The Silent Appeal #3
Not that your Barry is a soft touch, Joyce, but he’s a nice fellow and that’s who the likes of Lucas will go for. See you soon. Marianne
Message exchange between Joyce and Nick Walford on June 1, 2025:
1:18 p.m. Joyce wrote:
We need to get your soppy brother away from that fucking Lucas.
1:19 p.m. Nick wrote:
I know, Mum, but he’s getting good money at the club.
1:21 p.m. Joyce wrote:
Lucas asked Mark about freezers and body bags.
1:22 p.m. Nick wrote:
He’s gonna get Barry to bump someone off! Fuck.
1:24 p.m. Joyce wrote:
Even Barry’s not that fucking stupid. But hiding stolen shit? He’s that stupid for sure.
1:25 p.m. Nick wrote:
We can’t tell Myra. It’ll stress her out.
1:26 p.m. Joyce wrote:
Can’t talk to Barry at home. Arya will repeat anything we say to Myra or at day care.
1:29 p.m. Nick wrote:
I’ll try to talk to him at rehearsals, but all his scenes are with Lucas.
1:31 p.m. Joyce wrote:
However you do it, just fucking do it.
Message exchange between Trina Neale and Nicky-Rose Dearing on June 1, 2025:
1:40 p.m. Trina wrote:
Landed Heathrow.
2:12 p.m. Trina wrote:
Waiting for case. Shaking like a leaf.
2:13 p.m. Nicky-Rose wrote:
Relax. You’re not doing anything wrong.
2:33 p.m. Trina wrote:
Walking out now. This is what they do.
2:36 p.m. Trina wrote:
They let you get this far so you think you’re home and dry. This place is huge.
3:01 p.m. Nicky-Rose wrote:
Trina?
3:19 p.m. Trina wrote:
At the hotel. Ricardo’s suitcase worked.
3:19 p.m. Nicky-Rose wrote:
I said it would. Where are you staying?
3:20 p.m. Trina wrote:
Near the airport. Feel dead.
3:24 p.m. Nicky-Rose wrote:
I’m getting a friend to meet you with the documents sometime in the week.
3:24 p.m. Trina wrote:
What shall I do before then?
3:25 p.m. Nicky-Rose wrote:
Stay in your room. Go sightseeing. Whatever. I’ll let you know when we’re ready.
Undated page from a decorative journal belonging to Isabel Beck:
Today BIG SUNDAY AS IT HAPPENS
Big Sunday is soooo exciting! I can’t wait for it to start.
I’m early and outside the hall in the sunshine, sitting on the wall with my legs hanging over into the haunted lane.
This is where Fran and Father Josh meet during tea break at every rehearsal.
Will they still meet up on play nights, I wonder?
Nicky-Rose keeps saying we shouldn’t tell Kevin about Fran, but surely as director he should know.
What if someone locks the kit cupboard while she’s out there with Father Josh?
She’d be stuck outside, would miss her cue to go onstage, and the entire play would grind to a halt!
That would be terrible, especially if I was onstage at the time.
We have several scenes together so I have a vested interest.
I keep running through my lines. Is it possible to know them too well?
Nicky-Rose says yes and that in the professional theater, actors see over-familiarity as a bad thing because if you focus too much on the words you cut off the emotional root beneath them.
If there’s no feeling, you become like a robot.
Some actors are like robots anyway. Luckily Mark and Lucas only have small roles.
The NADA awards have categories for actors in leading and supporting roles. Gerda is more a supporting role, but I wonder if the judge might consider it a leading role if it’s played really, really well?
I remember these feelings from Blithe Spirit.
Excitement, nerves, and sadness. When you’ve been in plays before you know that afterward there’s a kind of grief that something you worked so hard on for months is over.
I wish every play could be my first play, so I didn’t know in advance that however well it goes, it will only end in sadness.
This journal shouldn’t be depressing though!
I’ve got some stickers left over from Denise’s daughter’s craft bag.
They are wedding bells but that doesn’t matter—they’ll still cheer the page up, look:
Reasons I hate Emma’s statue of me:
It looks like a space hopper
Its horns are uneven
The tentacles
Why is it green?
There was a long silence when she unveiled it. Then everyone burst out laughing. I felt horrible.
Message exchange between Isabel Beck and Nicky-Rose Dearing on June 1, 2025:
4:20 p.m. Issy wrote:
I’m so upset
4:20 p.m. Nicky-Rose wrote:
Why?
4:21 p.m. Issy wrote:
That statue is meant to be me!
4:21 p.m. Nicky-Rose wrote:
Whatever it’s MEANT to be it doesn’t deliver.
4:21 p.m. Issy wrote:
Everyone laughed! Even Joyce.
4:22 p.m. Nicky-Rose wrote:
They weren’t laughing at you. They were laughing at that fucking awful statue that’s supposed to be from 1951 but is holding a mobile phone in its lobster claw.
4:25 p.m. Issy wrote:
Can I have a hug?
Message exchange between Kevin and Sarah-Jane MacDonald on June 1, 2025:
4:31 p.m. Kevin wrote:
What shall we do?
4:31 p.m. Sarah-Jane wrote:
We?
4:32 p.m. Kevin wrote:
I was hoping you’d have a word, she’d take that thing away and tomorrow reappear with two simple clay sculptures of the same female figure.
4:34 p.m. Kevin wrote:
At this point I don’t care what the figure is doing, just so long as it’s clearly female and made from plain clay. That’s all I want: a simple woman.
4:35 p.m. Sarah-Jane wrote:
You can tell Emma that.
4:35 p.m. Kevin wrote:
She’s your friend.
4:35 p.m. Sarah-Jane wrote:
I don’t know. Is she?
4:41 p.m. Kevin wrote:
Issy’s crying and Nicky-Rose is on damage-limitation duties.
4:42 p.m. Sarah-Jane wrote:
So I see.
4:44 p.m. Kevin wrote:
She’s only been here since January, yet I’d be lost without her. Why are you up in the lighting box?
4:45 p.m. Sarah-Jane wrote:
Keeping an eye on Sammy. She’s found the community toy crate.
4:46 p.m. Kevin wrote:
A.k.a. the plague pit. You do know we can’t be ill during play week?
4:50 p.m. Sarah-Jane wrote:
I do. Everything is on hold. Anger, horror, grief, betrayal. It all goes on the back burner while we focus on the production. Not just because of the NADAs but because that’s what the Fairway Players do. It’s not about us, it’s about the play. The show must go on.
To: Celia Halliday
From: Emma Crooks
Date: June 1, 2025
Subject: The sculpture
Kevin says it’s upset Issy. Barry says it’s the funniest thing he’s ever seen.
Nicky-Rose says it’s too modern. Joyce asked when I’m bringing in the real statue.
Denise says she has a straw hat if I want to cover the hole in its head—only that’s a crack to represent the broken nature of the Cristows’ marriage.
I was aiming for a figure that represented the character as a universal theme. It depicts Gerda as a woman wronged by her husband and society—even by this play, if I’m honest.
What do you think of the sculpture, Celia? Emma x
To: Emma Crooks
From: Celia Halliday
Date: June 1, 2025
Subject: Re: The sculpture
Well, it’s certainly unexpected. It gives Doctor Who vibes, as Beth says. Did Kevin know it was going to look like that?
I have a question about the mobile phone. On the little screen you’ve stuck a photograph of Sarah-Jane as if she’s the lock-screen image, but her eyes are two big black dots. It’s rather alarming. Of course, you’d not see it unless you were up close, but I wonder what you mean by that?
Would it be too much trouble to go back to the drawing board and just do a quick naked woman? Joel and I are both up for NADAs and we don’t want a cartoon monster pulling focus from our big scenes. Celia
To: Celia Halliday
From: Emma Crooks
Date: June 1, 2025
Subject: Re: The sculpture
Why does Sarah-Jane have no eyes? Sometimes we can’t see what’s right in front of us. I can make two simple female figures. But they won’t tell the whole story, Celia. Namaste, Emma x
Message exchange between Nick and Barry Walford on June 1, 2025:
5:12 p.m. Nick wrote:
Why is Lucas asking Mark about body bags? Don’t shit me.
5:15 p.m. Barry wrote:
Not what you think, bro.
5:15 p.m. Nick wrote:
So tell me why.
5:19 p.m. Barry wrote:
Just some dodgy stock. Too strong for average clubbers. Lucas was looking for storage places until the heat died down. Freezers are best for this type of shit, he says. But now a buyer’s come up so
5:22 p.m. Nick wrote:
Fuck’s sake. This is the last job you do for him. From now on, you’re too busy. Understand?
5:22 p.m. Barry wrote:
It’s good money, bro.
5:23 p.m. Nick wrote:
It fucking isn’t. If you don’t end things with L I’ll tell Mum.
5:24 p.m. Nick wrote:
And stop bro-ing me, you’re thirty-four.
Message exchange between Nicky-Rose Dearing and Sarah-Jane MacDonald on June 1, 2025:
6:43 p.m. Nicky-Rose wrote:
Where are you?
6:43 p.m. Sarah-Jane wrote:
In the lighting box.
6:44 p.m. Nicky-Rose wrote:
Does it look as bad from up there as it does from down here?
6:44 p.m. Sarah-Jane wrote:
Difficult to say.
6:48 p.m. Nicky-Rose wrote:
Lucas and Barry have burst into giggles twice. Mark has had three prompts and Amelia is literally hobbling. On the plus side, Issy being so tearful is great for her characterization.
6:48 p.m. Sarah-Jane wrote:
Hadn’t noticed.
6:49 p.m. Nicky-Rose wrote:
Fran hasn’t got her mojo back.
6:49 p.m. Sarah-Jane wrote:
I wouldn’t know.
6:50 p.m. Nicky-Rose wrote:
She needs to leave whatever’s going on in her life at the door and focus. Celia, Joel, and John are carrying the whole play. Kevin is quietly fuming. You have been warned.
6:50 p.m. Sarah-Jane wrote:
Thanks.
6:51 p.m. Nicky-Rose wrote:
What’s wrong?
6:51 p.m. Sarah-Jane wrote:
Nothing.
Undated page from a decorative journal belonging to Isabel Beck:
TODAY BIG SUNDAY AS IT HAPPENS
Things that went wrong onstage:
Fran was supposed to ask if I’d like to see my room, but she said, “Would you like to go and unpack?” which is actually my next line, so when I said, “Yes, I’d better go and unpack” it sounded like I’d forgotten the line and she helped me remember it, when she was the one who said the wrong words.
Nick bumped into me while we were waiting backstage and didn’t say sorry.