Chapter Forty-Six

CHAPTER FORTY-SIX

G race entered the theatre for Nikolai’s first night, looking her best on her husband’s arm, and full of happy expectations. The happiness lasted until the moment she spotted Jason de Witte propping up the circle bar.

She came to a full halt and stared. ‘Jack, that’s Jason de Witte!’

Her eyes were immediately hot, and she bit her lip.

‘That sloppy-looking man at the bar? God, I had no idea Nikolai’s reputation as a serious playwright would bring up a critic like him. I’ll have him thrown out.’

‘No, it would be too humiliating. I suppose the Crown Prince touring England in the summer has got them interested in Nikolai’s work.’ Panic was making Grace’s lungs tight, and her legs felt shivery. ‘I’ll go straight to the royal box. I can hide there.’

‘Let me make a scene, Grace. Could this be another of Constance’s tricks?’

‘I don’t care. No, don’t you dare make a scene.’ She looked up to find her way blocked by Agnes and Joe. Agnes was turned away, greeting one of her young admirers, so it was Joe who saw the colour of Grace’s face, and frowned.

‘Evening! What’s the matter, Grace?’

Agnes heard and turned towards them.

‘Jason de Witte is here,’ Jack said. ‘Grace won’t let me punch him.’

‘I think I’m going to be sick,’ Grace said. ‘Jack, he’s seen us. He’s coming over!’

Agnes moved slightly, so she was between the critic and the deeply criticised.

‘Buck up, my girl. He’s only a man.’

‘People will see us talking, Agnes. It’s humiliating.’

‘And what would they see, these people? They’ll see you behaving in a civilised fashion to a man who behaved in a very uncivil way towards you. If this is Constance’s work, it’s vital you don’t give her the satisfaction. Now, deep breaths and smile, Grace.’

She moved aside and Grace smiled.

‘Ah, Mrs Treadwell,’ De Witte said as he approached, bowing slightly over his pint and staring at her figure. ‘I hear you pulled off a pantomime.’

‘Mr De Witte,’ Grace said, and introduced Jack without her voice shaking.

‘And Grace is writing another play, of course,’ Jack said.

Why did he have to say that? Grace thought.

‘Really?’ De Witte said, and sipped his beer. ‘I suppose if it amuses you to write these little things in the privacy of your own home, no one can stop you. But I hope you won’t be inflicting them on the general public.’

It felt like a slap, but it was such a monumentally unpleasant thing to say, the sting of it faded almost immediately into a sort of stupefied shock. She felt Jack tense, and squeezed his arm.

‘I’ll always clear the Playhouse schedule for Grace if she writes something for me,’ Joe said before she could reply herself. ‘I’m Joe Allerdyce.’

De Witte offered his hand and Joe stared at it. ‘No, I shan’t take your hand,’ he said after a moment. ‘I don’t know what passes for manners in London, but piss-poor rudeness tied up in a ribbon of wit is still piss-poor rudeness. I’d not sully my skin touching yours, and I spent the first years of my working life mopping up the lavs in the cheapest bars in the arse end of Highbridge.’

De Witte gaped like a fish. ‘I . . .’

‘Leave, Mr De Witte,’ Agnes said. ‘Leave at once.’

He swallowed, then turned back to the bar.

‘I thought,’ Grace said to Agnes, watching him disappear back into the crush, ‘I was supposed to speak to him in a civilised fashion.’

‘That was civilised,’ Agnes said. ‘And better than he deserved.’

‘The look on his face,’ Jack said gleefully. ‘Joe, I owe you a steak supper.’

Joe was still looking after him. ‘That, my lad, you can have, gratis and for free. What a rat of a man.’

‘An insult to rats,’ Agnes said.

Grace smiled, her feelings more complicated than simple pleasure at the fox’s humiliation, and the five-minute bell went. ‘Shall we go and see what Nikolai has for us?’

Jack’s face fell at the prospect. Joe noticed and suppressed a grin. ‘I suppose we must. Are you all right, Grace?’

She studied her own feelings. ‘Yes, yes, I am. Thank you, Joe.’

‘They’ve forgotten to build a set!’ Lillian heard Jack hiss to his wife as the curtain lifted six minutes later. Grace shushed him.

Lillian glanced sideways and saw Jack sinking back in his chair. It appeared he would be watching the play through his fingers. The tension in her chest felt like an iron band, but she kept her professional, interested smile in place, though the first lurch she felt at what lay in front of her, was horror.

The stage was completely empty, and the back wall of the theatre, with its ragged paint over the brickwork, and various notices and old playbills, was visible. Several of the stage crew lolled against it among an assortment of random props for recent shows, stage weights and ropes. Clara Jones’s old costumes were out on a rack, and a throne covered in hieroglyphs, which must have been in storage since Cairo Nights , was set at an angle at the back of the stage. Little Sam was sitting on it.

He tipped his cap back, clambered off and walked up to the front of the stage.

‘Good evening, folks,’ he said.

He had a soft voice, but it seemed to carry.

‘I don’t think I’ve ever heard him speak before,’ Agnes said cheerfully.

‘This evening, we, the people of Highbridge, will perform for you a tale of tyrannical outrage – a history which took place many centuries ago on a foreign shore. Any resemblance to actual rich people in this town is a total coincidence.’

He looked up at the centre of the royal circle as he said it, and the audience laughed. Lillian followed his gaze. Constance Lassiter was staring down at the stage, her eyebrows raised.

Little Sam wandered back to the throne and sat on it, half turned from the audience. Then one of the house band members walked out onto the stage, clarinet in hand, and began to play. It was a lively, bouncy sort of a folk tune, and the people in the stalls started to clap along. The lounging stagehands stirred themselves, and an assortment of men and women in the street clothes of working people poured in from the wings, dragging hampers and boxes. They rummaged in them for costumes – scraps of fabric, rich or poor – which they wrapped round their shoulders. Then they pulled the hampers to the edge of the stage and sat on them.

Mrs Giorgio, who cooked at the pie and mash shop, had plucked a scrap of fur from one of the baskets.

‘Evening, all!’ she declared, jutting her hip out. ‘I’m Geraldina, queen of this country, and we’re gathered here today to pass judgment on Septimius Grey of the Grey Trading Company. First witness, please!’

Jack was still sunk down in his seat. ‘Is it a pantomime? This is a disaster – he’s trying to ruin us! We can’t have the theatre empty for a fortnight!’

Lillian could hardly breathe. Grace leant forward in her seat, but put out her other hand and covered Lillian’s with it. Lillian wound her fingers around her daughter-in-law’s, terribly grateful for the reassurance. ‘I don’t know, Jack,’ Grace said. ‘He’s certainly trying something.’

The transformation which came over the stage – and the performers – was so subtly done, Lillian couldn’t say when she began to notice it. Perhaps it was during one of the early comic scenes, when Lillian suddenly realised the back wall of the theatre was no longer visible. Instead, a subtly painted flat of rolling countryside, spotted with romantic-looking ruins, had replaced it. While moments of high drama played out downstage, other players disappeared, then retook their positions on the hampers in full costume. Then the hampers were gone, replaced with benches and hay bales. The queen was offered a robe in scarlet, trimmed with white fur. The throne was wheeled into position by Sam, and his seat taken by Mrs Giorgio.

But she wasn’t Mrs Giorgio anymore – she was Geraldina. Half an hour into the performance, Lillian was no longer watching a group of amateur Highbridge players. They were watching the citizens of Transalina judging one of their own. Jack was sitting up now. Joe and Agnes were as still as statues.

Septimius called for justice, and a voice in the stalls called out in support. Then another and another. Lillian couldn’t tell if they were plants or not. The actors on stage echoed the calls, and when the queen’s guards lowered their pikes, the whole audience seemed to draw back, afraid.

‘This,’ Grace breathed, ‘is extraordinary.’

There was no interval, yet the whole thing passed in a flash. Lillian leapt to her feet as the cast, back in the street clothes in which they had begun, lifted their arms to accept the applause. The audience, who had been weeping a moment before, were on their feet, roaring, their hands above their heads.

‘You must be very proud,’ Agnes whispered to Lillian.

‘I honestly don’t think I’ve ever felt like this before,’ Lillian admitted. ‘I think I am stupefied.’ Jack and Grace were on their feet, too, and as she watched, Jack put his fingers in his mouth and whistled, then cheered again. Something dark and dreadful fell away from Lillian’s heart when she saw that.

‘Author, author, author!’ the crowd began to chant. The applause became a steady handclap; feet stamped in rhythm and the cast joined in, too, looking off to the wings.

Then Nikolai made his appearance. He didn’t strut. It was almost as if he was trying to make himself smaller. Lillian had seen him command an audience when he quelled the rising children the first day he’d come to Highbridge, and when he played King Rat. He was not doing that now. The chant of ‘author’ turned to one for a speech. Nikolai held up his hand, refusing at first, then conceded.

‘Thank you,’ he said, placing a hand over his chest. ‘We are very, very glad to have this reception. He looked round the cast, and they nodded their agreement. ‘This play is about making a leap of faith. That even when we land flat on our face, such a leap of faith is worth making, so it is right that we take this chance to thank the owners of this grand theatre, and its manager, for the trust they placed in us. They haven’t had a clue what we’ve been up to, you know!’ The audience laughed. ‘So please join me in thanking Mr Jack Treadwell, Miss Agnes de Montfort, and of course, my wife, Lillian Kuznetsov.’

He swept his arm out and Ruben’s follow spot swung up to the box, to hearty cheers. Lillian waved, and wondered if she looked as dazed, baffled and delighted as she felt. She was sure her mascara was running after that last scene.

‘The promenade bar is selling beer at the same price as the Dog and Duck,’ Nikolai, continued to further applause. ‘Join us. All are welcome. Now, I would like to join you, one more time, in thanking our friends . . . Ladies and gentlemen! The company!’

Grace suddenly stopped clapping and groaned, and Agnes turned and looked at her. ‘Grace, are you going to be sick? There’s a pot in the retiring room. Mr Poole put an aspidistra in it, but it will hold.’

Grace nodded, then left the box hurriedly, holding the handkerchief over her mouth.

‘What? Grace!’ Jack said, ‘What’s wrong with her?’

Lillian opened her handbag and removed a small packet of charcoal biscuits. ‘I’m an idiot. I brought these for her, then forgot to give them to her.’ She passed them to Jack and turned to the stage, applauding again. ‘Give her five minutes, Jack, and then take them to her. They were the only things that helped when I was pregnant with you.’

Jack took the biscuits, and stared at them. Nikolai and the company were climbing off the stage and greeting friends in the stalls. ‘She’s . . .? But she’s been working so hard – tiring herself out! She should have been resting. I should have been looking after her, not the shop! I read in a magazine she should make sure to get enough zinc. I’m not sure what that is, but has she been getting enough zinc? Why didn’t she tell me?’

Joe was trying to suppress a laugh. He was looking directly at the stage, but his face was pink and a tear leaked out of the corner of his eye.

Agnes gave Jack another look. ‘It defeats the imagination, dear.’

That broke Joe; he guffawed, and his rich rolling laughter joined the final burst of applause.

Lillian couldn’t wait any longer. Leaving Jack baffled, and the others still applauding, she hurried down the stairs from the box, and into the stalls. Nikolai was in a crowd of cast and crew, but as soon as he saw her, he opened his arms and she leapt into them. He swung her in a circle, lifting her high.

‘Why did you keep it all such a secret?’ she said, thumping his shoulder.

He looked up at her, beaming. ‘If I had told you any of those things – we will start with no set, the crew will be on stage – you would have worried more, I think. It worked, though, didn’t it?’

‘I’ll say it did,’ she said, and he gently lowered her down to the floor again and kissed her.

‘Now, I believe what I should have at this point is a pint.’