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Chapter 2

After the cluttered mayhem of the wig room, the calm, clinical atmosphere of the make-up department was like stepping into an operating theatre.

Harsh white light from a bank of bulb-lit mirrors filled the room. Underneath them, a spotless white counter ran the full length of one wall, in front of which sat a row of cream leather swivel chairs as impressive as thrones awaiting royalty.

‘Hey Pietro.’ The imposing figure filling the plush chair with his broad shoulders and wide chest was waiting for me.

‘Tilly, darling.’ Under the dark bushy brows which contrasted sharply with his silver hair, his eyes glinted with merriment. On either side of him, the other opera singers chattered away together as they waited for their respective make-up artists to arrive.

‘How are you today?’ I fished out a black cape and draped it across the rich fabric of his heavily embellished costume. ‘Did your granddaughter like the zoo?’

‘She loved it darling.’

The words came out as ‘lorved eet’. Despite all his years in England, he’d never lost his Italian accent and the exaggerated vowels always made me smile.

‘Especially the snakes.’ He shuddered dramatically and winked at me in the mirror. ‘Revolting child. Next time we’re going to Selfridges. To see Santa, that will be far more civilised.’

He didn’t mean it, he positively doted on twelve-year-old Lottie and had even been into her school in Notting Hill to talk in assembly. Not something that many international superstars did in my experience.

Laying out my kit, I checked I had everything, not once but twice. It made me antsy if I had to break off half way through to go searching for a brown pencil or the right brush.

Yup, everything was where I wanted it to be. I looked at Pietro in the mirror. In front of him, on a wooden block, sat the long flowing wig which made the final transformation from favourite grandpa to Don Giovanni.

‘How was your morning?’

‘I had a run in with a virus, blinking thing,’ I said shaking my head. ‘Think I’ve spread it everywhere.’

‘What?’ Pietro’s face filled with concern and his hand strayed to his throat in self-concern. His precious vocal chords could be rendered useless if he caught a nasty cold.

‘No. No,’ I laughed. ‘Not a real one. A silly computer one.’ I patted his arm quickly. Infecting anyone in a principal role, especially the world’s most renowned baritone, was Make-Up Artist’s Cardinal Sin Number Three. ‘I’m germ free.’ I waved my hands to reinforce my point.

As I carried on pencilling and shadowing his face, our conversation moved on with its usual easy flow as he related scurrilous tales about his arch-rival, an up and coming American singer, naughty, libellous gossip about one of his co-stars in a previous production and the difficulties of learning an aria for his next part.

Half an hour later, I put down my pencils and make-up palette.

‘Thanks, wonderful girl.’ Pietro stood and with a wicked grin admired himself in the brightly-lit mirror. ‘God, I’m lovely.’ He patted the outsize codpiece stuffed down his buckskin trousers. ‘All ready to seduce my daily quota of virgins.’

‘Oooh, Pietro, you are wicked,’ sang Vince as he applied the finishing touches to the doe-eyes of one of said hapless virgins. A chorus of giggles erupted as Pietro strutted around the room thrusting out his pelvis. Even Jeanie, who liked the team to maintain an air of calm before a performance, managed a smile.

‘Come here you.’ Crooking a finger at him, I beckoned him back to his chair. ‘There’s no seducing anyone until I’ve checked your wig again.’ Running my fingers around his hairline, I gave the hairpiece a testing tug, this way and that. All snug. Perfect. Cardinal Sin Number Two was something coming adrift mid-performance. Jeanie’s mantra had been drummed into all of us – you can draw blood as long as the wig stays in place.

‘How does it feel?’ I stood back, studying the fit. It looked fabulous on him. All the wigs were hand-made. Most were sent out to trusted pieceworkers but the principals’ wigs were made in-house. I didn’t want to think how many finger twitching hours this particular one had taken.

Pietro tossed the long hair back over his shoulder with a leonine-shake.

‘It suits me I think. Perhaps I should keep it on when I go home.’ He winked lasciviously. ‘My wife would love it.’

‘Beginners stage left please.’ The tannoy burst into life, punching the muted quiet of the room with a spike of electricity. A sudden hush fell as everyone sobered, ready for that first step on stage. Now on count-down to curtain up, with the precision of a well-drilled army, the make-up team straightened, smoothed and stroked, giving each of their charges a final check to ready them for the vast audience out front, while the wardrobe team, like bridesmaids at a wedding, assessed, tugged and tucked.

Several floors down, two thousand people were taking their expensive red velvet seats in eager anticipation of the evening’s performance. The picture was so clear in my head; the excited hum of chattering voices, the Mexican Wave of up and down bobs as the audience squeezed past each other’s knees and people peering down through their opera glasses at the orchestra in the pit, already seated and tuning up.

As we were about to leave the make-up room, crowding into the corridor to make the journey backstage, Pietro’s hand suddenly shot to his chest. For a horrible moment, I thought he was having a heart attack, until he gave me a sheepish glance and fished out his mobile phone.

‘Pietro!’ I gasped. Mobiles were strictly forbidden backstage as they could interfere with some of the tech stuff. I’d never even seen him with one before.

His face darkened, lines of temper marking his mouth as he homed in on the caller ID.

‘I have to take this,’ he snapped and wheeled back into the empty make-up room, slamming the door.

‘Shit! What do I do?’ I hopped from one foot to the other, glancing from the closed door and back at Jeanie. This was uncharted territory. You don’t argue with a star as big as Pietro but I had to make sure he was in the wings for curtain up. No excuses. No reprieves.

‘Fuck,’ said Jeanie looking at her watch. ‘Go get him,’ whispered Jeanie, shoving me toward the door, looking anxiously at the rest of the actors hovering in the corridor. ‘Be firm. We’ll go on down but make sure you’re right behind us.’

I could clearly hear a tinny voice talking excitedly down the line but not the words. Not that I needed to. Pietro’s face said it all.

‘Porca Miseria!’ The vehement words rattled around the room as he started to pace the floor, Italian expletives exploding from his mouth periodically.

Keeping a panicked eye on my watch, I deliberately walked into his path.

‘Er Pi…’ His eyes flashed furiously at me and he shook his head, putting me in mind of an angry lion – one that would be quite happy to rip my head off there and then.

‘They’d better not print a word! Not one single word you hear me,’ he bellowed. Gone was avuncular grandpa. His anger permeated the room in shock waves. Standing so close, it felt as if I was holding a punch bag while Muhammad Ali practised his right hook.

I could feel sweat beading on my forehead. This was awful. I had to get him down to the wings.

The tinny voice started jabbering again like a rabid Dalek.

‘I don’t care about that!’ Pietro took another turn at the end of the room and stopped – an angry bull about to charge. ‘You stop it. Take out an injunction.’ Menace hissed in his voice.

His gaze came to rest on me, the steel grey eyes glinting and my heart stalled for a minute. Hell, it was The Godfather all over again.

‘You stop it! You’re my agent Max. I don’t want the story getting out.’

He listened and then turned puce. ‘You wouldn’t want your grandchildren to see pictures like that in the paper. Stop it. That’s your job! Do it!’ Pietro snapped the phone shut with a vicious clench of his hand.

‘Merda’, he spat, throwing the phone with such force onto the table that it flew across to the back wall and bounced onto the floor.

The sudden action stirred me. ‘Pietro, I’m sorry but we have to go down. Now.’ I was quite impressed with how calm I managed to sound. Inside, it felt as if there was a bat trying to beat its way out of my chest. I had to get him backstage.

‘Now. You expect me to go on stage now?’ His hand touched his throat and he stood there with his head thrown back.

‘Yes,’ I said, feeling as if I’d stepped off a cliff and desperately hoping I sounded firm. Oh crap, he couldn’t not. Jeanie would kill me. She trusted me to get him there.

‘My vocal chords are far too tense. I’m too upset.’ He started towards one of the chairs, every inch the prima donna.

I tentatively touched his arm. ‘Not as upset as the audience, Pietro. Some of them may have waited years to see you. You can’t disappoint them.’

He straightened. Narrowing his eyes, he nodded.

‘Do it for them. Don’t let,’ I nodded to the phone discarded on the floor, ‘them win.’ I held open the door, standing back to let him through before following in his wake. He strode down the corridor, leaving me almost running to keep up. When he stopped suddenly, I cannoned into him. Whirling round, he grabbed my forearms in a tight grip and stared intently.

What now? With my arm clamped in his, I risked an agonised glance at my watch. Four minutes to curtain up.

‘You love your job,’ he fired at me. ‘It’s all you ever wanted to do?’

I nodded, thinking it could all be over if I didn’t take charge of him. He knew how much I loved my job.

Pietro’s hands gentled suddenly, his eyes filled with regret and something else.

‘Like you, this is all I ever wanted to do. My father, a poor man, worked the fields. A farmer. His voice. Bellissimo. He would have been greater than me but he never had the lessons. I needed lessons. The money to pay for the best lessons.’

I nodded, trying to be patient and not let my agitation show – he’d told me this many times before.

His usually flawless English deserted him. ‘Now… in…when a youth, I …’ he stopped and then whispered the rest.

I couldn’t help the gasp of surprise that whistled out next. Bloody hell!

The curtain went up two minutes late. The audience probably didn’t notice but the production crew knew. Backstage there was a noticeably tense atmosphere. Jeanie nodded and mouthed. ‘You OK?’

I held up crossed fingers and shook my head. Vince sidled over and gave me a quick hug.

‘God that was awful,’ I muttered into his ear. ‘Really thought he was going to refuse to go on. He’s really shaken up.’

Vince pulled a sympathetic face.

Thanks to the quick scales practice in the lift that I’d manage to coerce Pietro into doing, his voice settled quickly and soared in the theatre within the second bar. Hopefully the audience would forgive his quavery first few notes.

‘What the fuck do you think you are playing at?’ hissed a furious voice, pressing right up to me in the wings. Alison Kreufeld, Artistic Director and head honcho virtually had steam coming out of her ears.

‘I … I …’

‘That is fucking unforgivable. See me tomorrow. My office.’ With that she turned her back and disappeared through the stage door. When I looked around all the crew were absorbed in looking down at the floor.

Nursing a large G and T, I sat at the kitchen table resting my forehead on the wooden top. What a day. I wanted to cry. Why did scary, super superior Artistic Director, Alison Kreufeld, always manage to catch me doing something stupid or getting something stratospherically wrong? Like the time, in a fit of enthusiasm, I thought I’d impress her by doing a series of hair designs for the corps de ballet in Swan Lake. Only I hadn’t read her briefing notes properly. It was the Matthew Bourne all male production. She dined out on my stupidity for weeks.

And after a day like that I should have known better than to answer the phone. We still had a landline. Only three people used it. Felix’s mum, my mum and my sister.

‘Hello Tilly. It’s Christelle.’ I winced guiltily as I heard the carefully enunciated words, spoken as usual in her precise fussy way.

‘Hi, Christelle,’ I did my best to inject some enthusiasm into my tone. ‘How are you? Has your cold gone?’

‘Yes, thank you. It was several weeks ago, you know.’ Had it been that long?

‘Well, sometimes they linger,’ I said, determined to keep the conversation afloat. ‘How’s work? Are you very busy?’

‘Exceptionally. My caseload keeps growing. But I’m getting more and more of the high-profile stuff, which is a good sign.’

Idly, I straightened the photos on the mantelpiece. All of them were of me and Felix in various silly poses, accompanied by assorted friends. It struck me that in all of them, there was always someone else in tow. A day at the beach – Felix and five mates buried up to their necks in sand. Me and Felix and friends at Alton Towers. Felix and I, with three of his mates and their girlfriends, on the day he proposed.

‘It’s been an excellent week in chambers. We won an important case. Got a new clerk. Not terribly bright but I think he’ll get there. You know how it is with these people.’ She spoke, as always, in little staccato sentences.

‘Sure.’ I lied, feeling guilty. I had no more idea about what went on in my sister’s world than she did about mine. She was a legal eagle, a high flyer with straight A’s, a fabulous degree and apparently in the right chambers.

The second hand on my watch ticked its way around the face. Thirty seconds and we’d nearly exhausted our lines. Regret pinched at me. We had so little in common.

‘Maman hasn’t heard from you. It might be a good idea to call her. She won a bridge tournament. And Dad’s put his back out again.’

Resentment replaced regret. I didn’t need her reminding me. Mum was just as capable of calling me. Deliberately being flippant I said, ‘Poor Dad, back to the chiropractor. Must be love, I swear he spends more time with her than with Mum. Not that I…’

‘Tilly!’ Christelle’s voice was sharp with reproof.

‘Only joking,’ I said. My poor sister was a chip off the old block. A sliver of ice.

‘You’d better phone her.’ Christelle’s words were clipped with disapproval. ‘Now, lunch? Can you do Wednesday? One-thirty?’

What would she say if I turned around and said, ‘No, I can’t’? Maybe she’d be secretly relieved. Our lunches were hardly fun, Chardonnay-fuelled, gossip fests.

‘I think so…’ She was so well-organised she probably knew her schedule off by heart, even had appointments entered in her smart phone, whereas I wasn’t even sure where my antiquated brick was now.

‘Let me check. If it isn’t, I’ll let you know.’

‘The usual Café Paul. One-thirty. See you then. Try Tilly, not to be late.’

Familiar Tiggerish thumps made me lift my head as Felix bounded up the stairs to our first-floor flat and then the front door crashed shut as he yelled, ‘Missus, I’m home.’

‘I could murder a beer,’ he said as he burst into the kitchen. Pulling a bottle out of the fridge, he flicked off the top and took a long swallow without breaking a stride. He glanced at my glass. ‘More gin vicar?’ he asked.

‘No, this was a large already,’ I mumbled, toasting him with my half-full tumbler.

He dropped a brief kiss on my head and wriggled out of his favourite RAF style overcoat, tossing it over a chair, heedless when it slipped to the floor. Perching himself on the top of the kitchen counter, his legs swinging and bashing the cupboards, he studied my unhappy face.

I winced. The cupboard was already hanging from its hinges.

‘What’s the matter? You look like you swallowed a pound and shat a penny.’

‘Crap day. Seriously crap. The crappest of the crappiest.’