“No, that’s my fault,” I rushed to explain. “I couldn’t get away at break, you see, and when I came at lunch you were busy with someone . . .”
He looked up a second time, rather more quickly, and finding his eyes too intense, too distracting, I finished off lamely, “. . . and I didn’t want to bother you, so I thought I’d just leave it till later.”
Again his gaze dropped as he pushed his own chair back and pulled another forwards, making room for me at the computer. “It is later now,” he said. “Come send your e-mail.”
The dogs made room as well, retreating to the corner behind Alex where they lay like coiled springs, their eyes alert. Nero, I thought, was more wary than Max, more aloof, and less likely to want to make friends. But Max kindly perked up his ears when I looked at him, and as Alex guided me through the Italian instructions onscreen Max crept forwards on the carpet till his nose was near my ankle.
“Then the address,” Alex told me, “and you type your message here.”
He turned away politely while I wrote, occupying himself with the contents of a file folder spread open on his desk. He seemed to be checking a column of figures, and that action combined with the companionable silence took me instantly back to the days of my childhood, with me sitting at one end of the old front-room table, the one with its leg held level by the out-of-date atlas, scribbling at my homework while Bryan, beside me, bent over the household accounts.
I felt a twist of something that was mostly missing Bryan, but partly, too, a flash of feelings harder to identify, a sense of familiarity and rightness. Stealing a quick glance at Alex, I had a peculiar sensation of continuity, as though this were a moment that would be repeated many times in years to come. Which was, of course, ridiculous. Smiling at my fancies, I turned my concentration to the letter I was writing.
I didn’t tell Bryan everything—it would have taken pages. But I did ask him, out of curiosity, what he knew about Den. I didn’t like to come right out and say that Rupert had been acting strangely since we’d met Den in Venice, but I thought there was a chance that Bryan might know some small detail of their history that would help me understand what was between them. I asked the question casually, and followed it by telling him about the theatre, and my rooms, and our first day rehearsing. And Madeleine Hedrick is lovely, I wrote. You were right. (Aren’t you always?) With much love, your Angel.
“There,” I said. “I’m finished. Shall I send it now?”
Alex nodded, showed me how. “And I will, of course, let you know when he replies.”
“Oh, I hadn’t thought of that. I mean, I didn’t tell him not to reply, so of course . . . but I don’t want to put you to any more trouble.”
He shrugged it off. “We Italians are great romantics, you know. We understand the matters of the heart.”
I was slow on the uptake. “Matters of the . . . ? Oh no, it isn’t that at all,” I set him straight, and smiled. “No, Bryan’s not my boyfriend, he’s my . . . well, he’s like my father. One of them, anyway.” And then, to his questioning eyes, I explained, “He and Rupert practically raised me.”
“Ah,” he said. “He’s Rupert’s partner.”
He said that evenly, but still I thought I caught a change of tone. Not everyone, I reminded myself, had grown up in the theatre, where such things were common. “I’m sorry, does that shock you?”
His sideways glance was dry. “I went to public school.”
I would have let the matter drop, but Alex, with his eyes still on my face, appeared to feel the need to add, “It’s not a way of life I understand. But that doesn’t mean I disapprove. As it happens, I like Rupert very much, and how he lives is not my business.” He turned his chair a fraction more, as though he found me rather interesting. “You say that he raised you?”
“My school was very near their flat. My mother wasn’t home much. So most nights I stayed with Roo and Bryan.”
“Ah.” He accepted this with a nod and looked away, and it was my turn now to study him. He must have felt my scrutiny, because his gaze came back, and held a silent query.
I said, “Sorry,” looking back to the computer screen. “It’s only that most people make comments, you know, about homosexuals bringing up children.”
“Most people are not fit themselves to raise a child.” A hint of a personal bitterness touched his calm voice, and Max, at my feet, raised his head as if to gauge his master’s mood, ears cocked, eyes questioning. Alex dropped an automatic hand to stroke the side of Max’s face. Satisfied, the greyhound subsided again with a soft whuff of breath as Alex flashed the tight brief smile that gave little away. “If it matters, I think you were lucky,” he said, “to be loved.”
Then he looked at his watch. Which was my cue, I thought, to make my exit. “Look, I’d better be going.” I pushed back my chair. “Thanks for letting me do this”—I nodded towards the computer—“it really was . . .”
“I’ll walk you back.” He stood with me. The dogs, like small bodyguards, sprang to their feet, long tails wagging, preparing for action. Nero, being brave, nudged my knee with his nose and I offered my hand to him cautiously.
“He won’t bite,” said Alex.
But Nero had already moved off. Like his master, I noticed, he didn’t like anyone getting too near. As Alex and I made our way through the corridors, the dogs went ahead, circling back now and then to be sure we were following.
Glad as I was of the escort, I found the long silence unnerving. I tried to think of something we could talk about that wasn’t controversial. “We missed you at dinner,” I said. “Teresa told us you’d been called away on business?”
“Yes, I was.”
And that was that. I tried again. “You know Mrs. Forlani’s been trying to find you. She wanted help lighting her fires.”
There, I’d caught his attention. His mouth quirked. “She did, did she?”
“That’s what she told us.”
“Then I must see what I can do.”
We’d reached the ladies’ wing, the softly lighted landing with the stairway leading down, and overhead the stained glass ceiling set against the dark night sky. I could hear quiet music and voices from Madeleine’s room, and I lowered my own voice accordingly. “Thank you again, I—”
“My pleasure.” He turned with the dogs and was walking away when he stopped. Paused. Looked back. “Do you have a day off from rehearsals?”
“Yes, Sundays. Why?”
“There are quite a lot of sights to see, around Mira. Perhaps one Sunday you would like to take a drive.”
Was he actually asking me out on a date, I wondered? Caught completely unprepared, I dodged the question with a nonanswer. “It’s very kind of you to offer.”
“Not at all.” Again he turned and walked off with the greyhounds at his heels.
I watched them out of sight, then closed my door and went through to the bedroom. Collapsing full-length on the bed with my feet on the pillows, I sent an imploring look up at the portrait of Celia the First.
“Well, what would you do?” I asked, begging for guidance. But she, with her soft, knowing eyes, only smiled.
ACT III
* * *
ENTER A GHOST.
All her particular worth grows to this sum: She stains the time past: lights the time to come.
Webster: The Duchess of Malfi, Act I, Scene II
i
NEXT morning I woke early and went looking for Madeleine. I found her on the terrace, where she’d set herself up comfortably with sweet rolls and a pot of tea and a chair pulled up close to the parapet, from which she could admire the morning view. Watching me approach, she raised a hand to shade her eyes and smiled. “You’re all dressed up this morning,” was her greeting.
“Oh. Rehearsal clothes,” I explained away the belted long skirt and the blouse. “I thought it might help me to get a feel for my character, you know, to dress for the period.”
“Ah.” Her nod held the understanding of a veteran. “You believe in the
outside-in method, then, do you? Like Larry Olivier. He always said you put shoes on your character first, get the externals right, and the rest will follow. Whereas dear old Ralph Richardson worked from the inside out, focussing mainly on feelings.”
“Well, I sort of do both,” I admitted. “I’m more concerned, I guess, with how my character feels than what she’s wearing, but the clothes you wear affect the way you move, and that affects the way you feel, so . . .”
“. . . you’re not bound to one technique.” She smiled. “I understand completely. Do sit down. There ought to be another chair around here somewhere.”
“This is fine.” I moved forwards, taking a seat on the parapet, facing her.
“Have some tea, there’s plenty in the pot. That new girl brought it out for me, poor thing. She’s a bundle of nerves, working under Teresa.”
I poured myself a cup of tea and sugared it. “Teresa’s husband’s still not back?”
“I don’t believe so, no. Unless,” she reasoned with a smile, “she’s done him in for all the worry that he’s caused her.”
“She’d be justified at that,” I said. “I’d hate to have a man do that to me, take off for days on end.”
Again, under Madeleine’s warm, patient eyes, I felt the difference in our ages and experience. “Every man has imperfections. And every woman,” she went on, her head turning a fraction at the sound of someone bounding up the stone steps from the garden, “has her own level of tolerance.”
Nicholas, showing impeccable timing as always, appeared at the top of the stairs, dark hair ruffled by the breeze. He smoothed it with a hand and smiled. “There you are, darling. I thought I might find you out here.” Strolling forwards, he bent down to kiss her.
“You’ve been for a walk,” she observed.
“Mm. Down to the theatre and back. Did you miss me?”
“Celia’s been keeping me company.”
“Ah.” Straightening, he looked me over. “Formal dress for breakfast, is it? Someone might have told me.”
“Mind what you mock, darling,” Madeleine warned. “I’ve been known to dress the part for my rehearsals too, from time to time.”
“I’m not mocking it.” Stepping back a pace he lit a cigarette and lounged against the parapet, beside me. “Whatever works, I say. So long as I can show up in my jeans, that’s all I ask.”
Madeleine tilted her head. “I don’t know. I’d rather like to see you every day in military uniform.”
“You will in performance,” he promised. “But rehearsing in uniform won’t make me feel like a soldier. That comes from in here.” He tapped the centre of his chest. “To act like a soldier I have to feel a soldier’s pride, a fear of being seen to be afraid, a sense of duty . . .” As he spoke the words his body straightened to attention, shoulders back, chin out. “And there you are, you see? That’s Johnny in a nutshell,” he told us, naming his character.
“Oh, but surely Johnny’s more than that,” said Madeleine.
“Not much. He’s duty-driven, Johnny is. Why else would he throw himself into the front lines because somebody’s told him if he does, his side will win?”
“I wondered,” she said, “if perhaps he wasn’t plagued by guilt.”
“For what?”
She lowered her eyes, lifting one shoulder in a noncommittal gesture. “Was he faithful to his wife? It’s left rather open to question, I think, in the play.”
Nicholas relaxed again against the parapet, lifting his cigarette and blowing out a thoughtful stream of smoke, watching her face. And then his quick, easy smile returned. “What do you think?”
“I’m really not sure.”
“Well, I am. He was faithful.” Turning to tap his ash over the edge of the terrace, he said, “The whistle must have blown. There go the workmen.”
I saw only the sleeve of someone’s shirt disappearing into the trees. “I hope they’re doing indoor work.” I cast a doubtful look towards the deep blue bank of cloud that lay along the farther shore, flattening the colour of the lake to choppy grey. “It doesn’t look as though this sun will last.”
I don’t think Madeleine was listening; her eyes were still on Nicholas. I thought for a moment she might question him further about where he’d been, but she didn’t, and after a moment he glanced at her breakfast tray. “Any tea left in that pot?”
“If there is, it’ll be stone cold.”
“Give it here, then. I’ll get us a fresh pot. Be back in a minute.”
I found myself looking at Madeleine’s face as she watched him walk off. She held her head motionless, calm, eyes quite clear of emotion. And then she glanced towards me and she smiled, a bit self-consciously. “He’ll leave me, of course,” she said lightly. “They all do. But he is a diversion.”
She said that, I thought, almost as a kind of apology, which made me feel all the more guilty. If it hadn’t been for me and that one stupid, stupid argument with Mother, Madeleine’s life would have gone on quite peacefully—no scandal, no divorce, no self-abusive string of men like Nicholas. Like my widowed character in D’Ascanio’s play, I found myself wishing for one chance to turn back the clock, to make everything right again. Only real life, of course, didn’t work like that.
Something of what I was feeling must have shown in my face, because she said, “My dear, you needn’t look like that.” The kind smile was a dagger through my heart. “My love life’s not your fault.”
ii
UPSTAIRS, a piece of paper had been slipped beneath my door—Bryan’s e-mailed reply to my note from last night.
As always, Bryan’s presence in any form made me feel a bit better, and having read the warmly chatty message through I felt my mood improving. He didn’t bother hiding his surprise at my news that Den O’Malley had replaced the SM we were meant to have, but apart from a few minor details about Den—that he’d once lived in London and that he and Rupert had worked with each other a couple of times—Bryan didn’t tell me anything that might have helped me understand why Rupert was behaving as he was.
I put it down, myself, to his being overprotective and fatherly, not wanting his little girl to be corrupted by an obvious, if likeable, cad. That, or the fact that, having set this up to be a special time for just the two of us, the first and last play we would ever do together, Rupert now found himself having to share my attention. I couldn’t do much about the latter problem, short of making an effort to spend time together with Rupert, but I tackled the first concern head-on before our rehearsal.
“. . . So you see,” I said to Rupert, as I finished with my speech, “you needn’t worry. I mean, Den is nearly as old as you are . . .”
“Ancient,” Rupert agreed with a solemn nod, holding back his smile.
“You know what I mean.”
“Mm.” He was only half-listening, yawning and cradling a coffee. “The thing about Dennis is—”
“Morning, gorgeous,” Den said as he entered the rehearsal room, charged up with morning energy. “I missed you at breakfast.”
“I came down at eight,” I explained. “And I didn’t stay long. I had to go back to my room and do my warm-ups.” As unself-conscious as I might be onstage, I’d never felt entirely comfortable doing body and voice exercises with everyone watching—and anyway, I much preferred the flattering acoustics of my bathroom.
“On your own? How boring. See, I could have kept you company.” He wasn’t being serious; it wasn’t even flirting. It was more the sort of teasing that one did with friends. I smiled.
“No, thanks. I don’t need the distraction.”
“Well, at least that’s something, now,” he told me, pleased. “I’m a distraction.”
Rupert, at the table, said without looking up, “Dennis, you are many things. And if you don’t stop talking and have a seat so we can start working, I’m liable to tell you what a few of them are.”
His tone was light and I was fairly certain he was joking, but you couldn’t really tell with Rupert, sometimes.<
br />
iii
WE did table work the next few days, and by week’s end were getting to our feet with books in hand to make our first tentative efforts at blocking the first act. The long table was pushed against the side wall, out of the way, and new furniture brought in to form a makeshift set within the marked chalk circle of our rehearsal ‘stage’—a smaller round table and two uncomfortably stuffed armchairs that were, along with an imaginary chandelier suspended from the ceiling, the only real set elements we had to work around.
Rupert, as was his custom, let us find the movements that seemed most natural to our characters. Saying little, he circled us constantly, watching, assessing, and stopping us only when something looked wrong. I had to think more about position than I’d ever had to on a normal stage. Theatre-in-the-round demanded motion, subtle sometimes but carefully planned, so that all the audience could have a chance to see more than our backs, to feel involved.
By Saturday evening I was so exhausted that I stumbled from my after-dinner bath straight into bed, looking forward to a lie-in and a restful day off.
I should have known better.
The birds woke me early with a chattering of song that seemed determined to announce a break in the rain that had fallen more or less steadily these past few days. Although the mist still clung to the darkly treed hills like the smoke from a forest fire, blending seamlessly into the grey, cloud-filled sky, I could see at least into the gardens and down to the lake, and the constant dull patter of rain on my windows had ceased. In its place, behind the birdsong, was the random drip of leaves and flowers shaking themselves dry. And something else . . . a voice below the terrace, speaking freely at full volume with no fear of waking anyone. A woman’s voice, an English voice, but one I didn’t recognize.
A car door slammed, and footsteps, small and dragging, started up the stairs, followed in a moment by a second set, more firm and sure, that climbed with steady purpose. I looked through my window in time to see a slight figure, half-drowned in a bright silver raincoat and hat, appear at the end of the terrace. Madeleine’s daughter, I thought, had arrived.