Lucky Break (26 page)

The Tour

Outside the theatre Nell stopped for a minute and caught her breath. She was only ten days into an eight-week run but already the thought of setting eyes on Bernard made her queasy. The bullet shape of his head, his stomach taut under his rollneck top, the mean shape of his mouth as he heaped scorn on everything the company said or did. Nell made herself concentrate on the rest of the cast – Chrissie, who played Bernard's wife, solid, sensible Gavin. And Saul, quiet and watchful, who'd read with her at the audition.

Nell heard raised voices even as she ran up the stairs. ‘This tour,' Bernard was saying as she opened the dressing-room door, ‘is a poncy load of rubbish.' He had a list of the venues in his hand and he was staring at it in disgust. ‘You said we'd be playing working men's clubs, political centres, union halls. But no, we're off to the Ambleside Women's Institute, and from there we'll be at . . . wait for it . . . The Lake District Ramblers' Association.'

Matthew, their director, a pale man, prone to attacks of giggles, swallowed. ‘We will be going to Southport. That's only an hour from Liverpool. And we're still holding out hope for York.'

Chrissie put a hand on Bernard's arm. ‘Whoever's in the audience, they're still important. Think of the service you're providing. The inspiration.'

‘Inspiration my arse,' Bernard shook her off. And Chrissie retreated, wounded, to her allotted space before the mirror.

There was a pause while Matthew gathered up the courage to give notes. ‘So,' he took a short shallow breath. ‘Nell. Not quite sure what you were doing last night, but good. Maybe a tad quicker? And funnier if you can? Gavin, you're losing the laugh at the end of Act 1. Take your time. Stay with it. Now, Chrissie.' He sighed. ‘Energy.' He made a swooping movement with his hand. ‘It's not
Swan Lake
. And was your apron on backwards? I see. Interesting. Keep it.' Saul, as ever, was perfect. ‘So, Bernard . . .' The others all looked up. What would he say to Bernard, who'd mangled his last big speech to such an extent that the sense had all but disappeared. ‘Bernard,' he said. ‘That was . . .' Matthew closed his eyes and opened them again. ‘Unique.'

‘Cheers!' Bernard raised a tumbler of what everyone hoped was water to his lips. ‘What would you do without me, eh?' And draining the contents of the glass, he went down to the stage to check his props.

 

‘Oh my God,' Nell called Pierre from a phone box in Keswick. ‘He's getting worse. Tonight he cut my cue, then skipped to the end of the scene, so, I promise you, I walked on, and then without saying a word, ten minutes later I walked off again.'

Pierre cackled with laughter. ‘I'll have to come up and see it. Unless of course it transfers to the West End.'

‘The weird thing is . . .' Nell was reluctant to admit it. ‘Some nights he's sort of brilliant.'

‘Maybe Bernard's actually a genius.'

‘He certainly thinks he is. But the truth is he's probably a sad old drunk.'

‘Darling . . .' Nell could hear the buzz and beep of switchboard phones. ‘I'd love to talk, but I'm meant to be in a managers' meeting in . . . Christ, twenty-five seconds. Call tomorrow?'

‘Sure. Bye then. Bye.' Nell stood with the receiver to her ear, breathing in the last echoes of a familiar voice. She could try Charlie, but Charlie wouldn't pick up if she saw an unknown number, and Sita was in Bristol, in a hospital drama, providing the subplot of a nurse forced into an arranged marriage. Anyway, Nell thought, looking at the darkening hills. I'd better get going. For one brief moment she considered calling her father, who was in Scotland, not so very far away, but the thought that his new wife might answer and ask who it was, stopped her from dialling. Instead she stepped out into the late afternoon, glancing at the peak above her where all day fog had been collecting. As she walked towards the theatre, white tendrils began spiralling down, cloaking the already silent town in quiet. Who would their audience be tonight? she wondered as she hurried through the empty streets, and she tried to imagine who might venture out on an evening like this to see a play about the evils of capitalism, even if it was billed as a farce. But then again, what else was there to do here? Nell peered into the window of a boutique, already closed, displaying an assortment of heather-coloured capes. There was a newsagent, shut too, and a pub with gritty, rendered walls, the silhouettes of a few early drinkers passing blurrily behind its mottled glass. But for all Nell knew, tonight there might be someone in for whom this play would be the bright spark of their lives. Someone changed for ever. Set on a different course. As a child she'd been taken to see a touring production of
The Playboy of the Western World
and from almost the first scene she'd felt her heart expand until she'd thought it might be going to burst. I'll do anything, she told herself, as the actors laughed and fought and danced, I'll dress up in sacking, play an old woman, sweep the stage, if it means that one day I can be like them.

‘Good show tonight,' Bernard said later as they climbed into the mini-van, half an hour later than usual. ‘Really excellent performance, if I say so myself.' And in lieu of last orders which they'd all now missed due to an improvised dance routine inserted by Bernard into the second half, he lit up the stub end of his cigar, and took a swig of whisky from his hip flask.

 

But even so, no one expected, for a minute, that Bernard would desert them.

‘Where is he anyway?' Matthew asked as they assembled in the vast dressing room of Southport's Theatre Royal.

‘Don't worry, he'll turn up.' Chrissie was handing round brightly coloured mugs of tea. ‘He's turned up late before.' And it was true. Bernard had arrived more than once after the half, sauntering in, unrepentant. ‘Places to go, people to see,' he'd winked, and he'd waved his furled-up newspaper in their faces. Nell often wondered where he'd actually been. She tried to picture him sitting in his B&B, his shoes kicked off, his gut spilling over his suit trousers, fathoming out the crossword, just waiting for the day to be done.

But the half came and went. ‘Where is the bastard?' Matthew fretted, having failed to get him on his phone, and he threw one weak shoulder against the wall, causing the mirror lights to flicker. Just then the stage manager thundered up the stairs with the news that Bernard had been seen, earlier that day, hitching towards Manchester. ‘God knows where he'll be by now.'

‘No!' Chrissie looked as shaken as if her own real husband had abandoned her. ‘What are we going to do?'

‘We'll think of something.' Gavin began massaging her shoulders. ‘Don't worry. Just stay calm.'

Nell remained silent. She was playing Bernard's noodle-headed daughter-in-law, and she'd learnt from experience that any comments she made were usually ignored.

‘OK,' Saul was drumming his fingers against the formica of the dressing table. ‘Matthew, how about you go on with the book, and then we get a few days off anyway, and we can find someone who'd be able to take over.'

‘The show must go on,' Chrissie said weakly.

Matthew didn't look remotely relieved. ‘Fantastic idea,' he said. ‘I'll get someone to start calling round right now,' and paler than ever he went through to Bernard's dressing room to try on his voluminous costume.

 

Nell stood in the wings, her hand over her mouth, too frightened to laugh as she watched the play unfold. Matthew's pork-pie hat was perched at an unstable angle, the cigar, Bernard insisted on smoking, trembling in his hand. As he spoke Matthew waved his sheaf of photocopied script, but he didn't refer to it at all. The audience, as usual, looked stunned. Go on, don't stop, Nell willed him on, as he fumbled for the lines, and then mercifully Gavin climbed through the window in his policeman's uniform and began chasing him round the stage.

‘How's it going?' Saul was beside her in the dark. Nell inhaled his warm and smoky smell, so familiar from this moment of proximity, repeated every night. ‘Not bad,' she kept her eyes on the stage, ‘but he's not sticking to the script.'

They stood side by side, listening to Matthew as he scrambled from scene to scene.

‘Bloody hell.' Saul tensed, his cue hurtling towards him. ‘I'm on.'

‘Have fun,' Nell whispered as he glided away from her, too superstitious to risk Good Luck, and she watched for the moment when he and Matthew came face to face. There was a tiny terrifying pause as neither of them spoke. Instead they stood, rigid, their eyes glued to each other's, the corners of their mouths twitching, hilarity dancing in their throats, but then Saul bit hard into his lip, turned away and with a visible effort of control, spoke his first line.

‘What's happening?' Chrissie was beside Nell now, and before she could answer, they heard their own cue, three pages early. ‘What shall we do?' Chrissie gasped and Nell, catching Saul's frantic look, grabbed her hand and rushed her on.

Matthew didn't notice. He flapped his unused script and raged and roared into his big monologue while the rest of the cast stood in a line, their eyes on the floor, waiting to find their way back in. Nell stood beside Saul, the only time in the entire play when she did, and as she listened for her cue, she forgot about her Action and her Activities, the rhythm of her Inner Attitude, her decision never again to get entangled with an actor, or for that matter, a stage manager, and instead drifted into daydreams – Saul, choosing the seat beside her as they travelled in the mini-van, Saul, draping his arm around her as they slept. Nell snapped open her eyes. Twice now she'd been so caught up in these reveries that she'd forgotten to come in with her line and Saul himself was forced to reach out and nudge her, sharply, in the side. ‘It wasn't me, Inspector, honest, it was those bastards upstairs,' she shouted, still, amazingly, evoking a laugh, and Matthew, seeing the end in sight, gained confidence, even attempting a small routine with oranges that he'd warned everybody he'd most likely omit. But he managed it, almost, catching one orange in the crook of his arm, another flying into the third row, so that the play ended in a burst of applause with the five actors bowing low down to the floor, beaming, while Matthew's script was hurled high into the air.

That night the drinks flowed. ‘Cheers. Well done, mate.' Even Gavin, usually so serious, sat grinning at their table. ‘What a relief, we don't need him after all.' He held up his pint, and they agreed that life without Bernard was infinitely superior.

 

Philip, Bernard's replacement, was a small, neat man. He'd played the same part at Taunton only eighteen months before and he'd spent his train journey re-acquainting himself with the play, so that by the first rehearsal he already had a better grasp of the lines than Bernard ever had. They spent all of Sunday rehearsing, and Monday too, and by Monday night the play was just about ready.

‘Break a leg,' ‘See you on there,' ‘You'll be great,' they all told him and each other, and during the performance the only alarm that sounded was when Nell drifted into her daydream and forgot to come in with her line.

‘You dope.' Matthew sat down beside her. ‘What's going on in that dreamy head of yours? I'm watching you, and I see it, you go all soppy.'

Matthew was like a girl. He loved to talk. He loved to gossip and surmise, and once, before a show at Wigton, they'd stopped at a tearoom and he'd eaten three cream cakes in a row. ‘Come on . . .' Matthew wasn't letting it go, ‘you can tell me in confidence . . . you know I'll never breathe a word.'

‘Stop it.' Nell shushed him. ‘You'd be the last person I'd tell.' And just then Saul appeared and she took a quick gulp of her wine.

Matthew winked and raised his eyebrows, and the next night on stage Nell almost cut him off, she came in so quickly with her line.

 

It took a few days before anyone could bear to admit it, but Philip wasn't funny. True, he knew his lines, didn't branch off into spontaneous improvisation or cut someone else's speech, leaving them open-mouthed and stranded, as Bernard had often done, but even so, there was something vital missing.

Philip was impervious. ‘Good show tonight, don't you think?' he said as he sat neat and amiable at the bar.

‘I have told him,' Matthew was quick to waive his responsibility, ‘but he insists on doing it the Taunton way,' and the others shook their heads and ordered more drinks and drifted into favourite tales of their own and others' escapades on other nights, in other productions, in other theatres and plays.

What none of them had realised was that it was Bernard who'd held the company together. His awful jokes, his petty complaints, his outbursts on and off stage had united them as a group. But now that they had Philip, with his hiking boots and light all-weather clothing, they found they had nothing in common. Splinter groups formed. Nell and Chrissie spent an afternoon looking round Scarborough. Gavin and Saul attempted to find a pub that showed the rugby, but soon, it was Nell, Saul and Matthew that sloped off most regularly together. Gorging themselves in teashops, wandering round deserted seaside towns, drinking past last orders, hoping to come across a nightclub in Stockton or Penrith. One night, just as in Nell's fantasy, they arrived at their bed and breakfast late and finding no one up, and Nell's room locked from the inside, they piled into Matthew and Saul's twin room. Matthew lay down first, not bothering to undress or even climb under the bedspread, and Nell, suddenly both cold and sober, watched as Saul tugged the covers out from under him and tucked him in. They stood there, then, uncertain, and Saul offered to sleep on the floor. ‘No, don't be silly,' she said, and so he pulled off his jeans and climbed into the narrow bed, and with that same shy smile with which he greeted her each night in the wings, he looked up at her now. ‘Getting in?'