“Oh, dear.”
“What?”She glanced up at him, then shook her head and smiled.“Oh, no.Not like that.He’s wildly excited.”She took his arm andbegan to lead him off across the foyer.“Laurie, don’t you knowhowgoodyouare?”
* **
Manypeople that night told him the same thing.Laurie heard them with adistant pleasure.After all, this was what he had wanted all hislife, and he wasn’t immune to admiration.But the means by which hehad come to this place were dreamlike to him tonight, and dreamlikethe men and women who clustered about him backstage.Mr.Jacobs,flushed and drunk on half a glass of sherry, kept seizing his handand pumping it up and down as if they had just met, and Ophelia,damp flowers still wilting in her hair, clung to his arm,attracting thunderous looks from Alison, which Laurie for a longtime could not understand, then could not bring himself to careabout when he did.The idea of himself as attractive to anyone butSasha was dreamlike to him too, and irrelevant.
The heatand the chatter seemed to pitch around him.Walking away from thequestions of a young man whom Mr.Jacobs informed him later—withsome asperity—had been a reviewer, Laurie slipped down to thedressing rooms and got changed into his street clothes.Theproduction didn’t run to a dresser.He hung up his own costumecarefully, ready for the next performance, and went out into thenight.
Not toexpect, not to hope.These had been his mantras.All the way homethrough the chilly streets, Laurie repeated them to himself.Thelong terrace by the railway lines was almost empty, only theoccasional late bus and taxi disturbing streetlamp flowers formingin the freezing mist.His building’s communal hallway was empty,silent for once of TV chatter.The stairs and the landings, thedoorway to his own flat, all empty.The flat itself, a patchwork ofshadows.Not one of Laurie’s careful denials this time served tobring soft footsteps padding up the stairs, to make the sullenchipboard door vibrate under a cautious, flat-palmed tap.Curled upon the sofa, Laurie methodically strangled hope, and Sasha did notcome.
Not onthe next day or the next.No skinny figure threading a way throughthe crowds or smiling at him from beside a pillar in thestanding-room-only section.As long as Laurie was Hamlet, hisabsence hardly mattered—served, in fact, to improve hisperformance, making it imperative for him to slip into anotherskin—and he barely noticed that the empty rows that had remained onhis first night gradually filled, until on the Friday, just beforecurtain, Mrs.Jacobs startled all of them by dashing through fromthe box office hissing, “Full house!Full house!”It was a firstfor the company, and the curtain came down on tides of applauseLaurie heard with the same detached enjoyment he’d have felt forthe sound of the sea.
It wasHamlet’s last night, and Mr.Jacobs found him in the dressing roomand saw with wonder how the dashing, tragic prince became atired-looking boy with the removal of the coronet.He watched inapproval while Laurie boxed the precious prop and shook out hiscostume before hanging it up.He said, “I hope the flash didn’tbother you.”
Laurie looked at him inquiringly.Jacobs might as well havesaidI hope the roof falling in didn’tbother you.“That reviewer you gave thebrush-off to the other night was here again.I let him take acouple from the wings.”
“Oh.”
“Justoh?Mostof my young men at this point go becomingly pale and turn intoLaurence Olivier.”
Lauriesmiled, trying to picture it.“No,” he said, sitting down to tie uphis shoes.“I’m glad he came, though.I…I’m pleased it all wentwell.”
Jacobssighed and came to sit on the edge of the dressing table.“It did,”he said.“Very well.Is this your only job, son?”
Laurienodded, and Jacobs went on.“You’ll need another one, you know.Something with flexible hours that’s not too draining.Some of myyoung actors with stupid degrees put in hours at the adult literacycollege in Shawcross.You could try there.”
“I don’t have a degree, sir.”Laurie shrugged, a small, tiredmovement.“Not even a stupid one.”
“Well, you can read.Try it.It beats flipping burgers.”Jacobswatched him thoughtfully, riffling the pages of his prompt copy.“Listen, Laurie.You need to pay council tax.You need to give meyour National Insurance number so that I can take a chunk of thepittance I pay you and hand it to faceless government drones tomake warheads.So that, when I start rehearsing our Christmasperformance ofThe White Devilnext week, I don’t have to jump every time thedoor bangs.”
Lauriegave a faint snort of laughter.“Webster?Very festive.”
“Well, you can wear some holly in your doublet.”
“Oh.You want me to come back?”
“Very much.But I’ll tell you truthfully, son, I think youshould look around.Get theStagetomorrow and see what else is rehearsing.Youforced your way in here unqualified.Imagine what you could do withan actual theatrical review behind you.”
“No.No, I love Webster.I’d rather come back here.”
“Well, good.But mind what I say about the tax man.”
Laurieshrugged.It was plain to him by now that no great seeking handfrom his old life—his old home—was going to reach out to find him.This was, of course, a huge relief—and part of him was desolate.Hereached for a pen and scribbled his NI number and new address onthe back of a flyer.“There you are, sir.”
“Laurie, where are you from?Don’t call me sir.It makes mefeel like a Victorian papa.I don’t suppose you’ll be joining usfor the last-night party, will you?”
No hopes, no expectations.But I have to gohome.“No.I’m sorry.”
“And no chance I can tell poor Alison you’ll join her forwhatever raucous jaunt around the nightclubs she’s got planned forafterward?”
Lauriesmiled.He met Jacobs’s eyes ruefully for an instant.“Sorry, sir.No chance at all.”
“Didn’t think so.Well, sweet prince, I hope you get yourselfsorted.Meanwhile, go out by the box office.Mrs.J has a week’swages for you, and the take was so big tonight I’m splittingprofits up between the lot of you, ten percent extra for Elsinoreroyalty.Okay?Hope I see you on Monday.”
* **
It wouldn’t be for long.And I’d come back to you, I promise.Can you trust me?If I had to go away.
