LITMIR.BIZ

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Behind them the car pipped again. ‘We better get going before the gorilla behind us gets really annoyed.’ He drove into the car park and pulled up in front of a row of parked cars, a little way past another knot of people unloading even more equipment.

      ‘It’s going to be a really big night by the look of it. Have you got everything you need?’ Harry said, as Helen pushed the seat forward and scrambled out into the car park.

      She nodded. ‘I think so.’

      It was raining harder now.

      ‘I’ll see you in a few minutes,’ Harry said, leaning across the seat to close the door. ‘I think there’s a brolly in the boot if you want one?’

      ‘No. I’ll be fine, thanks – I’ll run,’ Helen said.

      ‘Break a leg, isn’t that what they say?’ called Harry.

      Helen laughed, pulling her coat up over her head so that it covered her hair. ‘In these shoes, on those cobbles there’s a really good chance you could be right. See you soon. Are you sure you don’t mind bringing all our stuff in?’

      He smiled back at her. ‘No, now stop worrying and go or you’ll be late,’ he said.

      ‘You’re a star, Harry,’ she said. And before Helen really thought about what she was doing she leant back inside the car and kissed him.

      It was only after she had slammed the car door shut that Helen thought about the kiss. It hadn’t felt awkward and Harry hadn’t blushed – in fact if anything he acted as if he deserved it. She smiled; maybe he wasn’t so bad after all.

      With the rain pelting down, Helen picked her way carefully across the shiny wet cobbles towards the theatre’s rear doors.

      It was complete madness in the car park. Cars and vans were parked haphazardly across the bays, while a few others had pulled up in a tight semicircle outside a set of huge double doors that led into the theatre’s cavernous interior. There was a buzz of industry and excitement as people unloaded all manner of props and equipment, the drivers and helpers hurrying in and out of the pouring rain. A magician’s cabinet was being rolled in on a sack barrow, while another man pushed in a long rail full of sparkling costumes covered over with polythene, and then behind him came a man and a woman scuttling in from the car park, each carrying guitar cases and glittering cowboy hats.

      Once she was inside out of the rain Helen joined the crush of people trying to make their way through to the dressing rooms. Standing behind a trestle table was a small man holding a clipboard; he was struggling to keep order and stop people pushing their way past him. He was failing miserably.

      ‘If I can just have your name. I need your name,’ he called after the man manhandling the costume rail along the corridor. ‘You can’t just wander in here like that,’ he bawled.’ I need to check you off my list, you know. I have a list – you can’t just go through there. Oh for God’s sake,’ he snapped as the man, apparently oblivious, just kept on walking, before pushing open the double doors at the end.

      ‘How am I supposed to know who’s here and who’s not?’ the little man shouted to no one in particular, and then he muttered,’ I need another bloody table and some help here,’ before turning his attention back to the queue. When he got as far as Helen he raised his eyebrows and smiled triumphantly.

      ‘Well, hello there,’ he said. ‘And how can we be of service today, then?’

      Helen couldn’t decide whether he was being sarcastic or not. ‘I don’t know whether I should be here or round the front,’ she began.

      The man looked her up and down. She suspected, from the look on his face, that he thought she was someone he could manage to control without too much trouble. ‘And you are who exactly?’ he said, pen poised.

      ‘Helen Heel.’

      ‘And you’re a performer, are you, Helen?’

      Helen nodded. ‘Yes, I’m singing tonight.’

      ‘Right. Well, you’ve come to the right place, dear.’ He said, eyes moving down his list. ‘Only the nobs and bigwigs get to go in round the front. Soloist, are you?’

      She shook her head.

      ‘In that case with whom are you singing?’

      ‘I’m with Charlotte Johnson. We’re the Wild Birds.’ Helen looked beyond him into the corridor. Now that his attention was firmly fixed on her, other people were slipping past unnoticed and making their way into the theatre.

      ‘She should be here somewhere. She came in a little while ago,’ Helen said. ‘She came in through the front doors.’

      ‘No, she shouldn’t have done that, I’ve just told you – it’s VIPs only that way,’ the man said with a sniff. ‘Me, I get stuck out the back here with the hoi polloi, while they get the bloody Mayor and all the celebs. How am I supposed to keep track of who’s here and who’s not? I warned them, I said, bunch of bloody amateurs, it’ll be chaos on the night, we need extra staff on the door to help sort it out I said. And look at it, tell me I’m not right? No idea how to behave, any of them – animals –’ He looked at her and sighed; Helen was quite obviously a disappointment, and then he smacked his lips before taking another long hard look at his list. ‘Wild Birds, you said, didn’t you?’

      Helen nodded. ‘That’s right. We’re singers.’

      ‘So you said.’ He tapped the board with his finger. ‘Here we are. The Wild Birds. You’re late.’

      ‘Only by a few minutes, we couldn’t get parked and –’

      ‘It says on here that you were supposed to be on stage for a run-through at half past four.’

      ‘Half past four?’ Helen felt her stomach tighten. ‘It can’t say that. You’re joking,’ she said. ‘The man told me half past five.’

      He pulled a face. ‘Do I look like the kind of man who’s got the time for jokes? Have you seen how many people we’ve got to try and get through here tonight? Now that is a bloody joke. The management want shooting. They should have asked me. I was in variety for years, me – on tour with the greats. I told them. I mean this is a complete farce.’

      As he spoke Helen tried to get a look at what was written on his clipboard. ‘I’m sorry, but your list can’t be right,’ she said. ‘The man at the box office yesterday told me that we had to be here at half past five.’

      ‘Did he indeed?’ The little man pressed the board close up against his puny little chest. ‘And which man was that, then?’

      ‘Tully, Mr Tully,’ she said, feeling her pulse quicken. ‘He told me yesterday, he said we’d got to be here by half past five.’

      ‘Like he knows anything,’ said the man with a sneer.

      ‘He was the only one here when I got here. At lunch time. I gave him our music.’

      The man snorted. ‘You gave him your music, did you? Well God only know where that’s ended up, then, it could be anywhere. The man is a complete nightmare. He’s a glorified caretaker.’

      ‘He seemed very nice. Very kind,’ Helen said, feeling totally lost. ‘He had a clipboard too. He said half past five and that I could leave the music with him, and that he’d look after it and make sure he passed it on to the right people.’

      ‘Well, you just better hope that he gave it to someone who knows what they’re doing,’ said the man. With that he ticked something on his board and waved her through. ‘Female changing, first floor, room three. You can’t miss it, up the stairs, just follow the sound of the bitching and smell of the hairspray. Go right along there. I’ve got a lot of people to see and you’re holding everybody up.’ With that the man’s attention turned to the next person in line.

      Helen didn’t move, instead she stayed exactly where she was.

      ‘What?’

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