matinee crowds were always the easiest to please and the applause was as rapturous as ever. One day they would be found out, but not today.
‘Come on, let’s go for a walk,’ Marta said, watching as Lydia wiped the last of the make-up from her eyes. ‘We both need some air and it’ll do you good to get away from this lot, if only for an hour. If you’re lucky, I’ll even buy you a sausage roll from that coffee stall on the Embankment. You need to keep your strength up –
the plague can take it out of a girl.’
Lydia smiled and took her coat from the back of the door, needing no further persuasion to indulge in a little normal living before she had to return to the stage to die all over again. ‘You know, I’ll actually be quite glad to leave this behind after next week and get out into the country for a bit,’ she said, as they climbed the narrow stairs to ground level and came out into the scene dock.
‘I see, can’t wait to get away from me already,’ Marta said in mock offence, but her playful tone was not reciprocated as Lydia stopped and looked at her.
‘Don’t be ridiculous,’ she said, gently stroking her hair. ‘You know how badly I’ll miss you, but I still haven’t given up hope of talking you into coming with me, at least for some of the time.
What do you say? We could find a little guest house by the sea . . .’
‘In Manchester?’
‘All right, perhaps you’d better skip that week, but how about Brighton? We can walk on the pier if it’s nice or stay in bed all day if it’s not, then smile over dinner as the landlady frowns her 111
disapproval on us in spite of the fact that she’s only got one set of sheets to wash at the end of the week.’ Marta laughed as Lydia warmed to her theme and lapsed into melodrama. ‘Then, as the day dwindles, I’ll show you all the glamour of life on tour,’ she continued. ‘Scratchy grey blankets and shared bathrooms with no hot water, smelly dressing rooms, half-empty theatres and restaurants that close five minutes before the performance ends, leaving you no choice but to go home to cocoa from an old chipped mug. Are you really going to let me go through all that on my own? It’s tantamount to abuse, particularly for a queen of delicate disposition.’
Marta took her arm as they joined the throng of playgoers in St Martin’s Lane and headed south towards the river, taking the sight-seeing circuit which they always enjoyed whenever she met Lydia from the theatre between shows. ‘Don’t make me doubt my decision on this one,’ she said, more seriously this time. ‘I could easily be persuaded to come with you because I don’t want us to be apart any more than you do, but I’ll just be in the way.’ She held her fingers to Lydia’s lips as they started to protest. ‘You know I’m right. It’s your world, and I can skate around the edges and drag you up for air occasionally, but it’s better for both of us if we keep you and me separate from all that. At least that way you have some sanity to come home to, and thank God nobody’s thought of opening the theatres on a Sunday yet: we’ll have a lot of time to make up for on your days off.’
Lydia smiled wickedly back at her and, sensing that the crisis had passed, at least for now, Marta changed the subject. ‘Talking of delicate queens, has your lord and director found you a Bothwell to return to yet?’
‘I don’t know for sure but we’ll find out from Josephine later –
she went to the meeting with them. However, judging by the mood he was in when he came out, I don’t think he got his way so we’re probably safe in assuming that it’ll be Lewis rather than Swinburne.’
‘How miserable for you! From what I saw of him at lunchtime, he’s not exactly going to be a laugh a minute in rehearsals, and 112
there was a gaggle of adolescent girls panting over the other chap’s photograph as I came past Wyndham’s. Wouldn’t he have been a bigger draw?’
‘Possibly, but I’m hardly in a position to argue at the moment.
Bernie made it quite clear the other day that I’m lucky to have a job at all at my advanced age, let alone a leading role.’
‘Don’t be daft. Look at the success you’ve had this last year –
he’d be mad to drop you. You’ve always said before that he values your opinion. He must have been having an off day.’
‘Yes, I know. He has been acting strangely recently and I’m sure he wouldn’t normally have been as blunt in the way he put it, but even I have to face up to the fact that what he said is absolutely right. I might be able to talk Josephine into writing me another role or two, but make the most of these weeks of peace without me
– you’ll be seeing a lot more of me until I’m of character age.’
‘Well I’m hardly likely to complain about that,’ Marta replied affectionately, opening an umbrella to protect them from the strengthening rain. ‘You never know – I may even scribble something for you myself one of these days, and I’m slightly more ancient than you.’
‘It’s all right for you writers, though: you can start as late as you like and go on until you drop, and no one thinks anything of it. In fact, we don’t even chide you for being lazy in not getting around to it sooner. I don’t know how you get away with it. I’ve been doing this since I was fifteen – no wonder I’m exhausted!’
‘Oh I started on and off a long time ago but if I read now what I wrote then, I’d probably be horrified. When you’re young, you only ever write romantic nonsense.’
‘And now you’re so cynical and worldly wise, I suppose? How does that tally with the woman whose idea of a first date is to take me tobogganing on Hampstead Heath to seduce me in the snow, or the one who leaves a single flower at stage door before every performance even though I’ve told her it’s bad luck, or . . .’
‘All right, all right – you win. I’m a different woman since I met you and I’ll probably never write another word because of it.
Books aren’t built on happiness, but I know what I’d rather have.’
113
‘Then we shall be old and poor and illiterate together,’ said Lydia, turning to give her a kiss. ‘Now, what about that sausage roll?’
The Salisbury public house was known to its advocates for liveli-ness and companionship, and to its detractors for noise and interference. Rafe Swinburne was not bothered enough to subscribe to either party, but Terry had suggested the Salisbury as a meeting place convenient for both of them before their evening shows and he had willingly agreed, eager to discover what the future held for him. He bitterly regretted having arrived on the scene too late to make his mark in the biggest success of the year, but his debut in
