'In the religious sense,' he said. 'From sin to holiness.'

It wasn't much help. All the same, when the cast a.s.sembled on stage and stood with bowed heads as Dr Parvin gabbled his blessing, fingers raised to sketch that insidious sign of the cross, she found herself shivering. She had the feeling she must either give in to that showy and heady beatification or run for her life. She couldn't just stand by; it was all or nothing.

Uncle Vernon had waited up for her. He'd wanted to escort her home but she had threatened to commit arson if he came within a quarter of a mile of the theatre. He'd kept her supper warm in a pot in the oven.

'No,' she said. 'I couldn't. It was thoughtful of you, but it would choke me.'

He switched off the gas with a bad-tempered flourish, though his heart wasn't in it. If his own life had been as full he too could have dispensed with food.

'It was wonderful,' she said. 'I wish I could explain. You've no idea...'

He had, but he stayed silent. She looked different since Lily had stopped curling her hair. It hung straight down, neglected, lank from the rain. It wasn't altogether unbecoming.

'When I came back across the square,' she said, 'and saw the trees swaying, I felt like Moley following Ratty through the Wild Wood, scenting his own little house on the wind.'

'What trees?' he asked. 'What wood?'

He'd seen her like this before, when she had her nose in those poetry books, and once when he'd sneaked up the stairs and caught her using the telephone. It had been one of those mornings when the early sun striking the coloured gla.s.s of the landing window had tinted the dark hall with amber light. The girl's red hair burned against the mildewed wallpaper. She'd replaced the receiver instantly and refused to tell him who she'd been speaking to, but then, as now, there was something challenging in her expression.

For a moment he saw her as someone outside of himself, another person, a stranger pa.s.sing in the street with a face blazing with secrets. He felt uncomfortable; her eyes shone so.

The following day the dress rehearsal went so smoothly that after giving out his notes the pause at the end of the third act, before Olwyn opened the cigarette box for the second time, was a whisker too long, and her response to Robert's line to the effect that she'd fabricated the person she loved a touch too quick Meredith declared enough was enough. He didn't want them to become stale.

Privately he took St Ives aside and suggested he kept a friendly watch on Dawn Allenby. 'Take her out for an hour or so,' he urged. 'On her own.'

'Surely Dotty can accompany us,' said St Ives.

'Better not,' advised Meredith. 'You know what women are like.' He found himself nudging St Ives in the ribs, man to man.

Prue told Stella to collect Dotty's black frock from the dressing-room; she felt the hem on the right-hand side wasn't hanging as it should.

'She's a perfectionist,' cried Dotty. 'What a treasure,' and asked Stella to afternoon tea at George Henry Lee's across the road.

'Like this,' Stella said, looking down at her overall, and Dotty said clothes didn't matter, it was the inner person that counted. In spite of this, it was half an hour before she came downstairs dressed up to the nines in a pin-striped trouser-suit, her hair caught up in a turban of white silk.

Babs...o...b..rne, huddled on the telephone in the doorkeeper's cubicle, was attempting, yet again, to get through to Stanislaus. 'Mr Winek has to be there,' she cried, thumping the wall with her fist and dislodging a drawing-pin, sending a call sheet and a sheaf of addresses spiralling about the corridor. 'He specifically told me to call.'

'Go on ahead, dear,' said Dotty. 'Madame is having one of her turns. I shall have to see to her.'

Stella crossed the street and loitered outside the store window displaying haughty mannequins flaunting swagger coats.

In George Henry Lee's restaurant a middle-aged lady wearing purple and accompanied by a string quartet sang 'Tea for Two', circling her hands in the air as though pushing away cobwebs. When it came to the line '... we won't have it known that we own a telephone', tears coursed down Babs...o...b..rne's cheeks.

'Obsession is a terrible thing,' said Dotty. 'It devours one's life. I still haven't forgotten the misery I went through with O'Hara. I was a fool to myself; everyone warned me he was a philanderer.'

'Stanislaus isn't like that,' Babs protested.

'Of course he isn't,' soothed Dotty. She propped her elbow on the table and resting her chin on her hand gave her full attention to Stella. 'I wanted to believe he was a tragic figure,' she said. 'More sinned against than sinning, if you follow me. That way it made his rejection of me easier to bear. You do see that, don't you? He'd had a serious liaison before the war with a young girl whom he'd got pregnant. He was only a boy, hardly out of drama school and scared stiff and, by the time he'd pulled himself together and gone back to do the right thing by her, the girl had disappeared. She'd given a false name so he couldn't trace her. I thought I could help him to forget. Dear G.o.d, how wrong can one be!' Her chin slumped in the palm of her hand.

'I don't feel sorry for that girl,' said Stella. 'She shouldn't have given herself.'

'Stanislaus has a serious serious liaison with me,' cried Babs...o...b..rne indignantly. Dotty told her to hush. 'You think you've got troubles,' she said. 'Think of poor Grace.' liaison with me,' cried Babs...o...b..rne indignantly. Dotty told her to hush. 'You think you've got troubles,' she said. 'Think of poor Grace.'

'What did happen to Miss Bird's husband?' asked Stella. She didn't want any gaps in the conversation. Babs...o...b..rne was now weeping quite loudly and her nose was running. A string of mucus hung from her left nostril and clung to the curve of her lipsticked mouth; the waitresses kept looking across at the table.

'They made a pact,' Dotty said. 'Foolish of her perhaps, but one does these things in the grip of pa.s.sion. He agreed to marry her on the understanding that he could bow out if and when something better turned up. And of course it did, albeit twelve years later a woman older than Grace with a private income.'

'Still,' said Stella, 'she had a good innings.'

'Stanislaus loves me for myself alone,' Babs whined. 'He disapproves of inherited wealth.'

Stella thought of Meredith. 'Has Mr Potter's friend got money?' she asked.

'Hilary?' said Dotty, and laughed on her jam-filled scone. 'Not a bra.s.s farthing.'

'I expect she's pretty though,' probed Stella. 'I expect she's elegant.'

Babs...o...b..rne stopped crying. Dotty looked thoughtfully down at the tablecloth. Stella supposed they were taken aback at her knowing details of Meredith's private life.

'Mr Potter told me to send a telegram. It was of a personal nature.'

'I can imagine,' said Babs.

'I don't mean to pry,' floundered Stella. 'It's just that Mr Potter is such an interesting man... I mean, he isn't run of the mill, is he?... and I thought any lady friend of his was bound to be unusual.'

'How very true,' murmured Dotty. Suddenly she caught sight of St Ives seated with Dawn Allenby in a corner of the restaurant. She waved to him extravagantly, blowing kisses as though she was on board an ocean liner that was carrying her away from him for ever. 'Poor d.i.c.ky,' she sighed. 'What a cross he has to bear.'

'Some people like being burdened,' said Stella. 'It gives them an interest.'

'And what does Mr Fairchild like, do you suppose?' asked Dotty. 'What is your estimation of him?'

'He's a c.u.n.t,' said Stella.

She was crossing the square an hour before the box office opened, sent by George to buy a bottle of milk from Brown's Cafe, when she saw Dawn Allenby buying a bunch of flowers from the stall near the telephone box. She waved, but Dawn didn't see her, being too engrossed in stuffing the flowers into a large carrier bag.

Rose Lipman went round the dressing-rooms before the half-hour call to wish everyone good luck. 'I expect you to do your best,' she said. 'I ask nothing less.' She was followed by Meredith who wore his monocle threaded on a silver chain. When he pa.s.sed Stella in the corridor she could smell scented soap.

A telegram from Stanislaus arrived shortly before curtain up; Babs was over the moon. Prue told George that Dawn Allenby was in high spirits because an admirer had sent her flowers. There was no card but Dawn said she had a fair idea who they were from.

The Lord Mayor was in the audience and the Chancellor of the University. The first three rows of the stalls were filled with people in evening dress. There were six curtain calls and Rose Lipman came on stage to be presented with a bouquet. George said she only did that on the first and last nights of the season, unless there was a particularly successful production, like the time O'Hara had brought the house down in Richard II Richard II.

Meredith made a speech about the civic pride the city took in its repertory company, and the importance of the drama. He said the gilded cherubs supporting the circle boxes weren't simply decorative; they were baroque symbols reinforcing the lush imagination of the theatre. But the drama on its own wasn't enough, or great performances, or symbols. They, the audience, were what mattered, for it should never be forgotten that it was their patronage and their applause which truly kept the theatre alive.

Afterwards Stella waited in the pa.s.sage until she heard Meredith coming downstairs. She would have picked out his padding footsteps among an army of marching boots.

He said, 'Well done', as he went out into the street. He was joining the rest of the cast in the Oyster Bar. Stella didn't go because she was under age, and besides no one had thought to ask her.

She rang Mother instead, from the telephone box in the square. 'You'd like the play,' she told her. 'It's about n.o.body ever going away but always being just round the corner, waiting to be caught up with. At the very end, when the curtain comes down, they dance to that tune "My Foolish Heart".' And she sang a few bars into the mouthpiece, swaying a little, watching the lights go off in the theatre.

Mother said what she always said.

6.

Two weeks into the new season Rose Lipman, sitting in her office on the first floor, heard a cry pitched like the squeal of a snared rabbit coming from No. 1 dressing-room. It was three minutes to Overtures and Beginners. She was in the middle of writing a report for the monthly meeting of the board of governors but she laid down her pen immediately. She went along the corridor and knocked on Meredith's door. He was lying under a tartan rug on the sofa.

'That Miss Allenby,' she said. 'Seeing you're keeping her on, I hope you've mentioned the cut in salary.'

'But of course. She was grateful for what she could get.'

'And what about the new girl? How's she shaping up?'

'Very well indeed,' Meredith said. 'No complaints at all. Bunny says she's quite an a.s.set, even if she did have a disturbed schooling.'

'What's that supposed to mean?' asked Rose, and grimaced; she was wearing new shoes and they were giving her gyp.

'She had a weak chest. She was kept at home a lot.'

'Fiddlesticks,' Rose said. 'I know the family. She hasn't had a day's illness in her life.'

'Anyway,' he said, 'she's become quite a favourite with the company.'

It was true. Dotty Blundell had grown especially fond of Stella. She was of the opinion there was more to the girl than might reasonably be expected. She had a boldness of manner, not to be confused with brashness, and an ability to express herself that was amusing, if at times disconcerting. She said as much to Bunny, who, after being furnished with certain examples of this refreshing trait, decided he ought to look into the matter.

He waylaid Stella in the paint-frame where she had been sent to boil rabbit glue on the Bunsen burner. He could hear her coughing half-way along the pa.s.sage. He said, 'You understand that in my capacity as stage manager it's my job not only to train you in your chosen career but to guide you in other respects.'

'I didn't choose it,' she said. 'It was thrust upon me by Uncle Vernon.'

'Be that as it may,' he persisted, 'it's been brought to my notice that you've expressed somewhat vividly your dislike of a certain member of the Company.'

'Have I?' asked Stella. She looked puzzled.

'Apparently you referred to Mr Fairchild in these terms,' said Bunny, and dipping a brush in a tin of brown paint he scrawled the word 'c.u.n.t' on a piece of sugar paper tacked to the work top.

'Is that how you spell it?' she said.

'You can't use words like that, and certainly not in public. It's extremely vulgar. This is a theatre not a barrack room.'

'I was only repeating what George calls him,' said Stella. 'Hasn't it got something to do with horse-racing?'

Bunny repeated the conversation to Meredith, who laughed.

'Perhaps I ought to take her under my wing,' he suggested. 'Attend to her spiritual welfare.'

These days he was markedly buoyant. Hilary was telephoning him regularly, both at the theatre and the hotel. There was also a treasured, unprecedented letter, which he kept in his wallet and unfolded at least once a day, humbly asking his forgiveness.

'You don't want to overdo it,' said Bunny nervously. 'I've told her she must spend less time in the prop room.'

All the same Meredith began to pay some attention to the girl. He had already cast her as Ptolemy, the boy king, in Caesar and Cleopatra. It was an excellent little cameo, and as most of the dialogue was in the form of a rehea.r.s.ed speech to the court of Alexandria it would hardly matter if, overcome by nerves, she forgot her lines. It was in the text that the eunuch Pothinus should prompt her. Suitably robed the designer had already shown him drawings of an onion-shaped headpiece and a collar of gold she would look more sphinx-like than most, certainly more exotic than Babs...o...b..rne whose voice was pitched a little too high and whose features were a little too Frinton-on-Sea to suggest the perfect Cleopatra.

Stella seemed unimpressed at being given a role so early in the season. He overheard Geoffrey telling her she was lucky and her reply that luck didn't come into it. 'He wouldn't have asked me if he didn't think I could do it,' she had retorted.

He took to keeping Stella at his side during rehearsals, ostensibly to jot down notes. Her spelling was deplorable and she had a habit of adding comments of her own. John Harbour is all right as Appolodorus John Harbour is all right as Appolodorus, she wrote, but his eyelashes are a destraction but his eyelashes are a destraction, and, How old is Seaser exactly? Should Mr St Ives look so aincent? How old is Seaser exactly? Should Mr St Ives look so aincent? He enjoyed both her company and the effect he had on her. At night in the lounge of the Commercial Hotel he and Bunny read her notes aloud to one another. He enjoyed both her company and the effect he had on her. At night in the lounge of the Commercial Hotel he and Bunny read her notes aloud to one another.

Stella had believed herself in love with him. Now, when he allowed her so much of his time, she realised that what she had felt before was but a poor shade of the real thing. The very mention of his name caused her to tremble, and in his company she had the curious sensation that her feet and her nose had enlarged out of all proportion. When he spoke to her she could scarcely hear what he said for the thudding of her lovesick heart and the chattering of her teeth. Often he told her she ought to wear warmer clothing.

Once, in the lunch hour, he invited her to accompany Bunny and himself to church. She was worried lest Uncle Vernon or Lily might see her going into Philip Neri's and was relieved when they went instead to St Peter's in Seel Street. She copied the way Meredith bent his knee as he pa.s.sed in front of the altar, and when he said November was dedicated to the souls in purgatory she lit a candle for the commercial traveller with the skin grafts.

On leaving, Meredith dipped his hand into a basin of water and traced a cross on her forehead. The touch of his fingers gave her such pleasure, that, scowling, she coughed all the way back to the theatre.

Endeavouring to be what she imagined was his ideal, she altered her demeanour several times a day. He had only to say he admired Grace Bird's fort.i.tude and instantly her chin stiffened with resolve. He had but to comment favourably on the kittenish qualities of Babs...o...b..rne for her to curl up as best she could on the plush seat beside him, her thumb in her mouth. Twenty-four hours later he admonished Babs for over-stressing the little-girl aspect of Cleopatra, pointing out that childishness of character was not a question of years and that she was mistaken if she supposed the difference between folly and wisdom had anything to do with either age or youth. He was not generally in favour of such a cerebral course, but in her case he felt she might gain from taking a more philosophical approach to the part. Then Stella, perceptive of his tone if not altogether sure of his argument, abandoned her thumb-sucking.

He talked to her about the play, the characters. On the surface Caesar appeared to be a supremely selfish individual, but then she had to take into account that having virtue he had no need of goodness. He was neither forgiving nor generous because the heroic figure, the truly great man, having nothing to resent could have nothing to forgive. The distinction between virtue and goodness was not understood in modern times. As for Cleopatra, she was an uneducated girl and deluded if she thought Caesar gave a pig's bonnet for her. It was Anthony whom she had enslaved, never Caesar. To Caesar all women were the same. There was always another one around the next pyramid.

This upset Stella, though she knew she was being foolish. After all Meredith was not alluding to her, any more than he was casting himself in the role of Caesar. From now on, she thought, I shall strive to be virtuous.

Geoffrey was peeved she spent so much time in Meredith's company. It smacked of favouritism. He was playing a Nubian slave, a centurion and a sentinel in the forthcoming production, each of whom were required to utter such lines as 'The sacred white cat has been stolen' and 'Woe! Alas! Fly, fly!' It was a start, but not to be compared with Stella's debut as Ptolemy. He was even more irritated when Bunny told her she was to be interviewed by a reporter from the Manchester Daily News Manchester Daily News.

'Why me?' she asked, voicing Geoffrey's own thought.

'It's "the local girl makes good" angle,' explained Bunny.

The reporter would be at the stage door shortly after three o'clock. Stella must remember that she carried a heavy responsibility for the good name of the theatre. She should deal with his questions truthfully, but if he asked her anything of a personal nature she must decline to answer. The best way of coping with that sort of thing was to state firmly but courteously that she wasn't prepared to comment.

'I don't mind being personal,' she said. 'I don't think anything else is all that interesting.'

'I mean gossip,' he warned. 'Don't let him lead you into discussing other members of the company.'

'Sometimes,' observed Geoffrey darkly, 'too much publicity can have an adverse effect on both career and character.'

'Give me an example?' Stella demanded.

'T.E. Lawrence,' he replied, though not without a struggle.

'Never heard of him,' she said, and shrugged her shoulders dismissively.

The man from the newspaper wore a black trilby hat and a long black overcoat. He was bothered about his weight. 'Ignore the barrage balloon,' he joked, flattening himself exaggeratedly against the wall as the actors came out of the pa.s.s door and went up to their rooms. 'That's never Richard St Ives?' he exclaimed, watching an elderly man in a peaked cap stumbling on the stairs. 'Surely he's heavier than that?'

'It's Mr Cartwright,' said Stella. 'He's from a dramatic society on the Wirral. He plays Brittanicus. It's a big cast, you see. Twenty students from the University are coming in as extras.'

They walked to the snack-bar of the news-theatre in Clayton Square. It was Stella's suggestion; she thought the lady behind the tea-urn would be impressed when the reporter took out his pencil.

'I was a slip of a lad when the war started,' he lamented. 'Two years in the air force and I blew up.' He hoisted himself onto a high stool and wedged his stout thighs beneath the rail of the counter.