A Sudden Engagement and The Sicilian’s Surprise Wife(23)

The days spread into weeks. Gradually the play started to come together. Costumes arrived and were fitted; scenery was made ready, and an indefinable but noticeable tension began to grip the cast, adding a sharp, zestful edge to rehearsals.

Only Kirsty seemed unable to share the growing excitement. She was conscious of a certain lack of something in her own performance that bothered her and made her feel that she was letting Simon down. If he was aware of it, he didn’t say so, but Rachel’s constantly expressed doubts about the changing of Hero’s traditional role nibbled away at her self-confidence, and Kirsty felt sure that it was no accident that the other woman often contrived to be in the vicinity when they were rehearsing. Twice she had dropped props; on one occasion she had broken into a coughing spasm and on another she had dislodged a piece of scenery just as they were building up to the crux of the wedding scene.

Had they been acting in front of an audience, Kirsty had no doubt that she could have accused Rachel of deliberately trying to distract their attention, but it was impossible to suggest that the older and infinitely more experienced actress was trying to throw her off balance, and anyway, Kirsty didn’t feel that she wanted to descend to Rachel’s petty level.

Even so, she was finding the strain tiring, and confided her fears to Cherry one evening as they walked towards the car park together.

‘I’m sure you’re wrong,’ Cherry comforted her, when Kirsty told her how worried she was about her portrayal of Hero’s role. ‘Simon is very pleased with you, I know, although he’s a bit preoccupied at the moment, poor love. The hospital want Helen to go in on an in-patient basis until after the birth, but she won’t hear of it. Any idea when Drew’s coming back?’

‘He’s in New York at the moment,’ Kirsty told her, trying not to let her voice betray her.

‘Umm. It’s a terrible shame that that script business should have come up right now, but then I don’t suppose he had much option, not if he was already contracted, but you must miss him dreadfully.’

Someone Kirsty managed a monosyllabic response, and only she knew how bitterly true it was. She did miss him, with a dull, nagging ache that gave her an insight into what she was going to have to endure for the rest of her life.

All her normal optimism and exuberance seemed to have been quenched; she felt quenched herself, muted and dull, as though loving Drew had destroyed her vivacity and joie de vivre. She was tempted to go home for a weekend, but dreaded her parents reading the truth in her face, she had changed so much. If nothing else, knowing Drew had forced her into adulthood, and she had left behind for ever the girl who had so glibly decided to punish him for daring to criticise her.

Even now she found it impossible to remember the feel of his skin and the warmth of his mouth without aching to experience both again.

Lying sleepless at night, she sometimes endured the unbearable torture of re-living the sensation of being in his arms, but the experience was too painful and she had taken to sitting up, either reading or working, until she was on the point of exhaustion, solely to ensure that when she went to bed she would sleep.





CHAPTER EIGHT


‘DON’T worry—you always think you’re far worse than you actually are. It’s a well known actor’s failing,’ Rafe comforted Kirsty, as he helped her down from the stage.

They had just finished a pre-dress rehearsal run-through, and compared with the polished performances of the others, Kirsty was convinced that her own fell very far short of their expertise.

‘For what it’s worth I think Simon is right, and you’re bringing a freshness to Hero that’s very winning. David thinks so too,’ he added with a wicked grin. Although professionally their Beatrice and Benedick could not be faulted, there had been a few sparks flying between the two leading actors, which Kirsty found a little surprising because David had always had a reputation for being an extremely unprecious actor, with an extremely even temperament. Rachel had tried to upstage him, and while he had not allowed her attitude to provoke him into a quarrel, he had been firm and direct about making sure the incident wasn’t repeated. Cherry had confided to Kirsty that Simon wasn’t too happy with the actress either, although he admitted that she made an excellent Beatrice.

‘I’m afraid I’m never going to be anything even approaching as good as Rachel,’ Kirsty told him honestly.

‘Would you want to be?’ David raised his eyebrows and looked down at her. ‘Surely once you’re married to Drew acting will take something of a second place in your life—unless of course I’ve misread your character.’

Kirsty shook her head.

‘No, I’ll never have the dedication to devote my whole life to it.’

‘That’s just as well,’ David laughed. ‘I can’t see Drew being too happy about that. Heard anything from him recently?’ he added casually.

How much had he heard? Kirsty wondered numbly. There had been a time when Rachel had made no secret of the fact that, married or not, she couldn’t be entirely averse to allowing their mutual roles to extend beyond the boundaries of Shakespeare’s play, and even though now she was barely civil to David when they weren’t on the stage, Kirsty couldn’t be sure that she hadn’t told him about Beverley and about her being in New York with Drew.

‘He writes,’ she lied eventually, ‘but…’

‘Letters are never an adequate recompense?’ he suggested with a faint smile. ‘If I didn’t know that in my heart of hearts I’d be poaching, I’d suggest that you have dinner with me tonight, Kirsty. ‘He added with a wry smile, ‘Drew’s a very lucky man. Girls like you are all too thin on the ground these days.’

‘Thank you, kind sir,’ Kirsty managed with a shaky grin. The mere mention of Drew had been sufficient to awaken all the anguish she had fought to put behind her since he had gone.

‘What’s going on here?’ They had been standing together in the shadows offstage, and Rachel’s acidly sneering remark and searching gaze made them both move slightly away. ‘Private tuition?’ she goaded in the same sour tone. ‘I hope you benefit from it, my dear—you can certainly do with it, but then of course I tend to forget that you don’t have the experience of the rest of us. At least not on stage,’ she added insultingly. ‘What was it now—two flops behind you?’

‘One, actually.’ Kirsty was proud of the quiet calmness of her voice because she was feeling far from calm.

‘Bitch!’ David remarked succinctly as Rachel pushed past them. ‘I hope she doesn’t use this to make trouble between you and Drew,’ he added.

‘I doubt if anything she had to say would alter Drew’s feelings towards me,’ Kirsty told him lightly. It was, after all, probably the truth. Drew’s opinion of her was already so low, it couldn’t possibly sink any lower, and then, although David didn’t know it, telling him that she had found them together was hardly to evoke any response. She was wearing Drew’s ring again. Somehow she hadn’t been able to resist the temptation to wear it, and she fingered it now with a prescient feeling of sadness. How long would it be before she no longer had any rights, however tenuous, to what it symbolised?

Simon had already told her that Drew was having to stay in New York longer than he had planned. Why? Because Beverley was there and he couldn’t bear to be parted from her? Asking herself such painful questions was a profitless exercise, and when Cherry suggested that she join them at the pub across the road from the theatre for a drink before going their separate ways, Kirsty agreed.

Everyone apart from her seemed to be in an effervescent mood. The rehearsals were going well, or so the others seemed to think

Rafe, who was playing Claudio to her Here, sat next to her questioning her about her views of Simon’s interpretation of her part.

‘I must say I think it’s working very well,’ he told her enthusiastically. ‘It was Drew’s idea originally, of course. He told me about it when they were initially auditioning for Much Ado. I remember I asked him then who was playing Hero, and he told me he hadn’t found her. He wanted someone special, he said, someone who could rise above the traditional playing of the role. In fact I seem to remember that he expressed a good deal of admiration for Hero,’ he added with a grin. ‘Something about her being a much easier woman to live with than Beatrice with all her fireworks. It looks as if he really meant it,’ he added slyly. ‘Have the two of you named the big day yet?’

Kirsty was saved from answering when Meg started to tell her about the time she had played Hero, and how difficult she had found it.

Kirsty had the impression that they were all, in their separate ways, trying to build up her self-confidence, and her despondency grew. She was not right for the part, she knew it. She lacked the experience, the verve, Simon was looking for. She would let him and the others down, she knew she would.

‘Don’t forget, everyone, dress rehearsal Wednesday,’ Simon reminded them as he got up to leave. ‘I’ve got to run now, Helen hasn’t been feeling too good. No rehearsals tomorrow—have a day off.’ There was a chorus of groans because it had been over a week since they had a full day off, Simon had been working them and himself hard, and Kirsty had been glad of it. She had returned to her bedsit in the evenings too tired to do anything other than fall into bed, but now she was going to have a full day of leisure, with nothing to do but think about Drew and worry about their opening night. And she was worried. Far more worried than she had been with either of her two previous parts. All at once she couldn’t understand why she had ever wanted to go on the stage, and on impulse when she got home, she dialled Chelsea’s number in Northumberland