The Hamlet Trap (5 page)

“Danger in water. Money all around. Dreams and illusions, fantasies lead to danger in water, death in water.”

EIGHT

You want to see it?”
Ginnie asked Peter, indicating her large sketchpad.

He joined her in her workroom, stood by her desk. “Okay. The stage is pretty bare for the whole thing. The desk is the symbol of Big Nurse's authority, right? When she's on stage, the light is cold blue, but subliminal, not blatant. There are three levels, one with her desk, one that the inmates use to approach her, the guards use, and so on. That's where they have the sessions. And the lowest level is where the patients talk to each other. When Mac is on stage the light is warm, yellows, reds, again subliminal. The fishing scene has a sky eye and blue lights running along the floor. Bobby can do amazing things with those lights. The desk is the boat with the men hanging on to it, one or even two of them on top it, and the upper platform is gone. They've taken the authority to themselves. Then, for Mac's death, there's only one level. The desk is his bed where Chief kills him. Moonlight comes through the big window here. That's where Chief bends the bars and walks away, into the moonlight.”

She looked at him waiting for his response. His throat felt too tight to speak. Finally he said, “It's terrific, really powerful.”

She sighed. She was tired, and by now the idea that had hit her with such force seemed self-indulgent, incomplete.

“I wish you could come with me. I really want to show you off to my folks.”

“I know. I wish I could.”

“Yeah. Well, remember you promised me New Year's Eve. And the whole week starting on the seventh.”

“I didn't either,” she said indignantly.

“I know, but you will. Wait and see. I'll be back on the thirtieth. Take care of yourself. Get some rest, okay?”

“I'll be at the airport. Be careful driving. There's new snow on the pass.”

He nodded and kissed her and left. Before his car was out of her driveway, she was back at work, humming softly to herself the Moritat from
The Threepenny Opera
: “When the shark has had his dinner/ There is blood upon his fins./ But Macheath he has his gloves on:/ They say nothing of his sins…”

Ginnie saw Laura and Gray at a party now and then over the holidays, but she did not go to many, and did not stay long when she did, and they did not mention Sunshine, or the rift she had caused briefly. Ginnie knew that Gray was as busy right now as she was; they were the two busiest people of the theater group at the moment. He had all the plays to update, alter, shorten or lengthen, whatever, and she had her preliminary drawings to get done by the first of the year. As soon as he handed copies over to Anna Kaminsky she would hurl herself into work, too, on the costumes, but for now Anna was free, as were most of the others.

Sunshine was going to William's house every day to keep Shannon company. She had decided that she could cure Shannon's defective heart with her herbs and a regimen of vitamins and fruit juices. Shannon, William reported, was thriving on the treatment.

Laura was terrified of Shannon. She had met her only once and made excuses to avoid seeing her again. The only way Shannon could get William's attention even momentarily, she believed, was through illness, and it was frightening to her that a woman would prefer that to being alone. When she mentioned her theory to Gray he looked at her as if she had committed a particularly nasty blasphemy.

For the most part she stayed home and stared at the small Christmas tree she had decorated, did a little work for her employer, who had gone to Indiana for the holidays, and waited for Gray to come home, or for Gray to finish what he was doing and talk to her, or for Gray to get ready to go out to dinner or to a movie with her. Waiting, waiting, she thought, that was her life here in ash land.

Gray had told her about the big fight with Ginnie and Ro over Sunshine, and she often found herself praying that Sunshine's play would be so bad, that she would make such a nuisance of herself, that Gray would get in such trouble over her that Ro would simply fire him and they could go back home and life would be as it had been.

The day after Christmas Ginnie told her uncle that she had given Peter the model for the production of
Major Barbara
.

“You gave it away?” He tried belatedly to keep the surprise and shock out of his voice.

“For Christmas. He really liked that one.”

“Ginnie, those models, they aren't for things like that. They belong in the archives, in a collection.”

She was sitting in the yellow chair, he was on the couch facing her. She had given him eggnog and cookies, her contribution to the holiday spirit. Slowly she said, “They're mine, Uncle Ro, not theater property. Like my sketches, my notes.”

“No, you're wrong. They belong to the theater, not to you, or me, to the theater.”

“It's not a body that can own anything. It's a building where we make things happen, but it's nothing in and of itself,” she said emphatically.

He shook his head. “That's what it was when I first came to Ashland, a shell, abandoned, in disrepair, ready for the wreckers, but now… I hope you'll come to know it's more than that. It really is more than that, Ginnie, or it wouldn't matter about the models. I'd see it burned to the ground before I'd turn it over to a holding company, or a board of directors who saw it only as a way to make a good return on their investment.”

“Well, the theater doesn't own me,” she said firmly. “You know I've had offers to do sets for other theaters. I can work anywhere, send in my designs, models, finished drawings. I don't have to be there even. I don't have to be here, as far as that goes.”

“But you do. I've seen those sets done by a designer in absentia. No heart, no soul. They could get them out of the book. Yours aren't like that.”

“You're prejudiced,” she said, and bit a cookie in half.

“I noticed that you didn't take any of those offers.”

“I'm not ready. I still need to travel, see more and more theater all over the world, see what other people are doing, see how other people live. I didn't say I'd never take on outside work, just not now.”

“And where are you planning to travel this year?”

“I've been thinking of South America. Peru maybe.” She put the other half of the cookie down; it tasted stale and too dry.

Ro drank his eggnog and for a moment she thought the conversation had ended. Then he said, “Isn't that where Peter is going when he gets his Ph.D.?”

“He says digging in Peru is the greatest,” she said with a grin.

He stood up and stretched and then, looking at her narrowly, asked, “Honey, do you love him?”

She hesitated. “I don't know. I'm trying to decide, I guess.” She was trying to love him, she wanted to add, but she didn't know how; she was afraid of it.

“Well, I have to get along. You'll have the preliminaries done over the weekend? I'd like to see them before you show them to Gray, if you don't mind. I expect to have his promptbook for that damn play by this weekend. It'd better be decent.”

“Are you holding him to showing you all of them?”

“You bet I am. I'm afraid my confidence in him was shaken over this mess with Sunshine.
Sunshine!
for God's sake! More like foul weather, if you ask me. You're looking tired. Pack it up and get some sleep, okay?”

She smiled at him and kissed his cheek. “Nag, nag.”

“That's my job,” he said and left.

Peter returned for New Year's Eve and they spent the evening at Bellair Inn, where they had dinner, then danced until two.

Peter was packing up his apartment; he already had taken a carload of things to southern California and had left his car there. “I have something to show you,” he said mysteriously. “I can't wait. But I'm not willing to do it until you can appreciate it, not while your mind is completely on theater sets.”

“Peter, be reasonable. I can't take off a whole week right now.”

“You turn in the drawings for Gray to look at on Monday or Tuesday, right? That's what you told me. The following Monday there are auditions and you want to be back by then. But what do you have to do during that week? Even if you make changes, you can't start until after Gray's had a chance to look them over, and you know as well as I do that he's going to love them. You won't work on the models until after the cast is chosen and you've heard the readings. You said that.”

“My God! Do you remember every word I've ever said?”

“Yes. I'm going to leave you strictly alone until Friday, when I'll arrive with dinner makings. And detailed plans for our week. Meanwhile, eat. Sleep. I love you.”

She could do it, she knew. There was still a lot of work to finish, but by Friday afternoon she could be done. As for a whole week off right now, she was still certain she could not do that, but a few days surely. Four days, five? She went back to work.

There had been rain off and on for a week. Laura sat at the dinette table and talked to her mother, who reported three inches of snow on the ground. They had had a white Christmas, she said. Laura called Marianne next and heard about more snow and parties and how hard it was to get anyone to replace her. She gazed out the window at the dripping trees and found herself weeping. She could not explain it to Marianne; she simply hung up on her friend. She would say the connection was broken somewhere along the line. For a long time she wept. Everything she did was wrong, she kept thinking. She had complained about not having the car and he had put on his raincoat and walked to the theater; Ginnie had driven him home hours later. She complained about not going anywhere and he took her to one of their parties where she was miserable. And tonight, when she wanted him to go to a movie with her, and listen to jazz in a tavern with her, he had to go to a damn high-school play and check out the kids. When he asked her to go with him, she practically screamed no at him. No more plays, no more performances, no more theater, even if it was in a high-school auditorium and the kids were wonderful.

By the time Gray arrived with the car, she was carefully made up, no traces of tears remaining.

“I'll drop you off at the movie,” he said. “I'll go on to the school thing and meet you at the bar at nine or nine-thirty. Would that satisfy you? We can stay as long as you want.”

She shrugged. The movie house was only two blocks from the tavern and it was a reasonable concession, but she was in no mood even to pretend she was pleased with it. Neither spoke when they left the house.

Peter had brought steaks, salad greens, potatoes. “I knew you would skip food,” he said reproachfully. “Look at you, five pounds lighter than last week.”

She eyed the steaks hungrily and moved out of his way. It was not that she didn't get hungry when she was working hard, it was only that real meals were a nuisance and she ate whatever she could find that did not require cooking. Cereal, peanut butter, fruit.

“Anyway, I'm done,” she said, seated at the table where he brought her guacamole and tortilla chips. Fattening foods, she thought, and ate gratefully.

“I knew you would be. There's a map on the table. I marked our trip for tomorrow. Want to take a look?”

It was a topographical map with a yellow highlighted line that weaved in and out of the hills to the northwest. “What's there?”

“You'll see when we get there. The woods are wet, remember to bring some extra socks.”

“And snowshoes?”

“Nope. We won't be going up. In fact, it's lower than it is here. Eight hundred feet maybe. Now, no more questions.”

They would take their first trip and return to her house, he told her over dinner, and on the next day, Sunday, on to the coast, to Whale's Head. There were cottages with fireplaces, overlooking the ocean, and a gourmet restaurant ten minutes from them… .

He took her hand. “Okay? I'm not asking for any commitment, not for more than the next week anyway. The rest can wait.”

“It isn't fair to you,” she said softly.

“It's much better to be me in love with you than to be anyone else on earth,” he said. “That's as fair as I expect life to be.” He squeezed her hand slightly. “Okay?”

She nodded. “I have to get the sketches to Uncle Ro in the morning, and tell him I'm going.”

“Can't you do that tonight? I want us to start without anything hanging over us, just you and me—no work, no problems.”

“You win. I'll write him a note and leave it with the drawings at the theater. That's where he'll go first thing in the morning anyway.”

“Good. I'll come and we can pick up my gear and be all set to leave at the crack of dawn.”

It was raining very hard when they left the house. Ginnie drove down Pioneer Street and turned into the alley by the side of the theater. The rain drummed on the car.

“I'll take the stuff inside,” Peter said. “I have to get out at my apartment, anyway. No point in both of us getting soaked.”

“You'll need a key, and there's Gray's raincoat on the backseat. He left it there a few days ago. You know where the office is?”

He nodded and dragged the raincoat over the seat, struggled to get it on and couldn't in the car. He draped it over his head and took the portfolio and key from her.

“Don't put it on his desk,” she said. “Just leave it on the table. He's sure to see it first thing there.”

“Right.” He opened the door and dashed out into the driving rain. Ginnie watched him enter the theater through the stage door, then turned off the windshield wipers and headlights to wait for him. If this kept up into the morning, she thought, it would be one hell of a hike in the woods. Maybe he would call it off, do something more sensible, like curling up in her house before the fireplace and napping all day. She smiled slightly. Peter had had her out in all kinds of weather. He didn't seem to notice if it was raining or not. Like Christopher Robin, she thought, he didn't care what it did just as long as he could be out in it.