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on Elliot anyway, and all the female chorus were completely aflutter in his presence.
    On the Thursday afternoon I approached the wardrobe mistress casually. ‘Is this theatre haunted, Mary, do you know?’
    She cast me an amused glance. ‘The opera been getting to you, darling?’
Pique Dame
is after all a tale of supernatural vengeance, and the make-up of the Countess’ Ghost was particularly grisly. The final scene, where Herman went mad and killed himself, still made the hair stand up on my neck even after several performances.
    I smiled. ‘I mean it. Does it have a ghost?’
    ‘A Grey Lady, you mean? Or some Victorian gentleman in a top hat?’ She waved a hand at the building around us, which certainly looked like the proper setting for a traditional theatre ghost. It was Victorian red brick and cavernous, and full of tiny backstage corridors that rose and dropped and branched. I stood my ground though, determined.
    ‘A skinny black guy in grey overalls.’
    She stopped smirking. ‘You’ve seen William?’ She raised her voice. ‘Ted! Come here!’ When Ted ambled over she added: ‘Tanya’s seen William!’
    ‘Oh, that’s good. I thought he might have gone.’ Ted was one of those elderly gentlemen that you find in amateur theatre; they take tickets and sell programmes and wedge themselves firmly into every management committee available.
    ‘William?’ I said faintly.
    ‘He hasn’t been seen in a couple of years. I thought he might have faded, you know. Ghosts do.’
    ‘You know his name?’ I don’t know why, but having a name to put to the shadowy face made me feel uneasy, as if he were suddenly more real.
    ‘Well,’ laughed Mary, ‘he’s not an old ghost. Nineteen fifties, I think.’
    Ted nodded. ‘He came here on that ship, the whatsit …’
    ‘The
Windrush
?’ I guessed.
    ‘That’s the one. From the West Indies.’ He looked pleased with himself. ‘Worked here eight years, first as a carpenter and then as stage crew. Never a day off, they say. Hard working, and kept all his money carefully. He was saving up to bring his wife and children here too, you see.’
    ‘So what happened?’
    ‘Oh, nothing terribly dramatic. He just passed away quietly one night, behind the scenes. Aneurysm or something, I should think. The sad thing was that his family was on a boat headed to England at that very moment. He never got to see them again.’
    ‘That’s awful,’ I said.
    ‘But if his ghost shows, that’s supposed to be a very good sign for a performance; he’s taking an interest. It’s not at all common. You’ve seen him, have you, my dear? Whereabouts?’
    How was I supposed to tell them that I’d glimpsed him every night since we opened, in the wings or corridors or dressing rooms? That I could feel him watching me whenever I went on or off stage? That when I was alone he came to hungrily watch me undress? ‘The green room,’ I muttered feebly.
    And I lay awake that night thinking what it would be like to be separated from my spouse for eight years, working for the day that we would be reunited, a day that would never come. Not to mention being stuck in a foreign country, treated as some sort of oddity at the very very best. Poor William. Had he found distraction among the flighty and curious actresses who passed in succession through the theatre, or had they been only a source of temptation and torment? Had he really stuck it out for eight long years? I didn’t think I could go that long without my husband without going crackers; celibacy was not in my repertoire. Wasn’t it the case that even with my man in my bed every night I was panting foolishly after another one? Why couldn’t I just be content?
    In the dark I snaked my arms around Tim’s sleeping form and kissed the nape of his neck, as if trying to apologise.
    The ghost’s attentions might have been a good omen, but things were not going smoothly. As the last night of our run loomed the atmosphere grew not just more