Gran agreed with a knowing look in her eye. She winked and said, ‘Give that handsome nurse of yours my love.’
Lily kissed her goodbye and then ran to her car. She got to the village hall just as Jasper was outside adjusting some posters.
‘Cutting it fine, aren’t we?’ he joked in a friendly way. ‘It’s a dress rehearsal don’t forget.’
‘I know,’ she said.
The cast was already getting ready inside. Nick smiled at her from across the room, which made her heart skip a beat.
‘All right, everyone!’ Jasper spoke up. ‘Let’s take it from the top of Act Two!’
The moment Lily walked out, she felt the usual thrill of being on stage. She was excited to forgot about her problems for a while as she got lost in the world of Eliza Doolittle for the next few hours.
As theMy Fair Ladycompany plunged into their first full dress rehearsal, the village hall hummed with excitement as they wore their costumes for the first time.
Lily stepped out on stage in Eliza’s flower girl costume, which was a masterpiece of shabby charm, painstakingly created by the National Theatre to mirror Eliza Doolittle’s modest origins in Edwardian London.
Lily twirled in the dress, which consisted of a long, voluminous skirt made from rough, dark brown cloth that had been creatively damaged to highlight years of use. The hem seemed to have been hurriedly repaired several times, with fraying and patches.
She wore a ragged shirt in faded cream over the skirt; its once-crisp collar now limp and greying. And one of the makeup women had streaked Lily’s arms with plausible stage dirt on the skin, showing where her sleeves were rolled up to her elbows. Her otherwise austere outfit was given a flash of colour by a ragged shawl in subdued green flung loosely over her shoulders and in her hat was a red fabric rose, a little battered and defeated but, like Eliza, it still showed its beauty.
As the actors took their places for the opening number, the hall echoed with a loud crack then a thundering smash and Lily jumped back with Higgins and Pickering as gasps and shrieks burst forth from everyone.
‘What the bloody hell was that?’ Jasper’s voice sliced through the tumult.
Lily turned around and saw that a good portion of the background for the Covent Garden street scene had fallen free from its moorings and now lay crumpled on the stage floor.
‘Oh dear,’ she said.
‘Is everyone okay? Lily?’ Rushing from the wings came Nick.
‘I’m fine,’ she said, feeling a little shaky. ‘But that was close. Lucky I wasn’t standing there.’
Jasper rushed onto the platform. ‘How did this happen?’ he asked, his arms sweeping frantically at the dropped backdrop.
The harried-looking stage manager moved forward. ‘Jasper, I’m not sure. This morning, we examined all the rigging; everything seemed stable.’
‘Well, obviously it wasn’t!’ Jasper snapped, his typical flamboyance replaced with real wrath.
The actors and crew stood around the dropped set piece as the first shock subsided. Sheila whistled and studied the backdrop’s edge. ‘Look here,’ she replied, pointing to a torn edge. ‘This is an old canvas. You can see where it’s faded and where it was joined. Most likely, it has been weakening for weeks. We should have checked this. We’ll have to check them all now.’
Jasper ran a hand through his hair and looked strangely depressed. ‘This is a disaster,’ he said softly. ‘We open in less than one week. So now I have to check, reorder, which can take weeks for these lengths to come in and then repaint. We don’t have time.’
The gathering sank into an uncomfortable quiet. Lily turned to look at Nick and saw her same anxiety in his eyes.
Lily drew a long breath and moved forward. Her voice more forceful than she felt, she added, ‘We’ll fix it together. Remember, we are a team. You told us that, Jasper.’
Her comments seemed to release the people from the spell of hopelessness. Still sporting his Higgins costume, David nodded confidently.
‘Lily’s right. This is just the canvases. We can check them all as a team. It’s not up to only you, Jasper. We have come too far to allow a setback like this to stop us.’
‘I can sew that tear,’ Sheila said. ‘It will hold although it won’t be perfect.’
‘And I can help to reinforce the rigging,’ David said. ‘We will check and triple-check everything.’
Cast and crew members started to volunteer one at a time. They sorted themselves into groups to check, sew, reinforce and repaint where needed.
Jasper stood with his mouth open at everyone speaking at once, and sharing ideas. At last he clapped his hands, the glitter returning to his eye. ‘I have never seen a cast come together like this before, ever in my years of directing. Thank you.’
