Josie had to go then to help Pal put up a blind in the baby’s room but agreed to chat later in the week. Cassie gazed around the apartment that up to a couple of hours ago had felt full of life and possibilities. Now it was as empty as though the tide had gone out, leaving her like a beached jellyfish drying in the sun.
She sat watching the happy figures bustling up and down Ballsbridge – everyone busy, everyone with somewhere important to be and friends to meet. It was only herself that was so alone, so directionless. She picked up the cow costume, examined it from every angle and then started sewing again from where she’d left off.
Chapter 31
Jack and the Beanstalkwas counting down the last few rehearsals to opening night on Thursday. It seemed to have gone backwards from the previous week, though she reminded herself of how that always happened when you tried to put everything together. On the negative side, Rowley and Ahmed still hadn’t gotten through their routine without crashing into each other, but on the positive side, the Bondarenko twins fitted perfectly into the cow costume, to their shared satisfaction.
One of the dads had turned out to be a whizz at carpentry and, using his jigsaw, had cut plywood into exactly the shapes needed for all the scenery and was now apparently busy painting them in his garage. She’d assembled all of the costumes from potato sacks, aided by Martin’s mum, who was a most obliging woman and an excellent seamstress. Cassie felt a surge of gratitude towards heroic parents.
Trevor had provided his own Spiderman costume for Jack, and Rowley’s granda had provided a small stepladder for him to stand on to look tall. The goose would be dressed in an ingenious costume made out of chopped-up old net curtains dyed brown.
In theory, the whole thing should work – the children knew their lines, they’d learned the songs – it was just that when it was all put together, everything fell apart. She really had forgotten that these weren’t professionals, they were children, most of whom had never stood on a stage before, apart from Sophie, who had her speech and drama certificates framed on the wall at home and never let anyone forget it.
Cassie’s heart sank to see Roger Newcombe sidling in the door to watch a Monday morning rehearsal which was predictably woeful. She could’ve told him that in advance.
‘It’s in four days, you do know that?’ he muttered darkly.
‘It’ll be fine,’ she chirruped, although right now she would have done anything for someone to reassure her.
Marisha arrived in at eleven, looking a lot more rested than Cassie felt. She couldn’t help wondering if part of her improved mood had been the news that Finn had dumped her. Well, Da was very fond of quoting the Chinese philosopher Lao Tzu: ‘Care about what other people think and you’ll always be their prisoner.’
It wasn’t about Marisha or Samantha in the end – it was about Finn, and if he wouldn’t stand up for her, did it even matter what anyone else thought? Every time she let in what’d happened, she felt lost, devastated. She hadn’t heard a word from him, nothing. It was as though a door had slammed and he was inside with his family, while she was left standing outside in the cold.
* * *
Cassie opened her eyes on Tuesday morning with a jolt of fear. Only three days to go until the mammies and daddies, staff and pupils – not to mention Roger Newcombe – would be in their seats, watching the show. She had to hold her nerve and pull it all together somehow, but everything felt like swirling chaos.
She reminded herself of Olympic athletes who completed the full race in their imagination before they ever set foot on the track. So, she’d to clarify the whole show in her head until it ran like clockwork. She sat on the side of her bed and focused her mind on every move, from the first moment to the last, then went through it, again and again.
After forty-five minutes, she was feeling a lot more confident but was running extremely late so had to scramble into the shower and would have to eat her breakfast at the traffic lights – so far so good.
On the way to work, her phone rang. It was a UK number and her heart leaped.
‘Darling, I didn’t wake you up, did I? Sorry to phone so early but it’s an emergency.’
‘Sunita, hi. What .?.?. what is?’
‘Turns out they adored your tape, no surprise there, and they want you to come in for a camera audition.’
‘What, where?’
‘Well, here of course, London.’
‘That’s amazing .?.?.’
‘I know, darling, on Thursday at 3 p.m.’
The very day of the show. Oh. My. God.
‘Right .?.?.’
‘I’m thrilled for you. Only thing is, there’s rather a lot of script here and you’ll have to be off-book.’
‘How much?’
‘Around thirty pages.’
Holy crap. How on earth was she going to learn that much, even without everything else going on?
