Chapter 8

‘Will you ever forgive me?’ asked Samantha earnestly, gazing unhappily at Toby as they stood together outside the Black Tulip after rehearsals the next afternoon.

‘Don’t be silly, there’s nothing to forgive,’ he laughed as he ushered her inside.

‘I’ve never been so embarrassed in my life,’ she mumbled as they made their way over to the others, who had already sat down at a vacant table.

‘It was nothing. Just a bit too much wine. It can happen to anybody.’

‘Maybe, but it’s never happened to me before,’ sighed Samantha. She looked at him hopefully. ‘Will you come home with me this evening and I’ll see if I can make it up to you?’

They reached their friends and sat down beside each other.

‘I’d love to, really I would,’ replied Toby, ‘But right now I’m so busy I don’t know whether I’m coming or going.’

‘You’re just saying that to brush me off,’ complained Samantha petulantly.

‘No I’m not. Honestly. Hey Andrew.’

‘What mate?’ Andrew looked round from the conversation he was having with Bruce Jenner.

‘Tell Sammy how busy I am this Sunday evening.

Andrew looked at Samantha and grinned broadly.

‘What, you mean when you go round and screw the arse off that little scrubber you keep tucked away in a back street hovel in Melvesham?’

Samantha looked horrified.

‘Be serious,’ grated Toby, exasperation all over his face.

‘Sorry,’ apologised his best friend contritely. ‘Well Sambo, tonight Toby has to draw up the duty rota for the Prefects for the final week of term. Then he’s got to do the detention lists for all the boys who got punished last week. After that I expect he’ll go through the script again to highlight it, because he’s prompting as you know. I think he still has to record one of the pieces of incidental music that Mr Singleton wants him to play during the Intermission and then he has to pack up all his sound kit to put into place at school on Monday.

Toby looked at the girl sitting beside him and shrugged helplessly.

‘Oh,’ she said in a small voice.

‘Perhaps after the play finishes,’ he said apologetically.

The dress rehearsal arrived before it seemed to any of them that it was possible. The costumes were only delivered by the outfitters on the Wednesday afternoon before the three scheduled performances and hardly any of them seemed to fit.

Jackie Stevenson, Eleanor Knight and Mary Adamson were drafted in, amongst other worried mothers, to take nips here and tucks there, sew up dresses and let down trousers. The bulk of the work was miraculously completed by seven-thirty and the players took to the stage, for the dress rehearsal, some of their outfits actually still held together by safety pins.

Tempers were short, nerves were frayed and everything that could go wrong did go wrong. The entire lighting system fused in the middle of the first act and the Producer almost had an apoplectic fit. Eventually the fault was rectified and the cast plodded gamely on to the end. It became apparent that the production was running almost half an hour over time and Mr. Singleton was pulling out his hair in handfuls.

‘Never mind,’ said Toby placatingly, ‘A dress rehearsal is supposed to be terrible. That’s what a dress rehearsal is for.’