by Joan Wolf
She had a seat in the third row and looked around her, trying to pick out the critics. The lights were dimming when George slipped into the seat next to hers. “That’s Calder there,” he murmured in her ear,
Mary stared at the gray head in front of her. “Oh.” The lights went out and she closed her eyes, breathing a wordless prayer of supplication. When she opened them the curtain was slowly rising, revealing Dan Palmer and Mark Ellis, two of her students, dressed as soldiers. “Who’s there?” said Mark sharply. The play was on.
Mary sat tensely throughout the first scene. George had handled the ghost very skillfully, she thought, using shadows and a tape recorder. The stage was cleared and then, with a fanfare of trumpets, the court swept on.
In center stage, on twin gilt chairs, sat Alfred Block and Margot Chandler—the King and Queen. Surrounding them was a mass of courtiers dressed in bright clothing: Melvin Shaw as Polonius, Frank Moore as Laertes, Carolyn Nash as Ophelia, and various other students. In the corner, apart, wearing severe black, was Kit. Alfred began his speech:
Though yet of Hamlet our dear brother’s death
The memory be green, and that is us befitted To bear our hearts in grief...
Alfred’s voice was strong, his bearing dominant, but Mary’s whole attention was focused on the still, black figure in the corner. Gradually, as the scene went on, she realized that she was not alone in her reaction. The people seated around her were watching Kit as well. Finally came the line she was waiting for: “But, now, my cousin Hamlet, and my son—” said Alfred.
Kit didn’t look up, didn’t move, but his whole tense figure seemed to quiver at the words. “A little more than kin, and less than kind!” His beautiful voice was edged with bitterness and scorn. Next to her Mary heard George let out his breath, as though he had been holding it for a long time.
George’s confidence seemed to increase as the first act progressed. At the end of it—as Kit said despairingly:
“The time is out of joint, 0 cursed spite, That ever I was born to set it right!”
—George leaned over and whispered to Mary, “He’s pulling it off. He didn’t have this in rehearsals.”
At the first intermission it seemed that the audience agreed with George. Mary wandered around the lobby, assiduously eavesdropping, and general opinion seemed to be that Kit was remarkably good. As Mary heard one lady say to her friend, “My dear, that voice! I think I could listen to him recite the telephone directory and be happy.”
The audience settled back in their chairs and the play resumed. It opened with Act III, the “To be or not to be” soliloquy, and the nunnery scene. And it was then that Mary, and the rest of the audience as well, began to realize what it was that they were seeing. Kit seemed to have himself under iron control. His voice was harsh and low; only twice did he forget himself and begin to shout. But the force of emotion he generated was overpowering: the anger, the pain, the furious sense of betrayal, it was all there. You have to be scary, George had told him. He was.
And he was so much more. He reached into the heart of the character and laid bare all the anguish that underlay Hamlet’s wild and enigmatic behavior. The blighted ideals, the betrayed love, the aching uncertainty, and above all else, the poignant and unbearable loneliness. His big scene with Margot, the one that George had rehearsed and rehearsed yesterday, was absolutely shattering. When it was over, Mary realized, a little dazedly, that Kit had been right about Margot. She made the perfect Gertrude: lovely, sexual, affectionate, but shallow. The power of the scene came from the contrast between her grief and repentance, which manifested itself in easy tears, and his, which was harsh and violent, tearing apart his heart and his mind.
The intermission that followed this scene was different from the first one. People were quiet now, almost subdued. No one showed a disposition to linger over his cigarette and stillness had fallen over the auditorium even before the lights had begun to dim for the opening of Act IV.
The last two acts were stunning in their emotional impact. What moved Mary more than anything else was the way she could see aspects of Kit’s real character coming through the words and emotions of Hamlet. When he leaped into Ophelia’s grave after Laertes, his bitter searing anger reminded her vividly of the morning he had gone after Jason Razzia.
The final dueling scene with Frank Moore had the audience on the edge of their seats. “Frank fenced on his college team,” George murmured in Mary’s ear. “That was one of the reasons I chose him for Laertes.”
Kit’s fencing was a match for Frank’s. He must have put in long hours of practice, thought Mary, as she watched the swords flashing on stage. The final moment had almost arrived: the infuriated Laertes, unable to break through Hamlet’s guard, stabbed his unsuspecting opponent between bouts with his sharp and poisoned sword. There was a moment of breathless silence as Kit looked down at his wounded arm and realized for the first time that Laertes was playing with a sharp sword. His eyes narrowed, his breath hissed between his teeth, and he advanced on Laertes, sword up.
The two men began to fight again, not in a sporting contest this time, but for blood. The clash of swords and the heaviness of their breathing were the only sounds in the entire theater. Finally Kit, with a strong skillful stroke, struck the sword from Laertes hand. Bending, he picked it up. Slowly he held out to Laertes his own sword, which was blunt and harmless. His face was implacable, and Laertes, knowing as he did that the sword Kit retained was not only sharp but also tipped with deadly poison, was forced to accept. The fight resumed.
Mary’s hands were clasped tensely in her lap. She knew what would happen, even knew the exact words that would be spoken, but when they came, when Kit cried out in a terrible voice of mingled anguish and fury;
“O villainy! Ho! let the door be locked. Treachery! Seek it out,”
she felt her hand go, involuntarily, to her throat.
It stayed there throughout the remainder of the scene, as Adam Truro, playing Horatio, clasped the dying Hamlet in his arms. His broken voice uttering the famous farewell, “Good night, sweet prince, and flights of angels sing thee to thy rest!” brought stinging tears to her eyes.
There was the sound of drums and Eric Lindquist, blond, handsome, boyish Eric, playing Fortinbras, came marching in. His clear blue eyes swept around the stage, littered with the corpses of Laertes, Gertrude, Claudius, and Hamlet. He reared his golden head: “I have some rights of memory in this kingdom,” he said clearly, “which now to claim my vantage doth invite me.”
The contrast was devastating: the brilliant, tortured, complex Hamlet and this sunshiny boy who saw in the cataclysmic ruin before him only his own advantage.
The muffled drums began to roll and four students stepped forward to lift Kit’s still body up, high in the air above their heads. Eric’s voice rolled out across the audience, over the drums:
Let four captains
Bear Hamlet like a soldier to the stage,
For he was likely, had he been put on,
To have proved most royal; and for his passage
The soldiers’ music and the rite of war
Speak loudly for him.
The soldiers carrying Kit moved slowly up the scaffolding that represented the castle steps. In the distance a gun began to shoot. They reached the top of the scaffolding and stood still, Kit’s body still raised high above them. The curtain fell.
For fully half a minute there was not a sound in the theater. Then the clapping began, at first a ripple, then a growing tide as the curtain calls began. Tremendous applause greeted the supporting cast, with Margot getting the biggest hand of all. Then, out on to the stage to join his fellow performers, came Kit. The theater erupted in a storm of acclaim. He smiled, bowed, and held out his hands to Margot and Carolyn. The curtain came down but the clapping refused to subside. At last it came up again to reveal Kit, alone on the stage. The audience rose to its feet in thunderous ovation. Mary felt herself crying. It was the most overwhelming tribute she had ev
er heard an audience bestow on a performer. She turned to look at George. His face was glowing. “You did it.” He seemed to be talking to Kit across the avalanche of sound. “I wasn’t sure if you would, but by Christ you pulled it out. Best goddamn Hamlet I ever saw.”
Mary picked up her purse to fish for a tissue. “And you directed it,” she said shakily.
“No.” He shook his head and looked at her. “No one directed what Chris did tonight. That he did all by himself.” He grinned. “The SOB was saving it up. And I was scared to death. Wait until I get my hands on him.” The crowd was beginning to move toward exits. “I’m going backstage,” said George to Mary. Coming?”
“Not just yet,” she replied. “You go ahead.” As he walked toward the front of the theater she took her place in the crowd that was leaving by the rear exit.
Chapter Twelve
She went back to her cottage and sat down in the living room. She understood now what Kit meant when he had said that to do Hamlet well he would have to reveal himself. In order to portray the emotions he had this evening he had first to have felt them. And then he had to show what he had felt up there on the stage.
Kit was a very private person. His strong feelings about his privacy had always been a source of despair to his agent and to the various publicity people who had been associated with his pictures. Mary understood that part of him, that passionate feeling of not wanting to be exposed, written about, journalized. For such a man to do what he had done tonight—the sheer blazing courage it had taken to get up on a stage and reveal all that-—shook her profoundly.
She felt that for the first time since she had known him she was seeing him as he really was. She had never associated him with any weakness. He was so splendidly male, so tough and strong, such a dominant lover; he had seemed invulnerable to her. But tonight she had seen something else. She had seen a man who knew what it was to love, to be rejected, to be betrayed, and above all, to be alone.
For the first time she considered the possibility that she had failed him more deeply than he had failed her. She had never given him a chance. She had driven him away, and in so doing she had hurt him badly. She had seen that tonight, in the scene with Ophelia.
She thought of all that she had seen tonight and she felt humbled and ashamed and cowardly. She had been so afraid of being hurt herself that she had taken no thought for the hurt she might be inflicting. And she claimed she loved him. Poor Kit, she thought. He deserved better. He had told her once that she saw through to the heart of him, but that wasn’t true. If she had, she would not have sent him away without giving him a chance to explain.
He would be tied up with the cast party for a while, but she didn’t want to see him in a crowd of people. And she wanted to see him tonight—she felt she must see him tonight. She left her cottage and walked resolutely next door to his, went in and curled up on the sofa, prepared to wait.
He came about an hour later. There was a frown on his face as he pushed the door open; the light had warned him someone was waiting for him. “It’s only me,” she said quietly from the sofa.
“Mary!” He sounded surprised and a wary look came over his face. “What are you doing here?” He came into the room and dropped rather heavily into the wing chair. She noted with a pang of anxiety that he looked very tired.
Now that she faced him she didn’t quite know what to say. He looked so weary. She said with a curious note of huskiness and uncertainty in her voice, “I only came to tell you that if you still want me back, I’ll come. But if you tell me to get out, I certainly won’t blame you.”
He closed his eyes. All the muscles in his face wait rigid. When he opened them again he said, “Do you mean it this time? I don’t think I can take it if you change your mind again.”
Tears began to pour down her face. “Oh, darling, I’m so sorry. I’ve been so horrible. And I love you so much. Please, please take me back.” She wasn’t sure who made the first move, but three seconds later she was in his lap, locked in his arms, her head buried in his shoulder. She continued to cry. “I’ve been so afraid of you, afraid of loving you,” she got out “You hurt me so much before.”
“I know I did,” he replied. His own voice was husky with emotion. “Mary”—his arms tightened, his lips were in her hair—”I was so sorry about the baby, sweetheart, I was so sorry.”
Her body was shaking with sobs but she made no attempt to stop them. She felt as if a hard knot that had been lodged within her for four years was slowly dissolving and washing away with her tears. “I blamed you,” she said into his shoulder.
“I know,” he repeated. “I knew, as soon as I got that call from your mother, that I had made the biggest mistake of my life in neglecting you. All the way in on the plane, I knew it in my bones.”
“But why, Kit? Why didn’t you ever call me? Why did you just—disappear?”
“It was unforgivable. I know that now—I knew it as soon as I got your mother’s call. But I was like a man driven, Mary. I pushed everything that wasn’t my career to the back of my mind—and that included you. I knew this was my only chance to make it and I just grabbed everything that could possibly be useful.
Even Jessica Corbet. I didn’t go to bed with her, but I didn’t try to squash those rumors either. I think I must have been a little mad.”
“Your only chance?” Her sobs were lessening now and she lifted her head to look at him. “What do you mean?”
“I mean that if I hadn’t made it with The Russian Experiment—if I hadn’t gotten another picture with a good salary out of it—I was going to quit acting.”
Her eyes were great blue pools of astonishment. “Quit acting! But why?”
“Because I was going to be a father and I was damned if I’d have my kid raised the way I was. I had to give him financial security. And I was damned if I was going to let you stop your studies because we couldn’t afford a baby-sitter. I have a math degree—-I was going to see if I couldn’t get a job in computers.”
“Computers!” She couldn’t have looked more horrified if he had said he was going to run numbers. He smiled a little at her expression. “But why didn’t you tell me?”
“Because of the way you look now,” he replied. “And I thought that if I put everything I had into it, that I would make good in Hollywood. And I did. But in the process I lost everything that mattered.” He put his cheek against her hair and held her to him. “I lost my son. And I lost you.” There was a long moment of silence, then he said, as if he found the words difficult, “Where did you bury him?”
She felt a fierce pain about her heart at what she had shut him out from. “In St. Thomas’s, next to my grandparents; I’ll take you there if you like.”
“Yes” he said very low. I’d like that.”
She closed her eyes. “I was such a beast,” she whispered.
“No, you weren’t. You weren’t in any state to listen to explanations. I realized that and that’s why I did what you asked and left. After I thought you had had a chance to recover a little, I wrote you. I wrote you twice, telling you just what I’ve told you tonight. But you never answered.”
“I tore the letters up.”
“I see.” His voice was flat.
“I told you I blamed you.” She took her head out of his shoulder and spoke somberly. “If there’s one thing the Irish know how to do. Kit, it’s nurse a grudge. I’m really not a very nice person. I don’t know why you even want me back.”
He smiled at her and there was pain as well as tenderness in his look. “No, you’re not ‘nice.’ You are intelligence and integrity, beauty and passion. It’s like touching solid ground in a quagmire to touch you again.”
She cupped his face between her hands. “I never really thought you needed me,” she said. “Not like I needed you.”
“You seem to have gotten along fine without me,” he returned. His face was very still between her palms. “You have your job, your family.”
She kissed him. “I was operatin
g on half a heart” She kissed him again and felt him begin to smile.
“I know. All these years I’ve felt as if something of me was left out. It’s only when I’m with you that I feel that I’m a whole person again.”
She sighed and snuggled, if possible, even closer. “To think we owe all this to that wretched magazine,” she murmured.
“What magazine, sweetheart?”
“The one that found out we were married and spread my picture all over the front page. If it hadn’t been for that, you would never have come to see me. ‘And I would never have told you I was working at Yarborough.”
“True,” he sounded a little cautious.
“You did come to Yarborough because you knew I’d be here, didn’t you?”
“Yes.”
“I thought the whole setup was too neat to be a coincidence,” she said complacently.
“Actually, I called my agent right after I saw you.” He was speaking slowly, carefully, as if testing her reaction: “I told him just to get me in, I’d play any part. It was only luck that Adrian Saunders got that movie offer. Otherwise I might have been stealing one of the student’s parts.”
She sat back on his lap and stared at him. “Good heavens, I’d no idea you’d done that. I thought that when the part became available you’d taken it because you knew I would be here.”
“No.” He looked measuringly into her eyes and seemed to be reassured by what he saw there. “I have another confession to make.”
She compressed her lips a little. “What is it?”
“I was the one who leaked the story of our marriage to Personality.”
“You what!” Her eyes were wide with incredulity.
“I leaked the story,” he repeated. “I was desperate to see you again and I couldn’t think of any reason for me to present myself. And then, too, I thought that making the marriage public would force you to do something about it. You hadn’t even tried to get a legal separation, so I hoped that maybe there was a chance you’d consider coming back to me.”
