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In spite of herself, she was actually enjoying being here. Not just here in the school either, where she was quickly making friends, but in Ballycove too. She had rediscovered her love of the sea and even went for the occasional dip when the weather was warm. Some of the women had invited her to join them in the Ladies’ Midnight Swimming Club. Iris had gone a few times and she was making friends too, people she went for coffee with. Nola wasn’t sure she was brave enough for the cold night-time waters yet, but maybe before the year was out.
That evening, she walked back to Soldier Hill House at a pace so leisurely she’d probably have been slapped with a parking ticket in London. She was struck once more by the sheer beauty of the place. Of course, it helped that the sun was shining. Maybe it helped too that both her sisters were in London for the day; each of them settling their own affairs, both of them cagey about exactly what those affairs were.
Unlike her sisters, Nola had nothing to settle in London. She had, in many ways, nothing tangible to go back for. Right now, she corrected herself as her mind began to drift along dangerous lines that she knew could darken her mood. Things would be different next time. She would have a lovely flat, in a nice part of the city. It would be hers, with no other name on the deeds so she could never be turfed out of her own home again. She would be a fresh face – literally, the fresh air and soft rain of the west of Ireland had washed the weariness from her. She turned back towards the village; perhaps she should pick up some supplies. Dinner would be made, but maybe afterwards she might treat herself to a tub of Moo’d ice-cream for dessert. Without Iris making snide remarks about her every time she passed a mirror and Georgie sitting there, engrossed in whatever distilling book she was currently absorbing, it would be heaven to lounge in the deep sofa and watch mindless TV and savour her ice-cream.
It was as she was passing by the community centre that she spotted the notice on the window. At first she wasn’t sure what she was looking at really, but seeing the familiar images of Thalia and Melpomene – the two masks of drama at the bottom of the notice made her stop to read it.
Due to unfortunate circumstances the Saturday Morning Drama Club is permanently cancelled.
Signed
Miss Lorna Tuft
‘Ah yes, poor Miss Tuft.’ Elizabeth O’Shea, the doctor’s widow, came along the path and stood next to her.
‘Why is it being cancelled?’
‘Ah well. I suppose there’s only so long any of us can go on for and Miss Tuft must be eighty-seven if she’s a day. She broke her leg a few months back and since then she’s just gone downhill. The poor old dear has been in the nursing home ever since.’
‘That’s a shame,’ Nola said. Miss Tuft’s drama class had been one of the highlights of her own week as a child.
‘Well, really, I’m not sure she even had many kids in the club. It was set up more as a place for kids to drop into. They learned a few poems and sang some songs, which the old girl would rattle out on the piano, and then call it a day for lunchtime.’
Still, Nola thought as she ambled off towards the supermarket, it was the end of an era. Since she had started teaching, the idea of making a mark on the next generation had really gripped her. Without giving it too much thought, she turned left instead of right for home when she had picked up her few supplies in the supermarket and found herself standing outside the community hall once more. It was an ugly building, probably the ugliest in Ballycove, although the tidy towns committee had painted it a brave shade of maroon and fastened a jungle load of hanging baskets that would trail petunias down before the windows and either side of the main door within a couple of weeks.
Inside was as dark and dated as she remembered from her youth, but again, there were tell-tale signs that fresh paint and other little touches had been added in an attempt to keep the place as bright as it was possible to keep a building that for the most part was windowless. Nola let herself into the main hall, a space she remembered from her youth that had only shrunk a little since. It still multitasked for everything from basketball games to any local concerts or the Christmas pantomimes, which had run for a couple of years when she was still a kid.
The stage was framed by dark red velvet curtains, but above it, she noticed new lights and when she went through the stage door entrance, there was evidence that at some point the sound system had been updated also. At the back, there was a tiny green room, two dressing rooms and all the trappings of set and stage that had set her heart racing before she’d ever imagined leaving Ballycove. She walked onto the stage in the dim light that came from the emergency beacons at both sides and a shiver reached along her spine. Standing here, centre stage – this had been her dream. To work in the theatre, to hear her feet move across the boards, to feel the warm lights on her shoulders and lose herself in whatever character she was lucky enough to play. How on earth had she lost sight of it all on the way?
Of course, she hadn’t come back to Ballycove to act. Nor had she come here to teach, but there was no denying that she was enjoying her new job at the school far more than she had any other job she’d had since the disastrous end of her career on the soap opera. She laughed bitterly at the memory of it all and her voice echoed strangely in the hall beyond. It wasn’t cold here, but she pulled her cardigan closer around her shoulders as she shivered – someone had stepped on her grave and she had a feeling that they were trying very hard to tell her something.
It was later, as she folded herself up in one of the old Corrigan rugs, her legs drawn up on the sofa beneath her, that she began to think about the hall again. It was a nagging feeling; as if there was something she hadn’t quite noticed or remembered when she was there. She switched off the TV, listened to the familiar sounds of the house creak and rattle around her. Somehow, the familiarity of home, the bruising wisteria aching with new growth against the window, the whiff of woodsmoke from the open fire and the depth of the sofa that hugged her closer with even the slightest movement made her feel safe.
She sighed, a feeling of contentment settling on her as she realised that maybe this was where she was meant to be at that very moment. London would still be there when she returned. But what if…
Nola sprang up from the sofa. What if she was to open her own drama club? What if she was to start a drama school right here in Ballycove? Temporary of course, just for the next couple of months. It could run straight through the summer holidays, while school was closed; surely plenty of parents would go for that? She could use the hall, couldn’t she? It would be a lovely little earner on the side, but more than that, it would sort of be – well, living the dream. Or at least the dream she had started out with. It could culminate in a little show just before she headed back to London. She was in no doubt that just because the six months would be up in June, it would take months, probably, to free up any cash from the estate – until then, there was nothing for her in London, so why not make the most of things in the meantime? Nola sank back on the sofa, a thousand ideas whirring about her brain at a million miles an hour. She would love to work with the younger children in the village, kids who were a million miles away from the teenagers she met at school.
Could she really do this? Well, that was the question she’d have to mull over for a little while until she’d figured things out past this initial rush of excitement.
