Eleven Lucie
Eleven
LUCIE
I t’s an age until Ophelia lets us go.
I stuff my copy of The Tempest into my rucksack and hurry out of the crew room before Theo can speak to me. I am not in the mood for painfully polite conversation after three hours of toe-curlingly awful rehearsal. Theo Larkin has had enough from me for one day.
Ced scurries out in my wake.
‘Luce … ? Lucinda … Wait up, Lu, for Pete’s sake,’ he puffs, finally reaching my side at the staff gate.
‘I don’t want to talk about it,’ I say.
‘Of course you don’t. And neither do I.’
I take a breath of warm summer air; hear the birds singing overhead and the muted bustle of the town beyond the gate. ‘It was horrific.’
‘I know.’
‘Ophelia totally set us up with The Tempest scene.’
‘Yes, she did.’
‘And Theo …’
‘Believe me, love, I am aware.’
Realising he’s made me talk about the very thing I said I wouldn’t, my shoulders slump in defeat. ‘I never see that coming, do I?’
‘Every time.’ He chuckles and throws an arm around my shoulders. ‘I’d say it’s like shooting fish, except you are far too lovely to be described in aquatic terms and my nerves wouldn’t stand me shooting you, anyway, fishy or not.’
I smile for the first time this afternoon and link my arm through his. ‘Coffee?’
Ced presses a hand to his heart. ‘I thought you’d never ask.’
Stratford-upon-Avon is blessed with coffee shops and cafés of all shapes, sizes and styles. It’s one of the advantages of being a year-round tourist favourite and also, I like to think, because the shopkeepers of the town understand that to remain this brilliant, we all need caffeine.
Ced and I have several favourite local haunts, from tiny ones tucked away in hidden courtyards and the fantastically themed 1940s café with its permanent Glenn Miller soundtrack, to the bonkers cat café and the coffee and ice cream barge that moors up on Waterside beside the Royal Shakespeare Theatre during the summer.
But there is one place we love above them all: and today it’s the only choice we could make.
Largely because it also serves enormous pancakes …
Cheerily’s is the kind of café I would have lost my tiny mind over as a kid. The crepes, waffles and cakes are amazing, but also there’s the sheer spectacle of a huge, glossy, curved glass counter that takes up the whole of one side of the room, filled to bursting with gelato in just about every colour and flavour you can imagine. Your eyes are drawn to it no matter where you sit, even if you just go in for coffee. (Although you never just go in for coffee …)
Maybe it’s that sweep of rainbow gorgeousness, or the pastel-painted furniture and fresh flowers on every table, or the sheer amount of sugar options available to you, but this place never fails to make me smile. Ced too, for all he’ll fuss and bluster about FlabBusters’ points and sins. It’s bright and colourful and hopeful – and on my darkest days in this town it’s become a lifeline.
The sweet scents of sugar, cream and coffee greet us like a rush of old friends as we enter. I can feel the tension in my shoulders slowly ebbing away. Forget spa days and expensive treatments: bring people here and let them just sniff the air for an hour. That would deliver all the holistic benefits they could ever wish for.
‘Table by the window’s free,’ Ced says, nodding at the two ladies laden with shopping bags edging away from it. Before I reply, he’s off, homing in on his target like an Exocet missile. Plonking himself into the farthest seat, he raises his hands aloft in triumph, then bows with a flourish to a couple sitting at the next table when they politely applaud him.
I love him.
I love this : being here instead of our now embattled crew room.
We both look at the menu, but I don’t need to ask Ced what he wants because I already know. Days like today call for one thing only – the Titania Dream, accompanied by two spoons and a never-ending pot of coffee. It’s an enormous five-scoop sundae built in a Belgian waffle basket, topped with a swirl of strawberry cream and a scattering of pink gummy bears. Even between the two of us, we’re unlikely to finish it, but that’s not the point. It’s a statement. A theatre event all of its own.
I join the queue and smile when I see who’s serving today.
‘Lucie Hart!’ she yells, waving the bright silver ice cream scoop above her head. ‘How the blinkin’ flip are you?’
Cass Henderson is one of my oldest friends here. We arrived in town about the same time, chasing the same dream. Cass had just finished a drama degree at the University of Warwick that she did as a mature student, and I had recently left my primary teacher job to move here. We met backstage at The Swan Theatre – which we congratulate ourselves on being the most showbiz meeting, ever – both going for the same part, which neither of us got. We bonded over abject despair and ended up in the Butterfly Farm across the river because it was January and freezing, and a ticket meant you could stay there all day in the gorgeous warmth. We still head back there whenever we can, wandering around the tropical indoor garden with its enormous multicoloured butterflies and the grumpiest iguana in the land.
There’s a butterfly in her hair now as she bustles over to serve me. Not a real one, of course, but proof of her lifelong love of the creatures.
‘Hey, Cass.’
‘You on your own? Only we’re a bit short-staffed this afternoon …’
‘Sorry, I’m in the company of a noble knight,’ I reply, waving at Ced who blows air-kisses back.
‘Love him,’ she says, grinning. ‘So what’ll it be?’
I grimace. ‘A Titania Dream and two bottomless coffees, please.’
‘Eww, that kind of day?’
‘Yes.’
‘Which scoops?’
I let my eyes find respite among the rows of rippled splendour. ‘Cherry Wives, King Pear, Love’s Labour’s Choc, Raspberry You Like It and …’ My eyes stray to the tub of Tempest Swell, a vanilla gelato swirled with salted caramel sauce and honeycomb pieces.
I’m torn: it’s my all-time favourite. I’ve even been known to have a scoop of it for breakfast occasionally. But I’ve had far too much Tempest for today.
‘Two Bees?’ Cass offers, waving her scoop like a magic wand over the tub of honey and white chocolate gelato.
‘Perfect.’
‘I’ll bring it all over.’ My friend grins, handing me two enormous empty coffee cups. ‘Take these and make yourself at home.’
It’s what she says every time but today the welcome is overwhelming. Blinking away unbidden tears, I quickly head back to Ced.
‘Everything okay?’ he asks, peering at me.
‘It will be when we’ve finished here.’
He gives me a knowing look. ‘Yes, it will.’ The coffee cup he accepts from me twists on the pastel-green painted wooden table as I settle in my seat. ‘You know, I thought you did sterling work today, Lu.’
I groan. ‘I didn’t. I wasn’t prepared – and I hate that I wasn’t. I learn every piece before we start to rehearse it. Always. Ophelia knows that …’
‘I think she thought she was helping.’
‘By throwing you and me under the bus?’
Ced raises an eyebrow. ‘Hardly a bus in the seventeenth century, love. A particularly cumbersome ox-cart, maybe?’
‘Well, there’s a comfort. Worse than a bus.’
‘True. About the same potential for fast-falling crap on our heads, though,’ he muses.
‘Stop trying to make me laugh.’
He peers at the tiny muscles pulling my lips even as I say it. ‘It appears to be working.’
‘She wanted Theo to upstage us,’ I insist. ‘She wanted us put firmly in our places and him shining like the star she thinks he is.’
‘But he is a star, dear. More’s the pity.’ He sighs and places a hand on mine. ‘Pheels worries about us, constantly. Our future at the Birthplace is never secure. We don’t see the battles she fights on our behalf, the threats she shields us from.’
‘But Theo Larkin …’ I protest, already knowing it’s meaningless.
‘… is a fine young actor. Bit rough around the edges, for sure, but the garden shows will soon knock him into shape. And when the two of you aren’t warring, there’s decent chemistry there.’
I stare at him, about to reply, when my butterfly-adorned friend arrives with a full coffee pot and the gargantuan dessert we ordered.
‘Caffeine,’ she announces, filling our cups and placing the Titania’s Dream in the middle of the table, ‘and enough sugar to power the Royal Shakespeare Theatre for a week.’
‘Cheers, Cass,’ I thank her, grabbing my spoon.
She watches as Ced and I dive in. ‘You know, we only ever make this for you. Every other customer chickens out at the point of ordering.’
‘Happy to be of service,’ Ced mumbles through a mouthful of waffle and cream.
‘We’ll always be your local neighbourhood celebs,’ I add, picking a rose-pink gummy bear from the crown of the dessert bowl and blessing it with a Georgian-style strawberry cream wig. I make it bow to Cass. ‘Forever at your service, madam.’
‘Charmed, as always.’ She curtsies back. ‘Actually, our local celeb customer base is increasing.’
Ced and I stop eating, sensing imminent gossip – another blessing Cheerily’s bestows on us.
‘Who?’
Cass crouches beside the table, pulling her phone from the front pocket of her serving apron. Clearly, this is the real reason for her offering us table service today.
‘Gabriel Marley.’
I stare back. ‘No way! Isn’t he off filming his first Bond movie?’
‘He is.’ She beams at Ced and me and I can’t work out her expression. ‘But two of my customers posed for selfies with him, at this table, made a huge show of it and left the whole café buzzing. Only—’ she swings her phone around to show us a photo on its screen, ‘—it wasn’t Gabriel Marley.’
The moment I see the real celebrity, I clap a hand to my mouth.
Theo Larkin is posing between two pouting women, his smile somewhere between smouldering cockiness and acute embarrassment. Below the photo is a hashtag, #NotMyGabriel, and row upon row of search results.
And just like that, my upper hand is restored.