And so it really is quite easy to move about unseen, behind the scenes, as it were, in a big Opera House when a production is under way.
“Up this way,” said Eddie.
“Might I ask why?” Jack asked.
“It’s part of my plan. Any objection?”
“Actually, no,” said Jack. “It’s part of my plan also.”
Jack and Eddie were backstage now, that wonderful place where all the flats are weighted down and there are big ropes everywhere and curiously it smells a bit like a stable.[16] Unlike the front of the stage. Which smells quite unlike a stage.
As a matter of interest for those who have never attended a ballet, or those who have attended a ballet but sat either up in the circle or further back in the stalls, it is to be noted that if you are ever offered front-row stall seats to the ballet, do not accept them. If you do attend the ballet, take a look at the front row of stalls seats. Notice how few folk are sitting there, and how uncomfortable these folk look.
Why? you might well ask. What is all this about? you also might ask. Well, the answer is this: what you can smell when you sit in the front row of the ballet is a certain smell. And it is a smell quite unlike stables. What you can smell when you sit in the front row of the ballet is …
Ballet dancers’ feet.
Why ballet dancers’ feet smell quite so bad is anybody’s guess. Probably because ballet dancers work so hard that they don’t have time to wash their feet as often they should, would be anybody’s reasonable guess.
But there it is.
Never accept front-row seats for the ballet.
Never.
Understood?[17]
“Why does this backstage smell of stables?” Jack asked Eddie.
“Because of the hay bales that are used as ‘running chuffs’.”
“Ah,” said Jack. “But what are –”
“This way,” said Eddie.
“That was the way I was going,” said Jack. “But what are –”
“Let’s hurry,” said Eddie. “I have a very bad feeling coming upon me, and as you know, we bears are noted for our sense of –”
“Let’s just hurry,” said Jack.
And so they hurried and presently they found themselves, and indeed each other, upon a high gantry, which held the above-stage lighting rigs. There were lots of ropes all about and wires and cables, too.
“We’re here,” said Eddie.
“Yes we are,” said Jack. “About this plan of yours.”
“Let me ask you just one thing,” said Eddie. “Does your plan involve a chandelier?”
“Actually, it does,” said Jack.
“Mine, too,” said Eddie.
“Well, what a coincidence that is.”
“Really?” Eddie raised his imaginary eyebrows. “And yet this is an Opera House, and we did meet the Phantom of the Opera. And the one thing everyone remembers about the Phantom of the Opera, and indeed associates with operas, is the big chandelier that hangs above the centre of the stage. Which gets dropped upon someone.”
“Well, I wouldn’t know about that,” said Jack.
“Nor me,” said Eddie. “I just made that bit up to pass some time.”
“Oh,” said Jack. “Why?”
“Because that,” said Eddie, and he pointed with a paw, “is a very big chandelier and I’m not exactly certain how we’ll be able to drop a thing that size on anyone.”
“Aha,” said Jack. “Gotcha.”
“Gotcha?” said Eddie. “What means this odd word?”
“It means that my calculated plan extends a little further than your own. I know exactly how to drop that chandelier upon the evildoers.”
“Assuming of course they stand directly beneath it when we do the dropping,” Eddie said.
“Eddie,” said Jack, “let’s face it: it’s a pretty preposterous idea. But this is a pretty preposterous situation. All of this is utterly ludicrous.”
“When you put it like that, how can we fail?”
“Well said. Now bung your furry ear hole in my direction and let me whisper into it.”
And so Jack whispered. And when his whispering was done, which, it has to be said, was quite loud whispering as it had to make itself heard above the spirited strains of the orchestra beneath, Jack straightened and Eddie looked up at him.
And then Eddie said, “No way.”
“No way?” said Jack.
“Absolutely no way,” said Eddie. “What do you take me for? You’ll get me killed.”
“It will work,” said Jack. “You’ll be fine. It’s a calculated risk.”
“I won’t be fine, I’ll die. You do it.”
“I can’t do it. It has to be you.”
“And what do I do it with?”
“You do it with a spanner. This spanner.”
“And where did you find that?”
“Backstage, next to the ‘thunder sheet’.”
“And what’s a –”
“Don’t start with me. I know you made up ‘running chuffs’.”
“But I’ve only got paws, Jack. No hands with fingers and opposable thumbs.”
“It’ll only take a few turns – you’ll manage.”
“Oh, look,” said Eddie. “The ballet has begun.”
Now ballets and operas have several things in common. Swanky costumes they have in common, and too much stage make-up. And music, of course – they are both traditionally very musical affairs. But the most notable thing that they share is the storyline. The one thing that you can always be assured of if you go to the opera or the ballet is, in the case of the opera, lots of really good loud singing, and in the case of the ballet, lots of really wonderful dancing, and in the case of both, really rubbish storylines.
They are rubbish. They always are. You always know what’s coming next. Who the baddy is and who the goody. The jokes, such as they are, are telegraphed a mile off. Rubbish, they all are. Rubbish.
Eddie watched the dancers a-dancing beneath. Very pretty dancing dolls they were, of the variety that pop out of musical boxes, only bigger.
“What is this ballet all about?” he asked Jack.
“Boy sees girl, villain sees girl, boy meets girl, villain sees boy meet girl, boy gets parted from girl due to villain’s villany, boy remeets girl and boy gets girl in the end.”
“And that’s the story?” Eddie asked.
“Yes,” said Jack. “Clever, isn’t it?”
“That would be irony, would it?”
Jack said, “We should be doing our stuff!”
Eddie said, “I don’t want to!”
Beneath them, dolly ballerinas twirled. The hero, a wooden dolly who given the bulge in his tights apparently had wood on, did pluckings up on the heroine and twistings of her round in the air and the doing of something that is called a pas de deux. And also a full-tilt whirly-tronce, a double chuff-muffin rundle and a three-point turn with the appropriate hand signals and other marvellous things of a quite balletic nature.
The villain of the piece, imaginatively costumed in black, lurked in the limelight at stage left, posturing in a menacing fashion and glowering ’neath overlarge painted eyebrows.
Eddie said, “Don’t do this to me, Jack.”
Jack said, “It has to be done.”
And then Jack did it, but did it with care. He lifted Eddie from his paw pads, raised him to shoulder height and then hurled him. Eddie, wearing the face of terror, soared out over the dancers beneath. Jack buried his face in his hands and prayed for a God to believe in and wished Eddie well. And Eddie landed safely in the topmost crystal nestings of the mighty Opera House chandelier.
Unseen by dancers, orchestra or audience.
Jack peeped out through his fingers and breathed a mighty sigh. Eddie clung to the chandelier and growled in a bitter fashion. Jack waved heartily to Eddie.
Eddie raised a paw to wave back and all but fell to his death. Jack rootled the spanner from a nameless pocket and waggled it at Eddie.
Eddie steadied himself in his crystal nest and prepared to do catchings.
And it could have been tricky. In fact, it could have been disastrous. That spanner could have fallen, down and down onto dancers beneath. But it didn’t, for it was a calculated throw.
17
And I’m not joking here. When I worked in a prop house, I regularly received free tickets from one of the staff who was dating a Covent Garden ballet dancer. The tickets were always front-row tickets. I used to breathe through my mouth.