By six on Friday, everybody at the Portlight had become a little unreasonable.
Helen wanted a chair moved four inches. The person moving it wanted to know which four inches. Ruth could not find the brooch that was pinned to her own collar. In wardrobe, Mina stood very still with a cup of tea in one hand and said that if anyone asked her for another safety pin, she would begin charging by the point.
I was happy.
It surprised me whenever I noticed it, but there it was, beneath the nerves and the small irritations. The clothes were finished. The actors knew how to move in them. Yesterday I had watched a scene from the back of the auditorium and forgotten, for several minutes, to inspect anything I had made.
“Don’t look so pleased,” Mina said. “It encourages them.”
I took her empty cup. “I’ll try to suffer visibly.”
“Thank you.”
Nick came in at half past six for the last check on his jacket. His hair was combed into Julian’s careful shape, and he had the slightly inward expression he wore before a performance, as though half of him had already gone somewhere the rest of us couldn’t follow.
“Turn,” I said.
He turned. I checked the sleeve, the collar, the line of the back. Everything sat as it should.
“Done.”
“A miracle.”
“Several miracles. Individually invoiced.”
He smiled, but it faded quickly. I touched his hand.
“Elsa?”
“She’s here. Helen’s taking her round front of house.”
“Good.”
“Yes.”
He looked at his reflection. I knew he wanted more from the evening than applause. He wanted someone whose opinion mattered to see what he could do. There was nothing small about that wish, and nothing I could do to secure it for him.
“You were good yesterday,” I said.
“Yesterday didn’t count.”
“It counted to me.”
He looked away from the mirror then.
“Thank you.”
I straightened one lapel though it did not need straightening. He put his hand over mine for a moment, then let me go when Rhys called the half-hour from the corridor.
“See you after,” he said.
“After.”
Mum had sent a message at lunchtime saying she hoped the evening went well. I had answered thank you and nothing more. I knew where she and the others were sitting because front of house had asked whether I wanted to know. Row F, near the aisle. Close enough to see the work properly. Far enough from backstage to remain part of the audience.
I did not go out to find them.
At seven-twenty, I stood in the wings while the auditorium filled. The sound was unlike rehearsal: coats settling, programs opening, the particular murmur of people waiting together for something to begin. I could smell the warm dust of the lights.
Nick stood a few feet away, rolling his shoulders once beneath the jacket. He caught my eye. I lifted my thumb, a small, foolish gesture that made him smile before he turned toward the stage.
Then the house lights went down.
The first scene belonged to Ruth. She entered wearing the green coat, paused in the doorway of the invented house and removed her gloves one finger at a time. Under the stage lights the wool looked exactly as I had hoped: rich from a distance, worn where life would have touched it. Helen’s expensive coat, my old money, Mina’s pearl buttons. All of it working together without anyone in the audience needing to know how much we had discussed it.
I felt Mina’s elbow touch mine.
“Green,” she whispered.
I bit back a laugh.
Nick’s entrance came ten minutes later. He brought a different energy with him, a confidence that made the other characters rearrange themselves before he spoke. The audience laughed at his first line. He let the laugh finish rather than chasing it.
I watched his hands. I had always watched actors’ hands because cuffs and sleeves gave away so much. Tonight I knew those hands in another way, and the knowledge moved quietly beneath my professional attention.
In the second scene, Ruth challenged Julian about the money he claimed to have made. Nick smiled too quickly, then let the smile fail by a fraction. It was almost nothing. I heard the audience change, laughter giving way to attention.
There he was. Not merely pleasant. Not merely reliable.
I wanted Elsa to see it. I wanted him to know I had.
At the interval, a fastening on Ruth’s skirt gave way. She came offstage holding it with one hand, furious with herself for catching it on a chair.
“It’s not you,” I said, already kneeling. “It’s a hook. Hooks are unreliable.”
“I thought that was men.”
“Tonight we’re concentrating on hooks.”
She laughed, breathless from the scene. Mina brought the kit, and we repaired it while Rhys counted down the remaining minutes. There was no crisis. Only work, done quickly by people who trusted one another to know what mattered.
During the final act, I stood at the back of the auditorium. I wanted, for once, to see the whole thing rather than pieces of it from the wings.
Mum sat three rows ahead of me. I could see the back of her head, the familiar careful set of her shoulders. Sophie was beside her. Daniel sat on the aisle.
I looked past them to the stage.
For almost twenty minutes, I managed to forget they were there.
The final scene ended quietly. A character put down a suitcase without deciding whether to stay. The lights faded before the audience could be told what to think about it. Then the applause began, tentative for half a second before it filled the room.
I clapped too. My palms hurt by the time the cast came back for the second bow.
Nick looked toward the back of the auditorium. He couldn’t possibly have seen me clearly, but I lifted my hand anyway.
When the lights came up, I slipped out before the audience began to move. Backstage, the noise was enormous: laughter, relief, people congratulating one another while trying to take off difficult clothes. Helen hugged Ruth so hard that one of the pearl buttons caught in her scarf.
“Don’t move,” Mina said, with the weariness of a woman who had predicted this exact kind of happiness.
I found Nick in the corridor outside his dressing room. He had taken off the jacket but still wore the waistcoat, his face flushed with heat and the ending of effort.
“You were wonderful,” I said.
He looked at me as though he needed a moment to understand the words outside the play.
“Was it all right?”
“Yes.”
“Really?”
I took his face between my hands and kissed him. Somebody passing behind us made a cheerful noise. For once I didn’t care.
When I stepped back, he was laughing.
“I’ll accept that review.”
“You should. It was very detailed.”
Helen called his name from farther down the corridor. Elsa was waiting near the stage door with a glass in her hand.
Nick glanced toward her, then back at me.
“Go,” I said. “I have clothes to rescue.”
“I’ll find you.”
I nodded and took the jacket from him.
Wardrobe was warm and crowded. Everyone wanted to return clothes at once, which would have been admirable if they had also wanted to hang them up. Mina and I sorted skirts, checked stains and made notes about repairs for the next performance. I was still smiling when I found a sweet wrapper in Julian’s pocket.
“Method acting,” Mina said.
“His character’s supposed to be rich.”
“Rich people eat sweets.”
We were nearly finished when the knock came.
I looked up expecting Ruth, who had misplaced her own cardigan.
Daniel stood in the doorway.
For a moment, my mind refused to place him there. I knew his face, his coat, the way he held one hand in his pocket. I knew this room. They did not belong in the same view.
Sophie stood behind him with a program folded in her hand.
“Claire,” Daniel said. “Congratulations. It was very good.”
Mina stopped moving beside me.
I put the jacket on the rail. Carefully. I remember being careful because there was a part of me that still believed if I completed the ordinary action, the rest of the moment might become ordinary too.
“How did you get back here?”
Daniel touched the pass clipped to his coat. “We’re guests.”
I looked at it. A white card inside a plastic sleeve, his name printed beneath the Portlight logo. Below that, in smaller type: NICK ARDEN.
“Whose guests?” I asked, though I had read the answer.
Sophie glanced at Daniel. “Nick said there would be a quiet moment after the show.”
I heard Mina take a breath.
“I told you I didn’t want this,” I said.
Daniel lowered his voice. “We’re not trying to upset you. Your mother thought—”
“Where is she?”
“In the foyer. There were only two passes.”
Only two. The small practical detail made the whole thing more real. Somebody had counted. Somebody had decided who would come through the door.
“Please leave,” I said.
Sophie looked frightened. “Claire, I thought you knew.”
“I didn’t.”
Daniel glanced toward the corridor, aware now that people could hear. “Can we not make this into a scene?”
Mina put down the hanger in her hand.
“You’re in a working department,” she said. “She’s asked you to leave.”
“I only wanted five minutes.”
“You haven’t got them,” I said.
My voice was not loud. That frightened me more than shouting would have. I could feel something closing very neatly inside me.
Rhys appeared at the end of the corridor, followed by Nick. Nick’s face changed when he saw us. Not surprise. Recognition, and then the knowledge that whatever he had expected was not what had happened.
I looked at him.
“Did you give them your passes?”
He stopped beside Daniel.
“Yes,” he said.
I waited for the rest, but for several seconds he had nothing to add.