The White Room

by Craig Higginson

Instead of speaking, he steps forward and kisses each of her cheeks – tenderly and chastely, as you might a teacher who has taught you well.

  The future tenses, he says. We never got to them.

  No.

  Is there room for one more lesson before I go?

  We may, we might. We can, we could. We should, we shall. We would, we will. These are called the auxiliary verbs. We can plot them on a graph. Each expresses a degree of uncertainty.

  Pierre

  She smiles at him and opens the door.

  Or certainty.

  EXITS

  London

  Hannah

  I

  There is a moment in which everyone forgets to breathe – and then the applause spreads like rain, restorative rain, bringing the audience back to their lives – which must, on average, seem far easier by comparison.

  * * *

  Except for Hannah, whose life has just become far more complicated.

  * * *

  Before Pierre can turn to look for her, she slips out through the doors at the back, past a gangly androgynous usher – who glares at her as if she’s someone who lacks the decency even to clap – and escapes into the night.

  * * *

  There are immediately three buses thundering towards her and she manages to stop just in time, balancing on the edge of the pavement. She gasps in great lungfuls of London air and wonders where she should run to: the café on the corner, the Italian restaurant, the hotel? Soon the audience will be spilling out of the theatre and the last thing she wants is to be recognised from her photograph in the programme. Instead of crossing the square, she returns to the building and goes around the side, to the stage door – where she is smiled at and ushered backstage.

  * * *

  Hannah has spent the last two hours in an agony of shame and embarrassment, experiencing every inhalation and exhalation of language, each axe and its echo, through Pierre. What he must think of her now she can’t bear to contemplate. That he will be hurt and offended and probably furious seems inevitable. All writing is an act of theft, and all writers are magpies lining their own nests with shiny trinkets that do not belong to them, but what Hannah has performed here – or, even more disgraceful, has had others perform for her – is an act of betrayal that is far worse than theft.

  While the events of the first act were as accurate as she could remember, much of the second act consisted of half-remembered scenes that were pushed into places they most likely never reached. When she wrote them, her priority was to serve the needs of the play. She took a bit from here and a bit from there to create the illusion of coherence. Where in reality there was no coherence. No culmination. No fresh understanding at the end of anything.

  When Pierre eventually stopped coming to see her – and that was his choice, as she recalls it, never hers – she was left in a haze of longing and regret, rage and indifference. She let Dragan and Filip do what they liked with her – and she never asked them to destroy the contents of their camera. That footage probably exists in the world to this day – in some drawer or, far worse, in some clip on the internet. That they were film students was a lie, as narrated. But the scene in her room didn’t happen once – it happened several times, with Hannah never finding the words to get them to stop.

  She remembers dragging herself to her classes, sitting in those bright rooms of eager young doctors and students and correcting their grammar as if any of it mattered. She saw Monsieur Levi a few times as his health declined – and during their last conversation he gave her the small bronze sculpture that sits on the desk of her study today. But it was also in those few horrible weeks that she started to write properly for the first time. Within a month, she had written the first draft of a play set on a farm in KwaZulu-Natal, South Africa, featuring a dog attack, an old obese woman and her senile husband. The play had nothing to do with her life and everything to do with her – or, more accurately, with what was most at stake for her.

  So it was Pierre who pushed Hannah into that final white room, where she has remained ever since: the empty page. Here she started the task of writing literature, of fitting untested language into untested situations. She started to imagine herself as a poet, who would sing the ordinary back into being extraordinary. She would find a way of living in the world that would make each day matter. And for this she was – and always has been – indebted to Pierre.

  * * *

  And tonight is how she has repaid him.

  II

  Hannah finds the actress playing herself – her name is Janet Blunt – smoking a cigarette at her dressing room window. If she is to be honest, Hannah felt slightly let down by the younger woman’s performance. Apart from anything else, she wasn’t half as clever as the character she was playing. But then Hannah herself was never as clever as that character either. The real Hannah never had the benefit of those nine drafts.

  Hannah!

  Janet steps forward, her thin arms embracing Hannah in an emotionless bony clasp.

  Would you like a cigarette?

  They stand at the window and blow their smoke, feeling a natural kinship, as if they are sisters, or cousins, merely because they have been playing each other’s part.

  So, says Janet with a tired laugh, do you think we got away with it?

  I have no idea, says Hannah. I could hardly think straight.

  Janet looks at her uneasily.

  Do you think I messed it up? she asks.

  Sorry?

  The role – of Hannah. Did I do her any justice?

  Hannah realises only now how rude she has been – how preoccupied by her own anxiety. Yet she can’t tell Janet that at that moment she doesn’t care about the play or how Janet performed in it. Even if the play is considered a great success, Hannah won’t have earned it. If she deserved anything at all it was that the play be judged a disgrace.

  You were marvellous, she says. Sorry. Really well done.

  So I didn’t destroy all your beautiful lines?

  Honestly, I was transported, swept away. I only wish our lives were half as interesting.

  III

  Because she is still with Janet, no one looks at Hannah as they descend into the dark red shadows of the bar area. They are all looking at the English girl, who is younger and prettier than Hannah and far more suitable to perform the role.

  * * *

  Hannah is trying not to look too hard for Pierre. Since the play ended, she has been wondering more about that woman by his side. She watched them closely during the second half and they didn’t turn to each other or speak to each other once. They didn’t act like spouses, let alone lovers – and Hannah has decided that she may be a cousin or a sister Hannah never heard about.

  * * *

  As frightening as it is, Hannah finds more than anything that she wants to speak to Pierre, the real Pierre – that bulkier, slower man who spoke at the box office with such assurance. She wants to stand before him, hold onto him, perhaps even be embraced by him, and assure him that the play had nothing to do with him – and everything to do with her. If his character in the play was damaged, it was because she was damaged, not him. And if he had ended up behaving badly in Paris, it was his association with her that had unhinged him. Had she declined the temptation to teach him, and lure him into her room, he would have remained as he was – a simple young man with his life still ahead of him, filled with a clear-eyed song.

  She would also like to explain her debt to him. She wants to say that within a month of writing her first play in her apartment in Paris, she packed all her books back into boxes and returned to live and work in South Africa. She completed her Master’s degree, and then her PhD, and found a place for herself at the university. Although she has remained more or less alone, and although she has never quite managed to step away from the shadow of the past, she has managed to create a productive, rich life for herself – high above the sea, surrounded by the cries of gulls.

  * * *

  But Hannah soon sees t
hat there is no sign of Pierre or his companion anywhere near the bar. They have no doubt withdrawn back into the city. Pierre has realised that he doesn’t want to meet her, after all. He was frightened off by the woman in the play, just as he had once been frightened off by her in life.

  * * *

  Instead of Pierre, it is the actor who was playing Pierre who approaches her. In Hannah’s view, this actor was generally the weaker of the two performers. He emerged as a much cruder version of the original Pierre – altogether more clouded, less nimble. Of course, the play is only a two-hander. It takes place over a mere five scenes and is confined to Hannah’s apartment. The rest of the action happens outside Hannah’s room and inside Hannah’s head. The audience never get to meet the two Serbs, for instance, or Monsieur Levi. These characters are only ever mentioned in passing. The play itself only contains a fraction of the story Hannah has reconstructed for herself in her head – the vast bulk of which was never written down.

  The actor comes forward from the bar, where he has been drinking a pint of Guinness with some friends. He greets her with diffidence, sounding like a Londoner of Caribbean descent. As he begins to speak, it strikes Hannah that he’s putting on an accent – until she remembers that this is his real voice and that his other voice, the voice from the play, is the one that is fake.

  Congratulations on tonight, Hannah tells him, getting her compliment in quicker this time. It seemed to go very well.

  It seemed to, says the actor, whose name is Drummond, didn’t it?

  As he says this, he looks pleased with himself, but not too pleased with himself, and Hannah warms to the young man at once.

  It’s a wonderful play, Mrs Meade, he continues. I realised early on that all I had to do was hand myself over to the language. I knew the rest would follow.

  Please – call me Hannah.

  It would be weird to call you Hannah, he says, smiling. Especially after I’ve been calling Janet Hannah for the last six weeks. I might get confused about which one of you is which.

  I know the feeling, Hannah says, laughing back.

  He buys her a glass of the house red, which she pretends to taste.

  There was a man here earlier, Drummond says. He came to watch the play.

  Oh yes?

  She can sense from his caution what is coming, but she tries to appear innocent.

  Did he like the play?

  He didn’t say.

  Was he alone?

  He joined a woman afterwards – after we spoke. She was putting on her jacket. But I never talked to her.

  Drummond extracts a business card from the back pocket of his jeans. He places it on the bar counter like someone putting down an ace. On the card is written ‘Pierre Mande, Translator’ – along with a phone number and the already familiar email address.

  He said he would like you to phone him.

  Did he?

  It was him, wasn’t it? Drummond says. It was the Pierre from the play.

  It was the student I once taught in Paris – yes.

  I only realised after I’d looked at his card, but by then it was too late. He seemed anxious to get away.

  He seemed – upset?

  Agitated, more like. Like he was running late.

  She looks at the card. It is white with gold lettering and a bit too showy for Hannah’s taste. She wonders whether this is Pierre’s aesthetic or that woman’s – the wife’s.

  Drummond is looking at her with open curiosity.

  I should probably tell you, she says, she lies, that the events of the play are mostly made up.

  I see.

  Drummond looks for a moment as if he’s been cheated, but he is too polite to comment and instead he decides to smile.

  That man – Pierre. He was nothing like your character in the play. He was more ordinary. And better behaved. And nicer – by far.

  There you are!

  They turn to find Stephen and Janet approaching them.

  The playwright herself!

  The young director looks flushed with success and new confidence.

  Everyone is asking to meet you, he says, a lipstick smear on his mouth.

  Everyone?

  The critics, the fans – they all want a chance to talk to the elusive Hannah Meade.

  You mean – you think the play might be a success?

  Everyone is saying so. Everyone is raving about it.

  I see.

  So what about it?

  I’m sorry – I can’t. I can’t see anyone —

  She doesn’t finish the sentence, but she doesn’t need to because she can see that each of them is looking at her with the same expression of unguarded disappointment. Or is it pity? She must strike them all as staid and formal and not half as interesting as her younger version in the play.

  Meanwhile, Stephen has turned to Janet in order to kiss her.

  Did you know that Jan and I are engaged to be married, Mrs Meade? As soon as this run is done with, he says, we’re getting married and going to the Maldives – for our honeymoon!

  And if it weren’t for the play, Janet adds, we might never have met.

  Indeed, Hannah says.

  Which conditional is that? Drummond asks with a laugh.

  I have no idea, Hannah splutters. The second?

  No, says Janet, I’m pretty sure it’s the third.

  Pierre

  I

  They catch a cab outside the theatre and Suzanne asks to go to Stoke Newington police station. Suzanne’s sister has a flat across the road from the station and the room where Pierre and Suzanne sleep is filled with sirens and flashing blue lights throughout the night. The room never feels far from some crisis.

  * * *

  Last night, Pierre hardly slept. He stared at the ceiling and listened to the mice scuffling in the bookshelves, probably preparing a nest from some crappy paperback – the kind of romance that Suzanne’s sister never seems to sicken of. That morning, as Pierre stepped down one level and approached the kitchen, he encountered a sweet mouse standing upright on the toaster as if waiting for its toast to pop. The place was infested. There were even brown smears from the passing mice along the bottoms of all the walls. But Suzanne’s sister – who is a teacher at a local school – can afford nothing else. You gave that actor your card, didn’t you? Suzanne asks, settling herself in her seat.

  I did.

  What for? Do you want to keep in touch? Or do you want to give him some advice on how to play your part?

  I asked if he could give the card to Hannah.

  It is so rare for Pierre to tell the truth to his wife that they are both, for a moment, almost thrilled by the sound of it. He will probably pay for it later, as he usually does – but somehow, after all that has passed this evening, he is no longer afraid of this.

  So you intend to meet up?

  I always intended to meet up. I wrote to her. We arranged to have a drink tonight.

  I beg your pardon?

  I’ve written to her a few times over the years. I’ve seen some of her other plays. Remember them? I actually told you about them at the time – but you never exactly listened.

  Sorry – but you’re saying you and that woman have been corresponding?

  I wrote a few times, but she never wrote back. Until recently.

  And why write to her? I mean – what the hell did you want from her?

  Pierre has never asked himself this and at first he doesn’t know how to answer her honestly.

  I suppose I wanted to talk to her again. We talked so easily.

  That’s because you were paying her!

  I loved her from the moment I saw her.

  Yes – I know all about that. Wearing her fucking daffodil dress.

  And she loved me right back. She didn’t want to, but she did.

  Suzanne is barely breathing as she digests all this. The cab driver – a young Asian man who is sitting very upright as he drives – can no doubt hear them through his little window, but Pierre is beyond car
ing about that.

  Let me understand you correctly, Suzanne says eventually. You imagined we could sit through all that muck tonight – and then have a drink with that woman at the end of it?

  Suzanne laughs, a hard hacking laugh that can only be produced by someone who smokes.

  I had no idea what the play would be about. I thought it was about an English teacher, not —

  I suppose you’re going to tell me again that it was all lies? That none of it happened? That you never fucked?

  No.

  So it’s all the truth? All of it?

  Pretty much.

  You – you treated her like that? You threw the money at her – like that?

  That moment I can’t exactly remember, Pierre says truthfully. I suspect she was taking a bit of dramatic licence.

  Suzanne laughs again, as yet too bewildered and hurt to have prepared her counter-attack.

  * * *

  Outside, London passes them by – stately apartments they will never be able to afford, soon followed by squares of tatty Victorian buildings where only newsagents and cab companies and take-away kebab shops are still open. It all feels so far away from Paris – and that funny little room of his that looked down on the oyster restaurant. He wishes he could unlock the cab door and get away at last, but he knows he no longer owns his life.

  * * *

  I don’t know what to say to you, Suzanne says.

  There is nothing to say.

  I don’t know who you are.

  No – you don’t.

  * * *

  It is odd that he should have come away from the play with such new purpose. The first half of the play felt insufficient, somehow. It enraged him because it seemed so one-sided, so literal, so rigged. But the second half, which covered events that were much hazier and were therefore far more likely to be, at least in part, untrue, felt far more accurate. It seemed to Pierre that Hannah knew things about him that no one else had ever known, not even Suzanne. She had seen deeper into him than anyone ever had before – and then she had forgiven him. What else was the play, in the end, but a declaration of their love?