Worn Out Wife Seeks New Life

by Carmen Reid

  Meanwhile, Tom was walking faster and faster. Burton’s lead was tied to his waist and he was keeping up a stream of useful and entertaining chat: ‘So that’s the coffee shop I totally recommend,’ he said, pointing across the road, ‘They serve truly awesome chilled chai lattes, or just your regular hot cups of black Java. Whatever you want, they have it there and it is served with the minimum of sass.’

  ‘Do they let dogs in?’ she wondered.

  ‘I always do take out, so I don’t know. I guess they might let you sit out on the terrace with these two doggos,’ Tom replied. ‘But let’s face it, there is a lot of fluffy, doggie real estate attached to these guys. It may be too much for one small café to handle.’

  ‘Now over there,’ he pointed again, ‘That’s the best Mexican round here. So go and enjoy dinner there one night, or order takeout. Next door is the awesome vegan place and over on the other side of the road, great Chinese. So, everything you need, basically, within an easy walk of your apartment. Okay, and we turn right here, because this is the cutest dog park and there is also just the nicest Korean grocery store on the corner.’

  They walked into a square, not with green grass, as Tess might have expected, but paved with flowerbeds and some space for benches, a kiosk and colourful plants in pots. There were other dogs bounding about inside a fenced enclosure. And this is where Tom took River’s dogs and deftly unclipped them. The dogs knew immediately where they were and what to do and Wilder began to bounce around playfully, while Burton took a dump.

  ‘Oh, Mr Burton, not again!’ Tom exclaimed, nimbly whipping out his dog mess bag from a zipped pocket at the back of his shorts and dealing with the situation. Ah, well, Tess couldn’t help thinking, at least that was one less for the balcony.

  ‘Hey Tom! It is so great to see you! Hiiiii!’

  Some teeny-tiny Los Angelena skipped up to Tom in her teeny skirt and teeny waist with her teeny-tiny dog in tow.

  ‘I heard you’ve got a second read-through for the Ackerman project.’

  ‘Oh yeah, pretty cool huh?’

  ‘In-cred-i-ble,’ she gushed, ‘it would be amazing to get a part on that. Uh-mazing.’

  And so they stood there, these two impossibly beautiful people, grinning at each other. Then teeny-tiny girl realised that Tess must be with Tom.

  ‘Oh hi,’ she said, turning her radiant, soft skinned, pink-lipped, flawlessly white-toothed smile on Tess: ‘You must be Tom’s mom… how awesome to meet you.’

  As she sat on the apartment sofa, blowing the fan directly at her sticky face, Tess tried to decide why she’d been so offended by this comment. It wasn’t as if the age gap between her and Tom was too small. She guessed that he was probably in his late twenties, and she was forty-nine, so really she could have been his mom. It wasn’t at all unreasonable. But it just made her feel so old, and uncool and unglamorous.

  And God, this dress, she looked down at the linen flowers with disdain. What had she been thinking? She realised with a jolt that for some time now, she’d allowed herself to drift into the arena of camouflaging clothes instead of flattering ones.

  Okay, that was enough wallowing. She needed to make a nice evening plan for herself. She had bought food at the Korean grocery and she was going to cook. Then when she’d eaten, she wouldn’t be able to speak to anyone in her family, because they would all be asleep, but she would send them a long group email, full of her adventures in LaLa land so far.

  She had just chopped up her exotic mix of vegetables and was setting the wok on the hob when she was surprised to hear a tap on the apartment’s front door.

  ‘Hi, who’s there?’ she called out.

  ‘Hi, Tess? It’s me, Larry. We met earlier today. I hope it’s okay to ask a question.’

  She undid the locks and the bolt and as she prepared to pull the door open, she had to ask: ‘This isn’t a trick, I hope… you’re not going to revenge splatter me, are you?’

  ‘Nope,’ came the simple reply.

  Larry stood in the doorway, a little taller and broader than she remembered, but also much friendlier too. She liked his smile. It was warm and kind; it went right up to his eyes and crinkled the corners.

  ‘Hello, again,’ he said, ‘had a good day?’

  ‘Yes… so hot though, I don’t know if I’m going to get used to this heat.’

  ‘This heat?’ he asked. ‘Tess, you ain’t seen nothing yet. Been anywhere interesting?’

  ‘Just round the neighbourhood,’ she told him, ‘But I like the sound of the hiking trails. I think I’ll take myself out there with the dogs very soon.’

  ‘Cool… well, there was something that I just wanted to check with you. Did you say River was away for the next few weeks?’

  Tess nodded.

  ‘Well… just how long exactly?’

  ‘We’ve arranged to swap houses for six weeks. We might even both agree to extend if we need to.’

  ‘Six weeks?’ he repeated. ‘I don’t get it. After our last argument about the dogs, she arranged to do one-on-one dance lessons with me to make up. She has a twelve-lesson, six-week course booked with me about to start and payment is due.’

  He looked pretty annoyed again.

  ‘Was that woman just fobbing me off?’ he asked. ‘’Cos she sounded really genuine, really sorry. And I believed that she was going to make it up with me.’

  Dance lessons… this explained a lot to Tess: Larry’s upright posture, broad shoulders, and the strong but sinuous muscles.

  ‘You’re a dance teacher?’ she asked.

  ‘Yeah… I’m guessing that could be a little obvious, what with me offering dance lessons, an’ all.’

  ‘What kind of dance?’ she asked.

  Larry looked almost a little offended.

  ‘All kinds! Ballet, classical and modern, tap, tango, jazz… if you want to dance it, I can teach it to you. But what am I going to do about River?’

  There were two reasons why one obvious solution suddenly came to Tess. She still felt guilty about the dollop of dog poop on Larry’s balcony and those very special shoes… and, following her afternoon out, she felt lumpy, un-dainty and gallumphy. And there was Larry, gracefully upright with his perfect posture, sinuous, taking up his space in the world so beautifully.

  Plus, she was here in LA to do different things, to spoil herself and to try out all kinds of things she didn’t even know yet that she wanted to do. And learning how to dance in LA, well, that sounded adventurous… even a little bit glamorous.

  ‘What about if I take the dance lessons, Larry? Since River is going to be away. I could pay you and I could do those lessons… if that would be okay with you?’

  Larry looked a little taken aback.

  ‘Do you have the time?’ he asked, followed with: ‘Is this something you want to do?’

  Now it was Tess’s turn to ask the question: ‘Do you think you can teach me anything?’

  ‘Yes, of course,’ he answered, without hesitation.

  ‘Well, I’m keen to learn… I really would like to learn some new moves.’

  ‘What kind of new moves?’ he asked, looking almost a little uneasy.

  ‘Oh… I don’t know, but is there any chance you could teach even someone like me something just a little bit… wow?’

  20

  River powered down the laptop once again and shut it with a snap. She had spent the morning writing and fretting about writing, and nothing was turning out right.

  She stomped down to the kitchen and tried to decide if more coffee was needed, although she was already jittery, or if it was already time to make lunch. The clock told her it was 12.30. Just about lunch… although still shaken up with jetlag, she didn’t really know what she wanted. In the fridge, which had been so thoughtfully filled by Tess before she left, there were tomatoes, peppers, lettuce, cheeses… so she could throw those things together, make a lunch and this afternoon, she would take herself back to Stratford. She would go and visit Shakespeare’s house this time, never
mind the queues. Maybe that would somehow help.

  When her salad and cheese plate was loaded up, she opened the kitchen doors and headed for the chairs on the decking once again, although this day was cloudier and cooler.

  Dave was already seated at one of the chairs out there.

  ‘Oh, hello! Don’t mind me, I was just leaving,’ he said, reaching for his crutch and preparing to stand up.

  ‘No, please, stay… that’s if you’d like to… my morning has been horrible and it would be nice to have someone to talk to.’

  ‘About writing?’ he asked.

  ‘Not necessarily!’ she said, pushing her fork into her salad. ‘In fact, probably anything but writing.’

  ‘I could ask you the question everyone asks you…’ Dave was smiling at her as he said this.

  ‘No! Not that one! Not the one about “where do you get your ideas?” No!’

  ‘Yes! Where do you get your ideas?’

  ‘Why do people ask that stuff?’ River wondered, in between chews. ‘These tomatoes are amazing, by the way. How is Tess settling into my far less lovely apartment? Have you spoken to her? Should I call her and tell her what to go and see outside and stuff?’

  ‘I’ve only had some messages,’ Dave admitted, ‘she’s been really jet-lagged, sleeping all over the place. Hopefully, I’ll speak to her soon. So come on, writer friend, ideas – where do you get them?’

  ‘Right now, I don’t even know because I’m staring at this script, I’m staring at my notes… I’m staring at the freaking screen and there are no ideas to be had. Nothing. Nada. I’ve tried a long walk, a long shower, overdosing on coffee… so now I’m going to try and jumpstart the thought process by going back to Stratford this afternoon. Maybe another gigantic cream scone will help me.’

  ‘Nice.’

  ‘But if you want my usual answer to this question: every shred of my existence, every single thing I’ve ever thought or felt goes into my work. I’m always mining every square inch of my life for material. Writing never feels easy, there’s always a lot of thinking, worrying, fretting and struggle versus a tiny little bit when some of it “just flows”. There is absolutely no writing by numbers, ever. Even the dumbest crap, and, believe me, I’ve written some of that too, if you don’t believe it and feel it, no one else will.’

  She stopped talking and put another forkful of food into her mouth.

  ‘So…’ Dave had another question for her, ‘are you going to have to put your whole self into High School Musical meets Merchant of Venice?’ There was something of a teasing smile on his face as he asked this.

  ‘Ah ha… good question,’ she smiled back at him, ‘well, yeah, my teenage self, I guess. I need to channel my teenage self… that’s probably exactly how to think about it.’

  ‘So… what do I need to put into my paintings?’ Dave asked next, and somehow, behind the friendly smile, River could read the burning question.

  ‘Hmmm… you’re not finding it so easy, then?’

  ‘No,’ Dave admitted.

  ‘Well… you’ll need to work that out,’ River told him. ‘No one’s forcing you to do this. You’re on holiday, you’ve got a broken ankle; you could literally be sitting on your ass doing nothing and no one would judge you. So if there’s something you want to say, or just something you want to make… spend the time working on it, working it out. That’s what I’m doing… working on it.’

  Dave had to admit, at least to himself, that he’d expected the painting to be less work and more fun… maybe when he worked out what he wanted to do, it would improve.

  ‘You know, at home in LA, I keep a framed quote on the bookcase that I can see when I look up from my desk,’ River went on. ‘It reads: “It is the work that matters, not the applause that follows”, and for creative people, that’s the key. You have to really love doing the work. Everything else is what my mom calls “pure gravy”. The quote, by the way, was Captain Robert Falcon Scott of the Antarctic – led a doomed mission, died in a snowstorm, so not your standard manufacturer of Californian motivational quotes. But I’m fine with that.’

  This made Dave laugh enough for the ribs to twinge. River was much more fun than he’d expected. He’d not thought there would be any interaction between him and the Californian houseguest at all, to be honest. But this was working out very well and he was feeling genuinely inspired by her advice.

  ‘I’m heading off to Stratford soon… do you need anything, shall I bring you some groceries?’

  ‘No, no, absolutely not. You are the guest. You are to be at ease, enjoying the run of the place. I’m going out with my sister this afternoon. So have a great time and we’ll catch up soon.’

  ‘Thanks,’ she nodded, ‘And Dave…’ an idea had just come into River’s head. ‘I’d enjoy making you dinner one evening. Would you like that? I just can’t say I love eating on my own all the time.’

  ‘Gosh… dinner?’ Dave was taken by surprise and flattered that this witty and attractive woman would want to cook for him and spend more time with him. There was only one reply he wanted to make. ‘I’d like that very much, thank you. I’ll check the weather and we can pick a day to go al fresco.’

  ‘Great idea.’

  As River scooped up her plate and glass and headed back to the house, Dave tucked his crutch under his arm and hobbled back towards the summerhouse. Once inside, he sat down heavily on the chair and looked at the pile of, as yet untouched, canvases. He had the paint. He had the canvas. He had all the undisturbed time he could possibly ask for. There was absolutely nothing stopping him. But he felt as if everything and anything he would put on these canvases would be a mess and a mistake.

  What had River said? ‘It’s the work that matters’.

  Okay… so right now, right away, he was going to take out a plate and load it with paint, then, very slowly, with a tiny brush maybe, he was going to paint one small canvas entirely blue. Or maybe green… or what about mixing that bright cobalt with a touch of the dark emerald…?

  Meanwhile, River put on a fresh outfit, brushed her hair and did her make-up carefully. She added a lavish cloud of scent for morale and with only the slightest hint of the question at the back of her mind… what if I bumped into Franklyn? She shooed it right away again – as if Franklyn would be just strolling round town. He probably didn’t make a single move without a butler and a full security detail. Then she got into the car for another visit to Shakespeare’s hometown.

  The house where Shakespeare was born turned out to be small, very old, and completely unassuming. There was wood panelling, a big fireplace and a cradle. The double bed looked very small for two people; a tankard stood on the mantelpiece… and there was not really much else. But then, people hardly had any belongings when Shakespeare was alive, maybe a Bible, some clothes and shoes, tools for the garden and the kitchen, some pots and that was probably about all.

  As she looked around the humble rooms, she got a powerful sense of how long ago this was. Shakespeare was writing as the 1500s turned into the 1600s… over 400 years ago. The words written then… with a quill pen and a pot of ink, the characters and scenes he dreamed of in a humble little house like this were still performed, quoted and admired today. As she walked through the ancient little house, it made his achievement all the more real for her, all the more dazzling and extraordinary. She felt moved to the verge of tears.

  She thought of her script rewrite. It was currently a lousy script that mashed a school production of The Merchant of Venice with some really lame storyline about a group of immigrant school kids being picked on.

  ‘If they prick us do we not bleed?’ was quoted a few times and the inevitable, clichéd ‘we’re all the same, let’s get along together’ happy ending was visible from the opening lines of the damned thing.

  ‘The idea, I guess,’ Phillip had instructed her, ‘is we skim The Merchant, picking the best bits, the edited highlights. But we’re making modern entertainment for modern kids, so we keep the Shakespeare stu
ff short and sweet.’

  River had already read the first version several times. She’d drawn out plans and notes for how to improve it and had those notes read by the script editor. And she’d done a first draft rewrite. But in her mind, something else was still missing: real flavour, a new way to tell this old story… maybe even real inspiration. And somehow she’d thought she could find it here.

  The truth was, she didn’t really know what exactly to do, or how exactly she was going to rescue this story. And she knew from experience that if you don’t have a crystal-clear idea of what you’re going to write, you will be scrabbling down there in the weeds for weeks, trying to find something good and coming up with absolutely nothing. There was no choice but to keep thinking about it and keep trying to solve the problem. She was determined not to make some kind of bad hack job of it. The good, no, maybe even great, idea would come. She just had to keep trying, and above all, keep thinking.

  In the shop area of Shakespeare’s house, there was a rather lacklustre collection of souvenirs – key rings, bookmarks and paperweights with Shakespeare’s head embossed on them all. There was also a bookcase of cheap paperback copies of the individual plays and the collected works.

  She picked up The Merchant of Venice and opened up the grainy pages. Her eyes fell on the lines:

  If it were as easy as to know what were good to do, chapels had been churches and poor men’s cottages princes’ palaces.

  Oh boy.

  That was breathtaking.

  If it were as easy as to know what were good to do…

  Yes. That was the problem exactly. She didn’t yet know what would be good to do. And even when she did know, she would still have to do it. Still have to write the goddam thing and make every single line really good, every single word really good.