FIFTEEN

I was packing for Plymouth when the phone rang.

‘Hallo?’

‘Eleanor?’

‘David?’

It hadn’t occurred to me that if he phoned, I rather than he would feel guilty. But after sleeping with Dan I did, especially as my spine was rippling like a Mexican wave.

‘Oh… David…how are you? Phyllida did the anti-freeze. I would have got round to it.’

I knew he’d been tempted to break cover by a piece on the show in the Daily Telegraph. I should have known, even in the throes of passion he wouldn’t give up the crossword. Neither would he countenance the idea of me doing anything that wasn’t directly involved with being his wife.

‘Where are you?’

He ignored the question. ‘I’ve heard you’re doing a show. A musical.’ He said this as if I was doing a sex act in public with a Dalmatian.

I laughed, pretty unconvincingly. ‘How did you hear that up the Amazon? Is there a South American edition of The Stage?’

David wasn’t amused. I could hear he sensed he wasn’t in control and In Control was where he lived.

‘World Service.’ That was a new name for Phyllida. ‘What do you think you’re playing at, Eleanor? I thought we agreed you’d given up all that silliness.’ His tone of headmasterly dismissal reduced me to a naughty child, as it always had.

‘I thought the money would be handy,’ I stuttered.

‘We don’t need money.’ He was incandescent. ‘I pay for you.’

‘Pay for me?,’ I repeated, stunned.

‘Don’t repeat everything I say, Eleanor, it’s very annoying.’

Not as annoying as seeing your husband humping another woman. Why couldn’t I just say it?

‘David.’ I reverted to silly little wife. ‘I’d like some money of my own. To spend. On myself.’

He made a noise which was a combination of a cough and a bark. ‘We’ll discuss it when I get home.’

‘Oh, when’s that?,’ I asked brightly, with a note of convincing anticipation.

‘Tomorrow. You can pick me up at the airport.’

That was the moment I should have said, No. I’ll pick you up from the scene of your adultery. From your bonk-fest with the Bike of Gloucester. But I didn’t. I wanted to see his face when I told him I knew who his chicken-eating spider was.

‘Oh, David, I’m sorry, I’m going to Plymouth, we’re opening the show down there.’

He wasn’t pleased. Not pleased at all, but then he was in South America, and the phones are notoriously unreliable over there.

‘Sorry, David, it’s a terrible line, I can’t hear you… Say again? No…you’re breaking up…’ And my index finger, ever so gently, rested on the button that ended the call.

I felt as though my hands were shaking, but they looked calm. My mind replayed the conversation over and over again, while every nerve was braced to hear the phone ring again. After five minutes it did. I forced myself to shut my case, then answered it, ready to accuse and admit.

‘Hallo love? All packed?’

‘KT?’

‘Who d’you think it was, Cameron Mackintosh? What time shall we meet at Paddington?’

‘I thought you were driving down with Kelvin.’ Publicly invisible though their liaison had been, I knew it was intense, every spare moment spent in sexual athletics.

‘No, he wants to exercise a bit of discreet in front of the company. Said I was going too fast! Me! Fast! I haven’t even made him Mam’s Welsh cakes yet and you know I never rim on the first date.’

‘What’s his problem?,’ I asked.

‘I dunno, maybe he’s a closet heterosexual. Who knows. Anyway, what time?’

‘Two o’clock under the main departures board.’

‘Right, see you.’

•

When I arrived at Paddington, KT was chatting up a policeman. It didn’t occur to him that a six-foot-two graduate of Hendon wearing a conspicuously new wedding ring might not be desperate for a blow job in the gents, but KT loved a challenge.

Reluctantly, he tore himself away from ‘Dave’ and we headed for the train, where KT unpacked a feast of sausage rolls, crisps, salads and fresh crunchy bread. He then produced a bottle of wine from a cool-bag decorated with a tap-dancing penguin.

‘Well, there you are,’ he said, very Welsh. ‘My mother’s not the Queen, but at least she dresses tidy.’

KT and I sat back in our ‘book in advance if there’s an R in the month and your granny was a Viking’ bargain first-class seats, and revelled in the illusion of exclusivity. The sparkling wine brought back the sensual pleasures of the night before with a shudder. I squirmed. KT smirked.

‘So? Did you?’

‘No, of course not.’

He knew I was lying. What he didn’t know was why, and neither did I. It wasn’t until later, when I was alone in the sea-front flat in Plymouth, looking out at the moon-rippled water, that I unwrapped that night with Dan.

He’d looked down at me as he cradled me in his right arm and said: ‘Tonight I love you more than anyone has ever loved you.’ And, look as I might, search though I did the depths of his eyes, I couldn’t find a lie. Describing the moment would have withered it. I didn’t want to know how many times he’d said it – or to whom.

KT watched me, but didn’t ask any more.

‘So what have you done about David?,’ he asked, screwing up my silence with the rubbish and putting it out of sight.

What had I done? What I always did when faced with a dilemma. Nothing. He was probably home by now. He’d left two messages on my mobile, tetchy that I hadn’t dropped everything for his homecoming. I wondered what present he’d bought me. These little souvenirs of his travels had always delighted me in the past, but now I wondered how many had been bought in the Fairtrade section of Oxfam. Once I’d settled into Plymouth I’d call him, placate him, save recriminations and confrontation until I got back. Maybe by then he’d be over Phyllida and I’d be over Dan and we’d live happily ever after. And maybe green pigs would fly over Clapham Common.

Alcohol and an excess of emotion made me maudlin, easy tears dripped onto my napkin. ‘Sorry, KT, I’m just being silly. A lot of people are much worse off than me.’

‘That doesn’t make it hurt any less though – you can’t compare apples with pandas.’

I wanted him to be right, but knew he simply had more courage than me, and far greater strength.

•

The route the cab took into Plymouth gave us a tour of the ring road and a good view of the back of Sainsbury’s. I dropped KT off at the flat he was sharing with Kelvin, Ruby and Gaffer Gusset, the assistant stage manager, a sweet-natured girl with a fierce amount of body piercings and an unlikely interest in Jonty.

My flat was on Grand Parade, at the bottom of the Hoe. At the top stood the Grand Hotel and stately houses, with the shadows of Victorians promenading, their parasols and top hats challenged by the breeze. I loved to pause half-way down the steep hill to look at the glittering water toying with delicate yachts, or bearing the last crumbs of our once great navy – a battleship, cruisers and once a nuclear submarine, which surprised me, naked, when I opened the bedroom curtains. And at night, walking back to the flat, lights on the water, the multi-coloured blinking of buoys and the luminous sky darkening to merge with the black sea.

There was something so English about the place, not twee or coy, but quietly elegant, with a becoming lack of exhibitionism in beauty or presentation.

‘Daahliing!’

The landlady, an eccentric and entirely enchanting ex-dancer who at the age of eighty could still manage an impressive high kick, embraced me, fussing me into the ground floor flat, which was actually eight feet above the ground, level with the imposing front door at the top of a flight of stone steps.

The bathroom was cold, the lavatory a short hike from the bedroom and there was no shower, but the living room made up for all. A huge bay window, the width of the wall, opened wide enough to enjoy the sun, ‘when it’s warm enough to sit’, as she would say, and gave a perfect view of the sea.

We gossiped while I unpacked my case and she was vastly amused by my description of Izzy and Viola, but she lightly laid her red-nailed, liver-spotted hand on my arm with the delicacy of a small lizard.

‘Eleanor, darling, this is a vanity project, isn’t it? In my experience they always turn ugly. Always. Make sure you’re protected.’

I hugged her and assured her this was going to be the exception. She went upstairs to her own apartment unconvinced.

•

The stage door keeper, Albert, greeted me as an old friend, and I was issued with a swipe card which we both knew would be lost within 24 hours. I took my key too and opened the door of the number one dressing-room. The familiar odour of air freshener and socks hit me in a wave of nostalgia. The stained sofa was unchanged, the fridge clean and empty, and the vast loo and shower innocent of past use. This was the old number one dressing-room, not the refurbished one which looked like an ad for disabled living aids. The old Rolf Harris panto mural was still on the wall, albeit added to over the years so that beside Goldilocks and the Giant from Jack and the Beanstalk, Hedda Gabler cavorted with the Ladyboys of Bangkok.

I considered the star on the door – look at me, ma, top of the bill! No roaming the corridors to find an unoccupied loo and no guessing the contents of the plughole in the communal shower. A small warm glow of happiness enveloped me as I laid out my stall on the dressing-table. Small towel, brushes, pencils, powders, creams, cologne, hair grips, wig nets, remover, moisturiser, mascara, liner, eyelashes, tissues, cotton buds, baby wipes, Strepsils, Beechams Flu-Plus, Rescue Remedy and Anusol for the bags under my eyes.

Through the unimpressive black door that led to the stage-left wing the technicians were working on stage, the tallescope in the centre, two burly men holding it steady while a stringy youth adjusted a lamp 25 feet above them. Coils of cable littered the floor and a cordless drill sounded in bursts. In the wings, props and furniture were being marshalled by Ruby, prop tables marked out in white tape, boxes labelled GLASS, NEWSPAPER, CUP, CAKES AND DON’T EAT THE FUCKING PROPS YOU GANNETS.

In the auditorium, the lighting designer’s desk, laden with lap-tops, anglepoise lamps and the debris of several meals, straddled the centre seats of row G. The sound designer worked a desk further back, programming in 25 microphones, back-up channels and fold-back speakers, which would allow us to hear the onstage band. Television monitors were slung from the front of the circle so we could see the musicians, to get some idea of when to sing and for how long.

The technical rehearsal would start in the morning. We’d be slapped and frocked by ten a.m. and not see daylight as we worked through until eleven in the evening, but tonight there was a relaxed atmosphere in the theatre, watched over by Basher.

Basher, the monstrous veteran production manager, was standing centre-stage, hands on hips, his massive tattooed arms flexing like wings.

‘Come on, you talentless lazy cunts, I want to be out of here by midnight. Oh, ’allo Eleanor. Suppose a fuck’s out the question?’

As always, he was dressed in knee-length army surplus khaki shorts, a T-shirt emblazoned with CREW on the back and GLYNDEBOURNE: WHEN THE LIGHTS GO OUT THE WALLS COME TUMBLING DOWN on the front. Circumnavigating the generous circumference of his belly was a rigger’s belt, from which hung everything from a machete to a bunny rabbit given to him by his infant daughter ten years before.

‘So they’ve got you back, have they? I thought you were in a home,’ he said, striding towards me with a grin that revealed a lot of things that didn’t look so much like teeth as the wreckage of a neglected graveyard.

‘Hallo, Basher. How’s it hanging?’

He kissed me – or rather, hit me with his face – and I was embraced by the strong odour of male sweat, cigarettes and beer. He held me at arms’ length, his brown-green eyes twinkling, sexy despite his glorious ugliness. ‘Fancy a small sherry?’

A small sherry to Basher was a bucket of wife-beater with a whisky chaser. ‘I’m meeting KT, but we’ll probably be over the Mexican later. I’ll buy you a pint of cooking lager.’

He turned away, still smiling, to berate a spotty lad who was trying to drag a flight of marble steps on stage.

‘Let the brake off, you great pillock. Fuckin’ work experience, you’ll experience my boot up your jacksie if you don’t get your finger out.’

‘Basher,’ I said, ‘you can’t talk to him like that any more, you’re infringing his human rights.’

‘Fuck off, Eleanor,’ he replied. ‘He’d have to be a human fuckin’ being in the first place. Look at him – Oi, you, the Top Turn’s taking an interest, stay still for a minute – if he had another brain cell he’d be a cactus, so don’t you go worrying your pretty little head about him. Go on you lump of pond life, get on with it.’

The spotty boy continued struggling with the steps.

‘Good afternoon, everyone.’ The doors at the back of the stalls opened and Dan, wearing a short black kimono over black jeans and boots, walked down the aisle. He saw me and came to the front of the stage. I squatted down in the time-honoured way of actor listening attentively to director.

‘Where you staying?,’ he asked quietly.

‘Grand Parade.’

‘Me too. I might pop in for a nightcap.’

Excitement made me laugh. ‘I’ll nip over to Oddbins.’

He ran a finger along the back of my hand so lightly it was like a breath, then called: ‘Is the stage ready, Basher?’

Basher sucked the air over the broken tombstones of his teeth. ‘Don’t be a cunt. What’s it look like?’

Dan immediately assumed his most charming persona.

‘I’m sorry, Basher, I just want to see a couple of lighting states. Would you mind?’

Basher, like the White Cliffs of Dover, was unaffected by charm. He shrugged. ‘I’ll give the crew a tea break. You’ve got fifteen minutes. No more if you want this ballet on stage before Easter.’

‘Thanks, I owe you one.’ Dan called back to the lighting designer: ‘Kill the workers.’ The flat ordinary light went off, but the blue backstage light still bled through.

‘Hang the blacks,’ shouted Basher, indicating a pile of midnight curtains in the wings. I left the stage, musing that we were the only profession in Britain who could say ‘kill the workers’ and ‘hang the blacks’ without getting arrested.

Just arriving at the stage door, loaded with flowers, was Susan, with Lee. She was being vivacious and irresistible for Albert, who was looking at her as if she was on day-release. Lee, in a pink lycra vest and satin hip-hugging trousers, was scanning the dressing-room list and carrying a make-up case with enough slap in it to do every model in Madame Tussaud’s. He saw me first.

‘Darling!’ He screeched. ‘How are your digs? Ours are fabulous, we’ll have to have you over one night.’

I’d rather have red-not needles shoved in my eyes.

‘What a great idea,’ I said. ‘Good for company morale. We can all bring something.’ Ebola Virus, possibly.

Albert was holding their dressing-room keys, which they took with a great show of nonchalance. But no matter what your opinion of yourself, it was the allocation of dressing-rooms and the order of the curtain call that told where you really stood. Susan had been put upstairs and, even more insulting, was sharing with the young juve lead, a girl of such vacuous stupidity it was easy to believe she was a natural blonde. Lee was even worse off: he was on the third floor, next to the washing machines.

‘Well, it’s only right. I said to Jonty I didn’t want the Old Farts having to climb all those stairs. I mean, I know I’ve got Billing but it just wouldn’t be fair on them…’

Lee’s self-delusion oozed over Susan’s righteous fury and allowed them each to save at least one of their faces.

‘Is Dan in yet?,’ Susan asked brightly, to no one in particular. She’d taken to behaving as if I didn’t exist unless I addressed her directly.

‘He’s in the auditorium,’ I said.

She tossed her head, presumably in the style of a high-bred filly.

‘Great cut,’ I lied. She looked like a Cruft’s poodle with a bubble perm which had been a mistake in the 1980s but was positively criminal in the 2000s. She ran her fingers through it, or at least as much of it that wasn’t the consistency of a rug.

‘Dan wants me to look glamorous…’ – she paused – ‘…for the show…’ Suggestion hung as heavy in the air as the perfume she was wearing. ‘I’ll go and find him.’

She wiggled past me. Her bust, in a clinging off-the-shoulder jumper, rested on the inner tube of fat round her diaphragm. She would describe herself as Rubenesque. I would describe her as a lump of lard with an undistinguished face and no chin.

KT appeared as if by magic.

‘She shouldn’t have her hair so short – it makes her face a feature.’

Lee, scenting the odour of bitching, came over.

‘What does she think she looks like?’

‘Kate Moss?,’ said KT innocently.

‘Stirling Moss, more like,’ hissed Lee, leaning on the ss.

‘Ooh, that dates you,’ said KT, a good ten years younger than Lee, despite the latter’s dyed black hair and botoxed brows.

‘Have Izzy and Viola spoken to you?,’ he asked, turning his back on KT and his small, unexceptional eyes on me.

‘No. Why?’ As I said it, I could feel a small knot of tension under my ribs. A chat with the producer meant trouble – and with Izzy, today’s hero was tomorrow’s jobseeker.

‘Oh, no reason, he just mentioned a few changes…forget I said anything darling… I’ll see you in the morning. Ciao.’ And off he went, having sown a seed of insecurity in my already over-planted allotment of self-doubt.

‘He’s just trying to undermine you,’ KT later reassured me as we trawled for the necessities of touring: wine, biscuits, chocolate and industrial amounts of Hulahoops.

I threw an organic chop in the basket, even though I knew there was more chance of it singing ‘Nearer My God to Thee’ while hanging from the Telecom Tower than me cooking it.

‘Trouble with Lee is, he thinks he’s the leading lady. But then so does Susan.’ He paused over the frozen fish. ‘Ellie, watch yourself. They’re like athlete’s foot those two, just waiting for an opportunity.’