That night, Dan and I shared my bed, cocooned in alcohol and forgiveness, sleeping together late into Sunday morning. Burgh Island was forgotten, Susan and Viola unmentioned as we coiled around each other. Life was too short.
After getting hammered on tequila slammers, the party had broken up at about four a.m. in the little rat cove on the sea front. We’d all made so much noise going down the dark concrete steps onto the rocky shore that there were no vermin to be seen, but that didn’t stop some of the girls, and a few of the less robust boys, shrieking at every suspicious shadow. Bottles, cans and packets of crisps were produced, and Flossie showed his boy-scout roots by making a fire, around which we huddled as if it was mid-February in Norway instead of mid-February in Plymouth.
Relief, alcohol and exhaustion gave the party a manic edge and with another turn of the popular tide Dan and I were crowned monarchs of the company with garlands of stinking kelp. Flossie became the trusted first minister, Karen the Dowager Duchess and KT the Queen Mother. He squeezed my hand as he slipped away early with the Canadian.
‘Goodnight, cariad. Don’t think we’ll be getting up tomorrow.’ A brief air-kiss and they were gone. Soon everyone followed, in search of sleep, sex, drugs or solitude. Dan and I were the last, sitting shivering happily on the flat sheet of cement which jutted into the softly lapping water. Velvet-wet weed softened the man-made surface and small-shelled creatures shuffled along it, finding a home on its ugliness.
‘You know,’ said Dan, gazing out at the winking buoys in the distance, ‘I’m not sure I should have changed my mind tonight. Maybe I should have just walked away. For God’s sake, it’s only a show.’
‘Dan, it’s never only a show.’
His face was illuminated like a Velasquez by the dying fire. He looked down at his cigarette. ‘I’m just glad I’ve got you, Eleanor.’
‘Don’t be too sure of that.’ I was surprised by how hard I sounded. He didn’t look up. ‘Tell me about Susan.’
‘There’s nothing to tell. I slept with her. Ends.’ He flicked his cigarette away.
‘Why? Why did you sleep with her, Dan?’
Stupid possessive question which he didn’t answer, whether because he was thinking about it or because he didn’t want to, I couldn’t tell. I didn’t know him except in bed and in the rehearsal room, neither a place for honesty.
‘Why did I sleep with her?,’ he said eventually. ‘I can’t resist an opportunity. Why does a dog lick its balls? Because it can. ’ He paused. I smiled to show I’d got the joke. Not that I was particularly amused to be compared to a retriever’s scrotum. ‘It ruined my marriage – and every relationship I’ve ever had. But I can’t stop myself.’
‘And us?’
He looked at me for the first time, very tenderly and with the unspoken regret of an alcoholic faced with an impossible choice. ‘Depends what you want, Eleanor.’
What did I want? A happy marriage, an Oscar and a perfect bum.
‘I just want to enjoy what we’ve got. For as long as we can keep it going.’ I hoped I sounded easy-going, uninterested in spinning a web of ownership.
‘Tonight,’ he said. ‘And if I walk away tomorrow morning and don’t come back?’
‘That’s cool,’ I said, using a word I barely knew the meaning of, let alone whether it was still current parlance. He laughed at my earnest attempt at careless rapture.
‘Oh, Eleanor. I do…’ – he hesitated on the L of the next word – ‘…like you. Come on, let’s go to bed, I’m getting wet rot sitting here.’ He pulled me to my feet. ‘I don’t want to walk away, you know. Not from you or the show.’
We kissed, and probably would have got further carried away by the romance of the moment, but the rats, encouraged by the quiet, were reclaiming their territory. Had we lain down, or even sat down, we’d have been overrun, leaving two clean-picked skeletons in a carnal embrace.
‘What happens if she is pregnant?,’ I asked, as we walked along the front.
‘You said she couldn’t be.’ He stopped under a street lamp. The ghastly light was perfect for his expression of horror. What was it like to be told an action very likely forgotten could create a human being who could take your freedom, your name and your wages?
‘I could be wrong.’
‘Eleanor, I’ve watched you work an audience. You’re never wrong.’
Yes, it was bullshit; yes, it gave him an escape from facing the question, but after so many years of David’s rations of grudging approval I didn’t care.
That night we made love slowly, with no pressure to perform or reach orgasm or to impress with our versatility – consequently it was a memorable marathon lubricated by the remains of a bottle of port and something very close to love.
In the late morning we were asleep in the dark of the closeted bedroom when Dan’s phone rang. It was on the other side of the folding doors, muffled under clothes, the furniture or carpet – we couldn’t tell which, as we ran round naked trying to find it. Dan finally fished it out from the back of the sofa, but not before he’d given a coach-load of pensioners a full-frontal view of his impressive manhood. Though quite how impressive they would have found it after the chamfering it had had that night I didn’t know.
‘It’s Viola,’ he said, reading the missed-call display. ‘Better call her back.’
I wanted to tell him not to bother, but she was the heroine of the moment and probably just needed reassurance, having stood up to Izzy.
I sleepily admired the back view of his body as he waited for her to answer. Neat, small bottom, good thighs, lightly furred, broad shoulders and a comforting rather than unattractive layer of flesh over his ribcage and the top of his hips. There was nothing a younger model could offer except speed and a flashier chassis.
‘Hi, Viola, how – ? We’ll come over. Eleanor and I.’ He looked round at me. We, not I. I liked that, even if I didn’t want to spend my Sunday listening to the whingeing Viola Duck. ‘Stay where you are.’
So much for a lazy day in bed eating toast and watching television. We bundled out of the house without showering, as Dan seemed to think it was urgent enough to ignore such niceties, arriving at the local hospital reeking of stale cigarettes, alcohol and sex. I doubt Viola would have recognised any of them, even if she’d been calmly drinking coffee rather than pacing up and down the reception area wringing her hands like a Wal-Mart Lady Macbeth.
‘Oh, Dan, Dan, Izzy was in intensive care. His heart stopped twice.’
‘Third time lucky,’ I muttered. Dan pinched me hard on the arm and I yelped. Viola mistook it for an expression of grief.
‘It’s okay, Eleanor, he’s gonna pull through. He took sleeping-pills, aspirin – everything. Because I sacked him. I did that to him…’ Pause for expressions of horror to appear on our stricken faces. ‘I found him when I got back… He tried to kill himself. He said I hurt him last night, Dan.’ She sobbed in a cross between indignation and terror. ‘I’m the one who nearly killed him. He says he’s never been so humiliated and it was me, his wife, who did it. The one person in the world he should be able to trust.’ He’d recovered enough to push the guilt button then. ‘Dan, I’m gonna have to bring him back on board. This show is his life. He’s upstairs now, in a room; they moved him about an hour ago – and he won’t speak a word.’
Dan wasn’t finding Izzy’s silence as amusing as I was, but then he hadn’t gone down the suicide cul-de-sac as recently as I had.
‘Viola, you know I can’t work with him, or rather he can’t work with me. He doesn’t trust me –’
‘Oh he does, Dan, he does –’ Her pitch and tone would have shattered glass. ‘It’s me, his wife, he doesn’t trust.’
‘Viola, Izzy is…unpredictable.’
How had Dan plucked that word out of the English language when so many others were more accurate? Viola’s face showed a flash of the cornered animal I’d seen before. Overwhelmed by guilt, she’d do anything to appease Izzy. If Dan was going to see the show through to birth, he couldn’t afford to alienate her.
‘If you can guarantee he won’t interfere. Won’t come into the theatre or try to change anything, anything at all…’ he said, the words filtered through layers of reluctance, ‘…and if you keep him out of production meetings, then I have no problem. But he is not, absolutely not, to come backstage at any time. Is that clear? I don’t want him doing anything behind my back. Particularly – and I mean this –’ she pricked up her ears and cocked her head to one side, ‘– on Tuesday.’
‘Tuesday?,’ she repeated.
‘Yes, Viola, I told you,’ said Dan, with exaggerated patience. ‘I have to go to Edgware. I told you, my administrator is leaving, there’s a gala in her honour. I have to be there.’
‘Oh, but Dan,’ Viola started, screwing up her face in distress.
‘No buts, Viola. It’s in my contract, signed by Izzy. I won’t be here.’
The pitch of her voice was rising again. ‘But Dan, it’s press night. It’s real important.’
‘No, Viola. Press night in London is important, and we’ve made sure by being so far away that none of the nationals will come here.’
‘Dan, I have to tell you, the Schumachers weren’t sure about the show, we need good press.’ Her blind obstinacy was coming up against Dan’s determination. Her head went down as she became more truculent, Dan’s chin rose with exasperation.
‘Viola, they are Broadway producers, real ones.’ She didn’t catch the reference to Izzy’s dodgy credentials. ‘They are not going to make a decision about this after seeing an out-of-town preview and reading the opinions of a couple of gardening correspondents. I’ve no idea why Izzy got them to come so early anyway.’
Unexpectedly that took the wind out of her. ‘Oh well, you see, Dan…’ She then looked up at him, her eyes horribly magnified by her glasses. ‘Izzy’s looking for investors.’
That piece of news left Dan and me totally becalmed. Had he, they, really come this far without finance?
Viola rushed to reassure us. ‘No, see, Izzy has the money. We have the money.’
‘Yes, you’re an oil-heiress Viola,’ I offered.
‘Well…kind of. My grandfather made a billion, but his sons lost most of it. I have a trust fund, but I can’t touch that without…’
‘Without what, Viola?’
She looked at Dan fearfully, afraid she’d lose her prince if he found she was a penniless peasant girl. ‘Without the permission of the lawyers. My grandfather said the only man who’d marry me would be after my money.’
I was shocked at her brutal honesty. Poor woman.
‘Izzy just wants to offer them an in on the ground floor. If they want the show on Broadway what could be better for them, huh? It’s four times the cost of London, so to transfer the show makes financial sense. Please, please don’t tell him I said anything.’
Dan saw his advantage. ‘Viola, don’t worry.’ He put his arm round her shoulders. She reacted as if he’d put her fingers in a three pin socket. He moved to put his hands on her shoulders, pulling her close and placing his forehead gently against hers. ‘You want the best for the show. And so do I, you know that.’ She nodded. He pressed on with the gentleness of a good gigolo. ‘As long as I can go to my theatre on Tuesday and Izzy leaves Plymouth until I’m back, there’s no problem. That’s my condition, Viola. Izzy must not be anywhere near Plymouth while I’m in Edgware. Do you understand?’
She was pathetically grateful. What he’d asked for was nothing in comparison with what she was prepared to give. ‘Dan, that’s wonderful. Thank you. Thank you so much. I’ll go tell him. We’ll go to Cornwall. A little break would be good for all of us.’
She did a little skip towards the lift, her sneakers slapping on the marble floor. Then she skipped back and planted a kiss on Dan’s mouth. I think she was aiming for his cheek but he turned as she approached and they came together like two spaceships docking. I wondered how she liked the softness of his lips. Surely more alluring than the soggy dish-clout she was used to. But then Viola was far too rich to know what a dish-clout was.
We left the hospital determined to be positive about Izzy’s ultimate blackmail trick. The pay-off, after all, was not prohibitive.
‘Do you want to go back to bed?,’ Dan asked.
‘Would you be offended if I said no?’ The sight of Viola’s mouth on his had quite put me off. ‘We could go to Lewis’s do.’
Some of the company were gathering for a meal organised by our oldest member, a charming, immensely generous actor who was invariably rude to me. Early on in rehearsal I’d phoned an actress who’d worked with him before.
‘Oh, darling,’ she drawled, ‘Don’t take any notice, he does it to anyone who’s not in the chorus. It’s just his sense of humour. He’s all right underneath, really, he’s just a bit, well…’
‘Chippy?,’ I suggested.
‘Australian,’ she said.
When we arrived there were about thirty people – actors, musicians, techies and theatre staff – sitting around an immensely long trestle-table surrounded by tall gas-heaters under a striped awning in the garden of a large pub. On a bright English summer’s day it would have been idyllic; unfortunately it was cold and grey with a horizontal drizzle, although this did little to damp the air of barely suppressed hysteria. The overwhelmed waitress quickly confused our orders and those who’d asked for beef were given lamb; vegetarians, slabs of steak. Finally Basher gathered anything not claimed and chewed his way through the lot. We were frozen, wet and monumentally drunk.
‘Oi, Cornish.’
‘Wha’s that, Somerset?’
Two of the boys were standing on the table, innocent West Country lads lost in a maze of choreography.
‘You wanna do that there bugger of a finale dance then, Cornish?’
‘Oi’d rather have me arms cut off with a spoon –’
We banged the table, yelling encouragement. They rolled up their trouser legs.
‘Y’ere we go then, Somerset, two three four…’ They gyrated to a clave beat heard only in Polperreth. ‘Right…now then, this be how it goes… Twist like a Mary…bit of Michael Jackson – no frightening the kids mind…cock yer leg at the lamp post…and big finish…hands up, “Don’t shoot I’m just the window cleaner”.’
While we cheered, shouted and stomped our approval, Susan arrived, and our cheers for them became cheers for her. She received them graciously but, with her health being so delicate – her limp was so bad I was surprised she didn’t have a crutch and a parrot – we moved inside, clearing the bar of civilians in under fifteen minutes.
It was cosy, with a log fire at one end, in front of which we steamed like so many cows in a barn. I was getting a round in when I saw Dan take Susan to a small booth almost out of sight. KT came and stood, blocking my view.
‘Lip-reading?’
‘No, I’m just…’
He pursed his mouth in disapproval. ‘Don’t you take no notice of that slapper. And do you think,’ he added so quietly I had to lean forward to hear him, ‘do you honestly think that she’d be slamming down the large vodkas if she was pregnant? Don’t be twp gell, she’d be behaving like this was the second coming – orange juice and folic acid spritzers.’
Not only was she swigging a large vodka, she was reaching out to accept a cigarette from Dan. ‘And she says she doesn’t smoke,’ I said indignantly.
‘Let’s face it,’ said KT. ‘She’d burst into bloody flames if it meant Dan was looking at her. There is no way she’s having a baby. What’s the betting she’s telling him she miscarried?’ We looked at each other, thinking the same thought. ‘Because you pushed her over, you vicious cow. Very convenient.’
I wanted to slap her simpering smooth-skinned face. That skin that looked so tight across her flushed cheeks that my hand would split them open – an over-ripe tomato full of rot. But I just stood there. KT pulled me back.
‘Come on, don’t you dare buy me a drink, my gell.’
Still hissing with anger and jealousy, I drank too much, laughed too loudly and generally made a fool of myself. Eventually, Dan noticed and came over.
‘Don’t you think you’ve had enough, Ellie?’
‘The only thing I’ve had enough of is her –’
‘I’m going to walk Susan back to her digs –’
‘Why? What’s she come up with this time? Terminal cancer?’
I knew as I said it Dan was horrified. This was not unconditional love. He took a pace back, away from me and my lairy drunkenness, smiled and wished everyone goodnight.
What was it he’d said? Tonight? Tomorrow? Who knows? Well, I thought bitterly as I weaved my way back to the flat, bouncing off various landmarks on the way, I was a total prat-magnet. Top Turn I may be, but Top Totty? Not even close. I was in a maudlin stupor of tears and white wine when Dan tapped on the window of the flat.
Too late to pretend I’d sobered up. I managed to get to the front door, open it and allow him in before I fell over. He caught me and barely winced as I hiccuped alcoholic stomach gas in his face. If my tear-streaked face and red eyes didn’t give away my state of inebriated misery, the pile of used tissues and hastily discarded pink elephant did. He picked it up, played with its trunk and put it on the bed, where it sat on the pillows like a furry starfish.
‘Come here, you silly thing,’ he said, holding his arms out to me. Me silly? I wasn’t silly. I was offended. Hurt. Treated with a lack of respect. My outrage came out as:
‘Oh, Dan, you came back.’
‘Of course I came back.’ He began undressing me with innocent practicality.
I wanted to talk, but my mouth wasn’t working. Once I was naked, Dan guided me to the bed, slid me under the covers and tucked the elephant under my arm. Then he sat and stroked my cheek until I began to doze, aware I should drink water and eat pain-killers.
‘Eleanor…? Susan’s not pregnant.’
‘Mmm?’
‘She was pregnant but now she’s not.’
‘KT was right,’ I murmured, not sure if this was real or a dream.
‘She wasn’t pretending. She really was pregnant, she even showed me the test.’
‘She faked it,’ I tried to say, but it sounded more like ‘fuck it’.
‘She lost it. Last night.’
Casualty must’ve been confused, coming in with a metatarsal and going out with a miscarriage. But I was too close to sleep and too far from sober to say anything.
‘They said at the hospital there was nothing they could do, so she came back and did the show anyway – she’s been up all night, very upset…it was when you…’ He thought better of finishing. ‘The fall caused it. I was sorry for her. But when she first told me, I felt trapped and guilty. But then… Shit… I don’t know. I shouldn’t have taken it out on you. I’m sorry.’
What was he apologising for? She’d taken him for the ride of his life, blamed me and he’d believed her. I passed out before I could analyse anything but the rising tide of nausea that tasted of rioja and roast potatoes.