Chapter 8
Diane hadn’t meant to call in at the theatre. Her intention had been to pop into town to see if she could nail down Chloe’s Christmas presents before she arrived back from uni. Repeated requests to Leon to ask him to go to Selfridges in between performances had fallen on deaf ears and so now here she was, at eight o’clock at night, stomping down Oxford Street in a fury because it was so damn busy.
Selfridges was absolutely heaving. You would have thought it was the January sales. Diane squashed her way through, also managing to pick up a pair of leather gloves for Leon’s dad and an elaborate jewellery box for Leon’s niece. Two more to knock off the never-ending list. The list that Leon had shown no interest in whatsoever. Indeed, had he ever shown any interest at all in helping with Christmas preparations? Why, for the twentieth year running of their marriage, was she the one buying her husband’s family Christmas presents? Why did he always get all the joy of Christmas and she got all the pain? Just because he was directing a bloody pantomime shouldn’t mean he got out of all the domestic requirements of Christmas, should it? He got to celebrate Christmas every bloody day in that theatre whilst she sweated it out in the council house, counting beans. Why was she facing the Oxford Street crush whilst he was enjoying watching families enjoy the true spirit of Christmas? She forced her way out of the rotating door and took a deep breath, large yellow card bags knocking around her ankles.
She should go home. She’d had enough of this mayhem.
But she found she didn’t want to. Home meant another Marks and Spencer microwave meal in front of the telly, watching TV ads of families planning the perfect Christmas. She didn’t want to be alone – she particularly didn’t want to be alone watching how Christmas should be, whilst she wondered if Leon was going to arrive at nine-thirty, straight from the theatre, or after midnight, straight from the pub.
And so she made an unusual decision. She’d go to his theatre and catch the last forty-five minutes of the show. Go and do something Christmassy, and then maybe she and her husband could walk down Regent Street and admire the lights together. Then catch supper together, in town, the two of them. And actually talk to each other rather than merely pass on messages via the hall table. Perhaps that would ease her frustration. Perhaps that would put some much-needed Christmas magic into their marriage. Yes, that would be good. Worth a try, at least.
The minute she stepped into the theatre she suspected she had made a mistake. The usher eyed her with suspicion until she explained she was Leon’s wife and asked if she could just watch from the back.
‘Oh, no,’ said the elderly man. ‘We can’t have that. There’s a box empty. You must have that.’ He directed her up a set of stairs and through a tiny door that led to a private box to the left of the stage.
Diane hadn’t been to the theatre very often since she gave up treading the boards herself. It still hurt, if she was honest. After all, she hadn’t really had much choice. She got married, got pregnant and then quickly realised that for some reason no one wants to see a pregnant Roxie Hart in Chicago or Glinda in Wicked or Maria in West Side Story . And even when you don’t look pregnant, nurseries aren’t open in the evenings for childcare, and when your husband also works in the precarious business of theatre then someone has to find a nice stable job that pays the bills. And that was Diane. She got a job at the council because they let her retrain as an accountant and she’d been there ever since, forgoing the worry of stage fright for the worry of how much needs to be spent on toilet rolls in care homes in a year. It had been hard leaving the profession she loved and she feared going back would only make her long for it more.
She was right.
She didn’t look at the stage to start with. Just gazed out at the audience. All completely rapt. Watching, laughing, having a great time. That’s what she used to do, she thought. She used to give people a good time. She realised she’d forgotten how to have a good time herself, never mind give other people a good time.
The audience burst into spontaneous laughter and she turned to the stage to see what was causing such mirth. The pantomime dame was in a kitchen scene involving custard pies. Diane could totally see why Leon cast him, despite his drink problem. His comedy timing was impeccable and his physical comedy couldn’t help but make her laugh out loud, even though just five minutes earlier she had felt as miserable as sin. He was good, really good. She sat transfixed until Snow White arrived on the scene. She certainly looked the part: dark wig, pale skin. And she was a pretty good actress – convincing and funny. Diane was pulling for her and that was half the battle.
But then she started to sing.
She wasn’t a bad singer – she was good, in fact – just, given all the physical stuff she was doing on stage, she hadn’t got her breathing right. She was getting to the end of phrases and holding her breath, which made it sound like she was overreaching. It was possibly barely perceptible to the audience, but Diane knew if she could correct her breathing her voice would come across much stronger.
Diane sat through the rest of the performance until the closing number, when the whole audience were on their feet singing along. The performers each took a bow and received a standing ovation from the very appreciative audience. What a job. Fancy getting a standing ovation every day just for doing your job. Diane couldn’t even get a cup of coffee and barely got a thank you from her boss. Ever. A round of applause? You have got to be kidding me. Even when she had discovered, after meticulously checking, that they had a twenty grand underspend in refuse collection, which had totally saved her boss’s bacon. Did anyone say thank you? Did she get a standing ovation for that? Nothing. Zilch. Zip. He hadn’t even given her the top grade in her annual review. She’d saved his bacon and he’d moaned that she needed to be a more positive role model in the office. Positive role model when you cannot even get a decent cup of coffee in your place of work.
The audience were filing out now, excitedly chattering about how marvellous everyone had been and how they had had the best time. That was work satisfaction right there in the words of a young girl who brushed past Diane in the lobby.
‘I love Snow White,’ she said. ‘She was totally amazing.’
Diane pushed through the crowd to get to the stage door, phoning Leon as she did so in the hope that he would pick up and let her backstage.
‘Are you OK?’ he asked when he picked up.
‘I’m here,’ she said.
‘Where?’
‘At the theatre!’
‘My theatre?’
‘Well, it’s not really yours, is it, but yes.’
‘What are you doing here?’
‘I was shopping on Oxford Street so I thought I’d pop in. Shall we go find some dinner?’
‘Yes, yes, of course. I just need to have a word with Shelley, but come to the stage door. I’ll meet you there.’
Diane pushed her way through the throngs outside deciding where to go and made her way to the backstage door round the side of the building down a narrow alleyway. A few families were loitering, clutching programmes and Sharpies. Maybe waiting for the soap star or the lad who got to the semi-final of Britain’s Got Talent , juggling ten clubs whilst balancing on a stool on one leg. She stood hovering, waiting for Leon to appear, which he soon did, waving cheerily towards her and beckoning her in.
Backstage was bedlam. And so utterly thrilling that Diane could hardly believe it. People were dashing around everywhere, shouting at each other, laughing, screaming, wiping off make-up literally as they went through the door. Oh, and the smell. The smell of backstage that she hadn’t smelled in something like twenty years. Dust, must, hairspray, carpentry, oil, sweat, such a curious mixture of intense creativity. She was right back there twenty years ago, except in the thick of it. Right in amongst it rather than the observer that she was today.
‘I just need to run through the penultimate number with Shelley and Baz. Something’s not working,’ said Leon. ‘Can you give me twenty minutes?’
‘Sure,’ said Diane, transfixed, drinking it all in. ‘It’s her breathing,’ she added.
‘What is?’
‘The problem with the number. It’s her breathing. She’s got the phrasing and the breathing wrong.’
Leon stared at her.
‘Of course it is,’ he said. ‘Why hadn’t I spotted that? You come with me.’ He grabbed her hand and led her up a narrow set of stairs.
‘So I bought Elspeth a jewellery box,’ Diane began as they went down a narrow corridor against a tide of chorus actors fleeing the building. ‘And that bag Chloe wanted. Oh, and I got your dad some gloves. I’ll show them to you later. See what you think.’ They approached another set of stairs and before she knew it, there she was, centre stage, holding her husband’s hand, still clutching numerous large yellow bags and wearing her coat and scarf. The lights momentarily blinded her so she shaded her eyes to see that they were not alone. Snow White and the pantomime dame were hovering. Baz was tapping his foot impatiently whilst Snow White was nervously chewing her fingernail.
‘I’m so sorry,’ said Snow White to Leon. ‘“Finding Myself” just didn’t land, did it? I’m not sure what happened.’
‘No, Shell,’ said Leon. ‘You don’t nail it, no. But may I introduce my wife,’ he went on. ‘She was, she was … on the stage, weren’t you, love, many moons ago. She was brilliant, utterly brilliant. And she watched your number and said it’s your breathing and your phrasing. That’s what you said, wasn’t it, Diane?’
‘Well, yes,’ said Diane, feeling very put on the spot. ‘I mean, you are close, really close.’
‘I could have told you that,’ muttered Baz, still tapping his foot.
‘Just an opinion,’ said Diane. ‘You might just want to rethink where you’re taking your breaths, that’s all. Worth a try.’
‘Show her,’ said Leon.
‘What?’ replied Diane.
‘Just show her what you mean. You sing it.’
‘Don’t be stupid,’ said Diane. ‘I don’t even know the song.’
‘You can still read music, can’t you?’ said Leon, stepping forward to the edge of the stage. ‘Pass me the sheet music for “Finding Myself”, Steve,’ he asked the conductor. ‘Then let’s just go from the opening bars, shall we?’ He walked back towards Diane. ‘Here,’ he said, holding out the sheet. ‘It’s basically a rip-off of “Somewhere Over the Rainbow”, right? Show Shelley how you would sing it.’
‘No,’ she said. ‘I can’t.’
‘For goodness’ sake, sing the freaking song,’ said Baz, ‘and then we can all get out of here.’
‘I’ll speak it,’ said Diane as she reluctantly took the sheet music from her husband. ‘I’m not singing.’ The orchestra took up the opening bars. She cleared her throat and spoke through the lyrics, exaggerating her pauses, indicating where she thought Shelley should breathe.
She looked nervously up at her husband, who encouraged her to carry on. The lyrics and the music were simple and repetitive but required some contrast between the high and low notes where Diane felt Snow White had gone wrong. She dropped her shoulders, relaxed as she approached the key change in the final third of the song and, as she stood there, still wearing her coat, her shopping bags at her feet, she wished now she had just sung the notes. Just to see what it felt like. But she feared she would either have humiliated herself, or worse, really enjoyed herself, settling back into singing like putting on an old comfortable coat, wondering why she had ever stopped wearing it.
There was a split second of silence when she had finished. Her eyes were closed. She was in the moment. She was twenty-five again, on a West End stage. Just being there made her feel more alive than she had done in a very long time.
She heard a faint ripple of applause. She opened her eyes and saw Leon grinning and clapping, as was Snow White.
‘That’s brilliant, Di. Makes total sense. Now, can you mark that sheet up with where you were breathing, for Shelley, and how you were phrasing? Talk her through it.’
Leon handed her a pen, then turned his back on her. ‘Baz, thanks for hanging around,’ he said. ‘Now come and show me the problem with your dressing room. I’ll be back in a minute, Di,’ he added, and disappeared off with his pantomime dame.
‘How did you know to do it like that?’ said Shelley, blinking at her. ‘I totally get it. Do you still perform?’
‘No,’ said Diane. ‘Haven’t done for years.’
‘How come?’ asked Snow White.
She looked at Shelley. ‘It’s a young woman’s game,’ she told her. She swallowed. ‘So make the most of it. You never know when it might end.’
‘Did you love it?’ asked Snow White.
Diane glanced up at the empty auditorium, then down at the orchestra pit where the musicians were packing up their instruments. Then she looked at the young girl standing in front of her with her entire life ahead of her.
‘It was the love of my life,’ she declared.
Leon was gone half an hour, leaving Diane to sit on the edge of the stage, legs dangling, watching the cleaners go up and down the stalls with bin bags and litter pickers. The band had packed up and gone, dashing off to meet musicians from other performances in the bars and restaurants that stayed open for the backstage theatre crowd. Diane swung her legs, gazing up at the rows and rows of seats, now empty and quiet. The view was the most beautiful she could imagine in the whole wide world. A theatre auditorium, alive with possibility, alive with potential emotion and feeling, despite the fact it was virtually empty. She thought of the council office. The atmosphere was the very opposite of a theatre auditorium. Dead, dull; no one really wanted to be there. It held no potential for anything apart from, perhaps, misery. She sighed. What had happened to her life? How had she traded the electric atmosphere of the theatre for the sombre ambiance of a council office?
She heard footsteps behind her and looked up to see Leon approaching.
‘Sorry about that,’ he said, taking a seat beside her. ‘Baz needs his weekly moan in order to keep him functioning. Today it was the cold tap in his dressing room. Not cold enough, apparently.’
‘Poor Baz,’ she said, although she didn’t mean it. Baz, who, as a middle-aged man, still got to work in the theatre impersonating a parody of a middle-aged woman as a pantomime dame. Oh, the irony that that part always went to men!
‘Listen,’ said Leon. ‘I’m absolutely pooped. It’s been a hell of a day. We’ve had the press in and I ended up doing some interviews for local radio in between shows. No time to myself at all. Do you mind if we jump on the tube and grab a takeaway in front of the telly?’
Diane stared back at him. ‘Can I show you the gloves I got for your dad for Christmas?’ she asked, reaching into the yellow bag beside her.
‘No, honestly,’ said Leon. ‘I’m sure they’re great. Just wrap them and give them to him.’ She looked back. He was texting on his phone, laughing.
‘What’s funny?’ she asked.
‘It’s the guys from the band. They’re trying to get me to join them at the Rose and Crown. They keep sending me pictures of them in the Gents playing the ukulele.’
‘We can go and join them,’ said Diane. ‘Really, we don’t have to go and eat.’
‘No, it’s fine,’ he said, shaking his head. ‘It’ll be a session and I don’t need it. I just want to go home.’
‘Why don’t we grab a bite near here, then go home?’ said Diane. ‘We never eat out in town any more.’
‘Diane, they’re all either overhyped tourist traps round here or have a zero hygiene rating. I cannot afford to get food poisoning at this time of year. The entire production will fall apart. Tell you what, let’s get a cab home, treat ourselves and I’ll order a Deliveroo. I’ve been dreaming about a Big Mac all day.’ He stood up and began walking to the back of the stage. She heaved herself up and dusted herself off. She took one last look at the auditorium and followed him out to flag down a cab and go home and eat a cheap burger whilst Leon ignored her and caught up on the current box set he was watching in his free time whilst he could have been being an actual fucking husband!