Cameron found the school hall seats uncomfortable even for the half-hour of morning assembly. Tonight was going to be purgatory. He knew all too well that the full play was five hours long. Evie had assured him that this was a shortened version. Cameron wondered how short.
He spoke to Jasper, sitting next to him. ‘What’s Evie going to wear for the mad scene?’
‘I don’t know,’ said Jasper. ‘She won’t tell anyone.’
The lights went down and the curtain rose on the battlements of Elsinore.
The painted backdrops that formed the scenery were Cameron’s work. He had a strong visual sense, presumably inherited from his father, the photographer. He was particularly pleased with the way the painted moon concealed a spotlight that picked out the sentry.
There was not much else to like. Every school play Cameron had ever seen had been dreadful, and this was no exception. The seventeen-year-old boy playing Hamlet tried to seem enigmatic but succeeded only in being wooden. However, Evie was something else.
In her first scene, Ophelia had little to do other than listen to her condescending brother and her pompous father, until at the end she cautioned her brother against hypocrisy in a short speech that Evie delivered with waspish delight. But in her second scene, telling her father about Hamlet’s crazy invasion of her private room, she blossomed. At the start she was frantic, then she became calmer, quieter, and more concentrated, until it seemed the audience hardly dared to breathe while she said: ‘He raised a sigh so piteous and profound.’ And then, in her next scene, when the enraged Hamlet raved at her about joining a nunnery, she seemed so bewildered and hurt that Cameron wanted to leap on stage and punch him out. Jeremy Faulkner had wisely decided to end the first half at that point, and the applause was tremendous.
Dave was presiding over an intermission bar selling soft drinks and candy. He had a dozen friends serving as fast as they could. Cameron was impressed: he had never seen school pupils work so hard. ‘Did you give them pep pills?’ he asked Dave as he got a glass of cherry pop.
‘Nope,’ said Dave. ‘Just twenty per cent commission on everything they sell.’
Cameron was hoping Evie might come and talk to her family during the intermission, but she still had not appeared when the bell rang for the second half, and he returned to his seat, disappointed but eager to see what she would do next.
Hamlet improved when he had to badger Ophelia with dirty jokes in front of everyone. Perhaps it came naturally to the actor, Cameron thought unkindly. Ophelia’s embarrassment and distress increased until it bordered on hysteria.
But it was her mad scene that brought the house down.
She entered looking like an inmate of an asylum, in a stained and torn nightdress of thin cotton that reached only to mid-thigh. So far from being pitiable, she was jeering and aggressive, like a drunk whore on the street. When she said: ‘The owl was a baker’s daughter,’ a sentence that in Cameron’s opinion meant nothing at all, she made it sound like a vile taunt.
Cameron heard his mother murmur to his father: ‘I can’t believe that girl is only fifteen.’
On the line: ‘Young men may do it if they come to it, by cock they are to blame,’ Ophelia made a grab for the King’s genitals that provoked a nervous titter from the audience.
Then came a sudden change. Tears rolled down her cheeks and her voice sank almost to a whisper as she spoke of her dead father. The audience fell silent. She was a child again as she said: ‘I cannot choose but weep, to think they should lay him in the cold ground.’
Cameron wanted to cry too.
Then she rolled her eyes, staggered, and cackled like an old witch. ‘Come, my coach!’ she cried insanely. She put both hands to the neckline of her dress and ripped it down the front. The audience gasped. ‘Good night, ladies!’ she cried, letting the garment fall to the floor. Stark naked, she cried: ‘Good night, good night, good night!’ Then she ran off.
After that the play was dead. The gravedigger was not funny and the sword fight at the end so artificial as to be boring. Cameron could think of nothing but the naked Ophelia raving at the front of the stage, her small breasts proud, the hair at her groin a flaming auburn; a beautiful girl driven insane. He guessed every man in the audience felt the same. No one cared about Hamlet.
At the curtain call the biggest applause was for Evie. But the head teacher did not come on stage to offer the lavish praise and extensive thanks normally given to the most hopeless of amateur dramatic productions.
As they left the hall, everyone looked at Evie’s family. Daisy chatted brightly to other parents, putting a brave face on it. Lloyd, in a severe dark-grey suit with a waistcoat, said nothing but looked grim. Evie’s grandmother, Eth Leckwith, smiled faintly: perhaps she had reservations, but she was not going to complain.
Cameron’s family also had mixed reactions. His mother’s lips were pursed in disapproval. His father wore a smile of tolerant amusement. Beep was bursting with admiration.
Cameron said to Dave: ‘Your sister’s brilliant.’
‘I like yours, too,’ said Dave with a grin.
‘Ophelia stole the show from Hamlet!’
‘Evie’s a genius,’ Dave replied. ‘Drives our parents up the wall.’
‘Why?’
‘They don’t believe show business is serious work. They want us both to go into politics.’ He rolled his eyes.
Cameron’s father, Woody Dewar, overheard. ‘I had the same problem,’ he said. ‘My father was a United States senator, and so was my grandfather. They couldn’t understand why I wanted to be a photographer. It just didn’t seem like a real job to them.’ Woody worked for Life magazine, probably the best photo journal in the world after Paris Match.
Both families went backstage. Evie emerged from the girls’ dressing room looking demure in a twinset and a below-the-knee skirt, an outfit obviously chosen to say I am not a sexual exhibitionist, that was Ophelia. But she also wore an expression of quiet triumph. Whatever people said about her nudity, no one could deny that her acting had captivated the audience.
Her father was the first to speak. Lloyd said: ‘I just hope you don’t get arrested for indecent exposure.’
‘I didn’t really plan it,’ Evie said as if he had paid her a compliment. ‘It was kind of a last-minute thing. I wasn’t even sure the nightdress would rip.’
Crap, thought Cameron.
Jeremy Faulkner appeared in his trademark college scarf. He was the only teacher who allowed pupils to call him by his first name. ‘That was fabulous!’ he raved. ‘A peak moment!’ His eyes were bright with excitement. The thought occurred to Cameron that Jeremy, too, was in love with Evie.
Evie said: ‘Jerry, these are my parents, Lloyd and Daisy Williams.’
For a moment the teacher looked scared, but he recovered quickly. ‘Mr and Mrs Williams, you must be even more surprised than I was,’ he said, deftly disclaiming responsibility. ‘You should know that Evie is the most brilliant pupil I have ever taught.’ He shook hands with Daisy, then with a visibly reluctant Lloyd.
Evie spoke to Jasper. ‘You’re invited to the cast party,’ she said. ‘My special guest.’
Lloyd frowned. ‘Party?’ he said. ‘After that?’ Clearly he felt a celebration was not appropriate.
Daisy touched his arm. ‘It’s okay,’ she said.
Lloyd shrugged.
Jeremy said brightly: ‘Just for an hour. School in the morning!’
Jasper said: ‘I’m too old. I’d feel out of place.’
Evie protested: ‘You’re only a year older than the sixth-formers.’
Cameron wondered why the hell she wanted him there. He was too old. He was a university student: he did not belong at a high-school party.
Fortunately, Jasper agreed. ‘I’ll see you back at the house,’ he said firmly.
Daisy put in: ‘No later than eleven o’clock, please.’
The parents left. Cameron said: ‘My God, you got away with it!’
Evie grinned. ‘I know.’
They celebrated with coffee and cake. Cameron wished Beep had been there to put some vodka into the coffee, but she had not taken part in the production so she had gone home, as had Dave.
Evie was the centre of attention. Even the boy playing Hamlet admitted she was the star of the evening. Jeremy Faulkner could not stop talking about how her nakedness had expressed Ophelia’s vulnerability. His praise for Evie became embarrassing and eventually kind of creepy.
Cameron waited patiently, letting them monopolize her, knowing that he had the ultimate advantage: he would be taking her home.
At ten-thirty they left. ‘I’m glad my father got this assignment in London,’ Cameron said as they zigzagged through the backstreets. ‘I hated leaving San Francisco, but it’s pretty cool here.’
‘That’s good,’ she said without enthusiasm.
‘The best part is getting to know you.’
‘How sweet. Thank you.’
‘It’s really changed my life.’
‘Surely not.’