Stage Fright

by Christine Poulson

  ‘The King of Cups,’ Joe said again. He shook his head. ‘I just can’t quite put my finger on it. Maddening. It’ll probably pop into my head when I’m thinking about something else.’

  We walked on without speaking. The wind in the swaying, sighing reeds and in the fluttering aspens was like a continuous murmured conversation being carried on around us. Our feet echoed on the boards. Joe had his hands deep in pockets of his linen trousers. He was wearing a white cotton shirt with rolled-up sleeves that showed off his tan. He’d always gone brown very easily. For once I’d got out of my jeans into a summer dress, with a pattern of green and blue, like forget-me-nots on grass, and I had actually ironed it. Grace was wearing a T-shirt, little dungarees and a sunhat. Her push-chair rumbled over the boards. We turned a sharp bend which brought us out into the open near the junction of the two waterways, Wicken Lode and Monk’s Lode. On the opposite bank was moored a red-and-green barge with the window boxes full of geraniums. A window was open and a man in a gingham apron was frying sausages.

  We paused for a moment to enjoy the view. The water was tranquil in the evening light. There was an iridescent flash above the surface and a blur of wings.

  ‘Wow, what was that?’ Joe said.

  ‘A dragonfly. It’s the Emperor, I think. I sometimes get them over the stream in my garden.’

  ‘This is a terrific place. And what an evening!’

  ‘It’s glorious,’ I said sadly.

  Joe glanced at me. ‘But you could enjoy it a whole lot more if you weren’t so worried about your friend? How long has she been gone? Five days?’

  ‘About that.’ I told him about Kevin’s one-night stand with Belinda.

  ‘There you are then. Dollars to donuts she’ll turn up safe and sound, when she thinks her husband’s had time to learn his lesson.’

  ‘That’s what everyone at the theatre thinks.’

  ‘But you’re not so sure?’

  ‘Well, I can understand her letting Kevin dangle. But it seems odd that she hasn’t been in touch with anyone. I mean, she must know how worried I am, for instance. Why hasn’t she at least rung me? And the fact that she left Agnes behind in the first place…’

  ‘That’s easy. She wanted to cramp his style. And it has, hasn’t it?’

  ‘And then there’s the play … Stan rang me – she’s the stage manager – this morning. She said you could cut the atmosphere with a knife. Everyone thinks it’s Kevin’s fault that they’re in this fix, Belinda’s going around looking all pale and red-eyed. They’re all exhausted, Phyllida – she’s stepped in at the last minute to take Melissa’s place – still doesn’t know her lines.…’

  ‘What can I do to make you feel better? A decent meal somewhere?’

  I couldn’t help laughing. ‘You haven’t changed much, Joe. Food is still the answer to everything.’

  ‘Well, you know, it generally is.’ He patted his belly. ‘And I have to say that raising two boys hasn’t done much to dispel that notion. So: dinner? How are you fixed?’

  ‘Well, I do know a nice pub by the river, the unreconstructed sort that serves pub grub and good beer from the barrel.’

  ‘Perfect. Now have we got time to see – what’s it called?’ He unfolded the map of Wicken Fen that he’d bought from the visitor’s centre. ‘Yeah, the tower hide. It says here that there are good views in all directions.’

  ‘There’s plenty of time.’ We’d reached the end of the boardwalk by now. ‘But what about the push-chair?’

  Joe frowned.

  ‘The ground does look a bit rough,’ I said.

  His face cleared. ‘Oh, we can manage that. Sure we can. That’s not what’s bothering me. It’s the King of Cups. I thought I was about to remember, but it’s slipped away again.’

  He shrugged and took hold of the handles on the push-chair and bumped it off the boardwalk on to the earth path. I was about to take it back, but then I thought, What the hell? Joe was already manoeuvring the push-chair with practised ease along the river bank and Grace was wriggling and crowing, excited by the bumpy ride.

  The hide is a three-storey weather-boarded building, shaped like a windmill with a thatched roof. The upper floors are reached by narrow wooden ladders. They had handrails, admittedly, but all the same …

  ‘I’m not sure about this,’ I murmured.

  Joe was already bending down, unbuckling Grace. He lifted her up. She chortled and grabbed at his hair. He laughed.

  ‘What a cutie! Brings back memories. I loved it when the kids were small.’

  ‘You should feel flattered. She doesn’t take to everyone.’

  He handed her to me. ‘You go first. I’ll follow on behind. It’ll be perfectly safe if we do it that way.’

  Inside it was cool and dim. After a minute or so, I emerged into the light of the viewing-room, out of breath. There were high narrow windows looking out in all directions giving a wonderful view over the fens. Raised wooden seats – like pews and about as comfortable – ran round on all four sides. I sat down on one and looked out over the mere. Joe sat down next to me. He took out a handkerchief and wiped his forehead. The landscape was growing hazy in the evening light. Here and there long straight rows of trees, now in full bloom, had been planted as windbreaks. There seemed something strangely significant about their arrangement, as though the geometry of the huge plain had some meaning beyond itself, like a mathematical formula or the organization of an abstract painting.

  ‘I think it was Lewis Carroll,’ I said, ‘who wanted to have a life-size map of England, so that he would always know where he was. That’s how I sometimes feel here in the fens: as though I’m moving around on a gigantic map. The landscape’s so flat that it almost seems two-dimensional.’

  ‘Yeah, it’s kind of weird,’ Joe said. ‘You know, it’s not really how I think of England at all.’

  ‘Perhaps more like Holland,’ I agreed. ‘And those lines of poplars. They always make me think of France. Perhaps that’s why I like it so much: it’s almost like a foreign country.’

  ‘I hired a car and drove up to Boston the first weekend I was here. Thought I ought to be acquainted with the namesake of my home town. We always meant to do that, remember? And you know what I found myself thinking as I drove north. This is just like the Midwest. Iowa, maybe. No, really,’ he said, seeing my smile. ‘The huge skies, the wide open spaces. The long straight roads. Those farmhouses set back from the road. And nothing else – absolutely nothing – as far as the eye can see.’

  I thought of my dream of a flooded landscape.

  ‘It was once all covered with water from here right up to the Wash. That must have been amazing and it wasn’t so long ago, either. There’s a bit in Tennyson’s In Memoriam: that always makes me think of the fens:

  There rolls the deep where grew the tree.

  O earth, what changes hast thou seen!

  There where the long street roars, hath been

  The stillness of the central sea.

  Although actually it’s the other round: trees are growing where the sea used to roll. Ely was an island – the name comes from the eels that were the staple diet of the monks.’

  ‘Hence all those watery names, I suppose,’ Joe said. ‘Waterbeach, Horningsea and the like. Cass…’

  I waited, expecting him to go on. He didn’t. I looked sideways at him. He was staring out into the distance.

  ‘What?’ I said.

  ‘Have you ever wondered about how things might have worked out if you’d joined me in Denver?’

  I had, of course, more often than I wanted to admit, especially when my second marriage broke up.

  ‘I did sometimes wonder if we should have tried it for a year or two longer, given things more of a chance.’

  Joe sighed. ‘I knew you didn’t want to go to the States. Or not to Denver anyway. You know how it was, I was too young and ambitious to compromise.’

  ‘Me, too.’

  ‘Guess you always wonder about the road not trave
lled. I’m kind of at another crossroads now.’ He pulled his handkerchief through his fingers.

  ‘Tell me.’

  ‘It’s Amy. She wants to make a clean break, get married again. You know, I took the job at Columbia because she complained that I wasn’t spending enough time with her and the kids – and she was right. Then I found out that she’d been having an affair. It had been going on for a year or two.’ He shook his head and bit his lip as if he still couldn’t quite believe it. ‘We split up and now we’re at different sides of the continent. Hell, there’s even a four-hour time difference.’

  ‘God, that’s difficult.’

  ‘Difficult! Yeah! Imagine sharing child custody over two thousand miles. And that’s the problem. It’s giving her the perfect excuse not to share.’ I glanced down at his hands. He was pulling the handkerchief taut between his fingers. ‘She wants to marry this other guy and have the kids with her all the time. Visiting rights only for me. And I’m thinking, maybe I should let them go. Catch up with them later.’

  ‘What do you mean, catch up with them later?’

  ‘When they’re older, old enough to decide if they want to live with me. You know what a lot of guys in my position would do? They’d find some cute postgrad, young enough to be their daughter. They’d start over; new wife, new family. People do it all the time in the States.’

  ‘They do it here, too,’ I said.

  He must have caught something in the tone of my voice, because his head shot up and he turned to look me in the face.

  ‘But you don’t think it’s a good idea?’

  ‘Getting married again? How could I possibly say? But with your boys: I’m sure, really sure, that you should do everything you can to be with them.’

  ‘Amy doesn’t come right out and say it, but she thinks this guy will be a better father than I am to my own boys. He’s the outdoor type, takes them camping, plays baseball with them.’

  ‘Good for him. No, really,’ I said, as Joe grimaced. ‘It’s good that he does that and that they like him. But he’s not their father, you are. And they need you.’

  ‘I guess you’re right. I hope you are.’

  We sat gazing out over the water. A couple of geese rose slowly in the air and flew honking away. The sun went behind a cloud.

  ‘Grace needs her cardigan,’ I said. ‘We’d better go back down.’

  * * *

  Joe speared a chip. ‘You and I, we were just kids really, weren’t we?’ he said. We were sitting at a wooden table only feet away from the river. It was around eight o’clock, and though it wasn’t dark, the air seemed to be getting stiller and heavier. And the sky was a deeper blue. Iron lampposts with fluted columns and peeling white paint marked the edge of the towpath. Strings of coloured light bulbs – green, amber, cream and red – were slung between them and shed a soft light over the lawn and the weeping willows around it. There was a festive feeling that came from the proximity of the pleasure boats and water and the coloured lights.

  We had almost worked our way through enormous plates of scampi and chips. I had fed Grace while we were waiting for the food and she was asleep in her push-chair. Our conversation had been wide-ranging, sixties pop music, academic life, politics – I wasn’t surprised to learn that Joe was a Democrat – but now we were back to the old days.

  ‘That crummy apartment we had, that first winter. That wallpaper.’ He laughed and shook his head. ‘We’d been living there for – how long? – before we realized that it was upside down.’

  ‘That was the least of it. I’ve never ever been so cold in my life.’

  ‘We had to heap our coats on the bed at night.’

  ‘That gas fire. My toes were burning while the back of my head froze.’

  ‘And it was so damp.’

  ‘Oh God, yes.’

  ‘Those were the days,’ I said, laughing.

  ‘They really were,’ Joe protested.

  A boat came chugging up the river and moored beside us. Two swans with a couple of cygnets bobbed up and down in its wake.

  ‘None of those things seem to matter when you’re young,’ Joe said.

  I was off on my own line of reminiscence. ‘Remember when I got that rash on my chest? You wouldn’t believe it was chickenpox.’

  ‘I didn’t think grown-ups could get it! Do you remember that wedding – where was it now? Yes, Jersey … paddling in my tuxedo…’

  ‘Yes…’ I saw, not the event itself, but Melissa and myself poring over a photograph. I heard her saying, ‘Aren’t you dying to know what he’s like now? You are going to meet him, aren’t you?’ I put down my beer and rested my hand on the table. I had managed briefly to forget about my worries. Now it all came flooding back and I felt guilty for enjoying myself.

  ‘Hey, sweetheart … What’s up? It isn’t upsetting you, is it, this reminiscing?’ Joe reached over and put his hand on mine.

  ‘No … it’s not that…’

  Joe’s fingers closed round mine. His hand was warm and supple, a comfortable fit. I remembered that he’d always been good at holding hands. Some men grip your hand too slackly, others too tightly so you feel like a small child being towed along by daddy. With Joe I’d felt anchored and protected. I looked across the table at him. His face was growing indistinct in the gloom; the pinkish-orange glow from the lights smoothed out the lines on his face and made him look younger. I wondered if I looked younger too.

  ‘It’s Melissa,’ I told him. ‘Just a few days ago everything seemed to he going wonderfully well for her. Career going well, new baby, happy marriage – or so I thought – and now … well, who knows.’

  Joe squeezed my hand.

  I said, ‘It just makes life seem so uncertain. It makes me think of that image in medieval literature: the Wheel of Fortune. One moment you’re at the top, the next moment…’

  ‘Can I clear those plates and get you some dessert?’ said a woman’s voice.

  I gave a start. The waitress’s footsteps had been muffled by the grass and we hadn’t heard her coming up behind us. Joe released my hand and leaned back from the table.

  ‘Er, no thanks, I think I’ve had enough…’ I mumbled.

  ‘Me, too.’ Joe said. ‘But I’d like a coffee. Can I get an espresso?’

  The waitress nodded and went off to get it, leaving Joe and me in a silence that wasn’t comfortable.

  Don’t they say that every cell in our body is replaced every seven years? It was twice as long since the last time Joe and I had made love. Psychologically, too, the years had changed us into different people. And yet how different were we really? Weren’t those young selves still buried deep inside the middle-aged people we had become? Like layers of geological sediment the years had covered them up but hadn’t obliterated them. I remembered the erotic charge of hearing ‘My Funny Valentine’ on the radio, the way it had propelled me into the past. I felt a pang of desire like a gentle punch low in the belly. My face grew warm. Stop it, I told myself, it’s not as if the hand-holding means anything, Joe’s just a very tactile person.

  I angled my watch to catch the light.

  ‘Ought to be going soon, if I’m going to drop you off at Ely station to get home in time to watch Kevin’s appeal on TV.’

  It was too dark for Joe to see me blushing, but in any case he was gazing off over the water.

  ‘Joe?’

  He looked at me. ‘Sorry,’ he said, frowning. ‘What did you say just then?’

  ‘That we’ll have to go soon.’

  ‘No, before that?’

  ‘That I didn’t want any dessert?’

  He shook his head impatiently. ‘Before the waitress came.’

  ‘Oh, um, yes, something about medieval literature and the Wheel of Fortune?’

  ‘Yes, yes, yes!’ Joe thumped the fist of one hand into the palm of the other. ‘That’s it! Yes! It’s the tarot.’

  ‘What?’

  ‘The King of Cups. It’s the name of a tarot card. And so is the Wheel of Fortun
e. And the Tower, now that I come to think of it. That must be why I almost remembered earlier on.’ He started to laugh.

  ‘The tarot? That’s the last thing I’d have expected you to know about.’

  ‘Oh, I had this wacky older girlfriend at Berkeley. Before I came over here. God, it must be well over twenty years ago. She used to read the cards. There were different suits: Cups and Coins and Swords and something else I can’t recollect. They stand for different types of people. I was the Knight of Swords, I do remember that. Something to do with my colouring, I think.’

  ‘So what do they mean, these suits?’

  ‘Sorry. Can’t tell you. I was never all that interested, to tell you the truth. I know how we can find out, though. It’s bound to be on the net.’

  * * *

  The phone rang as I was coming in through the door. I was still lost in thought as I picked it up.

  ‘Hello. Is this Dr James?’ It was an unfamiliar male voice. I could hear a subdued hubbub in the background as though the speaker were in a pub.

  ‘Yes.’

  ‘I am calling on behalf of Safe Homes Security. You have been selected for a free assessment—’

  ‘How did you get my name? I’m ex-directory.’

  ‘You are on our list of privileged clients. Now, I wonder if you are aware that the crime rate is rising in your area—’

  I suddenly felt absolutely furious.

  ‘This is outrageous. You’re trying to frighten me into buying something.’

  The voice continued smoothly, ‘We are offering you an inspection, completely free—’

  ‘Look: I’m just not interested!’ I slammed the phone down.

  This kind of approach was unethical even by the standard of cold calling. Was there a code of conduct? If not there ought to be. I could at least complain to the company. I dialled 1471 only to be told that the caller had withheld their number. I went upstairs still seething. To ring on a Sunday evening, too. I looked at my watch to see how late it was. Oh, Lord, I was going to miss the news if I didn’t hurry up.

  I switched on the television. There was a platform with a long table set with microphones and a row of chairs behind it. After a moment or two Kevin came on to what I couldn’t help thinking of as the stage. He was accompanied by Detective Sergeant Vickers and a female officer whom I didn’t know. Someone came forward and pulled out a seat at the centre of the table. Kevin sat down and rested his clasped hands on the table. The concerned faces of the police, flash-bulbs going off, rows of journalists … it was so much like other occasions when I’d watched distraught relatives appeal for help that I almost felt that I had seen it before.