Chapter Twenty-Two
The first time Ava had stepped inside the Penny Farthing Theatre, she’d thought it magical – with its cavernous underbelly, and all its twisting corridors.
She remembered how her mother had let her try on some of the costumes, how she’d watched her paint her face with pale powder, and black kohl, until she didn’t look like her mother at all – but someone else. Someone ethereal.
Later, as she’d sat in the lobby with a sparkling ginger beer, her father in his finest suit, her brother tutting at having to wear oil in his hair – she’d felt as though this glittering world was real.
And she’d wanted to be a part of it.
She’d wanted to be part of what glittered, and shone.
And then she’d become an actress, herself – and she’d realized that it was a lie.
For it wasn’t all champagne, and smiling, and applause.
It was late nights, and long days. It was spending too much of her precious wages on gowns for the stage.
It was the sneering looks she got from other women when she and Miss Fairchild went to the Adelphi, or the Shakespeare – for in their eyes, actresses were akin to the women who worked in brothels.
Another type of woman who scratched a living from the shadows.
And suddenly, when it was her in that chair and not her mother, it didn’t feel magical anymore. When the only thing that glittered was the condensation slipping down the inside of every windowpane.
The echo of St Peter’s bell thudded through the square then, and Ava sucked in a deep breath as she stepped up the stone steps, into the theatre.
‘Miss Adams!’
Ava turned to find Bertie perched atop the narrow counter of the box office, a pipe clamped between her teeth, black hair slicked beneath her cap.
‘Bertie,’ said Ava, feeling some of the jittering beneath her skin begin to calm. ‘It’s nice to see you haven’t changed a jot.’
‘What are you talking about?’ Bertie slid down, landing with a thud upon the rust-red carpet. ‘I bought a new cap.’
‘It looks remarkably similar to your old one.’
‘What can I say? I’m set in my ways.’
Ava smiled. ‘I missed you too, Bertie.’
‘A fair word of warning,’ Bertie said, beckoning for Ava to follow her. ‘Tommy has been insufferable all morning waiting for you. He’s got some choice insults up his sleeve, you know.’
‘I would expect nothing less,’ Ava said, the words needling her as she shadowed Bertie out of the foyer, and into the dressing room.
Though the theatre was large enough to have a separate room for costumes, and for dressing tables, and for hanging coats – somehow the frigid, windowless space behind the stage had become a home for all of these things and more.
And in the midst of everything sat the company.
There was Stanley, now a pock-faced teenager, still utterly transfixed by Miss Fairchild – who sat perched on the edge of one of the tables, her dark hair swept into a meticulous bun.
Beside her in the creaking armchair was Mr Green – stomach straining against his waistcoat, nose stuck in a book.
Mrs Green was sitting beside him, with her wisping grey hair and her ever-red face, and – finally – there was Tommy Bratton.
Who stared squarely at Ava, his arms folded across his chest.
‘Miss Fairchild, you must be getting good,’ he called, loudly enough for the simmer of conversation to drop to a hush. ‘I think I see a ghost.’
Tommy could’ve been considered handsome – with his oiled blond hair, and his clear blue eyes – if he hadn’t spent quite so much time with his features scrunched up as though he smelled something rotten.
‘You all remember Miss Ava Adams,’ said Bertie, gesturing towards her.
‘Welcome back,’ croaked Stanley.
Miss Fairchild’s dark eyes met Ava’s pale grey ones, her gaze cold and flat. Only Patience the dog seemed happy to see her – her scraggly white tail wagging furiously – though she was held back from running to her by Mr Green, who had her collar with one hand, his book still in the other.
‘Now, now,’ said Mrs Green, her voice a fraction warmer. Mrs Green was the type of woman who looked as though she’d seen it all – and dealt with most of it with a worryingly calm voice and a wooden spoon. ‘I’m sure Ava here is going to explain herself. Aren’t you, Ava?’
‘Yes, of course. I believe I owe you all at least that much,’ said Ava, her heart thudding irregularly in her chest. She was desperately trying to remember what she’d scribbled into that notebook, and why she’d believed it was a good idea to make amends.
‘I can only start by saying that my leaving you all wasn’t a … a calculated decision.’
‘Well we sure felt it was,’ spat Tommy.
‘It wasn’t anything to do with any of you,’ said Ava, her face dangerously warm now. She was sure if she dared to peek into one of the mirrors, she’d be red from forehead to chin, and she cast a pleading look towards Bertie.
Bertie merely shrugged, striking a match against the sole of her boot to light her pipe.
‘But you can see how we might think that,’ said Tommy. ‘Considering you didn’t give us so much as a goodbye.’
‘You didn’t even warn us,’ said Miss Fairchild, putting her brush down. ‘You just … disappeared.’
‘And your name was on the marquee,’ said Mrs Green, her wide, brown eyes blinking sadly. ‘We had to cancel the show that night, and Patience was so upset. Wasn’t she, Mr Green?’
‘Most upset,’ he murmured, flicking the page of his book, The Steam Man of the Prairies.
‘And we dint get paid,’ said Stanley. ‘Remember that?’
‘And then shows started being only half full,’ said Tommy. ‘Because they’d bought tickets to see the Memory Binder, and where was she?’
Ava could feel her breath catch in her throat. She had barely been here five minutes, and already she felt as though she had been backed into the same corner she’d spent years living in – although at least then she’d only had Miss Lillian hounding her. Now it was all of them.
‘London, I heard,’ said Miss Fairchild, plucking up her powder brush and passing it slowly across her high, fine cheekbones. ‘Drawing all the crowds away from us.’
‘That’s not true,’ Ava said, though her mouth was becoming dry. ‘I was in Edinburgh.’
‘Doing what?’ asked Tommy. ‘Starting off on your own?’
‘No,’ said Ava. ‘No, I was—’
Hiding, came Oliver’s voice. Just like Pa. Hiding from the world.
‘We’ve seen your pictures around town,’ Miss Fairchild said. ‘We know you’re starting up your act again.’
‘Even though you cost us a night’s pay.’
‘More than that, probably.’
Ava shook her head. ‘The posters weren’t my idea.’
‘Oh? Whose were they then?’
‘Oliver,’ she said. ‘They were Oliver’s idea. He was trying – he thought it would be good—’
Patience started barking furiously then, and the door swung open.
Miss Lillian’s cane clacked into the room, her long black dress rustling against the floor. She came to stand directly beside Ava, giving her the same curious look that one might give a hitherto-undiscovered sea-creature.
‘Miss Adams,’ she said, eyelashes fluttering. ‘You’re early.’
‘Bertie brought me in,’ said Ava. ‘I was just saying hello to everyone again.’
‘I can see that,’ said Lillian, turning her glittering smile to the rest of the room. ‘You know, where I come from we have a saying. The man who digs the pit often falls in it himself. And this, Miss Adams? This looks like your pit.’
Ava swallowed, looking between the faces of those she’d once called her friends.
Tommy was focused quite intently on picking something from his nails.
Mr and Mrs Green had their eyes firmly on Patience, watching her clean her pinkish belly.
Even Stanley would rather stare at the bare concrete floor than look at her.
But Miss Fairchild.
Miss Fairchild held her gaze, and there was a drumbeat sitting beneath her glare, something dark and rumbling.
‘But let us focus,’ said Lillian, thudding her cane against the ground to capture everyone’s attention. ‘Ava is here to help Miss Fairchild with her act.’
Miss Fairchild looked as though she’d been struck across the cheek. ‘I don’t need her help.’
‘I do not agree,’ said Lillian, pulling out one of the chairs and lowering herself into it gently.
‘The Royal reopens in December, and if we are going to compete with them – if you are going to walk onto that stage under Adeline’s name – then you will do it justice, or you will not do it at all. Do you understand?’
‘And what happens when another chemist proposes?’ Miss Fairchild fired back. ‘And she disappears again, hmm? What then?’
Ava felt her words land – felt the slow burn of hot, prickling shame deep in the pit of her stomach – but Miss Fairchild didn’t stop, didn’t even pause for breath as she continued:
‘All she has done, all Ava Adams has ever done – is shown that she cannot handle it. That she would rather run away from things, rather than doing what’s right for you – for us – for this place. Why are you giving her a second chance?’
Ava felt as though the room had suddenly become warmer, the walls closer, and she turned to Lillian – her voice a tremulous thread in her throat. ‘You told them about Jem?’
‘It was an accident,’ Lillian huffed. ‘It slipped out. And then I thought it would make them kinder towards you.’
One look at the stony faces turning towards her told Ava that that plan had backfired spectacularly.
‘You promised,’ Ava said, hating how her voice had started to wobble and crack. ‘You promised me you would not tell anyone.’
‘Then consider us even,’ Lillian said, lifting her chin defiantly, her black eyes dark and fixed unflinchingly upon Ava. ‘For you broke a promise, too. The moment you walked out on us all.’
Ava blinked, wishing that her throat would stop aching. ‘I told you in confidence, Miss Lillian. It was private, and it is shameful to have such a thing bandied about—’
‘Do you know what else was shameful?’ Tommy asked, his face reddening now. ‘Standing on stage the night you left, and having to do my act, and then sit and listen to the dumbstruck silence of the audience as they waited, alongside us, for an act that never arrived.’
‘Indeed, do grow up, Miss Adams,’ snapped Miss Fairchild. ‘My sister was forsaken by a man and she didn’t go swanning off to bloody Scotland.’
‘Your sister has had four children out of wedlock,’ tutted Mrs Green. ‘I think any sensible suitor would run for the hills.’
‘You think this plan is wise, do you, Miss Lillian?’ Tommy spun back around. ‘What if the butcher insults her, and she has to flee to Crosby on opening weekend to recover?’
When they put it like that it sounded pathetic. More than pathetic, it sounded … feeble, and childish, and … contemptible.
Lillian’s dark eyes flicked to Ava. ‘Miss Adams will not make the same mistake twice. Will you, Miss Adams?’
Ava blinked, feeling a tear skitter down her cheek. She reached to rub it away hurriedly before anyone else could see. ‘No,’ she said.
‘I think it is an important lesson for anyone to learn,’ Lillian continued, lifting her voice to address the whole company.
‘The greatest love you can ever know is the love an audience has for a performer. The love you feel when the curtains close, and the roar of the applause rings loud in your ears. That is the only love worth chasing. For not all of us can have the storybook kind. Not all of us are worth that.’ Her gaze settled once more upon Ava. ‘Are we, Miss Adams?’
Ava shook her head, willing her eyes to remain dry. ‘No, Miss Lillian.’
‘No,’ agreed Lillian, turning a wide smile to the rest of the room. ‘Now – get ready for rehearsal. Ava will watch, and make notes, and then she will coach you, Miss Fairchild. Whether you like it or not.’