Memory and Desire (3 page)

“I bet they are,” Claire agreed. “Was it Richard who chose Melinda to be Elizabeth Spenser in The Play? Melinda said last year was the first time someone not from Somerstowe had been chosen to play the lead."

“Oh yes, that was most unusual. It is not Richard, however, who does the choosing of parts."

Claire interpreted the slow wave of Sarita's eyebrows as a seismological response to social shock waves. “Then...” she began, only to be interrupted by a shout from the yard below.

“Mum! Mum! Derek's pinched my biro!"

“It's never hers, Mum!” protested a similar but deeper voice.

“Please excuse me,” said Sarita, gliding toward the door. “Dinner is at seven."

“Thank you.” Claire watched as Sarita wafted down the steps to intervene between two teenagers who were facing off like gladiators. The boy's black hair was cut in a shaved-nape helmet that wouldn't have looked out of place on the Bayeux tapestry. The girl's poufed upward from her forehead in testimony to the power of gel and spray. Their colorful clothes were either skintight or three sizes too big.

Sarita read the riot act in dulcet tones, restored the pen to its rightful owner, and sent the children to their separate corners of the house. Claire was impressed. Coping with squabbling adolescents was one of her occupational hazards, but she never managed anywhere near so much poise. She was usually tempted to restore order with a two-by-four.

She shut the door, tripped over a wrinkle in the carpet—it wasn't tacked down, she saw—and started to unpack.

Of course Melinda had had admirers here, too. She took cruises to romantic palm-fringed isles and carriage rides in Central Park. Claire had matter-of-fact relationships in her own bedroom. Yeah, maybe Melinda had eloped with someone, although, given her ambitions, that wasn't likely. Her ambitions had contributed to the breakup of her marriage.

From her carry-on bag Claire took a small jeweler's box. She opened it, peeked at Melinda's wedding ring glinting impassively on its bed of cotton, and hid it in the back corner of the wardrobe.

That Richard was passionate she could well believe. His over-reaction to Claire's mention of Melinda was probably basic masculine touchiness, not a guilty conscience. Maybe he was resentful Melinda had chosen someone else for whatever post-divorce therapy she'd had in mind. Maybe he thought she'd trashed him to Claire.

She hadn't, though. She'd never had a chance to. Her notes and letters were only quick stream-of-consciousness anecdotes. As always, she'd been saving chapter and verse until afterwards.

Claire stacked Melinda's letters—most printed out from e-mails, a couple hand-written—on the desk by the window. Beside them she set the playbill. “An Historie of the Apocalypse as Visit'd upon Summerstow” was printed in antique script across the outside of the folded paper. No wonder everyone simply referred to it as “The Play.” Tucked inside was a snapshot of Melinda in her costume, a long blue dress with the puffy sleeves and broad collar of the 1660's. She was smiling, challenging the lens as she challenged life, with a direct, uncompromising look.

Beside the letters Claire placed a thin book, its red construction paper cover imprinted with the same title as the playbill. “A True Story dramatized by Phillip Lacey” was added on a lower line. And had he ever dramatized it. Claire had ordered her own copy of The Play and studied it as carefully as she'd studied Melinda's letters, as though some word or phrase would leap from the page and announce, “I'm a clue!” But she'd found nothing in the florid dialog that even smelled of red herring.

She found a place for her CD player on the bookcase, then turned to the bathroom, arranging her cosmetics and lotions on a glass shelf above the sink. In the mirror her face looked like slept-in corduroy, her brown eyes muddy with weariness. Melinda never looked tired. Claire knew how much maintaining her blonde and beautiful image cost—and why the security that image provided made the cost worthwhile.

Claire wasn't sure she had an image. Her features were symmetrical, functional, respectable. Maybe her lips had recently started pinching just a bit at the corners, and a frown line was threatening to appear between her eyes, but today the rain had incited her auburn hair to rebelliousness. Rebellion, she thought. Sidekicks of the world unite!

But she'd never been Melinda's sidekick any more than Melinda had been hers. They'd been more than friends. They'd been sisters. Claire peeled off her wilted clothes, adjusted the water in the shower, and remembered.

“Everyone knew Melinda,” Richard had said. Well, once upon a time everyone at Crockett High knew Melinda. She was pretty. She was popular. She belonged to all the clubs and she organized all the dances. Shy, awkward, introverted only-child Claire had hated her. Then she'd found Melinda sobbing in the girl's locker room, her tears washing away enough of her artfully applied make-up to reveal the bruise discoloring her cheekbone. To this day Claire could see Melinda's look of terror and belligerence melt into relief when she said only, “How can I help?"

The situation at Melinda's home, the alcoholic mother, the abusive stepfather, grew so bad that Child Protective Services intervened. Claire's parents, who she'd always thought were stodgy beyond all redemption, became state-mandated foster parents so that Melinda could spend her senior year with them instead of with her distant and much older brother.

Since then they'd won their own scholarships, gone to their own colleges, pursued their own careers and their own romances. If at times Claire felt like she was standing on the curb watching Melinda's parade, there were other times she felt like she was sitting cozily before a warm hearth with Melinda's face pressed against the window behind her. Yes, she'd known Melinda all right. Without her, Claire wouldn't be who she was.

And now she was a solo act. She had to re-define herself. Maybe once she found out what had happened to Melinda, and, even more importantly,
why,
she could get on with her life. But not before then. If that's what the psychology pop-word “closure” meant, so be it.

The shower slapped her back into if not alertness at least wakefulness. She dressed in chino pants and chambray blouse and cinched her belt snugly, hoping it would create a waistline where none existed. Not that she was overweight, her figure simply owed more to Kansas's topography than to Colorado's. Melinda's figure, on the other hand, looked like a relief map of San Francisco.

Claire had run out of tears a long time ago. Now she blew her nose, cleaned her glasses—which Melinda had made sure were fashionable enough not to be cliche librarian accessories—and walked out into the evening. She arrived at the Nair's back door just as a clock inside the house struck seven.

The dining room was warm and bright. Light reflected off brass trays, polished china, and the smooth mahogany complexions of the teenagers, who were introduced as Derek and Trillian. They were now standing demurely behind their chairs waiting for the adults to sit. Claire smiled at them and received gleaming white grins in return.

Sarita filled Claire's plate with a lamb and tomato stew scented with onions and spices. Her taste buds snapped to attention. She helped herself to generous portions of the side dishes, lentils, cauliflower, brussels sprouts, and boiled potatoes. Using a crispy pappadum to scoop food onto her fork, she ate almost without breathing. Delicious!

It wasn't until Sarita had served a sweet, milky rice pudding that Claire managed to re-boot her brain and ask questions about the village and its long memory.

“Some of the families in Somerstowe,” Roshan answered, “have been here for generations. To other families, though, Somerstowe is a dormitory suburb of Derby and Sheffield only."

“The people with roots here are the ones who put on The Play?"

“Yes indeed,” replied Sarita. “For many years Diana Jackman played Elizabeth, and before her Heather Little—right back to the first production. We have just begun rehearsals for the fifteenth. I am wardrobe mistress again, and this year Trillian will be playing Elizabeth."

Trillian dimpled mischievously, looking not at all like the modest servant girl Elizabeth had been. Period clothes and a less assertive hairdo would make a big difference, Claire thought. “It isn't Richard who chooses the roles? He doesn't get points for his name?"

“He's only lived here a year,” answered Derek.

“I am understanding, though,” Sarita added, “his family spent summers here when he was a boy."

“Yeh,” said Trillian. “It was his dad sussed out the manuscript of the The Play in the attic at the Hall. We study it in school now.” She rolled her expressive dark eyes, obviously wishing scholars would stop adding items to the curriculum.

Roshan went on, “Richard Lacey was dispatched by the National Trust after the elderly Mrs. Cranbourne left the Hall to them. She also assigned the income from The Play to a trust fund to maintain the Hall. Very tidy arrangement, I'm thinking. For the Trust, not for her relatives who wanted the Hall for themselves."

“You will be mending the old textiles, as did Melinda?” Sarita started gathering the dirty dishes. “As did Elizabeth, for that matter."

“Yes,” Claire answered. “I've been doing needlework for years, but I've never had the chance to work on anything as old as Somerstowe's canvases. I'm the one who taught Melinda how to..."

“Tally ho!” shouted a cheerful voice from the shop. “What light through yonder doorway breaks?"

“Hello, Elliot,” Roshan called, and shoved himself away from the table. “I shall fetch your letters.” He disappeared toward the front of the house.

A face that displayed its long nose and prominent front teeth like the marquee of a movie theater looked around the doorframe. “Please, don't let me disturb you—I was simply perishing for the days’ post—conference at Shepherd's Bush, don't you know, a new movie deal—the commute to London's not quite as bad as commuting in Los Angeles—oh, I say, hello there! Elliot Moncrief. And you?"

“Claire Godwin,” Claire replied, somewhat dazed. So this was the producer and director. If not a household name he was at least a neighborhood phrase. Melinda had mentioned him more than once—he had a cottage in Somerstowe and had directed The Play for several years now. Claire, Melinda, and her then-husband Nigel had seen Elliot's production of “Don Juan in Hell” in Covent Garden year before last. He'd dressed the actors as punks and scored Shaw's prose with heavy metal music. Melinda had thought it was all a great joke. Nigel had been shocked rigid.

Elliot sauntered through the doorway and pressed Claire's fingertips in his smooth, cool hand. “Is that one of your inestimable pappadums, Sarita? May I? Lucky you, Miss Godwin, to be treated to such a repast."

As he leaned over Claire's shoulder to snare the last pappadum she caught of whiff of his musky cologne. Or polish, as the case might be. Is this guy for real? she asked herself. Judging by his tanned, finely lined complexion, he'd spent a lot of time in Hollywood. Maybe he was used to playing Noel Coward for the colonials.

Elliot was staring at her while he munched his pappadum. Sorry, witty repartee was beyond her benumbed brain. She defaulted to her usual topic. “Melinda wrote me about your directing The Play."

“Ah, you're
that
Claire, late of the Lone Star State. You haven't, by some chance, any idea what became of Melinda, the dear girl?"

“No, I don't."

“She made an excellent Elizabeth.” Elliot extracted his handkerchief and wiped his fingertips. “One of my more inspired choices. Even though choosing a foreigner was, shall we say, a bit of a controversy."

Oh.
That answered the question of who did the casting for The Play. “Melinda is—was—very talented."

Elliot's pale blue eyes crinkled at the corners. “Oh yes, that she was."

Was he implying what she thought he was implying? Elliot could just as easily have been Melinda's lover as Richard. More easily, maybe. At least, a lot more casually.

“You're hoping to find her, then?” Elliot went on. “She's leagues from here, I should think. And what is your specialty, Claire? Treading the boards? Scribing deathless prose? Breaking hearts?"

“Mending needlework,” replied Claire. She should rent a billboard outside of town, she thought, and put up a twenty-foot-high notice:
It's no coincidence Claire Godwin is in Somerstowe! She's searching for Melinda Varek!
So much for her vision of herself as the compleat sleuth.

Sarita shooed the children to their feet. Roshan reappeared with several letters and a large brown envelope. “Ta, most kind,” Elliot told him. “Must run, expecting an important phone call—just between you and me and the gatepost, Andrew Lloyd Webber is having a look at The Play—it'd make a lovely musical, don't you think? Raise it several levels above the village production—which is charming and all, but, well ... Later?"

He disappeared out the door, his parting “Later?” seemingly directed at no one in particular, and yet, Claire felt, really aimed at her.
I'm not your type,
she wanted to call after him, but after the last year she wasn't sure any more just whose type she was.

Not good old Steve's, that was for sure. After the relationships with the scatter-brained music teacher and the yuppie with the cell phone welded to his ear—both of which had still had more possibilities than some of Melinda's affairs—Steve's quiet steadiness had appealed to her. All too soon Claire discovered the difference between steady and petrified. An engineer, he'd done his best to reduce the relationship to flow charts and logic diagrams. And he'd never been comfortable around Melinda, always making little barbed comments under his breath about her travels, her clothes, her sex life.

But just because Claire was feeling as though she'd fallen into a movie set didn't mean she could re-write the past. What she wanted was to write the future.

She stood up. “Thank you very much for the dinner. May I help clear things away?"

“Oh no,” Sarita assured her. “Derek and Trillian always do the washing up."

Judging by the clatter of dishes and splashes of water coming from the kitchen, they were doing it as an Olympic water polo match. “I think I'll turn in,” Claire went on. “I have to be able to work a needle tomorrow morning."