Theatrical Read online

  I nod back at Amy.

  And here we go again.

  The afternoon flies by, broken only by a tea break. And nobody’s particularly keen on dragging that out, either – everyone’s too focused on getting the job done. The dress rehearsal looms, and with forty-eight hours until we’re doing this for real – in front of actual people – the clock isn’t ticking so much as spinning wildly out of control. The dinner break passes largely unnoticed – except for the appearance of Roly at the back of the auditorium. She crashes through the doors, her arms full of pizza boxes, the pile almost too high for her to see over.

  “Somebody order pizza?”

  There’s a stampede of creatives, techs and actors to grab a box from the stack, and gradually her face appears from behind them.

  “Animals, the lot of you. Animals.” But she laughs and shakes her head as she turns back to the stage door.

  Sometime around eight, my phone pings with a message. It’s my mother. I ignore it.

  Sometime around eight thirty, my phone pings with another message. It’s still my mother. I still ignore it.

  Sometime around nine, my phone pings with yet another message. She never gives up. I throw it in my bag without looking at it.

  Sometime around nine thirty – although time no longer has any real meaning and it could already be next month for all I know – Rick calls it. We’re finally done.

  “That’s it for tonight, everybody – thank you very much! We’ll see you in the morning for a full dress, please. Get a good night’s sleep – it’ll be another long day tomorrow.” Amy claps her hands as the remaining actors amble across the auditorium to collect their valuables from the storage box. Some of them mumble goodnight, some of them leave without so much as a thank you. All of them look tired and emotional.

  “Creatives! Tech meeting and breakdown in five minutes, please.”

  Nina, slumped back in her seat, mutters something about having an actual breakdown. I drop the headset on my prompt desk and flick off all the lights and switches. My copy of the script is covered, margin to margin, with notes and scribbles, and – on the bottom corner of the last page – a slightly wonky heart with what could be the letters H and L in the middle. Maybe. If you looked at it the right way.

  I rub it out before anyone has the chance to see it.

  Especially George.

  Even more especially Luke.

  The creative meeting isn’t as bad as I’d expected – it’s only fifteen minutes, and mostly just Rick running through the changes he’s made during the tech compared to Nina’s and Amy’s notes. There aren’t many, not by this stage. Any last hiccups should show up in the dress tomorrow, and then? Then, it’ll be opening night…and there’s no going back.

  I check off the list by the stage door. It looks like almost everyone has signed out; even Roly’s putting her coat on.

  “Are you off?” she asks, winding her scarf around her neck.

  “More or less. I’ve just got to get some stuff from the production office.”

  …And check the theatre model.

  I want to see whether it’s changed; whether he’s changed it. I haven’t seen him since we talked in the Heffernan Room, and that already feels like an age ago. A part of me was hoping he’d be hanging around here, or send me a message or…

  My phone.

  I guess I can’t hide from it for ever – and it’s probably better if I at least know how much trouble I’m walking into when I get home.

  There are a lot of messages on my phone when I pull it out of my pocket: my notifications fill the screen. It mostly reads Priya, Priya, Priya, Priya, Priya…but the most recent (all seven of them) are from Mum.

  Call home.

  Call me at home.

  Call me at home, please.

  Why aren’t you replying?

  Call me.

  Are you coming home soon? I need to talk to you.

  Call me. It’s important.

  Gulp.

  I spent so long thinking about Luke today that I had sort of forgotten about what those photos could do outside the theatre. No. I didn’t forget. I blanked it out. Stuck my head in the sand and went full ostrich about it. But the pictures are still out there, aren’t they? I stare at the string of messages. No. Mum would never have even heard of SixGuns, let alone go on the site. And the thought of her on one of Tommy’s fan sites is just silly…

  But still…

  I take a deep breath and dial.

  “Hi. You wanted me to call?”

  There’s a frosty silence, then finally: “Hope Parker, what on earth do you think you’re playing at?”

  “Sorry?”

  Keep calm, keep calm…

  “I have left dozens of messages on your phone. I even called the theatre…”

  “WHAT?”

  “But Priya said you were busy with something urgent and she’d let you know I rang.”

  I raise my eyes in a silent prayer of thanks for Priya. I guess that explains why there’s so many messages from her too.

  “Ummm. Sorry. It’s been really manic.”

  “So I gather.” A deep sigh. “Well? What do you have to say for yourself?”

  Okay. She’s obviously expecting something – but I’m not stupid enough to own up to anything unless she says it first. Basically, I need to know how bad the damage is before I can figure out what I need to do to limit any more. So I go with something safe and, hopefully, neutral.

  “Sorry?” I try.

  “Sorry? Sorry?” She pauses, and I hold my breath because this is still my mother, and any second now…

  I really don’t have to wait long.

  “I should think you’re sorry. All day I’ve been trying to reach you, and nothing. You knew I needed your help getting this dress boxed up, and you promised you’d be back in time to give me a hand with packing the train…”

  The premiere dress!

  A wave of relief hits me – instantly followed by guilt. I did promise, didn’t I? On my way out this morning, right after she told me that “wearing black drains you, darling”.

  “Getting the netting folded into the box without crushing it is a two-person job…”

  “The courier’s coming at eight…”

  And right before I sailed out of the door, I said I’d definitely help. And I meant to. I would have. I didn’t think, did I? I should have known tech would go on this late.

  No wonder she’s angry. I let her down.

  “Oh, god. I completely forgot. Things here got…”

  “Got what, exactly?”

  “Out of hand.”

  “Out of hand? In the marketing department?” She makes a clicking sound with her tongue against her teeth.

  “I am sorry.” It sounds a bit pathetic, but it’s all I can say.

  “Hmmm.”

  More clicking. But it sounds like this was all she wanted; not even to be mad at me about the dress – not really – but to be mad that I wasn’t replying to her messages.

  Which can mean only one thing.

  She doesn’t know about the photos.

  I’m safe.

  I apologize, and I apologize, and just for good measure I apologize some more, and tell her I’ll be home as soon as I’ve finished. When I hang up, my hands are clammy and shaking – I can’t tell if it’s from tiredness, or sheer relief.

  “Just make sure the door shuts behind you, right?” Roly, still waiting behind the desk with her coat on, looks pointedly at the heavy fire-escape bar across the stage door. She pauses, then nods once, and with that, she disappears down the stairs and off into the night.

  Down in the production office, the model box is, at first glance, still empty. But when I look closer, heart pounding with hope and fear muddled all together, there’s a little square of fabric on the stage. That doesn’t make any sense. I pick it up and turn it over, rubbing it between my fingers. There’s no note, no message; it’s just a bit of cloth.

  I turn off the lights, tucking th
e big red rubber band-wrapped folder Amy asked me to pick up under my arm, and walk back through to the wings and the pass door to get my things from under the prompt desk, stepping out into the front of the stalls. The auditorium is dark.

  Typical.

  No, wait. There is a light, a dim one, coming from a single bulb in a wall socket at the side of the stage.

  The ghost light.

  Like actual ghosts and cats, every theatre has a ghost light. Some people believe the ghost light’s there to give the theatre ghosts the chance to perform if they want to – they say it’s there to light their way across the stage or the stalls.

  Others will tell you it’s so the cleaning staff (and crew like me, hanging back after hours) don’t fall off the stage and break their non-metaphorical legs in the dark.

  I guess which you believe depends on how romantic you think the theatre is…

  Right now, it’s so still and so silent that I really, really don’t want to think about ghosts.

  Either way, light or not, the auditorium is still pretty dark, and I’ve left my stuff scattered all over my desk and my bag underneath it. Picking everything up in this light is going to be a pain in the neck. I move back along the seat rows, my hands checking off the ends as I go.

  Row A, B, C, D, E…cross-aisle…F, G…

  I step into the row and start shuffling along, counting the seats in the gloom as I go. If I look ahead of me, I can just about make out the lump of the prompt desk looming over the seats around it.

  Halfway along the aisle, there’s a sound.

  It could be a footstep…up on the stage.

  No such thing as ghosts. No such thing as ghosts.

  I shuffle along the row faster.

  There it is again.

  It’s a footstep. It is.

  Someone’s on the stage – somewhere. The ghost light’s too faint for me to see them, but there is, I think, the faintest outline of…something?

  “Hello? Who’s there?”

  My heart has somehow climbed into my throat and is beating so hard against the inside of my neck that I’m amazed it isn’t what I hear when I open my mouth to speak.

  There’s no answer, but there’s another footstep – and something else. Something that sounds like…fabric moving?

  “Seriously. You can’t be here. Who’s up there?”

  I stand as tall as I can and peer into the dark.

  There’s a click, and something moves on the stage…

  And then the whole auditorium is flooded with light.

  It’s so sudden that my eyes spasm in shock, and I want to put my hands up to shield them.

  I blink away the dazzle, and there he is.

  “You didn’t reply to my message.” Luke is leaning against the temporary steps up to the stage. Behind him, the iron safety curtain is down, and despite myself I wonder who brought it in. It must have been Amy…

  “You messaged me? I don’t remember giving you my number.”

  “George did – although you know it’s on every call sheet as the emergency contact number, don’t you?”

  “Oh.” I hadn’t thought of that. But I’ll decide what to do with George later. Throttle him or thank him – it could go either way. Maybe both?

  “Sorry. I’ve not really checked it today.”

  “Look, about earlier…I wanted…” He clears his throat, but then his eyes meet mine and instead of slipping away from me, this time his gaze stays with me. “I wanted to apologize. For how I was, and for not being clear, I guess. I wanted…I just wanted to do the right thing.”

  “And instead, we both ended up feeling crap about everything.”

  “I suppose at least we did it together?” He tips his head to one side and rubs the back of his neck. “Come on.” He swings himself up onto the step and leans out to me, holding out a hand. The stage lights catch his hair and standing there, smiling and waiting, to me he looks like he might be Lancelot for real, or a fairy-tale prince. What can I do but take his hand, and fall into the fairy tale with him?

  His fingers close around mine, gently pulling me up onto the stage. The second my foot hits the boards, the lights change – I can see them shift from white to a pale golden pink. Summer dusk filter says the part of my brain that is all theatre, all the time. The rest of my brain tells it to shut up. I don’t want to know how it’s done, or see the wires and the cogs, just for once. I only want to be here, now, with him. From somewhere on the fly-floor I hear a voice shout “Iron going out!” There’s the sound of feet on a ladder, and a door banging – then quiet, and slowly, slowly, the safety curtain rises up and away.

  Behind it is a forest – or maybe less a forest than a glade in an enchanted woodland. Ancient trees crowd in before a blue sky, and moss-covered boulders lie in dappled shade. There’s a picnic blanket laid out in a patch of sunlight, and a couple of cushions and a picnic basket, and I can hear birdsong and the quiet babbling of a stream, smell the moss of the forest floor. Somehow he’s managed to transport us through time and space to somewhere altogether different.

  “How…how did you…?”

  “I called in a few favours to set things up. And then a few more to clear backstage. Oh, and raided the pantomime backcloths.”

  The imaginary leaves of the imaginary trees shift in an imaginary wind as the filters on the follow-spots rotate, but I can’t help waiting for the cool of the breeze on my face. When it doesn’t come, it feels wrong, somehow – and then I look at him, and he’s laughing at me.

  I laugh at me too.

  “This is amazing. I just…I mean, it’s like magic.”

  He beams. “I’m glad you like it. I thought if I was going to apologize, I should do it properly.”

  “Properly means grovelling. I’m not getting grovelling from this. I’m getting…picnic.”

  “Concise. My acting tutor would like you. Does that mean you accept?”

  “Not sure, really. Needs more grovelling. You need to really explore how sorry you are. Seriously,” I add, lowering my voice.

  “Ah. So close. Sorry – no picnic for you. Thanks for coming…” He lays his hands on my shoulders and steers me back to the steps, and I want to memorize the feel of every single one of his fingers…but I’m not letting him off so lightly. Not when I finally feel like I’m getting to see who Luke is underneath, in person and not just from notes on a script. I duck out from under his grip and sidestep him. “After you’ve gone to all this trouble? No way.”

  I mean it as a joke, of course I do – but he doesn’t take it as one.

  “I was serious. I really am sorry. I am.” He’s barely a step away from me; his eyes sweeping my face as though it’s the only thing in the world. “I can be whatever you want me to be,” he whispers…

  “That –” I poke the middle of his forehead – “is the very definition of acting.”

  He laughs and swats at my finger. “My tutor would definitely love you.” He nods at the blanket, which of course is exactly the same as the fabric square from the model, scaled up. Automatically, I rub the cloth in my pocket between my fingers. “Come on,” he says. “I’m starving.”

  So am I. The pizza feels like a long time ago, and my stomach growls as he opens the basket.

  He raises an eyebrow at me. “What was that?”

  “Sound effect. Obviously. Distant thunder.” Or something. “Which reminds me – is it my imagination, or does it really smell like a forest up here?”

  “Does it matter?” He pulls out a giant packet of Hula Hoops and flourishes it at me.

  “Wow. Nothing says sorry like barbecue beef flavour crisps… Wait a minute, you’ve got the air freshener going, haven’t you? You have!” I peer around him into the wings – and there it is. A squat box with a couple of red lights and a large vent on the front: what everyone calls the “air freshener” because it’s actual name is long and fiddly and – frankly – nobody has the time. It works a lot like a dry-ice machine, only for smells. Just drop in a cartridge, switch
it on and – presto – instant atmosphere: everything from spring flowers to coal smoke. Instant expensive atmosphere – the cartridges cost more than the entire budget of most of the things I’ve worked on at the Square Globe.

  He rolls his eyes and opens the crisps. “I bet you were always the kid who saw a magic trick and immediately started trying to figure out how it was done, weren’t you?”

  I pointedly look down at my black clothes. “Now, you see, I am the very definition of behind-the-curtain. Figuratively, literally, actually. I’m a vanishing act. Watch me put on my blacks and disappear.” I wave my hands in front of my face in a semi-mystical manner.

  He laughs quietly and crunches a crisp, then holds out the packet to me. “Don’t you ever wish you could switch it off? The needing to see how it’s done?”

  Apart from now? That’s a big question, isn’t it? Because if I didn’t see how it was all done – if I didn’t see the rigging and the wires, and the actors learning (and forgetting) their lines and blocking, trying out the different ways the parts all fit together to make a whole; see all the props and the scenery and the make-up and the rest of it – if I only saw the illusion…I wouldn’t be me, would I? I’d be one of the people in the audience, the people wanting to be swept away – not one of the people waiting to do the sweeping.

  Luke. This. Now. It’s the first time I’ve felt this way. What does that even mean?

  Theatre, Mum always says, is life. Infinitely finite, here for the shortest time and then gone. Barely a flicker on the needle of the universe, hardly more than a single wave out on the ocean.

  But it is here.

  Whatever it is that I’m feeling now, it’s here. I can’t pin it down, can’t annotate it or block it out on the stage, but it still exists. It’s still happening.

  I’m not going to tell him all this. Inside my head, it’s fine – but the second I try to say it, it would turn into a hopelessly jumbled, pretentious pile of crap. So I go with the next-best option and look him in the eye.

  “Do you?”

  “What, wish I could switch it off?” His brow creases as he thinks about it, and he flops back on one of the cushions, staring up at the grid above us. “I don’t know. I guess it probably isn’t the same for me.”