furry leapt out. With an alarmed yell he dropped it. As it fell to the floor he could see other furry things.
‘Oh, my goodness!’ he whispered. ‘They’re his moustaches.’
He put the book back on the table and glimpsed inside. Sure enough, moustaches of every size from a small clipped one to a walrus one were pressed into the book. At the back of them was a hard residue of white stuff which looked like dried glue. Gently he picked up the escaping moustaches from the floor and carefully replaced them between the pages, hoping that Mr Duke didn’t have an index arrangement to them.
He found the silver snuffbox in the pocket of the checked suit. He slipped back out into the corridor and headed back to the door. Everyone was on stage busily untying the ropes which were connected to the ceiling canvas, now lowered to just above floor level. Head bowed, he returned to the prop table, wrapped the snuffbox and placed it with the other Parker props and ticked it off.
Hurriedly he left the scene dock and walked into the area on-stage where the flagstoned floor was being rolled up. Ralph shyly joined the end of the line of people and helped push it along.
As men carried it off into the scene dock Ralph stood awkwardly in front of the footlights not knowing what to do next. He spotted Helena attempting to move two boxes in the stage right wings. Cables trailed from two turntables on them towards two speakers on either side of the footlights. She was removing a gramophone record from one of the turntables and placing it carefully in its sleeve.
Isla was picking up cigarette ends. ‘Can I help?’ he asked.
‘Yes,’ she said. ‘The brooms are over there.’ And she indicated the widest brooms he had ever seen, leaning up against the back wall of the stage. ‘This whole area has to be cleared.’
Relieved to be doing something, he grabbed one and swept with gusto. Out of the corner of his eye he observed a private exchange between the master carpenter and a stage hand and a small envelope passing hands.
Then the master carpenter turned on his heel, headed straight for Ralph and towered over him with his hands on his hips.
‘Now then,’ he said abruptly, ‘mind telling me who you are and what you’re doing here?’
The silence seemed to last for hours. ‘Well?’ said the man impatiently.
‘I meant to ask,’ he began. ‘I mean . . .’ he stammered.
‘Sorry, Jack,’ said a voice from behind, ‘he’s a friend. He’s learning. I meant to ask you but I clean forgot. And when I remembered I couldn’t find you.’
‘Isla, you know the rules! If he ain’t on the payroll and a spot bar falls on his head, we’d be in serious trouble. He ain’t insured.’
‘Yes, I know. I’ll make sure he stands to one side. But can he help me mark out first while Helena makes the tea? I’m sure no lights will fall on him.’
He frowned.
‘We can all get home earlier,’ she added.
‘I suppose so. But don’t go telling Mr Johnson.’
Ralph, Isla and Helena watched him head for the scene dock where two workmen were waiting to be paid.
‘Thanks,’ said Ralph quietly to Isla. ‘I tried to tell you . . .’ He paused. ‘How did you guess?’
‘It was the putrid colour you turned.’
‘Oh.’ And he laughed.
‘Give us a hand with the stage cloth will you? Then we can mark up.’
Ralph, Helena and Isla spread it out on to the stage and tautened it with weights. Then they carried a long roll of green felt and unrolled it on top, smoothed it down and fixed the weights at the edges.
Helena went to wash the mugs and make tea. ‘They can’t put up any of the flats till I get this marked up,’ said Isla. She unrolled a thick piece of paper from a small table on the left side of the stage next to the curtain, which she called the prompt corner. Beside it on a wall were all sorts of switches for lighting and sound cues. On the piece of paper was a ground plan. She laid it out on the floor.
‘These are the walls of the set,’ she said pointing to the outer lines, ‘and these rectangles are where the different bits of furniture are set. I take a measurement from this line here,’ she explained drawing her finger down the centre.
‘So you have to measure and mark up the back flats first, is that it?’
‘No. And by the way we call the back part of the stage, upstage and the front part of the stage going down towards the floats, downstage.’
‘What are floats?’
‘The footlights.’
‘But why does the furniture have to be a precise length from the centre?’ he said. ‘Can’t you just set them roughly?’
‘Not when you’re dealing with timing a move or a line.’
‘How often have you to do this?’
‘Every day once the moves have been set. And I have to put back the furniture for the evening show on their marks. Only snag is that sometimes I have to measure up and mark for that show all over again in the afternoon.’
‘Why?’
‘Because of this,’ she said pulling out a piece of chalk from her pocket. ‘Some of the marks I’ve made get rubbed off during morning rehearsals so . . .’ She shrugged and pulled out a bundle of string. ‘I think we’d better get on with it.’
With a tape measure, chalk and knotted string it took them three-quarters of an hour to measure out where the walls and furniture for French Without Tears would be set. Helena appeared with mugs of tea for them and took two more to the painters in the scene dock.
‘Don’t usually get to have a cuppa during a strike,’ said Isla, smiling. ‘Helena and I usually leave Judy to make it for the others but she’s always too busy painting to do it.’
‘Judy? Oh, is she the youth painting?’
Isla nodded.
‘Oh. Sorry. I didn’t mean . . . It’s just I couldn’t see under her hat that she was a girl.’
‘And the fag hanging permanently from her mouth doesn’t help, does it?’
‘I didn’t expect there to be so many girls back-stage.’
‘It’s the best way of getting acting work. I’m ASM, that’s assistant stage manager, and I get to play small parts occasionally.’
‘I thought I’d seen you. Oh, you’re good!’ Ralph felt himself redden again.
‘Tell that to my father,’ she added sardonically.
‘Doesn’t he think you are?’
‘Nope. Mind you, I’m beginning not to care.’
‘So
