I chopped, sliced, diced and excavated, and soon my big pot was nearly filled. I ground pink rock salt and black pepper on top with nutmeg and allspice, and placed it on the stove with the heat on low and the lid firmly covering it, so that Horatio would not be able to assist me any further. By now he had slipped away to wash his paws and radiate general pleasure from his favourite chair. I reached into my storage pantry, pulled out a picnic basket and filled it with sourdough, cheese, the gin bottle, sliced lemon, tonic and a small portable ice box.
It was twenty past four. My esky would be fine for the half-hour I was intending to spend with the actors, I decided.
Back downstairs I went to the door of Mars. I rang the bell, and the summons was answered by Luke, who wore a tight-fitting plain white T-shirt which showed off his muscles to excellent effect. I could sense him noticing my admiration. He didn’t seem to mind. ‘Hi, Corinna,’ he said in a bass sort of voice. ‘I’m not in this scene, so I’m on Door instead. Come and watch.’
I caught my breath. I had been expecting just a plainclothes run-through rehearsal with books or scripts. What I saw was a darkened room with one brilliant spotlight. It certainly hurt my eyes to look at it. I looked at the floor instead. Wriggling slightly inside a voluminous black cape appeared to be two bodies, giggling. Four shapely legs protruded from the cape. They were moving in a highly suggestive manner. A clear contralto voice announced itself, and Sam entered, wearing jeans and a black leather jacket and carrying a box of cask wine under one arm.
‘I shall no more to sea, to sea, here shall I die ashore.’ She stared down at the bodies, did a double-take, blinked, and muttered: ‘This is a scurvy tune to sing at a man’s funeral. Well, here’s my comfort.’ She pretended to drink from the cask, and blinked again as the bodies on the floor continued to wriggle. Then she began to sing in a deeper pitch, tenor heading towards baritone:
The master, the deck-washer, the boatswain, and I,
The gunman and his friend
We loved Moll, Meg, Marian, and Margery
But none of us cared for Kate.
Kate had a gutter mouth –
Sam paused as renewed giggles erupted from beneath the coat. Another double-take, then the song resumed. I saw Luke press a button somewhere and accordion music played in the background as Sam continued:
Would cry to a sailor, ‘Go hang!’
She loved not the savour of tar nor of pitch,
Yet a tailor might scratch her where’er she did itch.
Then to sea, boys, and let her go hang!
Another pause as Sam looked down at the bodies in the cape, and poked experimentally at one of the protruding legs. Wriggling of some sort was still happening. She shook her head and continued. ‘This is a scurvy tune too. But here’s my comfort.’ Another pretend drink, and an agonised cry came from within the cape.
‘Do not torment me. Oh!’
Sam knelt down and made a dumbshow of elaborately counting the four legs. ‘What’s the matter? Have we devils here?’
‘Cut!’ Luke called out. He switched off the spotlight and raised the lights in the room. The cape unrolled to reveal Stephen, wearing jocks and a white T-shirt, and a grinning Claire dressed in black underwear.
Luke put his hands on his hips and glared at them. ‘I’m really not sure about this scene at all, Stephen.’
Stephen stood up, grinned complacently, and watched as Claire wrapped the cape around her body. It was a very attractive body, I had to admit. He appealed to me with arms outspread. ‘For an Australian audience, you can’t avoid thinking of Caliban as Indigenous. We’re trying to deal with themes of exploitation here.’
‘Without having me as the token blackfella, because I’m not interested,’ Luke put in. ‘And yes, I totally get that we’re having a serious nod towards sexual exploitation on top of all the other forms of exploitation the First-Worlders inflict on Caliban. Just no.’
I looked at Claire, who shrugged. ‘I don’t know about that. It works for me. First I get friendly, then I get drunk, then I get angry.’
Sam laughed. ‘Don’t forget you start angry.’
At once Claire’s eyes flashed, and she all but spat the following:
All the infections that the sun sucks up
From bogs, fens, flats, on Prosper fall and make him
By inchmeal a disease! His spirits hear me
And yet I needs must curse.
Sam nodded. ‘You see? You’re making it too complex. It’s an interesting idea, but it makes the themes too muddled. Just stick to drunkenness and power plays. Also, you’re upstaging me. No one likes being upstaged.’
I remembered something from our first introduction. ‘Sam, I thought you were Ariel?’
She grinned. ‘I’m doubling Stephano at the moment. I think this could work.’
Stephen laughed. It was a good-humoured laugh: complacent but equable. ‘We don’t have a director, either. Whoever isn’t onstage gets to direct. I like the idea. Look, we’re short of money for this production, so we’re trying to do it as a four-hander. If we can raise some more, we can afford more cast members. We’re still thinking that over. Okay, we leave the sexual overtones out? What do you think? Long shorts? I think we need the bare legs.’
Luke rubbed his chin. ‘Yes, we do. Frayed cuffs, just below the knee?’
‘For both of us?’ Claire nodded. ‘I’ve got some jeans I can cut down.’
‘Sure.’ Luke switched on the spotlight again. ‘This one’s borrowed from the theatre department, by the way. A lot of actors rehearse in normal light and get thrown by the reality of spotlights. We’re getting used to doing it as though we were in the theatre. Okay, roll the scene again, but lose the sexual politics. Go!’
He brought the house lights down, and Claire began by slinging on a sizeable backpack and grimacing. Her face grew more pointed, and her eyes flashed.
All the infections that the sun sucks up
From bogs, fens, flats, on Prosper fall and make him
By inchmeal a disease! His spirits hear me
And yet I needs must curse. But they’ll nor pinch,
Fright me with urchin-shows, pitch me i’ th’ mire,
Nor lead me like a firebrand in the dark
Out of my way, unless he bid ’em. But –
She paused, flinging the pack to the floor with a thump of frustration. In a more moderated tone she continued:
For every trifle are they set upon me,
Sometime like apes that mow and chatter at me,
And after bite me, then like hedgehogs which
Lie tumbling in my barefoot way and mount
Their pricks at my footfall. Sometime am I
All wound with adders who with cloven tongues
Do hiss me into madness.
Enter Stephen, still in his jocks and T-shirt. Claire flinched, and continued:
Lo, now, lo! Here comes a spirit of his, and to torment me
For bringing wood in slowly. I’ll fall flat.
Perchance he will not mind me.
She lay down, wrapped herself in her cape, and was still.
Stephen delivered his lines with a casual air, speaking easily and well. Then he wrapped himself in Caliban’s cape and he too lay decorously still. I had to admit Luke was right. With added concupiscence the scene had been uncomfortably wrong. Funny, yes. But not in a good way.