Free Ghost Song by Sarah Rayne

1910, Mr Toby.’ ‘Those were the curtains we had for the old Queen’s Diamond Jubilee celebrations,’ and in Rinaldi’s company Toby did not mind the rooms at all. And it was a useful trip; they found a scullery backcloth used when the Tarleton put on Cinderella many years ago. ‘Mr Prospero Garrick played Baron Hard-up as I recall,’ said Rinaldi. ‘Although he’ll never admit to it now, for he likes everyone to think he only does Shakespearean roles. Shocking old ham.’
    â€˜I expect he needed the money that year,’ said Toby charitably, and because he rather liked old Prospero.
    â€˜It was a long time ago, Mr Toby— My word, I think it might even have been in your mother’s day.’
    â€˜I’ll ask her if she remembers,’ promised Toby before Rinaldi could go off into one of his trips of memory, recalling how Flora the Flowered Fan had dazzled audiences, and how Toby’s father had fallen in love with her from the front row of the stalls, so to speak. A great scandal at the time it had been, Rinaldi always said with happy nostalgia, what with Toby’s father being Sir Hal Chance, highly respectable and not at all the kind of man you would expect to marry a music-hall performer.
    Toby had been pleased to find the Cinderella back-cloth which would nicely suggest the kitchens of the big house in which the cook was making tipsy cake. Rinaldi was pleased as well; it had been a nuisance to lug the backcloths all the way down to the cellar rooms after the pantomime, but he had said at the time it would be worth the trouble. The canvas was slightly cracked at the edges but they could repair that this afternoon and put a lick of paint on it. It could be hung from the grid and, even from the front row, it would look as good as new.
    â€˜I remember my old father saying to me you should never waste anything in the theatre, Mr Toby. He used to tell me stories about how he worked his way up. I loved hearing them, those stories. All the memories.’
    â€˜Including the ghost?’ said Toby, as they carried the backcloth upstairs. ‘The cloaked man who slinks along Platt’s Alley, hiding his face?’
    â€˜I don’t recall anything about the ghost,’ said Rinaldi rather shortly, and Toby glanced at him in slight surprise because there had been an unusually abrupt note in his voice. He was not normally abrupt about anything to do with the theatre, which was his entire life. Toby’s mother had once said the Rinaldis were a theatrical institution all by themselves; they had sawdust and glue-size in their veins instead of blood.
    The backcloth was in place tonight, waiting to be winched down from the gridiron framework under the roof. Having checked this, Toby retreated to his own small dressing room. Performing a quick change into the slightly raffish evening clothes he normally wore for his act, he heard music flooding the theatre and hoped that meant the flute player had dried out his music. Now Bunstable was on from the sound of it—there was a roar of appreciation from the audience who liked Bunstable because he came from Hoxton and was regarded as one of their own. It’s going all right, thought Toby.
    He surveyed himself one last time in the fly-blown mirror. Loosened evening tie, coat unbuttoned, silk hat tilted at a disreputable angle, hands stuck in trouser pockets… Not precisely drunk-looking, but a bit the worse for wear. ‘Mr Chance looks like a toff after a night on the tiles,’ one critic had said, which had pleased Toby immensely.
    One last check—which was, in the words of the old Victorian turns, a question of, ‘All right behind?’ He twisted his head over one shoulder to look backwards in the mirror. Yes, he was all right from all angles. He went out to the side of the stage to wait for his cue, and panic welled up. I’m not getting the surge of power, thought Toby. I’m not