Audition for Murder

by P. M. Carlson

“What in the world is wrong, Jim?”

  He took her books and followed her into the stairwell before he answered. “It’s about lunch with your dad tomorrow.”

  Her heart winced. “You won’t come.”

  “I have to work the ramparts scenes with Rob and the staging people. It was the only time.”

  She had explained how difficult it was to catch her busy father. She slashed at him in pained reflex. “There are twenty-four goddamn hours in the day!”

  “I made them go over every single minute. They’ve got exams, or they work. One guy is on night shift at the drugstore.”

  “Why can’t you use rehearsals?” She trailed off. It didn’t matter. She didn’t even hear his explanation as she stared the monstrous truth in the face.

  “Ellen, I had to,” he added.

  “Yes.” Their eyes met, hers as bleak as his. “I know you did. Well, see you around.”

  She held out her arms for the books. After a moment, he handed them to her. She didn’t know how long he stood gazing after her as she drove the lonely way to the dorm.

  Maggie was toweling her damp hair at the sink, singing a lusty version of “Let the Sunshine In,” but after one look at Ellen she said “Oh, dear.” She took Ellen’s books, fixed her a hot chocolate, then sat by her bed for two hours stroking her roommate’s hair. At last Ellen dropped into a sad and choppy sleep.

  Nine

  Nick, who was in Ophelia’s mad scene himself, was increasingly worried each time they rehearsed it.

  Usually she was all right, happy with her students, comparing notes with him and Rob and Chester about useful acting exercises and good ways to make points. The joker had not been heard from for two weeks. While they couldn’t relax yet, it was good to know that their vigilance was paying off. And Lisette was enjoying their occasional breaks, too. Rob, apparently on impulse, had bought four tickets for the Philadelphia Orchestra concert one Saturday. He was taking Maggie, he explained, and insisted that Nick and Lisette come too, to chaperone, he said, smiling. After the concert they had stopped for a little while at Joe’s to eat pizza and dance to the Rolling Stones, and after that went for coffee to the O’Connor apartment. Rob produced a joint and they all sat around on the anthropologist’s African rug to share it. Maggie and Lisette leaned back against the front of the sofa, long legs in short skirts stretched out before them, and the lamplight fell on smooth skin and bright eyes. Nick felt immensely grateful. “You three are beautiful,” he said.

  Rob’s mouth twitched a little, and it dawned on Nick that he was higher than he’d thought. But Maggie gave him a friendly smile and said, “Nick, you’re beautiful too,” and Lisette nodded seriously, so he felt pleased and benevolent again. After the others had left he and Lisette had agreed that college could be fun.

  But not on mad-scene night. At best, she was edgy. A week ago he had come in to find her absorbed in an acting textbook, and had gone quietly to the kitchen to start the meat loaf. She appeared at the kitchen door a minute later.

  “Damn it, Nicky, quit pushing! It’s my day. I’ll get it done.”

  “I don’t mind.”

  “Of course not. You just want to make me feel as though I can’t manage anything. Won’t even give me a chance to finish the chapter.”

  “Lisette, it’s been a long day. I’m trying to help.”

  “Oh, sure. You’re trying to make me feel incompetent.”

  He washed his hands and turned to face her. “Do you want to talk about it?”

  “Talk about what?”

  “Okay. I’ll be back in twenty minutes.” And he left her and walked downtown to get a newspaper. Mad-scene night, he thought morosely. But it was okay, at least she was lashing out at him, not turning it in on herself.

  But that came too. Two nights later, mad-scene night again, he opened the door to a silent apartment and saw her after a moment curled up on the sofa, brown eyes lost in grief. Her fingers were knotted tightly around the bottle of bourbon she clutched in her lap. He sat down quietly on the sofa next to her, uncertain. His heart was twisted in her fingers too.

  The bottle was unopened.

  After a while she seemed to notice him. She gave him a rickety smile, then looked down at the bottle as though puzzled. “Well, not tonight,” she said suddenly, getting up and running to the kitchen. She opened the bottle and poured it all down the sink, and then turned on the water until all the smell was gone. Finally she turned to Nick and hugged him close.

  “Not tonight. I’m not strong enough,” she whispered.

  “You’re doing fine.” He meant it; she was fighting hard. But he was worried too. If she lost, if it proved too much for her, what would she do? There was no Franklin in Jefferson. Where would she go? Would he find her in time? He felt far from home and civilization.

  But then he noticed that she was smiling at him.

  “Hey, Nicky. I’m getting tougher.”

  “I know. I can tell.”

  Nick put down his glass and said, “The problem with Claudius is that he’s always playing to people.”

  “More than the others do?” asked Brian. They were sitting by the fireplace in Brian’s living room, the party rumbling around them and under them in the basement rec room. Brian had decided to celebrate the halfway point of rehearsals with a short Friday rehearsal followed by supper at his house. Deborah Wright had boiled spaghetti and tossed huge amounts of green salad, and set out iced tubs of beer and soft drinks. Now knots of undergraduate actors and crew members eddied through the house in high spirits. Brian had surreptitiously pulled out a bottle of Chianti, and he and Nick on the sofa and Rob and Cheyenne in wing chairs were finishing it.

  “Yes, more than the others,” said Nick. “Don’t you think so, Rob? Hamlet puts his antic disposition on, but usually he’s sincere.”

  “God, I hope he is,” said Rob. “It’s hard enough to catch a few of the complexities without adding yet another level. Sure, in the Ophelia scene and a few others, but even there he keeps slipping out of character. He tries, but he’s not really an actor. His natural response to stress is to joke. Too much in the sun. The politic worms. The games with Polonius. The manic side of his depression.”

  “Right,” said Nick. “But that isn’t Claudius’s way. He’s very rational, always looking for the best way to present his case. I usually trust death scenes. And Claudius’s last two lines are lies. First he claims that Gertrude is just swooning at the sight of blood when she’s actually dying of his own poison. And his very last line is that he is just hurt, when he knows that Laertes’ poison is deadly. His very last line.”

  “Maybe he just doesn’t want to believe it,” said Brian.

  “Oh, I could play it that way. Self-deception. But I think he knows, and his ingrained response is to cover up, to lie.”

  Brian was frowning. “We have to be able to trust what he says, though, Nick. From the point of view of the play, he’s not just a character. He’s also presenting half the exposition. Fortinbras, the trip to England, the plots to kill Hamlet. That’s all straightforward.”

  “Not from his point of view,” Nick insisted. “The first time you see him, he’s playing to the court. It’s more rational to marry than to mourn, he tells them. He makes a big production out of being a statesman, sending messages to Norway to avoid war with Fortinbras. He butters up Polonius. And when he talks to Hamlet, he’s really playing to Gertrude, pretending love for her son.”

  “I see what you mean,” said Brian. “But I don’t understand why you want to change. I like the Claudius you’re giving me now. We agreed that you were to work on the statesman aspects of the character. I still think that’s the important thing.”

  “Oh, I don’t think I’ll have to change much of that,” said Nick. “I think most politicians are pretty good at playing to people. The best seem the most sincere.”

  “True.”

  “It’s just that in scene after scene now, I feel that I’m missing something essential. I’d like t
o try reading it this way for a while. A man of some ability, yes, but terrified and insecure in his position and his marriage. Constantly on edge, constantly plotting, constantly acting. I think I can make it work.”

  “Well, try it,” said Brian. “We can always pull back again if it doesn’t work.”

  “In his marriage?” Rob asked curiously. “I thought he and Gertrude were made for each other. Two cold fish. All that passion was just in Hamlet’s overheated young mind.”

  Nick smiled. “Grace and I haven’t worked that out yet. Maybe he feels real passion, maybe not. For now I’m assuming that her charm is in her inheritance.” He became thoughtful. “You know, though, if he really did have a grand passion for her, not just for her power, he’d be in heaven, wouldn’t he? The crown, sexual pleasure, peace with Norway. Paradise, except for this little matter of a murder, and all the supernatural powers being after him.”

  “Still,” said Rob astutely, “you won’t be able to manage any grand passions without Grace opening up more than I think she can.”

  Brian and Nick nodded in agreement. Grace, although a fascinating Queen to hear, was improving very slowly physically. It was difficult to play opposite her. The spontaneous communion that Rob and Lisette had created in their first reading of the “Get thee to a nunnery” scene, the electricity that ran under and beyond the dialogue, was completely inaccessible to Grace. Her readings were intelligent, and musical, but unconnected to what anyone else was doing.

  “Well,” said Nick, “one thing at a time. I’ll try my new interpretation first. Time enough to worry Grace later.”

  “My worry right now,” said Rob, “is getting Hamlet’s thoughtful scenes and his impulsive scenes to be part of the same person. I feel schizophrenic. When he follows the ghost, or stabs Polonius, or jumps into the grave to fight Laertes, he’s all action. But on the other hand he’s got all those soliloquies, all those qualms. I haven’t quite pulled it together.”

  “You’re right,” said Brian. “It is contradictory.”

  “He’s a perfectionist,” said Cheyenne from his wing chair.

  “How do you mean?”

  “It’s his father who was killed, his mother who was led astray.” The designer’s dark eyes glowed over his wineglass. “He can move fast, he knows how to fight. But he wants his revenge to be perfect. Appropriate. Plan carefully, then, when it’s time, act fast.”

  “He’s right,” said Nick. “Otherwise you’d stab me while I was praying, right?”

  “Yeah, I could work with that,” said Rob. “A bit like our own job, isn’t it? Long preparation and then split-second decisions when we’re finally on.”

  “Right,” said Brian, and then grunted. A small human form in red overalls had rocketed into his lap, splashing his Chianti all over his jeans and even Nick’s. “Jessie, you disgusting child! What are you doing?”

  A tiny face, hot and unhappy, peered up at him. “Gary’s pulling my hair,” she said in her thin child’s voice.

  “Gary!”

  Reluctantly, the second-smallest creature in the room came over to face his father. He was about six, Jessie around four. Brian said, “Okay, Gary, Jessie. Time to cut this out. It’s past your bedtime, you know.”

  “But you said we could stay up for the party!” Gary protested.

  “I said you could stay up if you behaved yourselves.”

  “She started it.”

  “I don’t care who started it. Anyway, who’s helping Mommy with the old beer cans?”

  “Me!” shouted Gary, and escaped excitedly into the crowd. Jessie launched herself after him but discovered that Brian still held her wrist.

  “Hey!” she protested.

  “No. There’s another job for us, kitten. There’s someone at the door.” Nick realized that there had been a bell a moment ago somewhere in the din. Brian took Jessie by the hand and they pushed through the crowd by the archway to answer it. Cheyenne drained his glass abruptly and followed them.

  Nick dabbed at his jeans with a paper napkin. There were only a few drops of Chianti on them.

  “You and Zetty going to have kids?” Rob asked, watching him.

  “If George can come up with parts for them, why not? The Seven Little O’Connors. Lynn and Vanessa O’Connor. Wolfgang Amadeus O’Connor.” He stopped. Rob was smiling at him gently.

  “You know,” said Rob, “we may end up playing each other in this show.”

  Nick smiled at the grain of truth. “Well,” he admitted, “I don’t really know about kids. Not soon.” He glanced across the room to where Lisette and David Wagner were talking earnestly by the archway, their plates of spaghetti ignored on the shelf beside them.

  Rob said, “Kathleen had a miscarriage once. But you know, while she was pregnant, I was probably the happiest man in the world.”

  Nick wadded up the napkin and threw it into the fire. “Yeah. Kids can be great. But it’s damn hard work just being married. Worse to involve other little people in the mess.”

  “I know. Part of the insane choice we make when we become actors. Maybe I was lucky at that. If she’d had the kid, she’d probably have custody now. Filling its little head with stories about big bad Daddy.” He smiled up at a point behind Nick. “Hey, how’re you doing up there, Jessie?”

  “Fine!” piped Jessie. She was riding on Maggie’s shoulders, clutching the black curls for balance. Brian and Paul Rigo and Ellen followed them. Maggie knelt neatly on the hearth rug and helped Jessie down.

  “Where have you people been?” asked Nick.

  “Putting up posters. Paul’s in a peace group,” explained Maggie, straightening Jessie’s red overalls.

  “Draft-card burnings and such?”

  “Yeah. Draft counseling,” said Paul. “Except I really don’t do much when there’s a show to build, of course.”

  “First things first,” said Nick, grinning.

  “Well…” Paul looked a little uncomfortable. “You know, I sort of go by what Cheyenne says. If you can be an artist—well, you know, help create a work of art—then that should be the main thing. Because that’s the purpose of life, isn’t it? You try to save lives but you also have to have something to save them for.”

  Rob smiled at him. “Well said, old mole.”

  “What’s your group doing now?” asked Nick.

  “There’s going to be a big peace march in the city. We’re doing some local organizing, mostly putting up posters and things. But I signed up to make the Uncle Sam effigy too.”

  “To be burned?”

  “No, no. Just carried along with a sign, something like ‘Does America stand for life or death?’”

  “Good question,” said Brian. “But right now let’s go get you people some food.” He and Paul started for the kitchen.

  “Maggie?” asked Ellen over her shoulder.

  “Join you in a minute,” said Maggie. She was sitting cross-legged on the rug, Jessie perched on one knee, and they were singing very quietly about an eentsy-weentsy spider, the long bony fingers and the tiny plump ones twisting and turning, parodies of each other.

  Rob smiled at Nick. “Too much,” he said.

  Maggie finished the song and gave Jessie a hug.

  “Say, Jessie,” she said, standing up, “you know what I need?”

  “What?”

  “Food. Where’s the food?”

  “Over here!” Jessie seized her tall friend’s index finger and pulled her toward the kitchen like a small tugboat.

  “As for me,” said Rob, “I’m going to fall fast asleep from this wine if I don’t move.”

  “Is that the Beatles I hear in the basement?” asked Nick.

  “Right! Dibs on your wife, Nick.”

  Nick laughed, and they went across to Lisette and David. “Deep conversation here,” observed Rob.

  David smiled at him. “We were talking about growing up together.”

  Lisette was wearing a silky cream-colored tunic that draped softly along the line of breasts and lo
ng back. She explained, “He means Laertes and Ophelia.”

  “Shop talk,” said Rob severely. “Shame on you.”

  “Oh, it’s the latest thing; everyone here is talking shop,” she said.

  David added mischievously, “I distinctly heard the word ‘Laertes’ from your corner. To say nothing of ‘politic worms.’” Rob, unembarrassed, said, “Well, we’re stopping now.”

  “Actually,” said Nick to Lisette, “Rob is trying to get up enough courage to ask you to dance.”

  “Hey, great idea!” Lisette was enthusiastic. “Let me just finish my spaghetti.”

  Nick took the paper plate from her. “Later. Rob needs to dance.”

  The stairs to the basement were off the kitchen, where Deborah Wright stood wearily in front of a stack of used paper plates. She was filling a plastic bag, held solemnly open by little Gary. Nick went to her, dropped Lisette’s plate into the bag and put his arm around her waist.

  “Deborah! Come dance with me!”

  “What?” Startled dark eyes. “Me? But I have to clean up.”

  “Gary can tell Maggie what to do. Can’t you, Gary?”

  “Sure,” said the boy confidently.

  “Of course he can,” agreed Maggie, mouth full. She was working her way like a tornado through an enormous pile of spaghetti.

  “Come on, Deborah,” Nick urged. “It’s a great party. Join it!”

  “Well, maybe just for a minute.” She took off her apron and allowed Nick to escort her downstairs. A big room, dusky, banquettes around the edges, a table in the far corner. Lots of cigarette smoke, beams of light slicing through the haze, loud music. “Nice lighting,” shouted Nick to Deborah over the beat.

  “Yes. Cheyenne designed it for us.”

  “Where is he?”

  “He left early. Never has been the party type.”

  Then they were at the bottom of the stairs. As Nick guided Deborah to a space on the floor, he saw Lisette and Rob dancing happily not far away. They had gravitated to a spot with golden cross-lighting that made their fair skin glow and struck sparks from the bouncing hair. Jason was nearby, tall and well-coordinated, dancing with tawny-haired Laura. Something had gone wrong between Jim and Ellen, Nick saw; they were both dancing with technical crew members.