Finally she brought herself to say, ‘Go home and write your comedy, Nik. If there was ever a need for laughter, it’s now.’
Nik’s comedy was always compassionate, never cynical. What Nik had to say about the dark complexities of human relations he said with laughter, and audiences laughed and loved him. The play he wrote back in New York was based on Everard’s experiences, but Nik somehow managed to fill the lines with laughter without losing the depths. It was a passionate anti-war statement clothed in comedy. It was probably the best work he had done.
But when it opened it was not a success. Patriotism was still high, and people were not ready for a call to turn swords into ploughshares.
Emma was back in New York, in rehearsal for Chekhov’s The Three Sisters. ‘Your play’s good, Nik, it’s more than just good. The critics pointed out that the timing wasn’t right. Brooks Atkinson said that the play was so fine it should be revived in a few years when public opinion has changed.’
‘You’re my loyal supporter,’ Nik said.
‘I’m not just loyal. I’m truthful.’
‘I know. Thank you. Emma, when I graduated from high school I was third from the top in my class. So I was neither valedictorian nor salutatorian. From my father’s reaction, you’d have thought I came in the dunce at the bottom. Third was not good enough.’ They were in bed, their pillows propped up against the great oaken bedstead. Nik leaned his head back, looking, she thought, like Hamlet.
‘Seems to me third was pretty good.’
‘My father thought I was a failure who’d come to no good. That’s what the critics think.’
‘Nonsense. You know that’s absurd. What about your mother? Didn’t she count on you to be a writer?’
‘Dostoevsky. At the very least. Not light comedies which don’t make it.’
‘Hey, Nik, stop it.’
For a while he was silent. Emma picked up Chekhov’s Letters and read a page.
Finally Nik said, ‘You think it’s self-flagellation, eh? Masochism?’
‘I don’t think you need to accept anybody else’s assessment of you and your work. It’s a good play. You’re a fine writer.’
‘You believe that?’
‘I do.’
‘You’re prejudiced.’
‘Probably. I’m also intelligent enough to know good work when I see it. Nik, I think I’m glad I never knew your parents. But you’re not whoever it was they wanted you to be, and who no son could possibly be; you’re yourself. Don’t be hung up on their fantasies.’
Nik reached out for her hand. ‘You’re right, my Em, you’re right. We mustn’t do this to our children. We have to let them be who they are.’
Emma was again three weeks late for her period, but she was seldom regular. She did not want to be too hopeful.
‘I’ll try not to take my disappointment out on you,’ Nik promised.
He did try, though he was not entirely successful.
Emma threw herself into her role, spending hours reading Chekhov’s letters to his wife, and his instructions as to how Masha was to be played—against the lines, against the darkness, lightly, with laughter.
They spent a weekend with Marical, but Nik was restless. He tried to be sociable, and perhaps it was good for Marical to turn from her own grief and worry about Nik.
When Nik went for a walk, Emma sat in the kitchen with Marical. ‘His play got stupid reviews,’ Emma said.
‘I read them. Unfair.’
‘Very. But they stirred up all Nik’s old self-doubts. He’s working on another play now, a serious drama about Bramwell Brontë.’
‘Why doesn’t he do another comedy?’
‘He wants to be taken as a serious playwright.’
‘I think his comedies are serious plays,’ Marical said.
‘So do I.’
‘Emma, are you all right? You look a little washed out.’
‘I got my period this morning. This time I really hoped I was pregnant.’
‘You worry about it too much,’ Marical said. ‘That’s not good.’
‘I know it’s not good.’
Marical looked slowly around her kitchen, at the pot of geraniums on the table, the fuchsia in a hanging basket in the window, the bird feeder outside. ‘I had a letter from Everard today. My one living son. I’m learning to let go, to move back into life. It isn’t just worries about not conceiving that you’re hanging on to, Emma.’
Emma smiled at her stepmother. ‘If you can let go, I should be able to, shouldn’t I? And I have a husband I love. Why haven’t you ever married again, Marical?’
Marical returned Emma’s smile. ‘I’ve thought about it a couple of times. But everybody seems pale, after David. Despite all his faults, his selfishness, what I love is his élan vital.’
‘He doesn’t have it now.’
‘I have two sons to grieve for. David has three. His joie will return. It will take time, but it will return.’
Emma believed Marical, but her own vitality was at a low ebb. For Nik she tried to be lighthearted, and working on The Three Sisters helped. It was a good cast, a good director. She could be proud of what they were doing.
It opened to distinguished reviews. Emma’s ‘unusual’ conception of Masha was remarked on and generally approved.
‘It’s not unusual,’ Emma said. ‘I’m just playing it the way Chekhov wanted his wife, Olga, to play it.’
Sophie had come backstage to see Emma, waiting until other well-wishers had left and the two of them were alone in the dressing room. ‘You’re marvelous,’ Sophie said. ‘You make me believe utterly in Masha, and care.’ She was nervously fingering the hem of her silk coat.
‘Sophie, what’s the matter?’
Sophie’s eyes brimmed with tears. ‘Emma, I didn’t want you to hear this from anybody else. I’m going to marry Ulysses.’
‘Who?’ Emma looked at her stepmother in shock.
‘He owns the gym where I exercise. I can’t stand it any longer, Davie’s darkness. He’s pulling me into it with him. Louis’s voice is changing. He’s an acolyte now, but he’ll be leaving the Choir School at the end of the semester, and I can’t have him come home to Davie’s gloom. Ulysses—he isn’t the gorgeous lover that Davie can be, but at least he’s more consistent. And consistency is what Louis needs.’
‘And you?’ Emma asked.
‘Oh, Em, are you angry?’
‘I’m just—surprised. Maybe I shouldn’t be. I’ve been like Papa, preoccupied with my own griefs and problems. I know it must be impossible for you.’
‘That’s it,’ Sophie said. ‘Impossible. I wish it weren’t. Davie’s going into rehearsal for Uncle Vanya next week, or I wouldn’t—oh, Emma, Emma, I’m sorry, sorry, sorry …’ Her words dissolved into sobs, and she flung her arms around Emma.
Sorry sorry sorry
Emma left the theater, took a cab, went to her father’s apartment. He was sitting at a small table in the living room, playing cards with a blondined actress who had been cast in a small role in Uncle Vanya.
Emma flung her handbag on the floor in a rage. Stalked over to her father. ‘No wonder Sophie left you. What do you think you’re doing?’
He stood up, knocking half the cards on the floor. The blonde bent and started picking them up.
‘Just go,’ Emma said.
‘Who the hell do you think you are?’ the blonde asked.
‘Go,’ Emma ordered. ‘Get out.’ She was smaller than the other woman, but she approached her fiercely.
The actress shrugged, dropping some cards on the table. ‘Okay, I’m off. See ya, Dave.’
Emma followed her to the door, bolted it, turned back to her father. ‘I came to be with you because Sophie told me she was leaving. I don’t know why she stayed with you as long as she did. Why can’t you work your problems out instead of dumping them down the drain and turning to some new female to fix it all for you?’
David looked at his daughter, his mouth opening in astonishment.
‘She’s not—’ David started, but Emma overrode him.
‘Or Myrlo. Don’t you realize Myrlo was a disaster for us all? What is it that blinds you to what you’re doing? Why on earth did you throw Sophie into this gym character’s arms? Don’t you know she loves you? Don’t you realize what a treasure you had? Don’t you even care?’
“Sorry,” David Wheaton said. “I have been a selfish bastard all my life. I’ve done what I wanted, even when it’s hurt other people.”
Emma sat on the revolving seat, her hands lightly on the wheel, looking out over the water. She had gone to comfort her father and instead had shouted her rage at him. She could not now remember all that she had said, about his gloom, his giving in. She had ordered him to get back into life, not lust.
David continued. “If I hadn’t given in to the horrors of my darkness after Adair and Etienne were killed, Sophie might not have left me. It was a mistake, her marrying Ulysses, and I just let her do it.”
“Hey, Papa,” Emma said. “Sophie has some free will of her own, you know. It was her mistake, not yours, and so was Gino.”
“But if she hadn’t left me—”
“Where would Alice be?” Emma asked, as Alice came up the steps to the pilothouse.
“You mean,” David asked with a smile, “that I’m trying to be the author of the play, not just an actor?”
“Maybe. We all make mistakes.”
“Sounds like a heavy conversation,” Alice said.
David moved restlessly. “It’s noisy here, kids yelling and screaming, dogs barking—”
“It hurts you, doesn’t it?” Alice asked.
“Yes.”
“As soon as Nik comes, we’ll leave the dock and head for a quiet inlet. You’ll be better away from the confusion.”
“Am I being selfish again?” The question was earnest.
Emma said, “None of us likes the noise at the dock. We’ll all be happier when we get back in the wilderness.”
When Nik comes—
Nik had felt real pain for Abigail, for Bathsheba. For the characters in Everard’s hospital. For all his imaginary people. As a writer, he went deep into the emotions of his characters.
Emma’s fists clenched. For his characters, yes, Nik empathized. But what about real life? And what did she expect?
Ups and downs, which is how life usually runs along, over hills, into valleys, occasionally into dark holes, up again into the light. They had been married five years when Emma became pregnant.
Well into the fifth month she felt the first lovely flutterings of life. The baby was very real to them. They were ecstatic. Nik’s Brontë play had failed, but he now had a successful comedy on Broadway. Emma was in a play of Marlowe’s with a limited run, closing in another week, which was why she had been able to accept the job. Her costume had been let out a little in order to disguise the gentle swelling of her belly. At bedtime Nik loved to put his ear against her stomach, listening, feeling for the little movements of the life within.
It was winter, cold, raw. And, one night, icy. Nik came to call for Emma after her show. When they left the theater it was sleeting, and the iron stage-door stairs were slick with ice. Emma slipped and fell. Nik, trying frantically to hold her, fell, too.
Members of the cast huddled around her, frightened, not knowing what to do. Finally they took her into the emptied theater. Called a doctor. Before he came she had started into premature labor.
‘Get a taxi,’ Nik said. ‘I’ve got to get her to the hospital.’
Nik was not allowed into the delivery room with her. A nurse held her hand during the contractions. And then the baby came.
The doctor said reluctantly, ‘He’s dead, Mrs. Green.’
‘I want to see him.’
‘Better not.’
‘Please.’
So tiny. He had been barely a bulge in Emma’s womb. Tiny, a baby boy, tiny, dead.
‘It’s over, Mrs. Green,’ the doctor said. ‘Let it go.’
Let it go? It? He was a lost life. And they expected Emma just to let it—him—go? To get on with it. They were briskly kind. Called her Mrs. Green. Which of course she was. But she was also Emma Wheaton. That was not only her stage name, it was her identity. Mrs. Green was Nik’s mother.
‘Now cheer up, Mrs. Green. See? Here are some lovely flowers.’
Nik turned his grief into rage. Rage against fate, rage against Emma for falling, for losing the baby. Emma was too full of her own grief to understand that Nik’s rage was his defense against anguish. She needed him and he wasn’t there. He came dutifully to the hospital each day, bearing flowers or lavender water, stayed five minutes, and left.
David sent roses. He was in Boston, trying out a new play.
The cast of Emma’s play sent a great basket of fruit. Some of the women came to see her, to commiserate. ‘We’ll all be out of work again at the end of the week,’ someone said. ‘We’re having good houses. I don’t know why they can’t let it run a little longer.’
‘So what’s new? We’ll be making the rounds again.’
‘We’ll see you, Em. You’ll probably get a job soon.’
‘If we pick up any news about casting at the Astor, we’ll let you know.’
They were trying to draw her back into life, and she felt dead, as dead as her baby.
Sophie, divorced from David but still in touch, sat on the edge of Emma’s hospital bed. ‘It’s men,’ she said: ‘They simply can’t cope. When men hurt, they get mad, or they run away.’ Then she started to cry. ‘I shouldn’t dump on men. I ran away when Davie needed me most. He was dragging me down into the pit with him, and I had to climb out or die.’ She wiped her eyes. ‘But forgive Nik, Emma, forgive him. He can’t help it. It’s too much for him.’
—What about me? Emma thought, but was silent. The words were self-pitying and her feelings ugly as well as wounded.
She woke up from a dream sobbing, and calling out, ‘Adair! Adair!’
But Adair could not come to her.
Canon Tallis from the Cathedral came, the bald young priest who had been in the background when Grandpa Bowman married Emma and Nik. He stood shyly in the doorway. Asked diffidently if he could come in. He pulled a chair up to her bed and sat there quietly, not saying anything, looking at her with sorrowing brown eyes. Canon Tallis was a friend of her father’s, she remembered, an admirer of his work.
‘Your father is a great actor,’ he said, ‘and you, too, Miss Wheaton, it’s evidently in your genes. I saw The Three Sisters. Your interpretation of Masha was subtle, but every nuance was clear. It will help when you can go back to work.’
‘I suppose. If I get a job.’
The priest cleared his throat. ‘I talked with your grandfather last night.’
‘Grandpa!’
‘He called me. He believes that the baby should have had a funeral.’
Emma said bitterly, ‘That’s not scientific nowadays. Just some dead tissue.’
‘A little boy. Did he have a name?’
‘If it was a boy we were going to name him after my grandfather, Wesley Bowman. Grandpa was happy about that. And now—’
‘He is still honored,’ the canon said. ‘Tomorrow morning I will celebrate the 7:15 Eucharist. I will make baby Wesley my intention. I wish you could be there, but your doctor says you are still running a little fever. However—do you have a Prayer Book?’
Emma indicated a pile of books on the shelf of her bed table. ‘I have my grandmother’s. Sophie brought it.’
He picked it up, opened it, and gave it to her. ‘You can follow along. I know that the doctor told you to let your baby go. I, top, tell you to let him go, but with a difference. I know where he is going.’
That helped. Emma went home. The world was still
strange, but she went to auditions and got a role in a revival of an Oscar Wilde comedy. Nik’s play was doing well, and he was working on a new one. The David play, if he thought of it at all, had long been shoved in the back of his filing cabinet.
Grandpa Bowman died of a heart attack while he was preaching, only a few weeks after Emma lost the baby. It was a quick death, the way he would have wanted to go, doing the work he loved. Emma missed him fiercely.
“Grandpa Bowman died suddenly, with no time for preparations,” David Wheaton said. They were sitting in the pilothouse, drinking a late cup of tea. Emma had a casserole waiting in the oven; it would be ready no matter when Nik arrived.
“Grandpa was prepared,” Emma said.
“Yes, I believe he was. He had less to answer for than I. My children. At least Everard came home safely. He took over, pulled strings, got his mother and Chantal to Mooréa. I’m repeating myself. I don’t like that. I do love my children.”
Emma looked at him with concern. “We know you love us.”
“You are very special to me, my daughter. Not many actors have the joy I have had in working with you. In many ways you have kept me going. You and Louis—and Jarvis—are all I have left. I won’t see Chantal or Everard again. Mooréa is far, far away.”
“But they love you, Papa.” Emma’s voice was firm. “Chantal sends you pictures of her French husband and her children. Everard sends you pictures of his pineapple plantation.”
“Marical wouldn’t let them hate me. But there were things she would not tolerate. The first slip I made—” He sighed. “So I married Harriet because I didn’t know what else to do. People tended to get married in those days, even in the wicked world of the theater, and Harriet had a prima donna’s cool beauty. Jarvis was an accident—she didn’t want children. How kind Marical’s boys—and Chantal—were to Jarvis, never seeing him as the cause of Marical’s and my divorce, but treating him as a brother. Jarvis is both Adonijah and Joab to me. And my son. Has anybody called him?”
“I will, Papa,” Emma said, “or I’ll get Nik to, as soon as he goes home.”
“When’s Nik coming?” the old actor asked impatiently, wincing, shifting position. Alice looked at him sharply.
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