Chapter Nineteen

Hayden

Most Likely to Succeed

Backstage is dark enough that I need to navigate by the torchlight off my phone. The stark white beam falls on stacks of battered wooden chairs and an old projector set, some tables, a couple of wonky metal music stands. I stumble around them, all those glasses of punch leaving me tipsy and uncoordinated - I m more buzzed than I thought. There s a box of props, some random pieces of costume I guess must be from the last school play. There are some folded printouts of a programme on top, a bit crumpled and written in a basic Times New Roman font - Tisdale Comprehensive presents MARY POPPINS. I take a spot on one particularly wobbly chair that s off alone to one side, then click to FaceTime my ex, Lucy.

She answers on the fourth ring.

Hayden! I think your camera s off, love, it s all dark. Everything s fine here, you worry wart, if you were calling to check in. Where are you? I thought you were at the reunion for another couple of hours yet?

Oh, um, no. I m still at the party. If only because every time I try to leave, someone accosts me with a gleeful friendliness I can t wiggle out of and drags me back into the fold. I squirm, wondering if I could wait out the rest of the night here instead. It s probably a good thing that she can t see me - Lucy has always been able to read me like a book. I thought I d just call and say goodnight to the girls, if that s okay? I mean, if you haven t put them to bed yet.

Lucy laughs. If you didn t let these girls walk all over you, I d worry about you being such a helicopter dad. Hang on, I m just in the kitchen

The camera angle shifts sharply to an unflattering shot underneath her chin as she starts walking, and the spotlights of the kitchen ceiling vanish as she goes into the living room to call, Girls! Girls, your dad s on the phone. Skye, darling, come say goodnight to Daddy.

Lucy s phone judders and the image on the screen blurs, and I m met with the sound of toys being thrown down and a Disney film being put on mute just as Gaston starts singing to rile up a mob to go kill Beast. My gaze drifts to the lost-property box next to me and I absently pick through a tie, a single trainer, a couple of books and a shiny silver pencil case while I wait. The chair wobbles violently underneath me and I fight to regain my balance.

Then everything jerks to a halt and Margot s face appears on screen. She s scowling, huffy, and makes a dramatic gesture throwing her butterfly-clipped hair out of her face. Dad, you re spoiling girls night. We ve been playing hairdresser with Mum.

I can see that.

I did Go s hair! Skye shouts, butting her face into view. Margot shoves her aside and Lucy moves into view just behind the sofa, pulling the girls gently apart before they start fighting. Dad, I ve decided, I m going to be a boot-shun.

Beautician, Lucy translates.

And Mum did my nails, look. Margot waves a purple-tipped hand in front of the camera, then admires it. Her scowl sets back in. This hand s a bit smudged. Skye helped with that one, she mutters with a long-suffering air of martyrdom she perfected about five minutes after Skye was born.

I did! And we did mine! Look. They re blue!

Wow, nice! Your favourite colour. Can you do mine for me when I get home, d you think?

Skye thinks about it hard for a moment, then ultimately decides, I don t think blue suits you very well, Daddy.

I fight not to smile, trying to match her serious energy. Oh. Alright, fair enough. It doesn t help that Lucy is in the background smothering a laugh and doing a terrible job of it.

Is your party fun? Margot asks, just as Skye says, Mummy said you re not home till after breakfast . You re going to have an angry tummy, like Margot when she gets hungry.

I ll find something to eat for breakfast, I reassure her. And the party s great, thank you, Go. That was very nice of you to ask.

Are you playing hide-and-seek?

No. Why?

Oh. Well, why are you in the dark?

Uh-oh, rumbled.

Skye tells me, I don t think you ll win - you re making too much noise talking to us. They ll find you easy.

That s a good point. I d better get off the phone then, hadn t I? I just wanted to call and say behave for Mum, and night-night.

We are behaving. You re spoiling it, Margot tells me, but they both say goodnight (whispering, so my hiding place doesn t get found out) and let Lucy take the phone back. She puts the film back on and returns to the kitchen with me still on the line, and closes the door before frowning at the screen. It s a sweet look, mouth puckered and twisted up on the left-hand side, that same eyebrow contorting into a wavy line. Skye pulls the same face when she s thinking too hard about something.

You are still at the party, aren t you?

Yeah. I m, er, just

Lucy sighs, propping the phone against the counter while she fills the kettle and sets it on to boil, getting things ready to make herself a cup of tea. Her nails are messy blobs of pink nail varnish and there are little braids and butterfly clips through her dark blonde hair, obviously the work of the girls. She looks tired, when I get a proper view of her face again as she waits for the kettle, but then she says, Hayden and I m not sure it s to do with the fact she s been watching Margot and Skye all evening.

It s fine, I tell her. I just wanted to say goodnight, that s all.

I know you love being a dad, but you know it s okay to switch off sometimes, too, don t you? Have some time for yourself? Just because you have custody She hesitates, and I can feel her guilt even through the screen. She loves the girls and enjoys spending time with them, but she s always found it hard to be a hands-on mum day to day, even when we were still trying to make a real go of it between having Margot and Skye. I ve never blamed her for that, but I know plenty of other people have. Lucy finally settles on saying, That doesn t mean you have to go overboard to make up for it. They ve got me, too, you know.

I know, but

But Lucy has a career she loves and is passionate about, and a thriving social life, and I hate intruding on that when I m happy with my remote working and quiet hang-outs with people like Ashleigh - takeout and a couple of beers on the sofa. But , as everybody has made so abundantly clear tonight, I sacrificed everything about myself to be a dad and I m not sure how much of me is left, if I were to look.

Certainly, there s nothing to find at the bottom of a cup of spiked punch, but that hasn t stopped me trying.

But nothing, Lucy says definitively, looking far more authoritative than she has any right to with that hairstyle. She only stops glaring down the camera at me to concentrate on pouring water into her mug, and I think it s uncanny that she can read me so well when she can t even see me. Go have fun, Hayden. Have a couple more drinks, huh? You deserve it.

I want to. I do. But everybody is making it so hard You should see them, Luce. You d hate it. It s all best foot forward , all smug and fake, even Ashleigh s been I grimace, remembering the sight of her grinding up against Freddie Loughton on the dance floor, something she d never normally do. It makes me feel like I m on the back foot because I was just coming here to say hello to some old familiar faces and try to enjoy a night off, instead of showing off to everyone.

That sounds like a them problem, not a you problem. I bet you re overthinking it, anyway, and nobody s judging you.

I bite my tongue, not wanting to get into it all now. Maybe tomorrow over a coffee in the kitchen, when I m back. I settle for saying, Sure, maybe. I ll text you tomorrow when I m on the way home, won t be too long. Thanks for minding them overnight.

You don t have to thank me, you daft thing. They re my daughters, too.

I know, but-

But nothing , she says, and where this kind of loop would ve sent us into a frustrated argument before, she only laughs about it now. It s as if all the tension slipped out of the relationship when we agreed to be friends rather than partners, and we re both better off for it. Lucy flaps a badly manicured hand at me. If you don t come home with a hangover and a fun story, we ll be having words. Talk tomorrow!

We hang up and for a moment I cradle my phone between my hands. There s a lightness in my chest, though whether it s from the chat with Lucy or speaking to the girls, I can t tell. It makes the burden of everybody else s pity tonight weigh a little less, rallies me, gives me a second wind ready to tackle the next few hours.

I m just about to stand when footsteps rush past and a figure bursts across the stage behind the heavy curtain that separates us from the party. The shadows bend and glimmer, faint fragments of light catching on an array of sequins.

Bryony starts pacing back and forth and muttering to herself. Stupid, bloody Ugh! How could you be such an idiot? And bloody Mardy Mara, thinking she knows everything, and Hayden

I sit up straighter at the sound of my name, but also hold my breath like it will help her not to notice me. I m not exactly sure what I ve done but Bryony sounds furious, and I d really not rather have to deal with her mean-girl attitude and endure her carefully crafted put-downs.

Then she takes a deep breath - several, in fact, in such a deliberate manner it must be some kind of exercise she learnt in drama lessons or something.

More calmly this time, she tells herself, It s fine. It s fine , okay? You ve got this. Nobody knows anything, not really , and they re not going to find out. Why would they? Why would they know? She lets out a shrill laugh that sounds - not drunk, but worryingly hysterical. You ll be fine. Just a few more hours, then you re home free. You can do this. Those posers and pretentious little shits out there don t need to know a thing

She takes a few deep breaths and I see her silhouette as she shakes herself from head to toe, arms waggling out wildly at her sides. She throws her head back and makes a few weird noises that must be some kind of vocal warm-up, then rights herself, smooths out her sparkly jumpsuit, and strides back out like that didn t just happen.

Not that I m sure exactly what just happened, but I give her a couple of minutes before I emerge from backstage, too. I guess maybe I m not the only one who needs to rally themselves to make it through tonight.

When I get up to slip back into the party, though, I see Bryony hasn t gone too far. She s standing next to the poster of her teenage self from the yearbook, looking out across the room as if assessing - she s probably trying to decide which group to go and talk to next. But then I see a little crease appear between her eyebrows and she glances around quickly before turning her attention to the poster, which has slipped slightly, hanging a little crooked where the corner of the tape has peeled off. She smooths a finger gently over the tape, checking it s firmly in place before stepping back to assess her handiwork.

And then she dives back into the party, a smile plastered on her face as she shouts across to someone.

Weird.

I mean, it s not weird that she d be obsessed with her own poster, but everything that just happened was kind of weird.

The box of costumes and props catches my eye, and the gears in my brain are whirring before I fully process why, and my hands pick up the programme on the top of the box seemingly of their own accord.

And something finally slides into place when I open up the folded sheet of A4 and see, below the cast list, a line that reads: Produced by Ms B Adams - Head of Drama .