by Sean Wallace
“Well, at least she’s more fun than Rose,” said Phil.
“Ta,” said Rose, and dropped his arm.
Roger smiled and walked Rose through the photographers.
Rose could flash a coquette’s smile as well as any Ingénue, and flashbulbs skittered around them. She’d even cut her hair for fashion, and her Marcel gleamed.
Just before they passed under the marquee Roger looked back for Phil and saw he was escorting Emily, several crowds behind.
Emily was wearing her good black frock and smiling at the cameras like she knew something they didn’t, and they took her picture and then shrugged to one another.
Roger took Rose inside, didn’t look back again.
Turned out Peter, in a blaze of consideration, had seated Emily apart; her box was stage right, as far from them as the theatre allowed. She was perched on her chair, looking down at the stage.
Roger got interested in his playbill.
Phil took his seat. “Apparently the other seats are taken, or I would have stayed there. Bit of a bastard, Peter, really.”
“I’ve half a mind to go over there,” said Rose.
“I’ve half a mind to find Peter,” said Phil.
But the lights went down and the curtain came up, and it was time for the play.
It was an old story, acted in an old way; the audience clapped at the end of all the right speeches. However, Roger could see Peter’s mark on the way they moved, on the differences in their pauses and their use of the stage.
Peter had given them the illusion of trying. Peter had at last stumbled onto his genius.
Emily would be heartbroken.
When the screen slid shut after Act One, Roger turned to comfort her, but it was only Rose, who was quietly mutilating the playbill.
Phil frowned. “Are you all right?”
“A bit under the weather, is all,” Rose said, tearing another corner. “Lots of excitement these past few weeks. More than I’m used to; Abigail’s so steady, and Phil’s a bore, of course.”
“Ta,” said Phil.
But Roger wasn’t surprised when he looked over a few moments later and saw Phil watching Rose with an expression of fondness and chagrin.
(He was surprised the look lingered; Phil was studying her with the fondness of a long acquaintance, the fondness that goes unspoken between people who know one another enough to keep company in the face of all good sense.)
Phil glanced up and flushed at being caught out, but shrugged without shame, and gave Roger the same look.
Roger had thought Phil offered them space for old times’ sake, that because he couldn’t persevere he had instead provided.
But Phil loved them. He loved them enough to want them all to live with him, close at hand and never really changing, sparing Phil a world of strangers and doubts.
Roger thought of Emily, who had never looked at him like that in thirty years. When Emily looked at Roger it was to size him up and see him as he was, and if she ever found him lacking she said as much, and if she ever found him excelling she told him that, too.
And when she had looked at him with love (fleeting, joyful, terrifying moments), it had never been for the sake of something that was gone.
He stood up so quickly he had to clap a hand to his hat to keep it from falling. “Rose,” he said, “if you’re ill I’m happy to take you home.”
“Please.”
By the time applause started for Act Two they were in the lobby, free from the silhouette in the box across the way, the sight of the beautiful machines.
The idea that Phil was paying for two charity suites drove Roger into the world; if he was going to stay in London he’d have to start paying his way.
(It wasn’t quite true – he’d heard three episodes of the radio soap that could only have been hers, and the Georgian play stood a good chance – but it didn’t do to think too long about Emily.)
He walked through Covent Garden catching signs in the windows: Shop girls Wanted; Hiring Barkeep; Automaton Handler Positions Available. A bookshop off Mercer was seeking a seller; a tailor was looking for a decent drafter. The sign said, NO ARCHITECTS.
When he noticed he was at the door of the Olympia Theatre, he was almost surprised.
I’ve been telling you for thirty bloody years and you never listen.
He stepped up to the will-call window. “Excuse me. I’d like to audition for the company.”
The ticket-taker (a boy no more than twenty) frowned and looked around for help. None came.
“Have you brought credentials?” he asked, looking proud of himself for asking.
Roger said, “I’m the last human actor.”
“Right,” said the boy after a moment, “let me just, erm . . . hm.”
“I’ve a monologue prepared,” said Roger, “if that helps you.”
The boy smiled thinly and disappeared, and Roger was just beginning to wonder if he should give up when the theatre doors opened and a gentleman strode through. He was wearing a vested suit and still had gloves on. Roger recognized a director.
“I’m Michael Brinn. I understand you’re auditioning to be a handler.”
“An actor.”
Mr. Brinn frowned. “Beg pardon?”
Roger took a breath for courage. “I’m the last working actor,” he said. “I’ve been doing this for thirty years. I’m a commodity.”
Brinn snorted. “You’d go up against a Dramaton?”
Roger just looked at him.
In less time that Roger expected, Brinn spread his arms, a picture of patience, and led the way inside.
“You’re joking.”
“I’m not.”
“Roger, that’s – are you sure?”
He raised an eyebrow. “Yes, Phil.”
Phil sat back, crossed his arms. “So, what did – Well. Congratulations. Couldn’t have happened to a better man.”
Phil called Rose; Phil called for champagne.
Then Rose was there in a flurry of robes, kissing them and congratulating them both like Phil had done something, too. She had one forgotten bobby pin sticking out of her Marcel and a spot of masque on her temple; her accolades couldn’t wait for fashion.
* * *
Roger had hated Dramatons, on and off, since the beginning.
(On, whenever he thought what would happen to all the actors he’d watched in all those cities, the breathless dark of the theatre. Off, when Emily told him to be kinder.)
When there were Dramatons in the papers – Ingénues in baggy dresses that hid their hip joints standing next to grinning Heroes, a smooth-skinned Femme Fatale standing alone (the only women Dramatons who stood alone in photographs) – he’d looked at their blank celluloid eyes and thought, Naught as queer as folk.
The plays began promptly and were always perfect. It didn’t matter to the audience that Dramatons weren’t real. It was no concern of theirs that the shells were empty.
Let them settle, he’d thought, back then.
Now Roger was older, and had to pick his battles. Acting alongside Dramatons seemed as hopeless a battle as any. It would make a fitting end.
He spent the first night memorizing The Condemned Woman; he was surrounded by walking libraries, and he’d have to be note-perfect.
Four times he turned to ask Emily for help.
At last he gave up and called Phil. “I have to memorize this,” he said.
Rose and Phil were at his door ten minutes later, bearing breakfast.
“My lord,” said Rose around a grape, “if you ever loved me, do not force me to beg for mercy. Let me die as I have chosen to.”
“But you are not guilty! Must you take another’s crimes on your shoulders for that long walk to the grave? Must I mourn you twice – tomorrow, and now tonight?”
“So soon,” Phil piped up. “And now, so soon, tonight.”
“Bugger.” Roger cleared his throat. “Must I mourn you twice – tomorrow, and now, so soon, tonight?”
“I hoped yo
u would not love me enough to mourn,” said Rose, and made a sympathetic face at her libris.
“Don’t you cry,” warned Phil.
She threw a grape.
* * *
His co-star was a Dame; they gave her salt-and-pepper hair and a thinner build than necessary.
“She answers to the character name,” said her handler, an obscenely young man. “And the other major titles – my wife, my love.”
Roger felt a bit ill. “And it changes every show?”
“Of course. How else would we call them?” The boy shoved his spectacles up and closed the panel on her forehead. “She’s set for the blocking, Mr Brinn.”
From the orchestra seats, Mr Brinn’s assistant opened the script for him.
“We’ll open with you in the wings, my lady, if you please.”
“Yes please,” the Dramaton said, and walked behind the curtain.
“Mr Cavanaugh, enter stage left and embrace her.”
“Yes please,” said Roger pleasantly, and went to mark before anyone could reprimand him.
When he wrapped his arms around the Dame she was unyielding, her body warm from all the little motors.
“I told you not to,” the Dame said.
He said, “How could I help it?”
They went scene by scene, and as they traded lines and waited for cues (“Pause before the next line.” “Yes please.”), Roger could hear her blinking just under the sound of her voice.
If it made Roger a little sad, he was careful not to show it. He’d asked for a place in the future, and this was it; lovely automatons without one comment that wasn’t programmed in. If it was lonely work, at least it was something to do; better to be lonely here.
Roger left Emily a note with the concierge.
Congratulations on the Georgian – Rose told me. It’s a lovely piece. Hope they treat it as it deserves.
Changed my mind about fighting alone – The Condemned Woman goes up at the Olympia in a month. Doing what I can.
Take care.
After two weeks Roger understood why Dramatons had stayed away from naturalism; the Dame overheated three times trying to accommodate both Mr Brinn’s stage directions and Roger’s speech patterns.
“You could be more uniform, Cavanaugh,” Mr Brinn suggested.
“You’re paying me to not be uniform,” Roger pointed out, and that was the last time that came up.
After three weeks there was talk of a newer model.
They put an ad in the paper: “SEEKING DAME-MODEL AND HANDLER FOR HIRE. HISTORICAL DRAMA A MUST. HUMAN-LEVEL CALIBRATION STANDARDS. SIX-WEEK RUN.”
“We’ll use the old one until then,” said Brinn.
No one answered, and Roger began to feel a flicker of hope that maybe someday human-level calibration might turn into actual humans again. Not that he’d live to see it, but still, dare to dream.
When he took the stage, the Dame model walked out to meet him in her star-spangled cloak, her face calibrated to be noble in suffering. The expression never altered; even when she simulated weeping, serenity remained.
Emily had made it ugly; her Condemned Woman was noble when she could manage it, but was angry and terrified and jealous by turns, and at the end of the play, just before she schooled her features to go out and meet the hangman with decorum, she’d gripped his hand like she wanted to drag him down with her.
He stepped up to the Dame model, embraced her.
“I told you not to,” she said.
He said, “How could I help it?”
(“Too mournful,” said Brinn.)
If there was an ache in his chest from beginning to end of every run, he didn’t worry about it. You got all kinds of aches and pains at his age.
“Are you excited?” Rose asked him as soon as the waltz was over. “Just think, in a week you’ll be back at the Olympia! God, it’s been ages since we were there, a life ago, it’s mad that you’re back there, Abigail thinks it’s the maddest thing when I tell her.
“And with the old Dame’s having all the mechanical trouble! What if she breaks in the middle, you’ll really be in it then, Emily talks about it sometimes, about what would happen if they just broke and there was nothing you could do – I can’t imagine how you’re feeling.”
“Like a foxtrot,” he said.
She took the hint, and they finished the dance in silence.
Roger wasn’t surprised to see Peter at their table, waiting for him like the evil Duke in a melodrama.
Phil and Rose vanished onto the dance floor.
But Peter had never been good at playing villain, and when Roger said, “You look well, Peter,” the worst Peter could summon was, “Better than some.”
“How’s the play going?”
“Well, it was going well until I found out there was a novelty act down the street.”
“It’s only a novelty the first time. Soon it will be so commonplace you won’t even have to worry about it.”
Peter sighed. “I didn’t mean it like that, Roger, it’s just – Christ, this is important to me! How could you do it? You couldn’t find some other way to act?”
Roger finished his drink rather than answer.
“Right, sorry,” said Peter. “But it’s still a bit of a blow. Not that you care, now that you’ve made your point. I’ll hand it to you, though, I didn’t think you had that kind of showmanship in you. You should have seen Emily’s face when she told me.”
Roger’s lungs contracted for a moment. “Oh?”
“Said it served me right, and you’d show everyone what they’d been missing.You know how she gets when she’s excited about something.”
Roger smiled. Poor Peter, upstaged for the first time in his life.
“I hope to see you both opening night.”
“I’m busy,” Peter said, but when Roger said, “A seat in the boxes?” Peter said, “Well, I might do.”
* * *
The papers went wild.
What had been a pathetic last stand when there were three of them was now one man’s cause célèbre.
The Examiner: “MAN VS MACHINE: HAPPY ENDING OR END OF ALL WE HOLD DEAR?”
The Nation: “Cavanaugh to get into gears”
The Evening Standard: “WAS THIS WHY WE FOUGHT THE WAR?”, which Roger thought was unfair all around.
The only one Roger bothered with was Greaselight Weekly. He set it on the night table so he’d have something to look at in the mornings before rehearsal.
“LAST LIVING ACTOR TO GO DOWN SWINGING.”
The house was packed, and for a moment Roger wasn’t sure he’d be able to go on in front of that big an audience. Then he remembered he’d done it in this same theatre a quarter-century ago.
“Damn fool,” he muttered, and stepped onstage to a hail of applause and a smattering of jeers.
The condemned woman stepped out into the lights, her blue velvet coat spangled with little tin stars.
It was Emily.
Emily, who was clutching the edges of the cloak in her fists, terrified and exhilarated and amazed as she’d always been at the beginning of the play all those years ago; just the same.
When they embraced, he crushed her in his arms, and she took in a shuddering breath, buried her face in his shoulder.
The audience was rapt.
It would never be like this again; it could not have been this without thirty years together, without their fight, without this fierce surprise pressing against his chest.
Roger wrapped his arms tighter.
He stepped back, letting the edges of her cloak slide slowly through his fingers.
“I told you not to look for me,” she said.
He breathed, “How could I help it?”
She shook her head; her eyes were bright.
He took her hand and led her to the wooden bench that marked her prison cell, where the condemned woman would spend her final hours.
Everything else would wait until after the performance.
Into the Sky
Joseph Ng
From a hundred feet up in the air, the Great Wall didn’t look so great.
It was a miserable, cold night when I observed this, curled up in my gondola as the balloon was tossed by violent winds. The air outside was an impenetrable darkness and the soggy snow came in from every direction. The frost bit through the fur on my winter uniform, nipping at my ears. Even the flame from the burner, so vigilantly fighting the cold, could not reach me with its warmth.
I could, of course, blame a great many people for my predicament. I could blame Hou, for falling sick and, indirectly, forcing me to replace him up here. I could blame Zhihe, who swapped schedules with me (Saturdays are my off days). I could blame General Zhou for conceiving the idea of hot air balloons in place of watchtowers to save costs; or even Emperor Qing (may He live ten thousand years) for agreeing to the proposal, for putting the Lüyingbing, particularly our division, in charge of watching the northern border.
But what was the use? I was already up here, and there was nothing that could change that.
As I peered up into the endlessly swirling snow, past the acrid black smoke from the burner, I thought I could see a faint twinkle in the darkness. The light of a star.
Amid the howling wind, I heard a distant sound, like a burst of firecrackers. It stopped. Then the sound came again, nearer this time. Finally, it ended up some half a kilometer away to the left of my station. Begrudgingly, I got to my feet and released the safety on the railgun, then gave the trigger a light squeeze.
The sound was like punctures. Like car tires bursting open. After a series of six shots into the dark unknown that laid beyond the wall, I released the trigger and engaged the safety again. Then to my right, the watcher in the next station started his routine check. We had to do this, especially in the snowy weather, so the gun parts did not freeze when we needed to use them.
I curled up again in the relative comfort of my gondola. The icy storm gave no indication that it was going to let up soon.
With my arms tucked inside my armpits and my body curled up as tightly as possible, I fell asleep until the next fire check came. By that time, daylight had already come.