An Awfully Big Adventure - Beryl Bainbridge [22]
‘That’s my wardrobe mistress,’ cried St Ives, winking suggestively and hugging her until she squirmed.
‘I’m nobody’s mistress, you daft beggar,’ she countered, beating him with mock ferocity about the head, cheeks burning with delight.
St Ives had pencilled a little red spot at the corner of each eye, to make them look bigger. Wearing grease paint, he appeared younger and yet more sinister. But then they all did, even Grace Bird. They looked both sly and exhilarated, as though they were off to some party that would end in tears.
At half past one Geoffrey confided he was worried about Dawn Allenby.
‘Why?’ asked Stella.
‘She’s got a bottle in her dressing-room and it’s almost empty. And she’s sitting in a peculiar way, staring at herself in the mirror.’
‘That’s not peculiar,’ Stella said. ‘You do it all the time.’
He flounced off, tugging at his hair.
Stella’s main job was to sit in the prompt corner with the book. Earlier, supervised by George, she had added a tablespoon of Camp coffee to half a pint of water and poured it into the cut glass whisky decanter on the sideboard. She had polished the glasses and checked there were seven Capstan in the cigarette box set on the low table beside the settee. George said that if she put in more the whole lot would be gone before the curtain rose on Act Two. The box was a musical one and made of silver. When opened it played the chorus of ‘Spread a Little Happiness’, although the book stipulated it ought to be the ‘Wedding March’.
Dotty wore a sleeveless dress of black velvet caught at the hip with a diamanté buckle. The flesh of her upper arm hung down when she reached for a cigarette, but it scarcely mattered. She was beyond that sort of upset. Her mouth was a red gash in her powdered face and when in Act Two she told her husband that the degenerate Martin had never loved her, never ever, even though they’d conducted an affair, real tears trickled from her tragic eyes.
At seven o’clock Stella was sent out to buy bacon sandwiches. It was dark and rain spat on the cobblestones. She ran to the café and fretted while the rashers sizzled on the stove; she couldn’t wait to get back to that make-believe room blazing with light. Returning across the square she felt she was going home; not for one moment did she confuse such a place with the Aber House Hotel.
Meredith was sitting in the stalls with his feet propped up on the row in front.
‘The play’s awfully good, isn’t it?’ Stella said, handing him his sandwich.
‘In your opinion,’ he asked, ‘what is it about?’
‘Love,’ she said, promptly, for she had given it some thought. ‘People loving people who love somebody else.’
He explained she was mistaken. Mostly it had to do with Time. ‘Think of it this way,’ he urged, ‘we are all mourners following a funeral procession and some of us, those of us more directly concerned with the departed, have dropped behind to tie a shoe-lace. Contact with the beloved has only been temporarily interrupted. The dead are still there, as are those we think we love, just round the corner . . . waiting to be caught up with.’
‘Of course,’ Stella said, ‘I hadn’t thought of that.’
For the life of her she couldn’t fathom where funerals came into it. Besides, not everyone wore shoes with laces. Still, she was pleased he had sought her opinion.
Bunny told her to call the actors for the last act. He found it difficult to talk; having found a bottle containing tincture of iodine in the First Aid box, he held a saturated plug of cotton wool against his raging tooth.
Grace Bird was already in the corridor outside the dressing-room she shared with Dawn Allenby. ‘Look here, dear,’ she said, ‘tell Bunny to pop up, will you?’
‘What’s the noise?’ asked Stella, although she knew. Someone was squealing and crying at the same time, as if caught in a trap.
‘Not a word,’ Grace said. ‘Go and fetch Bunny.’
The actors paced in the wings puffing on cigarettes, watching the sliding door in case the fireman should catch them. Desmond Fairchild got a speck of dust in his eye and Dotty, tut-tutting