Read Online An Awfully Big Adventure by Beryl Bainbridge - Free Book Online Page A

only been temporarily interrupted. The dead are still there, as are those we think we love, just round the corner . . . waiting to be caught up with.’
    ‘Of course,’ Stella said, ‘I hadn’t thought of that.’
    For the life of her she couldn’t fathom where funerals came into it. Besides, not everyone wore shoes with laces. Still, she was pleased he had sought her opinion.
    Bunny told her to call the actors for the last act. He found it difficult to talk; having found a bottle containing tincture of iodine in the First Aid box, he held a saturated plug of cotton wool against his raging tooth.
    Grace Bird was already in the corridor outside the dressing-room she shared with Dawn Allenby. ‘Look here, dear,’ she said, ‘tell Bunny to pop up, will you?’
    ‘What’s the noise?’ asked Stella, although she knew. Someone was squealing and crying at the same time, as if caught in a trap.
    ‘Not a word,’ Grace said. ‘Go and fetch Bunny.’
    The actors paced in the wings puffing on cigarettes, watching the sliding door in case the fireman should catch them. Desmond Fairchild got a speck of dust in his eye and Dotty, tut-tutting with concern, lent him a tissue to blow his nose.
    ‘Any better?’ she asked, and he said, giving her a peculiarly defiant look, ‘My God, I suppose you think that solves everything.’
    ‘What’s wrong,’ called Meredith. ‘Why can’t we start?’ He sounded angry.
    Stella tiptoed from the proscenium arch, shielding her eyes from the glare of the footlights. She couldn’t see Meredith. ‘There’s a spot of bother,’ she whispered.
    ‘Speak up,’ he shouted, and repeated, ‘What’s wrong?’
    ‘I’ve been forbidden to divulge,’ she said. Had she been alone she would have told him. It wasn’t right for a man in his position to be kept in the dark.
    The waiting was not prolonged. After no more than five minutes Bunny announced they could begin. It went very well. During a break in which the designer’s assistant smeared the mirror above the fireplace with vaseline – Meredith had complained it reflected too much light – Dawn Allenby apologised for the drenching smell of eau de Cologne that pervaded her person. ‘Bear with me, darlings,’ she pleaded, ‘I sweat like a navvy when nervous.’
    Nervy or not, she was particularly convincing in her role as Olwyn, more so than she had been in previous rehearsals. When she confessed to shooting Martin no one could doubt she had it in her to pull the trigger. Martin had considered her priggish, a bit of a spinster. He had shown her some naughty drawings, to test her prudishness. ‘They were horrible,’ she cried, wrinkling her nose in distaste; even so, her tone was that of a woman of the world and it was evident it was Martin she found disgusting, not the drawings.
    Which was why, at the very end, when Gordon tuned in on the wireless to a dance band and Robert was supposed to waltz Olwyn about the room, Stella had no patience with St Ives’s reaction to Geoffrey’s ten-second delay in putting on the gramophone record. Anybody with any feeling for the drama wouldn’t have noticed. Richard didn’t say anything; he simply stood there, every inch the martyr. Dawn Allenby seemed annoyed too, though that was possibly because she’d been cheated out of those extra moments in his arms.
    When they stopped for a beer rest before running through Act Two again – a fly-man was dispatched to the Oyster Bar with a hot-water jug stamped ‘Property of Sefton General Hospital’ – Meredith climbed into the orchestra pit to play the piano. Geoffrey said the piece was Sheep May Safely Graze by Bach. Whatever it was, it was very tinkly and repetitive, and often, just as he seemed to be getting somewhere, Meredith broke off and started all over again. Stella hadn’t suspected he was musical.
    Uncle Vernon had paid for her to study the piano. After three weeks, during which time it became clear she might be in her dotage before