Backstage was silent and very dark. I didn’t like it like this: a theatre should be full of people and life. Empty, it echoed with ghosts of past performances and dead actors. My candle cast long, misshapen shadows where it caught on the ropes strung like spider’s webs from the roof. I had to be careful as I made my way round scenery waiting in the wings: fragments of castle battlements littered my path, wizened trees grew from the boards in a thicket that caught on my clothes. An enchanter’s laboratory, abandoned in one corner, gleamed with glass bottles fastened to wooden shelves and gilt-edged spell books. It rattled as I passed as if it hid a skeleton that was trying to break out of its cupboard.
‘Johnny?’ I called outside the prompt’s room. My voice sounded frail in the yawning darkness. There was no answer. I pushed the door open. A low fire lit the room with a red glare. His office was filled with piles of scripts. A small camp bed, neatly made, stood ready in one corner. Pens, drawing equipment and paper were bundled underneath it. But there was no Johnny. I closed the door softly.
A noise behind me caught my ear like the sound of a distant door clicking to. I spun round.
‘Johnny?’
No answer.
Apart from Johnny and the night porter who manned the door, I did not expect anyone else to be in the theatre. Perhaps Johnny had gone in search of me? Perhaps he had also wanted to make up? Even if he didn’t, I would have welcomed a further reproof as long as I could have company.
I moved as swiftly as I could in the direction of the noise and found myself outside Mr Sheridan’s office. I paused, trying not to breathe too loudly. Yes, there was definitely someone moving stealthily about inside, but it couldn’t be Johnny, not in this office. I could hear the scrape of a chair as it was dragged across the floor. Had Mr Sheridan come in for something? That was most unusual this late on a Sunday night.
‘You’ll keep my jewel safe for me, won’t you, Cat?’
My promise to Mr Sheridan came back to me as I stood in the dark corridor outside his office. What if someone was in there right now? What if they had already found the diamond? I had to stop them. Looking around for inspiration, my eyes lighted upon a spear leaning against the wall: I recognised it as the one used in the pageant for ‘Rule, Britannia’. Though blunt, it should be sufficiently menacing to scare off a would-be burglar. But what if it was Mr Sheridan? I couldn’t just go bursting in and threaten him with a spear. There was a chance that he might find it funny; on the other hand, he might decide I’d gone too far. He was very particular as to who entered his office. Taking the spear in my right hand, I gently eased the door open with my left and peeked in. I could see a dark figure, too small for Mr Sheridan, standing on the chair, searching along the shelves opposite.
‘Stop right there!’ I shouted, pushing the door open with a bang. My abrupt entrance made the burglar totter on his chair in surprise and he fell to the floor. I rushed forward, intending to capture the thief by pinning him to the ground with my weapon . . . he was, after all, not much bigger than me . . . but he was too quick. He leapt to his feet, seized the end of the spear and pulled it sharply from my hands, sending me crashing into the table. I squealed with pain as the thief grabbed my arms and bent one up behind me.
‘Be quiet!’ hissed a familiar voice. ‘Do you want the porter to find us?’
It was Pedro! I stopped struggling.
‘Let go!’ I said furiously. He still had my arm bent back.
‘Promise not to shout?’ he asked, giving it a painful tweak.
I nodded. I couldn’t believe it: Pedro was the burglar!
He released me and bent to pick up the spear.
‘Thinking of sticking this in me, were you?’ he said lightly, touching the blunted end of the spear before leaning it against the desk.
‘What are you doing here?’ I asked, rubbing my arm. He was avoiding my eye, pretending to be busy righting the overturned chair.
‘I could ask you the same thing,’ he replied.
‘I live here, remember?’ I said sarcastically. ‘You were looking for it, weren’t you?’
‘What?’ he said, now tidying some papers he had pulled from the shelf in his fall.
‘Pedro, don’t fool with me! You were looking for the diamond.’
‘So what if I was?’ he said with a shrug.
‘But that’d be stealing. We promised to look after it!’ I protested.
‘You promised; I didn’t.’
‘But it’s still stealing!’
‘So what?’ said Pedro, looking up at me for the first time, his eyes full of anger. He was glaring at me, not as if he was seeing Cat, the girl he had befriended, but an English girl a white girl from a nation grown rich on slavery. I didn’t like that look. ‘Don’t you think it was wrong that I had everything stolen from me? My family, my home, even my freedom? So what if I just want to have enough money to get away from here? To go somewhere where I can be truly free. A place where people won’t see my skin first, but me.’
‘I see you, Pedro,’ I said quietly.
He shrugged. ‘You do perhaps . . . but maybe that’s because you’re no better off than me, Cat.’ A new thought struck him and he grabbed hold of my forearms, pulling me towards him eagerly. ‘What about you, Cat? Don’t you want to escape all this? If we found that diamond, we wouldn’t have to take another beating in our lives. We could repay everyone for the insults we’ve suffered. When I saw that beast dangling you by your ankle, laughing at you, it reminded me . . .’ He stopped and let go of me, turning his back.
‘Of what?’ I prompted, wondering what he had been going to say.
‘Of being a slave, damn you!’ he said angrily, as if it were my fault I’d made him remember. ‘Look, don’t you realise that with that diamond you could make Billy Shepherd sorry he ever touched you?’
‘No, I couldn’t.’ I shook my head vigorously. ‘I’d have to run away and hide for the rest of my life if I stole. Anyway, it’s different for me. You say your life was stolen from you . . . and it was . . . but Mr Sheridan saved my life. I’d’ve frozen on the doorstep if he hadn’t taken pity on me. I can’t repay that by stealing from him.’