Stage Fright

by Christine Poulson

  Geoff didn’t seemed to be listening. He was looking past me now. A new expression had appeared on his face, as if he had suddenly spotted someone he recognized, but hadn’t expected to see. I turned to look.

  He was gazing at a newspaper-stand, heaped up with piles of the lunch-time edition of the Cambridge Evening News. I found myself looking into Melissa’s eyes. A life-size photo of her covered almost the entire front page. From newspaper after newspaper her face stared out at me.

  ‘You could be right,’ Geoff said, ‘but I don’t think she’ll stay incognito for long, do you?’

  Chapter Twelve

  THE fine weather broke that evening. The wind threw handfuls of rain at my bedroom window. Sitting up in bed against the pillows, I tried to read, but my thoughts wandered. Stephen hadn’t rung me yet that day. He’d be at work now. I pictured him in the head office of some vast conglomerate, all glass atrium and huge indoor plants. I still didn’t know the name of the company. I thought about the suddenness of Stephen’s departure for LA. I thought about how disconcerted I’d been when I rang the hotel and they told me he’d cancelled his booking. For a day or two I’d had no idea where he was. Did I really know now? I had a phone number, it was true, but I’d never tried to ring Stephen there. He always rang me. He wouldn’t be there during office hours. Or would he?

  Another picture was forming in my mind: a swimming pool shimmering in the heat like the ones in the Hockney prints, palm trees, a bedroom with sun striking in through the slats of the blind. I got as far as rolling over in bed and putting my hand on the phone, before I changed my mind. Stephen lying to me? Being unfaithful? The thought was absurd. A little voice in my head said: that’s probably what Melissa thought, too, and remember how your second marriage ended. You came home to find your husband in bed with one of his students. I told the little voice to shut up. Call it instinct, call it the triumph of hope over experience, but I did trust Stephen. Once I started checking up on him, I might as well throw in the towel.

  I turned my attention back to my book. After a few minutes I was yawning. A few minutes after that, I was asleep.

  It seemed that I was woken by an unexpected sound. At first I thought I’d been dreaming, but no, when I opened my eyes, I could still hear it, a faint sussuration, a kind of sucking and sighing. I got out of bed and went over to the window, and stood looking out towards Ely, the floorboards cool under my bare feet. Under the full moon the fields glimmered with a strange radiance. They absorbed the moonlight and reflected it back to a sky that was awash with pallid light. The strange sound was that of water lapping against the side of the house. I was gazing out at a flooded landscape. A great sheet of water stretched out as far as the eye could see. I could make out the dark irregular shape of Ely and its cathedral standing proud of the water.

  The little city was again an island, just as it had been before the fens were drained. The scene was so silent, so beautiful, so mysterious that at first I felt only awe. I looked down into the garden and then came the first prickle of fear. Only the tops of the tallest shrubs were poking out of the water. The water had almost reached the first floor of the house and it was still rising. How had all this happened so suddenly?

  All at once I realized that it hadn’t happened at all. This was a dream. Yet curiously that knowledge didn’t at all diminish my terror. I ran over to the other window, and looked out towards Journey’s End. On that side too, there was no land to be seen. It was as though my house were a ship adrift in an ocean. I was stranded here alone with Grace.

  I snatched up the binoculars and trained them on Journey’s End. The house was dark, but as I lowered them I caught a glimpse of movement. I raised the binoculars again. There was a rowing boat, heading towards me. There was only one person in it, pulling the oars in long smooth strokes. I went on watching through the binoculars, but as I watched, relief gave way to a sense of unease. There was something I didn’t like about that figure. The boat was making steady headway. The figure was growing more distinct now. I saw a black coat, dark hair. The figure stopped rowing and leaned on the oars to rest. I saw that the hair was really a hood. And now it was turning towards me.…

  With a prodigious effort, I forced my eyelids open. The room was full of light. I was lying flat on my back in bed. The T-shirt I’d been wearing as a night-dress was drenched with sweat and sticking to my body. I got out of bed and went over to the window. The rain had stopped during the night. There was that intensely still, newly washed feeling of early morning.

  I thought about the dream. Much of it could be explained by the book I’d fallen asleep reading. I opened it and read the end. ‘The sun was rising now, and the wide area of watery desolation was spread out in dreadful clearness around them … The boat reappeared but brother and sister had gone down in an embrace never to be parted: living through in one supreme moment the days when they had clasped their little hands in love, and roamed the daisied fields together.’ George Eliot’s The Mill on the Floss was on one of the courses I was teaching in the autumn, but it was comfort reading, too. It was far from being her best novel, but the stupendous and pathetic ending in which Maggie Tulliver rows across the flooded fens to rescue her brother Tom had thrilled me as a girl and I still found it moving. But the hooded figure in my dream hadn’t been Maggie Tulliver, I knew that. I wondered whose face I would have seen if I hadn’t managed to wake myself up.

  I went downstairs to check on Grace. She was yawning and making the preliminary little noises that meant she’d be crying in earnest soon. I badly needed to talk to Stephen. It was six o’clock in the morning here, but evening in LA. I rang the number he’d given me. The receiver was picked up straightaway at the other end.

  ‘Cass!’ He sounded delighted. ‘I’ve just got in. I was going to ring you, when it got a bit later. Any news about Melissa?’

  I told him that the car had been found and that Belinda had given Kevin an alibi.

  ‘Can’t say I’m very surprised to hear that Kevin was playing away,’ Stephen said.

  ‘Well, I was! I mean, they’ve got a baby!’ I realized how naïve I sounded.

  ‘Oh, Cass, it’s a classic set-up. A man like Kevin, he’s used to being the centre of attention – of his wife’s attention especially. He probably felt neglected. Started to feel sorry for himself.’

  ‘Did you feel that?’

  ‘No! Grace is the apple of my eye, you know that – and I’m not exonerating Kevin in the slightest. It was a shitty thing to do. But sorry as I am about Melissa, you’re the one I’m most concerned about. How are you bearing up?’

  ‘OK. At least I thought I was.’ I told him about the nightmare I had just had.

  ‘I wish I was there. I don’t like you being on your own. You know, if you really felt you needed me…’

  ‘I feel better now that I’ve spoken to you. I’ll be fine. What will you be doing this weekend?’

  ‘I’m going with Bob and the family to Big Sur tomorrow. Won’t be back until Monday.’

  ‘What’s Big Sur?’

  ‘It’s like a national park. Up the coast, north of LA. A big expanse of wilderness and forest. It’s where they have the giant redwoods. They say it’s huge. Two hundred and fifty square miles, would you believe? We’ll he staying at the Big Sur Inn. Let me give you the number.’ I heard him shuffling papers. ‘Here it is.’

  I wrote it down on the pad by the bed.

  ‘How are you going to spend the weekend?’ he asked.

  ‘I said I’d look after Agnes today—’

  ‘Oh, you didn’t! Why can’t Kevin take her to the nursery?’

  ‘It’s Saturday.’

  ‘Oh, Lord, so it is. It’s still Friday here. You know, you shouldn’t be running around after Kevin. He doesn’t deserve it.’

  ‘I’m not doing it for him, I’m doing it for Agnes.’

  We’d hung up before I realized that I still hadn’t told Stephen about meeting up with Joe. Recent events had pushed him to the back of my m
ind and anyway it somehow wasn’t the kind of thing to mention over the phone. He’ll only worry unnecessarily, I told myself. Not that there was anything to worry about, of course. At least that’s what I told myself.…

  * * *

  After I had fed Grace, she fell asleep again. I took advantage of that to have a bath. The doorbell rang just as I was getting out. I pulled on my dressing-gown and looked out of the bedroom window. Kevin’s red hire-car was parked below, even though he wasn’t due to drop Agnes off for another half an hour. I went down and opened the door. He was standing there with Agnes in his arms, and the bag containing all her paraphernalia at his feet.

  ‘Cass, I’m know I’m a bit early…’

  ‘Well…’ I couldn’t pretend I was pleased to see him.

  ‘Can we talk? Please? I just want to explain.’

  ‘It’s not me who’s owed an explanation.’

  ‘I know that! Don’t you think I’ve wished a thousand times that I could talk to Melissa.’

  Agnes’s eyes were fixed on my face. She gave me a big smile and stretched out her arms towards me. I stretched out my arms and Kevin handed her over.

  ‘Oh, all right, you’d better come in,’ I said.

  The truth was that, angry as I was with Kevin, I did want to hear what he had to say for himself. And on the level of simple, vulgar curiosity, I did want to know more about what had happened at the police station.

  Kevin picked up the bag and followed me into the kitchen. ‘I’ve brought all her stuff,’ he said, ‘and I’ve made up a couple of bottles. I’ll put them in the fridge, shall I?’

  I nodded. ‘Want a coffee?’

  ‘I don’t want to put you to any trouble.’

  ‘I was about to make some anyway.’

  ‘Let me put the kettle on.’

  When he’d done that he sat down opposite me at the kitchen table. The strain was really starting to show. There was a stain on his white T-shirt and his hair was greasy. I’d never seen him so dishevelled. His eyes met mine, then he looked down. There was silence for a few moments.

  He said: ‘When Melissa was ill, and the baby, too, of course, it was a terrible time and then afterwards when they came home from hospital. Things hadn’t been the same between us. I don’t know what it was. Not just sex, though it was that, too. Melissa was worried that she’d get pregnant again. I was worried about that too. I don’t know. The whole thing just seemed so much more…’ He hesitated. ‘Oh, I don’t know, more difficult, complicated than before. And Melissa just wasn’t herself. She used to be so much fun. And then on Tuesday, Belinda more or less invited herself round to the flat. Said she wanted to talk about the play. Of course I knew what that meant…’ He sighed and shook his head. ‘I don’t know how I could have been such an idiot.’

  ‘Did Melissa find out?’

  ‘Bloody Belinda. It was when I was talking to Melissa on the phone. Belinda didn’t realize. She picked up the extension in the bedroom. Melissa heard the click. She said “You’ve got someone there, haven’t you?”’

  The kettle switched itself off, but neither of us moved.

  There was something about this story that puzzled me. You’d have to be very jealous or very suspicious to decide that your husband was having an affair on evidence as slender as that. Unless …

  ‘It wasn’t the first time, was it,’ I said.

  ‘Once before, just once, years ago, I swear to you that’s all it was!’ He was blinking back tears.

  ‘Oh, Kevin,’ I said wearily. I got up with Agnes in my arms. As I passed her over to Kevin so that I could make the coffee, she reached out for a book that was lying on the table. I pulled her back but she had got a grip on it. It was my copy of East Lynne. It was too heavy for her. She let go and it toppled off the table. It landed with the pages open and the spine bent. A slew of paper markers spread themselves over the kitchen floor.

  ‘Oh, Christ. Hang on to her. I’ll sort this out,’ Kevin said. He got down on his knees and began to gather up the pieces of paper.

  Agnes was dismayed by his raised voice. She screwed up her face, ready to cry.

  ‘All right, all right,’ I said gently. ‘Not your fault.’

  I put her into Grace’s highchair and gave her a plastic spoon to suck while I made the coffee. When I turned round to put the cafetière on the table, Kevin was still on the floor, sitting back on his heels. He looked up at me.

  ‘I’m losing it, Cass,’ he said. ‘There are times I think I’m going out of my mind.’

  He got heavily to his feet and put the book on the table. It still had a few old envelopes and bits of scrap paper sticking out of it. He put the pieces that had escaped in a pile beside it. He sat down.

  ‘Perhaps I really am going crazy,’ he said. ‘Last night I thought Melissa had come back to the house. I woke up, thinking that I’d heard someone in the next room. I was certain, certain, that if I got up, I’d see her there leaning over Agnes in her cot.’

  ‘Did you go and see?’

  ‘I couldn’t. It was as if I was paralysed. I was just completely unable to move. I think I must have fallen asleep again. I woke up a bit later and then I did get up. There was no one there, of course.’

  ‘You were dreaming,’ I said.

  He shook his head, not so much in disagreement as in perplexity.

  ‘It seemed so real.’

  ‘Could anyone have got into the house? Could Melissa have got into the house?’

  He was on the verge of tears. ‘I don’t see how. The house was all locked up. I’d even put the chain on the front door.’

  I moved my chair round so that I could put my hand on his shoulder. There wasn’t much I could say. In the end all I could manage was:

  ‘Look, if she is staying away to punish you, then that’s a good thing really, because it means she could come back any time.’

  ‘Do you really think so? I know I’ve been an absolute bastard.’ Tears were rolling down his face again. ‘But if she knew how sorry I am, how much I regret it. I’ve told the police that I’ll do a public appeal.’ He pulled a handkerchief out of the pocket of his jeans and scrubbed his face.

  I busied myself with the coffee. Kevin, sniffing now and then, gazed out of the window. The morning sun was streaming in through the long, floor-length window that looked out over the stream. Agnes had stopped banging her spoon and was sucking it again. When she saw I was looking at her, she waved the spoon and chuckled. The sunlight was falling across her head, illuminating hair as fine and blonde as thistledown. I yawned and my eyes filled with tears. I reached for my bag to get out a tissue. That was when I noticed the envelope that had been shaken half out of the book on the table. Part of a typed name and address were visible, but I couldn’t quite see … I wasn’t really thinking as I began to spell out the letters. ADOWS and on the next line S END. The next moment I knew what it was. I saw myself in Melissa’s dressing-room, holding a letter in my hand, the door was opening, Kevin was appearing. I saw Melissa giving a tiny shake of the head. And that was it. That was what I’d done with the letter. I had slipped it between the pages of East Lynne.

  I looked sideways at Kevin. His gaze had followed mine.

  ‘That’s addressed to Melissa,’ he said. He looked at me as if to ask permission, but without waiting to receive it, he reached forward and plucked the envelope out of the book. He took out the letter and scanned it.

  ‘This is Melissa’s anonymous letter. But how did it get there?’

  ‘I, um, I think I must have just slipped in there after she’d shown it to me. Without really thinking what I was doing. On automatic pilot, you know. I’m always doing that these days.’ It was the truth, but how lame it sounded.

  ‘Like with your car keys the other night.’

  I nodded. ‘That’s right. Can I see the letter?’

  He handed it over. It was just as I remembered it. When I looked up again, Kevin was examining the envelope.

  ‘I still don’t know what Melissa though
t was odd, apart from the signature,’ I said.

  ‘Well, I do. How did the writer get hold of this address? I was in London at least once a week – or Melissa was – so we didn’t bother to have mail forwarded. Hardly anyone had the Journey’s End address.’

  ‘Couldn’t they have found out from the theatre?’

  ‘Fred wouldn’t have given out a home address. And anyway why couldn’t they just have left the letter at the theatre?’

  ‘We’d better let the police have this.’

  Chapter Thirteen

  ‘THE King of Cups?’ Joe said thoughtfully. ‘You know, that’s kind of familiar.’

  ‘Really? You think it means something specific?’

  It was early on Sunday evening. Around six o’clock Joe had rung me from Ely, where he had been sightseeing, to suggest going for a walk. Kevin had taken Agnes to the theatre for Tilly to look after, so Grace and I had had a quiet day alone. I was ready for some fresh air and some adult company and more: I badly wanted to talk to someone outside the overheated world of the theatre, someone who had nothing at all to do with it. I’d been sucked so far into it that everything outside seemed colourless and unreal. I needed to get some distance on it. And of course I was still curious about Joe and his life in the years since our divorce.

  I picked him up at Ely station. He got into the car and when he leaned over to give me a peck on the cheek, I remembered the kiss he had given me in my dream. I was amused to find myself feeling affectionate, even a little proprietorial, as if we really had embraced.

  The day had been very hot but there was just enough of a breeze now to make it pleasant to be out walking. We drove over to Wicken Fen. It’s a National Trust nature reserve, the last remnant of the watery wilderness that once covered East Anglia. The place was almost deserted. As we strolled along a boardwalk towards the old waterway that winds through it, the trees and shoulder-high reeds that pressed in on both sides blocked our view and created a sense of seclusion.