by Judy Nunn
He carried her inside and laid her on the bed. He took her shoes off but wasn’t sure what else he should do. When he tried to unbutton the top of her blouse she mumbled something incoherent which he took to be a protest and so he decided the only thing was to maintain a watch. Her breathing seemed normal and he presumed everything was all right.
Alex sat and watched for an hour before Maddy’s eyes flickered open. She looked at him for several very long seconds and her expression was so enigmatic that Alex wondered whether he should worry. Then she smiled. Beneath the weariness of the smile was understanding and forgiveness. ‘I’m all right, Alex. Go to sleep. Please.’
He smoothed her hair back, kissed her on the brow and gave a deep sigh of relief. His Maddy was back.
For the next two weeks she wasn’t quite the same Maddy—she was a little withdrawn and she didn’t want sex but Alex supposed that was understandable. In an effort to discover exactly what it was she wanted he tried to play the situation several ways: sympathy, bitterness, commiseration, but every approach drew the same response. ‘Alex, I’m fine. I don’t want you to worry about me. Please.’
She was tender, she was understanding, but she was also remote and it irritated him. If she wanted to play martyr then bugger her, he thought, and he allowed himself to be distracted by Susannah.
Susannah Wright was Maddy’s rival in the top female student stakes. Susannah Wright was also one of NADA’s ‘serious’ students. Wraithlike-thin, she wore her ‘serious student uniform’ of black mini, black tights and black ankle length boots with pride, played Masha in The Seagull well and was destined for ‘the classics’. There was a sterile sexlessness about Susannah. But she was unaware of this, blissfully convinced that her talent, her passion, her intensity, her very name—‘Susannah with an “h”’—made her unattainable and desirable. She fiercely maintained her virginity, pouring all of her considerable energy into her work.
It took Alex exactly one week of concentrated effort to get Susannah into bed. Hers, of course—he didn’t want to upset Maddy. After all, it was only a one-night exercise to prove he could do it, just a distraction from the stalemate situation at home.
It therefore came as a bit of a shock to Alex when Maddy disappeared. Surely she couldn’t have left because of Susannah. He’d been so discreet! He didn’t worry for the first few days. It was the weekend, after all, and he figured Maddy was probably taking a dramatic stand. She was probably staying at Harold’s and they were having a great time badmouthing him together, so Alex didn’t ring.
But when Maddy didn’t turn up for classes on Monday Alex had to think again. Her friends were also mystified. Both Harold and Julian rang the McLaughlan house to discover that nothing had been heard from Maddy and that Robert McLaughlan had left for overseas.
Alex was angry and refused to make any further enquiries. ‘She can go to hell,’ he said to Harold. ‘She obviously doesn’t give a shit about me.’ And Harold said nothing, his heart bleeding for the agony Alex must be going through.
Julian’s visit to the McLaughlan house also failed to shed any light. It was six o’clock in the evening when Helena opened the door to him and, although she wasn’t rude, she was very brittle and evasive.
‘This is Graeme Doyle,’ she waved towards the handsome young man whom Julian had met around the traps on several occasions. ‘Would you like a glass of wine?’
She was obviously a little drunk and she dismissed every one of Julian’s questions about Maddy. ‘I’ve no idea where she is but I’m sure she’ll be in touch at her own convenience. She always was a wilful girl.’ Julian felt sorry for the woman; she seemed desperately unhappy.
Enquiries as to Maddy’s whereabouts were also made by the directors of NADA but again nothing was forthcoming. With no explanation whatsoever, one of their prize pupils had disappeared. Why? Nobody could come up with any answers. Maddy had gone and that was that.
Alex escaped the Vietnam war. At first he felt vaguely disappointed, but when he thought harder about it he felt positively let down. He’d been conscripted in 1971 but had deferred for a year to finish his NADA training. Three months after he left the Academy there was still not an acting job in sight and Alex decided that going to war would perhaps be more interesting, and certainly more lucrative, than milling around with the other hopefuls at casting session cattle calls.
He waited impatiently to be called up again by the military and was about to make waves and demand attention when suddenly the Australian troops were pulled out of Vietnam and there followed a weary return of soldiers to an ungrateful country. They were quick to discover that it had been a grubby war. Academics informed them that ‘we should never have been there in the first place’ and advised them to keep quiet about having gone.
Alex, however, was a most rewarding listener. He sought out any Vietnam vet who wished to talk about his experience and sat enthralled by the tales of war. Whether they were stories of action or fraternisation with the Vietnamese women or merely about the boredom and inactivity of war, he was equally attentive.
Because of his sympathy with the bitterness so many felt and his offence at their unheralded homecoming, Alex made a number of new friends. Friends who, much to Julian’s disapproval, didn’t realise Alex was living a war vicariously through them and their stories.
Alex sensed Julian’s disapproval and for a while they drifted apart. He ‘raged’ with his heavy-drinking soldier mates while Julian continued to serve a further twelve months at NADA completing his directors’ course.
Alex’s fascination with the war soon waned, however, and he dropped his new mates as quickly as he’d adopted them.
Alex called around to see Harold one afternoon. He hadn’t seen him for months and rarely answered his phone messages—so rarely, in fact, that Harold had sadly given up ringing.
To Alex’s surprise, Julian was there. It was a late Saturday afternoon and he and Harold were sitting on the balcony drinking gin and tonic with huge wedges of lime—the only way to drink gin, according to Harold.
Julian had socialised with Harold many a time over the past couple of years but only ever in the company of Alex. Now here they were together and apparently great pals. It didn’t for a moment cross Alex’s mind to be jealous. His two best friends were waiting for him, ready to welcome him back, and he couldn’t be happier.
‘Bit of a change from triple bourbons with beer chasers,’ he winked at Julian as he watched Harold carefully slicing another lime to add to a fresh gin he was making for Alex. ‘Haven’t I been a silly-billy?’ He gave one of his special grins and camped it up for Harold as he took the drink. ‘Am I accepted back into the fold?’
Harold and Julian exchanged a look that said it all and then they both laughed. There was no denying it, Alex had them in his pocket, all right. He knew it, they knew it—why bother denying it?
The truth was that the friendship forged between Harold and Julian had been born directly of their love and fascination for Alex. When Harold’s pride told him to stop leaving unanswered messages he sought out Julian to discover the reason for Alex’s avoidance. It was a relief to find that Julian was being avoided just as assiduously and that he was convinced this was ‘one of Alex’s fads’.
‘Just Alex being a shit, Harold, using people as he always does. He’ll come back, don’t worry.’
Harold countered Julian’s accusation with stories of the early days when Alex had steadfastly refused not only money, but Harold’s offer to ‘pull strings’ to advance his career.
Julian shrugged. ‘It simply means that wasn’t the way he wanted to go at the time. It wasn’t because of any moral sense. He doesn’t have one.’
The two men met regularly after that and Alex was invariably the topic of conversation. For a long time Maddy also featured regularly in their talks. Harold couldn’t understand how Alex had so quickly come to terms with Maddy’s disappearance. He couldn’t fathom the fact that Alex no longer talked about her. Indeed, whenever her
name was mentioned there seemed to be a fractional delay as if Alex were reminding himself of who she was.
‘It’s an act, surely,’ Harold insisted. ‘He’s covering the fact that he’s hurting.’
‘Balls,’ Julian scoffed. ‘It’s nearly two years since Maddy left. Another two years and he’ll have forgotten her entirely.’
Harold was a little taken aback by Julian’s harsh view of Alex. ‘Why the venom, dear boy? You’re his best friend. Well, you and I are his best friends,’ he hastily corrected.
Julian looked at the aging actor for several moments and his eventual reply was evasively kind. ‘No venom, Harold. Just the knowledge that Alex is a bit of a heartbreaker and he can hurt people without realising.’ Love is certainly blind, he thought. For a man of perception Harold was blissfully unaware of Alex’s barefaced manipulation.
‘Oh, don’t I know it,’ Harold agreed heartily and theatrically. ‘He is one for whom people are destined to die, that boy.’
You said it, Julian thought, and he vowed never to tell Harold the tales of Jonathan Thomas and Tim.
And now here was Alex, back in their lives again and surveying them with amused affection. That afternoon on the balcony he dubbed them his ‘odd couple’ and the term stuck. From then on it was weekly dinners or lunches at Harold’s as usual but with Maddy replaced by Julian.
It was towards the end of the year that The Way In Theatre Company held its general auditions for the upcoming 1973 season. The Way In had been formed the previous year with Arts Council funding and a generous and most unusual government grant. Its policy was to produce only the classics, its Board of Directors was comprised solely of NADA lecturers and ex-NADA graduates and the actors and directors employed from the work force were invariably ex-NADA.
Harold had been right. The old school tie did count and Alex knew he stood a more reasonable chance than he’d had of late with the commercial theatres. Julian helped him select his audition pieces—‘plenty of colour and movement; don’t forget Norah Hogarth’s doing choreography for the season’—and Harold’s untiring coaching was of tremendous assistance.
Alex arrived at The Way in Theatre at his allotted time, two o’clock on Tuesday afternoon, feeling positive. He refused to allow his confidence to be undermined when he stepped into the foyer to see seven other auditionees all waiting their turn, although there was the customary rush of irritation. Why were special times ever allotted for auditions? he thought. They invariably ran late and they invariably turned into cattle calls. He was also aware that this was only the second day of a planned fourday line-up. How many other hopefuls were there, for God’s sake? But he wasn’t going to think about that, he was going to …
‘Alex!’ It was Susannah Wright. Even more wraithlike than ever. How thin can a person get? Alex wondered momentarily, hoping that she was well over their long-ago one-night stand. She’d chased him for months after it, he recollected. Hell, a painful scene now before his audition was something he didn’t need.
‘How great to see you!’ Susannah enthused. ‘Good luck with the audition.’ She certainly appeared to have got over it, thought Alex with relief. Of course, a successful career would help. She’d been fresh out of NADA and the youngest actor to be contracted by The Way In Theatre Company for its premiere 1972 season. ‘I’ll be reading opposite you.’ She smiled encouragingly.
‘How come?’
‘They’ve signed me up for the next season and I’m here to read opposite the male auditionees.’ The door to the auditorium opened. The stage manager appeared, consulted his list and called ‘Leonard, Peter-John.’ Then he nodded to Susannah and disappeared.
‘Got to go. Chookas.’ She patted him on the arm as she wished him the actors’ term for good luck.
‘Thanks. Hey,’ Alex called after her, ‘what time are they finishing up today? Do you want to go for a drink?’
‘Around four-thirty. Love to.’ And she was gone.
Whatever had happened to the arrogant, self-opinionated Susannah? Alex thought. She was charming. And for such a thin person, devastatingly attractive.
Success did indeed agree with Susannah and her driving ambition had most certainly helped her get over Alex, with whom she’d been besotted. He was her first, after all. In fact, Susannah had only been with two men since and they’d both been so vastly inferior to Alex as lovers that she’d quickly got rid of them. If she couldn’t have the best, she didn’t want anything at all.
As she did with everything that affected her, Susannah set out to use her experience with Alex. So that’s how loss of virginity felt, she told herself. So that’s how good sex and infatuation felt. Then the poignant ache of a broken heart, unrequited love. So they felt like that, did they? On and on: Susannah analysed all aspects of every emotional experience and stored them up to apply to her craft whenever they might be called upon.
Susannah looped the feather boa around his neck. ‘Doesn’t it feel nice and soft, Jack?’ Her eyes were full of promise and she twirled about him coquettishly, fluttering her plastic prop fan as if it were the finest Edwardian lace.
Alex was lost in admiration. She was fascinating. Then he dropped his eyes to the script in his hand and they continued with the scene.
They were doing an excerpt from Man and Superman which pleased Alex. He had always loved the clinical quality of George Bernard Shaw’s plays. His mind flashed back to the first time he’d ever gone to the theatre. That had been a Shaw play. Harold of course, being brilliant in Heartbreak House.
And now here he was, Alex Rainford, playing Jack Tanner opposite Susannah’s tantalising Anne. The audition was going well and he knew it. He’d performed his solo prepared pieces smoothly and, when the impromptu piece set by the directors proved to be a scene from Man and Superman, Alex took it as an omen. Surely he was home and hosed now. And Susannah was pushing him along every inch of the way.
‘It went well, don’t you think?’ Alex found himself feeling uncharacteristically nervous as he asked Susannah’s opinion. He’d downed a couple of beers in the local pub while he waited the two hours for her to finish the afternoon’s readings.
‘Great,’ she answered. ‘You got a car?’
‘Sorry.’ Alex shook his head apologetically.
‘That’s good, it’s less complicated. We’ll go in mine.’
‘Go where?’
‘My place.’
‘Oh! Yes! Yes!’ Susannah cried out and shuddered orgasmically for the fourth time. Alex waited for her to calm down before he withdrew and started gently, teasingly, all over again.
‘No more, Alex,’ Susannah moaned, ‘I can’t take any more.’
‘Oh, yes, you can,’ Alex whispered and he smoothed her hair back from her face, kissed her lingeringly and waited for the involuntary shudders to start all over again.
Alex got the job. A six-month contract with The Way In Theatre Company. Two weeks after he signed the contract he gave up his three-nights-a-week and all-day-Sunday garage job, handed back the keys to the Double Bay flat and moved in with Susannah.
The Way In’s opening production was Arthur Miller’s The Crucible. Susannah was perfectly cast as the sensual, scheming teenager Abigail but, to Alex’s surprise, his role was very much a minor one.
‘What did you expect?’ Susannah countered when Alex complained. ‘You’re far too young for John Proctor.’
‘Fair enough.’ Alex had to admit she was right. ‘So long as they give me Jack Tanner.’
Man and Superman was the second production planned for the season. Susannah personally thought Alex lacked the vocal strength and presence for the role but she didn’t say anything. He certainly looked right, so maybe he’d get it.
But he didn’t. A week before The Crucible opened the company announced the casting for its second production.
‘Shit!’ Alex had managed to contain his anger until they got home from the dress rehearsal. They had two hours to rest up before their first preview performance that night but restin
g up was the last thing Alex wanted to do. He tried to pace about the sitting room of Susannah’s tiny terrace house but it was impossible. He kicked the large leather pouffe by the open fireplace and it skidded across the polished wood floor to collide with a delicate Chippendale coffee table. ‘Octavius! He’s a bloody wimp!’
‘He is not,’ Susannah argued. ‘He’s a gift of a role and stop taking it out on the furniture.’
Susannah was very proud of her collection of antiques which had been left her by a doting grandmother. Alex loathed them. They cluttered up the already too-small house. He was starting to regret his hasty decision in giving up the Double Bay flat. He scowled at the coffee table and wondered whether he should kick it just to annoy her.
‘Oh, who’s a sulky sulky sourpuss,’ Susannah chanted in her baby voice. ‘What can Mummy do to make him feel better?’ She sucked his ear lobe into her mouth and ran her fingers through his hair.
Alex didn’t allow himself to thaw immediately. He didn’t want to—he was too genuinely irritated. But as Susannah progressed through the various roles she chose to play during their lovemaking, Alex finally responded. There was the baby talk, then the slut who wanted to do it dirty, then the plea to ‘love me, Alex,’ then there was the real Susannah, bucking and moaning and writhing in abandon. It was an added pleasure to Alex that Susannah always believed she was the seducer. She always believed that the power was hers.
That night, as Abigail teased, taunted and sexually provoked John Proctor before a charity preview audience of stolid Rotarians, Alex took great pleasure in witnessing the influence he had had on Susannah.
A week later it was the official opening night of The Crucible and the buzz in the air was electric. The cream of Sydney society, the doyens of the theatrical world and the major media critics were all present. The premiere production of The Way In Theatre Company’s 1973 repertoire of classics was the theatrical event of the season.
