by Sean Wallace
“It’s not a tragedy,” she told him a little later.
They were sitting at the table, with tea and some pastries he’d conjured out of nowhere. It felt strange to be really alone with him.
“That’s just how it is,” she said. Her voice was worn, like she’d screamed. “It lights like a candle, and it just burns out.”
“I see,” he said.
Steam slipped past the cheap seal on the kettle, dissolving into the dry air, and she felt like something had cracked that could never be repaired.
He didn’t ask her any questions; closer than that they never got.
III. Everyone Take Your Places
As Roger expected, Mr Christie was not pleased. “It’s unconscionable!”
Emily folded her arms and said, “As unconscionable as making your leads rehearse for a month without wages?”
That threw him, and before he could go on Emily said, “Roger and I have both directed. The shows are blocked. There’s no reason the run can’t go on, if you’re willing to back us.”
“Mr Elliott was in all three plays. Where will you find an actor to fulfill the terms of the contract?”
Phil, Roger thought at once.
He looked at Emily, and she said to Mr Christie, “Give us a day.”
Phil owned a hotel in Kensington that had a dress code just for the lobby.
Roger put on his gray suit in the cramped bedroom. The reflection in the mirror looked more dignified than the first time he’d put it on; he’d looked solemn and foolish then, like a boy in an old photograph. Now he had the wrinkles and the bearing that suited him; now, when it was too late to put them to any good use. He was too obsolete to act, and too tired for love affairs.
“Emily?” his reflection called. “Are you ready?”
From inside the other bedroom Emily said, “One moment. Trying to look as though we’re worth throwing in with.”
“Too late for that,” he said. “Just mend up your shabby and come out.”
“This dress makes me look like a coffin.”
“It does not,” Roger said, and when she opened the door he amended, “Only slightly.”
“I’ll just wear a suit,” she said with a sigh, closed the door again.
“Whose?” Roger asked, though he knew.
She even wore Roger’s top hat, so when they walked side by side they looked like a vaudeville team. The black trousers were too long on her, and only her heels kept the hems out of the dust.
The host stepped in front of them before they had set foot on the soft carpet.
“Madam—”
“Miss.”
“. . . I’m very sorry, but the Maitland maintains a very strict dress code.”
“And I’m wearing the full suit,” she said, and Roger tried not to laugh in the poor man’s face.
“Yes, thank you, but I’m afraid I can’t allow it.”
“Let the poor woman through, she’s only gone senile in her old age,” said Phil from behind them, and then Emily was laughing and embracing him, one hand pressed against the crown of her hat to keep it from falling.
Phil was still tall and thin and elegant. The white at his temples was the same they painted in when he was Colonel Preson. Frozen in time; that’s what a life of honest business did for you.
The hotel restaurant was discreet to the point of being underlit, and Roger fumbled his way through the four courses guessing what he was eating.
Emily hardly ate; she and Phil traded horror stories and laughed and made small talk like he didn’t know why Roger and Emily had come by his posh hotel.
Phil was lovely about these things, though; always had been. Back when they all might as well have been shooting at each other, Phil was the one who smoothed over quarrels, who stayed friendly with flings in every city.
When Phil left, Roger had acted from Phil’s example; someone had to smooth things over.
Roger had forgotten how he’d missed Phil until they were sitting in the club after dinner, in a comfortable silence, and Phil sat forward and said, “Children, children, what a bloody mess you’re in.”
Roger laughed, and even as Emily nudged Phil she was smiling.
Emily should have married Phil – better to have been stuck with Phil all these years, Roger thought, stopped himself.
“How are you holding up?” asked Phil.
Roger looked at Emily.
She shrugged. “Don’t know, really. It’s like my parents are divorcing, not me. I feel old, is the pity. You shut your face,” she said, and pointed, and Roger closed his mouth with exaggerated care.
Phil laughed. “And Roger?”
“Unemployed,” Roger said, “now that Peter’s fucked off and left us.”
Phil sucked in air through his teeth. “God, I hadn’t thought of that. That’s awful.”
Emily gave Phil the full force of her concentration. “Don’t suppose you’re dying to play one last London run?”
Phil sat back and looked at the cigarette in his fingers. On the dance floor behind him, couples were swaying to the music of a human orchestra.
Roger held his breath, prayed there was something he hadn’t thought of that would convince Phil to come home.
“Don’t suppose I would be,” Phil said after a long time. “That was ages ago. Different time. I’ve got a reputation, you know; can’t go about at my age trying to relive an old dream.”
Phil had bowed out right on the cusp of the trouble, the first of them to go. He kept his eye on sales, and after two seasons of Dramatons outselling them he was gone, quietly investing in the hotel, quietly wishing them well, quietly stepping back.
Roger looked up at the crowd swanning in and out across the marbled lobby outside the club; and Phil, across from him, master of it all and not aged a day.
Phil had been very wise.
Beside Roger, Emily tapped on the brim of her hat.“We could really use you, Phil.”
“I’m sorry.” He sat back. “After all this time, I couldn’t.”
Before Roger could think better of it, he asked, “And should we quit, do you think?”
Emily looked at him, back at Phil.
Phil, to his credit, met their eyes.
“No shame in it,” Phil said. “Better that than a dead run. Leave them wanting more.”
Roger could see in Emily’s profile that the gears were already turning; she was calculating odds, weighing her chances, looking ahead with those hard eyes.
“Phil, let’s have a dance,” she said. “It’s been ages since I heard a human orchestra.”
Phil grinned and took her hand as he stood. “It’s one of my amenities,” he said. “No automatons. Unless you count some of the concierges, they’re dull as planks, but what can you do?”
“You can stop with the hiring practices and dance with me,” Emily said.
She left her hat at the table. Roger rested his fingertips on it. It was smooth; too smooth in some places. Soon the brim would fray.
Her hair was bobbed, and with both of them in suits she and Phil looked like the beginning of a burlesque. They danced with half-closed eyes and happy smiles, Emily chatting and grinning like she was content.
You’d never guess anything was wrong, if you didn’t know how she looked when her heart was broken.
Roger tapped the beat with two fingers on the crown of the top hat and gathered his nerve.
The next song was slow, and before he could second-guess himself Roger was standing, taking her hand, leading her onto the floor.
They’d danced together onstage. For three years in London they’d done society plays where half the dialogue took place on the dance floor.
(He’d always felt sorry for Rose, who was a foot shorter than any of the men and got trod on six nights a week for three years.)
Roger wasn’t sharp at it, but he could trudge back and forth to a sad song as well as anyone.
He took the stage embrace, but she stepped closer into his arms, like the beginning of The Con
demned Woman. Conspiratorial. End-of-the-line.
After a moment, he lowered his head until his chin was beside her temple.
“Rose is here,” Emily said to Roger’s lapel. “She and her lady friend live on the sixth floor. And the Theatre Dramaturgica just checked someone into one of the suites.”
Peter.
Roger frowned. “What a reunion.”
“We should decide what we’re going to do,” she said. She tightened her grip on his shoulder, turned to look at him. Her nose brushed his cheek. They were nearly kissing.
“Tomorrow,” he said.
They were going to fall to pieces later, but they hadn’t danced in ten years, and it was a beautiful song.
After a beat, she said against his jaw, “You’re a bit crap at all this.”
“I know,” he said, kept dancing.
It was raining on the way out, and he nudged her into a taxi over her protests about the expense. They were penniless, but he’d be damned if they were going to run into Peter sopping wet like a couple of refugees.
“I was thinking of writing,” she said to the window. “People may want things performed the same way, but they always need new things to perform. People are odd.”
Her face reflected off the glass; against the cityscape he could see narrowed eyes, a drawn-thin mouth.
“Peter could use the help,” he said.
“Don’t.”
He watched the streets sliding past the window. It felt like something pressing on his throat.
“I could voice,” he said. “They’re always looking for people to do interpretation. Poor sods can’t do it themselves, can they?”
“Oh. I hadn’t thought of that.”
He frowned. “You disapprove?”
“For you? Nonsense, you’re wonderful. Brilliant idea.” His chest tightened. “And you?”
She shook her head.
“God, I need a smoke.”
“You do,” he said, watched her tap out a pattern on the glass.
* * *
Mr Christie was a man of discretion; their contracts and canceled lease were delivered, so they wouldn’t waste a trip to the theatre to be sacked in front of the secondaries.
Roger poured them each a drink. They finished in single swallows.
“Right,” he said. “Let’s pack up, and we’ll go flat-hunting this afternoon.”
“If you want anything of Peter’s, now’s the time to claim it.”
He had no interest in anything of Peter’s, but he said, “Would you like a hand?”
“No,” she said, closed the door.
Emily packed Peter’s things neatly in his case and sent them to the Maitland Hotel.
“No big scene?” Roger wasn’t sure what to expect, but after a quarter-century of marriage she might feel like setting his good shirts ablaze.
“I kept all his braces. He’ll have to buy belts.”
“Petty theft is the best revenge.”
“Hush,” she said, and handed him a paper bag. “Enjoy your braces. I have to bring these downstairs.”
He started to offer, but she shook her head and went down alone.
The bedroom bore no sign of Peter, as if he’d only been an overnight guest; as if a single suitcase had carried away anything he’d ever done.
When Emily came back he had her drink ready.
“I always said you were a gentleman,” she said, toasted him silently.
“To whom?”
She shrugged. “There must have been someone I talked to besides you.”
It was the last of the Scotch, and as Emily cleaned out of the bathroom and her bedroom, Roger found things in the kitchen, and they ate the last bits of cheese and fruit from the icebox so they wouldn’t go to waste.
Emily moved slowly, seemingly unconcerned that the landlord was coming for the keys at five. She rolled her perfume bottles into her socks, folded her good dress in newspaper.
“Keeps the wrinkles off,” she said when she saw him looking.
As they were putting on their hats and coats, the porter returned from the Maitland with an invitation for Mr Roger Cavanaugh and Ms Emily Howard to avail themselves of his hotel, free of charge, until such time as they should find suitable employment.
“About time,” Emily said, and then Roger realized why she’d made the good-faith gesture of sending over the luggage; a guaranteed guilt response from Phil, who did so love settling quarrels.
The relief stung him.
“God, I could kiss you,” he said.
She looked at him for a long time before she said, “Let’s get a taxi.”
At the Maitland the concierge nodded when they gave their names. “And would you like adjoining suites?”
“Just the one,” said Emily.
Roger frowned, but Emily only touched his back and said, “We shouldn’t take more space than we need.”
Long after they were in the suite and she’d gone into the bedroom to hang her things, he could feel where the warmth of her hand had seeped through his jacket.
There was no mention of parting.
After a debate about whether or not to dine downstairs (“Should we?” “No.” “Right.”), they got bread and cheese and pears from a grocer. Roger insisted they get something from the hotel, so they ordered tea from room service and paid the tab promptly. It made Roger feel less in Phil’s debt, though he knew one night in this suite was probably worth Roger’s salary for the entire run.
They listened to the news on her bedroom radio. The Dramaturgica got another interview.
“The range of material is stunning,” Peter said, his voice tinny. “These are some of the most knowledgeable actors I’ve had the pleasure to work with in all my years in theatre. Opening night is going to be groundbreaking.”
“We can hope,” said Roger.
She frowned. “Don’t.”
Emily had never vilified Dramatons the way other actors had, back when it was a battle. She joined the Actors’ Rights Union but never campaigned, and declined the “Live Theatre is Really Living” radio spots. She and Roger had rows over it, loud and mean enough that Phil had to intervene.
Roger didn’t understand why Emily seemed so devoid of disgust for them. He wasn’t given to it, but he hated their fame, and he hated audiences who couldn’t see the difference between real and manufactured.
“I’m going to talk to United Entertainment tomorrow,” she said. “They’re always looking for writers.”
“Fine,” he said around the ache in his chest. “Best get some sleep, then. Lots of groveling in the morning.”
“Go to your room and shut your face, I’ll be brilliant,” she said, and got up to brush her teeth.
United kept her for three hours.
He’d gone with her, and it only made sense to apply as a voiceover artist while he was waiting. They sent him home with a table-top recorder and a stack of scripts.
“Whatever you think suits,” the lady said, in a tone that made it clear this was his first test of employment.
So they set up on his bed, and Emily flipped through the scripts and sorted them into piles.
“Crap,” she said, dropped one onto the larger stack beside the bed. “Crap. Crap. Very good,” she said, tucked one under her knee. “Crap. Crap. You should give these people a talking-to, they sent you home with awful stuff.”
“I’ll have to take your word for it, I have yet to see anything.”
She shoved something into his hands. “Read this first, then we’ll do the other one.”
It was a good monologue, that gray space between hero and villain that he most liked to occupy. Inflections, intonations, pushed forward from the page. All he’d have to do was open his mouth.
“What’s the other?” he asked.
“The one where I’m your wife,” she said, dropped another on the pile. “Watch out with these people. They’re trying to turn you into a Lothario. At your age it will kill you.”
When he woke it was full night.
The darkness pressed on him through the window, as if the streetlights had turned away. Music poured from the club downstairs; some foxtrot he didn’t know.
Emily was asleep, turned away from him. The libris was still on, resting in the space between them, the Condemned Woman’s speech flickering faintly in the dark.
(Two years ago, in Cardiff, she’d missed a line and thrown them three minutes past the pivotal reconciliation. There was no way to go back from where she’d put them, and they’d had to go on without it. The audience didn’t know the play enough to complain, but they knew something was missing; it read in the limpid applause.
Peter was furious with her; Emily was more furious at herself than Peter was.
“It’s just not what it was,” she’d said, shaken, after Peter had stormed out of the dressing room. “I mean, you’re rubbish in the farewell scene anyway, aren’t you?”
“Terrible,” Roger agreed.)
After a minute he realized; in a pinch, you could cut out crowd scenes and the magistrate and perform the play with two actors.
He held out his hand to her, hesitated. When she breathed in her shoulder almost touched his palm; when she breathed out it sank away from him, out of reach.
Downstairs they struck up the first bars of “Forgetting You”. The bandleader murmured something into the microphone, and the singer began.
Roger brought his hand back to his chest, stared at the ceiling, tried to breathe.
IV. When All Else Fails, Drop the Curtain
For six weeks Emily wrote afternoon radio dramas – half an hour minus the time it took to advertise ipecac and baking soda – and clocked them quickly enough to make an income.
It was great fun; it was every overwrought scenario from vaudeville without a sense of humor, and she and Roger sat up nights running lines and trying not to break.
“‘Oh, Charles, my dearest love, shot, shot down in the street! The Black Masques must be behind this! Oh, Detective Allan, you must believe me! You must help me!’”
“‘By all heaven’s gold, I will do neither!’ God, Em, really?”
“Keep going. I need to fill two minutes before the butter advert.”