22 The staff room lockers were each labelled with a stencilled number on a galvanised door. It was a small room with a couple of benches and bags, coats and belongings slung on hooks between the rows of lockers. Whoever she’d heard talking was no longer in the room.
When she located locker 138, she waved the bracelet at it, releasing the magnetic lock and unclipping the costume bag from the rail. Instead of a luxurious ballgown, there was a waiter’s outfit in the bag – flat shoes, black slacks and a white button-down shirt. She swallowed down an irrational swirl of disappointment – she wasn’t here to play make-believe, she reminded herself. Besides, throwing this outfit on in order to progress through the set would be quicker than making herself out like a Disney princess or a Home Counties heiress.
The clothes felt and smelled clean, so Petra hung up her coat and switched outfits. The costume fitted her well, and she didn’t want to think too much on the invasive scanning that must have happened over the previous two shows to get this right. All this high-corporate technology, these incredible sets, the amazing costumes and styling most of the audience got, supplied for a short-run theatre show – it didn’t make sense. How did they afford it? And why go to all this effort and expense for a single night of make-believe?
‘Camilla,’ someone called as Petra came out of the changing area to a pair of glass doors leading towards the vast lobby. A friendly voice, but insistent. Beyond the doors, the wide floor was chequerboard-tiled, its far end draped over by a broad, sinuous staircase swooping down from the mezzanine level. When the brewery was operating, those administrative offices would have looked down over the busy operations floor, but now the space appeared lifted straight out of a Busby Berkeley set in a Golden Age Hollywood musical. Several gowned and tuxedoed guests clustered around pedestals, nervously trying to get into the mood with coupes of champagne. Jazz piped from somewhere in the wings. Petra almost expected to see a line of chorus girls high-kicking down the stairs.
If she went up to the mezzanine, she could get a decent view of the audience. The lobby was warmly lit and it should be easier to spot Vincent if he was here. She pushed at the door.
‘Camilla. Camilla!’ It was only when Rashida hurried along the corridor from a darkened alcove, heels skitting skilfully across the hazardous polished tile and stopping right there, that Petra realised she was talking to her. For the couple of seconds she was allowed, Petra scoured her face. If this was one of the incendiary creatives behind Metamuse, surely there should be something supranormal about her, but there was nothing too unusual about her bland prettiness that was lifted by her make-up and styling. For a moment, Petra glimpsed something familiar about the woman when she stopped in front of her, but the recognition dissolved. ‘Thanks so much for coming at such late notice, dear. Charlie dropped out at the last minute. He’s so bloody unreliable. We’re short-handed as it is, and we can’t fuck this up. It’s an important night. Lots of VIPs – as always at these university dos. So you know what to do, right?’
Rashida was putting on a stagey, public voice, and Petra guessed this was a scripted scene, one of those calls to action intended to get the audience moving in the right direction. She tried to avoid the conversation. ‘No, sorry,’ she said. ‘I think you’ve got the wrong person. I’m not Camilla.’
Rashida pasted a toothy snarl-smile on her face, threw her head back and laughed. ‘Yes you are, darling,’ she said, pointing at Petra’s chest, where a small name tag was pinned to the shirt pocket. ‘You were briefed at check-in.’
Of course she was: outside, Jessica Rabbit had told her what role she was playing. ‘Oh, God, I’m sorry.’ Petra blushed genuinely. Stuffing up the game in front of its creator. ‘I remember now. What do you need me to do?’
Rashida smiled thinly. ‘Don’t worry. Just go through to the kitchen. Salvador will see to you.’ She pointed further down the side corridor. ‘Remember, Camilla. This is a great opportunity for you and great things might happen to you. You should try your best.’
Petra didn’t know how to answer, so she didn’t say anything as she watched Rashida push through the glass doors into the lobby. Once she had disappeared into the crowd there, Petra tried to follow, intending to make for the stairs. She pushed at the door but it didn’t budge. A magnetic lock held the top and the bottom fast, a discreet red LED shining on a pad on the door handle.
Shit. This wasn’t her route. She’d have to go and see Salvador – the show would only let her advance from there.
Down the corridor, a large glass-fronted room with three massive stainless steel vats on one side and steel worktops along the other was doubling as the kitchen set. Back in real life, this room would have housed some technical stage of the brewing process – the vats were interspersed with blocky industrial machines with coloured buttons and dials on their fronts, and tubes running from them over stations on the worktops. Everything had been wiped down and polished, and the smell of food cooking from somewhere deeper in this area mingled with the persistent memory of yeast and fermenting barley. The room was staffed by a cluster of waiters dressed in the same black-and-white uniform as hers, and five or six white-jacketed kitchen staff. Two waiters were filling trays full of flat champagne coupes and sending others out to serve them, while along another long bench, the cooks were finalising trays of canapes. They were getting on with their job quietly and efficiently, clearly not playacting the part.
‘Ah, Camilla. New girl, there you are. Come here.’
The man’s voice was loud and dramatically projected – the voice, she was noticing, set the actors apart more than anything. She wondered what the staff thought of her, playing at being a worker while the rest of them did their jobs. Despite this awkwardness, despite her disciplined intention to focus solely on extracting Vincent, she felt a thrill of the immersion kicking in. No matter how disturbing Cabinet had been, it was tempting to follow another storyline, play along with this exclusive brand of opulent make-believe. To be utterly someone else for a few hours.
She located the fake chef standing between the two furthest vats.
I won’t, she told herself. But playing along for now is the only way out into the lobby.
‘You’re Salvador, right?’
‘Correct. Listen, Camilla. We have a special job for you.’ He picked up a high-edged teak serving tray from a shelf and handed it to her. On the plush navy-blue velvet lining sat three cut-glass tumblers, an unlabelled squat and square decanter of alcohol, and an ornate silver ice bucket. ‘Please deliver this to the VIP in the Club Room.’