Free Ghost Song by Sarah Rayne Page A

filling up with that thousand-candle-power energy and I should be; in fact, I should be crackling like a cat’s fur in a thunderstorm by now— Bloody Alicia Darke and her sinister alluring secret societies…
    Rinaldi was winching the backcloth down. From here Toby could see the repairs he had made to its edge. They looked very good and they would certainly not show from the front.
    Sheer terror had him by the throat now and he knew he would not be able to sing a note. And even if I do, they won’t hear me for the thunder, he thought. Oh God, this is the night I always knew would come—it’s the night I’m going to fail. They’ll boo me, they’ll hate the song, they’ll give me the bird, I’ll die the death. I’ll have to live out the rest of my life in squalid obscurity, busking outside the theatres. And if they write any histories of music halls in the future, and if they include the Tarleton, they’ll say, ‘During a night in May 1914, Mr Toby Chance was jeered from the stage during a thunderstorm and disappeared into obscurity…’
    Oh, for pity’s sake, he said sharply to himself, you’re not Irving or Garrick—you’re not even that shocking old ham Prospero Garrick who does monologues on Monday nights if we can’t get anyone else, and is always threatening to write his memoirs. You’re just here to sing a couple of tunes and cheer people up, and if you’re letting a bloody thunderstorm and a deliberately mysterious female get to you, then busking in the street’s about what you deserve.
    â€˜Mr Toby, you’re on ,’ said Rinaldi’s frantic voice, and Toby realized that Frank had reached the end of the opening bars and was looking across to the wings.
    He took a deep breath and walked forward into the lighted well of the stage. The footlights flared, hissing slightly, and the heat and lights and scents of the theatre closed round him. There was a delighted cheer from the stalls and whistles from the gallery, and the sizzling energy he had sought was suddenly there, pouring into his whole body. In that moment he loved everyone inside the Tarleton, extravagantly and indiscriminately. It was going to be all right—the song really was going to be the best thing he had ever written, and Frank’s music was already tripping slyly across the keys exactly as they had rehearsed, and the audience was already shouting in time to it.
    We’re almost there, thought Toby. Look at the audience now—look at all the audience. That was his mother’s dictum, of course: use your eyes, Flora always said. Stalls, dress circle, gallery, and don’t forget the poor so-and-sos behind that pillar on the far left, because they’ve paid as well…
    I’m not forgetting a single one of them, thought Toby. Here we go…
‘In the Maida Vale kitchens of the house
    The maids were stirring soup and roasting grouse.
    They were baking bread and cakes and boiling ham.
    And the cook was feeling merry, just a-tasting of the sherry.
    Making tipsy cake with sheets of sponge and sweetest strawberry jam…’
    Pause. Let Frank play the four bars of footstep stumbling music. Now the orchestra was coming in as they had rehearsed, and this was the verse about the butler getting frisky, having drunk the master’s whisky, and the confusion about the sheets of sponge cake and the sheets on the cook’s bed. Had the audience picked that up? Yes, of course they had, trust a Tarleton audience for that. Toby grinned and took off his silk hat in a mock bow to the house, who shouted their appreciation, and when he sang the chorus for the second time, they roared it with him.
‘She’d just tipped up the bottle for the smallest taster
    When the butler said, “Let’s have another glass.” ’
    The cheers were still ringing in Toby’s ears and the music was still running in his mind when he finally