Art Ache

ART ACHE

LUCY ARTHURS

SOUL MATE PUBLISHING

New York

ART ACHE

Copyright©2016

LUCY ARTHURS

Cover Design by Melody A. Pond

This book is a work of fiction.  The names, characters, places, and incidents are the products of the author’s imagination or are used fictitiously.  Any resemblance to actual events, business establishments, locales, or persons, living or dead, is entirely coincidental.

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Published in the United States of America by

Soul Mate Publishing

P.O. Box 24

Macedon, New York, 14502

ISBN: 978-1-68291-131-0

www.SoulMatePublishing.com

The publisher does not have any control over and does not assume any responsibility for author or third-party websites or their content.

For my husband and children.

I was lost without you.

Acknowledgements

Debby for her patience and commitment, Serena, Marie, Louise, and Sally for their thorough approach and guidance. My mum and dad for their inspiration and encouragement and my sisters for their good humour, reading and feedback. My huband and children for their patience and support and for being the best things that have ever happened to me.

Chapter 1

In lounge room of our suburban home. Just before lunch. About fifteen months ago.

“The greater the obstacle, the more glory in overcoming it.” Moliere - French playwright and actor.

HIM

I don’t love you anymore and I no longer want to be married to you.

Well, you can’t get more straightforward than that, even if it does sound a tad formal. But that’s because he’s delivered it as one thought; he hasn’t taken a breath in the middle of the line. I would have opted for a slight pause after the word ‘anymore’ and before ‘and,’ with a sneaky little top-up breath, to make it sound like two separate thoughts. Just to break it up a bit. Give it a more naturalistic feel. Although it is technically incorrect to breathe in the middle of a line, you can break the rules when the scene is naturalistic. You can’t take such liberties when you’re doing something classical, but a two-hander scene between two people in a contemporary living room calls for a naturalistic delivery.

Apart from sounding too formal, I do have to admit he has delivered it pretty well. He’s matched the action to the word and the word to the action. His performance is honest, real, connected, and emotionally truthful.

Sorry. I work in theatre. I find that I now “think” in theatre too. Occupational hazard, I guess. I see life written down as dialogue from a play—character name aligned with left margin, dialogue indented, stage directions when necessary, all neatly printed in Courier 12 point. Then I like to judge how effectively the scene has been played. Is the character’s objective clear? Is their performance authentic and well delivered? Is the actor connecting with his or her voice? Is the body integrated with the voice? Are the ‘given circumstances’ (a term pioneered by the Russian theatre director and father of modern acting, Konstantin Stanislavski) being honoured? In this particular case, I’d have to answer yes, yes, yes, yes, and yes. Unfortunately.

Why unfortunately? Well, this particular piece of dialogue is being delivered by one of the main characters in the play that is my actual life—my husband. Or should I say my soon-to-be ex—husband. It is an unexpected plot point in a three-act play that I thought was unfolding rather nicely, but is now going in a narrative direction I totally didn’t expect. It seems I have arrived at a turning point I wasn’t looking for—and certainly didn’t want.

As I take in his words, I cross from stage left to stage right in my contemporary suburban living room and sit on the edge of the sofa. Then I have what I call a ‘Brady Bunch moment.’ Yes, it probably should be a more theatrical, highbrow reference, but Gen X Australian women were raised on populist American television shows rather than polished, Royal Shakespeare Company performances. More about Gen X later. In the meantime, my Brady Bunch moment.

It’s from the episode when Carol warns the boys (her stepsons), not to play ball in the house. Of course they don’t heed her warning and yep, you’ve guessed it, they play ball in the house. While doing so, Peter breaks Carol’s favourite vase, shattering it into a million tiny pieces. The scene goes into slow motion and Carol’s words come flooding back to Peter, “Don’t play ball in the house!”

As the ball crashes into the vase, not only is the vase smashed but so too is Peter’s entire world. It is as if the funky seventies vase is indeed his heart and soul, shattering into a million tiny pieces right there before him as Carol’s flicked-bob voice rings in his ears. Time stands still, suspended, and the warning that he didn’t heed reverberates in his ears like some sort of cock-eyed mantra. The six-year-old American boy is left wishing he could turn back time, even though Cher’s song hadn’t been recorded at the time this sitcom was filmed. But of course he can’t turn back time. He can only stand there with his stepmother’s words ringing in his ears, “Don’t play ball in the house!”

My ears are ringing too. Only in my case, the warning I didn’t heed is more like “Don’t marry an arsehole!” And it didn’t come from Carol Brady, it came from my sister. My beautiful sister who is almost always right about almost always everything. She warned me I shouldn’t marry a man who had more personal grooming products in his bathroom cabinet than I did. She believed he had the hallmarks of a narcissistic wanker right from the start. Of course, I dismissed her observations as those of a jealous sibling afraid that her compliant younger sister was moving on without her. Turns out, we were both right. She was jealous that I was moving on without her, and he was a narcissistic wanker.

And here I am ten years later, listening to him telling me calmly and matter-of-factly that he doesn’t love me anymore and no longer wants to be married to me. Big statement. And his eyes are as hard as steel and as cold as ice as he delivers it.

I stand frozen. A defence mechanism, I’m certain, designed to ensure that I don’t faint, vomit, fart, or shit myself.

HIM

Did you hear me?

In my day-to-day life, I don’t actually swear much. But now, under pressure and on the receiving end of an unexpected and very harsh deathblow to my marriage, ending all hope and expectation of a future with this man, my internal voice seems to have become very foul-mouthed.

I fucking heard you, you fucking bastard! I heard you state those fucking words calmly and matter-of-factly while our soon-to-be four-year-old son takes his morning nap in the front room! I heard you, you heartless, cock-knocking prick, arsehole, mongrelised bastard of a human being! I fucking heard you!

My leading man is peering at me. Intently.

HIM

Persephone?

Yes, that’s my name. Persephone. Odd, I know. My mother wanted something unusual, a bit different, unique.

Only problem is my mother is by no means a Greek scholar. She’s a retired, very suburban ex-Home Economics teacher. So suburban that she still refers to Home Ec as ‘Domestic Science.’ It has become part of our family folklore that Mum actually pronounced my name Per-seff-OWN for the first three days of my life. It was only when she heard the paediatrician refer to me as Persephone (per-seff-oh-nee) that she promptly corrected herself. He was a doctor, so he must have known what he was talking about.

I can just picture her tossing baby names around with Dad while she was pregnant. Dad is even less a Greek scholar than Mum. He’s a retired Manual Arts teacher, although he likes to call it ‘Woodwork.’

MUM

I really like the name, Per-seff-OWN. What do you think, love?

DAD

I prefer Margaret.

Too bad, Dad. Per-seff-OWN it was, until corrected and then it became Per-seff-oh-nee. Dad still lives in denial and only ever calls me Persy.

HIM

Persephone . . .

Now, back to the play that is unfolding in my living room.

He crosses to the sofa and stands, agitated, in front of me. He sighs.

HIM

Did you hear me?

I look up.

ME

Yes. But what do you mean?

I manage to sound polite. Oddly polite. Compliant. Sweet, almost. I think I’m in shock. I’m even smiling.

He shrugs and monotones back at me.

HIM

You just don’t do it for me anymore.

And there they are. The words that will ring in my ears long after the broken vase that is my soul has been cleaned up and disposed of. The words that will prove to be the subject of more than one session with the nice, supportive counsellor I feel certain I’m about to need.

ME

Oh.

What a lame response, Persephone. Not even delivered on full voice. No clear emotional intention, barely even audible. Kristin Linklater and Cicely Berry, world-renowned voice and text coaches, would be appalled. Stanislavski would be apoplectic.

Why am I being so polite? I can’t stand myself. I want to push myself down a flight of stairs. Who the hell is this meek, ridiculous woman? “Oh,” I said. “Oh.” Is that the best I can do? Shouldn’t I be throwing things by now? Hurling invectives, if not furniture? Of course I should, but instead I’m frozen, glued, mesmerised by this man standing in front of me. A man I was, at some stage, imbecilic enough to marry.

Can't you find something bigger than “Oh,” Persephone?

ME

Um . . .

That doesn’t count. I clear my throat. Maybe that will help.

ME

What exactly do you mean when you say I don’t ‘do it for you anymore?’

I even make the quotation mark signs in the air with my fingers. Shoot me now.

HIM

I’m over it. I want out.

So cold. So abrupt. So steel. I’m reminded of the time I realised his number plate—EIN—could be interpreted as the salute made by members of the Third Reich. I laughed at the time and shared my realisation with my sister. She nonchalantly informed me that she’d always thought of him as a fascist prick and wouldn’t be surprised if he’d had the number plate personalised to reflect his true nature. But of course, I didn’t listen. I was seduced by his blonde 90's ponytail, his interest in Jean Paul Sartre and his Christian Dior aftershave.

Now here he is, ponytail long gone, thinning hair freshly cropped to disguise the bald spot that has now almost become the full Friar Tuck. He thinks he’s disguising it by running a number one blade over his noggin every week, but he’s not fooling anyone. I want to shout in his face, “Ha-ha! Your furtive attempt to conceal your balding is akin to rearranging the deckchairs on the Titanic, dickhead! We know the truth! You’re bald!”

Why am I being so petty about his hair? Why am I even thinking about it? Why does it even matter how hirsute he is—or isn’t? Right this minute, he’s standing in front of me casting the deciding vote on our marriage.

Then the sad truth hits me in the head. It’s all I have to hold on to. He has pulled the rug out from underneath me and now he’s staring at me with his blue eyes, which I used to think were baby blue but now seem ice blue, they’re so cold. And all I have to cling to is a petty internal monologue about his hair. Or lack thereof.

HIM

I’ve found a unit on the west side of town. I’ve put an offer on it, so we’ll have to organise the financial settlement pretty quickly. It’ll go final in a month. I don’t want to miss out on this unit, she’s a little beauty.

A little beauty that ‘does it’ for him, no doubt.

Is this really happening? I thought it took two to have a relationship? I guess it does, but apparently, it only takes one to end it.

His words drop into my brain and swish about in my soul. How can this be happening? Isn’t he supposed to be a highly educated, active, balanced member of Gen X? A generation focused on family values and the need to combat corruption and dictatorship? The generation embracing social diversity and searching for human rights for all? Yes, but also a generation interested in individual freedom and self-expression. Right now he’s embodying the MTV end of the Gen X phenomenon rather than the socially aware end. And I’m embodying the ‘keeps hitting her head on the glass ceiling’ end, both personally and professionally, rather than be embraced as a member of the ‘Gen X You Can Have It All’ club. I feel I have concussion, metaphorically speaking.

ME

Settlement?

HIM

Yeah. I know you paid most of the house off, but remember you earn more than me. Oh, and I did most of the renovation. I reckon that’d probably make my share equal to about half.

ME

Half?

HIM

Half.

I’m repeating everything.

ME

Half?

There has to be an echo in here.

HIM

Yes.

ME

You’ve really thought this through.

HIM

Yep.

ME

How long have you been thinking about this?

HIM

Dunno . . . years.

He tosses the word away as though it has no meaning. No significance. Have I been living in a parallel universe? I have to refinance the house? Pay him out? On my own? With a soon-to-be four-year-old baby to look after? Okay he’s not a baby, he’s a toddler. Okay, he’s not a toddler, he’s a little boy. But he’s still tiny. And he feels like a baby. My baby. Jack.

HIM

You make good money doing voice-overs. The bank will be fine with it.

ME

But that’s just my bread and butter thing. What about my actual career?

He shrugs.

HIM

You have your play coming up.

He checks his watch.

HIM

I gotta go.

And this is when the same ball that smashed the vase hits me right in the face. Not only am I suddenly single with a huge financial responsibility, a huge parenting responsibility, no childcare and a huge case of self-loathing, but if I want to keep the only professional theatre job I’ve had in the past four years . . . I have to work with this man! He’s directing the play I’ve written. The play I was commissioned to write by a professional theatre company. It’s a golden opportunity that I can’t possibly pass up.