Chapter 31
Jack and the Beanstalk was counting down the last few rehearsals to opening night on Thursday. It seemed to have gone backwards from the previous week, though she reminded herself of how that always happened when you tried to put everything together. On the negative side, Rowley and Ahmed still hadn’t gotten through their routine without crashing into each other, but on the positive side, the Bondarenko twins fitted perfectly into the cow costume, to their shared satisfaction.
One of the dads had turned out to be a whizz at carpentry and, using his jigsaw, had cut plywood into exactly the shapes needed for all the scenery and was now apparently busy painting them in his garage. She’d assembled all of the costumes from potato sacks, aided by Martin’s mum, who was a most obliging woman and an excellent seamstress. Cassie felt a surge of gratitude towards heroic parents.
Trevor had provided his own Spiderman costume for Jack, and Rowley’s granda had provided a small stepladder for him to stand on to look tall. The goose would be dressed in an ingenious costume made out of chopped-up old net curtains dyed brown.
In theory, the whole thing should work – the children knew their lines, they’d learned the songs – it was just that when it was all put together, everything fell apart. She really had forgotten that these weren’t professionals, they were children, most of whom had never stood on a stage before, apart from Sophie, who had her speech and drama certificates framed on the wall at home and never let anyone forget it.
Cassie’s heart sank to see Roger Newcombe sidling in the door to watch a Monday morning rehearsal which was predictably woeful. She could’ve told him that in advance.
‘It’s in four days, you do know that?’ he muttered darkly.
‘It’ll be fine,’ she chirruped, although right now she would have done anything for someone to reassure her.
Marisha arrived in at eleven, looking a lot more rested than Cassie felt. She couldn’t help wondering if part of her improved mood had been the news that Finn had dumped her. Well, Da was very fond of quoting the Chinese philosopher Lao Tzu: ‘Care about what other people think and you’ll always be their prisoner.’
It wasn’t about Marisha or Samantha in the end – it was about Finn, and if he wouldn’t stand up for her, did it even matter what anyone else thought? Every time she let in what’d happened, she felt lost, devastated. She hadn’t heard a word from him, nothing. It was as though a door had slammed and he was inside with his family, while she was left standing outside in the cold.
*?*?*
Cassie opened her eyes on Tuesday morning with a jolt of fear. Only three days to go until the mammies and daddies, staff and pupils – not to mention Roger Newcombe – would be in their seats, watching the show. She had to hold her nerve and pull it all together somehow, but everything felt like swirling chaos.
She reminded herself of Olympic athletes who completed the full race in their imagination before they ever set foot on the track. So, she’d to clarify the whole show in her head until it ran like clockwork. She sat on the side of her bed and focused her mind on every move, from the first moment to the last, then went through it, again and again.
After forty-five minutes, she was feeling a lot more confident but was running extremely late so had to scramble into the shower and would have to eat her breakfast at the traffic lights – so far so good.
On the way to work, her phone rang. It was a UK number and her heart leaped.
‘Darling, I didn’t wake you up, did I? Sorry to phone so early but it’s an emergency.’
‘Sunita, hi. What .?.?. what is?’
‘Turns out they adored your tape, no surprise there, and they want you to come in for a camera audition.’
‘What, where?’
‘Well, here of course, London.’
‘That’s amazing .?.?.’
‘I know, darling, on Thursday at 3 p.m.’
The very day of the show. Oh. My. God.
‘Right .?.?.’
‘I’m thrilled for you. Only thing is, there’s rather a lot of script here and you’ll have to be off-book.’
‘How much?’
‘Around thirty pages.’
Holy crap. How on earth was she going to learn that much, even without everything else going on?
‘Thanks, Sunita, I’ll call you back.’
Oh shit, shit, shit. What was she going to do? There was no way she could let everybody down. She needed help. Help! There was only one person she could ask.
‘Phil? I’m so, so sorry to call you this early.’
‘Ah, Cassandra, it’s yourself, isn’t it a glorious morning?’
Was Philip beyond being fazed by anything? She had the phone on speaker and was in the process of weaving through rush-hour traffic, while trying not to spill her bowl of cereal. She explained the situation, and how if she wasn’t there to direct the show, it’d be a disaster, but at the same time, this was the break she’d been waiting for all her life. Even before she’d finished telling him, the solution was clear. She couldn’t let down the little faces, the kids who’d already surpassed their own expectations, the people who’d put aside days of their time to help. The parents to whom it meant the world to see their kids step out for their big moment. She was holding a whole community of people’s hopes and expectations, however cheesy it sounded.
‘I can’t go.’
‘Now, now, don’t panic. You’re doing an all-or-nothing on it. I do it myself if I get in a pickle. Don’t limit yourself, though – first of all, check whether they can see you the following day. Now, of course, there’s always the risk they’ll have made up their minds already, but what can you do? If that doesn’t work, get back to me.’
She redialled Sunita, who sounded horrified.
‘Oh, darling, I don’t know. All I can do is ask, but I can’t make any promises. They don’t usually work around people, you know. You work around them.’
In the past Cassie would have been stressed out of her mind and obsessively waiting for Sunita to call back, but this time, she thought she’d done all she could. You can’t control everything. If it’s for you, it’ll work out. If not .?.?.
The morning crawled by. Rather than focus on the vagaries of the BBC, she decided to stick with what she could control and rehearsed the group songs again, so the kids all sounded reasonably in tune. In the absence of perfection, they’d have to rely on enthusiasm. All of a sudden, a flash of crisis swept over her. Was she out of her mind not to cast this aside and put her career first? How inconsequential was this little show beside a behemoth like the big series? Just then, for no particular reason, words came to her from Da’s favourite poem by Patrick Kavanagh: ‘Gods make their own importance.’
There was her answer. Thanks, Da.
As soon as break time arrived, she checked her phone messages. Nothing. As the day wore on, her confidence ebbed. She had jumped to an impulsive decision, where she put other people’s needs before her own. Again. She tried to block it from her mind and concentrate on the kids. She didn’t even care that Marisha was looking smug. Too bloody busy for that.
It was only that evening at six, long after she’d given up checking, that the phone rang. ‘Darling, we’re very lucky and they can see you on Friday, but you’ll have to be there by nine thirty in the morning. Can you do that?’
Could she do that? Oh hell.
She managed to book a 6 a.m. flight into Heathrow Airport, which cost a small fortune but was her only hope of getting there on time.
Next problem was the daunting task of learning what amounted to half an hour of dialogue virtually overnight. She’d use Ramona’s trick, she decided, but they’d obviously called people at such short notice to see whether or not they could cope with the pressure.
The next day passed in a blur of trying to watch and encourage the kids, while sewing extra leaves on the beanstalk. They were using the stage for the first time and, as she knew perfectly well would happen, everybody forgot the lines and all the songs, not to mention which side of the stage they were meant to come on from. That would hopefully change once they did a couple of run-throughs and got used to the new space. Dress rehearsals were famously shambolic. Better chaos today than tomorrow.
At the same time as all of this frenetic activity, she was running the audition lines in her head, scene by scene. Astonishingly, she was capable of more than she would’ve thought possible. Phil’s words came back to her: ‘Don’t limit yourself.’
Finally, two thirty came around.
‘Right, everybody, great work and a big well done! Leave your props and costumes in place, with your names on them, and I’ll see you all tomorrow.’
*?*?*
That evening she packed her case for London. She’d be staying with Josie and Pal while there, which promised to be a delicious break after all the madness. Thank God the character she was auditioning for was the opposite of a glamour puss; at least that took the pressure off her to look perfect, considering she was starting out from home at four in the morning. What she needed now was a long soak in the bath to relax. Standing in the spacious, dark-green marble bathroom, watching hot water from the big tap fill the bath, she relaxed. In that moment, it all fell apart. All of it: the little show, the big audition – it was all so pointless. She found herself sitting on the edge of the bath, sobbing into a towel.
There was no point in kidding herself. Her life with Finn was over – his awkwardness, his solidity, the way strands of hair flopped forward onto his face. His long, lean body. He was gone from her. Maybe she could’ve done more, or said less? Been less eager to please? What else could she have done to create a different outcome? Nothing. It was beyond her control. From the emptiness inside, a sob rose up, muffled by the gushing tap. It was all lost .?.?. lost. After a long cry, she blew her nose on a strip of loo paper and climbed gingerly into the bath. There was something very comforting about the deep warm water that seeped into every crevice, enveloping her like a fleecy blanket. The many bubbles popped gradually, leaving bald patches on the surface. The water was gradually growing cold. There was only one way to go: forward.