In the Still of the Night

Her mother was back from the shop when she got home. The table in the long, shabbily furnished lounge was laid with a blue glass bowl of salad, a dish of cold meat and some cheese. The kettle wa

s boiling as she walked into the kitchen. Her mother looked round eagerly. ‘Well?’

‘They said they’ll write in about a week.’ Annie couldn’t look at her mother. If she told her … but she couldn’t tell. If she did, she would never get that place at drama school, she would never be an actress. Who would believe her? He was an important man there; the senior tutor – he’d just say she was making it all up, it would be her word against his, and who was she, after all? Just another stage-struck kid.

‘But how did it go? Did you think they liked you?’

‘I don’t know,’ Annie mumbled. ‘I must go and wash.’ She rushed upstairs to the bathroom and was sick; her stomach was still churning as she splashed her face with cold water. She avoided seeing herself in the little mirror over the washbasin.

‘Did they like you?’ her mother had asked.

‘Be a good little girl and I’ll be pleased with you,’ he had said.

Her stomach heaved again. ‘Do you want to be an actress?’ he had asked, his hands wandering up inside her top, his fingers hot on her cold skin. ‘Do you want a place at the school? How much do you want it? There are lots of others who would jump at the chance, Annie.’

She closed her eyes and leaned on the wall. No, she could never tell. She hated the memory of what happened; it would be impossible to tell anyone about it, especially her mother.

The letter came a week later. Her mother stood over her while she opened it. Annie’s hands trembled. She couldn’t see the words.

‘Well?’ Trudie Lang was too agitated to wait, she tried to read the letter over Annie’s shoulder. ‘Don’t just stand there reading it over and over – what does it say?’

Saying nothing, Annie gave her the letter. What should she do? All those hopes and dreams of being an actress – she couldn’t give them up now. When she first applied, she hadn’t dared hope she would be accepted. Now she wasn’t sure she could go through with it. People always said, ‘You get nothing for nothing!’, but how could she bear to pay the price tag on her dream?

Her mother’s hand was shaking as she held the letter and read it. Trudie Lang had never been beautiful; now she was nearly sixty, grey-haired and lined after years of hard work, and she had the worn brightness of old silver, her strong nature showing through her bony face. She had had a tough life, worked hard from her childhood up, been married twice, often been hurt and lonely, only had one child, Annie, born when she was nearly forty.

Annie watched her, knowing that her dream had been Trudie’s dream first. From when she was very small, her mother had encouraged her to perform: she had paid for private music lessons, dancing lessons, elocution lessons, paid money they could ill afford, and all to see Annie get up in front of an audience and shine.

‘You got in!’ Trudie burst out. ‘Annie! You’ll get your chance, that was all I wanted, for you to get the chance I never had. I’d have given my eye-teeth to be an actress, but of course there was no chance of that, not with my family. They’d rather have seen me dead.’

Annie knew all this, had heard it a hundred times before. She didn’t listen now.

‘But this makes up for it,’ her mother said. ‘One day you’ll be famous, I’ll sit in the front stalls and listen to them applauding on your first nights.’

Desperately, Annie broke out, ‘Mum, I …’ But her voice died away. She couldn’t kill the joy she saw in her mother’s eyes.

Trudie wasn’t listening, anyway. She was too excited. ‘This is the chance of a lifetime, Annie. Don’t waste it.’

Her heart sank. She was trapped – how could she explain wanting to turn it down? Except by telling her mother … and she couldn’t, she couldn’t. Oh, maybe he had only been kidding when he told her what he would expect from her if he awarded her a place? She’d never been pretty: she was too thin, flat as a pancake. None of the boys at school had ever given her a second look.

Even her best friend, Megan, had given up trying to do something about the way Annie looked. Megan had left school now and worked in an office; she lived for Friday and Saturday and spent all her wages on clothes. She had curly hair and big breasts, wore tight skirts and sheer stockings, giggled a lot and made out in the backs of cars; the boys all liked her. Annie didn’t see much of her any more. If Roger Keats had made a pass at Megan she’d have giggled and probably let him do whatever he liked. Megan hadn’t been a virgin since she was fourteen. Annie was. And she hated the thought of Roger Keats touching her.

‘But, Mum, the grant I’ll get is only for the tuition, but I’ll need lots of books, and they’ve sent me a list of clothes I’ll need – you’ll have to keep me while I’m there. Can we afford it?’

Her mother turned away as the kettle boiled. Over her shoulder as she filled the kettle she said, ‘I’ve been thinking about that. You’re right, equipping you will cost a lot, but I’ve thought of a way to make some more money. I’m going to let out that spare room. I should have thought of it before. I’ll put a card in the shop window. I’ll only let it to a woman. I don’t want any men here, especially when I’m out at work so much and you’re here on your own.’

On a humid morning in late July, a gangling boy in jeans walked into the shop while Annie was piling potatoes into an old woman’s basket.

‘There’s a card in the window,’ he said to Trudie, who looked sharply at him. ‘A room to let? Has it gone yet?’

Annie’s customer held out some coins; Annie took them and turned to the till to ring up the amount, listening to her mother talking behind her.

‘What’s your name?’

‘Johnny. Johnny Tyrone.’

‘How old are you?’ Trudie bluntly asked, and he went a bit pink.

‘Twenty. I’ll be twenty-one in October.’