Blood in the Wings Read online

  The second act seemed to fly by even faster than the first. There weren’t quite as many scene changes and I had time to see some of the action on stage. Mum got to do her big dramatic solo and got lots of applause and Tasha pulled an even more dramatic scene backstage when she broke the buckle on her shoe. Anybody walking in off the street at that moment would have thought the whole show was about to be brought to a halt by the loss and I think Tasha was a bit put out when Aiden fixed it with a bit of black gaffer tape. With a flick of her ostrich feathers, she flounced off without even a thank-you.

  Almost before it had begun, Beth was tapping me on the shoulder and telling me to “stand by move forty two, strike the street,” the last move on my idiot sheet. One last rousing chorus number and it’s into the curtain calls. Mum’s reception was tumultuous and my heart leapt in pleasure for her. I could see Grant grinning too from his place in the back of the chorus line.

  When the curtain came down for the last time there were yelps and shouts of glee from the actors as they broke their lines and began a mass orgy of hugging and kissing. I stood back but I still got pounced on by hyped up chorus members as they bounced back to their dressing rooms. Tasha clicked by, waving her arms in the air dementedly. Mum fussed by, too excited to speak. Grant patted me on the shoulder and told me to wait so we could go on to the party together.

  I decided against the alley. It would be full of groupies and friends waiting to flock all over the actors. I was just debating whether to stay where I was or wait in the scenery dock when a strong pair of arms wrapped themselves around me from behind. I spun around within them but I didn’t push away. Severn applied a little gentle pressure in a light squeeze.

  “See you tomorrow,” he said. “Your turn to bring the coke.”

  I pushed back so I could see his face clearly.

  “Aren’t you coming to the party?”

  “No,” he replied seriously. “Not our scene. We prefer it back here in the dark. We’ll probably pick up a, ah, takeaway on the way home though. Sorry I can’t invite you.”

  “It’s Okay. I’ve got to go with Mum and Grant anyway. I’m sorry you’re not coming.”

  A light tightening of the embrace, almost a hug, and he was gone, through the stage door, flanked by the diminutive Reverend and the dominating Seth.

  “See you tomorrow,” I called to his departing back.

  CHAPTER THREE

  I didn’t care at all about science the next day.

  The party had been really boring. Hardly any of the backstage workers went and those that did left early. So there I was, still in my stage blacks, sitting in a corner watching all the beautiful people parade around doing all the right beautiful-people things and mouthing all the right beautiful-people sayings.

  The only good thing was the endless supply of free wine, of which I managed to get several glasses. Actually, it’s not true to say it was good, it was terrible but it didn’t seem so bad after the first glass and it made the actors’ jokes sound almost funny.

  The stage manager wafted my direction once. She had swapped her blacks for a floaty pink creation that made her look like a mobile sherbet and she had obviously made a deep inroad into the free wine. Glass in hand, she wobbled towards me, patted me on the shoulder and told me with all the deep sincerity of the almost drunk, how well I had done. She was the only person I spoke to all evening.

  Mum and Grant were in the thick of the beautiful people network, circulating in the groups of old-established society members. Tasha was the centre of attention of a group of young males to whom she doled out her attention in equal enough doses to keep them all begging for more.

  She was still the centre of attention the next day. Right through interval and lunchtime, and in every available spare minute, she retold her spectacular opening night success to anyone in earshot. The more times she told the story, the bigger star she became. I got sick of hearing it. So I wasn’t really listening when they got onto the subject of men and Tasha started talking about me.

  “Riley picks up the weirdoes.”

  “What?” I jerked my head up out of my lunch to glare at her.

  She tossed her hair back haughtily and struck a pose.

  “The number and his sidekick. You’d call them normal?” She turned back to the others, struck a different pose and explained. “There are heaps of good looking men in the cast and a couple of hunks in the crew and who does Riley end up with? A couple of psychos that don’t even have real names.”

  “They do so!” I realised as soon as I opened my mouth that I had jumped in too fast but it was too late to take it back.

  “Oh yeah?” Tasha was triumphant. “Which one? The number?”

  “His name is Severn!”

  One of the others sniggered. “Does he come after sex? Five, sex, seven,” she chanted, mocking my Australian accent.

  “With an R. Like the river. And he’s not a psycho.” By now I was angry. Tasha always managed to do that to me. Like Josh. When he first arrived at the school last year Tasha had fancied him something wicked and she had gone around telling everyone how great he was. Then, when he asked me to go ice skating instead of her, he suddenly became ugly, stupid, desperate. Now she was trying the same trick again, just because Severn looked at me and not her. Stuff her! Not again. I smiled at the others.

  “Tasha is just jealous,” I said icily. ”She might have seen him first but I got him. He’s mine.” Okay, so it was a lie, half a hug doesn’t count as a deal for possession. For all I know he could hug everything; trees, bunnies, policemen even. At that stage all I wanted to do as get a rise out of Tasha and take her down a bit.

  I looked around. I had their attention. I gave them a quick description, stressing all the bits I thought they’d like, and I laid it on real thick. There were choruses of “Wow!” and “Lucky you!” and Tasha looked really hacked off.

  Anita, who’s a terrible gossip, wanted to know more so for the rest of lunch time the conversation swung my way. I told them all about the crew, particularly Seth Borman, but it was pictures of Severn that kept popping up in my head.

  In the quiet of the science lab the pictures came back, along with Tasha’s words: “psycho”, “weirdo”. I tried to blot them out. Okay, there was something about him that was different. My mind did a re-run of his disappearing act in the alley. That was weird. Then, just as fast, it blotted that out with a warm fuzzy of his eyes when he smiled. By the end of the lesson I had convinced myself that anything different than normal was better and anything weird was because they travelled around so much. Yeah, that was it. It must be hard to make new friends every few weeks. I moved to New Zealand three years ago and I was still looked on as an outsider. Anybody’d get pretty weird living out of the back of a van.

  My science experiment failed. Spectacularly. My head was so busy spinning out, I didn’t hear old Hummer telling us what to do, then I read the instructions all wrong. Anita, who’s always my partner, is hopeless at science anyway and wouldn’t notice if I was accidentally building an atomic bomb. I reckon I nearly did. Instead of the chemicals mixing with a gentle fizz and giving off a few harmless bubbles, mine turned bright green, hissed viciously then exploded with a bang that made several people scream and got Hummer’s attention real fast.

  “Riley Lowe!” he screamed across the room. “What do you think you are doing?”

  “Making a mistake, I guess,” I answered honestly, shrugging my shoulders in doubt. “Sorry.”

  Hummer stumbled over a suitable reply and glared at those who dared to laugh.

  “Clean it up,” was the best he could manage.

  I did just that, but I still felt pretty stupid and I couldn’t get out of there fast enough.

  If I had known what was to come, I think I would have stayed in the science lab for the rest of the day. Tasha didn’t take too kindly to losing centre stage at lunch time and grabbed an opportunity in theatre arts to snatch it back with a vengeance.

  Like I said before, my
theatre arts teacher, Dilly, well, Dilys Davenport actually, was also the choreographer for the show so she was using the whole thing as a “learning experience” for the rest of the class. In practice, this meant that Tasha and I had to stand up in front of everyone and make little speeches on “our specialised tasks in the show”.

  Tasha let me go first. Not to be nice, don’t think that. More so that she could top my act and have the final word. Not that topping my act was hard. I hate public speaking. That’s one of the reasons I’d rather be crew than be an actor. She’s welcome to it.

  I mumbled a few words about cues and how “stand-bys” and “goes” are called over the comms from the stage manager to the assistant stage managers, or ASMs as we call them, who relay them to the floor crew, and I answered a couple of almost intelligent questions from the class nerd who had been at the opening night because his mother played second violin in the orchestra. One of the other boys asked a question about spotlights that I didn’t know the answer to, so I made up something that sounded intelligent then sat down quickly.

  Tasha took the floor. She certainly knew how to get their attention. The jersey came off as she got to her feet. In another twenty seconds the blouse had been pulled from the waistband of her skirt and knotted higher up, under her upthrust superbra. A flick of a button and all the boys were riveted.

  Before Dilly could object, Tasha launched into a spirited rendition of the big production number. The boys were wolf whistling and chanting for more.

  I watched Dilly. I could tell she knew Tasha was showing off and she knew she should stop her. But when it came to discipline, Dilly wasn’t the greatest. She watched Tasha but she didn’t have the guts to do anything. As Tasha came to the end of her little display, Dilly put out a hand and began to rise out of her chair but Tasha still had the upper hand.

  “I’m just so wrapped in the dances,” she gushed, leaning forwards and showing the boys everything she had. “They’re just so fabulous. Ms Davenport’s the choreographer. I just think she’s so clever. I’ve always wanted to be a dancer, but since I’ve been involved in the show, watching Ms Davenport at all the rehearsals, watching how she gets the dancers together and works out all the steps, I’ve decided I want to be a choreographer. It’s my dream now.”

  Dilly beamed.

  I thought I was going to be sick.

  CHAPTER FOUR

  “So what was all that garbage about?”

  I caught Tasha in the hallway after class and spun her round to face me.

  “What garbage?” she smiled, all fake and sweet.

  “That ‘ooh, you’re so wonderful, Ms Davenport’ garbage, as if you didn’t know.”

  “Oh, you think that was garbage, do you? I thought the only garbage was your pathetic little effort. Moving bits of scenery, ooh, ooh, how exciting!” She was all sarcastic. “You’re boring, Riley, very, very boring. It proves what I said before, if the number’s interested in you he must be a psycho, or desperate!”

  That did it. I was so angry I called her a bitch and shoved her as hard as I could, back against the wall. She gave a sort of anguished grunt as she slammed into the edge of a display case. She straightened herself up, flicking her hair the same way she does before she goes on stage, or goes to hunt down a male. We stood, holding our ground like cowboys in a cheap western gunfight. I was sure she was gong to hit me. I clenched my fists ready to hit back. Then, with another flick of her locks, she chickened out, called me a cow and ran off. I laughed at her departing back.

  Well, I laughed until she was around the corner, then I leaned against the display case and shook. I don’t normally get physical, not even with Tasha who comes on with this sort of put-down stuff all the time. I picked up my bag from where I’d dropped it on the floor and walked towards the door and home, thinking hard, trying to work out what I was feeling. Half of me was hoping I hadn’t hurt her and the other half hoped I had.

  Things weren’t a lot better at home. There was a letter in the post from Dad, raving enthusiastically about his new partner and baby and asking me to go back to Australia to live with them when I left school at the end of the year. Mum was throwing a major hissy fit in the kitchen, hacking bits off a poor defenceless dead chicken and throwing them into a casserole dish with a viciousness that suggested she was imagining she was doing it to Dad. I ducked for cover, made for my room, which is way at the back of the house, threw a cd on the stereo and turned it up very, very loud.

  Dinner was a frosty affair. Mum stressed, Grant dithered and I kept my head down. Grant’s into this caring, sharing New Age stuff and kept asking me how I felt about my father, how I felt about my new half-sister, how I felt about Australia. How did I feel? To be honest, I didn’t care. A holiday back in Oz would be okay, especially if it’s free, but babies? They grab me about as much as cold meat pies. And let’s face it, I figured I was up with Dad’s real game. He wanted a live-in babysitter. No way! The last thing I wanted was to be even more of an outsider than I was already – a constant reminder to his new family that he had an old one. Give it up, Grant! How do I feel? Irritated! Anyway, I had other things to think about. I had to deal with Tasha at the show and I was beginning to think I should apologise. Again, I was split in two, half of me saying I should and the other half saying I was right and it was her turn to grovel first. After all, she insulted me. And Severn.

  As it was, neither event happened. Tasha strutted past in her scarlet feathers while I was doing my pre-set. All I could think of was the mutilated chicken before Mum had hacked it to pieces. I giggled. She didn’t speak.

  Severn wandered past carrying a handful of radio mics. He didn’t speak either but he did flash me a sort of a smile. He looked terrible. If I hadn’t known he didn’t go to the opening night party, I would have thought he was still hung over. Whatever Seth’s crew got up to must have been awesome.

  He still didn’t speak when he came back past ten minutes later. He just wandered slowly past like he was walking in his sleep, head down and his arms folded across his body in the same wrapped up pose he used when he stood still. I watched him walk past. Finn watched me watching Severn. He stopped me just as I was going to follow Severn and ask him if he was all right.

  “Leave him,” Finn advised, his strange leathery claw-like hand on my shoulder.

  “Is he Okay?” I asked. “He looks sick.”

  “No, he’s just feeling sorry for himself. Severn can be his own worst enemy at times. If you want some advice, young lady, look somewhere else for someone to play with. Severn’s not your type.”

  “My type? How would you know what my type is?”

  “I don’t” Finn replied with a gruff laugh. “But, whatever that is, he’s not it. Just a word of friendly warning from someone who knows Severn better than you do. Stay away. There are things in his head, and his past, you don’t want to know about. Look somewhere else, lass, don’t make grief, for either of you.”

  Finn walked off, coiling a cable that snaked off into the wings, and I stood there feeling like I had just missed something important. I wanted to talk to Severn, to see for myself if he was all right, but it didn’t happen before the show. I still had heaps of pre-set to do and by the time I had finished sweeping the stage and setting out the park bench for the second scene, Severn was already at his sound board in the front of house and the audience were taking their seats. Oh, well, I’d just have to catch him in the alley at interval. After all, I had remembered to bring the coke.

  The show wasn’t as good as the opening night. Everyone was tired and, in spite of the stage manager’s ra-ra pep talk to the company, both the cast and the crew made mistakes. Even Seth managed to bring in a move too early and hit a chorus member on the head with the weighted end of a flown cloth.

  Severn was making hard work of it on the sound board. He was late with his first sound effect and the second one simply didn’t happen at all. Half the wings heard the stage manager swearing at him down the comms. I couldn’t hear Severn’s r
eply, but I saw Beth wince and I heard the SM’s terse “I’ll see you later”. Severn was in deep trouble.

  He certainly didn’t look too happy during the interval. He and the Reverend were way down the end of the alley, keeping as low a profile as possible to avoid the SM. I held out the coke.

  “Bad hair day, huh?” I broke the silence.

  Severn took the coke silently, leaving the reply up to the Reverend.

  “Typical second night. Energy’s a bit low. It’ll pick up. Always does.”

  “Huh!” Severn didn’t sound convinced.

  I must have look a bit taken aback at Severn’s attitude because the Reverend smiled and nodded Severn’s direction.

  “Ignore him, his energy level is a bit down tonight too.”

  “So I gather,” I smiled back, throwing one Severn’s way as well. “You guys look like you had a hard night last night.”

  “Do we?” The Reverend laughed. “I didn’t think we looked any worse than usual.”

  “You looked really tired when you walked past me before,” I said to Severn.

  “Yeah, I am a bit,” he finally spoke. “Sorry I didn’t speak. You’re right, it was a hard night, and a bad day. Thanks for the coke.” he handed it back, half empty.

  “Oh, there you are,” Tasha’s voice pierced the darkness of the alley and she tapped towards us. “I’ve been searching for you everywhere.”

  Severn groaned.

  “Well you found us,” I replied with a snap. “What do you want?”

  “I want him,” she simpered up to Severn, pushed me out of the way to reach him, and stroked his arm seductively. “Come with me.”

  Severn raised one eyebrow and gave a look of irritation over the top of his tiny tortoiseshell-rimmed glasses. “Why?”

  “Because I need you. Just come with me and you’ll find out.”

  “Shout if you need any help,” the Reverend called after him as he was led away, looking confused. “What’s that all about?”