Gemma Fox - Caught in the Act

Dedicated with lots of love and thanks to

my editor, Susan Opie at Harper Collins,

my agent, Maggie Phillips at Ed Victor,

but most of all to my family and friends

and the large wrinkly blonde mongrel

who thinks he’s still small enough to

get under my desk.

Cover Page

Title Page GEMMA FOX Caught in the Act

Dedication Dedicated with lots of love and thanks to my editor, Susan Opie at Harper Collins, my agent, Maggie Phillips at Ed Victor, but most of all to my family and friends and the large wrinkly blonde mongrel who thinks he’s still small enough to get under my desk.

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Carol Hastings lost her virginity on 7 July to Macbeth, Lord of Glamis, Thane of Cawdor and King thereafter. The photographic evidence was there in the downstairs toilet, alongside her wedding certificate and a bad photocopy of her decree absolute; the original being far too valuable to put on public display.

Even now, after all these years, Carol woke up some dark nights in a cold sweat, dreaming that she was still married and in a flurry of panic would run downstairs to check. Not that Carol had married Macbeth, it was just that sometimes it felt like it.

The photograph of Carol and Macbeth seemed as if had been taken a very long time ago. It was like looking at another life, someone else’s life, maybe a good friend’s daughter who had grown up and moved away.

It was years since Carol had re ally studied the picture, rather than just passed over it in a photographic stock-take of what was hanging on the walls. It was an arty black-and-white eight-by-ten; not that it showed the actual deflowering, obviously, but a kind of giddy post-coital group hug on the last day of the Belvedere High School drama tour.

They had just finished the final matinée performance; Carol peered at Macbeth and smiled. Gareth Howard, for ever eighteen, with broad shoulders, big blue eyes and dark floppy hair, all dressed up in his tinfoil crown and cloak. He stood behind Carol, one large hand resting on her shoulder in a very patriarchal gesture for someone whose voice had barely broken, apparently the master of all he surveyed.

Her smile broadened into a grin; it wasn’t that many years ago since her stomach fluttered whenever she thought about him. Skulking behind the fly-blown glass, Gareth still looked smug and self-satisfied.

Carol sighed and straightened up. Her trip down memory lane, taken while sitting on the downstairs toilet, had been prompted by a Sunday morning email:

Hi Carol, how are you? I saw that you’d got your profile posted on Oldschooltie.com and wonder if you remembered me? Once upon a time a long time ago in a land far far away I used to be Diana Brown. And if you have forgotten then all those things they said about the chemicals in the drinking water at school were most probably true. I still think about the good old days from time to time, especially now that my own kids are at high school…although I don’t think in terms of old…obviously. Here’s my mobile number: Use it some time!

Diana Brown—the girl who had taken on Carol’s wart and triumphed.

In the photograph, Diana was hunched over a cauldron along with her fellow witches, Netty Davies and Jan Smith. While Carol, a.k.a. Lady Macbeth, was centre stage, wearing way too much eyeliner and a big grin totally at odds with the whole crazed suicidal psycho-bitch from hell that had been popular with their director that year. Carol was dressed in a purple wool caftan and old velvet door-curtain ensemble, cunningly crafted with silver braid, half a packet of fruit gums and a bottle of Copydex into the robes of a queen. She smiled; like she knew what a man-hating power-crazed psychopath-bitch from hell was back in those days.

Carol re ally had set her heart on being one of the hags, working on the premise that a bad hair day and acne could be a real advantage on Shakespeare’s blasted heath. She’d even tried the wart on to get a feel for the part of Witch One at the lunchtime read-through. But Miss Haze and Mr Bearman—who organised the group tour—briskly agreed she was more than capable of doing Lady Macbeth justice and that false modesty was an unattractive trait.

There was a subtext, barely concealed: if Carol didn’t take the part then Fiona Templeton, whose father was chairman of the school governors and whose mother helped out with needlework, would get it, and everyone knew what that meant. Fiona had snatched the part of Juliet from a very evenly matched field the previous summer.

It had been hell. The pressure, the strain, the responsibility, what with Fiona’s nerves and her hayfever and her eczema and allergies and her delicate constitution, she had needed a little liedown before, after and sometimes during every performance. Fiona’s mother had had to come on tour with them, obviously, to keep an eye on their fragile starlet, cramping everyone’s style. Mrs Templeton prowled the wings like some terrible floral wraith, clutching a damp hanky, various inhalers and smelling salts, whispering words of encouragement, making sure that everyone knew what a brave little kitten Fiona truly was, even as she was elbowing her way to the front for another curtain call.

There was no contest. ‘OK, I’ll do it,’ said Carol weakly, falling on the sword on behalf of the rest of the troupe, while shuffling the pages of photocopied script back into a heap.

There had been a muted cheer from the less regal of hoi polloi at the back of the hall, which just about drowned out Fiona’s frantic disappointed wheezing and sobbing.

Some are born great, some have greatness thrust upon them. Miss Haze wrapped the rubber wart in a hankie and handed Carol a plastic dagger.

The reviews had been kind; Carol had still got them in a drawer somewhere. ‘Carol Hastings as Macbeth’s ill-fated queen reached fearlessly for the dramatic high notes’—the Herald . ‘With a maturity far beyond her years Carol Hastings’ Lady Macbeth made a gallant effort to sustain the darker phrases of the Scottish play without lapsing into untrammelled melodrama.’ Praise indeed from a man who, when not the drama critic, covered cattle auctions and the stock car racing.

Nostalgia is not what it used to be. Carol hung the photo back on the wall and got to her feet.

It did seem impossible, though, that she had lost touch with Diana. God, they used to be joined at the hip. Last time they’d spoken, Diana had just finished college and was off doing VSO in Africa or—something. Carol felt a horrible twinge of guilt. Where had the time gone?

‘Mum, are you OK in there?’

The toilet door was ajar; Carol had been sitting fully clothed on the lavatory in the middle of the day staring blankly at a wall for the best part of fifteen minutes. She could see it might make Jake think maybe something wasn’t quite right.

‘I’m fine, honey. I was just thinking.’

‘Right,’ he said. He didn’t sound wholly convinced. ‘Raf said do you want him to open the wine?’ Carol could hear the anxiety in her son’s voice. After all, she was heading for forty. Anything might have happened. ‘And he said are you going to do the salad, and will you marry him?’