Read one of Jan’s best-loved teen short stories, from her award-winning 1983 collection Feet.

‘In the beginning Birkett created the heaven and the earth,’ said Birkett. ‘And the earth was without form, and void; and darkness was upon the face of the deep.’

‘Geddonwithit, Birk,’ shouted voices in the darkness, up on the stage and down in the auditorium. Someone fell over a chair.

Working blind, he clipped off a length of wire and threaded it into the fuse.

‘And the Spirit of Birkett moved upon the face of the waters . . .’ He snapped the fuse back into its socket and put his hand on the master switch. ‘. . . And Birkett said, ‘Let there be light: and there was light.’

At once, all the lights; white light from the floats and the battens, rose-pink light and amber from the floods, and eight suns hanging in the void beyond the stage, four on each side of the hall.

‘Not bad, not bad,’ said Cosgrove, who was standing a few feet away and had heard everything that he said. ‘Now let’s see you make a man.’

Birkett leaned over the rail of his crow’s-nest by the switchboard and looked round the edge of the curtain. Way below the white giants a red dwarf was approaching the footlights, surrounded by a nebula: Mr Anderson, head of English, with his everlasting fag and his chequered cheese-cutter pulled well down over his eyes to protect them from the glare.

What could they call him but Andy Capp? They called him Andy Capp.

Andy Capp came up to the edge of the stage and leaned across the floats, shielding himself from them by cupping his hands under his eyes and peering through the mask of black shadow like a seedy bandit.

‘When Birkett has finished trying to blow his hand off, perhaps we can get on with the rehearsal?’

Birkett drew back from the edge of his cast-iron cradle and set his hands to the dimmer switches. His lighting plot was tacked up above them, secretively recorded in his own shorthand:

P36 1. r 5 exit M. Dr down 5 D2 down 1o simul.

I. 20 D2 down o D3/4 down 5 change spots to dim here 1/2/3/4.

The light came and went at his command. He was far less likely to blow off his hand than was Andy Capp himself. When Andy Capp came up on stage and stood at the foot of Birkett’s vertical iron ladder, Birkett wanted nothing so much as to put his boot on Andy Capp’s head and screw it down into the floor, as the English teacher screwed down his own boot on his fag ends.

Andy Capp knew this as well as Birkett did, and stayed on the other side of the footlights, within spitting distance of Birkett but safe; because Andy Capp was Sir and Birkett was in 5b, good for fiddling with the lights and little else.

Fiddling was the right word. Birkett played on his dimmers with the love and skill of a virtuoso violinist, making night and day, the greater light and the lesser, with the tenderest touch of his long and flexible fingers. The woodwork master, now Stage Manager, was well aware of this, which was why he had given Birkett the lighting plot instead of doing it himself. As far as Andy Capp was concerned, Birkett was marooned on top of his ladder because he could do less damage there than he could on-stage, mangling Shakespeare. And he could mend a fuse in the dark.

Birkett consulted the plot and without looking, placed his unerring hands on the dimmers. His eye was on the stage where Cosgrove, a pillow stuffed under his sweater, was reeling from side to side, supposedly drunk. Cosgrove, when genuinely drunk, was nothing like this, but after the effects had worn off he never could remember what it had been like. Cosgrove’s mates had sworn to have him tanked up on the night so as to get an authentic performance out of him.

‘Listen, Cosgrove,’ said Andy Capp. Birkett’s hands froze on the dimmers. ‘This is Twelfth Night, not Saturday night at the Bricklayer’s Arms. Sir Toby Belch is supposed to be tipsy in this scene, not paralytic.’

Cosgrove snapped upright and Howell, who was playing Sir Andrew Aguecheek, was knocked flying by the cushion. He went spinning across the stage, stiff-legged, like dividers across a map.

‘Aguecheek,’ said Andy Capp, ‘is a foolish knight, not a berserk ballerina. Keep your twinkle toes on the ground. Get on with it, rabble.’ His eyes slid upwards and sideways. Birkett knew that Andy Capp had something offensive ready to say to him as well, but there was no occasion to say it. Sir Toby and Sir Andrew faced each other; Sir Andrew’s mouth opened and the dimmers began to move.

‘Before me, she’s a good wench,’ said Sir Andrew.

‘She’s a beagle, true-bred, and one that adores me; what o’ that?’

Sir Andrew raised his eyebrows. ‘I was adored once too.’

‘Howell! Don’t sound so bloody chatty,’ Andy Capp bellowed from the darkness. ‘That’s one of your better lines. Make something of it. Like this.’ He minced about beyond the footlights, now in focus, now out. ‘Iwas adored once too.’

‘Oh, ducky,’ murmured Cosgrove, out of the corner of his mouth.

‘Get a laugh there,’ said Andy Capp. ‘It’s the last one you’ll get in this scene. And Birkett, keep your hot little hands off those dimmers. Are you trying to black us out?’ Birkett let his hands drop. He had planned to make the light turn cold on that line, dimming out the amber and the rose, leaving only the white and blue battens. He had not bargained for a laugh; it didn’t strike him as funny. There was a character in the play known as the Clown, but he was a wise guy, a professional fool. Aguecheek was the real fool.

‘I was adored once too,’ said Howell, flimsy-wristed, gyrating on pleated ankles. He had tucked his trousers into his socks to make himself feel Elizabethan. There was an immediate laugh from the resting actors, out of sight in the dark hall.

‘Again!’ cried Andy Capp.

‘I was adored once too.’

There were two more scenes before the end of the act. On the stage below the players strutted, and at the switchboard above Birkett lightened their darkness and darkened their days. He felt as remote as God, operating the firmament; whatever was going on down there had nothing to do with him. The pain and the pleasure were outside his influence and he felt them only in terms of the coloured filters required to light each scene: blue and green for sorrow, pink and gold for joy, so that when he looked at the brilliant aquarium that was the stage he saw chaos. People hid behind hedges, assumed false names, slipped into disguises and climbed out of them. Lesley Pascoe, smooth and slender, golden girl of the High School, was cast as Viola, identical twin to Sebastian, and Sebastian was played by swarthy Noddy Newton who was so covered with thick black hair that when he tried on his costume it sprouted through the legs of his tights like winter wheat after a wet autumn.

All the female roles were being played by girls borrowed from the High School. As well as the three principals a number of friends turned up at each rehearsal to understudy or provide moral support in case anyone got jumped on in a dark cloakroom. Birkett knew none of them. They were the girls who went round with the boys who were down there on the stage; none of them people who would go round with Birkett.

It was nothing to do with him. He saw it and heard it and was out of it; even so, the words stayed in his mind, like dust caught in a net curtain. In the same way, and without wanting to, he had memorized the Bible. For years he had been a regular worshipper, with his parents, at the green tin chapel behind the bus station. One Sunday he had suddenly realized that he was no longer worshipping and after a month or two he stopped going there, but the damage was done already. It was widely believed that Birkett had sold his soul to the chapel and was stricken unable to enjoy himself, drink beer or think about women. People half expected him to turn up on the doorstep with leaflets, at inconvenient moments.

He looked down from the switchboard, one of them, but not one with them.

‘To the gates of Tartar, thou most excellent devil of wit!’ Sir Toby shouted. He strode off-stage and made a mock run up the ladder, repelled suddenly by the impact of his cushion against the rungs.

‘And I’ll make one too,’ said Sir Andrew Aguecheek, with total irrelevance, as it seemed to Birkett. He wandered off in the other direction. Cosgrove’s spotty brother, who was prompter and Assistant Stage Manager, swung on the knotted rope that dangled beside his chair. The curtains closed on Birkett’s sunlit stage and Act Two was over. Cosgrove poked the cushion out of his sweater and looked up at Birkett.

‘Don’t you get struck by lightning for blasphemy?’

‘Blasphemy?’

‘Smitten with a plague of frogs?’

‘Blasphemy?’

‘Taking credit for the Universe,’ said Cosgrove, but because Birkett had nothing laughable to say he lost interest and slid between the curtains, sylph-slim without his stomach which he left on-stage. He disappeared into the dark hall, followed by Howell.

‘House lights!’ Andy Capp was bawling. ‘House lights, Birkett wake up for God’s sake Birkett wake up Birkett . . .’

Howell put his head between the curtains again. ‘Fiat lux, laddie. Fiat lux.’ Howell knew Latin. Birkett didn’t. The house lights were not his concern anyway; the switches were at the back of the hall, next to the wall bars. Finally someone remembered this and the lights were put on. Andy Capp’s monotonous yelling subsided and cheerful conversation swelled up to fill the gap where it had been. Cups rattled. The girls who were not on-stage had made themselves responsible for serving drinks (although no one had dared ask them to) which they prepared in the Sixth Form Common Room and brought to the hall on trays. The spotty brother and other backstage personnel went through the curtains for coffee and fodder. Birkett stayed at the switchboard, setting up his lights for the next act. It was the same scene, but a different time of day:

Olivia’s Garden. Full battens white 1/2 dim o blue 3. Amber floods full floats. 1/2/3/4 spots up full 5/6 down 8.

He made morning.

Number six dimmer was grating in its runner. Knowing that he had a quarter of an hour before Andy Capp drove the cast back to work Birkett took out a screwdriver and began to remove the casing. He first put up the master switch and worked in darkness, only his careful hands illuminated by the meagre glow from a badly shuttered window in the changing room behind him. In the corner of his eye he saw a narrow light spread across the stage and ebb again as someone opened the curtains and slipped through. Finished with the dimmer he replaced the casing and threw the master switch. There came an angry squeak from the foot of the ladder.

‘Ow. Now you’ve made me spill it.’

One of the girls was standing there, clasping a thick china cup of slopped coffee. Birkett leaned over the rail.

‘Was that my fault?’

‘You made me jump, putting all the lights on like that.’ She squinted up at him. He looked at the coffee cup.

‘You haven’t lost much. There’s plenty left.’

‘It isn’t mine.’

‘There’s no one else here,’ said Birkett. ‘You’re here.’

‘Is it for me?’ Nobody had brought him coffee before. There was no reason why he should not join the others in the hall, but apart from wanting a drink there was no reason why he should. He preferred to do without the drink.

‘I suppose it must be,’ she said. ‘I was handing it out and Tony Cosgrove said, “Don’t forget God, back there,” so I brought it through. Do they call you God?’

‘They call me Birk,’ said Birkett.

‘Well, do you want the coffee or don’t you, Birk?’ said the girl. ‘I’m not going to call you that,’ she said crossly. ‘What’s your real name?’

‘Reuben,’ said Birkett, reluctantly. The Twelve Tribes of Israel were highly thought of at the tin chapel. He disliked admitting to Reuben, but he had no second name. It could have been worse. It could have been Zebulun. Or Gad.

‘I’m Juliet.’ She offered him the coffee, but when he made no move to take it she withdrew her hand. ‘Call me Julie. Can I come up?’

‘Juliet will do.’ It didn’t occur to him that one could suffer as much from Juliet as from Reuben. ‘You can come up if you like.’

She stood on tiptoe and placed the cup on the floor of the cradle. It was difficult for her to stand more on tiptoe than she did already: her wedge heels were very high.

‘You’d better take your shoes off,’ he advised. She looked suspicious, as if he had made an improper suggestion and her friends had warned her about people like him, but she came up the ladder, her lumpy heels going glamp glamp glamp as they struck the iron rungs.

‘You are a bit like God, so high up,’ she said, leaning against the rail. Birkett, pressed for space, had to turn round with extreme care in case she thought he was making advances.

‘Turn the lights off again,’ she said.

Now who’s making advances? he wondered, as the darkness crashed down.

‘It’s snug up here.’

‘About as snug as an oil rig.’ Now that it was entirely dark he was aware of the draught from the changing-room window and the smell of old lunches that never quite died because the stage had once been used as a canteen, before the new one was built. The hot lights seemed to revive it. He pulled the switch again and Juliet stood blinking beside him.

‘Birkett, stop b–ing about with those lights,’ shouted Andy Capp, mindful that there were ladies present.

‘Aren’t you going to drink your coffee?’ said Juliet. Birkett stepped forward to pick up the cup and managed to kick it over the edge of the cradle. It didn’t break, but a greyer stain spread over the grey stage cloth.

‘I’m always doing things like that,’ he said.

‘I was beginning to think you never did anything,’ said Juliet, and went glamping down the ladder again. He put his head under the lower rail and watched her go.

‘Are you in the play?’ he said. ‘I’ve never seen you onstage.’

‘I’m a servant. Page sixty, Act Three, Scene Four, don’t blink or you’ll miss me.’ He didn’t say that he thought she was wasted as a servant. ‘I’m understudying Maria, too.’

‘That’s the maid, isn’t it?’

‘It’s the best part,’ she said, quickly.

‘I thought Lesley Pascoe . . .’

‘Oh, Viola. That’s nothing much. Maria’s got the best lines of all the women. And she’s funny,’ said Juliet. She went towards the curtains with the empty cup. ‘It’s the best part . . . but you wouldn’t know,’ she said, and vanished.

She was right. He didn’t know.

That night he read the play right through for the first time, and he was surprised to discover how much of it he knew already. He agreed that Maria was the best of the women’s parts, but he doubted that Juliet would make much of a showing in it. Maria was a stinger; little, quickwitted, malicious. He thought of Juliet’s large hopeful face and pile-driver legs.

On Thursday evening, when they stopped for a break, there was Juliet coming up the ladder glamp glamp glamp with two cups of coffee and a KitKat. His half of the KitKat played merry hell with his demon back tooth, but he suffered in silence, showing her how the dimmers worked and explaining the runic mysteries of his lighting plot.

‘Do you manage all this by yourself? I wouldn’t have thought you’d have enough hands.’

He spread his fingers across the board and moved all eight dimmers at once.

‘Like a pianist,’ Juliet said. ‘Stretching octaves. What about if you need to turn something else on, at the same time?’

‘I use my nose. No, I do. In the mad scene where Malvolio thinks he’s in the nuthouse: I turn off this switch here with my nose. Like this.’

‘Well, it’s long enough.’ Juliet didn’t seem to think that it was a very nice accomplishment. ‘You need Tony Cosgrove up here. He’s all hands.’

‘He’d be no good,’ said Birkett. ‘He’d be talking all the time. You have to pay attention.’

‘There’s no one to talk to.’

‘There would be if Cosgrove was here.’

At the end of the break Juliet remained at the top of the ladder.

‘You don’t mind if I stay?’

‘Of course not.’ He should have said Oh please, do. In fact, he did mind. The cradle was built to take at most two people, both working. There was no room for ballast. Birkett was used to availing himself of the whole area and the need to tread carefully spoiled his concentration. For the first time he missed a lighting cue and was rewarded by a blast of scorching scorn from Andy Capp, who happened to notice, for once. The sympathetic touch of Juliet’s hand on his arm was no reward, and no consolation, either.

Cosgrove, bleary and becushioned, leered at him, one finger laid to the side of his nose.

‘Nudge, nudge, wink wink,’ said Cosgrove, when he came off-stage at the end of the scene and Birkett was embarrassed in the dark; but at the same time mildly gratified that Cosgrove imagined him to be having his evil way – as Cosgrove certainly would have been, in his place. At the next rehearsal Juliet was up there before him. ‘Aren’t you on in this scene?’

‘Fancy you noticing.’

‘I read the play.’ He had read it again since last week. He was beginning to admire the way it was put together; two quite different stories spliced like cords, ending in a neat knot, but he didn’t find it very funny and parts of it struck him as miserably cruel. He had always regarded Shakespeare as an effete twit who couldn’t write a straight sentence to save his life, but he was beginning to see that Shakespeare might have got along very well with Andy Capp.

‘Another bride, another groom, another sunny huhunnymoon,’ sang Cosgrove at the foot of the ladder. ‘Make with the sunshine, Birk.’

Juliet was picking her way through the lighting plot.

‘I don’t expect anyone but us understands this,’ she said happily, building an intimate secret where there was neither secret nor intimacy. ‘I’m not on-stage until here, look. I can run round the back, just before.’

And she did: and as soon as her little part was done she ran back again. Birkett did not hear her coming up the ladder. She had taken her shoes off.

‘Don’t you want to go for coffee?’ said Birkett, when the break came.

‘I asked Lesley to bring us some.’ He guessed why she had asked Lesley when Lesley came through the curtains with a sulky shove, carrying a cup in either hand. ‘Too busy to fetch your own?’

Juliet smiled a little, and then laughed, because the light was too dim for the smile to show. Birkett waited until Lesley had gone before sitting down to drink his coffee.

‘It’s a good thing we aren’t fat,’ said Juliet. ‘Eh?’

‘There’s not much room up here.’

‘We could always sit on the stage.’ He stood up to consult the plot.

‘Hey, Roo.’ He supposed that it was short for Reuben. ‘Yes?’

‘I’m glad I’m not Viola.’

‘You’re even less like Noddy than Lesley is.’

‘That’s not what I meant. She’s on-stage, all through the play.’

‘Not all the time.’

‘No, but on-off-on-off. It’s the same with Maria. Suzanne’s playing Maria. Do you know Suzanne? She’s all sweaty by the end of the evening, from rushing about.’

‘Dodging Cosgrove?’

‘And that. I used to wish she’d be ill for a bit so that I’d get a chance at Maria; tonsillitis or something. She’s got terrible tonsils, all her family have. When she turns her head you can see great lumps in her neck -just here.’ She put her cool hand on his throat.

‘I’ve had mine out,’ said Birkett.

‘I don’t wish that any more.’

‘Wish what?’

‘That Suzanne would get tonsillitis. I’d sooner be here than on-stage.’

‘Well, I wouldn’t wish anyone had tonsillitis,’ said Birkett. ‘Except Andy Capp, maybe. It might shut him up.’

‘Roo, why do you call him Andy Capp?’

‘Oh God, look at him,’ said Birkett. ‘All he needs is a pigeon on his head.’

‘What’s his wife like? Florrie?’

‘More like the Statue of Liberty. No, really. He hardly comes up to her chin.’

‘Have they got any children?’

‘Three.’

‘I like children,’ said Juliet. ‘I’d like a lot of children.’

There was only one week left before opening night. In front of the curtain the stage had been extended by building it up with prefabricated blocks. Andy Capp called it the apron.

When the third act ended, Howell climbed over the apron and came through the curtains with the coffee. Juliet arranged for it to be delivered by a different person each time, and Birkett no longer wondered why.

‘Working overtime, Birk?’ said Howell. He stood on the bottom rung of the ladder and rested his chin on the top, level with their feet.

‘Push off, Face-ache,’ said Birkett.

‘Aguecheek – Agueface – Face-ache; good thinking, Batman,’ said Howell, sinking from sight. He reappeared a moment later, meandering across the stage in his Aguecheek walk, knees together, toes apart.

‘You missed your cue again, in Scene Four,’ said Howell. ‘Do you know what Andy Capp said? “Bloody Birkett, busy with his skirt.” ‘

‘He never said that.’ Beside him Juliet gave a little gasp, intending to sound outraged; only sounding pleased.

‘It was said though,’ said Howell. ‘Your Birk-type secret is out, Birk.’ He sprang backwards between the curtains. Nemesis got him. Someone had removed the block in the middle of the apron, and Birkett heard the crunch as he hit the floor.

‘He’s broken his leg; in two places. Should have been his neck,’ said Andy Capp. ‘He’s in traction. Silly b—’ There were ladies present.

‘What about my bruvver?’ said Cosgrove. ‘He’s been prompter ever since we started. He knows the whole thing right through.’

‘He couldn’t play Aguecheek.’

‘He could probably play Viola if you twisted his arm.’

‘God forbid,’ said Andy Capp. ‘Anyway, we’re not having him on-stage. Remember the carol concert?’

‘Someone else knows it by heart,’ said Cosgrove. He silently indicated the switchboard with his thumb. ‘He remembers everything. He knows half the Bible for a start.’

‘Birkett? He can’t put one foot in front of the other without falling over.’

‘Who’d notice? He’s a dead ringer for Aguecheek,’ said Cosgrove. ‘You wouldn’t even have to make him up.’

‘Birkett! Get down here,’ Andy Capp shouted. ‘If you can spare the time,’ he added, for the benefit of the cast. Birkett climbed down the ladder and approached the group in the middle of the stage.

‘Good of you to drop in,’ said Andy Capp. ‘I’m sure you’ve got more interesting things to do. Cosgrove here says you’re a quick study.’

‘A what?’

‘A quick study, har har,’ said Andy Capp. ‘He says you learn things easily.’

‘Not me,’ said Birkett.

‘He thinks you know the whole play.’

‘Not me.’

‘Come off it,’ said Cosgrove. ‘You’ve been sitting up there watching us for the past six months. You must know it.’

Birkett guessed what they were after. ‘Not me.’

‘Not I,’ said Andy Capp.

Cosgrove put on his cushion and his Sir Toby voice and said sharply. ‘Did she see thee the while, old boy? tell me that.’

‘As plain as I see you now,’ said Birkett, without thinking.

‘Art thou good at these kick-shaws, knight?’

‘As any man in Illyria, whatsoever he be, under the degree of my betters; and yet I will not compare with an old man,’ said Birkett.

‘She’s a beagle, true-bred, and one that adores me; what o’ that?’

‘I was adored once too.’

‘Beat that,’ said Cosgrove.

Andy Capp thrust a book into Birkett’s hands. ‘There you are, Aguecheek. Get on with it.’

‘But I don’t understand it all.’

‘Then you’ll have a lot in common with the audience,’ said Andy Capp. ‘You have a week. Get on with it.’

‘Who’ll do the lights?’ said Birkett. ‘I’m the only one who knows the plot.’

‘Damn the lights. What’s the good of lights if we have no play?’ said Andy Capp. ‘Leave ‘em all switched on. Come on, rabble. Act One, Scene Three.’

The rehearsal got under way. Birkett held the book in his hands and never looked at it once. When it was his turn to speak he spoke, helplessly, the very words that Howell had spoken, and in the very tone that Howell had spoken them.

‘Proper polly parrot, aren’t you?’ muttered Cosgrove, when he stumbled on his lines and Birkett prompted him, still without looking at the book. ‘You taking English A level, next year?’

‘You’re joking.’

‘Do it. You’ll have a walk-over.’

At the end of the scene Birkett ran from the stage and made for the ladder, hoping that he would have time to get up there and adjust the lights before he was wanted, but as he put his hands to the rungs the floods came on and the dimmers went up. Juliet looked over the railing.

‘Don’t worry about me, Roo. I can manage.’

He hadn’t been worrying about her. He had forgotten that she was there.

‘I told you I could understand it.’

‘Better leave it,’ said Birkett, furious at finding his true place usurped. ‘I’ve made alterations – you won’t be able to follow them.’

‘I know your writing,’ said Juliet, comfortably. ‘Go back on-stage. You’re doing ever so well. I didn’t know you were so good.’

‘I’m not,’ he growled, and thought it was true. He was a proper polly parrot.

‘You, Birkett, are a double-dyed creep,’ said Andy Capp, leaning across the apron. ‘Is this the case that dropped a thousand bricks? Is this the celebrated numbskull who has forgotten to hand in his homework six weeks out of nine? Well, we’ve found you out now, you twister.’

‘Polly parrot,’ said Birkett, under his breath. ‘Get on with it, rabble.’

 They got on with it, and Juliet got on with the lights. Birkett knew to the second when a change was due, and to the second the changes were made. He made a note to dim number two spot when he had the chance. It shone straight in his eye every time he faced right.

‘Excellent,’ Sir Toby roared in his ear. ‘I smell a device.’

‘I haven’t in my nose too,’ said Birkett, in a reedy nasal whine, out-Rowelling Howell. A happy laugh surged out of the darkness.

Sir Toby roared longer and louder, piqued that Birkett was getting bigger laughs than he was.

‘My purpose is indeed a horse of that colour,’ said Maria, arching her long neck like a thoroughbred. Birkett could see no sign of swollen tonsils.

‘And your horse would now make him an ass,’ he said, and was half drowned by another high tide of laughter. They were laughing at him, not with him, but he supposed that that was what he was there for.

Maria spoke again and went out, blowing kisses to Sir Toby.

‘Good night, Penthesilia,’ said Sir Toby. ‘Before me, she’s a good wench,’ said Birkett.

‘She’s a beagle, true-bred, and one that adores me; what o’ that?’

‘I was adored once too.’ The laughter exploded all round him as he stood there, a dead ringer for Sir Andrew Aguecheek; lank yellow hair drooping over his white face, round eyes staring, long arms dangling. What a thought; Birkett; adored; har har, as Andy Capp would say.

Suddenly the lights turned blue, stuttered, went dim, became bright again, went out entirely and then came on in a frightful blaze, all eight suns burning him alive.

‘What the hell is going on?’ demanded Andy Capp, vaulting on to the apron like a galvanized leprechaun and hurling his copy of the play across the stage. ‘Who did that?’

Birkett turned to the switchboard in a rage.

‘You silly cow! Leave it alone. I altered that bit. I said you wouldn’t understand it.’

‘Who’s up there? Who is it? Come down here, now,’ said Andy Capp, more terrible in a whisper than he ever was at full volume.

Juliet came down the ladder glamp glamp glamp on her club heels and stumbled towards them. Her face was a brighter pink than any floodlight could have made it, and her eyes were enormous with tears.

‘I thought . . .’

‘Thought?’ Andy Capp was incredulous. ‘Who asked you to think? Who asked you to touch the switchboard? I t’s a skilled job, not a game for silly little girls.’

Juliet moved towards Birkett. Birkett moved away. ‘I told you,’ he said.

‘I thought I knew it,’ said Juliet. She bent her head and the tears fell to the floor. They made greyer spots on the grey stage cloth. ‘I thought I had it right. I’m always up there.’

‘Don’t we know it? And we know why: you made sure of that,’ said Andy Capp, unforgivably. ‘Now get off the stage and get out of the way, there’s a good girl. Do your courting out of school, next time.’

Juliet tried to look at Birkett. Birkett looked up at the proscenium arch. The second amber flood was dead. He thought there might be a spare bulb in the box below the switchboard. If not, he would have to get one ordered tomorrow. When he looked round again, Juliet was gone, climbing awkwardly over the apron and down into the hall. The darkness took her. Andy Capp followed.

‘Get on with it, rabble.’

‘Good night, Penthesilia,’ said Sir Toby. ‘Before me, she’s a good wench.’

‘She’s a beagle, true-bred, and one that adores me; what o’ that?’

‘I was adored once too,’ said Birkett.

(c) Jan Mark, 1983. All Rights reserved.