Free An Awfully Big Adventure by Beryl Bainbridge Page B

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 .
    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 passage 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 nobody 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 asset, 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 passage. 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