Sweet Sorrow(50)

‘Is it “as well”? “Also”?’

‘Or “nevertheless”.’

‘But which one?’

‘It doesn’t matter, I understand it.’

‘So the wind was not hurt.’

‘Because …’

I thought of George and his hazel stick back in the orchard, his helpless grin as he whipped it through the air, trying to make it whistle. Did boys do that four hundred years ago?

‘He’s swishing it about and missing, and the air sounds like it’s sort of taking the piss.’

‘Exactly. So …’

‘So?’

‘So say this but mean that. That’s all acting is, really. Knowing what you want to say but with the words you’re given.’

I nodded, then, ‘Can you repeat that?’

‘Okay.’ She flipped onto her front to face me. ‘Okay, what I mean is, imagine I say, “I hate you.” Not you-you, but you. I can say it like, God, I really hate you, or I can say it like I secretly love you, or I find you disgusting, or beautiful, or, hm, you intrigue me. I’ve got to say “I hate you” because that’s what’s written down, but I can say those other things too. If I say “I hate you” but I mean “I really want to kiss you” then you – not you-you, but you – will know what I really mean. Not in an obvious way but it will come across, in thousands of tiny little signs that we’re not even aware of or able to control – the way we sit or eye movement or whether we blush or whatever and … you will know what I really mean. Not you-you. The audience. Does that make sense?’

I reached for a word I’d heard but never used. ‘So, like … subtext?’

‘Not just subtext. Irony and metaphor, all that stuff, they’re all ways of not saying what you mean, but still saying it.’

‘I think it’d be easier if everyone said exactly what they meant in as few words as possible.’

‘It might be. But where’s the poetry in that?’ She lay back down, dropping the last of the grapes into her mouth. ‘And when does anyone say what they really mean? Seventy, eighty per cent of what people say is – not a lie exactly, but … off to the side. Just coming out with feelings, complete honesty, I think it’d send people crazy. Besides, much more entertaining to work out what’s really going on.’

A moment passed in which I wondered if this was the most profound conversation I’d ever had. Not only had I used the word ‘subtext’, but the notion that a conversation about subtext might itself have a subtext, the complexity of this, was as dizzying as standing between two mirrors in a lift. She nudged my leg. ‘Read it to me again.’

‘He swung about his head and cut the winds/Who nothing hurt withal hissed him in scorn.’

‘There you go, that makes sense. It’s quite … witty, isn’t it?’

‘Well, not laugh-out-loud.’

‘I mean “wit” in the other sense.’

‘Okay.’

I didn’t know that there was another sense, and perhaps she knew this too, because she went on, ‘Not a ha-ha joke, but playing with an idea, improvising. So he’s clever or he thinks he’s clever or he wants the Montagues to think he’s clever. That’s something you could use. If you wanted to.’

‘I could wear glasses.’

‘Like clever people do?’

‘You think that’s too obvious?’

‘No. I like it. Look at you, with your bold character choices.’ She stopped abruptly, and spat something into her palm. ‘Sorry. These grapes are really manky. Carry on.’





Jamming


In the afternoon, Fran rehearsed with her Romeo and we clattered with our swords back to the orchard to rehearse the opening. The thumb-biting business had been handed over to John and Lesley, the new arrivals from the Lakeside Players and, according to Keith, ‘practically semi-professional, leading lights of the local scene’. They certainly had a youthful lustiness, hanging off each other’s necks in breaks, tucking their hands into the other’s pockets.

‘I think they might be swingers,’ said George.

‘Semi-professionals,’ said Colin.

‘Leading lights in the local scene,’ said Alex.

‘They’re certainly very touchy-feely,’ said Lucy, ‘considering how ancient they are.’ They were perhaps in their mid-thirties, but were tireless and keen and I was happy to sit in the shade and watch them bite their thumbs, and the afternoon wore on, as sticky and soporific as any in old Verona, until it was time to go. We gathered on the driveway, Lucy balancing her bamboo on the tip of her finger, Colin leaning on his and swaying from side to side like Fred Astaire, George writing his name on a broom handle with the fountain pen he kept in his top pocket; street toughs.

Wait for me, Fran had said, but she was trapped with Romeo. Exhausted from the work, he’d contrived to take his top off and now leant against his car, a battered white VW Golf, sword at his hip, pausing only to drink deeply from the large bottle of water he carried everywhere; like a dolphin in transit, he could not be allowed to dry out. Miles had a torso – that was the only word for it, the musculature apparently cross-hatched and shaded like one of my drawings, and he’d learnt that trick, beloved of topless teenage boys, of grasping his left bicep with his right arm to bunch up his meaty cleavage. As he drank, the water ran down his neck and chest and I heard a clatter as Lucy dropped her stick.