Riordan blinked. “What are you asking?”
“That home you live in,” Paul said, “the one that gives you day passes. Some of your neighbours have delusions?”
“Some.” Riordan shrugged. “All kinds of people check themselves in. Some have drug problems. Others just need encouragement. No one believes they are Elvis if that’s what you’re asking.”
Paul didn’t know what he was asking. Riordan was a voluntary patient? No one had committed him and locked him in a padded room? Paul almost asked why Riordan was there but lost his nerve.
“I guess I’m asking how you would know if I was delusional or really seeing the ghost of your dead friend.”
Riordan nodded. “A fair question. And one I can’t answer. I’m no expert. And from what I’ve seen, even the experts can’t tell a delusion from a dream. To be honest with you, I’m not here for your peace of mind. I’m only trying to ease mine. I’m hoping that seeing Scarlet, even if it is just through you, will help me in some small way.”
Paul was stunned. The Simon Riordan he had known was the most giving person in the world. Mr. Riordan had spent more one-on-one time with his students than any teacher Paul had ever met, including himself.
Now that he thought about it, Paul couldn’t remember the last time he had helped any student who needed extra time. He hated to admit it, but he was probably more like the Simon Riordan standing in front of him now than the Mr. Riordan he had idolized in high school. Was that his path? To become the sorry, skeleton of a man who stood before him?
Paul refused to accept it. He had turned to drama then to teaching because this man had shown him that it could be an honourable, enjoyable profession. That Riordan had turned his back on that was on him. Paul would have no part of it. No. Paul Samson would be the better man. If Riordan wanted a conversation with Scarlet for the sole purpose of easing his own mind and not give a damn about Paul’s problems, so be it.
He looked around for Scarlet, eager to get this over with, and discovered she was nowhere in sight. He realized that he hadn’t seen or heard her since shortly after the students had left.
“Is she here?” Riordan asked.
Paul let out a breath. “No. She left when you said you didn’t want to meet with her.”
Scene 2: Ghosts Will Haunt Me Still
“Didn’t Simple Simon used to be bigger?” asked Agatha.
“Bigger?” Gertrude grinned wickedly. “Have you been sticking your nose where it doesn’t belong?”
“Of shoulder,” Agatha said, her face darkening to the colour and texture of rhubarb. “The man used to be a turnip: broad of shoulder, narrow of waist, tiny of feet.”
“I think you mean he was a carrot,” Netty said. “Turnips have broad waists as well as shoulders.”
“You’re both wrong,” Gertrude said. “Carrots are tall and thin. Heh. The man was a squash.”
Silence ensued while the witches considered Gertrude’s metaphor.
“But,” said Agatha, “squash comes in all shapes and sizes.”
“Round like a pumpkin,” suggested Netty, who was herself round like a pumpkin.
“Tubular like zucchini,” said Agatha
“Pear-shaped like a gourd,” Netty added.
“And everything in between,” said Agatha. “I once saw a squash shaped like the Louvre.”
The other two witches stared at her.
“You know,” said Agatha. “The squash-shaped façade at the south end.”
“Not the Louvre,” said Gertrude. “You must be thinking of the Guggenheim. East side. Definitely squash shaped.”
“Am I hearing this correctly?” asked Netty. “The two of you are arguing over buildings that resemble squash?”
“I’m not arguing,” said Agatha. “I don’t even like squash. I’ll take a turnip over a squash any day.”
“But many buildings do resemble squash,” Gertrude insisted. “The Appledore House in Wotton-under-Edge for example. Architects often borrow from nature. Why not borrow squash?”
“That’s—” Agatha began. “No, you’ll not get me talking about squash. I’ve had it up to here with your rambling about squash, and earwax, and what men like to talk about. You should win an award for inane conversation.”
“I did win an award,” Gertrude admitted. “Not for inane conversation. Heh. For thinking outside the box.”
“No such thing,” said Agatha. “Outside the box is a recent turn of phrase. Hadn’t been invented when they were giving out awards.”
Gertrude grinned. “They called it the Unconventional Witch award, for doing things differently.”
The two witches laughed.
“What?” asked Gertrude. “I earned my award fair and square.”
“That’s not an award,” said Netty. “It’s a reprimand.”
Agatha chortled like an ailing coffee pot. “Witches aren’t supposed to be unconventional.”
“How?” Netty demanded. “Would anyone know that we’re witches if we kept changing up the way we do things?”
“Tradition is the key,” said Agatha. “Bubbling cauldrons.”
“Curses,” said Netty.
Agatha nodded. “Cackling.”
“Gingerbread houses,” suggested Gertrude.
The other two looked at her.
“That was you with the gingerbread house?” Agatha’s eyes were agog.
Gertrude grinned. “Just before I got my award.”
“No wonder you were reprimanded,” Netty said. “Witches don’t do gingerbread.”
“It took me a whole month to bake it.” Gertrude said. “And sugar didn’t grow on Dilly Bars like it does today.”
Agatha nodded. “Then the first two children who came along trapped you inside your own oven. You were the talk of the coven.”
“Seemed like a good idea at the time.” Gertrude sighed. “I’ve always had a fondness for children.”
“Simon was an upside-down pear,” said Agatha.
“What?” asked Netty.
Agatha twitched her nose. “We were talking about what shape Simple Simon used to be. He was an upside-down pear.”
“An upside-down gourd,” said Gertrude. “Pears have stems. Why are we talking about Simon, anyway?”
“Because he’s over there having lunch with our drama teacher,” said Agatha.
“You call that lunch?” Netty asked. “The smallest burger on the menu and a cup of water. Not even any fries. No wonder he’s a scarecrow.”
“Skeleton,” said Agatha. “He’s not lively enough for a scarecrow.”
Netty wiggled a loose tooth with a grubby finger. “Whatever.”
“What are they talking about?” Gertrude asked. “Maybe we can use it in our next curse.”
“Ghosts,” said Agatha.
“Ghosts?” Gertrude suppressed a cackle. “That’s an odd lunch topic. Are you sure they’re not discussing the play. Banquo’s ghost?”
“Might be Banquo’s ghost. But that’s not important.” Agatha rubbed her hands together. “Our drama teacher is telling Simon that he’s seeing a real live ghost—”
“A live ghost?” said Netty. “I don’t like those.”
“A real ghost, then,” Agatha corrected.
“Don’t like those either,” said Netty. “I almost had a spot of bother once, trying to boil tea in a haunted house.”
“Sounds harmless enough to me,” said Gertrude. “Ghosts don’t usually object to tea.”
“This house didn’t have a stove,” Netty admitted.
“Oh, my,” said Gertrude.
“The Order of Witches didn’t take too kindly to me trying to burn down a haunted house,” Netty said. “Goes against article six hundred forty-seven in our agreement with the Ghosting Union.”
Gertrude nodded. “Hallowed ground so far as witches are concerned. Safest just to give haunted houses a pass.”
“If you two are quite finished,” Agatha said, “Simon seems angry. Says there’s no such thing as ghosts
. He’s demanding that our teacher prove it.”
Gertrude let out a loud cackle, and the three witches ducked below the table as the two men glanced their way.
“Where’s the chatter of unruly students when you need it?” Gertrude asked.
“Still in school,” said Agatha. “The lunch bell hasn’t rung yet.”
“Is it you?” Netty asked Gertrude once they were sitting upright again.
“Me what?” asked Gertrude.
“Making our teacher see ghosts?”
“Of course not.”
“That would be too traditional,” said Agatha. “I thought it was you, Netty, expanding on the insanity angle. First deals with the Devil and now ghosts. How could a mere mortal not go insane?”
“Simple Simon is doing our job for us,” Netty said. “And he’s not even part of this curse. Is that good or bad?”
“Is what good or bad?” asked Hecate. The senior witch stood next to their booth, wearing a server outfit. She held a tray with both hands, upon which sat a basket of chicken and fries and a big, frosted mug wafting the aroma of cough syrup.
“Smells delicious,” Netty said. “And it’s almost lunchtime. Are you going to share?”
Hecate smiled through an application of too much makeup. “I should let you eat this. It’s loaded with Ebola. I’m off to San Francisco to kick off a hemorrhagic fever epidemic.”
“Oh,” said Agatha. “I love a good plague.” She pinched her lips. “Can’t remember the last time I caused one.”
Hecate wagged her head. “If you were done here, I’d invite you along. I assume there is no progress, as usual.”
“Our teacher’s insanity is coming along nicely,” Netty said. “Now he’s seeing ghosts.”
Hecate’s eyes widened with interest. “Banquo’s ghost?”
“Yes,” said Netty.
Hecate’s eyes narrowed and she peered at the round witch. “Not your idea, surely. Turning your teacher into his own Macbeth is . . . brilliant.”
“I can be brilliant,” Netty said.
“No,” said Hecate. “You can’t. You’re the dullest witch I’ve ever had the displeasure of knowing.”
Netty sputtered. “Wha—?”
But Hecate was already gone, sashaying along the tables until she came to the booth at the other end of the seating area, where the drama teacher and Simple Simon were just getting up. The drama teacher did a double take at seeing her, and Hecate gave him a shameless, bedroom-eyes smile.
The teacher let out a suppressed gasp and fumbled in his pocket for his cell phone.
Hecate continued to smile as she posed with her tray of Ebola and he took her photo. Then she turned and swaggered out the door into the street.
“That was cruel,” said Agatha.
“Tormenting our teacher?” asked Gertrude.
“No, tormenting our Netty. Calling her a dull witch.”
“I am dull.” Netty’s round head drooped, and her hat slipped to one side. “I’d never have thought of making our teacher see Banquo’s ghost.”
“Neither would I,” Gertrude said, “and I’ve got an award for thinking outside the box.”
Agatha puckered her wrinkled lips and let out a raspberry. “Faux hauntings are a traditional curse. Hardly unconventional.” A pause. “But I didn’t think of it either.”
“Neither did Hecate,” Gertrude said. “Not really. It thought of itself. Heh. Hecate was more surprised than we were.”
“You told her it was Banquo’s ghost,” Agatha said to Netty, frowning.
Netty lifted her head and let out a halfhearted cackle. “If it wasn’t, it will be. We’re committed now.”
“I can work with Banquo’s ghost,” Gertrude said. “I even remember where he’s buried.”
Agatha stared at her. “The real Banquo? From Scottish history?”
Gertrude nodded. “We had tea once. It was an enlightening conversation. You wouldn’t believe how much delight he took in murder. He was completely open about it. Claimed each and every death was justified. He liked to taunt his victims before disembowelling them.”
“Tea?” asked Agatha.
“Don’t look at me like that.” Gertrude grinned. “The tea was poisoned. One of Banquo’s victims had a son who struck a bargain. He couldn’t go after Banquo himself. Said Banquo would eat his liver if he went after him with a sword. Apparently Banquo was quite the swordsman.”
“A bargain.” Agatha waggled her brows. “And how fared this victim’s son?”
Gertrude fixed her crooked expression in a wide grin. “I ate his liver. Heh. He didn’t see that coming.”
“Speaking of eating,” said Agatha, “I’m hungry.” She glanced at Netty, who was still sulking over Hecate’s remarks. “GrillBurgers are on me,” the tall witch said. “And extra fries.”
That brought a smile to Netty’s lips.
Scene 3: Perilous Stuff Which Weighs upon the Heart
“Lingerie?”
Simon Riordan ran his hands through his unkempt hair. “The world has changed since I turned my back on it. A woman would be arrested if she’d done that twenty years ago.”
Paul remembered some of the stunts he had taken part in during high school and decided that the world had changed less than Riordan suggested.
“Are you sure it’s the same woman?” Riordan asked.
Paul took a quick glance around the school parking lot and, seeing no one near them, pulled from his coat pocket the photo he had printed by accident.
Riordan gawked at it then whistled.
Paul quickly put it away. “What do you suppose it means?” he asked.
“Means?” said Riordan. “It doesn’t mean anything. The woman just gets off on yanking people’s chains. Half the patients at Spring Hills are like that. Crying out for attention. Trying to feel anything but insignificant.” He stopped and stared hard at Paul. “Most things don’t mean anything. Maybe that’s your problem. Looking for meaning where there isn’t any will drive anyone mad.”
“So you still think I’m just seeing things?” Paul asked. “Even though Scarlet has told me things I didn’t know or wouldn’t have thought of on my own?”
“You’re not the first person to have an invisible friend,” Riordan suggested.
Paul wasn’t going to beat that dead horse again. He’d taken Riordan to lunch hoping to convince him that Scarlet was real, an impossible task without Scarlet to back him up. Having failed, he’d won a smaller victory by talking Riordan into coming back to the auditorium with him. It was his hope that Scarlet had cooled off after being insulted by the old man’s dismissal.
The lunch bell rang just as he opened the school’s main doors, and the two men had to fight upstream through a river of students before arriving at the empty auditorium.
There was no sign of Scarlet, of course.
“Is she here?” Riordan asked.
“Perhaps you could apologize,” Paul suggested.
The skeletal old man showed his teeth. “It’s your job to convince me. I’m not going to look the fool just to feed your delusion.”
Paul shook his head. If he were Scarlet, he, too, would want nothing to do with this Simon Riordan. “She lives inside your lamp when she’s not out and about.”
Riordan grunted and walked over to the row of scenery flats that leaned against each other near the prop cupboard in the backstage storage area. The lamp was hanging on the first flat. Riordan lifted it down and shook it. “Sounds like the bulb is broken.”
“That’s how she got out,” Paul said. “One of the students knocked down the flat and the bulb broke. More or less.”
Riordan looked at him. “Cardinal sin.”
Paul grinned. “That’s what I told the boy.”
Riordan turned back to the lamp and almost spoke. Then his fingers began trembling, and he hooked the lamp back up onto the flat. He took two steps back. “Any sign of her?”
“There’s a slight hitch,” Paul said. “She can only come out w
hen we’re rehearsing Macbeth.”
“Fine,” said Riordan. “Let’s rehearse.” And he immediately jumped into Macduff’s taunting of Macbeth. “Despair thy charm; And let the angel whom thou still hast served tell thee, Macduff was from his mother's womb untimely ripp’d.”
Paul glanced around but saw no sign of Scarlet. So he began speaking to the lamp, talking over Macduff’s call to yield.
“Simon doesn’t believe you’re real,” Paul said to the lamp. “That’s why he said he didn’t want to see you. He doesn’t believe in ghosts. He says you died twenty years ago. How can he possibly see you now?”
Still no sign of Scarlet.
Paul took a chance. “Simon does miss you, however. That’s why he’s here, even though he doesn’t believe. All I had to do was mention your name, and he came.”
There was a choking sound, and Paul turned to see Riordan wiping his eyes with a handkerchief. He had broken off from Macduff’s speech. “You bastard,” he said to Paul. “You have no idea.”
“What’s wrong with him?”
Paul turned and there was Scarlet. She was staring at Simon Riordan, squinting as though she were trying to find the lively man she had known beneath the bitter carcass that stood before her now.
“It’s been twenty years,” Paul said. “People change.”
“What?” asked Riordan.
“She’s here,” Paul said. “She wants to know what happened to you.”
“What happened to me?” Riordan laughed. “Macbeth. That’s what happened. Everything was fine until Macbeth. And then Scarlet died.”
Paul was taken aback by the man’s sudden outpouring of emotion. “You and Scarlet weren’t . . .”
“No!” said Scarlet.
“An item?” Riordan asked. “No, of course not. The girl was young enough to be my daughter. Too young to die. It should have been me that died.”
“How can you say that?” Scarlet asked him, though of course he couldn’t hear her.
“Scarlet wants to know why you would say such a thing,” Paul said.
Riordan clamped shut his teeth. His eyes flicked around the storage area then out onto the stage. “The play was cursed.” He nodded at Paul. “You’re wondering if your production is cursed. I know for a fact that mine was. I—I should have known better. It’s my fault Scarlet died. I could have stopped it. She died because of me.”
Much Ado about Macbeth Page 15