She drank another glass of water and forced down a slice of toast, but she knew fresh air would be the only real antidote. A walk up to Preston Park would do her good, plus it would help strengthen her thigh muscles, something the consultant said was necessary to protect her knee from future injury.
Yesterday’s clouds had blown away leaving a lovely September day. It was warm enough that she didn’t need a coat, so she headed away from the marina up towards Victoria Fountain, reacquainting herself with her home town. Once a place filled with cheap housing, hippies and squatters struggling to make a living, Brighton had been transformed into a thriving town full of artists and celebrities.
She upped her pace, fighting the urge to limp. It took a while for the stiffness in her knee to ease, but gradually the pain subsided enough that she could almost ignore it.
Late-night partying wasn’t a new phenomenon. As a dancer, most of her gigs had been in the evening and it would be gone eleven by the time she left the venue. With the buzz of adrenaline flowing, sleep was impossible. So she’d often joined the other dancers and headed off to a club, staggering home in the early hours before collapsing into bed. There wouldn’t even be the luxury of a lie-in the next morning. She’d be up early for class, putting her body through its paces, running through the necessary drills, jumps and turns, always trying to perfect her technique.
She’d learnt early on that you had to love dancing to stick to it. It gave you nothing back in return, no painting to display on a wall, no poem to be printed or sold, nothing other than that single fleeting moment when you felt alive. Dancers endured constant pain, rejection and injury. Not to mention years of intense training, poor salaries and cruelly short careers. And yet she’d never met a dancer who didn’t think they had the best job in the world. That rush of exhilaration, moving your body to express yourself, creating a moment of magic that transported people out of their everyday lives.
And now it was over. She stopped and took a breath, hit by another wave of grief.
Okay, so she might never dance professionally again, but that didn’t mean she had to give up completely, did it? People danced in wheelchairs, for Christ’s sake. She wasn’t about to let a couple of dodgy tendons stop her.
It wasn’t long before she reached Preston Park, the site of many a music festival in days gone by, and the place where she’d spent so much of her youth.
She walked through the ornate iron gates, glancing up to see whether the pillars still had lion heads perched on top. They did. She made her way up the long driveway to where the once grand stately home was situated. From the outside, the Starlight Playhouse hadn’t changed. The red brickwork still looked impressive, the array of tall sash windows dominated the view, and the green countryside framing the estate was stunning.
As she neared the building, her mind tumbled back to the summer of 2005 when Jodi had dragged her along to the Friday night youth club. It was a strange venue to host a horde of boisterous teenagers who had little regard for an impressive structure built nearly four hundred years earlier. It was only now that the idea of using a listed building to house a games room and a disco seemed bizarre.
The memories evoked a mixture of emotions. Her teenage years had been mostly happy, filled with love, dance classes, and an idyllic lifestyle by the seaside. She’d never been interested in boys or dating, unlike her cousin, but she could still remember every moment of that first night at the youth club. Most of the kids were hanging around outside, smoking and drinking. Not Becca. She’d wanted to dance, imagining herself starring in The Pussycat Dolls video for ‘Don’t Cha’ rather than hooking up with boys…until she’d met Tom Elliot.
Tom was two years older, drove a scooter and was the most gorgeous creature she’d ever seen. He went to a private boys’ school and was posh, clever, and above all, mysterious. When he’d initially approached her and asked her out, she’d panicked and turned him down, intimidated by his confidence and ease. He’d shrugged and said, ‘That’s a shame,’ and walked off. She’d spent a miserable week regretting saying no and wishing she could turn back time. The following Friday night, he’d approached her again and repeated his offer. This time, she’d said yes.
Of course, he was also the boy who broke her heart nine months later. But she didn’t want to think about that, especially as shortly after her dad had died.
Shaking away the sad memories, she climbed the steps and approached the impressive front door. There was a sign detailing opening hours for the café. She doubted it was still being used as a youth club, but she was curious to see inside.
The open-plan foyer looked the same. The parquet flooring was badly scratched. The dark wooden panelling covering the walls had faded from the sunlight burning through the windows, and the huge chandelier hanging from the ceiling lacked a few bulbs.
Ahead was the main reception, a large desk housing a computer rather than the ancient till that used to sit on top a decade earlier. There was no one manning the desk and no one in sight. Her footsteps echoed up to the high ceiling as she walked across the foyer.
She glanced through the archway leading to where the grand staircase was roped off with a ‘No Entry’ sign. Her mind travelled back to a time when she’d been allowed upstairs to the family’s living quarters. The upstairs had been frozen in time, a representation of centuries past with its ornate furniture, tapestries and family heirlooms. But the downstairs had been dragged kicking and screaming into the twenty-first century – even if it had never quite finished its transition.
She checked her watch. Ten minutes before her interview. She went in search of the café, eager to rest her knee.
Painful memories aside, the Starlight Playhouse was a fantastic place to explore. She remembered Tom telling her the manor house had been used as a collection centre during the First World War. People from the surrounding areas would drop off woollen garments to be sent to France. During the Second World War, the Royal Navy Hospital had evacuated from Southsea and set up medical facilities at the manor. At the end of the war, residency had reverted to the Wentworth family.
She reached the café and became aware of laughter. A woman was seated at one of the wooden tables, seemingly talking to herself, amused by something. Becca looked around, but there was no one else about. The décor hadn’t changed. The red velvet chairs were past their best and the cream walls still had scuff marks depicting the outline of non-existent paintings. But the view from the glass doors leading to the landscaped gardens was as impressive as she’d remembered.
She startled when the swing doors leading to the kitchen burst open. A surly man appeared wearing chef whites. He went over to the woman seated at the table and pointed to a cup. ‘You want refill?’ His voice was deep and thick with an eastern European accent.
The woman looked up, initially baffled, but then smiled. ‘Thank you, Petrit. That would be lovely.’ She pushed her glasses up her nose, but they immediately slid down again.
Becca instantly recognised Carolyn Elliot-Wentworth. The owner of the Starlight Playhouse. More significantly, Tom Elliot’s mother.
Becca had been surprised when Jodi had told her Carolyn was still running the place. Even as a naive sixteen-year-old, she’d realised the woman had issues. Judging by her fumbled attempts to align teacup with saucer, Becca suspected alcohol was still a factor.
Not that she was in a fit state to pass judgement; she’d knocked back enough gin cocktails in the last few months to sink a ship. But her reliance on alcohol was temporary, an aid to easing both the physical and mental anguish caused by surgery and the demise of her career.
But maybe that’s what every alcoholic said in the beginning. No one set out to become addicted. She made a mental note to quit using booze as a crutch.
Once the surly man had disappeared into the kitchen, Becca