Backstage at the theatre, the female members of the cast were jostling for position amongst the cramped clutter of their communal dressing room. Issy struggled with Kerby grips getting lost in her hair, she’d already dropped three down the back of her maid’s outfit, a teenager in bob-cap, her phone shoved up her sleeve, her mother had tired of telling her if it falls out mid scene that’s your problem to which Issy had not tired of replying Brian said it was a comedy. Diane, dressed in more material than any of them thought possible, a silk scarf tied over her head, another round her neck, still more across her shoulders couldn’t decide between eight bangles and ten, while Clare wished she hadn’t said yes to a tweed skirt suit and Barbara wished she had. Rails sagged under the weight of costumes past, hangers jangled as they were pushed aside, name tags tangled with coat buttons. On the floor crowded with bags and their own clothes discarded, heels were knocked over and muddled, a white shoe dotted with imitation diamonds lay on its side, the lace of an Edwardian boot wound around a metal leg. A full-length mirror, white plastic frame, was propped against a wall, while the only table heaved with fake diamond earrings, tiaras and necklaces, fascinators with feathers tired, trays of make-up, lids off, lipsticks dented, mascaras dry, and blue boxes of pins and clips and hair bands, a brush that everyone had used. In amongst it all was Ros, feeling brilliant.
“Positions, please.” Brian’s stage whisper was louder than his real voice, they could have heard it in Petworth.
“The curtain,” Brian finished as Clare flung open the door.
“So sorry,” she ran past him, followed by Issy who stopped mid stride, returned to the dressing room, grabbed her tray, and ran out.
Ros held her arms in the air as Clarice turned her around. “You’ve lost weight.” She rouched the dress in handfuls at Ros’ spine. “I don’t know how many more times we can take it in.”
“I can’t seem to eat enough.”
“You can’t have nerves.”
“A show’s a show.”
“It’s a sell-out,” said Clarice taking a pin from her mouth.
“Is it?” She’d been longing to peek through the curtain, superstition had held her back, so much was expected of her, she didn’t want to let the others down. Her dress, a waterfall of silver and satin, was a ghost of the thirties, and by far the most stylish of everybody's. One shoulder was bare, the other was draped in lace.
“Help,” said Barbara, her face puce, her body wedged into screaming green taffeta; Diane got up and fought with the zip, while Barbara clung to the wall.
Ros dropped her arms. “How’s it look?” She was pretty sure it looked gorgeous.
She’d meant to get in earlier, give Clarice more time, but a certain fear had overtaken her, not fear, but Diane would never understand. Peter had shouted at her for a full hour, or it had felt like that, standing in her kitchen this morning dressed in his mourning suit. Don’t you dare come over all Vivien Leigh with me. It’s only a fucking play. She was your goddaughter. Cara was your best friend. Was, she’d wanted to shout back, but hadn’t. She’d had too much of a headache. Her voice had been plaintive. I broke up their marriage and he’d replied, No you fucking didn’t.
“It’ll do for tonight. I’ll have it fixed up for tomorrow.” Clarice turned her around.
Ros tried on a glittering tiara.
“I don’t think I can move,” panted Barbara.
“We’re on,” came Brian’s voice through the door again. Barbara waddled across the room.
Ros listened to the rise and fall of laughter from the auditorium, she knew the play so well, could tell when Issy made a performance of carrying drinks, when Barbara and Brian made their entrance. Diane was on next, she’d already said break a leg and jangled from the dressing room to wait in the wings, Ros wasn’t on until the end of scene two, her entrance in a voice perfectly charming and perfectly strange, she’d been practicing on the dogs all week.
It was obvious she couldn’t have gone; it had been obvious from the moment she’d seen picking up Tessa. Not that any of them knew that, at least she hoped they didn’t, her and Scott had been pretty careful, and they hadn’t explicitly talked about it, but it had felt as if they had so much time, she’d forgotten Tessa was ever coming home. For twenty-four hours her ghoulish desire to be at the centre of a tragedy had fought with her deep craving for applause, and then along had come Clare’s text, a fate sealed, there was no way she could leave his side now. And anyway, she thought, poking her head out of the dressing room, Ben and Cara wouldn’t want to see her, and she knew how she felt about Poppy’s death, too, she didn’t want to be a hypocrite, I told you so wasn’t going to help anyone. All of these judgements, these reasons piled up in Ros as she listened in the corridor to the round of applause that greeted Diane; what a good, amateur crowd they were, as if it was some sort of talent show. She let the door softly shut behind her. Had they never heard of the fourth wall? Apparently not.
She inspected her face, her hair, tried to see the back of her dress. When he’d rung her she’d missed the call and when she’d rung him back he hadn’t answered. Then pinging into WhatsApp, T wants to know if M can baby-sit 2nite as if it was some sort of code for play it cool. Maybe he'd even told her already - a scream brought Ros to the door again, Madam Arcati had fallen off her stool and Elvira’s cue was any minute, her voice that would waft in from behind the fireplace, the doorway, the window. Or was supposed to. She’d suggested to Brian they pre-record her disembodied lines and hide speakers about the set to create the impression of her moving invisible from place to place, and he’d said right-o Ros, I think we’ll have you say your lines from here and positioned her stage left out of sight. She moved quietly into position, felt the heat of the stage, the breath of the audience, their bodies lost in dark. At least her and Scott were side by side on this, at least they could talk to Tessa together. She felt bad, but not that bad, it wasn’t as if she’d planned it. Perhaps Tessa would understand that you can’t abandon a man like that and expect life to carry on as normal, that chemistry was chemistry, that all of it had been inevitable. Maybe they could sit down after the show was over and figure it out like grownups. He could probably move in with her if he didn’t mind the dogs.
“Leave it where it is.” Perfectly charming and perfectly strange. How the others hurried their lines, how she waited until everyone was listening. “Elvira, of course…” The dead wife of Charles, the one more beautiful, more seductive; stepping into the light Ros ceased to exist in her other world, no dead Goddaughter or ex best friend, no inconvenient wife except the wife of Charles in the Condomines’ living room and Dr Bradman staggering about with a whisky. There was Madam Arcati making too much noise, Mrs. Bradman unable to get up off the sofa, Edith dropping her tray. She watched Ruth deliver her protests to Charles, and Charles ever handsome see the ghost of the woman he loved, the woman he couldn’t resist.
The heaven of it, the lift and warmth, the words that fell from her lips as if she had thought of them, how she moved as if impelled by the moment, a magic which overtook her. She looked out into the audience and saw the wall of the Condomines’ sitting room, she drifted to the mantlepiece and felt the warmth of the summer fire, she saw Charles flick his lighter with shaking hand and caught the scent of Pall Mall cigarettes. A dream world enveloped her, time stood still.
Only the light change and applause at the interval brought her back, the curtain dropping, the others screaming in hushed tones isn’t it going well but Ros avoided all of them. She slipped away, no costume change for her, an upturned crate backstage, her composition held. Stay in the space her drama teacher used to say. He’d never call it ‘character’. Ros was Elvira, she was real.
And the play, which was real life to Ros, too, the story of two wives, one husband, two women caught up in the battle for one man’s soul, swept along through the hours of bright lights and upturned faces. Her hand along the back of the sofa, the placid, silk exterior of her ghostly charm, the calm with which she made her case, her memories of being Mrs. Condomines. In those hours which felt like years, she breathed and expanded and believed herself whole. Charles flung his arms about her, the kiss brought a squeal of protest from somewhere but Ros imagined it a bird outside; how many times had Brian argued that you can’t kiss a ghost, and she’d said she’d seen it at the Almeida and they’d got clean away with it there, it had added to the mystery of death, it had made the play fizz with the unexhausted passion between them, it had given substance to this thing called forever.
Applause, encore, hand in hand between Clare and Scott, they bowed three times before the others joined them. Issy got a standing ovation, but Ros forgave her; am dram crowds were always kind to children. The curtain dropped and they rushed off stage, a clamouring of darling! and sweetie! as everyone hugged, their makeup streaked, their hair drooping. Brian mopped his brow. Scott clapped him on the back, the women crowded into their dressing room. She’d been fabulous. She’d been a fucking star.
“My darlings!” she held out her arms. “You were all wonderful!”
“One down, seven to go,” said Clare.
“I forgot my lines,” wailed Barbara.
“I fluffed an entrance,” said Clare.
“Pub?” said Issy.
“Get a lift with Diane,” said Ros, taking the only chair at the makeup table, a bottle of cleanser in her hand. Scott would be waiting for her, how she’d taken to always leaving her car at home, getting a taxi in, not bothering with excuses anymore.
But he wasn’t there when she came out, so she was forced to walk.
It took her half an hour, she practically ran it, her coat hugged about her, her collar up. He’d held her like he never wanted to let her go, he’d kissed her with a look that said everything. She checked her phone. Ten to ten. The funeral would be over by now, the wake probably too. She saw sandwiches curling on floral platters in Cara’s mother’s floral house. She saw the drifting away of last guests. They used to sit on the carpet and imagine drawing all over the walls, turning the prettiness to Borneo, the ruining of paintwork. Those pelmets, and lace-backed chairs; how they’d laughed at all of it. No one would have been laughing today. It was odd that she didn’t feel a thing. As she pushed open the door to the pub, she wondered if Poppy had been cutting herself.
Loud, warm, full of life, Brian roaring, Clare grinning, the pub opened its arms and swallowed her. She sashayed up to the bar.
“Elvira!” said Brian. “We thought we’d lost you.”
“Where’s Charles?” She put her bag on the floor and took off her coat. Diane looked at her once and went back to her conversation.
Ros! Oh my god, Eleanor. You do such a good job with her.
Oh how the show went on !