Chapter 32
Holding her leather satchel tightly, Lily walked through the gates of Silverton School.
Less than one week to go to opening and she felt a chill in the air as she noticed the long shadows fall across the well-kept lawns in the morning sun.
The air was cooler and crisper than it had been all summer and Lily knew autumn was on its way.
Some people love summer for its heat or spring for the new growth but Lily and Gran’s most favourite season at Pippin Cottage had always been autumn.
As September turned into October, the scenery around Derbyshire turned into a beautiful quilt of burnt oranges, golds and reds.
The old apple tree in the garden, which was twisted but still bearing fruit, dropped its apples on the grass, filling the air with the sweet smell of apples that were about to ripen.
When Lily visited Gran during autumn when she was younger, she and Gran would sit on the little bench by the cottage door on cold mornings, wrapped up in woollen jumpers and drinking hot tea. They would watch the mist rise from the fields nearby.
Maybe she would make a blackberry pie for Gran and take it into the hospital, she thought, and then had a reality check. She had rehearsals every night before opening and was teaching; she could hardly visit Gran let alone bake a pie.
She felt the weight of everything as she walked through the halls to the music department. Then there was Nick…
Thinking of him made her smile as she came to the room where she taught. He had stayed every night since the first and he had even found a bigger bed for them and somehow managed to get it upstairs and into her room.
In the middle of all the chaos, their relationship was growing – a bright spot in the storm of uncertainty and anticipatory grief.
‘Good morning, Miss Baxter,’ someone chirped, bringing Lily to the present, and she saw a young student waiting for her piano lesson.
‘Good morning, Emma,’ Lily said as she opened the door to her classroom. ‘Ready for your lesson?’
With a happy nod, the girl followed Lily into the room. Lily felt calm as they sat down at the piano. She was meant to be here.
Scales, arpeggios, and soft words of support made the morning go by quickly. As Lily watched her students make progress, she was still in awe of how much she enjoyed teaching and was surprised at how quickly the time had gone by when the lunch bell rang.
Lily called the hospital to check on Gran during her break. The nurse said Violet was steady, but she was still weak. The nurse also said, ‘She’s been asking when you’ll be back.’
Would the guilt ever leave her?
She texted her parents:
Have you seen Gran today?
Her father responded:
We’re here now. She seems well, on a new heart medication they said. She has a bit of colour in her cheeks today.
She texted her father:
Great news.
She felt relief. Maybe Gran wasn’t ready to leave just yet. If there was a new drug then it meant there was hope, she told herself.
As the afternoon went on, Lily’s mind kept going back to Gran and Nick. Time seemed to drag compared to the morning lessons and now she had to visit Gran and then rush to rehearsals.
She hurried to her car because she knew she only had a short time to see her grandmother before rehearsals. The hospital halls were quiet as she walked to Gran’s room.
Violet was lying on her back in bed and looked weak but awake and she did have a little more colour than before.
When Lily walked in, her face lit up. ‘There’s my girl,’ she said in a soft, warm voice.
Lily said, ‘Hi, Gran,’ and kissed her on the cheek. ‘How are you feeling? You look a bit better. Dad said you’re on a new medication.’
‘Oh, yes apparently it’s doing what it’s supposed to do. So don’t worry about me. How was your day? How are things with the little music monsters?’
Lily had to laugh. Gran’s spirit was unbreakable even though she was weak. She told her about her day, keeping things light and easy.
‘How are rehearsals?’ she asked.
‘Really good,’ Lily said. ‘The set is incredible. We’re doing a dress rehearsal tonight, which is exciting.’
‘Black and white for Ascot scenes?’ asked Gran.
‘Absolutely,’ confirmed Lily.
‘I am so looking forward to seeing it,’ said Gran, but as Lily looked at the almost one-hundred-year-old woman, she wondered if she would even make it out of hospital, let alone to the show.
She glanced at the time and knew she had to go, and as much as she didn’t want to leave she didn’t want to let the show down.
‘I have to go to rehearsal now, Gran. I promise I’ll be back tomorrow.
Gran agreed with a knowing look in her eye. She winked and said, ‘Give that handsome nurse of yours my love.’
Lily kissed her goodbye and then ran to her car. She got to the village hall just as Jasper was outside adjusting some posters.
‘Cutting it fine, aren’t we?’ he joked in a friendly way. ‘It’s a dress rehearsal don’t forget.’
‘I know,’ she said.
The cast was already getting ready inside. Nick smiled at her from across the room, which made her heart skip a beat.
‘All right, everyone!’ Jasper spoke up. ‘Let’s take it from the top of Act Two!’
The moment Lily walked out, she felt the usual thrill of being on stage. She was excited to forgot about her problems for a while as she got lost in the world of Eliza Doolittle for the next few hours.
As the My Fair Lady company plunged into their first full dress rehearsal, the village hall hummed with excitement as they wore their costumes for the first time.
Lily stepped out on stage in Eliza’s flower girl costume, which was a masterpiece of shabby charm, painstakingly created by the National Theatre to mirror Eliza Doolittle’s modest origins in Edwardian London.
Lily twirled in the dress, which consisted of a long, voluminous skirt made from rough, dark brown cloth that had been creatively damaged to highlight years of use. The hem seemed to have been hurriedly repaired several times, with fraying and patches.
She wore a ragged shirt in faded cream over the skirt; its once-crisp collar now limp and greying.
And one of the makeup women had streaked Lily’s arms with plausible stage dirt on the skin, showing where her sleeves were rolled up to her elbows.
Her otherwise austere outfit was given a flash of colour by a ragged shawl in subdued green flung loosely over her shoulders and in her hat was a red fabric rose, a little battered and defeated but, like Eliza, it still showed its beauty.
As the actors took their places for the opening number, the hall echoed with a loud crack then a thundering smash and Lily jumped back with Higgins and Pickering as gasps and shrieks burst forth from everyone.
‘What the bloody hell was that?’ Jasper’s voice sliced through the tumult.
Lily turned around and saw that a good portion of the background for the Covent Garden street scene had fallen free from its moorings and now lay crumpled on the stage floor.
‘Oh dear,’ she said.
‘Is everyone okay? Lily?’ Rushing from the wings came Nick.
‘I’m fine,’ she said, feeling a little shaky. ‘But that was close. Lucky I wasn’t standing there.’
Jasper rushed onto the platform. ‘How did this happen?’ he asked, his arms sweeping frantically at the dropped backdrop.
The harried-looking stage manager moved forward. ‘Jasper, I’m not sure. This morning, we examined all the rigging; everything seemed stable.’
‘Well, obviously it wasn’t!’ Jasper snapped, his typical flamboyance replaced with real wrath.
The actors and crew stood around the dropped set piece as the first shock subsided.
Sheila whistled and studied the backdrop’s edge.
‘Look here,’ she replied, pointing to a torn edge.
‘This is an old canvas. You can see where it’s faded and where it was joined.
Most likely, it has been weakening for weeks.
We should have checked this. We’ll have to check them all now. ’
Jasper ran a hand through his hair and looked strangely depressed. ‘This is a disaster,’ he said softly. ‘We open in less than one week. So now I have to check, reorder, which can take weeks for these lengths to come in and then repaint. We don’t have time.’
The gathering sank into an uncomfortable quiet. Lily turned to look at Nick and saw her same anxiety in his eyes.
Lily drew a long breath and moved forward. Her voice more forceful than she felt, she added, ‘We’ll fix it together. Remember, we are a team. You told us that, Jasper.’
Her comments seemed to release the people from the spell of hopelessness. Still sporting his Higgins costume, David nodded confidently.
‘Lily’s right. This is just the canvases. We can check them all as a team. It’s not up to only you, Jasper. We have come too far to allow a setback like this to stop us.’
‘I can sew that tear,’ Sheila said. ‘It will hold although it won’t be perfect.’
‘And I can help to reinforce the rigging,’ David said. ‘We will check and triple-check everything.’
Cast and crew members started to volunteer one at a time. They sorted themselves into groups to check, sew, reinforce and repaint where needed.
Jasper stood with his mouth open at everyone speaking at once, and sharing ideas. At last he clapped his hands, the glitter returning to his eye. ‘I have never seen a cast come together like this before, ever in my years of directing. Thank you.’
Lily heard his voice crack and then he pulled himself together. ‘What are we waiting for? Let’s get right to it!’
The rehearsal descended into an unplanned repair session.
Lily was clutching one end of the backdrop while Sheila deftly sewed the tear as the rest of the cast got on with their tasks. Lily looked over at Nick who was working with the stagehands to check the rigging.
As Lily helped Sheila, she heard Andrew start to play the first chorus song – ‘Get Me to the Church on Time’ – and Alfred Doolittle started to sing and then the chorus joined in, followed by the rest of the cast and crew.
Lily looked around as she sang. This was what she loved about the theatre. Not the applause or the fame or ambition. This pulling together for something bigger than all of them.
At the end of the rehearsal Jasper stood on the stage and looked down at everyone in the show.
‘I want to thank you all,’ he said, his voice choked with feeling.
‘Tonight you have displayed professionalism and cooperation far beyond anything I have seen in professional shows. The essence of theatre is overcoming challenges together, and you have all done that in spades. Bravo! Now we will have our run tomorrow night instead. I hope that is possible, and if it’s not, be here anyway. ’
Lily looked at Nick and smiled. He gave her a wink and she thought, if only Gran was well, this would have been the happiest she had ever been in her life.