Midsummer Madness (18 page)

‘I don’t want to work in London any more,’ I said, wondering who was saying this. ‘I want to live in Dorset with my son.’

‘So we’d pay to put you up at a hotel in London, five star. The show would only be three nights a week, Friday, Saturday, Sunday. Email contact during the week. A weekend show only, Sophie.
First-class
travel, generous clothes allowance. Send a car for you if it’s the wrong kind of rain on the line. Dorset isn’t the Outer Hebrides. It’s only a couple of hours away.’

‘I’ve got a small flat in London,’ I said, mentally rescuing dumped books and putting them back on shelves. ‘Which I rent.’

‘Even better. We’ll pay the rent. A lot less hassle for Administration.’

‘But I’m not on the Internet.’

‘We’ll lend you a laptop.’

‘With a proper contract?’ I asked, surfacing carefully, but still stepping on shards of glass. My brain was beginning to function with a strong instinct for survival.

‘Three months initially, with an option. See how it goes. Well, what do you say, Sophie? It’ll be fun, brilliant. So different. A real person talking sense about the theatre. The viewers loved you. They haven’t stopped phoning in.’

What could I say? Every journey begins with a single step. I put out a foot. My left one, I think it was. Then I went shopping and bought some flowers for Hilda.

Mark was ecstatic. He shadow boxed round me in the kitchen, pulling no punches. I swear he’d grown another inch since I’d last been home.

‘This’ll be brilliant,’ he said. ‘You’ll be at home all week.’ Punch, punch. ‘Then buzz off to London on a Friday and be home again on Monday morning. You’ll be here practically all the time. Wow, awesome.’ Punch, near miss.

‘But not at the weekends,’ I reminded him.

‘Oh, that’s OK. I’m always busy. I’ll watch you on telly.’

‘You’ll do no such thing.
After Dark
is on far too late. You’ll be in bed.’

I could see his brain ticking over, manipulating the situation. ‘If we had a video, I could record the programme, then I wouldn’t need to stay up so late. I could watch it several times and give you pointers,’ he suggested loftily. ‘You know, tips from the viewer’s point of view.’

It was my umpteenth coffee that morning. I tried not to laugh. ‘Thanks a lot. I guess I’m going to need all the help I can get,’ I said.

‘And Miss Ferguson at school is going to ask you if you are free to do drama coaching a few afternoons a week. She’s going to write you a proper letter. I said you probably would.’

‘So what are you now? My agent? Thanks very much. I need an agent like I need an industrial licence.’

‘There’s lot of schools round here, especially posh boarding schools. You could turn it into a proper job. Of course, you’d have to get a car.’

‘And where would we park it? At the end of the lane, under a hedge?’

‘The farm is trying to sell off its stables and outhouses. You could buy one of them and turn it into a garage. I expect they’d give you a special price.’

‘A video, a car, a garage,’ said my mother, bustling about, but at less speed. She was taking it carefully, moved with a sort of watchfulness. ‘You’re spending Sophie’s money faster than she’s earning it, young man.’

I was having other ideas about buying. Living in my mother’s two-up two-down down cottage was decidedly cramped since my mother had come home from hospital. I was camping out in the sitting room, sleeping on a sofa bed which was well past its comfort date. The empty cottage next door began to look more and more like a smaller version of the Ritz in my eyes. I’d even tried the door but it was locked. The hinges were loose. There was some sort of wild honeysuckle entwined all round the door with bluey-green leaves waving in the breeze.

I’d spent time on the garden, planting and pruning, and banishing weeds to the next-door pasture. I planted canons of flowers for next spring, in a mosaic of clumps. Rows on flower patrol are not that much fun.

Then I discovered that both cottages once belonged to the farm at the end of the lane, before my mother bought this one. So I did some reconnoitring, first talking to the farmer’s wife about buying a possible garage. They were eager to sell. Dairy farms were not doing too well, more forms to fill than cows to milk.

‘So what’s happening to the second cottage up the lane,’ I said, bringing it into the conversation. ‘Are you thinking of selling that as well?’

‘I doubt if we could,’ she said, shaking her head. ‘It’s in terrible condition, falling apart. And we can’t afford to get it fixed up. No one would buy it as it is now unless it’s a builder. The only thing that’s good about it is the view. All our spare cash has to go back into the farm.’

‘Do you think I could have a look round it?’ I said. ‘Would you mind if I explored?’

‘Sure. Drop the keys back any time. But be very careful of the floorboards. They might be rotten and we’re not insured. Take a torch.’

So that’s how I came to be clambering around a derelict cottage when an unexpected visitor arrived to see me. It did need a horrendous lot of work. It needed new floorboards, new stairs, new kitchen, a proper plumbed bathroom. The rooms were lumbered down with shadows and sadness. The kitchen consisted of a deep earthenware sink, green with algae, peeling lino, unhinged cupboards and a gas stove dating back to before WWII. The broken loo was located outside in an outhouse. Huge spiders liked it a lot and had set up a colony. It was festooned with cobwebs and awash with signs of poverty and hardship.

As the farmer’s missus had said, the only good thing was the view.

‘Oh dear, oh dear,’ I said to myself. My dreams began to disintegrate along with my savings. There was no way I could afford to buy this place and bring it into the twenty-first century. It needed a fortune spent on it, a fortune I didn’t have.

I went outside and closed the door with regret. I had to be sensible. The view from the front step was spectacular. The
icy-white
cliffs, the gorse, the endless rolling blue sea of the bay that stretched to the horizon, dotted with sails like tiny swans. I breathed in the wonderful air, scented with salt and sea thrift and honeysuckle, determined wafts of sweetness. There was time here to be oneself, to flatten out the creases of a bad day. We’d got to manage somehow together, all of us next door. We’d make it work.

I closed my eyes to a sudden shaft of dazzling sunlight, brighter than the rest.

‘Don’t move,’ he said. ‘You look like a Viola, coming out of the sea, bemused and confused.’

I heard the click of a camera. Joe looked at me over the viewing sight. He was wrapped in his leather flying jacket, a woollen scarf up to his ears, dark cords tucked into sturdy walking boots. He grinned at me over the camera, floppy hair blowing in all directions.

I could not believe what I was seeing. He was here. Somebody pinch me.

‘Joe?’ I breathed. ‘What are you doing here?’

‘They told me to come clothed for the deepest Dorset countryside. Inches-deep mud and country lanes, they said. Haven’t seen any cows yet.’

‘The farm at the end of the lane is dairy. We often meet the cows on their way to the pasture, covered in mud and sludge.’

What a stupid thing to say. I hadn’t seen him for more than ages, heart bleeding in all directions, and here I was talking about muddy cows. Get your brain together, girl. Be amusing. Ask him in. Don’t let him go.

‘How did you find me?’ I asked. ‘I never told anyone.’

‘A little bird told me. Or was it a simple deduction? Management sent you a dismissal letter, therefore they must have some other address. You weren’t at your flat then. I did check. So here I am. My car is at the end of the lane.’

‘Oh yes,’ I breathed. ‘They held a next of kin address.’

‘How are you?’ He didn’t know what to say either. We were starting again at A for asymmetric information. But his eyes were bright with interest.

‘I’m OK,’ I said. ‘And you? Aren’t you supposed to be in New York? Directing some new show? That’s what they told me.’

‘Yes, I am supposed to be but I’m not. I’m here, as you see. Some unfinished business to attend to.’

‘Who told you that I was here now?’ We’d get this sorted out first, at least.

‘Hilda. All those evening calls you made. She was curious, in the nicest way, of course. You used her mobile and she noted the number, as you do. She was the kind friend who called and told your mother about the first
After Dark
show. And you know how middle-aged women like to talk. Quite a long chat, apparently.’

‘I did wonder.’ And I couldn’t move. I was glued to the doorstep. Joe was here, in the real, flesh and blood, breathing. Was I going to do anything about it or was I going to let this man slip through my fingers again?

‘We live next door,’ I said. Pathetic. A chat show host who didn’t
have a decent line of communication to say when she needed it. ‘The other cottage.’

‘So I thought.’ He nodded towards the second cottage, sizing it up. ‘This one is practically a ruin. Nice view of the sea though, and a very good sized garden. It has several possibilities.’

‘Possibilities that are beyond me even with what
After Dark
pay me. Would you like a cup of coffee? I’m still a domestic goddess.’

He moved towards me and lifted me down from the step. ‘I haven’t come all this way for a cup of Fairtrade coffee, however well you make it. I’ve come for you, Sophie darling. And I’m not leaving without you.’

He bent his head and kissed me. It was a kiss that went on and on, eclipsing time. I could no longer think straight. Joe had come for me. He had travelled thousands of miles across the Atlantic and finished up along a muddy lane, windswept and cold, and was kissing me like we were never going to stop.

I clung to him as his arms folded even tighter round me. The keys to the cottage dropped to the ground with a faint tinkle. Joe, Joe, my darling man, was here, holding me and kissing me. I hoped this was going to last forever.

I wanted it to last forever.

‘Excuse me, mister,’ said a small tight, accusing voice. ‘But that’s my mother you are kissing.’

‘Mark,’ I said, surfacing. ‘It’s all right.’

Mark was standing about ten yards away, the usual wrecked schoolboy look, shirt hanging out, tie at half-mast, dragging a bulging sports bag at his feet. But there was no denying the look. The same eyes, the same floppy hair, the same arrogant stance. They stared at each other as if a curtain had opened.

‘It’s not all right,’ said Mark.

I felt Joe stiffen in my arms. He was searching the boy’s face, looking at a picture image of himself. His eyes were dark and as unreadable as the deepest night sky. It was a shock but he was taking it on board, trying to work it out.

‘This is Mark,’ I said, my voice full of pride. ‘This is my son. He beats me at gin rummy, criticizes my show, forgets where he’s left his bike, loses his gear, bosses me about like someone else I know.
My son, who’s growing up fast.’

‘You had a baby?’ Joe was incredulous. ‘When did you have a baby?’

‘Yes, it happens, you know, it’s how you produce children. Mother Nature helps along. Now he’s this grubby schoolboy, wanting his tea. I’ve made his favourite chocolate muffins. You can have one too, if you’d like to come in.’

‘You didn’t tell me.’ It was almost an accusation.

I looked straight at Joe with a dozen years of pain in my eyes. ‘How could I? Why should I? You had gone. A cold, snowy morning, remember? And I didn’t know where. You were a penniless actor, out of work. I barely knew your name. Don’t you remember anything?’

‘Yes, I do. You gave me your lunch.’

‘I gave you more than a lunch.’

Joe turned to Mark. ‘How old are you, young man?’ he asked.

‘Eleven,’ said Mark. ‘How old are you?’

‘I’m thirty-six but with a mental age of about five sometimes.’

Joe tried to say something that would help, but there were no excuses he could use. It was too late for apologies. I didn’t want apologies.

‘When I cut your hair in the wings and saw the true shape of your face, I remembered you from that snowy night,’ said Joe slowly. ‘I’d always known that I knew you from somewhere but couldn’t place the time or where. The years have been so full of people and work. But I said nothing, thinking it was probably something you wanted to forget, since you so obviously disliked me.’

Joe let his arms drop from me and I felt the cold, like a door being left open. He went towards Mark, hesitating, still absorbing the look of him. Joe was so tall, he towered over Mark. But my son drew himself up and looked at the man with a steely eye. He had the same strength, the same granite eyes.

‘Mark. I know this must be a strange moment for you, for both of us, for all of us. But I’m Joe Harrison. I think I’m your father.’

My Mark, my wonderful Mark, bless every solid inch of him, was not thrown at all. He looked his father straight in the eye, unflinching. ‘So where have you been all this time?’ he said.

Joe bought the cottage next door, employed an architect who knocked down a few interior walls, but it took an army of builders to transform it into a comfortable house, a home where we three could live with space, without falling over each other. He gave me the medieval picture, velvet in all shades of gold, and we hung it in the windowed conservatory, built on the side of the house where it caught all the sun.

The taste fairy had made a last minute appearance at my christening and I found beautiful material in old rose, honeyed cream, periwinkle blue that went with old pieces of furniture I found at auctions with the patina of polished dreams. Mark changed his bedroom decor every few weeks. I said he could do what he liked as long as he kept it clean. He was currently into black and white with splashes of scarlet.

Joe built a long pine studio in the garden where he could work. His new business for designing sets and costumes for shows all over the world grew and flourished. This is where Mark often works with him, because Mark can also paint, draw and design. As they both soon found out once the hostilities ceased.

We discovered one of Mark’s secrets. He had designed and made some of the scenery for the school play. ‘Those trees are mine,’ he’d whispered. He’d brought them home after the performance and planted them in the garden where they stood like sentinels till a Force 7 southeasterly blew them down.

Prompt Cornered
goes from strength to strength but three evenings a week in London is enough for me. Joe sometimes comes with me and Mark spends the nights with his Gran where he still has a bedroom.

‘Perhaps Mark could teach me to play poker,’ she said. ‘But I’ve no intention of losing my pension. I’d rather win off him. Cheeky monkey.’

Drama coaching at various local schools is absorbing afternoons. The kids are beginning to find the magic of Shakespeare and other great writers. No one shouts at me now, ‘Prompt! Line!’, but I’d be their stand-by prompt if I was asked.

My unashamed passion for words is not diminished by
Prompt Cornered
. The viewers like sound-bites from the classics and I can’t stop them surfacing. They email me, asking for the source of my quotes.

It was a surprise when I found that Fran Powell was booked to be my guest one evening on
Prompt Cornered
. She had a nerve. Apparently she had asked to be a guest several times. I was worried because I didn’t trust her an inch. She had an ulterior motive up her sleeve, I was sure. Nothing much had happened in her career since her removal from
Twelfth Night
, though I’d seen pictures of her in the tabloids, leaving clubs and first nights, tottering on pavements in four-inch heels.