Stage Fright Read online

  ‘Cass?’

  I gave a start and turned to see Melissa was standing by the cot.

  ‘Are you OK?’ she asked.

  ‘Oh, yes, yes, I’m fine.’

  I went over to join her by the cot and we stood looking down at the children.

  ‘This is like old times,’ she said.

  I nodded. It was. During the long days and nights in hospital attached to drips ourselves, leaning over the incubators containing our babies, we’d become very close. Perhaps inevitably some of that intimacy had ebbed away. It had been a special time, like being on board ship together or meeting on holiday, a special time, and a wonderful time, but not an easy one. I remembered how it had been, listening to the sigh of the ventilator, scarcely daring to take my eyes off the little chest as it rose up and down, the feeling of that tiny curled hand closing round my finger. I couldn’t risk going through that again, I thought, not yet anyway.

  ‘It kind of gives the lie to astrology, doesn’t it?’ I said. ‘Being born so close together you’d expect their personalities to be similar, wouldn’t you? But they’re not at all, really, are they?’

  ‘I think it’s a bit more complicated than that. I didn’t tell you, did I, that I looked up their Chinese horoscopes? They were born in the year of the tiger but they have companion animals according to when exactly they were born. Agnes’s companion is the pig. It’s nicer than it sounds. It means she’s easy-going and well-balanced.’ She leaned down and stroked Agnes’s cheek with one finger.

  ‘What about Grace?’

  ‘Her companion animal is the rooster.’

  ‘That figures!’

  ‘The rooster and the pig get on well together. Maybe they’ll be friends when they grow up.’

  I don’t believe in astrology, or even destiny, not really. I go along with Cassius: ‘The fault, dear Brutus, is not in our stars but in ourselves, that we are underlings.’ And yet we can never really know the consequences of our actions. Things so rarely turn out as we expect and always they could so easily have been different. The road forks all the time and every decision leaves behind a trail of unrealized possibilities. What if I had stuck with Joe? Grace wouldn’t exist, but I might have had other children with Joe, and their existence would have seemed just as inevitable as Grace’s did now.…

  Melissa broke in on my thoughts.

  ‘Are you all right, Cass?’ She was looking concerned. ‘You seem miles away. Is there something wrong?’

  ‘No, no, I’m OK. Someone who was once very important to me is trying to get in touch. I don’t know what to do.’

  ‘Come on, let’s have that cup of tea and you can tell me all about it.’

  And sitting together on the sofa downstairs with Mozart playing on the hi-fi I did tell her about it. Joe was twenty-five, I was only twenty-one and we’d met at Birmingham University where I’d just started my PhD. We’d only known each other a few months when we got married. Joe had come over from the States on a post-doctoral fellowship in computer science. When it was over he went back to the States and took a job with a small firm in the midwest. I stayed in England to finish my PhD and then I’d been offered my first academic job in Sheffield. That was when the trouble started. Joe hit the roof when he realized that I wasn’t going to join him in Colorado.

  ‘I couldn’t face living there,’ I told Melissa. ‘If it had been New York or the West Coast, things might have been different. And Joe wouldn’t come back to Britain.’

  ‘So it was stalemate,’ Melissa said. ‘You weren’t tempted to give in?’

  ‘Tempted, yes. But in the end, too stubborn. And so was Joe. Neither of us would back down. Oh, well, who knows, maybe it wouldn’t have worked anyway. Perhaps as time went on we’d have found we didn’t have that much in common. That’s what I tried to tell myself.’

  ‘So what was he like?’

  I reached for my bag, rummaged in it and brought out a photograph. ‘I dug this out of an old photo album.’

  We looked at it together. It had been taken on the beach after a friend’s wedding in Jersey. Joe was wearing tails and I was wearing a brightly coloured cotton dress, decorated with big, splashy flowers and pulled in tightly at the waist. Joe had pulled his tie loose and I was barefoot with a pair of white sandals swinging from one hand. We were walking hand in hand on a path between gorse bushes and sand dunes. Even with my shoes off, it was clear that Joe was an inch or two shorter than me.

  ‘It looks so romantic … like a scene from an arty French movie.’

  ‘I know. Jules et Jim … it was just magical, that day. I haven’t thought about it for years.’

  ‘When you said Joe was American, I imagined someone tall and blond and athletic. The beach-boy type. But I suppose – what’s his surname? Baldassarre? – is that Italian?’

  ‘American–Italian, yes. More Dustin Hoffman than Paul Newman.’

  ‘Dustin Hoffman without the nose. More like Robert De Niro, really. He is handsome.’

  ‘I certainly thought so,’ I said, looking at the sallow skin and the brown eyes under dark, arched eyebrows. ‘Of course this was – what? Sixteen years ago? Seventeen?’

  ‘You didn’t stay in touch after the divorce!’

  I shook my head. ‘I don’t know anything at all about what’s happened to him. Except that he’s here in Cambridge right now.’

  ‘Aren’t you dying to know what he’s like now? You are going to meet him, aren’t you?’

  As soon as the words were out of her mouth, I knew that of course I would. Had I ever really doubted it? I looked at my watch.

  ‘I’ll ring him now. It’s not too late. I’ll only be jumping every time the phone rings if I don’t. Might as well get it over with.’

  A look of surprise passed over Melissa’s face. Then she said:

  ‘Go for it. Why not? The phone directory’s over there. I’ll leave you to it. I’ll go up and check on the kids.’

  The porter at St John’s told me that Professor Baldassarre was staying in a college flat in Thompson’s Lane and gave me the number. I punched it in quickly before I could change my mind. It was answered almost immediately.

  ‘Hi there,’ said a brisk familiar voice.

  I wouldn’t have been able to describe it beforehand, but as soon as I heard it, I felt I would have known it anywhere. My stomach flopped over and for a moment or two I couldn’t speak.

  The voice went on. ‘This is Joe Baldassarre. Can’t come to the phone right now. Leave a message.’

  An answering machine. Thank God. I took a deep breath.

  ‘Joe? It’s, mm, it’s Cassandra. Er, well, give me a call, why don’t you?’ Oh, God, what was my phone number. I simply could not remember. ‘Er, you’ve got my mobile number, haven’t you?’

  I managed to hang up before I started laughing. I was still sitting there, giggling, the phone in my hand, when Melissa came downstairs.

  ‘Well?’ she said, looking at me expectantly.

  ‘Got the answer machine. Wouldn’t you just know it? And my mind went a complete blank. I couldn’t remember my own phone number.’

  ‘Nerves?’

  ‘Partly that and partly sheer exhaustion. I find numbers are the first thing to go. I can never remember my PIN number these days – and as for my mobile number, forget it.’

  ‘Tell me about it. I’m building up a serious sleep deficit. I never knew it was possible to manage on so little.’

  She put up a hand to conceal a yawn. It triggered off a chain reaction. I yawned so widely that my eyes watered.

  Upstairs a baby began to cry.

  ‘I don’t think that’s Agnes,’ Melissa said.

  ‘No, I think it’s Grace. Thought all this peace and quiet was too good to be true.’

  I went upstairs. I’d just got Grace’s dirty nappy off when I heard the muffled sound of my mobile phone ringing in my handbag downstairs. I went to the door and called down to ask Melissa to get it for me. A moment or two later the sound stopped and I heard
the murmur of her voice.

  Then she called up the stairs.

  ‘It’s Joe.’

  ‘I’ll be down in a moment.’

  Of course, I was all fingers and thumbs. I accidentally pinched Grace and she yelled blue murder. I thought I would never be through, but at last I went downstairs with the grumbling baby in my arms. I heard Melissa saying:

  ‘Yes, we open next week. You must come.’

  I raised my eyebrows. She grinned and winked. I handed Grace to her. She gave me the phone, took Grace out of my arms, and headed off to the kitchen.

  ‘Cassandra! Is that really Cassandra? Well, by all that’s—’

  ‘How are you?’

  ‘I’m good. And you?’

  ‘I’m fine, just fine. Wow, it’s great to hear your voice.’

  Neither of us spoke for a bit, then I said:

  ‘I just don’t know what to say…’

  ‘I know, I know…’

  ‘How long are you over for?’

  ‘Just a semester. Till Christmas. Cass, I can’t get over this, hearing your voice … after all this time.’

  ‘How did you know I was in Cambridge?’

  ‘Nothing easier. Did a search on the net. You’re on your university’s website.’

  It’s one thing to wonder, to dream even, about what an encounter with the past would be like, but the impact is quite different. Perhaps in the silence that followed Joe was thinking the same thing.

  ‘So,’ he said. ‘You married?’ Right out with it. That was just like Joe.

  ‘Not married, no, but I am with someone, yes, Stephen’s a lawyer, works in Cambridge. We’ve got a little girl, Grace, six months old.’

  ‘That’s just great.’ His voice was warm.

  ‘How about you?’

  ‘Two sons. Daniel’s eight. Josh is six. They’re great kids.’

  There was a short silence. Joe said, ‘Hey, sounds like we’ve got a lot to catch up on. How about lunch?’

  When I’d closed up the phone and put it back in my bag, Melissa emerged from the kitchen.

  ‘Well?’ she asked.

  ‘Lunch tomorrow. He’s meeting me at the theatre.’

  ‘Fast work!’

  ‘That’s Joe all over. He sounds just the same. And now I think I really must go home. I know it’s not far, but I’ll be in danger of falling asleep at the wheel if I don’t go soon.’

  Melissa came to see us off. I’d put the car into gear and was about to drive off, when she tapped on the window. I wound it down. She bent down to speak to me and I caught a whiff of rose-water. She frowned. Her eyes met mine and I thought she was going to say something important. But all she said was:

  ‘I’ll want to hear all about that lunch.’

  She smiled and stepped back. She blew a kiss. Then I was reversing away. I turned the car and drove out on the track. In my wing mirror I could see her outlined against the golden rectangle of the doorway, her arm raised in farewell. I remembered that I’d meant to ask her something. What was the other thing she had thought was strange about the anonymous letter? It really wasn’t worth going back just for that, I thought. I could ask her tomorrow. A turn of the track whisked her out of sight.

  Chapter Six

  I dried my face on a paper towel and stood staring into the mirror. I was alone in the female dressing-room getting ready for my lunch with Joe. I still hadn’t heard anything from Stephen. My thoughts ran round what was now a well-worn track. There had probably been some misunderstanding with the clients over which hotel he was booked into, and then it might have been too late to ring me. It was now nearly half past twelve so that meant it was the middle of the night in LA. I’d probably hear from him this evening. And after all, what could have happened? I knew there hadn’t been an air crash – it would have been all over the news. But all the same the fact remained that I didn’t know where he was or how to contact him. And what would I do if he didn’t ring? I told myself to get a grip. I’d ring his office of course, speak to his secretary. I’d feel a fool but.…

  There was a spluttering like the sound of something being thrown into hot fat. I came to myself with a start. It was the Tannoy.

  ‘Dr James to the stage door, please. Professor Baldassarre for you.’

  Oh Lord. My stomach turned over. I looked at myself in the mirror, seeing myself now as Joe would see me. Lack of sleep had taken its toll. I’d been up with Grace in the early hours of the morning. I’d got so worried by her persistent crying that I’d rung the National Health Direct Line. Twice. And Grace had at last fallen asleep during the second phone call. Teething had been the verdict. I rubbed some colour into my cheeks. Lipstick would help. My hand wobbled and I smeared it over the edge of my lower lip. I had to scrub it off and start again.

  The Tannoy seemed to clear its throat. ‘Dr James…’

  I couldn’t put it off any longer. I grabbed my bag and ran down the stairs.

  Joe was waiting for me outside the front of the theatre. He was looking up at the façade. He must have heard my footsteps on the pavement. When he turned towards me, my first thought was that he had been made up for the stage. Those lines, the wrinkles round the eyes, the fuller cheeks, must be paint and latex, and the thickness round his waist was padding. The next moment I understood. Joe was middle aged. The skinny youth I’d known was now a roly-poly, teddy-bear of a man with a thick waist. The abundant hair had receded, was cut close and was generously salted with grey.

  My surprise must have shown on my face. Joe laughed.

  ‘Not quite what you were expecting, huh? Guess I’ve changed a little over the years. You look great, though. It suits you, having your hair short.’

  ‘It’s only been like that for a few months, actually.’

  We stood looking at each other.

  ‘Interesting place you’ve got here,’ Joe said, gesturing towards the theatre.

  We stood looking up at the stone exterior with its first floor balcony and twin leaded domes. It wasn’t as spectacular as the auditorium, but the balustrades and swags and turrets were still impressive.

  ‘I could show you round after lunch,’ I offered.

  ‘Terrific. I’ve booked a table at a neat little Italian restaurant down near Magdalene Bridge. It’s a bit of a ways from here, I hope you don’t mind a walk. I fixed it for one o’clock, so there’s no hurry.’

  ‘That’s fine.’

  We set off down the street in silence. Has this been a terrible mistake? I thought. It’s been too long: we’re strangers now. How could I break the ice …

  As we passed the Racquet Kings, Joe slowed down to look in the window.

  ‘A shop entirely devoted to selling and restringing racquets. Only in Cambridge,’ he said.

  I caught his eye in the reflection in the glass. He grinned at me.

  ‘What am I thinking of?’ he said. ‘Come here.’

  He turned to me and pulled me into a hug. There was a smell of aftershave, something sharp and tangy, and the pressure of his solid chest and belly against me. He squeezed me hard and then stood holding me at arm’s length. Our shared past had lived on in my mind like a series of stills from an old movie, drained of life and power. The feel of Joe’s arms, the smell of him that lay beneath the aftershave, brought it vividly to life. I remembered how much I’d liked this when we first met: his confidence and lack of physical inhibition, his readiness to hug and hold hands, were so unlike the other boyfriends I’d had.

  We started to laugh.

  ‘Gee,’ Joe said. ‘I almost felt shy there for a minute.’

  ‘But only for a minute!’ I said.

  He took my hand and tucked it under his arm, anchoring me to his side. The theatre is on Newmarket Road, at the point just before it turns into Maid’s Causeway. It’s about a ten-minute walk to the river.

  Cambridge is surprisingly quiet in August. The undergraduates and many of their teachers have drained away, and the place is left to locals and to tourists. Infected by the relaxe
d atmosphere, we dawdled along in the sun. Joe had a question about everything we passed. In his company I saw the familiar city with fresh eyes. We stopped to admire a fine row of elegant Georgian houses in Doll’s Close and as we passed Jesus College, I said:

  ‘You should have a look round here sometime.’

  Joe looked at his watch. ‘No time like the present.’

  ‘Oh, OK.’ For a moment, I was taken aback, then I thought, why not?

  We walked down the entrance known as the chimney: it’s a long path flanked by high brick walls that conceal the Fellows’ and the Master’s gardens. We passed through the Tudor gatehouse into First Court. The college was built on the site of a medieval priory and one side of the court remained from that building. The two other sides were Tudor. But it wasn’t just the buildings that made me feel that I was stepping back in time. The court was as secluded and cloistered as the nunnery it had once been. The noise of the traffic on Jesus Lane was scarcely audible and there wasn’t a soul in sight. The only evidence of the twentieth century was a wonderful Elizabeth Frink statue of a horse on the striped lawn in the centre of the court. Off to the left was a vista of shaved lawns and mature trees in full bloom. As we wandered in that direction, we saw one or two people – a gardener trimming the edge of a lawn, a secretary walking between two buildings – but no one took any notice of us.

  ‘This is just great,’ Joe said. ‘I want to see all the colleges while I’m here.’

  ‘That’s more than I’ve done,’ I admitted. ‘I have been here, but only once, and that was at night. I was a guest at High Table. They had grace in Latin.’

  ‘Tell me three things to do in Cambridge that I might not think of, things that aren’t in the guide books.’