"Cradle" - читать интересную книгу автора (Clarke Arthur C., Lee Gentry)

9

“OH, God, can’t we stop now? Finally? Please let us. It’s so quiet here, now.” She was speaking to the stars and the sky. The old man’s head slumped forward in the wheelchair as he drew his last breath. Hannah Jelkes knelt beside him to see if he was indeed gone and then, after kissing him on the crown of the head, she looked up again with a peaceful smile. The curtain fell and rose again in a few seconds. The cast assembled quickly on stage.

“Okay, that’s it for tonight, good job.” The director, a man in his early sixties, gray hair thinning on the top, approached the stage with a bounce. “Great performance, Henrietta, try to can that one for the opening tomorrow night. Just the right combination of strength and vulnerability.” Melvin Burton nimbly jumped up on the stage. “And you, Jessie, if you make Maxine any lustier they’ll close us down.” He spun around with a flourish and laughed along with two other people at the front of the theater.

“Okay, gang,” Melvin turned back to address the cast, “now go home and get lots of rest. It was better tonight, looked good Oh, Commander, can you and Tiffani stay around for a moment after you change? I have a couple more pointers for you.”

He jumped back down from the stage and walked back to the fourth row of the theater where his two associates were sitting. One was a woman, even older than Melvin but with twinkling green eyes behind her granny glasses. She was wearing a bright print dress full of spring colors. The other person was a man, about forty, with a studious face and a warm, open manner. Melvin fretted as he sat down beside them. “I worried when we picked Night of the Iquana that it might be too difficult for Key West. It’s not as well known as Streetcar or Glass Menagerie. And in some ways the characters are just as foreign as those in Suddenly, Last Summer. But it looks almost okay. If we can just fix the scenes between Shannon and Charlotte.”

“Are you sorry now you added the prologue?” the woman asked. Amanda Winchester was an institution in Key West. Among other things, she was the doyenne of the theatrical entrepreneurs in the revitalized city. She owned two of the new theaters near the marina and had been responsible for the formation of at least three different local repertory groups. She loved plays and theater people. And Melvin Burton was her favorite director.

“No, I’m not, Amanda. It clearly adds to the play to get some kind of initial feeling for how frustrating it would be to lead a group of Baptist women on a tour of Mexico in the summer. And without the sex scene between Charlotte and Shannon in that small, stuffy hotel room, I’m not sure their affair is believable to the audience.” He paused a moment, reflecting. “Huston did the same thing with the movie.”

“Right now that sex scene doesn’t play at all,” the other man said. “In fact it’s almost comical. The hugs they exchange are like the ones my brother gives his daughters.”

“Patience, Marc,” Melvin answered.

“Something has to be done or we should take the prologue out altogether,” Amanda agreed. “Marc’s right, the scene tonight was almost comical. Part of the problem is that Charlotte looks like a child in that scene.” She paused a moment before continuing. “You know, the girl has gorgeous long hair and we have it stacked on top of her head to look prim and proper. Clearly she wouldn’t wear it down all day in the heat of a Mexican summer. But what if she took it down when she went to Shannon’s room?”

“That’s a great idea, Amanda. As I have often said, you would have made a fabulous director.” Melvin looked at Marc and they exchanged a warm smile. Then the director settled back in his seat and started thinking about what he was going to tell his two cast members in a few moments.

Melvin Burton was a happy man. He lived with his room-mate of fifteen years, Marc Adler, in a beach house on Sugarloaf Key, about ten miles east of Key West. Melvin had directed plays on Broadway for almost a decade and had been associated with the theater in one capacity or another since the mid-fifties. Always careful with his money, Melvin had managed to save an impressive amount by 1979. Worried about the impact of inflation on his savings, Melvin had sought advice from an accountant who was a friend of a close associate. It was almost love at first sight. Marc was twenty-eight at the time, shy, lonely, unsure of himself in the maelstrom of New York City. Melvin’s savoir faire and theatrical panache opened Marc up to aspects of life that he had never known.

As the stock market ratcheted upward in the mid-eighties, Melvin watched his net worth near a million dollars. But other factors in his life were not so bullish. The AIDS epidemic hit the theatrical community in New York with a vengeance and both Melvin and Marc lost many of their lifelong friends. And Melvin’s career seemed to have peaked; he was no longer in demand as one of the premier directors.

One night on his way home from the theater, Marc was mugged by a group of teenagers. They beat him up, stole his watch and wallet, and left him bleeding in the street. As a saddened Melvin ministered to his friend’s wounds, he made a major decision. They would leave New York. He would sell his stocks and convert his fortune to fixed income investments. They would buy a home where it was warm and safe, where they could relax and read and swim together. Maybe they would do some community theater work if it was available, but that was not the most important thing. What was important was that they share Melvin’s remaining years.

Melvin ran into Amanda Winchester one day while he and Marc were on vacation in Key West. They had worked together briefly on a project that had never panned out twenty years before. Amanda told him that she had just formed a local amateur repettory group to do two Tennessee Williams plays a year. Would he be interested in directing them?

Melvin and Marc moved to Key West and started to build their house on Sugarloaf Key. Both of them thoroughly enjoyed their work with the Key West Players. The actors were everyday people, dedicated and earnest. Some had had a little acting experience. But for the most part, the secretaries, housewives, and retail clerks, plus officers and enlisted men from the U.S. Naval Air Station, were all novices with one thing in common. Each of them viewed his few days on the stage as his moment of glory, and he wanted to make the best of it.

Commander Winters came out of the dressing room first. He was wearing his uniform (he had come right over to rehearsal from the base) and looked a bit stiff and uncertain. He sat down in one of the theater chairs next to Amanda Winchester. “I was really glad to see you back again,” said Amanda, taking his hand. “I thought your Goober last fall was just right.”

Winters thanked her politely. Amanda changed the subject. “So how are things out at the base? I read an article the other day in the Miami Herald about all the modern weapons the Navy has these days, pilotless submarines and vertical takeoff fighters and search and destroy torpedoes. There seems to be no limit to our ability to build more powerful and dangerous toys for war. Are you involved with all that?”

“Only in a limited way,” Commander Winters answered pleasantly. Then, anticipating the discussion with the director, he leaned forward so that he could see Melvin and Marc as well as Amanda. “I apologize if I was a little flat tonight,” he began. “We have a couple of big problems out at the base and I may have been a bit distracted, but I’ll be ready tomorrow—”

“Oh, no,” said Melvin, interrupting him, “that’s not what I wanted to talk to you about. It’s your first scene with Tiffani… Ah, here she comes. Let’s go up on the stage.”

Tiffani Thomas was almost seventeen years old and a junior at Key West High School. A Navy brat all her life, Tiffani had gone to seven different schools in her eleven years since kindergarten. Her father was a noncommissioned officer who had been assigned to Key West about three months before. She had been recommended to Melvin Burton by the high school drama teacher when it became apparent that Denise Wright simply could not play the role of Charlotte Goodall.

“She hasn’t done anything for me yet except rehearse,” the teacher had said of Tiffani, “but she learns her lines quickly and has a quality, an intensity I guess, that sets her apart from the others. And she’s clearly been in plays before. I don’t know if she can get ready in three weeks, but she’s my first choice by far.”

Tiffani probably would not have been called beautiful by her Florida classmates. Her features were too much out of the ordinary to be be properly appreciated by most high school boys. Her assets were olive eyes, quiet and brooding, light freckles on a pale complexion, long red eyelashes tinged with brown, and a magnificent head of thick auburn hair. Her carriage was proper and erect, not slumped like most teenagers, so she probably seemed aloof to her peers. “Striking,” Amanda called her, accurately, when she first saw Tiffani.

She was standing on the stage alone in her short-sleeved blouse and jeans as the two men approached. Her hair was pulled back in a ponytail the way her father liked it. Tiffani was very nervous. She was worried about what Mr. Burton was going to say to her. She had overheard the buyer who was playing Hannah Jelkes say that Melvin might do away with the part of Charlotte altogether if “the new girl can’t hack it. “I have worked so hard for this part, Tiffani thought. Oh please, please, don’t let it be bad news.

Tiffani was looking down at her feet when Melvin Burton and Commander Winters joined her on the stage. “Well, now,” Melvin began, “let’s get straight to the point. The first scene with you two in the hotel room is not working. In fact, it’s a disaster. We must make some changes.”

Melvin saw that Tiffani was not looking at him. Gently he put his hand under her chin and lifted it until her eyes met his. “You must look at me, child, for I’m trying to tell you some very important things.” He noticed that her eyes were brimming with water and his years of experience told him immediately what was wrong. He leaned forward and whispered so that nobody else could hear, “I said we would make some changes, not do away with the scene. Now get yourself together and listen up.”

Burton regained his director’s voice and turned toward Winters. “In this scene, Commander, your character Shannon and young Miss Goodall engage in foreplay that leads to intercourse later that night. In the following scene they are discovered, in flagrante delicto, by the confused Miss Fellowes. And that establishes the desperate situation causing Shannon to run to Maxine and Fred at the Costa Verde.

“But our scene does not work right now because nobody watching it will recognize what you two are doing as foreplay. Now I can change the movement to make it easier—putting Shannan already on the bed when he discovers Charlotte behind the door would be one way—and I can change Charlotte’s clothing so that she looks less like a little girl, but there’s one thing that I cannot do…” Melvin stopped and looked back and forth from Tiffani to Winters. They were both staring blankly at him.

“Come here, come here, both of you,” Melvin said, gesturing impatiently with his right hand. He dropped his voice again. He took Tiffani’s hand with his left and Commander Winters’ with his right. “You two are lovers for one night in this play. It is essential that the audience believe this or they will not understand completely why Shannon is at the end of his rope, like the iguana. Shannon is desperate because he was originally locked out of his church for giving in to the same lust…”

They were both listening but Melvin’s director’s intuition told him he was still not reaching them. He had another idea. He took Tiffani’s hand and put it into the commander’s, closing his own hand over theirs for emphasis. “Look at each other for a moment. That’s right.” He turned to Winters. “She’s a beautiful young woman, isn’t she, Commander?”

Their eyes were in contact. “And he’s a handsome man, isn’t he, Tiffani? I want you to imagine that you have an uncontrollable desire to touch him, to kiss him, to be naked with him.” Tiffani blushed. Winters fidgeted. Melvin was fairly certain that he saw a spark, albeit a fleeting one.

“Now tomorrow night,” he continued, looking at Tiffani and taking his hand off theirs, “I want you to capture that feeling when you’re hiding in his room. I want it to explode out of you when he notices that you are there. And you, Commander,” he looked back at the middle-aged naval officer, “you are torn between an overpowering passion to possess this young girl physically and the almost certain knowledge that it will be the final ruination of both your life and your soul. You are hopelessly trapped. Remember, you fear that God has already forsaken you for your past sins. But, despite that, you finally relinquish yourself to your lust and commit another unpardonable sin.”

Tiffani and Commander Winters both realized at virtually the same time that their hands were still intertwined. They looked at each other for a moment and then, embarrassed, awkwardly separated them. Melvin Burton slipped between his players and put his arms around their shoulders. “So go on home now and think about what I’ve said. And come back tomorrow and really break a leg.”

Vernon Winters drove the Pontiac into his driveway in suburban Key West just before eleven o’clock. The house was quiet, the only lights were in the garage and the kitchen. As regular as the stars, Vernon thought, Hap to bed at ten, Betty to bed at ten-thirty. In his mind’s eye he saw his wife go into his son’s bedroom, as she did every night, and fiddle momentarily with his sheets and coverlet. “Did you say your prayers?”

“Yes, ma’am,” Hap always answered.

Then she would kiss him good night on the forehead, turn out his light as she left the room, and go into her bedroom. Within ten minutes she would have changed into her pajamas, brushed her teeth, and washed her face. She would then kneel beside her bed, her elbows on the top of the blanket and her hands clasped right in front of her face. “Dear God,” she would say aloud, and then she would pray until exactly ten-thirty, moving her lips silently with her eyes closed. Five minutes later she would be asleep.

Vernon was aware of a vague disquiet as he walked through the living room toward the three bedrooms on the opposite side of the house from the garage. There was something stirring in him, something that he could not identify exactly, but he assumed it was associated with either the nervousness of opening night or the sudden return of Randy Hilliard to his life. He wanted to talk to someone.

He stopped at Hap’s bedroom first Commander Winters walked in quietly in the dark and sat on the side of his son’s bed. Hap was fast asleep, lying on his side. A tiny nightlight beside his bed illuminated his profile. How like your mother you look, Winters thought. And act. You two are so close. I’m almost a trespasser in my own home. He put his hand gently against Hap’s cheek. The boy did not stir. How can I make up for all the time I was gone?

Winters gently nudged his son awake. “Hap,” he said softly, “it’s your dad.” Henry Allen Pendleton Winters rubbed his eyes and then sat up quickly in bed. “Yes, sir,” he said, “is anything wrong? Is Mom all right?”

“No,” his father answered, and then laughed. “I mean yes. Mom’s all right. Nothing’s wrong. I just wanted to talk.”

Hap looked at the clock beside his bed. “Ummm, well, okay, Dad. What do you want to talk about?”

Winters was quiet for a moment. “Hap, did you ever read the copy of the script that I got for you and your mother, the one from my play?”

“No, sir. Not much,” Hap replied. “I’m sorry, but I just couldn’t get into it. I think maybe it’s above my head.” He brightened. “But I’m looking forward to seeing you in it tomorrow night.” There was a long pause. “Umm, what’s it about anyway?”

Winters stood up and looked out the open window. Beyond the screen he could hear the gentle susurration of the crickets. “It’s about a man who loses his place with God because he can’t or won’t control his actions. It’s about…” Winters turned his head around quick1y and caught his son eyeing the clock. A sharp emotional pain raced through him. He waited until it had abated and then drew a breath. “Well, we can talk about it some other time, son. I just realized how late it is.”

He walked to the door. “Good night, Hap,” he said.

“Good night, sir.”

Vernon Winters walked past his wife’s room to the third bedroom at the end of the hall. He undressed slowly, now even more aware than before of an unfulfilled longing. He thought for a fleeting second about waking Betty up to talk and maybe… But he knew better. That’s not her style, he said to himself, never was. Even before when we slept together. And after Libya and the dreams and tears at night who could blame her for wanting her own bedroom.

He slipped into his bed in his undershorts. The soothing melody of the crickets enveloped him. And besides. She has her God and I have my despair. There is nothing left between us except Hap. We couple as strangers. both fearing any discovery.