Played!

by JL Merrow

  It’d give him time to think what he wanted to ask her, anyhow. If she agreed to talk to him, and if she still actually remembered a kid who got billeted with her way back in the 1940s. God, it seemed weird there were still people alive who remembered that far back. Even Gran hadn’t been born back then—she’d been a fair bit younger than Grandad. She’d always known he’d go before her, but she hadn’t expected him to die just a few years after they’d married. Only forty-one, he’d been. Had a weak heart, they’d told her, brought on by rheumatic fever when he’d been young.

  Bloody hell, Con was glad he’d been born after they’d discovered antibiotics and the National Health Service.

  He’d been in the village a year and never met anyone who remembered his grandad before—never expected to, to be honest, seeing as he’d spent such a brief time there—and now he’d found two of ’em. Well, if Mary Wellbeck still had all her marbles, he reminded himself. Couldn’t expect too much at her age.

  Tea had been a bit earlier than Con usually ate, and what seemed like a long evening stretched ahead. Sprawling on the sofa, he flicked through a few channels on the telly, then turned it off. He had half a mind to head up to the pub and see who was there, but then again, he had stuff to do, now, didn’t he? Acting stuff.

  God, he felt like a total poser. “I am an actor,” he said out loud in his poshest voice, the one that sounded a bit like Tristan, then nearly killed himself laughing. Thank God he’d had the living room window shut so no one could have heard him. Shaking his head, Con got out his phone, where Tristan had recorded Bottom’s first speech for him to learn.

  The most important thing, Tristan had said, was for Con to feel like the character. To wear Nick Bottom like a second skin. “The costume,” he’d said, “does not make the character. The character is the costume.” Which, yeah, Con had the thicko rude mechanical part down all right, but Bottom was all stuffed up with his own sense of importance, and that bit was harder to get.

  Con had a pretty fair idea of his own importance, and it wasn’t anything to get stuffed up about. He tried to imagine feeling like he was the centre of the world, like he could get any bloke or girl he wanted, like he could play all the parts in a play as easy as breathing… Like, say, Tristan? Con grinned, and tried to imagine it. Him as Tristan.

  He stood up straight as he could and puffed out his chest a bit. Yeah, that was it. Tristan was always trying to make himself look taller, where Con tended to have the opposite problem. Funny how much difference it made, just changing how you stood.

  Course, he’d have to remember to dodge the light fitting when he moved around. Right. He was a weaver, so he was a bit of a cut—heh—above a bellows-mender, or a tinker, for that matter. If Gran hadn’t thought much of someone or something, she’d say they weren’t worth a tinker’s, although she’d never actually told him a tinker’s what. So yeah, Bottom thought he was better than them.

  What about Starveling, the tailor? Well, you couldn’t be a tailor without someone to weave the cloth, could you? And he ended up with a crap part in the play-within-a-play, just being Moonshine. So yeah, actually, Bottom was the most important of the rude mechanicals. Satisfied, Con smiled at himself in the mirror on the wall by the wardrobe. Yeah, that looked nice and smug.

  He played the first part of the speech, just to listen to it. Tristan’s voice rang out through his living room, a bit tinnier and more crackly than the original, but just as pompous and, yeah, energetic. Larger than life, which he’d said you had to be, on stage, ’cos people were seeing you from a distance.

  Funny how voices stayed, well, voices. Tristan’s accent wasn’t anywhere near as posh as it usually was, and he was obviously playing a part, but Con would still have known it was him anywhere. There was that warmth, that sense of fun in the way he spoke, the way his words just rolled over you, like ripples on a pond or someone stroking your skin…

  Right. Time to give the acting a try, Con told himself firmly, taking a deep breath. “That will ask some tears in the true performing of it: if I do it, let the audience look to their eyes; I will move storms, I will condole in some measure. To the rest—” Con broke off like the recording did, and did his best to turn into pouty Tristan instead. “Yet my chief humour is for a tyrant: I could play Ercles rarely, or a part to tear a cat in, to make all split.”

  He’d had a bit of trouble getting his head round the “tear a cat” line until Tristan had told him to think of Bottom as Hercules, wrestling with Snug the lion.

  Course, then Tristan had gone off about it possibly being a pun on “catin” which apparently was an insult for a woman, and about characters in other plays called Tear-Cat, and Con had got hopelessly lost again, but at least Tristan had stopped when he’d seen Con’s blank looks. Not that it hadn’t been interesting, but there was only so much Con could keep in his head at once, ’specially when he was trying to learn something.

  Catching sight of himself in the mirror again, Con realised his smile wasn’t looking so smug now. He winced. It’d looked soppy. Fond.

  Sod it. “Man is but an ass,” he quoted to himself, and set to learning his lines again.

  Chapter Fifteen

  That Glib and Oily Art

  Con’s first official masterclass in Bottoming wasn’t until the Wednesday evening. They’d all agreed it would be best to rehearse Con privately for the first couple of weeks, until he was a little more confident in the role.

  Tristan had been a very paragon of restraint while he waited for it. He’d fairly soon prepared a CD for Con with all of Bottom’s cues and speeches recorded on it, helpfully arranged in separate tracks for each scene, but he’d contented himself with dropping it through Con’s letterbox while the man himself was out.

  All right, Tristan had knocked first, ever hopeful. He was, after all, only human. But he hadn’t sat on Con’s doorstep awaiting his return like a lovesick stalker.

  Now, though, he was fairly fizzing with excitement. He’d made as much space in the living room as possible by taking another trip to the charity shop—this time, parking in the car park and lugging the boxes over one by one. Well, until the last couple, when he tried to save a little time and tedium by stacking one upon the other.

  Fortunately, the good weather meant the ground was perfectly dry, and several people had been kind enough to help him pick everything up and repack the boxes when the inevitable happened. One young man had even taken one of the boxes off his hands and accompanied him to the charity shop. He’d been rather good looking, actually, as well as more than helpful, and under other circumstances Tristan might have been tempted to ask for his number. But, well, Tristan had his hands full with Con. Or at least, hoped to. And the man on the street didn’t really compare, upon reflection. He’d been disappointingly short—barely half a head taller than Tristan—and decidedly lacking in the biceps department. The seams of his T-shirt sleeves hadn’t strained at all as he lugged Nanna Geary’s sensible shoes and cast-iron handbags to the charity shop.

  Anyway the point was, the house was now clear of clutter; not just the lower levels, but an optimistic trail leading from the living room upstairs to Tristan’s bedroom. Not that Tristan actually thought it would be used—softly, softly, catchee monkey and all that—but it didn’t do to be unprepared. So the stage, as it were, was set.

  Trouble was, it was set well in advance of the actual curtain time. Tristan had occupied himself by studying his new part, and by Skyping Amanda, having first made sure he shouldn’t be waking her from slumber.

  She greeted him with a less-than-friendly, “You again? I told you you’d get bored out in the sticks.”

  “Amanda, darling. Perhaps I just wanted to see your ravishing face?”

  She sniffed. “Well, I’m glad you called, anyway. I wanted to remind you about posting dates.”

  “A little over-anxious, aren’t we? And in any case, I thought you were planning to vis
it me for Christmas.” In New York. Oh God. “That’s ages off,” he said firmly, more to himself than to her.

  “My birthday, however, is in two weeks. Which is roughly how long it takes for airmail to reach us here, although God knows why, seeing as the flight itself is only twelve hours.” She pouted. “You hadn’t forgotten, had you?”

  “Of course not,” Tristan lied hastily. “Your present is winging its way to you even as we speak.” Oh, bloody hell, postmarks. Well, she probably wouldn’t remember exactly what day they’d had this conversation. He hoped. “Amanda, my sweet, I wanted to ask you something.”

  “What?”

  “Well… Do you really think I’m doing the right thing? The job in New York, I mean. Rather than trying to make a go of it as an actor.”

  “Don’t be silly. Of course it’s the right thing to do. We were never going to get anywhere with the Players.”

  “But we never really explored any other options. To stay in the profession, I mean.”

  She snorted. “One garret is much like another when you’re starving in it. Don’t tell me you’re getting cold feet, Tristan. We agreed we were better off out of it.”

  Tristan was honestly struggling to remember why. “Not all actors starve. In fact I believe some in a place called, now, what was it? That’s it, Hollywood. Apparently some of them manage to earn quite a modest competence.”

  “As if we were ever going to end up in Hollywood, working with the Players.”

  “One doesn’t have to leave the country to—”

  “And of course it was fine for you,” she interrupted, her voice heated. “You were always Suki’s darling. Always got the best roles despite your obvious disadvantages, whereas I was lucky to get the character parts.”

  “Character parts are fun,” Tristan protested. “And what do you mean, my obvious disadvantages?”

  “Character parts are for ugly, fat people nobody would believe in a leading role, and Pukey made it quite clear that was what she thought of me.”

  “And apparently I am to infer that that is what you thought of me?”

  “Oh, for God’s sake, Tristan. Stop being so bloody precious and look at yourself in the mirror. Without, for once, striking a pose. You’re never going to be anyone’s leading man. At any rate not on stage, which you appear to regard as your métier, God knows why. Nobody ever made a fortune on stage. And why not go for film, where they can stand you on a box like Tom Cruise?”

  Tristan flinched.

  Perhaps realising how deeply her words had cut him, Amanda softened her tone. “Look, do you want a decent standard of living, or don’t you?”

  “Well…”

  “There, you see. Anyway, I’ve got to go and get ready for dinner. I’ll speak to you again soon.”

  She hung up.

  Tristan stared at his dim reflection in the dark laptop screen. Was she right? Would trying to make a go of it as an actor simply be wasting his time? Had his little sojourn with the Players merely been a pleasant interlude? An extended gap year?

  All in all, it was something of a relief when Con’s self-effacing knock finally sounded at the front door. Tristan squared his shoulders and strode over to fling the door wide, a confident smile on his face. Maybe he wasn’t destined to play the Dane opposite any modern-day Ellen Terry, but he could damn well make it as Con’s leading man.

  “Come in, come in.” Tristan ushered Con inside with appropriate gestures. “Sit down, Con, and welcome.”

  “Uh, thanks.” Con’s answering smile was a balm to Tristan’s hurt mind. “How are you getting on with Puck?” he asked, settling his impressively large self on the sofa and improving its appearance by several hundred percent. “I mean, you’re getting time to work on your own part, right?”

  It was rather touching, how worried he seemed. Tristan grinned.

  “Thou speak’st aright; I am that merry wanderer of the night.

  I jest to Oberon and make him smile

  When I a fat and bean-fed horse beguile,

  Neighing in likeness of a filly foal.”

  He let his eyes turn sultry at the last two lines and was rewarded with a bashful smile.

  “You’re brilliant at that,” Con said in gratifyingly awestruck tones. “I dunno how you do it—you say the lines, and it’s like they are you.”

  Tristan gave a stage shrug. “Well, to be fair, playing a cheeky little fairy isn’t all that much of a stretch for me.”

  Con laughed. “Nah, s’pose not. Guess we’re both typecast, then. Um.”

  He hesitated.

  Tristan waited.

  “I was just wondering,” Con went on finally, “what other sort of plays you’d been in and, you know, what characters you played.”

  “Oh? Doubting my qualifications? Surely it’s a tad late to be asking to see my curriculum vitae?” Tristan enquired, his eyebrow arched and his tone sardonic.

  Con’s eyes widened, and his face fell. “No—I didn’t mean—” He broke off. “You’re just winding me up, aren’t you?”

  “Would I?” Tristan grinned. “Well, let me see. I’ve been Dick Dudgeon in The Devil’s Disciple—you know it? No? George Bernard Shaw. Set in the colonies during the eighteenth century. Dudgeon is something of a virtuous rebel, a heroic antihero, who sacrifices himself for another but gets reprieved at the last minute.” And nobody could dispute he was the lead role in the play. Take that, Amanda.

  “Yeah? Sounds good.” Con nodded. “He was from round here, you know, Shaw. You can go and visit his house.”

  “It’s a date,” Tristan purred distractedly. Now, what had been his other triumphs? That might actually mean something to Con? Hmm. “And I was Caliban in The Tempest.”

  “That’s Shakespeare, right? Was he the main character?”

  “Well, arguably he was a main character.” Tristan gave a self-deprecating grimace. “Caliban is a monstrously ugly, evil would-be rapist. So no quips about typecasting, please. But he does have quite a pivotal role. And he has his poignant moments.” Tristan’s body fell almost without conscious instruction into the twisted, hunchbacked shape he’d assumed to play the role, and looked around the room in unseeing wonder.

  “Sometimes a thousand twangling instruments

  Will hum about mine ears, and sometime voices

  That, if I then had waked after long sleep,

  Will make me sleep again: and then, in dreaming,

  The clouds methought would open and show riches

  Ready to drop upon me that, when I waked,

  I cried to dream again.

  “Of course, it’s a lot more effective in costume and makeup, when you get the contrast between the lowly monster and his eloquent words,” Tristan added, straightening his back and loosening up his jaw.

  Con was staring at him. “How do you keep all that stuff in your head?”

  “Well, to be fair, that’s his most famous speech. And God alone knows how many times I delivered it on stage. I seriously doubt I could give you much of the rest of his part without studying it again first, though. And in any case, it’s my job.” Was. Damn it. Tristan carried on. “I’m sure there’s any amount of knowledge in that well-shaped head of yours about the kind of jobs you do. And take Sean,” he added, seizing the opportunity to turn the conversation in this direction. “I’ve no doubt he has a vast quantity of professional know-how concerning pests and how to deal with them.”

  “Yeah, I guess,” Con said, sounding like he didn’t really think it was the same thing.

  Not that Tristan actually gave a tinker’s cuss about the argument itself. “I suppose you met Sean through Heather,” he went on, dropping gracefully to the sofa and flicking through his copy of Dream. He was especially pleased with the artless nonchalance he’d managed to imbue his tone with. No casual listener, he felt, would have the slightest inkling he w
as fishing for information on whether Con and Sean had ever slept together.

  He only hoped Con was in a similar state of ignorance.

  “Well, sort of. That’s how I got to know him. But we’d met before, actually.”

  Oh God. They’d had a one-night stand. Tristan was certain of it, and equally certain he did not want to hear the details. Probably. “Oh?” he said with polite disinterest.

  “Yeah, bit of a funny story. See, he was with a couple of other blokes—”

  If this was going to turn into the tale of an orgy, Tristan was going to put his fingers in his ears.

  Well, maybe one ear.

  “—up on the top floor of this old barn.”

  Tristan glanced up from his book, startled out of character. “I always thought rolling in the hay was a euphemism. Nowadays, at any rate. Wasn’t it a trifle itchy?”

  Con frowned. “What? They were clearing pigeons’ nests. It was a job.”

  “Ohhhhh.”

  “What, did you think I was about to tell you about some foursome I had with him and two other blokes the first time we’d met?” The furrow between Con’s brows deepened. “That the sort of thing you get up to, is it?”

  “Good God, no. I prefer the pas de deux to the ensemble. Or, to put it in terms with which you may be more familiar, I find that turning the horizontal mambo into a conga line is seldom as enticing as it sounds,” he added drily in the face of Con’s suspicious glare.

  “Right,” Con said, still looking a touch doubtful. “Well, anyway, like I said, they were clearing a load of pigeons’ nests out of the place. Bagging them up and chucking them out through the door. You know, that high one they have on barns where if you walked out of it you’d splat yourself on the ground? Dunno what it’s for.”

  “Some…grain thing. Probably,” Tristan contributed vaguely. “But did it really need three of them to clear a few birds’ nests?”

  “You ever seen the mess pigeons make? They’ve got pigeons nesting under the eaves of the church—you walk past, you see ’em roosting in the stained glass windows. I helped the churchwarden clear out the mess they made one time. We had three bin bags full of pigeon shit at the end of it, and they clean that up regular. So yeah, a barn that’s been left for years with generations of pigeons nesting there? Too bloody right they needed three of them.”