Olivia Flies High by Lyn Gardner Page B

her a card, too.
    Tom suddenly thought about Liv. He wished she could have been here tonight to see him make his West End debut. He had hardly been at the Swan since previews had begun, but he’d seen her one day earlier in the week and she’d gazed at him with a look in her eye so beseeching that he had had to turn away.
    However awfully she had behaved, he thought that once press night was out the way and he was back at school regularly during the day, he would finally try and make it up with her, if she would only let him. Maybe they could never be really close friends again, and maybe he’d never be her partner again on the high-wire , but at least they could stop feeling like enemies.
    There had been one more card. His name and address were typed on the front of the crisp, white envelope. He pulled the card out. It was a good-luck card but the word “Good” had been viciously crossed out and the word “Bad” written over it in angry red letters. Inside there was one scrawled word: Olivia .
    Tom felt sick. He threw the card as far away from him as possible, and it slipped down the gap between the dressing table and the wall.
    “Oh, Liv,” he whispered. “How could you?”

Chapter Thirteen
    It was close to seven p.m. on the press night of The Sound of Music . The chandeliers in the Duke’s auditorium shimmered and glittered, but the audience shimmered and glittered even more brightly. There were at least four theatrical dames present, and assorted stars from screen and stage, including a former child star who had appeared in a production about which the famous playwright Noel Coward had declared, “Two things should be cut: the second act and the child’s throat.”
    Most of the audience were still in the bars, sipping champagne and greeting old friends with “Darling!” and flamboyant kisses on each cheek. Theo Deacon, a former Swan pupil and now a big Hollywood star who was back inLondon to play Hamlet at the National Theatre, was surrounded by friends and admirers. Others in the bar nudged each other and pointed him out while pretending they were really much too cool to care. They all nudged each other again when he suddenly caught sight of Alicia across the room and pushed his way through the throng to her, enveloping her in a massive bear hug.
    “Alicia, darling!” he cried. “How are you? I hear you’ve been in Hollywood, sorting out the Wood twins. I worked with the little brats when I was first starting out in LA. It was like acting with inanimate objects. There are bags of crisps with more talent. I wouldn’t work with them again if you paid me a million dollars. Which is what I hope they paid you , Alicia, to coax a decent performance out of them. If you succeeded, you deserve every last cent.”
    “It wasn’t quite that much,” laughed Alicia. “But I was handsomely rewarded. You really are as incorrigible as ever, Theo, and very unkind about the poor twins. It must be quite a burden coming from an acting dynasty like that. I don’t think that Cosmo and Cosima are completely talentless, they just don’t have any training or technique to fall back on.”
    “I heard a rumour they might be coming to London to star in a West End show,” said Theo, “but that can’t be true; it would be too cruel. You can get away with murder making a movie or being on TV. There are plenty of tricks that can be done with the camera to make a bad or indifferent actor look good. But there’s nowhere to hide on stage. The critics would swallow little Cosmo and Cosima whole and then regurgitate them and eat them again for lunch and dinner, too.” Then he added thoughtfully, “Unless … unless of course they could get you to teach them…” He looked at Alicia meaningfully, but she said nothing and hastily changed the subject, introducing him to Eel, who was standing next to her and looking at Theo with awe.
    “This is my granddaughter, Eel.”
    Theo looked at her with interest and when Eel proffered