Chapter Thirteen
Thirteen
By Tuesday the twenty-first of November, just one week since Harriet had discovered her students in the crusty old theater, the building now resembled a work in progress rather than one awaiting the wrecking ball. The stage had been fixed and declared safe, and almost all the ropes, rigging, and sandbags, bar those holding up the curtains, had been removed. The bulk of the maintenance team now focused their expertise on the main lobby and backstage areas. You couldn’t go ten paces without finding someone wearing a toolbelt and wielding a hammer, tape measure, or drill. Paint fumes drifted out from private dressing rooms and public bathrooms, while the lobby smelled like burnt varnish and sawdust as the handrails and balustrades of the main staircase were sanded down.
Delittering the theater had instilled the famous five with a sense of personal investment in the space, which Harriet hoped would help their motivation in the weeks to come. She had brought in an old travel kettle, tea bags, and coffee and set up a makeshift breakroom in one of the recently painted dressing rooms. The original old mirrors, patchy with oxidization, still lined one wall with the dressing table running beneath them. The names of long-forgotten performers were scratched into the wood alongside the stains of old greasepaint, the waxy tang of which still lingered in the air.
Ken had informed her that the carpets would be replaced sometime in the next week. But some of the original features were salvageable. A team of professional upholstery cleaners dotted the auditorium, dressed like Ghostbusters with heavy packs on their backs as they steamed fifty years of dust and dirt out of the seats. The whirr of their machines echoed around the space. The chemical freshness of upholstery shampoo had all but eradicated the pungent perfume of stale beer, tobacco, and urine.
“I think it might be better if we work in one of the dressing rooms for now,” Harriet said over the ruckus.
“Ahh, miss, it’s too cramped in those rooms,” moaned Isabel.
“The paint fumes make me feel dizzy,” agreed Carly.
“Yeah, but it’s too noisy in here,” reasoned Leo.
“It’s even worse in the foyer,” added Ricco. “It sounds like the chain saw massacre.”
Harriet puffed out a breath. “Well, where, then?”
“What about the basement?” Billy asked.
Harriet frowned. “There’s a basement?”
Billy shrugged. His friends eyed him with curiosity; clearly, they didn’t know about the theater basement either.
“It’s under the stage,” he said. “It’s kinda hidden.”
“Wait a minute. How do you know about the basement, and I don’t?” Ricco looked hurt.
Billy shuffled on the spot.
“I used to come here sometimes before, at night.”
“Weren’t you frightened, by yourself? In the dark?” asked Isabel. “I would be. This place is creepy enough in the daylight, I only hung out here because of you guys.”
He looked down at the cigarette burns on the carpet. “Buildings don’t frighten me…”
Harriet felt her chest constrict. Once again, she was reminded of how tenuous some kids’ safety ropes were, how reliant young people were on the adults who were meant to protect them, and what could happen when those adults let them down.
“Okay, then, Billy, lead the way. Wait, it’s not dangerous, is it?” Harriet asked.
“Define ‘dangerous,’?” Billy replied, grinning.
Harriet shook her head. “You kids will be the death of me.”
She fired off a quick text to James, letting him know where they would be, and then followed Billy up the steps onto the stage, then into the left wing, where it was darker. Billy flicked on his phone torch as they walked gingerly through the space and squeezed single file past stacked wooden stage blocks, eventually reaching a narrow staircase—hidden from view unless you knew where to look—that led down into darkness.
“This is some Phantom of the Opera shit,” mumbled Ricco.
There was no need to whisper and yet they spoke in hushed tones as they tiptoed down the rickety stairs. The door at the bottom was unlocked and Billy pushed it open, causing a gust of cold, musty air, with more than a hint of old weed smoke, to whoosh past them up the stairs.
“Did I mention I’m claustrophobic?” Leo hissed as the step he was on let out an eerie creak.
“It opens out, once you get inside,” Billy replied. He flicked a switch on the wall and a line of naked bulbs swinging from the ceiling sputtered to life.
“Holy shit!” Carly breathed.
“Sick!” Ricco was grinning ear to ear.
Though the ceiling was low—held up by wooden pillars reinforced with steel—the space itself was wide. By Harriet’s calculations it ran beneath the stage and stretched all the way to the back of the building. It had obviously been used for storage over the years. Dust-covered packing crates and stage props were stacked up against the walls. A few feet away from the door, almost hidden by an old bedstead, was a chair she recognized as belonging to the cocktail lounge, a stack of books and toppled beer cans on the floor beside it—Billy’s, she presumed. She glanced around. It looked safe enough, structurally at least, but she couldn’t be sure it wasn’t haunted.
“Leo, are you okay with this or would you rather we found somewhere upstairs?” she asked.
He looked about him, keeping a tight hold of Ricco’s hand, and took a deep breath as though testing himself within the space.
“I’m all good, miss.” He nodded. “Can we keep the door open?”
“Of course. And we can leave at any time if you change your mind.”
Billy dragged a sandbag across the floor and used it to prop the door open, then moved to a nearby packing crate, flipped up the lid, and began handing out rolled rugs and scratchy wool blankets.
“To sit on,” he said when faced by quizzical expressions.
So they did. Harriet checked her phone. No signal. She breathed through the electric zip of anxiety that having no signal induced.
“It does have a touch of torture chamber about it,” Ricco commented, sitting cross-legged on a tartan throw.
“God, Ricco!” Isabel admonished, shuddering. “Don’t say things like that!”
“I’ve got beer,” said Billy, producing a four-pack from behind the chair.
“Yes!” shouted Carly.
“No!” said Harriet.
“School’s over, this is our free time,” Ricco grumbled.
“You are still in my care and underage,” Harriet replied firmly.
Billy put the beers down on a crate. “We can drink them when we go out for a smoke,” he said, like this was a reasonable compromise.
Harriet let it drop for the moment. To be honest, she wouldn’t say no to a glass of wine right now. It had been a hell of a day. Two of the pastoral team were off sick with a stomach bug, and a truant student had been caught snorting speed in the bus station toilets. She’d be writing reports in bed again tonight.
Despite the cavelike atmosphere, the basement was comparatively quiet, and they quickly fell into discussing the bare essential—due to Harriet’s constant reminders of “shoestring budgets”—sets and props they would need. She had spent her lunch break googling production necessities and had made lists accordingly.
“It would be cheaper and easier if we could paint old sheets to use as backcloths rather than trying to find wooden boards large enough and then having to shift them between scenes,” said Harriet. “The rigging will be all new, if we can work out how to use it.”
“I think you’d need to sew a few sheets together to make it large enough,” Carly said ponderingly.
“Yes, you’re probably right.” I’ll just add it to my list of things to do, shall I? I can sew them with my toes while I use one hand to write up my reports, the other to email parents, and if I stick a feather duster up my bottom, I can dust the shelves at the same time!
She could feel herself sinking into the depths of despondency when Leo asked quietly, “Can I design them? The stage backdrops?” And just like that, her head broke the surface, and she was buoyant again. It was what she had been hoping for, but she had known better than to ask. Leo was skittish and terrified of failure. If she’d asked him outright to oversee their scenery design, his knee-jerk reaction would have been to refuse. She’d needed to wait for it to be his idea, his choice.
“I know every scene.” He proceeded to pitch his ideas—as though it were necessary. “I can picture what each one looks like in my head. The dingy fireplaces, the leaded windows behind Scrooge’s desk looking out onto the snowy street scene. The Cratchits’ kitchen. The roofs over the city when he’s flying with the ghost. Look.” He pulled his sketchbook out of his bag. “I’ve been working on them. See. I’ve only done six so far, but I already know what the others will be, you know, if I’m allowed to do it. And I could easily copy them bigger onto sheets or whatever.” He opened the sketchbook and handed it to Harriet, and she took it, smiling warmly at him.
She looked at the pages. Whoa! She knew Leo had a talent; his work was plastered all over the art studio walls in the school. He was the art teacher’s most prized student, and his most frustrating. It was one of the reasons Harriet tried so hard to keep his attendance up; he had the potential to study in one of the best institutions in the country—Goldsmiths or the Royal College of Art, even—but he’d need good grades and references and a clean record to get an interview.
She turned the pages with reverence. Leo’s world of graphite lines and careful finger-smudged shadows was alive with movement.
“Leo, these are incredible,” she said, noticing the blush blooming in uneven patches on his pale cheeks. “I can’t think of a better artist to design our backcloths. You are now our art director.”
“Really, miss?” His whole face was now a mass of magenta splotches; beneath his blue hair, his natural coloring was pumpkin orange, and like most redheads he didn’t blush by halves.
“Absolutely. Think how this will elevate your EPQ! You can examine your own experiences alongside your study of Edvard Munch’s set designs. I could speak to Mr. Norton too, see if you can use your backdrops as part of your A-level submission…” Calm down! You don’t want to spook him. She took a breath. “Do you mind if I show the others?”
He shrugged, seeming to fold in on himself. “Yeah, no, it’s fine, whatever.”
She passed the book to Carly, who began to coo over them, and Isabel leaned in closer to her so that they could share the pages between them. Ricco scooched over to where Leo was sat on a checked wool blanket, his knees pulled tight into his chest and his head resting upon them. Ricco knelt in front of him and gently hooked a finger beneath Leo’s chin, lifting his face so that their eyes were level.
“I told you they were good, didn’t I?” His voice was soft, so different from his usual gregarious tone. “You’ve got this.”
Harriet watched them, her heart doing little backflips of joy. They were good for each other. Each boy hid from the world in his way but was made braver by the other’s temperament. Ricco was loud and outrageous as a means of keeping people at arm’s length. By contrast, Leo was taciturn. Unlike Billy, whose quiet was usually brooding, Leo’s reticence—like Ricco’s vivacity—was a protective mechanism; he folded himself small and pulled himself inward, making himself invisible to all but a chosen few.
In the process of averting his eyes from his friends’ tender moment, Billy had become fixated on a large packing crate in the far corner. Isabel looked up from Leo’s sketchbook and saw him.
“I swear to god, Billy, if you’re about to pull some Blair-Witch-in-the-corner shit, I’m outta here,” she said, following his gaze.
“No, it’s not that. I’ve just remembered something, from when I first came down and had a bit of a scout about…” He stood and began walking in the direction of the crate.
“What is it?” Harriet asked, getting up to follow him. The light didn’t reach very far and the corners were rendered gloomy lumps in the shadows.
“I’m going to pick up Sid again today, but I’ll only be gone for half an hour or so and then we’ll be back.” Billy didn’t make eye contact as he led the way to a packing crate and stopped. “In here.”
“Billy, are you sure everything’s okay at home? You collected Sid yesterday and Friday.”
“It’s fine,” he snapped, and then adjusted his tone. “It’s not a big deal. It saves Tess a trip.”
Harriet tried to read his expression, but his face was in shadow.
“Give us a hand?” Billy was smacking his fist under the lip of the wooden lid to loosen it.
Harriet did the same on the other end and together they pulled off the lid, coughing as dust motes swirled around them. She peered over and looked inside. Lying one on top of another were long rolls of pale, canvas-like fabric.
“I didn’t really think about what they were at the time.” He gave a shrug. “I didn’t know I was going to be forced into being a drama nerd. I was hoping I might find something I could sell. Or a body.” He grinned.
“Eww, Billy! You morbid little soul. Here, help me pull one out.”
Grabbing an end each, they heaved out the roll nearest the top of the crate and laid it on the ground.
“I really hope this is what I think it is,” she said.
“Me too.”
She used her boot to shove at the roll, which unraveled like a giant scroll along the ground. It was, as she had hoped, a backcloth. It was somewhat yellowed with age and a little brown around the edges, but it was unused, and it was exactly what they needed. It must have been stashed there and forgotten when the theater closed down. It was miraculous that it hadn’t been nibbled by mice or moths, and thankfully the crate had saved it from the worst of the damp. They pulled out another three, to be sure, and they were blank too and in equally good condition. Harriet felt as though they’d been given a gift from the gods. And she wouldn’t need to sew anything with her feet.
“Leo, your blank, slightly stale canvases await you,” she said, grinning.
Leo hugged his sketchbook to his chest and smiled.