She really wished she didn’t know that.
“Ever worry it’s going to create some sort of cosmic imbalance?” asked a voice at her elbow, and she turned to smile at Meghan Hanley, her dresser. “Having both of them in one building? If you toss in most of the management, I think we may be exceeding the recommended bastard quota.” Meghan raised a silvery eyebrow as she watched the denouement of the play. “They both have swords, and neither of them takes the opportunity for a quick jab. What a waste.”
“Please. A pair of blind, arthritic nuns would do better in a swordfight. Richard has probably never charged anything heavier than a credit card, and Will has the hand-eye coordination of an earthworm.”
She was admittedly still a little bitter. Although not in the least heartbroken. Only a very silly schoolgirl would consider Will Farmer to be the love of her life, and that delusion would only last until she’d actually met him. But Lainie had not relished being dumped by the trashiest section of London Celebrity. The tabloid had taken great pleasure in informing her, and the rest of the rag-reading world, that Will was now seeing the estranged wife of a footballer—who in turn had been cheated on by her husband with a former Big Brother contestant. It was an endless sordid cycle.
The article had helpfully included a paparazzi shot of her from about three months ago, when she’d left the theatre and been caught midsneeze. Farmer’s costar and ousted lover Elaine Graham dissolves into angry tears outside the Metronome.
Brilliant.
The journo, to use the term loosely, had also complimented her on retaining her appetite in the face of such humiliation—insert shot of her eating chips at Glastonbury—with a cunning little system of arrows to indicate a possible baby bump.
Her dad had phoned her, offering to deliver Will’s balls on a platter.
Margaret Ward, the assistant stage manager, paused to join the unofficial critics’ circle. She pushed back her ponytail with a paint-splattered hand and watched Richard. His voice was pure, plummy Eton and Oxford—not so much as a stumbled syllable in his case. Will looked sour.
Richard drew his sword, striding forward to stand under the false proscenium. Margaret glanced up at the wooden arch. “Do you ever wish it would just accidentally drop on his head?”
Yes.
“He hasn’t quite driven me to homicidal impulses yet.” Lainie recalled the Tuesday night performance, when she’d bumped into Richard outside his dressing room. She had apologised. He had made a misogynistic remark at a volume totally out of proportion to a minor elbow jostle.
The media constantly speculated as to why he was still single. Mind-boggling.
“Yet,” she repeated grimly.
“By the way,” Margaret said, as she glanced at her clipboard and flagged a lighting change, “Bob wants to see you in his office in about ten minutes.”
Lainie turned in surprise. “Bob does? Why?”
Her mind instantly went into panic mode, flicking back over the past week. With the exception of touching His Majesty’s sacred arm for about two seconds—and she wouldn’t put it past Richard to lay a complaint about that—she couldn’t think of any reason for a summons to the stage manager’s office. As a rule, Robert Carson viewed his actors as so many figureheads. They were useful for pulling out at cocktail parties and generating social media buzz, but operated beneath his general notice unless they did something wrong. Bob preferred to concentrate on the bottom line, and the bottom line in question was located at the end of his bank statement.
Margaret shrugged. “He didn’t say. He’s been in a bad mood all day, though,” she warned, and Lainie sighed.
“I could have been in bed right now,” she mused wistfully. “With a cream cheese bagel and a completely trashy book. Bloody Will.”
On the flip side, she could also still have been in bed with Will, enjoying the taste of his morning breath and a lecture on her questionable tastes in literature. From the man who still thought To Kill a Mockingbird was a nonfiction guide for the huntin’, shootin’ and fishin’ set.
Life could really only improve.
On that cheering thought, she made her way out of the wings and backstage into the rabbit’s warren of tunnelling hallways that led to the staff offices. The floors and walls creaked as she went, as if the theatre were quietly grumbling under its breath. Despite the occasional sticking door handle and an insidious smell of damp, she liked the decrepit old lady. The Metronome was one of the oldest theatres in the West End. They might not have decent seating and fancy automated loos, but they had history. Legendary actors had walked these halls.