Benjamin looked at him suspiciously. “We didn’t hire you.”
“Bless you, no, sir,” said Old Tom, blinking quickly. “The theatre’s owners contacted me personally, asked me to come back and help out. I couldn’t say no, not after they were so good to me, all those years. Spent the best years of my life here, looking after the old place. No-one knows the old Haybarn better than me. Seen them all come and go, I have. The stories I could tell…Anyway. Couldn’t leave the old girl in the hands of strangers. No-one knows the ins and outs of the Haybarn better than me, ladies and gents. Shall I show you around?”
“Hold it,” said JC. “Who are the theatre’s owners?”
“Mr. and Mrs. Lovett, sir,” said Old Tom. “The Lovetts have owned the Haybarn for generations.”
“Why didn’t anyone buy the theatre while it was closed?” said Melody.
“Because it was never put up for sale, miss,” said Old Tom. “They’d never sell this old place. Far too much sentimental value. Of course, it helps that the Lovetts aren’t short of a bob or two, if you catch my drift.” Here, Old Tom did his best to wink roguishly. “No; they’ve been waiting for exactly the right time to reopen their theatre again.”
“And the right play,” said Benjamin.
“As you say, sir,” said Old Tom.
“Then lead on,” said JC. “Show us everything there is to see.”
Old Tom gave them all another of his vague smiles and shuffled over to one of the larger doors. It was only then that the others realised that he’d come out still wearing his carpet slippers. They all looked at each other, but no-one felt like saying anything. Old Tom pushed the door open and disappeared through, letting the door slam shut behind him. JC leaned in close to murmur to Happy and Melody.
“No-one said anything to me about a caretaker. Just the actors.”
“Want me to prod him?” said Happy.
“Don’t you dare!” said Elizabeth, who turned out to be a lot closer than any of them had realised. “The last thing we need is the theatre’s owners getting involved, saying we’re not respecting their wishes.”
JC looked at Elizabeth. “My, what big ears you have.”
“All the better for not being left out of things, darling,” said Elizabeth. “I don’t want Old Tom upset. A good caretaker is worth his weight in gold.”
“In oh so many ways,” said Benjamin.
“Would he be likely to know the theatre’s private and personal history?” said JC. “All the tales told out of school, the secrets and scandals?”
There was a brief pause while Elizabeth and Benjamin looked at each other, and something went unspoken between them.
“Caretakers were often spies for the owners, back in the day,” Elizabeth said carefully. “Reporting back on all the gossip, on every little bust-up and whispered confidence. Never let us get away with anything.”
“You think that’s why he’s here now?” said Happy.
“Why else?” said Benjamin. “We didn’t hire him; did we, darling?”
“Never met him before in my life,” said Elizabeth.
JC looked at them sharply. “You don’t know Old Tom personally?”
“Benjamin and I weren’t actually here all that long,” said Elizabeth. “A bit over four years, in all. He could have been before our time.”
“Or, he might be someone from the local press, passing himself off as a caretaker!” said Benjamin. “Looking to see if their story has legs!”
“He did come across a bit Central Casting,” said Elizabeth. “But you know, that might not necessarily be a bad thing, darling. We could use a little useful publicity, to get the theatre’s reopening noticed…If we play this right…”
Old Tom poked his head back through the door. “Is there a problem, ladies and gents?”
“What have you heard about the…current conditions?” said JC.
“The dead tramp and the hauntings?” Old Tom tried out his roguish wink again and laid one finger along the side of his nose. “I’ve worked here man and boy, sir, and never seen a thing. Take more than a few rumours to keep me out. I ain’t afraid of no ghost!” He chuckled silently for a moment, enjoying his little joke. “You come along with me, ladies and gents. Old Tom’ll see nothing happens to you! There’s nothing to be scared of here…”
He disappeared back through his door again, and the others hurried after him, JC making a point of leading the way. Melody briefly glanced back at her instruments, then shrugged angrily and went along with the others. The door swung quietly shut behind them. Silence and shadows held sway in the empty lobby. And then the intercom speakers turned themselves on. For a while, there was nothing but the quiet hissing of static; and then, a voice.
“Welcome back, my friends, to the opening night of a brand-new production. Seats available at all prices. The curtain is going up. Prepare yourselves…for a show you’ll never forget.”
FOUR
STAGE BUSINESS
When an audience comes to the theatre, all they usually see is the lobby and the stage. They may notice, in passing, the Ticket Office…posters on the walls, maybe some concession stands, but that’s it. But what an audience sees is only ever the tip of the iceberg; most of the work and most of the world of the theatre is the nine-tenths of the iceberg that remains hidden from view. For the same reason that most patrons never get to see the kitchens of the restaurants they visit. Because if you could see what went on behind the scenes, what really goes into everything, all the illusion and glamour would be stripped away in a moment. Acting is like athletics—a lot of effort goes into making it all seem effortless.
So getting from the lobby to the stage isn’t always a straightforward affair. Old Tom led them all through a warren of narrow backstage corridors, so they could see everything there was to see, cheerfully pointing out all the various points of interest. Everything from dressing-rooms to costumes to props…Everyone was very polite, of course, while silently wishing he’d get a move on. JC did his best to keep an eye out for signs and landmarks, so he could be sure of finding his way around on his own if the need arose. But most of the signs had been taken down long ago, and all the doors and all the corridors looked eerily alike. JC quickly lost all track of where he was, or even in which direction the lobby lay. He looked across at Benjamin and immediately realised that the actor looked as lost as he did. JC fell in beside him.
“Something wrong?” he said quietly.
“I’m not sure,” said Benjamin, frowning. “It’s just…I don’t remember its taking this long to get to the stage, back in my day. And I’m almost sure the layout was never this complicated. It almost feels like we’re going round and round in circles.”
Elizabeth nodded vigorously. “I do have to wonder, darling, whether Old Tom is so far gone that he doesn’t actually remember where he’s going and is too proud to admit it. Or even…if he isn’t really the caretaker he claims to be and some journalist trying to bluff his way through. Or could he be deliberately trying to disorientate us? I don’t know what’s going on here, Benjamin, but I don’t like it. Something doesn’t feel right.”
JC left Benjamin and Elizabeth muttering uneasily together and fell back to walk with Happy and Melody. Happy was scowling even more fiercely than usual.
“Something is definitely not kosher with these corridors, JC. The amount of time we’ve spent walking, we should be through the back of the theatre and half-way down the street. It feels to me…as though there’s more space here than there should be. As though the local geometry isn’t as properly nailed down at the corners as it should be.”
“I wouldn’t argue with that,” murmured JC. “This whole theatre feels wrong to me.”
“Maybe we should start leaving a trail of bread-crumbs,” suggested Melody.
As she was saying that, Old Tom took a sharp right turn, led them up some steps, and out onto the main stage. All the lights were on, bathing the entire massive stage in a fierce illumination. Everyone stood together, b
linking through the harsh glare at the gloom of the massive auditorium, laid out before them. It was like standing on an island of light, peering out at a sea of darkness.
“Who the hell left all these lights on?” said Elizabeth. “The workmen assured me that everything had been turned off when they left! I really don’t need the theatre’s owners adding their energy bills to our running costs.”
“There weren’t any lights on in the lobby,” observed JC.
“So why are they on here?” said Benjamin.
He strode forward across the stage, Elizabeth sticking close beside him. Lissa wandered after them, smiling happily about her as though she was finally where she belonged. Old Tom stayed by the wings, at the far side of the stage, as though he knew his place and wasn’t prepared to venture beyond it. JC moved cautiously forward. To his surprise, he found he didn’t like being on stage. It felt too open, too exposed, too vulnerable. He glared out into the shadowy auditorium, and the rows upon rows of empty seats stared silently back at him. JC knew what the workmen meant, now, when they talked of being watched by unseen, unfriendly eyes. He slipped his heavy sunglasses down his nose, so he could peer over the top of them, but even his augmented eyes couldn’t make out anything useful. He pushed the glasses back up his nose again. He didn’t want his glowing eyes to freak out the civilians; and he was getting really fed up with having to come up with clever answers to distract them.
Happy and Melody stuck close together, braced and ready for an attack that never came.
“Must bring back memories, eh?” Old Tom said cheerfully to Benjamin and Elizabeth. “All the plays you appeared in, all the characters you played; must feel like coming home. I suppose.”
Benjamin and Elizabeth walked to the very front of the stage, as though drawn there. They stood arm in arm, looking out into the Past, smiling reflectively.
“This was our kingdom, once upon a time,” said Benjamin. “Where we were Kings and Queens, angry young men and femmes fatales…We played Shakespeare and Marlowe, Becket and Brecht, Oscar Wilde and George Bernard Shaw, bless his declamatory speeches…Hell, we did it all, didn’t we girl, one time or another. For everything from standing ovations to sullen silences. Because you can’t please all the people all of the time, the ungrateful bastards…”
“I sometimes think we had more fun backstage,” said Elizabeth. “Applause is what it’s all about, of course; but there’s more to theatre than the smell of the crowds and the roar of the grease-paint. For happy times and camaraderie, give me a theatre bar any day. Do you remember the one time we did the Scottish play.”
“Ah, the Caledonian Tragedy,” said Benjamin.
“Do you by any chance mean Macbeth?” JC said innocently.
Everyone except the Ghost Finders winced.
“Please,” said Benjamin, with all the dignity he could muster. “Don’t do that. It’s unlucky.”
“And I really don’t think we’re in any position to push our luck at the moment,” said Elizabeth.
“Anyway,” said Benjamin, “you remember young Dicky Moran, dear; playing Seyton, MacB’s second in command? He was lumbered with one of the most familiar lines from Shakespeare: The Queen, my lord, is dead. Well, what can you do with that that hasn’t been done a hundred times before? Particularly if you’re young and ambitious and keen to be noticed, like Dicky? We got all the way to the technical rehearsal, before Dicky came up with his Big Idea and presented it proudly to the director. He wanted to walk on stage with the Queen lying limp in his arms, present her to the King, then say the line! Would have been very effective. You were up for it, weren’t you, darling?”
“It would certainly have made a big impression,” said Elizabeth, which JC couldn’t help noticing wasn’t exactly the same as agreeing, “But the director wouldn’t wear it. Complete sense-of-humour failure…Which is probably why Dicky did what he did the next evening, at the dress rehearsal…You remember, darling; it was right at the end, with half the cast on stage celebrating MacB’s death, and the rest of us watching from the stalls. Hoping it would all end soon, so we could get a drink in. Someone has to bring on a fake severed head and say it’s MacB’s, then the big names go into soliloquy mode. Well, Dicky noticed that the actor holding the head was surreptitiously turning it back and forth so that it seemed to be looking at whoever was speaking. Well, once Dicky saw that, he couldn’t help himself. He started going Gottle of Gear from the front row, and other ventriloquist classics, like Get back in the box! I don’t want to get back in the box! And, of course, the moment he pointed it out, everyone else could see it, too! We rocked with laughter, all of us! We fell about, we leaned on each other, we laughed till we cried. Completely ruined the atmosphere…”
“The director blew his top,” said Benjamin, nodding happily. “Wanted to fire young Dicky, right there on the spot. But I put my foot down.”
“Indeed you did, darling,” said Elizabeth, “and quite right, too. Though the first night we had to go on without a severed head because no-one could look at it with a straight face any more. And might I point out, darling, you could be just as bad yourself. I’ve never been able to forget what happened with Cider with Rosie…”
“Oh God, yes,” said Benjamin, grinning broadly and not looking in any way ashamed of himself. “It was the technical again, when evenings grow long, and nerves grow short. We’d been running the play for hours, and we were all exhausted. We wanted to go home, or to bed, or both. Anyway, we’d finally made it to the last scene, where young Laurie Lee is in the hay-cart with young Rosie, and she’s about to give him a glass of cider and show him what life is all about…Except, neither of the two youngsters could get their lines right! They kept stopping, or jumping, or getting it wrong, over and over and over…The rest of the cast were all out there in the auditorium, watching from the shadows, getting more and more impatient. Until finally a voice was heard, rising out of the dark, saying For God’s sake, Rosie, will you please wank him off, then we can all go home!”
There was general laughter, while Elizabeth shook her head in mock condemnation. Benjamin smiled innocently.
“Might have been me. Might not. Who can say?”
Lissa wasn’t laughing. She had her arms folded tightly across her chest and was trying very hard to look as though such unprofessional behaviour was entirely beneath her. Elizabeth smiled at her frostily.
“You haven’t done much stage-work, have you, dear? You mustn’t worry—it’s the little moments of madness that keep us all sane. And after our play, you’ll be able to command every stage you walk onto. You really must try some Shakespeare; nothing like the Bard to stretch the acting muscles.”
“I have always fancied putting myself up for Lady MacB,” said Lissa. “But if I do, I’ll stick to the words. I really don’t have any time for sparking up the material with special bits of business, like certain actresses who’ve played her nude, or peed on stage during the sleep-walking scene.”
“Yes,” said Benjamin. “I remember that. I do recall being a bit nervous about which way the stage was sloping…”
“It’s all about the performance,” Lissa said firmly. “Shakespeare doesn’t need improving.”
“It’s all about getting noticed,” Benjamin said wisely. “But, then, you’ve probably never had any problems with that, have you?”
They all stopped and looked around sharply. Suddenly, without any warning, there was the sound of loud footsteps approaching from off stage. No build-up, no quiet sounds growing louder; only very heavy footsteps in the far wings, heading towards the stage. Everyone turned to look. The footsteps grew even louder, and heavier, as they drew nearer, slamming down with more-than-human weight and an inhuman sense of purpose. The stage itself seemed to shake and shudder with every step as though in anticipation. As though it was frightened. The footsteps reached the edge of the stage, left the wings, and continued on; but there was no-one there. Nothing to see, nothing at all. Only the sound—one loud crashing step after another, he
avy enough to break the world, loud enough to raise the dead, crossing the stage with horrid determination, heading straight for the living.
Benjamin and Elizabeth clung to each other tightly, stupefied by what was happening, unable to move. Lissa fell back to stand behind Old Tom, who didn’t seem to know what to do. He stood there, staring blankly at the approaching footsteps. As though it were all happening to someone else. JC moved forward to face the sounds and place himself between the advancing footsteps and the civilians. Melody started after him, realised Happy wasn’t moving, grabbed him by the arm, and hauled him along with her. The three of them stood shoulder to shoulder, facing the approaching sounds.
“Talk to me, Happy!” said JC. “What is this?”
“I don’t know!” said Happy. “I’m not seeing anything! Anything at all!”
JC whipped off his sunglasses and turned the full force of his glowing eyes on whatever was before him; but the footsteps kept coming, and he couldn’t see a damned thing. He held his ground, and the footsteps walked right up to him and stopped. Silence fell across the stage, the quiet broken only by the strained harsh breathing of the living as they waited for something to happen. But no-one appeared, and there weren’t any more footsteps. JC carefully extended one arm and waggled his hand back and forth before him; but there was nothing there.
JC put his sunglasses back on and frowned thoughtfully. “Okay,” he said finally. “That…was a bit odd.”
“Really?” said Happy, mopping at his damp face with a grubby handkerchief. “You think?”
“I was expecting whatever was making the footsteps to turn around and walk away,” said JC. “But they didn’t. The sounds just stopped. As though they’d served their purpose, accomplished everything they were supposed to…”
He turned around and looked back at the civilians. Benjamin and Elizabeth had let go of each other and were looking around a bit self-consciously. Old Tom was standing very still at the wings, as though he didn’t know where to look or what to do. Lissa emerged from behind him, looking pale and strained and quite decidedly spooked.