can’t …’ I stop. I take a deep breath. ‘But I thought we were going to celebrate my birthday.’
‘Mm. That’s right. But we’ll do it another time, sweetheart, I promise.’
You said that, I almost say, the last time. And the time before that.
‘I’m just pushing really, really hard for this new deadline, and the college isn’t giving me any time off teaching like they said they were going to—’
‘That’s OK.’ I use my calmest, most mature voice, because I want Dad to know I’m not going to be a baby about this. ‘Obviously you need time and space to write, Dad. I mean, Eddie. It’s perfectly OK. We’ll do it another time, like you said.’
‘Exactly. I can always rely on you to understand, Libby. I’ll call with some dates, yeah?’
‘Well, I’m pretty free next weekend, and the weekend after that, or …’
‘Great. So I’ll call. And I’ll see you really soon, OK?’
‘OK, Eddie, just let me know wh—’
‘Bye, sweetheart.’
He’s gone.
I drop the phone, casually, back into my rucksack, and busy myself nibbling the outer edge of my sandwich. ‘It’s really good,’ I say. I don’t meet Olly Walker’s eye.
‘It’s your birthday?’ he asks, after a moment, in this weird voice – like, a super-gentle voice, all of a sudden, as if he thinks I might break or something.
‘No, no! My birthday was weeks ago. Well, months, actually, back in February.’
‘But you said, on the phone …’
‘Oh, that’s just because I didn’t get to see my dad on my actual birthday. He was … we were both really busy around then. So today was going to be a belated birthday thing. It’s no big deal. We’ll do it in a couple of weeks, or whenever.’
‘Right.’ He falls silent for a moment, then clears his throat and says, ‘Hey, you know, if you wanted to see a film and have dinner this evening anyway, I could always take you to The Matrix and a Chinese restaurant. If your mum would let you, I mean.’
‘Oh!’ I look at him properly now, startled. Is this … is a boy asking me on a date, for the first time ever?
‘I … I don’t—’
‘I’d get my sister Nora to come, too!’ he says, hastily, ‘so it wouldn’t just be, like, us two, or anything.’
Oh. Right. So it wasn’t a date, then. Of course it wasn’t.
Suddenly – I don’t know why, because it’s not like I’ve never been disappointed by something a boy has said or done before – I feel these awful, sharp tears pricking at the backs of my eyes. Without any further warning, three of them – I can feel each individual one – stop pricking the backs of my eyes and start sliding out of the fronts.
‘Oh, Jesus.’ Olly Walker, who can’t have failed to notice the tears, is looking agonized, as if he wishes he’d never mentioned films or Chinese food. As if he’d never heard of films or Chinese food. Or – most of all – as if he’d never met me. ‘I didn’t mean to … look, it doesn’t even have to be The Matrix! I’ll go and see your Audrey Hepburn retro-whatsit, if you want to. I’m sure Nora would much prefer that, anyway … oh, here she is now!’ he practically gasps with relief, waving like a drowning man towards the Upper Circle entrance several rows down, where a girl has just appeared.
Nora is, of course, the pretty, blonde, prospective Louisa who told the littlest Showbiz-Walker off for doing showy-off splits downstairs.
‘Olly, hi.’ She starts to make her way up the aisle towards us, squinting through the gloom, while I scrub away the tears with the back of my hand. ‘I just came to say they’ve moved Kitty’s audition fifteen minutes later – something to do with another girl having a family emergency – so … oh,’ she stops next to row F, noticing me. ‘Hi.’
‘Hi,’ I gulp. ‘I’m Libby.’
‘I’m Nora. I’m Olly’s …’ She stops. ‘Are you crying?’
‘No! Not at all!’ I lie, putting on a huge, bright smile that, along with the tear-stained cheeks and the dribbly nose, probably makes me look a bit deranged, as well as a liar.
‘Olly!’ She turns to him. ‘What have you done?’
‘I didn’t do anything!’ Olly protests. ‘She was meant to be seeing her dad this evening, and he had to cancel.’
‘It’s nothing to do with my dad. Anyway, I’m fine. I’m not crying! In fact, I probably ought to be getting back downstairs, I’ve got an audition in … well, about three hours …’
‘Oh, God, not you, too.’ Nora Walker pulls a sympathetic face that makes her look just like her older brother, for a moment. ‘This is seriously the last one of these godawful things I’m agreeing to come to just to keep my mum happy. And you don’t look any keener on it than I am.’
I’m torn between sounding like a wuss who can’t stand up to my mum, and sounding like the sort of person who actually wants to star in The Sound of Music at the New Wimbledon Theatre.
‘Do you want to go and get a drink, or something?’ Nora Showbiz-Walker asks, in a properly mature-sounding voice, rather than the one I was trying to use with Dad earlier. ‘There’s a café just over the Broadway that does these really amazing smoothies.’
‘Oh, I know the one,’ Olly chips in. ‘They do a pretty good lemon drizzle cake, too.’
I’m starting to wonder if it shouldn’t be the Showbiz Walkers so much as the Food-Obsessed Walkers.
‘I can leave my little sister annoying everybody downstairs for a bit,’ Nora adds. ‘Or you could go and chaperone her, Olly.’
‘Oh. I thought I might come and have a smoothie and a bit of cake,’ Olly says, looking like a Labrador that’s just been deprived of a doggy treat. ‘It’s hours until we can get out of here.’
‘Fine,’ Nora sighs. ‘I’ll ask one of the mums to keep an eye on her. If you’d like to go and get a drink, Libby, that is?’
‘Yes. I’d love to.’
‘Ace. Why don’t you walk Libby over there, Ol, and I’ll go and find a random stage mum to watch Kitty.’
I don’t suggest that she ask my mum, unless she wants her little sister to end up suffering a nasty and suspicious accident that takes her out of the running for the part of Brigitta and, potentially, any other role for the rest of her child-acting life.
Olly looks hesitant for a moment – presumably concerned that, if left alone with me, I’ll start bawling like a baby again – but then Nora adds, cheerily, ‘And order me something with lots of pineapple and stuff in it. But not kiwi. I hate kiwi,’ and starts to head back down the aisle towards the doors. So he doesn’t really have much choice about the being-left-alone-with-me part.
Still, he’s a trooper, because he just starts to gather up his stuff ready to leave, while I do the same, and then we both start to make our way towards the Upper Circle exit doors too.
‘You’re wrong about The Matrix, by the way,’ he says, as we reach the doors and he holds one of them open for me. ‘I mean, it may not be Brunch at Bloomingdales, or whatever your Audrey Hepburn thing is called—’
‘It’s not called Brunch at Bloomingdale’s!’ I gasp, until I see his grin and realize that he’s joking.
‘Dinner at Debenhams, then?’ he hazards.
‘Supper at Selfridges?’ I suggest.