All the Way to Summer

by Fiona Kidman

  In the morning, as she prepares to leave Sasha’s, solid thick rain falls outside. Sasha eyes Natalie’s suitcase.

  ‘You can’t carry that thing around all day,’ she says. The suitcase is covered with shiny burnt-orange vinyl and stands hip-high. Inside it, there is a new nightdress made of white cotton, sprinkled with blue flowers and a matching brunch coat; the only dinner dress Natalie owns, not black, but an odd shade of purple, currently fashionable, which Natalie fears makes her complexion sallow; a change of day clothes; four pairs of shoes to cover every change in the weather, a large bag of cosmetics, and some extra copies of the Marvellous Eight scripts.

  ‘Anyone can see you coming. What will people think?’ says Sasha.

  Natalie can’t see why this concerns Sasha so much. What people think hasn’t noticeably bothered her, although they have stayed up half the night talking edgily about their indiscretions. Sasha laughs a lot, and they both drink too much again, and Natalie remembers a moment towards morning when they looked at each other and fell silent. She is too tired to think of what all this means now.

  The huge suitcase, salvaged from one of her father’s overseas trips, is clearly a mistake. With all her planning, how could she have overlooked something so obvious? All day, while she is in the studio, this foolish, ugly thing will stand in the Green Room, broadcasting her intentions. She has turned down the offer of an expense account hotel. The truth is, she had no idea how to say that she wanted a room with a double bed, not twin.

  There is nothing Natalie can do about the suitcase. Sasha, on her way to her new job in a Parnell boutique, kisses her goodbye, looking worried.

  ‘Are you sure you can look after yourself?’

  Natalie shrugs, anxious to be on her own. The taxi she orders doesn’t come. When she rings the company, they tell her it has already been and nobody came out when they tooted. She says it must have gone to a wrong number. The despatcher is not in a mood to argue. It won’t be sent back unless she agrees to wait outside. While she waits, thunder erupts, and she is afraid she is going to be struck by lightning. Rain trickles under the collar of her red plastic mac. When she arrives at the studio, she is half an hour late, her hair is plastered to the sides of her face, her shoes squelching. In the Green Room, she kneels to wrestle with the catches of the suitcase. Under the vinyl, the case is made of cardboard. Water has soaked through a split and collapsed a corner. Sonny Emmanuel stands behind her while she hauls out one of the spare pairs of shoes. ‘You’re late,’ he says, as if she didn’t know. ‘I can see your tits.’

  The studio is like a barn with brick interior walls. Light filters through a skylight in the immense high ceiling. The shadow of the boom is reflected upwards by the studio lights.

  ‘Bleeding hell,’ Sonny shouts, ‘Where’s my leading lady?’

  ‘She’s in the loo, she’s got the trots.’ The production secretary is strung out.

  ‘Well, get her out of the bloody loo, tell her I’ve got a shoot to do. Go and wipe her arse for her, do something, just get her in here.’

  By ten o’clock, the leading lady still hasn’t appeared. ‘We’ll do a walk-through. Okay, okay, everybody. Natalie, you be the counsellor, all right?’

  ‘I’ve never done anything like this,’ Natalie protests.

  ‘So you can learn.’

  ‘But I’m the writer, not the actress.’ She hears her voice rising, tries to bring it down.

  ‘What are you?’ Sonny’s eyes are wide, a vein on his forehead stands out like an angry insect. ‘Are you the fucking union? Is that what you are? I mean, if you’re the union, just sod off! Who needs writers here anyway? I mean, do you know how much per minute it takes to make your crapulous, unfunny little soap opera?’

  ‘I’ll do it, Sonny, I’ll do it.’ I mustn’t cry, she thinks

  ‘Okay, good girl, of course you will. Right, stand by everybody, from the top of the scene.’ Sonny is suddenly full of false cheer.

  Natalie takes up her position at the desk and leans forward, chin resting on her knuckles.

  ‘Great,’ says Sonny, ‘you look like a counsellor, so help me, even the clothes are right. Very comforting, very bloody pious.’

  ‘They’re not,’ Natalie starts to say, looking down at the buttoned-up green blouse, the black jerkin which she had chosen with such care.

  ‘Shut up,’ says Sonny, ‘just talk to Mick.’ Mick is an elfish-looking man, playing the brother in training for counselling. He is wearing a wig and a pink dress.

  Natalie picks up the script and begins to read.

  NATALIE: So, tell me, what do you think you could bring to your role as a counsellor?

  MICK: My soul.

  NATALIE: So, what’s so special about your soul?

  MICK: I can see where others can’t.

  NATALIE: Tell me what you can see in me. Right now, look at me, hold my gaze, what do you see?

  SONNY: Fuck, Nat, this isn’t funny. It’s supposed to be funny. I thought it was funny when I read it. How could I be so wrong?

  MICK: I see a warm, beautiful woman, just like myself.

  NATALIE: This is real narcissism, and homophobic as well.

  SONNY: You wrote it.

  NATALIE: Victor told me to write that. Sonny, I can’t do this.

  (The actress NATALIE is replacing appears on the set, looking washed out.)

  SONNY: Nobody asked you to be Glenda Jackson, ah shit, if you’ll pardon the expression, we have an actress on board, welcome darling, for God’s sake, don’t cry Natalie, I told Victor you’d cry if I let you come on the set …

  Nearly a year has passed since Natalie and Al last saw each other. When she first left Mountwood, she expected him daily. Her dreams were radiant and carnal. He did meet her once in Wellington, before she left Monty. The reunion hadn’t gone well. Looking back, she blamed herself for being too eager. He had gone back to the rules that had been laid down at the beginning. Her declarations of love alarmed him anew. When he returned to Mountwood, he had written: ‘I can’t leave Dulcie now, you must see how it is for her.’ There were the children to think of, he had gone on. He must think of his, even if she did not consider hers (she only just forgave him this). Dulcie had begun menopause. Menopause, Natalie discovered, could last for ten or twelve years.

  Yet still he wrote to her, as though she were a listening post in the wilderness. Much later, she would think how unfair that was, as if the unguarded word were less damaging, less compromising than their actions. In fact, they were worse, the words could be revisited, relived, time and again, in secret places. Eventually, his words convinced her that her life was a lie. I have left Monty for good, she wrote to him. Don’t think it was on your account, it is what I must do for myself.

  This was not the exact truth. Monty had told her one day that if she didn’t snap out of herself, he couldn’t take any more, and so she had packed, not expecting to leave, but it reached a point where neither would back down and say it was a bad idea. He had wanted her to come back straight away, and then he didn’t, and then he turned difficult about property and custody, and she was sure she had done the right thing all along. Natalie told herself she had left him for good. That was what she told Al.

  For two weeks, she raced to the post-office drop where she picked up his letters, but nothing came.

  Finally, she rang the newspaper office. Al had left. ‘Where will I contact Mr Carter?’ she asked, trying to make her voice sound impersonal. As he had been promising, she discovered that the magazine was now his full-time occupation.

  She risked more, she rang him at home. Dulcie answered; Natalie hung up. With care, she plotted Dulcie’s movements, as she had from the past, the times she went to the supermarket, the classes she was taking this year, the times the women’s squash courts were available. It was like living in Mountwood again, without being there. The fourth time she caught him, after nearly a month had passed.

  ‘I can’t leave now,’ Al said. ‘Dulcie and I have put everything int
o the magazine.’

  ‘You could get something here,’ she said, ‘you could go part-time here and do the magazine as well.’

  ‘I can’t.’

  ‘You mean, she holds the purse strings.’

  ‘Darling, you don’t understand. You’ve got all your life ahead to do the things you want.’

  After a while she said, ‘Did you ever love me?’

  ‘I do love you.’ His voice was weary.

  Again, with hindsight, she thinks he might have let it go then. His letters began again. He was responsible too. Was it through vanity that he held onto her? She had read too many novels, she thinks, she was too full of words (though she is no less full of them now), she wanted to believe in romance.

  They have arranged to meet during the lunch break by the staircase at Smith and Caughey’s at a quarter past noon. Natalie takes the suitcase, deciding on an impulse that he can take it to the hotel during the afternoon, relieving her of its presence in the studio.

  Outside, the rain has stopped. Natalie is early, wanting to be there first, to see Al look anxiously for her, his face light up when he catches sight of her.

  The perfume counters in the shop are loaded with sample bottles. As she waits, she hesitates, unsure which one to try. Now that she is a writer, Natalie worries about perfume. She has read the unkind things Virginia Woolf said about Katherine Mansfield’s scent. From now on, she has vowed to wear only the best, or none at all. A saleswoman offers her a square of blotting paper to spray with samples. She squirts five of the little squares with different perfumes and files them in her handbag. Then, deciding that Nina Ricci can’t be wrong, she blasts a tester across her wrists. She resists looking at the store clock until one o’clock has been and long gone.

  By the time she gets back to the studio, the actress who plays the brother’s grandmother has fallen ill too, and the first actress has had a relapse. A woman who Natalie hasn’t seen before is seated opposite the counsellor’s chair, and Sonny paces up and down.

  ‘Where the hell have you been?’

  ‘I’m only observing, remember?’

  ‘Oh, yes, I remember, you’re just the writer. You smell like piss.’

  ‘It’s Nina Ricci.’

  ‘It’s probably not her fault. Now, will you sit down? That’s Tess; say hullo to her.’

  ‘Hullo,’ Natalie says, like an obedient child.

  ‘Are you all right?’ asks the woman. Natalie notices Tess’s fingers, long and almost stringy, with skin so fine it appears transparent. Tess is small and neat, her cheekbones high, her cap of dark hair fanned with grey above her right ear. A caramel-coloured woollen dress crocheted in a shell pattern skims her hips, ending at least four inches above her knees. Her age could be twenty-five or thirty-five.

  ‘Yes. Thank you.’ She likes Tess’s voice. ‘Sonny’s getting up my nose.’

  ‘He gets up everybody’s nose when he’s working with them. Haven’t you worked with him before?’

  ‘Not in the studio. Are you an actress?’ Natalie asks.

  ‘No, I play the violin in the symphony orchestra.’

  Natalie is bewildered. ‘How come you know him so well?’

  ‘Stop talking about me, it’s making me embarrassed,’ says Sonny.

  ‘He filmed the orchestra, we were playing Bartók.’

  ‘The violins were stunning,’ Sonny says. ‘Now let’s get this show on the road.’

  ‘But why are we doing this, it’s pointless?’

  ‘Do you want to run this outfit, Natalie? Do you think you’re a director now as well?’

  ‘He’s planning his shots,’ Tess says, as if she has a lifetime’s experience in television. ‘It’ll help him make up time tomorrow.’

  ‘My nerves are shot now,’ Natalie says, with what she perceives as her own grim attempt at humour.

  ‘So are his,’ Tess says softly.

  Sonny walks over, studying them both. His gaze rests on Natalie. To her surprise, he reaches out and touches her cheek gently. ‘There, there,’ he says. ‘Read the script, you two, okay?’

  ‘Okay.’ Tess picks up the script, Sonny returns to the control room, and on his cue they begin to read.

  TESS: (playing MRS OATES, the GRANDMOTHER) I’ve been watching my children for signs of improvement.

  NATALIE: (playing the COUNSELLOR) And how old are the children?

  TESS: Forty-nine and forty-three. (Puts the script down.) Natalie, that’s rich, I like it. My mother’s still waiting for me to improve. Are you saying she’ll never stop?

  NATALIE: Probably not, mine’s in total despair, especially now I’ve left my husband. Should we stick to the script?

  TESS: Yes, probably. It’s your turn.

  NATALIE: Right, um, what strategies have you developed for coping with your family, Mrs Oates?

  TESS: I make every day a new day, power of positive thinking, that’s what it’s all about … (Laughs loudly.) (Note in the script that MRS OATES knits steadily throughout the interview, drawing wool out of a plastic container covered with braided wool.)

  NATALIE: Nice, but what do your daughters think?

  TESS: Oh, who cares what they think?

  (MRS OATES makes a cat’s cradle out of the wool, which TESS simulates very neatly with the plaited woollen belt of her dress.)

  TESS: This is a bit of a farce, isn’t it? Perhaps if you simply called me Tess, it would seem more natural. We can pretend that’s her name anyway.

  NATALIE: Her name’s Willa in the script.

  TESS: Is she a lesbian?

  NATALIE: No, it’s her grandson who’s gay. Well, it looks like he might be.

  TESS: Wasn’t the writer … I mean, did you name her after Cather?

  NATALIE: No, I haven’t read her work, have you?

  SONNY: (interrupts) Girls.

  TESS: (reproving) Women, Sonny, if you don’t mind. (to NATALIE) Yes, I have.

  NATALIE: And are you?

  TESS: What? Am I what?

  NATALIE: Um … like Willa?

  (A look of surprise flickers across TESS’s finely wrought face. She hesitates, undecided as to whether to confide in NATALIE and aware that sonny is listening. She switches off her microphone and, reaching over, switches off NATALIE’s too.)

  TESS: Of course not. I’m with Sonny.

  NATALIE: You mean with Sonny? You’re the girlfriend.

  TESS: Girlfriend, mistress, I suppose it’s got a name. (She laughs briefly, a sound more suited to the woodwind section, her large eyes luminous.) I’d even call it love.

  NATALIE: You don’t look like … um, well, you’re a musician.

  TESS: So make sense of it. You’re the writer.

  NATALIE: Stuff the arts. I could do with a sister.

  TESS: You mean you’re short of friends right now?

  NATALIE: I’ve got Sasha. Oh, God, I can’t go back to Sasha’s tonight.

  TESS: He didn’t come, did he?

  NATALIE: How did you know? Was it the suitcase?

  TESS: What suitcase?

  NATALIE: Never mind. Am I that obvious?

  (SONNY picks up a megaphone and shouts at them.)

  SONNY: We might as well all go home if you two don’t read. Tess, will you turn that mike on?

  (TESS switches it on.)

  TESS: Soon. (She turns it off again.) You’ll get better, you’ll get over today. Well, I don’t know what happened, but it looked pretty bad. Things usually get better though, don’t you think?

  NATALIE: How can you say that? You’ve got Sonny. (Wonderingly.) Are you happy? (TESS’s face turns in the direction of where SONNY stands with his headphones on, looks suddenly wistful.)

  TESS: Oh, it was perfect all right. You can laugh, he’s a flawed character. There’re two sides to Sonny.

  NATALIE: Was?

  TESS: It’s our last day; I’m off to England tomorrow. Probably for good. (She leans forward in her chair.) I’ve got a career, he wants a wife. It came as a shock, I can tell you, after four y
ears of seeing him.

  NATALIE: He’s got a wife.

  TESS: Exactly. (She hesitates.) He wants to leave her and marry me. Or something. (She brushes a strand of hair from her face in an agitated way.) It’s the something I’m not sure about. It’s better this way.

  NATALIE: I thought he was going to live on a kibbutz. No, don’t tell me, he’s going to the kibbutz because you won’t marry him. Or whatever.

  TESS: Something like that.

  (NATALIE stands, violently knocking the script aside.)

  NATALIE: You’re so lucky, you’re so goddam lucky.

  TESS: Why? Because he wants a wife? Is that what you want people to see? Here comes Natalie, somebody’s second wife?

  NATALIE: (sitting down and picking up the script) Why don’t you be the counsellor? I’ll be Mrs Oates.

  (They switch on their microphones.)

  TESS: (glancing towards SONNY, making sure that he is listening) You can have him, have Sonny if that’s what you want. If you want somebody’s husband.

  That night they all go to a house in Herne Bay. It is an odd, fussy place with pleated curtains at the windows, Dresden china figurines standing on flimsy mahogany furniture, and salmon-pink carpets that roll fleshily through the rooms. Nobody seems to know who owns it. Afterwards, Natalie’s memory of certain events will be hazy, but she does remember that Tess left the house some time during the evening without warning.

  Several actresses arrive, including both of those who had been sick earlier in the day, plus a cameraman and other members of the crew, carrying wine and cartons of beer. A party begins, and soon Natalie feels the first mellow haze of wine settling on her brain. Outside, the rain starts again, and somebody says that Mount Ngauruhoe is erupting.

  ‘Why are you going?’ she asks Tess, who is dialling the taxi company. ‘How can you walk out on him on your last night?’

  Tess seems to measure the distance before her eyes, as if it were further than either of them can see. Her fingers pluck at the phone cord as they would an instrument.