Love-40 (28 page)

‘Crystal!' He strode past the dinner table and chairs already positioned on stage, towards Bradley and Jade. Now, where did she go?

Bradley took a step backwards and put a hand defensively up to his face, as if he thought Liam was about to clock him one. And was he tempted …

‘So you and Marcus have buggered things up for everyone, is that it?' Liam demanded.

‘Sorry, Sir.' To give him his due, Bradley did look more than a bit ashamed of himself, unable to look Liam in the eye. He scuffed his dirty trainers across the floor of the platform, building up an impressive pile of dust.

‘What are we going to do?' Jade's voice was high and shrill. Liam glanced at her. She was wearing the silver-grey evening dress earmarked for her first scene and she looked terrified.

‘Get along to make-up, Jade,' he told her, recognising the signs of stage fright. ‘Everything'll be fine.'

‘I don't think I can.'

‘Of course you can.' Liam didn't mean to snap, but he really didn't need this.

‘I'm scared.'

Bradley put a comforting arm around his Juliet and looked up for the first time.

Her hero, eh, Liam found himself thinking, as he registered Bradley's face, and more particularly the picturesque black eye he was sporting. ‘Jesus!' he said. Not so much ashamed – scared of being seen, more like. He looked like a street-fighter. He looked terrible.

‘I'll just wear extra make-up, Sir.' Bradley executed his hair-flick, but the element of cool was totally destroyed by the plum-coloured bruise. ‘No one'll notice.'

‘I can't go on,' Jade wailed.

Liam lost it. ‘It's only a fucking school production.' At the expression on both their faces, he forced himself to breathe slowly and deeply. He was an adult. He was in charge here. He was a sane and rational man. What did it matter if Tybalt hadn't turned up, Romeo had a black eye even before the fight scene and Juliet had completely lost her bottle? He'd faced worse problems in school productions – though he couldn't recall any right now.

‘Make-up,' he said to Bradley. ‘Jade – tell Crystal she can play your part, God knows she's asked me to let her have a go often enough.' And then he remembered he'd been about to ask Crystal to play Tybalt … He scanned the stage desperately, as if a stray Tybalt might emerge from the wings and save the day.

Jade hesitated. He could see her struggling. Not only would Crystal be wearing her costume and saying her lines, but as Juliet, she would also – for an hour and a half – have possession of Jade's Romeo.

‘You've got three minutes in which to decide,' he informed her, crossing his fingers behind his back. ‘I don't have the time to sort out weeping and wailing prima donnas.' And if she felt hard done by, tough luck, Liam decided. He was damned if he was going to let her wallow in her own self-pity and he'd had enough of women's tears and histrionics over the past few days to last him a lifetime. They might be from Venus and cook and iron like angels, but by God, where the heck did all these emotions come from?

He peered out into the hall again – the rows were filling up. He could already see Suzi, Michael and … Estelle. He held on more tightly to the tatty red curtain, tried to reach her by will power alone, but she was not looking his way, her head was turned towards Suzi, she was listening to whatever Suzi was saying. ‘Shut up, Suzi,' Liam whispered.

At last he retreated with a muffled sneeze from the stuffiness of the curtain, forced himself to check the set, the music, the tiny cubby-holes being used as make-up areas by the two student teachers who had volunteered their services. They were lucky, of course, to have so much space, to have a platform that made such an excellent stage, to be in a school where drama was not allowed to be pushed off the curriculum by literacy and numeracy gone mad.

But no Crystal. Liam went to the back of the stage to look for her.

But despite the occasion, despite his mood, the thought of Estelle would not go away. It had seemed important, he reflected, to get through to Estelle, after the Blues Sisters concert. Suzi had given him the opportunity, and he was determined not to waste it, not to allow Estelle to drift back into his past, which was where she seemed to want to be.

At the end of the concert, he'd been looking for an excuse not to go home, a chance to spend more time with her, to talk, to walk. Then they'd got to the blue bridge and her mood had changed. Liam sighed. He had always felt that he'd failed her in some way – at least as far as her mother's death was concerned. And so he'd thought,
this time
 … I want to make her see.

Liam eventually found Crystal back on stage practising high kicks that were threatening to send the dinner service crashing to the floor, and mouthing Juliet's lines to the back of the closed curtain, instead of organising the prompt chair and music tape. ‘Crystal…' He frowned. ‘I might need you to perform.'

‘As Juliet?' Her eyes grew wide.

‘Or Tybalt.'

And before she could make a run for it, he placed one hand firmly on her bony shoulder. ‘Come with me,' he said.

But in the first make-up cubby-hole, Jade was sitting calmly on a wooden chair, a towel around her shoulders protecting the silver-grey dress. Julie Nelson, the student teacher, was applying scarlet lip-liner. Jade looked at least sixteen.

‘Through there.' Liam ushered Crystal out of earshot. ‘Well?' he asked Jade.

‘I've taken one of Mum's pills,' she said, holding up her chin in defiance. ‘Wasn't going to let that little muppet get her paws on Brad.'

‘I'm relieved to hear it.' For a moment Liam pondered on the possible nature of the pills in question, but Lorraine Johnson wouldn't have let her daughter have them if they were dangerous, surely?

He hurried off. In the other cubby-hole, Bradley was beginning to look almost dashing, and there was no sign of his bruise.

‘Concealer,' said the other student teacher, Carrie Jones. ‘It's green and flesh. Evens out the imperfections.'

‘Excellent.' Liam rubbed his hands together, although Crystal, standing behind Bradley, was looking somewhat subdued. Tybalt clearly didn't have quite the pull of Juliet.

‘Sorry I'm late, Sir.' With admirable timing, an out of breath Marcus appeared, looking slightly flushed. ‘We had to take the cat to the vet.'

Better and better. ‘No problem.' By now Liam was feeling positively expansive. ‘Get changed, get made up, quick as you can. Back to your music and prompt chair, Crystal. Do your best, everybody.' At last, everything seemed to be falling into place.

He strode back to the wings. Mind, he had thought everything was falling into place with Estelle that night by the blue bridge. Marvellously well. And it was, surely it was, until they'd got back to Secrets In The Attic, and she'd seen the smashed window of the shop.

From his position, Liam could see that Crystal was now sitting demurely in her chair, open copy of the adapted play on her lap, tape recorder beside her. He could hear the audience quite clearly now, the rustle of programmes and coats being removed, the scraping of chairs on the parquet floor, whispered conversations about whose son was what and whose daughter was doing the other.

Liam tried to relax. Estelle had seemed to go to pieces – he'd never seen her so upset, almost as if she'd gone into shock. He had taken her inside, a helpful neighbour opposite had provided brandy, he had phoned the police, contacted her twenty-four-hour insurance company, and in between he'd held her, looked after her, been there for her. What more could he have done? What more could anyone have done? Liam looked down. His knuckles were white and clenched, but whether this was pre-performance nerves or the memory he was re-enacting, he had no idea. Both, maybe.

It was the early hours before Estelle had at last fallen into an exhausted, white-faced sleep. And in the morning … he didn't want to think about what had happened the following morning. All that mattered was that Estelle had told him to go.

‘Thank you,' she had said, as if he were some stranger. ‘But I can manage now. I can manage perfectly well on my own.' God, she might as well have cut him up and had him lightly poached for breakfast.

It was enough to drive a man to drink, Liam thought, wishing he had a hip flask concealed about his person. Who could blame a man for choosing celibacy as a simpler way of life?

With a sigh, he went to check the progress of Marcus and his make-up, began to usher his actors on to the stage. ‘Remember,' he said to Bradley and Jade, ‘that you're in love.'

‘No probs, Sir,' Bradley whispered back, squeezing Jade's bum.

‘But not at first,' Liam reminded him.

He got them into position.

And at last they were ready to begin. Liam glanced at his watch – only seven minutes late – whispered, ‘Go for it,' the curtain was pulled aside in a cloud of dust that glimmered in the glare of the lights, and the feast scene (now a dinner party with a murder mystery theme) began.

Liam realised he'd been holding his breath and exhaled loudly. Though he could no longer see them, they were all there in the blackness of the audience – Amanda and whoever she'd brought with her, Estelle, Suzi, Michael, not to mention all the parents, staff and even a representative from the local rag. At the end of the evening, Liam thought, he might just sneak quietly away.

*   *   *

But he didn't get the chance, because he was pulled on stage by Jade and Bradley during the final curtain call, given a round of applause and a vote of thanks by Tony Andrews, who smarmed and smirked his way through enough publicity material to keep the journalist happy, whilst managing to give the impression that he himself as headteacher had held the production together, just as he held the entire school together.

Afterwards, Estelle, Suzi and Michael gathered backstage to congratulate Liam and help clear up. Carrie Jones and Julie Nelson had provided a bottle of champagne and someone had rustled up some glasses.

‘Well done! What a performance!' Suzi was all smiles. She accepted a glass. ‘After that dreadful dress rehearsal, I couldn't believe it went like clockwork.'

Liam laughed. Suzi had not described it as dreadful at the time – but he had to admit that it had been bad, even by dress rehearsal standards. ‘Apart from Juliet missing her entrance to the final dance scene,' he said.

‘Asleep, was she?' Michael enquired.

‘No, that was later when she dropped off on the couch during her fake death scene.'

‘Too many late nights?' Michael downed his wine in one.

‘She'd taken one of her mother's tranquillisers.' Liam had begun to wonder if they would manage to wake her sufficiently for her to kill herself properly in the final scene, or if they would have to rapidly re-structure the entire ending of the play. But fortunately, Jade had come to in time to plunge the dagger realistically into her heart. ‘No, she missed her cue because she was snogging with Bradley in the wings.'

Suzi giggled. ‘So that's why her make-up was smudged.'

Liam nodded. ‘The wonder of teenagers. They either want to murder each other or they're madly in love.' Despite himself, he turned to Estelle. She had waved away the offer of champagne. Her face was even paler than usual and there were huge bags under her eyes. But she still looked beautiful to him.

Her smile seemed forced. ‘It went well. You must be thrilled,' she said.

‘And how are you?' Liam touched her arm.

‘Yes, Estelle, that's exactly what I wanted to ask you.' Amanda and her father appeared from the other side of the curtain so abruptly, that Liam found himself wondering if they'd been eavesdropping, waiting for the ideal moment to enter. And it was quite an entrance. Henry Lake was dressed in a black dinner jacket and bow tie, whilst Amanda was looking stunning in a high-necked long, crimson dress more suited to the West End than Pridehaven Middle School. Her blonde hair was swept to one side, fastened by a silver comb and hanging in a cascade of gold over one bare brown shoulder.

‘Liam told me all about it at dinner last night,' she went on, her baby-blue eyes perfectly innocent and unaware, her mouth a pink crescent of sympathy. ‘A brick flung through your window? It must have been an awful shock.'

And judging by the expression on Estelle's face, Amanda had just delivered another one, Liam realised. Jesus … Had she said that on purpose? Did she have some ulterior motive that she certainly hadn't revealed at dinner last night? He shifted position awkwardly.

He'd almost cancelled that dinner date, but in the event it had been OK, just friendly, a pretty ordinary Italian restaurant, no strings and Amanda had paid her share, so he needn't have worried. The funny thing was that he'd found himself talking about Estelle. Because, yes, Amanda had this way of inviting confidences and afterwards you wondered how the hell she'd got so much out of you. But Liam had never dreamed she'd bring it up now. And to Estelle.

‘It was,' Estelle said shortly.

‘How are you feeling?' Amanda persisted.

‘Fine.'

Dear God. Liam would remember the look Estelle shot him, and the way it made him feel, probably for the rest of his days.

*   *   *

In the pub afterwards, Suzi turned on him. ‘What on earth was Amanda Lake doing at the performance?'

Liam shrugged. ‘She pestered me for a ticket.' He tore his hand through dark curls that were looking even more crazy than usual, Suzi observed. In fact he looked like a mad professor in his corduroy jacket with the patched sleeves and the Rupert Bear scarf tied loosely around his neck. She softened. Liam had obviously been through the mangle the last few days. However …

‘And what was that about dinner?'

He shrugged. ‘It was only dinner, Suze.'

Suzi sighed. ‘You realise you've probably blown it with Estelle,' she told him. And after all her hard work.