by John Gardner
Tony Holt was writing quickly, a pad balanced on his knee. He nodded furiously.
Douglas switched to Leggat, raising a finger, half stabbing at him. ‘I’d like you to work closely with Art and Ronnie on the tape. The full business will be worked out in rehearsal but you all have to grasp the technical idea now. Most of the Iago exits and entrances will be covered by a few bars of a corrida paso-doble.’
‘In Venice?’ From Ronnie.
‘In Venice,’ Douglas hard. ‘It’s in the audience’s mind. There will also be the hint of a crowd of aficionados behind the music, but, like the costume, it all has to be subtle. I don’t want it to stink of Spain, it simply has to get the idea across and then maintain that idea in dramatic terms without abusing the action or poetry of the play.’
He turned back to his working copy of the text, which was in fact made up of two copies of the play so that each page could be pasted on the left hand sides of a large stiff bound exercise book, the right hand pages of which were already scattered with notes. ‘Okay, as they say, from the top. Act one: scene one. Houselights down. Stage in darkness. Raymond I now want a fifteen second fanfare. Drumroll and trumpets, not clean: a good cheer bray, like you hear at provincial corridas, you know what I mean?’
Leggat nodded his bullet head. ‘Like you would hear at...his brow wrinkled, one hand prescribing a circle in the air,... ‘at San Feliu de Guixols?’
‘Just right. Tourists, blood, forty-one guys in the ring trying to kill one little bull, hot dogs and everything cheap. Okay, after the fanfare the tape comes up, high volume with street noises, and I don’t mean the old chestnut horses and carts. I want this tape to be so different that the audience is going to sit bolt upright when they hear it; I want the hairs to tingle and a cold shudder go through everyone who listens to it, every time they listen to it. Experiment, let me hear what you come up with; but I have to hear a whole lot of things: night, intrigue, lust, the works, and I’ve got to hear the right sounds on every cue. Okay, street noises, then, above that, louder, echoed, we have Roderigo’s first speech—
Tush, never tell me; I take it much unkindly
That thou, Iago, who has had my purse
As if the strings were thine, shouldst know of
this,—
Stage lights up to night plot, Iago and Roderigo walking slowly from upstage. Iago speaks his first lines from the stage.’
Ronnie raised his eyebrows and looked happy. A Douglas Silver socko opening,’ he observed, off key for Douglas took no notice and went on speaking. Now, down to Iago’s exit—
Lead to the Sagittary the raised search;
And there will I be with him. So, farewell.
Fifteen seconds of pasodoble ending with a shout which, in turn, dissolves into Brabantio’s search party returning.’
‘An ole?’ From Ronnie.
‘Not quite, but it could be. Got it? Now, end of scene one and the opening of scene two. Brabantio’s line—
On, good Roderigo; — I’ll deserve you pains.
High volume on the tape, sounds of intrigue.’
‘Sounds like a group.’ Art wrote as he spoke. ‘You want muttering, whispering?’
‘Yes, but like the night noises, different. Scratching at the scalp.’ Douglas returned to Tony’s setting, probing like a surgeon, removing Brabantio’s house, pushing a little coloured cardboard watering trough on to the Prompt side. ‘Trucks on and off. Muttering dies. Now, two loud bars of the pasodoble as Iago enters with Othello.’
Over the next three hours, Douglas took them in heavy concentration through the key technical moves and sounds that would knit scene to scene, or dissolve one scene into the next: the basic structure of the production. The whole team was impressed by the style and brilliance of the director’s conception. They talked long about individual ideas — the high-pitched noise to create the idea of jealousy behind the Bard’s words, the kind of sounds they could use. As they were leaving Leggat solemnly asked ‘How does one represent a hand stroking a naked buttock in sound?’
Art, standing by the door, grinned. ‘You get some recording gear and a stripped bird.’
For the next few days Douglas worked on, locked inside himself as the first two productions grew clearly in his head. At night his mind was lanced by characters, mixed and leaping from play to play, Shylock and Othello walked through his dreams with Antonio and Desdemona, Portia and Brabantio.
But, while Douglas worked, Jennifer had been far from idle. In a matter of ten days she had righted the Shireston House flat, changing it out of all recognition. Her enthusiasm did not flag, as Douglas had suspected it might. Each time he returned to the apartment there was something new to see.
One day the kitchen appeared to have been transformed, bright where before it had been dull: plates, cups, jugs, dishes and pans gleaming. Somehow there was the feel of unreality about it all, like the glossy ads in the thick magazines, an unused look.
Other things altered, like the new light fitting replacing the old single flex bulb and lampshade illuminations which hung like odd party decorations in each room and hallway, relics of the early thirties (one lampshade actually had patterns of coach houses and shops with great bow windows printed around imitation parchment, the windows glowing when the bulb was turned on). But Jennifer’s ingenuity, and the enticement of a stage electrician, changed all that, and now converted oil lamps swung on gleaming chains and the small standard lamps, which Jen had brought from London, were strategically placed.
The new bed was installed early in the process, though Douglas merely noted that it was comfortable to sleep in: Jennifer had more sense than to even attempt goading him into using it for the other pleasures, he was so obviously well inside the skin of work.
Slowly, books began to line clean shelves, favourite pictures and ornaments took on a fresh and different appearance in new settings.
Douglas, involved in the complicated mental process of plotting and rediscovering first two and then four plays, lost all track of time. The days ran into each other. One evening, he returned to find small golden angels decorating the fireplace, a silver tree, festooned with coloured lights, rising five feet or so in one corner and the smell of mincemeat hanging round the flat.
Jen was in the kitchen.
‘You like the decorations, darling? Tidings of comfort and joy.’
‘Christmas,’ said Douglas lamely, his consciousness crammed with flashed pictures of thick wrapping paper, blacks and gold, regency striped, tumbling with Santa Clauses, coaches, holly; the afterburn of turkey, the taste of Christmas pudding and a couple of erotic poses: Jennifer and himself left alone in her parents’ house three years ago on a Christmas afternoon; Mummy and Daddy had set off to walk down the heavy meal; he remembered that Jen wore a velvet back dress, he could even recall the little lacy black pants underneath and the explosion between them — something memorable about that; her skirt pulled up around her waist, eyes closed and hair spreading out over the rug a mass of tendrils, the moments of long loving climax under his palm, with her hand around him, flashing colours and the awareness. That was why he remembered all the Christmas sights and sounds and for a few minutes in the afternoon they had touched their first abandoned time where bodies were discovered with eyes and fingers. In the evening they sang carols and he had looked across at Jen who blushed because, she said later, I knew you were thinking about me, down there and I could feel it, sore from your hand...well you were energetic. The Holly and the Ivy. Once in Royal David’s City. Carols...Carol...The black mass.
‘Only a week, darling.’
‘I don’t care what star you’re following you’re not coming through my garden on that camel.’
‘And we haven’t planned a thing.’
Douglas slumped into one of the velvet covered armchairs. We haven’t planned a thing for Christmas.’
His hand on the velvet arm. I love that colour, Jennifer said long ago, it’s like the bottom of a pool. Someone changed the main feat
ure in his brain and the guilt clawed at him, the abstract idea changing to a picture’s reality of detached animal and bird nails rending and tearing inside him.
‘I’m sorry, sugar.’
‘Don’t worry,’ Jennifer came over and smoothed a hand through his hair.
Dark fingers ran down his chin, Carol’s fingers, tickling his neck: down through the tough undergrowth of hair on his chest to the thick pubic hair in which the long fingers raked and probed; the backs of her nails stroking his erection, her lips coming down on his, the fusion and their tongues hard inside each other’s mouths; his mouth dry, detaching itself, feeling downwards for the nipple, further, lapping over her black silk belly, then his nose embedded in her thatch, his tongue, long and flexible feeling her secret. Another flash, the reason why he would not relax and open his mouth to Jennifer’s kisses: be-cause of where his mouth had been in the time between; and all it meant; and the guilt, the foolish tension.
‘You’ve been too busy, Doug. Anyway, I’ve organized things...’ Her hand stopped stroking, fingers dovetailed among his hair as she realized he was saying sorry for some other reason and that it had nothing to do with Christmas, or cards with robins on them, or the decorations, lists of groceries, smart cards with silhouetted holy families, gift wrapped nightdresses, cheap crackers, children’s luminous faces and, out of the mulch of images, her own small bed, when she was a child, and a lonely stocking hanging in readiness.
Douglas was still with a mixture of guilt and the faded memories of Christmas, another Christmas with Jen. Last year? They had argued for nearly two days, a logical game of intellectual ping pong which began with the existence of God and ended with man’s social responsibility.
‘I’m sorry, sugar.’ He did not speak, but Jennifer heard it again, the tone and manner. It was like having ice injected into her bones.
‘Sorry for what, Doug?’ Jennifer slid down to a sitting position at his feet, a theatrical pose, looking up at his face, tired, the eyes not looking back at her, strain bunching the flesh at the corners.
‘Sorry about what, Doug?’ She heard herself and was conscious of the vocal pitch being out of control, too high.
He moved his head so that their eyes met; Jennifer felt the unaccountable fear move, like a reptile in her intestines. Then Douglas smiled, just with his mouth at first, then it grew to embrace his eyes. ‘People say private sorries sometimes.’ The smile faded. ‘I’m just saying sorry for a lot of bad things.’
The black hand in his head went out of focus, replaced by the face, tears, the streaked cheeks in close-up so that he could see the skin texture and watch the liquid globs running down leaving their trail. Like it says in the song: you’re my reason for living. Another time she had whispered—
My bounty is as boundless as the sea,
My love as deep; the more I give to thee
The more I have, for both are infinite.
She had lain in his arms and talked of so many things until she seemed to have always been a part of his life.
‘Something in particular, Douglas? There’s been something wrong ever since I got back.’
He looked straight at Jennifer again. The face he loved. The face he had loved? No, loved: the mind behind, and the body, the person he loved; had cheated. Carol whispering in his ear. Christ he needed her and her body, his brain was awash with her.
‘Tell me Doug.’
Jennifer, on whom he had bestowed everything, shared all things, given his body and taken hers, and offered his mind in collective exchange of thoughts, ideas, revelations. Even her name evoked the cause of his existence. Carol’s breasts, the lucscious swellings, her thighs. Carol as a person, loved, satisfied. Jennifer. Carol. Carol. Jennifer.
Against his will, Douglas nodded, signifying yes, there was something in particular, hoping a miracle would change the direction.
‘Tell me.’ Jennifer’s voice warm, loving, the voice of a woman trying to help her man: the mother in her. Her brain ticking through the possibilities: money? the job at Shireston and its responsibilities? family, relations? some friend in distress? The obvious question flicked into place and was rejected, but she asked nevertheless, ‘Is there someone else?’ Knowing it was impossible and that there could be only one answer.
‘Of course not.’ She even heard it, then above it his voice saying, ‘Yes, there has been.’
She should not have asked the question and Douglas knew that he was at fault for answering it, but there had always been honesty between them, even at this moment when he knew there was a kind of moral right in hiding the truth from her.
Within Jennifer the pain was complete: physical and blinding; mental and bewildering, horrid malformed animal figures scurrying within or skulking, the whole shock starting low in her stomach and raging in a great wave which submerged her.
As though she had not heard him she groped blindly, hoping that it was all a nightmare, a horrible sick joke. ‘You’ve...someone else...? You’ve had...? No...’ No, it was not true.
Not Douglas. The mind refusing to accept. ‘Who? Who is it?’
A small index of friends, the mental finger of her brain running down the list, pausing.
‘Don’t love, it’s all over now, finished, you don’t know her. Please, I’m sorry.’
Jennifer reached out, trying to focus on sanity. There was one of the little gold Christmas angels in her hands, a cone of gold card, embossed thick paper wings and arms, a pert little carved face.
St. Mary Magdelene
Pray for us
St. Agatha.
Pray for us
St. Lucy
Pray for us
St. Agnes
Pray for us
St. Cecelia
St. Catherine
St. Anastasia
Pray for us.
She had once played a nun in a very bad movie stacked with religious sentiment. Christ, she’d even played this part before, the wronged wife. Aloud she said, ‘But that was in another country and besides the wench is dead.’
‘It really would be better that way.’
She stared at the paper angel. ‘Better for whom? Why Doug? Because I wasn’t here?’
‘Something like that.’ He could feel her pain mingling slowly with his guilt.
‘I should be terribly cool, that’s the fashionable way isn’t it? To take it all, to understand, shrug one’s shoulders and say, what’s a fuck between friends?’
‘Please Jen, it wasn’t like...’
‘It wasn’t like that? Well how the hell was it Douglas?’ The two bodies moving like one, Douglas, whose body she knew so well, every inch, each area known to her. She remembered that once when making love with him she had realized that this was the true biblical meaning of knowing a man, not just the bodily experience or the satisfaction and pleasure, but the real knowledge: the map of his physical and mental terrain, fully explored and fully conquered. Now, sometime in the night, when she was unaware, disabled by absence, he had given his body and mind away: that which had been so completely hers had become a bright new country for someone else. She saw his nakedness and the white gleaming nakedness of the other, young, writhing under him and usurping, her face ill defined.
‘It was a thing that happened and got out of hand.’
‘Out of hand? I only hope she was good; that it was worth it.’ The tears forming in her eyes, of anger, hurt, bitterness, misery, failure and all the things any woman feels.
‘Jen, darling,’ Douglas half rose, his arms going out to her, ‘please don’t, it’s not worth it. It was nothing, I promise you, nothing.’ The lie echoing within him, shifting his pictures of the lovers: black on white and white on black, turning, weaving, floating in a peace and harmony he thought that he had never known before. But the truth lanced into the lie; for a second the bodies changed and it was Jen who looked at him from the bed.
‘Was she?’
‘Was she what?’
‘Was she good? What else?’
&nbs
p; ‘Don’t Jen, I promise, love, it was different.’
‘Better?’
‘Look Jen...’
She had one weapon and, paradoxically, she needed to use it now. Reconquer. She rose, standing in front of him, a most uncharacteristic attitude for Jennifer Frost, legs apart, planted firmly, hands on her hips.
‘Let’s see if she was that good,’ a pause of no less than two beats before she turned, heading for the bedroom, ‘or if I can do any better.’
From the bedroom she shouted, ‘Come on Douglas. Or are you a coward as well?’
Tired and rattled with the day, Douglas did not at first grasp her meaning. Jesus, he thought, women, I shouldn’t have let it go...never understand why...women...Christ let me have some peace from them...coward? Coward as well? He walked to the bedroom door. Jennifer was naked by the big brass bed.
‘Come and see, Doug. Then you can make up your mind which of us is best. Because that’s really all there is when you boil it down. Nuts to your beauty and poetry, it’s the pair of bodies and what goes between.’ She took a step forward and put her arms aggressively around his neck, clamping her mouth to his, leech like, ungiving and, for a moment, unforgiving, her hands moving down reaching firmly and expertly for his clothing.
Later, Douglas wondered at his body’s immediate response and the urgency of what followed. His skin tingled in a way he had rarely experienced. Jen worming herself over him with an enthusiasm and concentration unique to his knowledge. It was as though each part of his frame was, in turn, ravaged, satisfied and then given a delicious after pleasure. When they finally sank into the ease of tender, playful and quiet post-combat she whispered, ‘Better than that?’
