Act of Evil (2 page)

“Wow!” Hal said, mimicking a cavernous jaw-drop. “Lady, you look awesome.”

Her grin broke the
Vogue
image, but made her look even more desirable. “Thanks, Mister B. You look pretty damn hot yourself.”

It was a warm evening, and as they headed out in the direction of the waterfront at a leisurely stroll, the release from work pressure began to sink in. Juliet was new to the Island. Hal had been away so long he felt like a stranger. In the month they'd been in town, the schedule had left little time for recreation, but this evening they could actually feel part of the tourist throng around the neat harbor. Hal realized just how much had changed. Oh, the stately old Empress Hotel was much the same, likewise the neo-Gothic pile of the legislature and the flock of pleasure craft bobbing by the quay. But there was also a heap of new construction: office towers, huge hotels, and an array of fancy condos, like turreted sentinels guarding the farther reaches of the bay. On the water, apart from the usual seaplanes buzzing in and out, a flock of tiny, comical ferries darted to and fro. The scene was busy, ridiculously charming. In the twenty-plus years of Hal's absence, his old town had quite grown up.

They found a Greek restaurant a block from the waterfront and had a leisurely meal. Juliet was due to fly back East next day, to start rehearsals for
A Midsummer Night's Dream
, in the role of Titania. Hal thought this was a terrific piece of casting, and he told her so in no uncertain terms.

“Thanks, Hal, you're sweet.” Along with her glamorous accoutrements, his co-star was showing a side of her personality he'd seldom seen, light and fancy free; a reaction to finishing the job, no doubt, and borne along pleasantly by a couple of glasses of Chardonnay. “I'm not exactly nervous. But this
is
the first time I've done Shakespeare in ages.”

“What was the last thing?”

“Ophelia, but that was years ago.”

“And got some rave reviews, I seem to recall.”

Her eyebrows lifted. “Do you, indeed?”

“Well, didn't you?”

Juliet smiled. “I guess I did at that.”

“There you go then. You're going to be fabulous and you know it.”

“Thanks.” She reached across and took his hand. “You'd make a terrific Oberon, Hal. I only wish you were going to be in the company.”

Her grip was strong, as forthright as her acting and as compelling. So was the look that accompanied it. Hal returned the pressure and felt a pleasant glow suffuse his whole body. “Me too!” he said sincerely. “Though I must admit I haven't attacked the Bard in an eon either.”

“From what I heard of your King Henry at Stratford, ‘attacked' is the right word.” She giggled, but didn't let go his hand. “Anyway, I just wanted to tell you how much I've loved acting with you.”

“Me too.”

“And to say how much I appreciated not getting—entangled—while we were working. I always find that a distraction.”

“My pleasure. Except . . .”

“What?”

“I guess I have to say—tonight—I
do
rather wish I hadn't been such a bloody gent.”

Neither eyes nor hand released him, and the crinkle-corners of her mouth twitched provocatively. “Well, sweetie, now the work is done, isn't it? . . . and I'm not leaving until tomorrow.”

They got a cab back to the hotel, arriving shortly before eight. The wrap party would be just getting going. They would put in an appearance and then cut out as early as reasonably possible. Juliet headed for her suite to freshen up, having arranged to meet him at the party. Hal, who'd been expecting a call from his agent, went to the front desk to check for messages.

At the rear of the lobby, opposite the bell captain's counter, was an alcove where visitors could wait to meet hotel guests. As he approached the desk, Hal happened to glance in that direction. There—sitting quietly and looking straight at him—was Mattie.

two

“Hello, Hal,” Mattie said. Hal was so surprised to see her that, considering they hadn't spoken in twenty-five years, the first words out of his mouth were so banal as to verge on the ridiculous:

“How did you find me?”

She gave an odd little shrug. “Oh . . . I followed you back here earlier . . . from that place you were filming.” Then, finally, as he still said nothing. “And I appear to have given you a rather bad shock!”

After he'd approached, Mattie had remained seated, looking almost as if she'd been hiding in the quiet little corner. Her expression, which had never been better than uncertain, now moved into embarrassment as she rose. “And this was obviously a really bad idea. Sorry!”

With a brisk twist of her body, she veered around him, starting to walk away.

Coming to his senses, but unable to bring himself to make physical contact, Hal executed a none too graceful dance, stepping in front and forcing her to stop. “I
saw
you today,” he blurted.

She stared, trying to push him aside with her eyes. Close up, he could see that years had indeed done their work—but
what
work: her features had matured into lines of real beauty. What his co-star, Juliet, had achieved with makeup and cunning, Mattie had been vouchsafed by the simple passage of time. Imagining that face onstage, or lighting up a screen, the phrase drifted into his mind,
God, what a waste
. Then he felt guilty, made what sounded to himself like an adolescent titter, and said, “I've been thinking about you ever since.”

She drew in a breath, as if to make some rejoinder, then slowly let it out again. Almost inaudibly, she said, “Me too!”

Something like coherence returned to his brain. “How come you were there—at the shoot, I mean?”

She shrugged. “Coincidence, really. Oh, I knew you'd been making a film here. Read about it in
Times Colonist
a while back. It made me start thinking about you but—well—that was all, I guess. Then today I came to Victoria to do some shopping and noticed a crowd on Humboldt Street. I went to see what was going on and . . . there you were.”

Hal laughed. “Yeah, flat on my back. Well, it's great to see you. Do you hear me?
Great
!”

If nothing else, his intensity produced a pale smile. “If you say so.”

“I
do
say so!” He grew flustered then—
like a ridiculous kid
, his mind babbled—and was overtaken by indecision as to whether to shake her hand, or kiss her, or what the hell to do. He was saved by the sight of the hotel coffee shop over her shoulder, and by some perverse miracle recalling her long-ago drink preference. “You
do
have time for a cup of tea?”

She shrugged, but drifted along with him in the direction of the coffee shop. The place was almost empty. They took a table near the door, Mattie sitting tentatively, as if she might at any moment bolt. A waitress appeared, walking with an end-of-shift slump. “We're closing in ten minutes,” she said.

“That's okay, just coffee for me.” Then, to Mattie. “Is it still Earl Grey—with milk?”

She looked surprised, then nodded. After the waitress left, they sat stiffly, avoiding each other's eyes. Finally Mattie muttered, “I'm afraid this is just silly.”

That did it. Exasperation jolted his tongue loose. “It's not silly at all. A surprise, okay—but, as I said, absolutely great. After I saw you earlier, I
did
start thinking of you a lot—and wondering how I could find you.” (That last was a bit of a stretch, but what the hell: sooner or later, he was sure, he would have.) “But you say you followed me back here? Why? I mean, why not just stick around and say hello?”

“I don't know . . . shy, I guess. All those people fussing about. You seemed like such a grand star. I wanted to leave but I couldn't quite do that either. Then all the way back here—this will sound
really
childish—I was trying to sum up courage to accost you. But before I could, you disappeared into the hotel and it was too late.”

“You could have left a message at the desk.”

“I know. But by that time the whole thing had got to seem so absurd I just left. I'd been planning to have dinner in town anyway, so I went off and did that. But all the time it kept bugging me what a chance I'd missed. I mean . . . I don't think I realized how much it'd mean to—you know, just say hello after all this time—till I saw you again. And I'd blown it. So I came back here and asked at the desk, but they wouldn't tell me anything. I was just trying to decide what to do next when . . . well, here we are.”

At that point the tea and coffee arrived. Hal scribbled his room number on the check and they were left alone. He'd already come to the conclusion that, before they could really talk, one thing had to be got out of the way. A short while ago, he wouldn't have thought that he cared—or even remembered—much about this. But, yes, it had been there, skulking in a back alley of his mind, ever since his first glimpse of her. So he drew a deep breath and said, “Mattie—before anything else, I must say one thing: I want you to know I'm very sorry.”

She looked startled. “Why?”

“For how things ended with us.”

She thought about that for a moment. “It couldn't have been any different. We both know that.”

“I mean—the
way
they ended: me dumping you on the phone and not making any more contact. It was a shitty thing to do.”

She gave him a long look, and he noticed the attractiveness of maturity had been abetted by something else. What, exactly? It seemed like an undercurrent of sadness. But the impression was fleeting, and it faded as Mattie firmly shook her head. “That's a sweet apology, Hal. But really, it's not necessary. What happened was inevitable. We both needed the kind of lives we understood more than . . . well, more than we needed each other. Anyway, that was all a very long time ago.”

“Yes.”

She nodded, closing the subject, then sipped her tea. “You remembered Earl Grey. Impressive.”

“Blind luck, I think.”

“Well, it shows you hadn't
entirely
forgotten me . . .” She shook her head in annoyance. “No—I'm sorry, that's just stupid small talk.”

He laughed, starting to unwind. “Of course it is. Mattie—we haven't seen each other in twenty-five years: how else can we start catching up? And I'll say it again: I'm
really
happy to see you.”

“And me, you.”

“And you're not going to dash off again?”

“I guess I can stay a little while.”

They looked at each other, neither knowing what to say next, but at least comfortable. Eventually, it was Mattie who spoke. “The years have been good to you, Hal.”

He chuckled. “That sounds like a line from a play.”

“Well, it's true.”

“Thanks—you too, I might say.”

“Mmm . . . Are you married?”

“No, I never did that. Almost, a couple of times—but I managed to escape.” Which was
really
juvenile, and not the way he wanted to appear to her at all. He continued hurriedly, “How about you?”

Before she could reply, there was a blur of movement and Hal looked up to see Juliet Jeffries approaching. “Oh, there you are, darling,” she said. “You
are
a dark horse. Who is this amazing looking creature?”

Mattie flushed. Hal introduced the women and saw his old friend draw into herself under Juliet's frank scrutiny. Then, matter-of-factly, the actress switched her beacon to him. “Listen, darling, I'm sorry to interrupt your tête-à-tête, but I've got to get up at one hell of an hour tomorrow. If we're going to duck out of the party in time for some romps of our own, we'd better hustle.”

Mattie rose. “I must be off too.”

She began to walk away fast. Hal knew that this time only physical intervention would do. She was across the foyer when he caught up and placed a hand on her shoulder. The bones felt disturbingly fragile. He let go, but she stopped anyway. “Goodbye, Hal.”

“Mattie—we've hardly had the chance to—”

She cut him off by kissing him on the mouth. It was a dry peck, such as might be delivered by an aunt, but her lips were so tense they quivered. She turned and strode away.

This time he didn't try to follow.

The wrap party was everything that might have been expected; thankfully short on ceremony and producers' speeches, and long on gifts, food, booze, and sentiment, so everyone had a noisy good time. True to their plan, Hal and Juliet drifted off early and unnoticed.

On the way up in the elevator, she kissed him. This was nothing like the movie embraces they'd exchanged as Victorian lovers. Juliet's approach to sex was strictly modern and as dedicated as everything else she did. Any movie that included the scene, richly begun by the time they reached her room, would certainly have been X-rated.

After that, it all went according to a script which—though never performed together—they both knew very well. Hal always took special delight in lovemaking with a new partner. Juliet was not just novel, she was expert, enthusiastic and more uninhibited than most men. Despite the hot and heavy start in the elevator, they didn't continue that way. In private, they slowed right down, removing each other's garments gently, doing much caressing and delicious exploration; bringing patience and imagination to an endeavor as old as history but—since both were actors versed in the art of keeping a performance fresh—as new as if it were their very first time.

Altogether the best kind of ending to a day.

Only when Hal returned to his own suite did he remember he'd never checked for messages. There'd been some question about a voice-over job in Vancouver after the end of filming, and he'd been expecting to hear. He phoned down—there were no messages. He was cynically unsurprised; if things followed the usual pattern, he'd be back in Toronto by the time the idiots here made up their minds. He was about to hang up when the desk clerk said, “Oh, Mister Bannatyne—I almost forgot—there
is
one thing for you. An envelope was handed in just a while ago.”