Memory and Desire (28 page)

People ran in and out with bits of costume. An occasional shriek echoed from the storeroom that was the women's dressing room, a sporadic bellow resounded from the men's. Sarita looked as though she was trying to conduct a Beethoven symphony and eat a plate of spaghetti at the same time. Hems ripped out, buttons flew off, stockings slithered away from their mates. Kate beside her, Claire plunged into the fray, and for a few moments managed to forget she was looking for one—well, two—particular faces.

She brushed Rob's jacket, pinned Susan's hair beneath her cap, and helped Janet button her dress. “Fred told me about the so-called accident,” she said darkly. “I'd be on the first plane home if I was you. They don't like foreigners here."

Claire voiced reassuring noises she didn't really feel and collected discarded scripts into a cardboard box. If anyone still didn't know his or her lines, Elliot announced from the doorway, there would be hell to pay. Trillian squeaked nervously. Her brother Derek, the prompter, waved Elliot's master script at her. “Don't worry, I'll slide you the words."

Sarita had managed to separate her daughter from her hairspray and black eyeliner, and Trillian and her broad white “Puritan” collar looked appropriately demure. Some of the other actors were less fortunate. “Those collars,” Claire whispered to Kate, “have a kind of a John the Baptist effect, don't they?"

“Eh?” Kate replied.

“They make you look as though you're carrying your head on a tray."

Kate smiled politely and turned to tie Heather Little's sash.

Richard would've gotten the joke, Claire told herself ... There he was, standing with Alec just outside the door into the main part of the house, half concealed by shadow. Alec's face was tilted down, Richard's up as he spoke quickly and urgently. What he was saying, Claire thought, was the British version of, “The shit's hit the fan."

Alec's brows tightened. He said something.

Richard shook his head and grasped Alec's arm, his mouth making an “O” shape.
No.

Alec nodded. His hands smoothed the air, palms down.
It's okay. Don't worry about me.

Richard's lips thinned into a slit, unconvinced. His hand on Alec's arm tightened. He leaned closer.

Elliot swanned toward them. “Gentlemen, we'd be honored by your participation in the evening's festivities."

Both faces were instantly wiped blank of all expression except mild resentment.

“Come, come, the show must go on and all the appropriate bromides.” Elliot made shooing gestures.

Alec and Richard darted quick, meaningful looks at each other and allowed Elliot to usher them toward the men's dressing room.

Yeah, Claire thought, I would've warned Melinda someone was out to get her, no matter how badly she set herself up.... “Oh, sorry, Sarita. Here's the card with the extra snaps, no problem."

Soon there was a general movement out the door and across the forecourt to the entrance hall, which served as backstage and wings both. Claire, Kate in tow, seized her own costume and darted down the hall to the storeroom by the public toilets.

Diana was posing before a mirror leaned against the wall, which made her reflected image taller and thinner. Except for its rosy pink color, her gown was in 1660's high fashion. Several yards of material shaped a loose bodice, voluminous sleeves, and a flowing skirt. A sash that was no more than a ribbon cinched the extravagance of cloth. “You look very nice,” said Claire, not adding, “A smaller woman would be lost in so much fabric.” What a shame Diana felt inadequate by today's standards. But even the appropriately curved Melinda had fretted over the shape of her hips and started muttering darkly of liposuction.

“Do you need any help?” asked Kate.

“I can manage, ta.” Diana swept out.

Claire turned with misgivings to her own garment, a wasp-waisted gown from 1776, the year The Play was supposedly written. Staging the drama as a play-within-a-play narrated by the author worked well, although a pair of jeans and a T-shirt from The Play's actual origins in the eighties would have been much more comfortable.

The gown was an authentically snug fit, requiring Kate to heave on the strings of an Inquisition-inspired corset while Claire's eyes bugged out. By the time they poured her into the petticoats and dress, Claire felt like a mythically proportioned Barbie doll. She settled her cap with its dangling fake curls and inspected herself in the mirror. The gown was attractive, she had to confess. Not only did its jade-green flatter her red hair and the suffused pink of her complexion, but the corset beneath had squashed her torso into an actual bust line, displayed by the gown's neckline like sweets on a tray. Her wire-rimmed glasses didn't clash too badly with the satin and flesh ensemble. She was, after all, a scholar and a woman both.

She walked gingerly into the hall and came face to face with Richard. Of course he was gorgeous. His long coat, lace cravat, and knee breeches, as well as his fake ponytail nestled into his dark hair, made him look partly like a member of Parliament railing about the iniquities of the Boston Tea Party and partly like the hero of a swashbuckler.

He looked gravely at her. She looked soberly at him. Her head spun. Damned dress, she thought, and forced a breath into her lungs.
Damned Richard.
They were just going to have to see it through to the end, whatever the end was. Offering an olive branch across their metaphorical chasm would be enough for now. Such courtesy might be enough for ever. She curtsied.

Richard extended an arm and a leg and made a deep formal bow.

Claire dipped even further—and found herself stuck in a crouching position. Richard took her hand and pulled her back up, taking the opportunity to check out her neckline. For just a moment his cool, remote gaze warmed up. She leaned forward...

From somewhere behind Claire's back Kate cleared her throat. From the kitchen came Elliot's plummy voice, “Richard, if you please!"

Claire and Richard broke and hurried into the forecourt. He continued on into the entrance hall. She collapsed wheezing at the piano beside Priscilla. Another villager, a tiny woman with silver hair, sat before the harp.

Blake lurked along the portico, Pakenham perched on the bleachers beside Derek and his parents, two or three constables drifted along the drive. Kate took up a position behind Claire, from where a flying tackle would bring down an attacker. Barring Priscilla drawing a dagger, Claire decided she'd be safe for the next couple of hours.

Elliot, looking out of place in his turtleneck sweater and canvas slacks, took center stage. “Speak the speech, I pray you,” he declaimed, “as I pronounced it to you, trippingly on the tongue."

“Get on with it,” said Richard.

Elliot gave way, his sweeping gesture gracious and mocking at once.

Richard stepped forward and raised a sheet of parchment that was supposedly his manuscript. “Look down, O Muse, and smile..."

Richard's diction, Claire thought, made her own accent seem mush-mouthed. Maybe when she got back home—as strange a concept as “home” was at the moment—she would take elocution lessons. She leaned forward, her eyes on the musical score.

“...so let it begin.” Richard stepped aside.

Priscilla and the harpist launched into “The Crystal Spring” while the various spear-carriers, including Susan, Janet, and Fred, filed from the hall and pretended to be drawing water from the well. Casually they parted and Trillian appeared carrying a plastic bucket.

“Cut!” shouted Elliot.

“I'll have her a wooden one tomorrow,” called a voice, presumably the prop manager's.

“Action!” Elliot shouted, and mimed, “I am surrounded by idiots!"

This was the first time Claire had actually seen The Play. The sun-gilded façade of the Hall loomed over the actors’ shoulders. Its stones had soaked in centuries of passion. Emote as they would, the puny humans below its windows were only single notes against the chords of its memories.

Richard appeared at intervals, commenting on the action. Trevor did his turn as an old man dying of the plague who nonetheless delivers himself of a lengthy soliloquy on God, faith, and clean water. Rob and Diana stamped and ranted. With heartbreaking tenderness, Alec parted from Trillian. Elliot darted in and out like a piranha, cajoling here, browbeating there.

Priscilla and the harpist played “Bedlam,” “Hares on the Mountain,” “The Briery Bush,” and concluded—as Trillian died discreetly offstage—with “Death and the Lady.” Claire mouthed the words, “My name is Death, hast heard of me? All kings and princes bow down unto me, and you, fair maid, must come along with me.” She shivered. That was a hazard of knowing the words. Probably three-quarters of the audience would think,
Nice old tunes, there,
without catching the significance.

The Play ended with the main characters piously singing the hymn Claire had always associated with Pilgrims and Thanksgiving—but then, where had the Pilgrims come from but English Puritan stock? “We gather together to ask the Lord's blessing, he chastens and hastens his will to make known; The wicked oppressing now cease from distressing: Sing praises to his Name, he forgets not his own."

Odd, how the words took on new meaning after Elizabeth's tragedy. They suggested the pitfalls in reading God's will as your own and implied that God was inclusive enough not to forget poor Elizabeth, who was “his own” as much—or more than—the fear-mongering villagers. The song must've been Julian and Dierdre's addition, Claire decided. In spite of his occult games, Phillip had been a son of the eighteenth century. Post-modern ironic subtexts were a fashion of the twentieth.

Then Richard was standing alone, head bowed, manuscript rolled. The Nairs and the watching policemen applauded, although Pakenham had to be goaded with Sarita's elbow.

“All right, all right,” shouted Elliot. “That was much too uneven, it has to run more smoothly."

“Perhaps if you didn't interrupt as often,” Alec suggested.

“I shan't be interrupting you tomorrow night, will I? Dashed awkward, I should think, for you to be standing before the audience without a clue."

Richard and Alec exchanged smiles, clearly agreeing on who it was who hadn't a clue.

“Trillian, my dear,” Elliot continued, “you knew your lines! Brilliant!” He opened his arms as though to embrace her.

Roshan interposed himself between them. “Thank you kindly."

Elliot turned on Diana. “And you! You're playing Lettice, not Elizabeth. Stop the simpering. Move as though you have some wit about you."

Diana snapped her head back like a flamenco dancer at the first beat of music. “Get stuffed, Elliot."

“Stupid cow,” Elliot muttered.

Claire wondered again whether it was Melinda's disappearance last year or her own appearance this year that had helped end their relationship. Although the odds were it'd simply died from lack of fuel.

She helped Priscilla carry the music books inside and stow them in the box with the scripts. Some of last year's programs were in there too. Claire picked one up and opened it to the cast list, reading, “Elizabeth Spenser ... Melinda Varek” With an attempt at a sigh, she put the program back in the box. Melinda had hardly bowed down to death. It had sneaked up on her.

By the time Claire shed the chrysalis of her dress and helped put away everyone else's costumes it was almost dark. She and Kate walked out into the twilight to find the forecourt deserted except for the small cat-shape sitting beneath the portico. It turned its head to watch them, eyes catching and then spilling the light.

“I wonder who feeds the moggie,” asked Kate. “Richard? He keeps it to clear the place of mice, I reckon."

Claire imagined ghost mice, or angels bending low with saucers of milk, and shook her head. “You know cats. Very resourceful."

A light glowed in the sitting room of the Lodge. The village was quiet. Blake and Pakenham had whisked Alec away as soon as he'd changed his clothes so that he could help them with their inquiries, as the euphemism went. It didn't seem fair, though, for them to apply the verbal thumbscrews in his own office.

Not that any of this was fair, Claire told herself. Least of all Elliot, who was lingering outside the pub. “Claire, my dear, would you do me the honor of sharing a nightcap with me?"

All she wanted to do was crawl into her bed and pull the covers over her head. But here was her chance—maybe she could get the truth out of the man at last. “Yes, thank you."

Elliot opened the door for Claire and then stepped in behind her, cutting Kate off at the pass. Kate strolled casually away, sat down, and pretended to be watching the TV, which was showing one of those baffling British game shows—in this one, the contestants were dressed like vegetables. What she was really watching, Claire saw, was Fred. He sat nursing a beer at the end of the bar next to the phone, as though he was waiting for the governor to call with a reprieve.

Behind the bar stood a weedy young man wearing a deer-in-the-headlights expression and a nametag reading, Hello! My Name Is Giles. Temporary help for Play season, no doubt. Claire let Elliot seat her at a table in the corner and tried to look enthusiastic when he called, “Two Bristol creams, there's a good lad."

My Name Is Giles started searching up and down the rows of bottles and finally pushed through the swinging door into the kitchen. Rob emerged like a grumpy bear from his den. Snorting irritation, he pointed out bottle and glasses and stood menacingly over the youth while he poured. Then Rob snatched the glasses away, stalked out from behind the bar, and plunked the glasses onto the table so hard they slopped over. Ignoring Rob—he was used to ignoring Rob—Elliot captured Claire's hands and pressed them in his own cold and dry ones. “I was simply aghast at your accident today. Although I assume it was no accident."

“Hard to say.” Claire rescued her hands and took a tiny sip of the sherry. It tasted like cough syrup. She thought wistfully of Richard's whiskey. Not to mention Richard's scent. Elliot's after shave wasn't quite as noxious as Pakenham's, but there was still way too much of it.

“How terrible it must be for you,” Elliot went on, “to be beset with danger so far away from home."