‘Really?’ Oscar looked into the park he used to love so much. He’d never been in at night, but he thought it might have a bit of magic to it when it was freeof screaming kids and exhausted parents.
‘Only because there’s no need.’ Her hands rummaged behind her back and after a swift bit of feeling around, Oscar heard six short beeps followed by a long one and then a thunk. Olive brought her hands in front of her and presented him with a key.
‘What on Earth? How the hell have you done that?’ Oscar snatched the key from her fingers, examiningit closely.
‘A friend of mine lives in one of these.’ She pointed to one of the lit windows in a house on the square. ‘That one, I think. After shows we used to meet up here for a drink and then crash in his flat. He keeps his keys in this little coded box here because he’s sure he’ll lose them otherwise. Once I learnt the code, I never forgot it!’ She grinned. ‘I’m sure he won’t mind usborrowing them.’
‘Well, I’ll be damned!’ he laughed.
‘What?’
‘Nothing… I just didn’t have you pegged as a late-night-drinking, throwing-caution-to-the-wind kind of gal!’
‘Oh, I’m full of surprises!’ she winked, hoping her moment of coolness wasn’t short-lived.
Up until now, Olive’s life had seemed to consist of a series of wacky events. She’d trained at dramaschool and had been plunged headfirst into the industry as a leading lady with little to no time to adjust. Olive had soon discovered that when you were a name in theatre it often meant nothing in the ‘real world’ outside of the stage door. Sometimes fifty people could be waiting for you when you finished for the night, but then you’d get the bus home with the spare change at the bottom of your pocketand eat Super Noodles for your dinner.
Outside the bubble of the theatre, she was simply Olive Green. No fame, no fortune, but that didn’t matter to her because the love of it was more than enough. The love of it was the reason. The lights, the costumes, the sequins, the programme that listed the names of all the people that contributed to the magic on stage… Olive had wanted to be a partof it from the first performance ofBeauty and the Beastshe had seen aged six.
This was the job of a lifetime for her and although she often had less experience than most of her peers in the principal cast, Olive made up for it in her dedication to the craft and simply by being easy to work with.
Oscar wrapped an arm around her shoulders, pulled her into him and ruffled her hair.‘Come on, then!’ He skipped ahead of her to the gate with a boyish bounce. The key slotted into the lock and he paused before he turned it. ‘You better not be lying to me, Green.’
‘Turn the key and see,’ Olive laughed.
‘There’ll be hell to pay, Green!’ he said as he turned the key and pushed the gate open. ‘YES!’ He cheered and a light flickered on in a house above them.
‘Shhhh!’ she hushed, running into the park, closely followed by Oscar who shut the gate behind them and shushed Olive back until the cacophony of shushes was louder than his cheer had been in the first place.
Inside, the children’s play area was small and a little lacking. A small green slide, a yellow plastic horse on a thick spring that wobbled about when you sat on it, and a platformwith red handles to hold onto that spun round and round.
‘I’m sure to little kids who don’t really know any better, this is brilliant,’ Oscar laughed.
‘It might look a little disappointing to your jaded adult eyes, but when you’re a bit drunk, this thing is the best,’ Olive said, expertly hopping onto the spinning platform and making it turn in one smooth glide.
‘Who’d havethought innocent Miss Green was such a rebel, eh?’ Oscar said, taking the handles and slowly starting to spin her around.
‘Oh, hardly. Everyone goes out in their first few years of jobbing in the West End. Yearly contracts on half-decent money seems to equal a lot of getting the first train home in the small hours of the morning.’ She rolled her eyes at herself.
‘And a lot of hangovers,I presume?’ Each time the handles came past him, Oscar gently pushed her around on the platform again.
Olive had been brought up to say no to drugs and to know your limits when it came to alcohol. The first she obeyed without objection, but the second she felt she could only really discover by testing those limits. As a result, Olive had often found herself waking up in several strangeplaces after a particularly heavy night. These included a church pew, the floor of an abandoned old people’s home and, most strangely, in the dressing room of Christine Daaé in Her Majesty’s Theatre without any recollection as to how she got there or why. She’d quickly realised that her limits were not as high as she’d imagined.
‘Absolutely. That novelty wore off quite quickly for me. Ahangover renders me useless these days.’
‘You sound like you’re eighty-five!’
‘I feel like I’m eighty-five!’ she laughed. ‘I’ve only drunk half a free gin and tonic and I’m already giddy!’
‘Free?’ Oscar stopped spinning her and just let the platform glide on its own momentum.
‘The barman recognised me from when I used to go in there a lot.’
‘Oh. Right,’ Oscarreplied, slowing the spinning down.
Is he sulking?she wondered.
‘Is it awful that I couldn’t even remember his name?’ she confessed.
