Acts of Love (42 page)

“I've never directed a play. I'm sure I can do it.”

“Well, I'll tell you. I'm pretty sure you can, too. I have a few scripts I'm considering. Do you want to take a few days to read them, think about them, then call me?”

“Yes. Oh yes. Thank you.”

“You should have started with me instead of that prick. Hold on.” She left the room and returned with a stack of notebooks. “Six. Take your time. I want opinions. I think they all need work; some more than others. I'm sending you home; you look exhausted.”

“I am. Thank you. Thank you for everything. I can't tell you how much I needed you.”

“You didn't hide it.” They stood and instinctively put their arms around each other. Hermione kissed Jessica on both cheeks. “I'm glad I found you, Jessie. I predict great triumphs for the two of us. Get a good night's sleep.”

Jessica held her cheek against Hermione's for a thankful moment. Someone to trust. “I'll call you soon.”

“Oh, one other thing,” Hermione said casually as she opened the front door.

“Yes?”

“I'd write to him if I were you. It can't hurt, just to keep in touch.”

Jessica stood in the doorway, leaning on her cane. “Good night,” she said, and left.

But the words stayed with her and the next morning, very early, she took out a sheet of her new stationery and began to write.

Dear Luke, I've been in Sydney for a little over two weeks. I won't go into all the thinking I did to get here, but finally I just had to find out if I could be a part of the theater again. You brought it so crashingly into my life that I couldn't ignore it anymore, and so I looked for a place where I could begin again with a clean slate, not on stage but as a director, and that turned out to be Sydney.

I've rented a house and done the tourist things and finally I'm beginning to think I might like living here. It's odd how a place can seem strange, even faintly hostile, and then, because of one special person, it begins to feel welcoming. That was what happened to me last night. I met a wonderful woman, a producer you may have heard of named Hermione Montaldi, and in a very long evening in her home we became friends and, maybe, partners. If that happens—she gave me scripts to read, to see if there's something I can direct—everything I hoped for by coming here will come true.

This is a lovely city, with its own peculiarities. All the glass-and-steel skyscrapers on the harbor are spanking new, built in the last twenty years, and behind them are buildings from the last century with all the decorative gewgaws that stonemasons used to make when time and money didn't dictate stark silhouettes.

The streets are crowded, and at first I thought the people were so friendly, waving to each other as they walked, but then I realized they were brushing away flies. It's quite fascinating: that constant fanlike motion of hands in front of faces,
plus
everyone seems to be carrying tiny cellular telephones cupped in their hands, almost invisible, so what you see are streams of pedestrians waving away flies while seemingly talking to themselves. Definitely living theater.

My house is in a section of the city called Point Piper, high above the harbor with lovely views of Double Bay (a fancy neighborhood called a suburb) and the city. Hope is with me and we've both settled in quite nicely. I hope
The Magician
is thriving, and that all is well with you. Jessica.

A cold letter, she thought, signing it. But she did not know how else to write.
I miss you and I wake up at night reaching for you.
There was no way she could write that.
I go through the city and find myself describing things to you.
She could not write that, either.
I love you.
No, of course not. All she could do was be friendly.

And why was she doing that?

Because she could not give him up. She desperately needed to feel close to him, even through letters, just as once she had used letters to feel close to Constance, and when Hermione said it was a good idea, it was as if she had been given permission. She had thought she could give him up completely, but it was too hard, at least for now. Maybe later, when she had a play to direct and was making other friends, maybe then she could cut him out of her life. But not now. Not yet.

The letter sat on the dining room table, which she was using as her desk, and she glanced at it as she read scripts that day and late into the evening, and the next day as well. Hermione called that afternoon. “I'm wondering if you've made friends with any of those scripts yet.”

“There's one in particular that I like very much.”

“But you're not about to tell me which one.”

“Not until I've read them all.”

“Good idea. Which means, that's how I'd do it. Are you all settled, or is there something you need? Can I do anything for you?”

“No, thank you. I like living here; it's beautiful and very private.”

“Not the poshest of the posh suburbs, but definitely my favorite. Call me when you're ready to talk. I'm getting antsy to have a play in the works.”

So there it was: she had a friend and a future.
I'm not dependent on Luke, so now we can befriends.
And she mailed the letter.

He replied by return mail.

Dear, dear Jessica, to go so far to find what you're looking for. I know you'll say it was necessary and I won't argue with that, but when I think of you (which is most of my waking moments) I have a disconcerting image of you teetering at the very edge of the world, clinging to Point Piper (I like the name) or to your new friend, Hermione Montaldi (I like that one, too).

I haven't heard of Ms. Montaldi; it's surprising how little we in New York know of the theater in Sydney, or they of us, I'm told. But of course you chose it for just that reason: because it was far away and not part of the two-way street between New York and London.

We're in the midst of an early cold spell and I'm enjoying evenings at home, working on my plays, watching old movies and thinking about you. Martin is a happy man: I'm home for dinner so he can experiment in the kitchen, and both of us agree that he's on his way to becoming a master chef. He'd be happier if I had a companion, since it's much more fun cooking for two than for one, but I told him he has to be satisfied with me, at least for now.

You know how much good fortune I wish for you. I hope you write often, telling me all that you do; I can pretend you're close by, talking to me, when you do. With my love, Luke.

Almost as cold as mine, Jessica thought. Except for a few phrases. . . . She read the last one again.
I can pretend
 . . . Well, that's the business we're in, both of us. Pretending.

And he had been anxious: her letter had taken four days to reach him, but he had sent his by overnight express mail. I could do that, too, she thought, sometime, if it seems important.

The next day she called Hermione and said that this time she would cook dinner. Hermione arrived at six o'clock and stood in the doorway, scanning the crowded room.

“Well, would you look at this. The lost and found for stray furniture. Stray patterns, too. But it's not unpleasant. Somehow it works. You don't get dizzy, living in this Arabian tent?”

“I like it. Three sides of protection and the fourth is all sky and water.” She flushed as Hermione gave her a quick look. “Protection is something I think about.”

“So I see.”

They sat as they had in Hermione's living room, at each end of the couch, with papers and manuscripts spread out between them. They went through Jessica's notes on each script, lingering over the ones that showed the most promise. After dinner they took their coffee back to the living room and worked on, coming at last to the play Jessica wanted to direct.

“So we agree, right from the beginning,” Hermione said with satisfaction.
“Journeys End.
God, titles are so damnably hard to think up, but somewhere in Shakespeare there's always the perfect one. Now tell me why you want to direct it.”

“I like the people; I like the story. Only four people in the cast, which makes everything easier, but mainly there's a kind of magic in the way they come together at the end, when they realize everything they've been searching for has been close by, but they hadn't recognized it, or even known how to look for it. There's a mystery in that—how people find each other in such a complicated and vast world—and I like that. The best theater is filled with mystery: all the wonders that make love and friendship and family and
belonging
possible.” She paused. “I'm sorry. That sounded like another lecture. And a maudlin one at that.”

Hermione gazed at Jessica for a long moment. “Did you write to him?”

“What? Oh. Yes.”

“Did he write back?”

“Yes.”

“Good. That didn't sound like a lecture, by the way, and you weren't being maudlin. The whole business of love and friendship and family is a mystery: how some people can stay married fifty years and others can't make it through the first six months, how some friendships go on and on, how some families thrive even though they're so stressful you'd think they'd explode, and others are always at each other's throats. Nobody understands it, and thank God. Where would we be without mystery? We'd be staging cookbooks. By the way, what's his name?”

Jessica began to gather up the scripts and notes. “Lucas Cameron.”

“Well, you can't do any better than that. If he comes for a visit, I'd like to meet him. Okay, now, let's talk schedules. This is the second week of December. The Drama Theater at the Opera House is available for March and April; they told me I could have it if I let them know right away.”

“More than enough time to be ready,” Jessica said.

“It is if you know your way around, but you don't. You'll have to rely on me to recommend actors to read for the parts, and a stage manager and production secretary. You'll have the scene shop at the Wharf, and the Drama Theater lighting director and wardrobe and props crew, but it takes time to get to know them and be comfortable with them and have them be comfortable with you.”

Jessica shrank back into the corner of the couch.
Have them be comfortable with you.
She had forgotten. Everything with Hermione was so easy and natural that she had let herself be lulled into forgetting.
Comfortable with you.
Of course they wouldn't be. Any more than Alfonse Murre had been.

“I'm talking about getting acquainted,” Hermione said mildly. “It always takes a while, whomever we're talking about. But let's get this straight. You thought I meant they wouldn't work with you because you walk with a cane. Is that right?”

“Not just—”

“Oh, and also because you're not a glamour girl. That's it? That's why they'll refuse to work with you? They'll say, ‘Great God, she has gray hair—' Why don't you color it, by the way?”

“Because it wouldn't change anything else. It would seem pathetic.”

“Well, I don't know about that. But we'll let it go for now. Where was I? Oh, yes. You'll walk in and everyone will say, 'Great God, she limps. She has gray hair and a stoop. We make it a point never to work with anyone who limps or stoops.' ”

There was a long silence. Then Jessica began to smile. She had told Murre that it made no difference what she looked like, but it seemed that she hadn't bought her own argument. But now Hermione made her fears sound absurd. And maybe—just maybe—they were.

“That's better,” Hermione said briskly. “Now we know where we are. I'm going to produce
Journeys End
and you're going to direct it, and we'll work together every step of the way. I'd guess that you're a fast learner, and you'll figure out our whimsical Aussie ways in no time. By the way, one other small problem: the playwright died a month after finishing it. Young man, too, just dropped dead. So we'll have to manage without the creator explaining things or rewriting, if we want it, which is sometimes a blessing, sometimes not. Okay, let's look at dates. You're going to want to get your ideas together and think about the kinds of actors you want. How soon will you be ready to start casting?”

Hermione spread a calendar on the coffee table and they bent over it, and began to make plans.

Dear Luke, we've started. Hermione and I walked through the Drama Theater the other day and it was as lovely as 1 remembered it from the time I appeared there. It has only 544 seats (made with white Australian wood and upholstered in blue Australian wool, which everyone speaks of with great pride), but the acoustics and sight lines are very fine. It's one of two theaters on the lower level of the Opera House, with symphony and opera halls upstairs, so there are times when the whole building vibrates with rehearsals. Our sets will be made at the Wharf Theater, really and truly a wharf, converted to two theaters upstairs, and huge rooms below for set construction, props, costumes, and so on. We rehearse there, too, in a small rehearsal hall with a tiny balcony at the back where students come a few at a time to watch. Hermione asked me if I'd mind and I said I wouldn't . . . I don't think. How do I know what I'll mind? I've never done any of this before.

The play is
Journeys End,
written by an Australian who died, tragically young, soon after writing it. It's the story of a wealthy woman, one of Sydney's greatest benefactors, who, we discover, made her fortune by defrauding a couple she'd known most of her life. She's an influential, famous woman, but she has no feelings. She herself says she feels dead, without knowing why. The son of the people she defrauded buys the apartment next door (I hope to use turntables for the two apartments, if we can afford them) and the rest of the story is the way they discover each other (they haven't seen each other since they were children) and the way she comes to life, not only through him but through his parents, who are visiting him. It's the story of how an inhuman woman becomes human—a fairy tale, you'll say. Well, we need fairy tales, and every one that I've ever heard of is built around a kernel of truth, so maybe even inhuman people can learn and change. And this story has a strong dose of reality because at the end the parents understand her but never forgive her, so she doesn't get the clean slate she longs for. She's found love, she can
feel,
she'll be happy, but she can't erase the past.