the band room to avoid interviewing some out-of-work actor who had an appointment with him. 'He doesn't like disappointing people.'

'In that case,' retorted Geoffrey, 'why did he agree to see him in the first place?'

They were sitting in the Kardomah Cafe waiting to pick up paint and turpentine ordered by the stage designer from Haggerty's warehouse in Seel Street. The paint frame had expected a delivery earlier that morning, until Haggerty's had rung through to say the van had broken down. The order was still being unloaded.

They shared a doughnut and bickered over which half was smallest.

'Have the lot,' said Stella finally. 'I'm too miserable to eat.'

'What about?' asked Geoffrey, wolfing down both portions before she changed her mind.

'Mr Potter, I've upset him in some way. You must have noticed. He's stopped being friendly. It hurts.'

'I've no wish to sound insulting,' Geoffrey said, 'but I hardly think anything you could do would upset Meredith.' He watched her trembling lip, and added, 'You shouldn't put him on a pedestal. He's not trustworthy. Windsor Rep sacked him, you know. He was an actor then... in the same company as Bee's Knees O'Hara.'

'Considering your low opinion of him,' she snapped, 'I'm surprised you spend so much time with him.'

'It's only pub friends.h.i.+p,' he said, and flushed.

'I wish I was older,' she said. 'I wish I knew how to tackle him. I know exactly what words to use but when I'm with him I can't get them out. n.o.body's ever silenced me before.' She was near to tears and relis.h.i.+ng the feeling in a sad sort of way.

Suddenly Geoffrey said, 'I'm not sure I shall stay in the theatre. I might take my father's advice and go into business.'

'Silly a.s.s,' she said. 'What would you want to do that for?'

'I'm out of my depth. I don't really understand them. They tell you important things, things you want to hear, and five minutes later they can't remember what they've said. I'm only here because my uncle's chairman of the board.'

'I'm only here because of Uncle Vernon,' Stella said. 'He and Rose Lipman's brother courted the same girl, only Mr Lipman won. I suppose he felt guilty.'

She thought Geoffrey looked neglected. His s.h.i.+rt wasn't clean and he had the beginnings of a pimple at the corner of his mouth and another about to burst above the knot of his cravat. He needed a mother.

'I'll never give up,' she said. 'I've nowhere to go except Woolworth's.'

'Don't you ever have doubts?' he asked. 'Don't you ever wonder whether it wouldn't be easier to do what's required of you?'

She wasn't sure she understood. They had marched along different paths. Uncle Vernon required something of her, but his expectations were similar to her own. 'I never doubt myself,' she said. 'Only other people.'

They returned to the warehouse and stood back as a boy carrying a sheet of gla.s.s under his arm came down the stairs. He was wearing outsize boots without laces. He tripped on the bottom step and, losing one boot, lunged forwards, cartwheeling across the pavement on that deadly crutch of gla.s.s. A man on the other side of the road raised his hat to a pa.s.sing lady and distinctly said, 'Grand day for the time of the year', after which the boy fell down. He lay perfectly still, brows arched in surprise, bare toes quivering as the blood drained out of him.

Stella and Geoffrey went back to the theatre without collecting the paint. Within ten minutes of their arrival everybody knew what had happened. Babs...o...b..rne said it was odd the way Stella was always around when tragedy struck. She didn't mean to be tactless.

Freddie Reynalde urged Stella to blot out the memory of what she had seen. She must bear in mind she was in control of the pictures in her head. It was rather like being in charge of Tinkerbell, in that she was the one flas.h.i.+ng the torch. What she must do, he maintained, was to subst.i.tute one image for another. He knew what he was talking about, having witnessed a man die from a heart attack while forking manure. She should swop the boy on the pavement for an empty room painted white, or possibly a vase filled with lilies.

'I wish you hadn't mentioned that,' she said. 'I'm very suggestible. Now all I can see is a room filled with cow muck.'

St Ives was particularly affected by the incident. 'Dear G.o.d,' he said, 'why does life have to be so b.l.o.o.d.y awful', and he blew his nose emotionally. Dotty wasn't there to cosset him, and presently he went upstairs to the wardrobe, where Prue made him a cup of tea.

The afternoon rehearsal started late because Meredith was at a working lunch in Rose's office. When he did arrive he strode across the stage and pushed his way through the pa.s.s door without a word.

Stella thought the play peculiar. Considering it was meant for children it was surprising how many of the characters were unpleasant, even Tinkerbell, whom she supposed was some sort of bad fairy. And though at first it was quite funny, knowing that the child Slightly was so called because when his mother had abandoned him his vest had been slightly soiled, the more she thought about it the sadder it seemed. Babs...o...b..rne didn't look right as Wendy; she was too big. And although it was customary for the same actor to double as Mr Darling and Captain Hook the way St Ives played them there seemed little difference between the two he romped in the nursery and he sky-larked aboard the Jolly Roger Jolly Roger. Meredith told him twice to give it a bit more blood and thunder, but it wasn't in him. He was too concerned that people should like him to be really frightening.

Mary Deare as Peter was downright sinister. She was neither boy nor girl, neither old nor young. When she was on stage everyone else faded into the shadows. There was a scene between her and Wendy in the 'Home under the Ground' which caused Stella to tremble.

It was soppy enough to begin with. Babs was telling the Lost Boys a story of how mothers always waited for their children to return: 'See, (pointing upward) there is the window standing open.' So they flew to their loving parents and pen cannot describe the happy scene over which we draw a veil there is the window standing open.' So they flew to their loving parents and pen cannot describe the happy scene over which we draw a veil. (Her triumph is spoilt by a groan from Peter and she hurries to him) 'Peter, what is it? Where is it?' To which Mary Deare replied in a low voice, 'It isn't that kind of pain, and then cried out with terrible conviction Wendy, you are wrong about mothers. I thought like you about the windows, so I stayed away for moons and moons and then I flew back, but the windows were barred, for my mother had forgotten me and another little boy was in my bed Wendy, you are wrong about mothers. I thought like you about the windows, so I stayed away for moons and moons and then I flew back, but the windows were barred, for my mother had forgotten me and another little boy was in my bed.

Bunny noticed Stella's distress and patted her on the shoulder. 'Try not to think about it,' he urged. He imagined she was still dwelling on the accident.

She missed the rest of the rehearsal because Mary Deare kept sending her out on errands. First it was a little bit of yellow fish for her landlady's cat the poor thing was half starved then it was a bulb for her bedside lamp, and lastly she remembered that a friend of hers had just opened in a play in Manchester and there just might be a review in the evening paper. Would she be a sweetie and run out and buy one?

Stella browsed through the newspaper under the lamp outside the stage door. On the inside page she was astonished to see a photograph of herself dressed as Ptolemy, accompanied by a short paragraph describing her as a 'touchingly pert example of a young and ambitious actress'. She tore the photograph out and shoved the rest of the newspaper into the dustbin further along the road.

She hid the cutting in the c.o.c.ktail cabinet in the prop-room if she took it home Uncle Vernon might get his hands on it and embarra.s.s her by reading it out to the commercial travellers. She was going to put it in the china vase, only one of the stage hands had left his lighter there for safe keeping, so she stuffed it between two books on the top shelf. She told Mary Deare the newspapers had sold out.

Mary was sitting in No. 3 dressing-room when Stella called the Overture for the evening performance of Caesar and Cleopatra Caesar and Cleopatra. The little bit of fish for the landlady's cat was beginning to stink. It appeared Mary would give her eye-teeth for a cup of tea with two sugars.

'I'm not allowed in the prop-room when I'm in costume,' Stella said. 'I might get messed up.' Grace Bird winked at her.

Mary Deare was still there after the curtain had risen on Act Four, and frantic because she'd run out of matches. None of the men had any. 'Be a sweetie,' she pleaded, 'find me a match.'

Stella went bad-temperedly downstairs to borrow a box from the doorkeeper. On the bend of the lower landing she had to struggle past a Centurion lounging against the wall eating from a bag of chips. 'You shouldn't leave your spear there,' she said, 'it's obstructing the pa.s.sage.' He ignored her.

The doorkeeper didn't have any matches either. She went through to the prop-room to see if there were some on the mantelpiece, but there weren't; and then she remembered the lighter in the vase in the cabinet. On her way back up the stairs she struck it to make sure it had petrol.

Meredith was drinking alone in the Oyster Bar, thinking of Hilary, when a small man with sideburns and an anxious expression approached him. 'Sorry to intrude,' the man said, 'but I'm impelled to speak. My name is Bradshaw. Vernon Bradshaw.'

It meant nothing to Meredith. Still, he shook hands with the stranger as though they were old aquaintances. He was glad of the distraction, having earlier received a wire from Hilary who, at the last minute and in spite of cross-my-heart-and-hope-to-die promises, found it impossible, after all, to come down from London for the first night of Peter Pan Peter Pan. Something had cropped up, something wildly important.

'I recognised you from your photograph in front of the theatre,' the man said. 'I don't mind admitting I've been wanting to meet you for some time.'

'Excellent,' cried Meredith. 'What will you have?'

'It's civil of you. A shandy would be acceptable.'

'Come now,' Meredith protested, and ordered a whisky.

'I enjoyed the play. So did Lily...'

'I'm so glad,' said Meredith. He had a picture in his head of Hilary floundering in quicksand while he stood by, watching.

'We thought our Stella acquitted herself very well. But then that's natural, isn't it?'

'Good Heavens,' said Meredith, 'you must be Uncle Vernon.'

'Thing is,' Vernon said, 'she's very young, very impressionable. I'd be failing in my duty if I didn't make it my business to know who she's consorting with.'

'Quite,' said Meredith.

'I don't mind admitting that sometimes she's a little hard to understand. She's got her head screwed on, I can't deny that, but she's complicated... in herself. There's reasons for it, of course... there always are... but she could take the wrong step... out of cussedness.'

Meredith looked thoughtfully down at his gla.s.s.

'I suppose you see her differently,' said Vernon hopefully.

'No,' Meredith said. 'I'm not sure that I do.'

'Lately she seems a little low in spirits.'

'Does she?' said Meredith. He looked surprised.

'It's nothing you could put your finger on... nothing definite... little things... the way she looks at the photographs on the mantelpiece. She's turned one or two of them round, you know; to face the wall. And she gets up in the night and sits by the telephone in the hall in the dark. Well, it's not entirely dark... there's a lamp outside that s.h.i.+nes through the fanlight. Mind you, she's done this sort of thing before. She was always one for secrets... we never got to meet any of her school-friends. I had to make enquiries behind her back, so to speak. I think you'll agree I was within my rights...'

'You were indeed,' Meredith a.s.sured him.

'Lily thought you might be able to enlighten us... as to why she's feeling so glum... she might have mentioned something... you being the one she spends most time with.'

'I'm afraid I can't be of much help,' Meredith said. 'There was that little upset with one of the actresses, but I don't believe they were particularly close. I suppose finding her like that could have been disturbing, but then again Stella isn't easily disturbed, is she?'

'Finding her like what?' asked Vernon, but at that moment a young man rushed in from the street. He was wearing some sort of outlandish costume and his lips were rouged.

'Come quick,' he cried, and tugging at Meredith's arm he toppled him from his stool and ran him out of the door.

They cancelled the rest of the performance. There was no other alternative. Desmond Fairchild flatly refused to go on in St Ives's place, with or without the book. He said he would be a laughing-stock; he hadn't the legs for it.

The girl who worked the front of house had already gone home and Rose had to take the money out of the safe and open up the box office to give the patrons their money back.

Nothing as terrible had ever happened in all her years in the theatre. Neither miscarriages nor broken hearts, feuds or fainting fits, had ever managed to extinguish the footlights. Not even the inebriated actor who, in the middle of Strife Strife, taking exception to a coughing woman in the third row had leapt from the stage and wrestled her into the aisle, had succeeded in stopping the show three cups of black coffee and a front-of-curtain apology and the play had resumed.

It was obvious they would have to abandon the run of Caesar and Cleopatra Caesar and Cleopatra and close the theatre until an actor could be found to portray Hook. St Ives's leg was fractured in two places. It would be at least six weeks before he was out of plaster. They had four days in which to find a replacement. It was a catastrophe. and close the theatre until an actor could be found to portray Hook. St Ives's leg was fractured in two places. It would be at least six weeks before he was out of plaster. They had four days in which to find a replacement. It was a catastrophe.

The recriminations were heated. Caesar had no business to be coming downstairs three minutes after the commencement of Act Four. Why hadn't he been called earlier? St Ives freely admitted his nerves were in fragments, what with Dawn Allenby's recent caper and the tragic death earlier that morning of the boy who had severed an artery on Haggerty's steps, but why had n.o.body reprimanded the stage-door keeper for listening to the wireless during a performance? St Ives swore he distinctly heard the strains of Come Back to Sorrento Come Back to Sorrento as he came round the bend of the stairs. Who was supposed to be responsible for the university students? Why hadn't somebody checked that they hadn't left their spears for all and sundry to trip over? as he came round the bend of the stairs. Who was supposed to be responsible for the university students? Why hadn't somebody checked that they hadn't left their spears for all and sundry to trip over?

Bunny was so choked at what he termed veiled inferences and an unfair proportioning of blame that he stalked out of Rose's office. He fled to the prop-room, where he found John Harbour and Babs, huddled whispering round the fire with Freddie Reynalde. Dotty and Grace had gone in the ambulance with St Ives and Desmond Fairchild was in the Oyster Bar making the most of the unexpected drinking time.

Harbour had been in the middle of telling Freddie that in his opinion it was almost almost a blessing that the theatre would have to close. It was ghastly for poor Richard, breaking his leg and all that, but at least it meant there would be an extension of rehearsals for a blessing that the theatre would have to close. It was ghastly for poor Richard, breaking his leg and all that, but at least it meant there would be an extension of rehearsals for Peter Pan Peter Pan. The production was a shambles at the moment. Babs said it was all very well but had he forgotten their leading man was flat on his back in Sefton General?

They stopped talking when Bunny came in, shocked into silence at the expression on his face. He was pressing his fists against his stomach as though he had suffered an internal injury. 'I've given the best years of my life,' he faltered, and was unable to say more. He turned away from them and struggled for control. Discomfited, they stared at his heaving shoulders.

He was tracked down almost immediately by Meredith, sent by Rose to fetch him back.

'I'm not coming,' he replied, his voice wobbling with emotion. 'I'm thinking of handing in my resignation.'

'Don't talk rot,' said Meredith and, taking him by the arm, frog-marched him along the corridor.

Five minutes later John Harbour was dispatched to the Oyster Bar to tell Desmond Fairchild he was wanted in Rose's office.

Desmond took his time, and when he finally arrived and the proposition was put to him, he shook his head. He had no ambitions to play Hook and certainly not at four days' notice. He hadn't been offered the part in the first place and was more than content in the role of Smee.

He stood there in his camel-hair coat, tapping a cigarette on his thumbnail. 'Sorry, Squire,' he said, 'but I know my limitations.' He smiled spitefully.

Meredith telephoned several numbers without success. George Rudd was on tour; Michael Lamonte, according to his lady friend, was filming at Pinewood; Berenson had left the business for school-teaching and wasn't about to throw it up, thank you, for all the tea in China, and did Meredith realise it was gone midnight?

An actor who had written to Meredith on many occasions always enclosing, as his wife was at pains to point out, his page number in Spotlight Spotlight and a stamped addressed envelope, without ever once receiving so much as an acknowledgement in return was unfortunately dead. Bunny remembered Cyril Someone-or-other who had been fearfully good in a revival of 'Sheppy' at Watford before the war. Meredith reminded him that Cyril thingumajig had lost both legs in a skirmish in North Africa. and a stamped addressed envelope, without ever once receiving so much as an acknowledgement in return was unfortunately dead. Bunny remembered Cyril Someone-or-other who had been fearfully good in a revival of 'Sheppy' at Watford before the war. Meredith reminded him that Cyril thingumajig had lost both legs in a skirmish in North Africa.

It was then that Rose, distractedly rearranging the framed photographs on her desk top, thought of O'Hara.

'No,' shouted Meredith. Bringing his voice under control he suggested it was unlikely that a man of O'Hara's established reputation would want to appear in the provinces.

'Fiddlesticks,' said Rose, 'if he's not working he'll jump at it, for old time's sake.' She couldn't think why it hadn't occurred to her sooner.

Bunny stood at the window and stared wearily down into the lamp-lit street. A figure in a raincoat was preparing for sleep in the doorway of George Henry Lee's, treading round and round on a heap of old newspapers like a dog at the hearth.