by E. M. Brown
For the next week he could think of nothing else but the need to talk to the young woman; he bored his friends with paeans to her beauty, until one of them had said, “For Christ’s sake, Ed. Look, I know a friend of hers. I’ll put in a good word, say you’d like to meet for a drink.”
They had met at a pub called the Pickerel across the street from Magdalen College, and he’d responded to her shyness by being uncharacteristically talkative; she later said that that was what she initially liked about him was his ability to expound interestingly on any subject, and his insightful questions about her and her Classics degree. At the end of the evening he’d known, with a certainty he’d never experienced with anyone else, that he was in love with Annabelle Shaw.
They’d met for a drink again a few days later, and then a few days after that for an Italian on Hills Road. Annabelle, like him, was in her final year at Cambridge, and hoped to get a job in London on graduating. She possessed a strange, soothing calm, a warm sense of humour, and an intelligence that often left him in awe: she brought a singular perspective to every conversation, and made him see the world anew. A month after their first date, they made slow, hesitant love in her room in a house overlooking the Cam, and for the next few months after that they were inseparable. When they graduated, she with a first, Richie scraping a 2:1, they rented the flat in Hackney, and Annabelle started work for the gallery while Richie tried to sell radio plays to the BBC. Despite his lack of success – he’d found part-time work in a local bookshop to tide him over – it had been the happiest nine months of his life.
He found a tissue in his jeans pocket and dried his cheeks. The shaking had stopped, giving way to a profound calm. The sunlight strengthened, promising a warm day, and picked out the details of the small room: the threadbare carpet, the faded Rothko poster, the ancient two-bar electric fire… But none of these things had mattered in the slightest: neither he nor Annabelle had been materialistic; for nine months they’d had each other, and that had been enough.
He made himself look across the room at Annabelle’s desk. In the top right-hand drawer was the manuscript of his latest play, which he’d given her for evaluation yesterday afternoon. For the rest of the day – a Sunday – and into the evening, she’d curled on the sofa and read the manuscript, making occasional notes in her tiny, impeccably neat handwriting. Richie, too nervous to settle at anything, had busied himself around the place, doing the weekly washing and cleaning the bathroom, from time to time looking in on her to see if she seemed to be enjoying the play. It was, in his opinion, the finest thing he’d ever written, a ninety-minute three-hander about a doomed love affair set in post-war Germany – a subject and a place, he realised in retrospect, about which he knew nothing. He had high hopes for the play, and planned to adapt it for the stage… At dinner that evening Annabelle had told him that she was halfway through the piece, and would not be drawn to tell him her thoughts; at bedtime, having finished the play, she had been reflective, telling him that she needed to think about it. He remembered his confidence that Annabelle would confirm his certainty that the play was little short of brilliant.
He moved across to the desk, opened the drawer, and took out the play-script.
He sat on the rickety dining chair before the desk and leafed through the script, tears streaming down his cheeks.
He read her tiny printed comments: This doesn’t work… Too trite… Motivation? This scene is way too long – see my notes on page 30… Would someone like James really say this? On and on, page after page, a litany of criticism that was insightful, constructive, and brilliant.
Not that the young insecure Ed Richie had thought this at the time.
He closed the script and replaced it in the drawer.
He looked at the clock on the mantelpiece. It was seven-thirty: Annabelle would be getting up for work very soon. His heart crashed at the thought, and he worked to prepare himself.
He moved back to the bedroom and stood in the doorway, staring at the naked woman on the bed.
She stirred, turning onto her back. His stomach felt as if he had been gutted by a very sharp knife. He would have to work to appear normal, when she awoke; he could not show his wonder, his joy, at her existence.
She opened her eyes, reached out her right hand to the empty area of bed, and then saw him by the door and smiled. Oh, her smile… Had he forgotten its effect, the tilt of her lips, the off-centre twist? He swallowed.
“Oh,” she said, “there you are.”
He made himself say, “Couldn’t sleep. Got up and read. Breakfast?”
“That’ll be lovely. I’ll just get a quick shower.”
“Toast and scrambled egg?”
She beamed at him, swung out of bed and danced, tiny and naked, to the bathroom. “You’re a sweet.”
You’re a sweet…
He was weeping again as he moved to the kitchen and prepared coffee, eggs and toast.
He was going through the motions, doing exactly what he’d done this morning, all those years ago…
In fifteen minutes she would emerge from the bedroom, stunning in a red summer dress and white cashmere cardigan, and over breakfast he would brace himself and ask her for her verdict.
But this time, he told himself, it would be different.
Very different.
As he stirred the eggs, he thought back thirty-four years, reviewed his memories of that time long ago, and relived what had happened…
IN HIS NERVOUSNESS to hear what Annabelle had thought of his play, the Richie of old had burned the first lot of bread. He’d toasted another two slices, perfectly this time, and she’d hurried into the kitchen, stood on tiptoe, and kissed the back of his neck.
He had served her a plate of scrambled egg on toast and sat down at the small Formica-topped table. She took a mouthful, smiled at him, and said something about a meeting she had this morning. Evidently she had no intention of mentioning the play.
He forced himself to eat, and then said, “So… the play. What do you think?”
She nodded, smiled again – a fleeting quirk of her lips – and frowned down at the process of cutting her toast. “Well…”
He said, “You think it still needs a bit of work?”
“Do you?” she asked.
“Maybe here and there, a little tweaking, maybe a scene or two that could be tightened.” He cleared his throat. “But I want your opinion.”
She sighed and said, “Ed, I don’t think it’s the best thing you’ve done.”
He recalled feeling genuinely shocked. “You don’t?”
“Not by a long way.”
Defensively, he snapped, “Then what do you think is the best thing I’ve written?”
“That fifteen-minute play you did a couple of months ago for the BBC competition.”
He stared at her, amazed. “That? But that was trite, a light piece of entertainment.”
“But it worked, Ed, its characters worked –”
“And you think this doesn’t work, you don’t think the characters – ?”
“I honestly think it needs work.”
Stunned, reddening, he said, “How much?”
“A lot.”
“You’re joking, aren’t you?”
“Ed, you asked for my opinion, and I’m giving it.”
“So…” He was aware that his voice was shaking. “Why do you think it doesn’t work?”
“I think two of the main characters need rethinking. James’s motivation, especially in the second act, doesn’t ring true. I don’t think he’d react as he does – I can see why he needs to, from a narrative point of view, but as it stands it comes over as authorial convenience. I think if you foreshadow his reaction to Gemma’s rejection of him by rewriting a few of his earlier scenes –”
He interrupted bluntly. “I think he works. His reaction is a sign of his insecurity.”
Annabelle bit her lip, nodding. “Okay. But Ed, we’re given no indication of his insecurity in previous scenes, and I think
you need to be more subtle in your depiction of him. It…” She hesitated, not meeting his eyes. “It’s his reaction to Gemma, Ed, his inability to see her as a person, to empathise with her, that –”
“I’ll think about it,” he said. “So who else, in your opinion, doesn’t work?” It was almost a sneer.
“As it stands, Gemma’s a cypher. She doesn’t have life, depth. It’s a particularly male view of a woman, how she reacts. I don’t for a minute believe she’d fall for someone as unfeeling as James.”
“But she is shallow, that’s why she seems not to have depth.”
“Ed, her shallowness comes over as… how to put this… not as authorial intention, but as authorial lack, a lack of…”
“Go on. Say it.”
She stared at him. “Ed, you asked for my opinion. I want to see this play succeed. I want you to sell it. Nothing would make me happier.”
He drew a breath, shaking with barely suppressed rage. “Okay, I can fix the characterisation. That’s no problem. I was going to look at it, anyway. But what about the plot?”
She stared at her plate. “Ed, if you’re going to take that tone, I’d rather not read your plays.”
“What tone? Do you think I should sit here, mute, while you tear apart something I’ve sweated blood over the past six months?”
“I’m not tearing it apart. I’m trying to offer constructive criticism. Look, perhaps it’d be better if you read my notes. I’ve annotated the script, and gone into more detail on separate sheets.” She pointed through the kitchen door to her desk. “Maybe read them while I’m at work, okay, when you can take your time and think about what I’ve said?”
“I can think about what you’re saying now. Why don’t you think the plot works?”
She held her head very still, her knife poised in her elegant hand just above the plate. Her jaw clicked to one side as she contemplated what to say next. “The first act drags, it lacks dramatic tension. The second act is a little better, but needs cutting, and the third act…”
“Do you know what I think?”
She hung her head, sighed, and then looked up. “No, Ed,” she said wearily, “what do you think?”
“I think you’re jealous.”
“What?” She looked astounded.
“You’re jealous. You wish you could write like me, but you can’t. This is payback for my criticism of that short story you wrote earlier this year.”
She was shaking her head. “What?”
“You know you can’t write, and you hate me for pointing that out, so this is how you show it.”
Tears filled her eyes, and to his eternal shame the sight of them had pleased him. “But… but I agreed with you, Ed! I agreed with you, for God’s sake! I knew my story was terrible. I said so, remember? I said I’d stick to art reviews…”
“But you didn’t mean that, did you? You resented me for undermining you. You just said that!”
She opened her mouth, speechless. Then the tears fell, rolling down her cheeks, unchecked, as she stared at him.
She whispered, “I can’t take any more of this. I’m going.”
He glanced at his watch. “You’ll be early,” he sneered. “Doesn’t that ponce of a boss of yours open the doors at nine?”
“So I’ll sit in the car for twenty minutes.”
“Do that.”
She placed her knife and fork down, very gently, on either side of the plate. “I’ll see you tonight.”
“If I’m still around,” he said.
She appeared to be considering her reply, but perhaps knew, in her wisdom, not to provoke him when he was in such a mood. She just nodded and hurried from the room. He heard her in the hall, getting her bag ready and selecting a jacket. Then he heard the front door open and close and, a minute later, the sound of her MG starting up and moving off down the street.
He moved into the sitting room and kicked the sofa. “Fuck!”
He paced the small room, enraged. He channelled his anger at Annabelle, calling her a jealous, callous, selfish bitch.
He moved to her desk and pulled out the play-script, flung himself onto the sofa and read her notes. “Wrong!” he said. “Wrong! Wrong! She doesn’t get it!”
Christ… didn’t she realise that he’d worked months on the fucking play, going through a dozen drafts, ditching scene after scene in an effort to get it right? And then she comes along, gives it a cursory read through, and makes these superficial criticisms…
His analyses of her criticism led him, over the next hour, to question what he saw in her; he’d thought he’d loved her, but how could he feel anything for someone who didn’t understand him and his work? The sex was still great, but Christ, he could get that anywhere.
He was still fuming when the doorbell rang. He ignored it. The fuckers could piss off.
The bell chimed again, and again, and when it was obvious that the bastards wouldn’t go away, he charged to the door and hauled it open.
Two uniformed police officers, a man and a woman, stood on the doorstep. He sighed. “Wrong house,” he said. “If it’s about the drugs, you want next door.” He was already closing the door.
“Mr Edward Richie?”
That stopped him. “Yes?”
“Can I confirm that Annabelle Jane Shaw is domiciled here?” the woman asked.
“That’s right.”
She spoke again, but Richie didn’t take in the words; the WPC, accustomed to repeating herself to shocked citizens, said, “I’m very sorry, Mr Richie, but Annabelle Shaw was fatally injured in a road traffic accident at approximately eight-forty this morning.”
Richie stared at the police woman. “What?”
Fatally injured… He heard the words, but they made no sense.
The man said, “Annabelle Shaw died instantly when her car was involved in an accident with an articulated vehicle on Victoria Park Road at eight-forty.”
Richie said her name, and then, “Dead?”
“I’m sorry, Mr Richie.”
“No!” It was a cry of disbelief.
He turned and staggered into the house. He recalled very little of the next few minutes, but he attacked his desk in the sitting room, dragging it over and kicking it to pieces, and when the copper came in after him, repeating his name and making soothing gestures.… Then he recalled being spoken to by a couple of oddly powerful paramedics who called him Edward, over and over, and sedated him with an injection. He recalled shouting Annabelle’s name as he was stretchered out to the waiting ambulance, and then nothing more until he awoke in a hospital bed hours later.
He slipped in and out of consciousness, and once, on waking, was aware of a small, shrunken couple seated beside his bed in silence.
He recognised them, through the numbness of his grief, as Annabelle’s parents.
He reached out mutely and gripped their hands.
All he recalled of their visit was something Mrs Shaw had murmured to him, “Annabelle loved you, Edward. You made her very happy. Thank you.”
He was assessed, kept in overnight, then given the name and number of a counsellor and discharged. Digby Lincoln and his current girlfriend were waiting for him at the Hackney house, and took him home. He lodged with them for the next two weeks, gave notice to the landlord of the Hackney place, then found a bedsit in Maida Vale, around the corner from where Digby lived.
Six months later, in a Chelsea wine bar he’d taken to frequenting, Richie approached and started chatting to a small, blonde Australian, the first in a succession of doomed liaisons with women who resembled Annabelle Shaw.
Now, more than thirty subjective years since Annabelle’s death – still an hour away – he relived that fateful morning and cursed himself for the shallow, selfish, egotistical fool he had been.
And now Annabelle, stunning in a red summer dress, came into the kitchen as he stood at the cooker, raised herself on tiptoes and kissed the back of his neck.
HE DID NOT burn the toast, this time.
H
e turned and watched Annabelle as she seated herself at the table. It was all he could do to stop himself from pulling her to her feet and holding her tight.
Christ, he thought; what a fool I’d been back then: so caught up in my own concerns that I’d been blind to Annabelle. He recalled what she’d said about the play, “It’s his reaction to Gemma, Ed, his inability to see her as a person, to empathise with her…”
Only now, years later, did he see the truth of her words; only now did he acknowledge that she had been criticising the man that Ed Richie had been.
He served her a plate of scrambled egg on toast and sat down. She took a mouthful, smiled at him, and said something about a meeting she had at work this morning.
Her soft voice brought back a slew of memories.
He reached across the table, touched her cheek with the back of his hand, and murmured, “I love you, Annabelle.”
She smiled, perhaps a little uneasily. “Love you too, Ed,” she said in a small voice, her eyes downcast.
“And before you say another word,” he said, “I know you’re dreading telling me how poor the play is.”
Her eyes widened, her expression turning to surprise and relief. “It’s not that poor, Ed.”
“Yes, it is. I thought long and hard about it during the night. James’s characterisation is terrible. He’s superficial and self-obsessed, unable to understand or care about anyone but himself. And Gemma wouldn’t fall for someone so egotistical.”
She stared at him, then murmured, “Those things can be fixed, Ed.”
“And it needs cutting. The first act drags, and the third lacks dramatic tension.”
She tipped her head, a smile playing on her lips. “You’ve read my notes.”
“Just a peek. And you’re right. It needs a lot of work. But I can do it, and I will. Thanks to you, it’ll be a much better play.”
She shook her head, as if in wonder. “Ed… This isn’t like you. You can’t take criticism.”