Seven
1993
For other boys, school holidays meant more time spent with family, or at least with your mum, who was usually at home in any case, doing the normal things mums did to keep the household from teetering into pandemonium. But Nick’s mum didn’t have the luxury of taking off much time except for a few weeks in the summer, when she’d find a way to take them all for a week at a cottage a friend of hers owned on the Solway Firth. Not far into their teens, Nigel and Annabelle grew increasingly resentful of spending this time away from their friends, and it was Nick who humored their mother by playing word games or reading beside her on the shingled beach. He was acutely aware that she deserved a holiday to go the way she wanted it to.
On odd days off from school, or hols when Mum was working and his much older siblings bolted from the flat, Nick was on his own. He didn’t mind awfully, because he could go in and out as he pleased, the flat entirely his. He had two mates who lived near the closest park; some afternoons they’d meet up there, kick a ball around, or rove about and spy on various characters. They looked for the suspicious ones, the oddballs and nutters, tried to follow them at a distance, dream up what crimes they might be planning. But more often Nick hung back at home, reading, watching the telly some, playing patience or, absurdly, solo games of chess.
Mum cut short any complaints of boredom. She told Nick that boredom was a luxury, to be seized on—that she would gladly take boredom over her job at the Indian carryout place. “Boredom,” she declared, “is a tunnel. Make it take you somewhere.”
They lived on the top floor of a building at the closed end of an old mews, a place of damp stone and crumbling mortar, though Mum insisted she found it romantic. (“Your mother fancies you’re living in a Pareezian garret,” Grandfather scoffed. The stairs were his excuse for meeting them elsewhere.) Despite the altitude, most of the flat’s five small rooms were dark, with low ceilings and miserly dormered windows. The exception was Mum’s bedroom, at the back, which looked over a low roof across a wide street with buildings grander than theirs. The entries were flanked by fluted columns, and the windows were not only tall but glistened from regular cleaning. On fair days, sun poured into Mum’s room during the morning hours, so Nick, when left on his own, liked to sit on her bed with his book or deck of cards. He also discovered that the window offered a slightly elevated view of another interior, the top flat in one of those grander buildings, where sometimes a woman paced to and fro in a dressing gown, talking and gesturing with feeling. He could never spot a companion and began to imagine she might be a madwoman, ranting to herself. Then one day, though she was pacing expressively, same as ever, he saw that she was reading from a book.
He went into the cupboard he shared with Nigel and poked about till he found the heavy binoculars Grandfather had given Nigel for his last birthday (as if Nigel planned to take up birding!).
Crouching low, Nick rested the binoculars on the windowsill and fiddled with the knob adjusting the focus.
The woman was younger than Mum and, from a twelve-year-old’s perspective, fairly smashing. Rarely holding still, she passed to and fro across the frame of her own window, but each time, he got a quick glimpse of her wide eyes, carefully shaped brows, and expressive mouth—and, pressing against her robe, a pair of pretty impressive breasts. That day the robe was red, and her hair was captured in a striped towel twisted turban-style.
What was the book? Its face flashed upright for fleeting seconds, never long enough for Nick to read the title. (Did it matter? Never mind. He wanted to know.)
Whom was she reading to? Or was she so lonely that she needed the sound of her own voice as company? How could anyone so beautiful be desperate for company?
Nick became obsessed with watching for her on the rare occasions he was home alone by day; most nights (when he could nip into Mum’s room for a glance), the woman’s flat was dark.
He made sure to smooth Mum’s bedcover after he finished his spying, since he wasn’t really supposed to be in her room when she was out—and then, of course, she would hardly have approved of his spying. And Nigel would have pummeled him for pinching the binoculars.
He worried that he might be turning into a Peeping Tom, though he reassured himself that he wasn’t much interested in going about on ladders at night and sneaking through shrubs. This woman was the sole object of his fascination. She was his personal mystery.
She dominated his waking dreams, and at night he thought of her as he lay in the dark trying to shut out Nigel’s snoring. In his imaginings, he gave her the name Sheba. She dropped her robe and turban for him—even her book.
Then, to his terror and delight, one autumn afternoon as he was returning home from a maths tutorial, he passed her on the street. He recognized her at once, though she was smartly dressed and her glossy butter-colored hair was plaited to the back of her head. Without hesitating, he turned right round and followed her. Dark was descending, and he could only hope she wouldn’t summon a taxi or make for the tube.
Even in slender-heeled shoes, she was a fast walker; in fifteen minutes, Nick was winded—and he realized that he was paying such keen attention to her blue-coated figure, half a block ahead through crisscrossing clumps of strangers, that he had forgotten to keep track of where they were headed—more important, of how he would find his way home.
She turned down a narrow alley and knocked on a door. He stood back, watching from the corner. Almost immediately, the door opened, and he had only a second to hear her greet the unseen doorkeeper, sounding bright and chipper, before the door closed behind her.
Nick waited a minute or two before proceeding cautiously down the alley. The buildings to either side were indifferent, factorylike, the only windows way up high. The door Sheba had entered, the only break in a long expanse of brickwork, was a dull black, unmarked—no handle or knob. How peculiar was that?
Bewildered and lost—now it was dark—Nick left the alley to inspect the front of the building: a long row of doors overhung by a lettered marquee. Had he not been so fixated on his quarry, he would have seen straightaway that it was a theater. And as he stood there, inert, dejected, the marquee blazed to life, the letters jutting forward in defiance of the night.
Henrik Ibsen’s
HEDDA GABLER
Emmelina Godine Donal McSwain
Through the glass doors spanning the façade, Nick could see that only the light in the ticket taker’s booth was lit, but he could also see someone walking about, rather aimlessly. And then the someone slipped through an inner door, allowing a brief burst of light to escape.
Nick waited for a few minutes; the someone did not emerge. From left to right, he tried the doors. The last one, opposite the ticket window, opened. Inside the dim lobby of the theater, he was alone. No alarms went off, no one yelled. His footsteps silenced by thick carpet, he approached the line of inner doors, these paneled in a velvety fabric, which he knew would lead him into the maw of the theater itself. He pulled at one near the center, expecting it to be locked. It seemed to fly open, much lighter on its hinges than the glass door through which he had entered the building.
The seats in the theater were empty, but there stood Sheba, in the center of the stage, all lights on her. She wore a flowing gray dress, or perhaps it was silver. It shone like polished steel in the spotlights. She was speaking, her words clear as birdsong all the way to the very back. She continued for a sentence or two, then slowed to silence.
She shaded her eyes, peering out over the sea of velvet chairs. “Hello there,” she called out, neither friendly nor irritated. “Who’s joining us this evening?” She walked forward to the edge of the stage, and then her voice became anxious. “James. Is that you, James?”
He noticed then that she wasn’t alone. Half a dozen heads rose and turned from seats quite near the stage. A man in jeans and a loose tartan shirt stood and said, “Come on down, whoever you are.” He walked up the aisle directly toward Nick.
Should he run
? Not like he’d broken into a bank.
Slowly, Nick started down the aisle. The man, who waited for him, looked puzzled, not cross. “What can we do for you, lad?”
“Watch?” came out of Nick’s mouth. “May I watch?”
The man frowned briefly, then laughed. He turned away from Nick and spoke to Sheba. “Lad wants to watch you, Em. Your youngest fan yet, I reckon.”
“Come up here,” she called out, beckoning.
Though his legs might as well have been fashioned from wood, Nick found his way to the stage; it helped that the way sloped down. He paused a few rows from the stage, but she continued to beckon. “I’m not a vampire,” she said. “No fangs or claws.” She bared her teeth and held up her hands.
She waited till he stood with his chest against the stage. He found himself looking up at her from a curious angle (he had always seen her, before, from slightly above). “What are you called?” she said.
“Nicholas Greene,” he said. “I didn’t mean to intrude.”
“Well, intrude you did,” she said. “But now that you’re here, take a seat.” Her arms were joined across her lovely chest.
“Yes, ma’am. Thank you,” he said, his grandfather’s edicts writ large on his determination not to panic.
“All I ask is that you not leave again till we’re through with a scene. No slinking out the way you slunk in.” She added cheerfully, “That would be discourteous.” They stared at each other for a moment before she said, “Go on. Choose a seat. Not front row, if you don’t mind. Not my best angle, for one thing.”
Nick went back up the aisle, and as he passed the men who were obviously directing the play, he saw them laughing quietly amongst themselves. He wanted to flee, but he knew he would never forgive himself if he did. And to leave would mean confronting the problem of how to find his way home. So he took a seat in the middle of a row halfway back toward the exit.
Other actors came and went across the stage, and the lines were a blur to him at times: not because he couldn’t understand them but because he couldn’t stop staring at Sheba—at Emmelina, as it turned out; or Em, as the directors called her whenever they interrupted to make their comments.
He stayed till the end, which might have been one or four hours later. There were no clocks within sight, and he didn’t like wearing the old-fashioned watch his grandfather had given him. The few times he’d worn it, his schoolmates had called it “the timepiece” in mock codger tones. Their watches had digital faces.
Finally, when it was clear that everyone was packing up and someone began to switch off the stage lights, he stood. But where was he to go, other than out? Then, to his mortified relief, she was standing at the end of his row.
“You planning to pitch a tent here?”
He stayed where he was, staring at her, barely able to utter “No.”
“What brought you in, Nicholas Greene? Boys don’t randomly sneak into my rehearsals. At least, not boys your age. What is your age? Shouldn’t you be at home swotting up on literature and computation?” She tapped her slim gold wristwatch.
That she had remembered his entire name shocked him speechless. “Pardon me,” she said, “I did not introduce myself. You may call me Ms. Godine.” She held out her blue coat. At first he had no idea what this gesture meant. Then, nearly stumbling, he made his way out of the row and held it open for her. As she backed into the coat, he could see the infinitesimal blond hairs on the back of her neck. She was shorter than she had looked onstage—in heels, only half a head taller than he was.
She turned around and said, while buttoning the coat, “You’re intrigued by the theater, is that it? I can’t imagine you want to be an actor; seems you don’t much like speaking.”
The three men were heading up the aisle. “Need a ride, Em?” asked one.
“No, I’ll catch a little fresh air,” she said. “See our young friend out.”
The man hesitated, looking from her to Nick and back again.
“I think I’m safe with this fellow,” she said. And, to Nick, “Shall we?”
He realized he had nearly forgotten his satchel and went back into the row.
“Mustn’t leave that,” she said.
He walked out behind her. They stood together on the pavement; he watched her kiss the men goodbye. Two of the actors he had seen onstage with her came around from the alley and kissed her as well. One of them gave Nick a small wave.
When just the two of them remained, she said, “So. Did you like what you saw? Curtain’s up on Friday. Previews, but all the same. Word travels before the critics get their hooks in. An old chestnut like this, you’ve got to nail it to the wall.”
He had no idea what she meant.
“You do talk,” she said. “I believe I heard you speak your name, unless I dreamed it.”
“Yes,” he said. “I did like it, your play. I’m just…”
“Surprised at yourself? Don’t I know that feeling.” She laughed. She took out a pack of cigarettes and lit one. “So listen, Nicholas Greene. I have a hunch you’re too young to be out on your own at this hour. I hope you live nearby.”
He had a choice. He could say yes and set off in any direction, and God knew where he’d end up. Or he could…“Ms. Godine,” he said, “I live near you. I believe.”
“You believe you live near me?” She squinted at him and lifted her chin to release a plume of smoke. But then she smiled. “I am not even going to investigate that allegation. I suppose the thing is for me to ask you to escort me home. Yes?”
She ground her cigarette into the pavement and, without waiting for an answer, extended a hand. He held out an elbow, as his grandfather had shown him.
“Tell me your story, Nicholas. Let me hear that you have a proper voice.”
Her hand warming the crook of his elbow even through the sleeve of his jacket, she cajoled him into talking about his family, his wish for a dog, his favorite shows on the telly. She did not ask how he knew where she lived. Once he recognized the neighborhood, he led her to the foot of the mews, where he insisted she leave him off.
“And you’ll go straight home from here?” she asked.
He nodded.
“Are you free Saturday evening?”
When he told her that he was, she asked if his mother worked then. “Surely Saturday she has off.”
“Yes, Saturdays she’s at home with us, at least the evenings,” Nick said. Already he felt accustomed to Ms. Godine’s forward inquiries.
“Brilliant,” she said. “Then come to the theater on Saturday, by half seven, and there will be two tickets at the window in your name, Nicholas. Decent seats, too. Will you bring your mum, and then will you find me after? I’ll expect you. I’ll leave a note with the tickets.”
He hesitated.
“I will be cross if you don’t come,” she said, and then she backed away with a soldier’s salute, pivoted gracefully round on a narrow heel, and turned the corner.
When Nick entered the flat, he found his mother possessed by a grieving rage the likes of which he had never witnessed before. She seized him by the shoulders, sobbing, and asked, her voice a shriek, wherever on earth he had got to. She had sent his siblings out to search the parks and nearby streets.
“Theater,” he said. “The theater.”
She laughed manically. “Oh dear God, Nick, are you now on drugs? This too? You cannot do this to me, you have to be truthful, you have to be straight as a bloody arrow, you have to not make my life harder than it already is, you have to—”
“Mum, it’s true. I went out, and I…got lost, and I went into this theater to ask where I was, and I…watched a play. A rehearsal for a play.”
“You watched a rehearsal for a play.” She took a tea towel from beside the kitchen sink and wiped it harshly across her mottled face.
“Yes. We have tickets. We can go to the play, the real play, on Saturday.”
His mother stared at him, her breath still catching from her tears.
“Y
ou mustn’t fool with me. You mustn’t.”
“It’s true,” he said. “On Saturday I’ll prove it. It’s called Hedda Gabler.”
The strange thing was, he had no doubts that what he believed had happened had really happened, nor that Ms. Godine would keep her word.
—
Emmelina Godine gave Nick a paying job for the remainder of her six-month run as Hedda Gabler. After school, he would rush home and do his schoolwork as quickly and efficiently as he could. After an equally rushed dinner, he would walk to the theater and bring Ms. Godine a newspaper, a sleeve of chocolate biscuits, a bottle of lemon crush, and he would make her tea with the electric kettle in her dressing room. It wasn’t large or luxurious, but he liked sitting with her in that stuffy, windowless room while she made phone calls or read the news, sometimes aloud. (“Nicholas, what do you know about China? We all need to know about China.”) Sometimes she asked him to step into the hall while she took or made a call. She told him from the start that she would mostly ignore him, that he was free to go (or stay) once he had poured her first cup of tea.
The other actors were amused by his presence; now and then he would run an errand for one of them as well. Donal McSwain, who played Ms. Godine’s husband in the play, sometimes knocked on her door and asked, “May I borrow your young apprentice?” McSwain was constantly running out of fags. The smoke in the hallways grew thick after an hour or two; Nick’s mother didn’t smoke, so he wasn’t used to it, and at times he felt light-headed. He went home every night with clothes that smelled like a pub. (The smell of cigarettes, even now, makes Nick nostalgic for the bunkerlike comfort of a backstage warren.)
In the spring, Ms. Godine explained to Nick that the production would travel to America; she and her costar would go as well. “I wish I could take you along,” she said, “but I have a feeling your mum wouldn’t be keen on that idea.” As a farewell present, she gave him the big colorful cigar box where she had stashed her hairpins, stray coins, and the pack of fags she was always hiding from Donal McSwain.