After another cup of tea, Denise excused herself and went home. I cleared things up and called it a night myself. I was still aching a bit through the shoulders from pushing the bike uphill, and there was just something about spending so much time outdoors through the day that made me tired. I supposed that was why mothers pushed their babies out for walks in the open air; it helped them sleep soundly.
I tossed and turned through the night, though. I might as well have stayed up and done something useful like solving a murder or writing the great Canadian novel. I looked like a sad raccoon the next morning, and even a shower and under-eye concealer couldn’t do miracles. I decided to walk to the park, since the simple mechanics of a bicycle seemed like a little too much heavy machinery for me to be handling.
This morning Micheline had beat me to the park with plenty of time. She had coffee brewing in the trailer and was typing away furiously when I popped my head in. I tucked my meagre lunch into the mini-fridge and sat on the couch behind her till she finished her task. There is nothing I hate worse than being interrupted in mid-flow of a thought. I had no desire to inflict that pain on someone else.
Finally, she swivelled around and smiled. “Morning, sunshine! You look like you went a few rounds in a cage match.”
“I cannot sleep very well when it’s hot, that’s all,” I shrugged. It hadn’t been stifling last night, but it had been muggy and close. We’d likely see rain later tonight. I just hoped it wouldn’t keep people away from the play.
“I know what you mean. I had fans running all over my place, trying to make the air move a bit even if it wouldn’t cool down. Still, it beats February weather, right?”
I nodded and smiled, though I wasn’t all that sure about it. At least with February weather you could put on another sweater or woollier socks. In the summer, there was only so much you could peel. I couldn’t imagine how people in sultrier climes did it, especially before the advent of air conditioning.
Micheline was looking at me expectantly, either to say something or remove myself from her lair. I remembered then what I’d been waiting to tell her. Man, I must be really tired.
“I have a bit of a conflict tomorrow morning, but only for an hour or so, and I was wondering if we could get one of the actors to cover off for me with the kids.”
“What sort of conflict?”
“Steve, my boyfriend, needs to be picked up at the airport. I figure he can drop me off here on his way home, but I have to get his car out to him, and his flight lands at 9:30 a.m. There’s no way I’ll be here for ten, and if there is any delay, which there well may be, I might not get here till noon.”
“Right. Well, we could call Tony or Louise. You know, if you were to spring about $50 for supplies, I’ll bet Louise would do a stage make-up session with them. Why don’t you call her?”
“That’s a fantastic idea. I don’t know why we didn’t schedule that into the camp in the first place!”
Micheline flipped the call list over to me and I found and dialled Louise’s number. She was amenable and told me she’d pop by the theatre supply shop on her way in today, and we could settle up later on the cost of the greasepaint and sponges.
“She’s very good; she used to teach the course at the Banff Centre, you know.” Micheline nodded and looked justifiably proud of her suggestion. I hadn’t known that about Louise, but was very relieved that things would work out this way, probably even better than originally planned. I could go get Steve, the campers would have a great morning, and I could maybe even manipulate my way into sounding out Louise about possible alibis she might have for the day Eleanor was killed and stuffed under the stairs. After all, stepping into the role of Hero gave Louise one of the more obvious payoffs of anyone who stood to benefit from Eleanor’s death.
I felt a bit guilty to be suspecting someone who was doing me such a favour, but I didn’t let it bother me overmuch. After all, these were actors we were dealing with. Any one of them could be putting on the performance of their lifetime, all the while leaving Denise out to hang for their crimes.
The kids began to arrive, and I herded them over to the hilltop area we had claimed over the course of the camp. Some of them were asking if we could play the card game today, which was gratifying, but I’d set today out for putting the scenes together so we could determine a running time for our class presentation at the end of the week. I explained to them the slight change in procedure for the next day, and they all looked pretty excited at the thought of playing with makeup—even the boys, which goes to show how useful performers like Eddie Izzard and Gene Simmons can be for naturalizing experiences.
Aside from that, though, the next few days would be working their scenes to get off book and sorting through costuming ideas to get continuity between the scenes. We would be changing the actors for each scene, so there had to be a unifying piece of costume to designate each character. That was one of the things we had to discuss today, because the kids would have to search out and bring their costumes by Thursday for sure. That would give me enough time to raid the Value Village on their behalf, if necessary, before the presentation the following Saturday at noon.
The day went by quickly. I was impressed by the kids’ grasp of the language, since some of them had been openly disdainful of what they hadn’t understood a week earlier. Being caught up in the excitement of the festival and surrounded by good-looking adults who obviously loved this stuff had rubbed off, as had their exposure to the Bard himself. Whether they liked it or not, we had created twenty-three more theatregoers in what was already a very drama-supportive town. Yay, us.
We wrapped up with each kid taking home a list of things to search out: white shirts, blue scarves, toques, tweedy vests, denim skirts. I figured that even with variation, audiences would be able to track which person in the scene was Benedick, Leonato, or Beatrice. The fact that they all had to wear masks during the dance scene made things trickier, and the kids would really have to work on how to show the audience who they were while telegraphing which characters were fooled by costume and which ones could spot all the players no matter how they were dressed.
There was a metaphor here for Denise and me, too. People all around us were wearing disguises. Some of the people in disguise were masters at seeing through artifice. Some were missing the disguises of others while dissimulating at the same time. And still others, like me, were caught in the middle of the dancers, not sure who was performing for whom and who was hiding something.
Kieran, who had been working with the sound guy most of the afternoon to see why the mics for Much Ado were working so well while the voices of Iago and Othello seemed garbled for people sitting to the sides of the theatre, was walking out around the same time I was and offered me a ride home. He was on his way to dinner, he said, and was going right past my place.
The thought of trudging up the hill in the late afternoon heat, even without my bike, was enough to make me accept gratefully, even if to my mind he was an asshole for cheating on my friend. I didn’t have time to consider the slippery slope of the collaborator, though, because I realized that this was a good chance to ask Kieran some probing questions about his relationship with Eleanor without being too overt. Now if only I could figure out how to begin.
Kieran made it easy.
“You know, I think I met you the same day I asked Eleanor to be part of the cast. We were all at that shindig Denise and Sarah were throwing for their students. Glad to know that at least one of the decisions I made that night has turned out to be a good one.”
I raised my eyebrows. While I was not immune to praise, Kieran seemed a bit cavalier about the death of his leading lady. He was concentrating on navigating his way out of the park, which was filling up with families heading to picnics and being vacated by Frisbee players and apartment dwellers on their days off. Even at the park speed of 10 kph, you didn’t want to be hit by a car.
He continued. “I thought that casting Eleanor would be the answer to getting the average Joe out to the park for the shows. Once you get them there, I really think the magic will win them over, but it’s getting them there that’s the trick. Who better than a television star from a show that hit the proper demographic?”
He had a point. “Well, Gopher Broke was broad spectrum comedy, for sure, but it was still a Canadian show. Do you think the average Albertan, the folks Premier Ralph Klein had called ‘Martha and Henry,’ would tune in to a Canadian show to begin with? After all, they could be watching CSI or Matlock reruns.”
“Don’t you think it’s fascinating that our most intentionally grassroots premier picked those names for the people in his rural stronghold? Why do you think he figured those names sounded so right together? Do you think he might have been channelling Martha Henry, one of the great doyennes of Canadian theatre? I think it’s way too much of a coincidence.”
“Ha! I never thought of that, but you’re right. I’ll bet it rang a bell for him and rolled off his tongue. So, subliminally, the rural voter is actually a fervent supporter of the Canadian performing arts scene? You see a lot of proof for that assumption?”
Kieran laughed. “Sadly, not that much. But never underestimate the artistic endeavours of small-town Canadians. I’ve seen great opera librettists come from northern Alberta and mezzo-sopranos from Millet. A soundman in Fort Macleod has won several Emmys. There are towns devoted to producing annual theatrical productions that would rival a Broadway show. And getting back to your question, Gopher Broke was a justified hit show. I think it had more viewers per week than The Beachcombers ever did, and they only had two other channels to compete with in their day. No, Eleanor would have been an amazing draw.”
He pulled up across from my apartment in a no-stopping area, forcing me to hop out quickly.
“Still, the ghoulish draw of associating with a murder scene has done a lot for our box office, too,” he grimaced. “See you tomorrow, then!”
“Thanks for the ride.” I closed the door and waved him off to the beeping of impatient drivers behind us. I stood there, wondering just how callous Kieran Frayne actually was and how much of it was an act.
Masks. Was everyone wearing one? Maybe it was time I put on a protective mask of my own.