Winter Tides (21 page)

“I’m early,” she said. “I wanted to get my bearings a little bit.”

Dave tried to read something into her smile. Was it directed particularly at him? He wondered abruptly what Edmund had said to poison her against him. She had an easy way of carrying herself, a sureness about her, that made his chances seem slim….

His chances of what? he wondered. So far he hadn’t even managed a simple good morning—only his trademark idiot grin. “We’re just starting to talk about Collier’s play,” Dave said. “So you’re right on time.”

“That’s right,” the Earl told her. “Since you’ll be working on his sets, you ought to hear what he’s got in mind. We’ve got
King Lear
in the works, which is high-toned theatre for a beach city like ours, but then we’re high-toned people, and we’ve got a higher calling. This is Leslie Collier, by the way, and this young man is Dave Quinn, my right-hand man.”

“Most people just call me Collier,” Collier told her, bowing at the waist.

“Anne and I have already met,” Dave said unnecessarily to the Earl, and he grinned at her again. Out of the corner of his eye he saw Collier nudge the Earl’s foot with his own, and he realized that he must be blushing, betrayed by the blood in his own veins.

“Did you get your stuff moved in downstairs?” the Earl asked her.

“All of it. Thanks again.”

“Our pleasure,” the Earl said. “Anne needed some storage room for a bunch of paintings,” he said to Dave and Collier, “so I had her move them in downstairs, in one of the empty closets by the shop. George and Luis chucked out a lot of that old cardboard crap that we had stored down there in order to make room for it.”

“Paintings? Really?” Dave nodded in appreciation, wondering if he ought to ask to see them, or whether that was out of line.

“It’s just old stuff,” Anne said hastily. “Call it family heirlooms. I don’t want to throw it all out, mostly for sentimental reasons, but it’s not worth renting storage space, either.”

“We’ve got storage space to burn,” the Earl said. And then to Collier he said, “So tell us about the play. We’ll make this a de facto story conference. Coffee?” He gestured toward the nearly full pot, but nobody wanted any.
Collier told the Earl and Anne about the play, about making Lear a drunk, his kingdom a shambles because he couldn’t leave the bottle alone. The Earl watched Collier attentively, nodding here and there, taking him seriously from the start, objecting to nothing until Collier was done.

“The king’ll have to sober up by the end of the play,” the Earl said finally. “We’ve got to have some sympathy for him sooner or later, and no one’s got any sympathy for a character who stays drunk past a point.”

“I was thinking he’d have to be raving drunk on the heath,” Collier told him. “Probably he’s having the DT’s out there. God knows
what
he sees in the storm clouds, but I’ve got a couple of knockout ideas—which, by the way, I’ve got to ask Dave about. And now that we’ve got an artist, I can ask her too. What I want is three enormous copper baby faces, perfectly spherical, one to represent each of the three daughters. Hammered copper, although we can probably get that effect with copper-colored Rustoleum and black paint.”

“I can cut the faces out of door skins,” Dave said. “How big did you want them?”

“Call ’em eight feet across,” Collier said.

Dave nodded. “We can check out the price of copper foil, but the paint would be worlds cheaper.”

“Easy to make it look hammered,” Anne said.

“Good,” Collier said. “And don’t we have about a million rubber snakes around here someplace? We need ’em for the DT’s.”

“Sure we’ve got snakes,” the Earl said. “Every damned variety. But why stop with the snakes? There’s a couple of dozen stuffed alligators in a box somewhere.”

“I don’t know about the alligators,” Collier said doubtfully.

“What the hell’s wrong with them?” The Earl poured himself another cup of coffee. “A reptile’s a reptile.”

“They’re a little too much, maybe. There’s such a thing as subtlety.”

“Fair enough,” the Earl said. “It’s your play. If you don’t want any alligators, so be it. Although I think the public likes an alligator. And alligators or no alligators, I still say that nobody’s going to give a damn that the poor king’s been mightily abused—not if he’s still drunk, they’re not.”

“Hold the hell on, damn it. By the end the man’s sober. You’ve got to picture it. Drenched by rain and beat senseless by the elements, he staggers back into town, except it’s too damned late. They’ve got Cordelia, and they’ve already hung her. The old king’s terrible to see, very wrathful, but a king’s wrath doesn’t cut any mustard with the Fates. Let him rage. She’s as dead as an oyster.”

“I hate the hell out of that,” the Earl said. “I can’t bear that scene and never could. Why don’t we save Cordelia?”

“Okay,” Collier said, nodding slowly. “Let’s say we save the girl. Have it your way. It’s got to be good, though; it’s got to be an improvement over the original.” He thought for a moment, furrowing up his forehead, and then said, “How about if she’s saved by angels? We fly ’em in like in the old Greek plays, in a basket out of the clouds.”

“We’ve got no time to set up the flying apparatus. And besides, I think you ought to give the old king a chance to do the right thing, and not leave it up to angels. That’s bad form—
deus ex machina
. Let your man solve his own problems or else go down trying. What do you say, Dave?”

“Sure,” Dave said. “I can do without the angels.”

“Okay, then,” Collier said, “how about a truckload of potted plants out on the stage? Fake plants on collapsible stems. They hang the girl, see, and the plants wither and die, and then the door bangs open and it’s Lear and the fool and whoever else you want, loaded for bear. There’s a hell of a swordfight, death left and right, about a gallon of blood pumped out onto the stage, the fog machine working hard, cannon fire, big old blunderbuss pistols reeling out of the wings and shooting out sparks. And then when the smoke clears, there lies the girl, apparently dead. The old man reads out the usual speeches, but when he kisses Cordelia on the forehead, up she comes, large as life.”

“Like in Snow White,” Anne said. She looked ready to burst out laughing, and Dave was full of a sudden joy. He took a chance and winked at her.

“Just
like Snow White,” Collier said. “Except of course
it’s the old king, and not a prince. And anyway, right then all those dead plants spring up straight, flowers blooming up all over the stage. I want hundreds of them, all opening up, and bam! into the curtain call. It’ll be miraculous.”

“It’ll fetch the house down,” the Earl said. “Except I don’t know about the pistols. That was pretty early for pistols, wasn’t it? What do you two think? Can we stand anachronism?”

“I like the pistols,” Dave said. “We’re not crazy for historical accuracy here anyway, are we?”

“I’m wondering about an elephant,” Collier said. “We could run in a Hannibal subplot.” He looked at the Earl, who shook his head.

“Stage wouldn’t hold up, unless you’re talking a plywood elephant.”

“I was just kidding,” Collier said. “To hell with the elephant. What about the title, though? I’d like to meddle with the title so that the public’s not misled.”

“Why don’t we call it
The Travesty of King Lear?
” Dave said, the idea coming to him out of nowhere.

There was a moment of silence, and both Collier and the Earl looked at him hard, as if trying to figure out whether he was serious or making a joke. “That’s
good
,” Collier said finally. “I really think that’s good. But it has a little too much of the alligator in it, if you follow me.”

“Alligator?” Dave asked.

“I mean to say that it lacks a certain subtlety. I don’t mean to say it’s not brilliant. Of course it’s brilliant. I’m just not sure it’s
right
.” He looked at his watch then. “Good God almighty,” he said, “it’s nearly nine.”

“Is that all?” the Earl asked. “Sun’s barely up. Don’t be in such a dad-blamed hurry all the time, you’ll work my employees stupid. Dave, why don’t you and Anne run on up to the corner and buy yourselves a cup of coffee and a cinnamon roll? I’m out of here this afternoon, by the way, and I’m giving Jolene the day off. Once the trucks get loaded, you’ll have the place pretty much to yourselves, so you can really spread out. Right now I want you to take an hour to talk strategy. Develop a working rapport. Then you can come back and do some
real
work.”

“I could use a cup of coffee,” Anne said. She stepped out onto the balcony ahead of Dave.

The Earl put his hand on Dave’s shoulder and whispered, “
Talk
to the girl, for God’s sake. Turn on the old charm.” Dave followed Anne down the stairs and out onto the loading dock, where the Earl, having followed them, pressed a ten-dollar bill into his hand. “On the house,” he said.

E
DMUND CAME OUT THROUGH THE FRONT DOOR OF THE
Ace Hardware on Main. Now that the fog had cleared away, the day was irritatingly bright with sunshine. He realized he was completely worn out. Usually a little exercise gave him an extra jolt of energy, but this morning it had simply crushed him. He had put in another full night, and he felt almost fluish with fatigue and headache now, and with the dusky memories of what once, years ago, might have seemed to him to be shameful. Shame, he had long ago discovered, was just another hang-up. But despite his exhaustion, he longed for the return of evening and the dark urges that accompanied it.

He had found a lock that was identical to the one that hung on the connecting door in the lawyer’s closet. Anne’s landlord had probably bought his at the same store. The need to replace the existing lock was urgent in him. It had become a part of what he had finally begun to see as
the whole picture
—finished and framed and hanging on the wall. That kind of thinking was dangerous, of course. Because of his appreciation of inspiration and of sudden artistic passion, he was hesitant to imagine it too clearly. An artist had to be open to change. And as each element in the work became clear, they suggested other elements that had
to be accepted and clarified, or else rejected. A piece wasn’t finished until it was finished. And you couldn’t rush it.

Knowing all that didn’t make him any less anxious to switch the locks, and his mind skipped on ahead as it had a dozen times already, imagining himself slipping into her closet, perhaps as she lay sleeping. He pictured the darkness, the line of light past the edge of the closet door, the smell of her clothing, the musty wooden smell of the closet. He listened to the sounds of her apartment, beyond the closet wall, peering through the door at her bed, the sheets and blankets pushed around. There was the sound of water running, and when it didn’t stop, he knew it was the shower. She was in the bathroom, not ten feet from where he stood in the darkness. He opened the closet door, peered out into the room, and located the door of the bathroom, which, in the privacy of her solitary existence, she had left open. Steam clouded the lit bathroom. There was the sound of the water shutting off, of a shower door clicking open, movement in the foggy mirror….

He came to himself, standing on the sidewalk outside the hardware store, realizing with a shudder that he had drifted off. His mouth had been open, and he wiped his chin and looked around. No one was staring at him. Recalling his daydream, he licked his lips and then slipped the lock into his waist pack. It wouldn’t hurt to check the street door of Anne’s apartment, just to see if any of the tenants had come in yet.

He crossed the street, looking down toward the pier. People crowded the sidewalk tables a block down in front of Starbucks, swilling coffee. He stopped dead on the sidewalk. Unbelievably, Dave and Anne sat at one of the tables, talking like old friends. Here was a surprise. This wasn’t in the picture two minutes ago. It was more like a hole in the picture, or a splash of bad color that had to be painted out.

He started up the sidewalk toward them, suddenly over-come with a furious anger. Anne clearly wasn’t the problem here. Dave was the problem—the meddling, ignorant … His thoughts were suddenly scattered and staticky, and his head pounded violently. He grasped his forehead and
leaned against the wall of a building. His vision was black along the edges, and he forced himself to breathe regularly, in through his mouth, out through his nose.
Control
, he told himself.
Anger is your enemy.

After a minute he regained his composure, and when he did, he abruptly understood that Dave, too, had a part in the piece. Perhaps a brief part. But to forget that now, to fly off the handle and make a scene on the street, might ruin what was beginning to look like a masterpiece.

Without looking back, he turned around and headed north on Main again. Obviously it would be far better if Anne didn’t see him. If ever there was a time when it was best to be subtle, now was that time. Sunlight shone on the windows of Anne’s apartment. He tried the downstairs door, but it was still locked, and immediately he stepped down onto the sidewalk again and walked toward the alley. In the time it took him to get to the back of the building, he had made up his mind. His clearheadedness and insight had returned to him, along with a faith in himself. Quickly he looked around. Seeing no one in the alley, he vaulted the gate again and ascended the stairs.

“I
T’S HARD TO BELIEVE HE’S SERIOUS,”
A
NNE SAID.
S
HE
and Dave sat in the sunlight at a streetside table in front of Starbucks. The morning was clear, and it was almost hot in the sun, even though it was early. There was no fog, and the wind had turned around offshore and was blowing light and warm, like a trade wind. “Not that I’ve got anything against copper baby faces, but they’re not what I expected, exactly.”

“I’m a little surprised myself,” Dave said. “Collier’s come up with some stretchers, but this takes the cake. Maybe it’ll work, though.”

“How successful is the theatre? it
can’t
make much money, can it?”