When the Curtain Falls

  ‘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 strange places 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. A hangover 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,’ Oscar replied, slowing the spinning down.

  Is he sulking? she wondered.

  ‘Is it awful that I couldn’t even remember his name?’ she confessed.

  ‘Utterly terrible, Miss Green!’ he cried, spinning her faster. ‘Tomorrow’s headline will be “West End Star Thinks Herself Too Important To Remember The Names Of Those Kind Enough To Give Her Freebies”!’ He spun her again faster still.

  ‘How catchy!’ she squealed as she held on for dear life.

  ‘And now you’re having a go at my journalism! How DARE you!’ Oscar whipped the platform with a mighty force and Olive lost her grip. Her clammy hands slipped on the handles and she was sent flying into Oscar. They both landed next to each other with a thud onto the grass. Olive laughed until Oscar groaned.

  ‘Are you all right?’ She rolled onto her knees and he groaned again. He was clutching his arm and panic suddenly kicked in for Olive. ‘Oh God! Oh, no, no no! The producers will absolutely kill me if I’ve injured their big star!’

  Oscar’s eyes, which had just been scrunched in agony, quickly snapped open. ‘That’s really the first thing you think of?’ he laughed.

  ‘You GIT!’ She hit him. ‘Of course that’s the first thing I think of when it’s in the contracts we both signed that we wouldn’t do extreme sports!’

  Oscar sat up on his elbows and looked over at the kids’ playground where the platform was still gently turning.

  ‘I know that’s not exactly an extreme sport,’ she said, hitting him again, ‘but we have signed our lives away and part of that is making sure we don’t break any of our limbs. If you’d got hurt I could have easily been sacked!’ She batted him again, but a little softer this time.

  ‘They’re not going to sack you on account of me, Olive.’ He sighed. ‘If they lose you, they lose the show! You’re what holds the whole piece together!’ He sat up, brushing grass off his T-shirt.

  ‘Hardly!’ she scoffed. ‘You could put my understudy on and it’d make very little difference.’

  Oscar scoffed back. ‘Do you really not realise just how good you are in this show? Screw that, in any show you’ve ever been in?’

  Olive fiddled with some grass and shrugged. ‘Oh, you’ve not seen some of the disasters I’ve been part of.’ She winced, thinking back to when she played the role of a zombie who’d fallen in love with a ghost in a play that attempted to ride on the back of the success of Twilight.

  ‘Sure, some of the shows you’ve been in may have died on their arse but that doesn’t mean to say you weren’t brilliant in them, eh?’

  ‘Sure, sure,’ she laughed.

  ‘You’re not taking me seriously, are you?’ He sighed.

  ‘No, I am! I am!’ she lied.

  ‘Am I being stupid?’ Oscar pouted, ducking to catch her gaze as she continued to rip out clumps of grass from the ground.

  ‘Only a little.’ She smiled. ‘But in a sweet way.’

  ‘In a sexy way?’ His pout turned sultry with the simple raise of an eyebrow.

  ‘In a sweet way.’ She threw her handful of grass in his face, but as she did he caught her wrist in the air. A few blades of grass had caught on the stubble above his top lip and momentarily she forgot herself. Forgot the nervousness that came with being desperately attracted to someone new, or her worries of being seen as just another girl throwing herself in the path of a celebrity in order to gain a little bit of fame. And she would probably have forgotten her own name had she allowed herself to be taken in by his blue eyes any more than she already had been.

  She stretched out her fingers and gently brushed the grass from his lips, lingering only a little longer than she needed. Just before she pulled away, Oscar turned his head and kissed her fingertips softly. Her first instinct was to withdraw again, to forget the giddiness she felt rising in her and the potentially all-consuming feelings this may lead to. How exhausting this could be, she thought.

  And then Oscar moved her hand to his cheek, still kissing her fingers, her thumb, her palm over and over, his eyes closed and his face calm. He slid his warm hand up her outstretched arm to her shoulder and paused there a moment before caressing her cheek, a few blonde strands of her hair caught between his palm and her face. Gently, he pulled her in towards him. She had to lean awkwardly on her knees to reach him, but it was worth it to hear him whisper, ‘How exciting this could be…’ before he hungrily planted his mouth on hers. Their lips fit together like two pieces of a puzzle, and Olive gently bit his bottom lip as his tongue found hers, and there they stayed and explored until the morning light started to seep into the sky.

  3

  Coffee

  Olive’s flat in Turnham Green wasn’t large, but it was big enough for her. In those rare moments when Olive might complain about its size, her cast mates would gently remind her that she’d been able to buy her own place when she had been only twenty-two whilst the rest of them still rented. But she’d worked hard and saved and now any leftover money she had was spent on doing the place up to reflect her own personality as much as possible. The walls were painted green, her furniture was oak and signed posters of the shows she’d been a part of hung in ornate silver frames in every room. For Olive, knowing she could come home to her own space and her own bed made her not want to waste a moment getting the Tube after work. However, since meeting Oscar, spending time at work had become more and more enticing.

  On this particular morning, Olive awoke with a definite ‘morning after the night before’ feeling. She wasn’t hungover and she didn’t have that horrible ‘what have I done?’ dread – after all, the only thing that had occurred was a kiss, and a good one at that. But something had changed. A connection had been established between her and Oscar that was more than just their onstage chemistry, and Olive’s brain was whirring with wondering What It Meant. She poured herself a cup of tea and spoke out loud in her kitchen, mentally laying out every scenario before her.

  ‘Was it just… a mistake? He was a bit drunk. But not so drunk that he didn’t know what he was doing, I don’t think…’ Olive stirred her tea without looking until the teabag had made the water far darker than she usually liked. ‘Do I mention what happened when I see him today? And if I do mention it, will it happen again? Or does it mean that it won’t happen again?’

  Olive opened the fridge to get the milk and noticed last week’s edition of Burn magazine sat on the kitchen counter. On the corner of the cover, a little yellow circle with a picture in the middle caught her eye and she flipped to page sixteen to read the rest of the story.

&n
bsp; And there he was. On a beach with his top off holding hands with Zadie Lanette. Her smile was wide, as if she was mid-laugh, but Olive noticed that Oscar’s didn’t quite reach his eyes. And whilst Zadie clung to his bicep with what looked like unnecessary strength, Oscar’s gaze was focused only on the sand at his feet. ‘Do I want it to happen again…? Why are you even asking that? Of course, you want it to happen again. The real question is, does he?’

  Little did Olive know that wasn’t a question that needed to be asked.

  Over in Bow, Oscar sat up in his bed, sipping his black coffee with Google open on his laptop.

  ‘Olive Green…’ he said as he typed. ‘No, I don’t want Dulux paint swatches… Olive Green, Actress. Ah, here we go.’ Oscar clicked on Images. ‘Wow.’ Olive was almost unrecognisable in some of the pictures but in most, Oscar could make out her distinctive green eyes. Olive had played four roles since college, with each one being bigger than the last. And if her adult career seemed impressive, it was nothing in comparison to the acting work she’d done as a child. She was certainly building up a bold body of work and judging by the rave reviews she received it would only continue to grow. Oscar shook his head as he read through a list of her special talents. Horse-riding. Juggling. Grade six piano. ‘Is there anything this girl can’t do?’

  Olive arrived at the theatre earlier than she would have liked and sat in the auditorium twiddling her thumbs. The dressing rooms were still occupied by the cast of Gone With The Wind and she would have to wait until their final week of rehearsals before she could bring in her pictures and keepsakes that travelled with her to every theatre she performed in. Olive couldn’t wait until the theatre started to feel like home rather than visiting someone else’s house. She pulled her phone out of her bag, but the signal wasn’t good enough to browse social media and she was yet to ask for the wifi password. She rummaged through her bag to see if she had anything else that would help pass the time, but in her haste that morning she’d forgotten to bring her headphones and her book that she’d purposely placed on the kitchen counter.

  ‘What is it they say about the early bird?’ said Oscar, loitering in the doorway to the stage left stalls. He held a coffee in each hand.

  ‘Something about catching the worm but really I’m just in it for the best seat in the house.’

  ‘And the free coffee?’ he asked, walking along the row behind Olive’s and handing her the larger of the two drinks.

  ‘Oooh, you can stay,’ she said, taking the warm paper cup from him, removing the lid and peering inside.

  ‘It’s a latte,’ he said, flipping one of the seats down and sitting diagonally behind her. ‘I was a few people behind you in line at the coffee shop across the road the other day and heard you order one.’

  ‘Stalker,’ she said, reaching into her bag with one hand, careful not to spill her lidless latte.

  ‘I’m sure lots of other people in the cast would happily take a free latte!’

  ‘Yes, but this one literally has my name on it.’ Olive pulled out a bottle of honey and expertly squeezed a long and oozing dollop into her drink. ‘And my honey in it.’ She smiled, putting the bottle back into her bag and the lid back onto her drink.

  ‘Honey? Really?’ He raised an eyebrow.

  ‘Yes, really. And don‘t call me honey!’ She was trying to be cool, but inside her stomach fluttered at the idea of him actually calling her ‘honey’ like it was the most natural thing in the world.

  ‘Well, we’ve kissed now, so I feel like I know you well enough to call you honey, don’t I?’

  Oh god, he’s mentioned it, Olive thought, her jumper suddenly feeling clingy and hot.

  ‘I think that’s for me to decide, isn’t it?’ she said from behind the lip of her coffee cup before taking a gentle sip.

  ‘Would you decide to kiss me again if the option was there?’ Oscar said, a little too fast. He swept his dark hair back off his face but looked her directly in the eyes, waiting patiently for her response.

  ‘Depends if the option is there…’ Olive said, not able to keep the smile from creeping onto her face. Oscar immediately shuffled himself onto the edge of his seat, placed his hand under her jawline and gently pulled her towards him. Without reluctance, Olive let him guide her to his lips. She could almost feel the electricity between them fizz on her tongue and the more they kissed, the more she wanted, but Oscar pulled away far too soon. He looked to the door into the auditorium.

  ‘I guess…’ he winced, ‘I guess there’s no easy way to say that I don’t really want everyone knowing about this…’

  ‘I get it,’ Olive said, pulling back and fiddling with the edge of her coffee cup.

  ‘You do?’

  ‘Yeah, of course. It’s new. Even we’ve not had a proper conversation about what this is… or what this isn’t.’

  Oscar took her hand gently. ‘Let’s talk properly at some point today.’

  ‘Okay,’ she said, not meeting his eyes.

  ‘You know it’s nothing to do with you though, right?’ He squeezed her fingers and her eyes flicked up to meet his.

  ‘I should hope not.’ She half smiled.

  ‘… and so I just slammed it down on the counter and walked away… oh. Hello, you two.’ Tamara seemed to always make an entrance, even if she was walking into an empty room.

  ‘Looking cosy,’ said Jane without any degree of warmth.

  ‘Well, it is cold in here. Got to wrap up warm!’ Oscar said, pulling his scarf tight around his shoulders.

  ‘I don’t think that’s what she meant,’ Tamara smirked, taking the row behind Oscar and sitting in the seat directly behind him so that she could massage his shoulders with the pads of her fingers.

  ‘I know what she meant,’ Oscar said, his shoulders tensing, ‘but I’ve never been keen on rumours.’

  ‘Amen to that!’ Olive raised her coffee cup and took a large gulp, wishing it was gin.

  Time dripped by like treacle, and Olive awaited the conversation Oscar had promised, but every break seemed to bring with it a reason they couldn’t speak. The first tea break Oscar had to work through a scene with the director and lunch brought with it press interviews for which he had to stay inside whilst she ate alone in the front of house café. Frustrated that they hadn’t had a moment in private together, Olive nabbed her chance in the final tea break.

  ‘Can I borrow you?’ she whispered, touching his arm as she followed him down the tiny wing to the auditorium.

  ‘Sure! Coffee?’

  ‘Yes. I’ll buy.’ Olive raced to get her coat, as did Oscar, but just as they were slipping out the door Jane grabbed Oscar’s hand.

  ‘Oooh, coffee run? I’ll come! I could murder a frappuccino!’ she said, sidling up to Oscar and rubbing her cheek against his bicep like a dog nuzzling its owner.

  ‘Actually, Jane, I was hoping to have a little conversation with Olive here.’

  ‘What can you say to her that you can’t say to me?’

  ‘It’s about the show.’

  ‘Well, I am her first cover! Surely I should know these things?’ Jane pulled away from Oscar sharply and was one stamped foot away from showing her age as the baby of the cast.

  ‘Don’t hold your breath to go on, though, love.’ Doug slung his arm around Olive’s shoulder, giving her an unpleasant waft of his sweaty pit. ‘I’ve worked with this one before and I’m sure she still holds the record for least sick days taken. What was that number again, Olive?’

  ‘Is this necessary?’

  ‘ONE! One sick day in two years of solid work,’ Doug shouted.

  ‘I had holiday, Doug, it’s not like I was never off! And I have holiday in this run too,’ she reassured Jane with a smile.

  ‘Exactly. See, this is all stuff I should know,’ Jane nodded, and Oscar looked at Olive who simply shrugged, annoyed that her chance to speak with him had been stolen again.

  ‘All right, come on then.’ He huffed and followed Olive to the coffee shop sporting a new a
nd annoying accessory on his arm: Jane.

  The queue at the coffee counter was long and the crowd waiting for their hot drinks was three people deep.

  ‘I’m going to the toilet. Can you order me a peppermint mocha frappuccino?’ asked Jane.

  ‘Aren’t they iced?’ asked Oscar.

  ‘Yeah?’ Jane shrugged.

  ‘It’s freezing out!’ Olive laughed, blowing into her clasped hands.

  ‘So?’ And she started pushing through the throng of caffeine-deprived hipsters.

  ‘Right, quickly, before she comes back,’ Olive whispered.

  ‘What?’ Oscar said, browsing the cookies through the glass.