Another shrug.
“I’ll have a look online tonight and see what’s on.”
It was nearly two-thirty and Velvet had said she’d be home for lunch. They walked quickly the rest of the way to her house. She didn’t invite Taleb in. It was taking her a while to get used to having a boyfriend, and she certainly wasn’t ready to introduce him to her parents.
CHAPTER 24
No one was in the mood to work hard in the last week of third term. Except Taleb.
“Let’s just go through all the songs once, in order. To see how they sound.”
The others grudgingly agreed, but it was a half-hearted effort and Drago was so late for class he missed his soliloquy song and Taleb had to sing it instead.
When they had finished, everyone was talking about what they were going to do over the holidays. Velvet was admiring her most recent Mandarin test and congratulating herself after getting a C+. Sitting next to Drago had been a masterstroke. He explained the grammar much more clearly than Mrs Dwyer, and helped her learn the characters. Having conversation sessions with Mei had been his idea as well, and that had improved her spoken Mandarin. Velvet was hoping she could get her mark up to a B by the end of the year.
Suddenly, the sounds of their own voices were filling the room. Taleb had borrowed Velvet’s phone at the beginning of the class. She hadn’t given it much thought at the time. He had connected it up to his amplifier.
“You douche,” Hailie said. “You recorded us.”
The overture sounded bad. Velvet could hear her clarinet squeaking, and her piano playing was very ordinary. Hailie’s sax wasn’t in tune. Mei’s voice drowned out all the others, and the harmonies sounded terrible.
“I wanted you all to know how bad you sound.”
Velvet cringed when she heard herself singing Lady Anne’s song. She was in tune, but it had no emotion.
“That’s not fair. We weren’t even trying.” Velvet was angry that Taleb hadn’t told her what he was planning.
“Well, you should be trying, all the time.”
“You knew it was being recorded, so you did your best.”
“I always do my best as far as music is concerned.”
They practised the harmonies in the coronation song again and then ran through all the songs. This time they sounded better.
Velvet was still annoyed. “The songs need to link more.”
“If you want to write the music, go ahead.” Taleb wasn’t used to musical criticism.
“I don’t want to write the music. But at the moment, what we have is a string of songs. I’m not saying they’re not good songs, but …”
“Just stick to writing the script, Velvet,” Peter said.
“Yeah,” Taleb said. “You’re director, scriptwriter and leading lady. Isn’t that enough?”
“Look, you’re a great musician, a good songwriter and a guitar hero, but you don’t know the first thing about musicals!”
The rest of the cast watched in silence. None of them would have dared to criticise Taleb’s music.
“I may be an average clarinetist and a less than average piano player, but I’ve seen every musical that’s ever been staged in Melbourne since I was six. I’ve seen Broadway shows – on Broadway. I know about musical theatre!”
She waited for Taleb to explode. But he didn’t, so she continued.
“The music should flow, so that when you play the songs back to back it feels like a continuous piece of music. It doesn’t need much – a hint of what’s to come in the overture, an occasional recurring melody. And there has to be a finale.”
The bell went.
“Geez, Velvet.” Hailie picked up her bag. “It’s just a school musical.”
“Yeah,” Jesus said. “We’re not trying to win an Oscar.”
“Tony.”
“Huh?”
“The awards for theatre productions are called Tonys. Oscars are for movies.”
“Whatever.”
“We need to rehearse over the holidays,” Taleb said.
Peter couldn’t. “I’ve got to work at the restaurant.”
Neither could Drago. “I’m going to the country to stay with my granny.”
Jesus was coaching at a soccer camp. Hailie’s mother’s latest boyfriend was taking them to the snow. Roula had to look after her little brother.
Taleb sighed as they headed for the door. “You all have to work on your songs over the holidays.”
“And your lines,” Velvet added.
Taleb handed back her phone. A voice with a crisp English accent told them it was currently seventy-five degrees in Miami.
“That was sneaky,” Velvet said, “recording us like that. But it’s probably what we needed.”
She was expecting Taleb to be angry with her for being critical of his music in front of the others, but he wasn’t.
“I want this musical to be as good as it possibly can be,” he said. “I can take criticism.”
“I’ll practise over the holidays.”
“And I’ll write a finale – if you write the lyrics.”
He put his guitar in its case. “We should get together over the break.”
Velvet nodded. That was fine by her.
“We’ll need some inspiration,” she said. “I’m going to my aunt’s place on Monday. She’s got an amazing collection of musical soundtracks. Do you want to come?”
“Sure.”
Velvet’s Aunt Evelyn lived in a sixth-floor apartment overlooking the river. It was modern and sparsely furnished, and bigger than the house Velvet and her parents were living in.
“Looks like something out of a magazine,” Taleb said, kicking off his runners before he walked on the pale carpet. “Your aunt must be rich.”
“She’s a lawyer.”
“And it’s okay for us to hang out here?”
“I rang her to let her know I was coming. She told me it was okay, anytime I wanted some space.” Velvet hadn’t mentioned that Taleb would be with her.
“I thought we could listen to a couple of soundtracks all the way through. You can hear how things link and how the finales work.” Velvet opened a cupboard. It was full of CDs. “Let’s start with …” she ran a finger along the shelves, “… The Lion King.”
“Isn’t that a cartoon?”
“It started off as a Disney animation, then it was adapted for the stage.”
Taleb looked dubious.
“It’s been running on Broadway for fifteen years.”
“Okay. Let’s hear it.”
Velvet worked her way through her favourites from relatively recent musicals – Hairspray, Wicked, Billy Elliot – to her favourites from the past – Chicago, Oliver, Porgy and Bess.
“This is one of my all-time favourites. It’s old, but I love the jazzy Fifties music.”
She played the prologue to West Side Story. She could tell that Taleb liked it too, so she found the dance sequence from the movie on YouTube. It was all she could do to stop herself dancing around the apartment.
“I wish we could have finger-clicking in our musical,” Velvet said, “but I guess it’s not very medieval.”
Velvet made lunch. It was a nice day, so they ate it on the balcony overlooking the river. She felt very mature. Taleb played his guitar and wrote down ideas.
“Play some more finales.”
Velvet selected more CDs.
“No Andrew Lloyd Webber though.”
She’d made sure not to include any in her favourites.
“I don’t know why you’re so allergic to him.”
“I have my reasons,” Taleb said.
“What?”
“Apart from the fact that his music’s crappy and clichéd, in Grade 5 the music teacher spent the whole year teaching us an Andrew Lloyd Webber medley. I must have heard those songs a thousand times. And she always sang along with us.” He shuddered. “It makes my skin crawl when I hear them.”
Velvet washed the dishes before they left, so there was no
evidence that she hadn’t been alone.
CHAPTER 25
“Do you know what the date is today?”
“Nah.”
“Is it somebody’s birthday?”
It was the first cultural studies class after the holidays.
“No, it’s the fifteenth of October!”
“So?”
“I think what Velvet is trying to point out,” Mr MacDonald explained, “is that it’s only four weeks until the performance.”
“Four weeks! Are you sure?”
“Yes. The jubilee celebrations are taking place over the second week in November.”
There was a silence as the reality of this hit everyone. It had been fun so far, singing and acting in T6 and in the practice room behind the stage, but in a few short weeks they had to do it in front of an audience.
“When’s the actual performance?”
“It’s set for the Friday afternoon.”
“That’s not Friday the thirteenth, is it?”
Velvet looked at her school diary. “Yes.”
“Great.”
“Can’t we change it to another day?”
“What, reschedule the school’s jubilee?”
“Slinky would be rapt.”
“Thirteen is a lucky number in some cultures,” Mr MacDonald said. “Let’s work out a schedule.”
He started scribbling dates on the board. It was the first time Velvet had seen him use a whiteboard.
“You’ve got five Thursday afternoons before the performance. You can do a full run-through this week and next week. Then a dress rehearsal. After that there’ll be two sessions to refine it.”
“Refine it? We haven’t finished writing it yet! There’s still something missing in the second half.”
“It’s time you found out what it is then. Let’s get to work.”
The first run-through didn’t get off to a good start. Drago refused to sing. They’d been so concerned about the band, the hole in the second half, the costumes, Hailie’s singing and Mei’s elocution that it hadn’t occurred to them that they’d never actually heard Drago sing the soliloquy song that opened the show.
“I don’t want to sing.”
“You have to.”
“I can’t.”
“Now he tells us!”
“You can act, Drago. It’s the same thing.”
“No, it’s not.”
“You have the main part,” Velvet said. “If you’ve got stage fright here in T6 with nobody but us around, we’ve got serious problems.”
“Why didn’t you tell us before?”
“I didn’t know till now.”
“I’m gonna strangle you, Drago.”
It looked like another brawl was looming.
“Why don’t you all sing the soliloquy song together?” Mr MacDonald suggested. “Help him get into it.”
Taleb started playing the song. “Does everyone know the words?”
Velvet sang along with Taleb. They went through it again and the others slowly joined in. At the fourth attempt Drago finally sang, only so quietly that no one could hear him.
“I’ve never sung before,” he said defensively.
“You have too! What about the rude version of the school song?” Jesus said.
“Yeah,” Roula said. “I’ve stood behind you at assembly. You can sing loud enough then.”
“That’s different.”
“Why is it different?”
“You know. I’m not supposed to.”
“So you can do anything if it’s against the rules?”
Drago shrugged.
Taleb had an idea. “Treat the song the same. Richard likes to break the rules. I’ll spice it up a bit. It can be a defiant song rather than a sad song. You know, ‘I’m not a pretty boy, so who cares?’ I can make it like a rap song.”
Taleb sped up the tempo and changed the key. Drago got the idea and half-sang, half-shouted the words. It wasn’t quite what everybody had had in mind, but at least Drago was singing.
They stumbled through the rest of Act I. Taleb’s acting in the dream scene was appalling. They didn’t have anyone for the roles of the murderers and spent twenty minutes arguing about who could play them.
“We’ve already got to have a couple of kids as the princes,” Peter said. “I reckon that’s enough outsiders. What if they don’t turn up?”
“Okay. Peter,” Velvet said, “you’re not in that scene, you can be a murderer. You too, Jesus.”
That was one problem solved, but Velvet was already worrying about another.
“I don’t think anybody is going to understand what’s going on.”
“We don’t,” Drago said. “Why should the audience?”
“We haven’t explained properly that Richard is doing all this mean stuff because he wants to be king.”
“Nobody expects to understand Shakespeare,” Hailie said.
“I know!” said Peter. “We could have Drago eyeing off the crown while Edward’s sick and dying. You know, picking it up and polishing it, trying it on when no one’s looking.”
“That’s great.”
“Except that we haven’t got a King Edward.”
“We have to have one. It’s such a good idea.”
“King Edward died because he ate and drank too much,” Velvet informed them. “He doesn’t even have to speak.”
“All we need,” Roula said, “is someone to lie around looking fat and then lie around looking dead.”
There was a sudden silence as the same idea hit everyone at once. They all turned to Mr MacDonald who was in his customary place at the back of the room eating an iced doughnut.
“What?” he said, wiping hundreds and thousands off his chin.
Hailie put on her sweetest smile. “We want you to play King Edward.”
“Please.”
“You don’t have to say anything.”
“Go on, sir. You’d be great.”
“Say yes.”
Mr MacDonald didn’t have a hope in the face of all that enthusiasm. “All right, I suppose so.”
Everybody cheered.
They worked out a whole routine with the Duke of Clarence and Richard both admiring the crown. Taleb wasn’t a good actor, but, as Velvet had predicted, Drago was great as the villain. They decided to continue the theme into the next scene and have Richard carrying the crown when he meets the little princes.
“And the prince who is heir to the throne wants to try it on,” Peter suggested, “but Richard won’t let him.”
“That’s not in the play though.”
“Jesus, I think we’re way past worrying about that,” Velvet said.
“The prince could say it’s got to be made smaller to fit him.”
“Then in the coronation scene when Richard finally gets to put on the crown it’s a really big moment.”
“God, we’re brilliant.”
“Yeah, I hope Miss Ryan’s cardboard crown will make the distance.”
Act I needed so much work, they didn’t have time to get to Act II.
“Next week we’ll finish going through the second half.”
CHAPTER 26
Drago was swanning around in his new coronation cloak, which Miss Ryan had made out of purple curtain material from the remnants shop. It had a fake-fur trim. They had only just started the run-through of the second act when they ran into problems.
Velvet was reading from her script. “‘Richard is sitting on the throne with his cloak swirling around in front of him.’”
Drago sat in an old armchair salvaged from someone’s shed, and his cloak didn’t quite reach the floor.
“‘Buckingham puts the crown on his head. Everybody sings the coronation song.’” Velvet sighed. “It’s very static. Maybe we could choreograph this.”
“I’m not dancing.”
“I didn’t say anything about dancing, Peter. I just mean moving around the stage in a set way, weaving in and out.”
“There’s a bigger problem
, Velvet,” Taleb said.
“What?”
“Drago and Peter are the only ones on the stage. Everyone else is in the band for this song.”
“Oh.”
“I’ve got to have more than one person at my coronation,” Drago complained.
“Anne’s got to be there, at least,” Velvet said. “She’s the new queen.”
“Did we get married already?”
“Yes, Drago.”
“Where’s it say that in the play?”
“It doesn’t. Remember, more than ten years have passed since the scene when Richard woos Anne. They have a son.”
“I missed that bit. Could we run through that again, Corduroy?”
“Shakespeare makes it all seem like it happened in a couple of weeks,” Hailie said.
“I know. It’s all part of the plot to make Richard seem mean and ruthless.”
“Forget about the domestic arrangements,” Taleb said. “What are we going to do about this scene where you all have to be in two places at once?”
“I dunno. You’re the musical director.”
“If we had a proper keyboard we could program something in and it would just keep repeating. Velvet could play the first bit and then walk onto the stage and leave the keyboard cycling.”
“I don’t think the Casio is up to that somehow.”
“I forgot to tell you,” Mr MacDonald said. “I’ve borrowed a keyboard from a friend of mine. It’s out in the car.”
He sent Jesus to get it.
Jesus came back with the keyboard wrapped in an army blanket.
“I hope it’s not another Casio,” Taleb said.
Mr MacDonald pulled the blanket off with a flourish and Taleb’s face lit up.
“It’s a Yamaha DX7!” he said. “I’ve read about these.”
“All the good Eighties bands used them.” Mr MacDonald dusted it off and plugged it in. “Talking Heads, Depeche Mode, Queen.”
“It looks like a real dinosaur to me,” Peter said.
Taleb inspected the buttons enthusiastically. “Try it, Velvet. Play your organ bit from the coronation song.”
Velvet played the stirring melody.
“Sounds great!”
Velvet felt like a real musician. She played a medley of Beatles’ songs to try out the different sounds on the new keyboard. Jesus joined in on percussion, and everybody bopped along, until Taleb made them go back to work. The Yamaha didn’t have a stand, so the boys spent an hour figuring out what to put it on. Roula suggested an ironing board. The girls worked on the choreography for the coronation song.