Nine

A few nights later, Anna met Vincy, just minutes before the curtain went up on the new production of Hamlet at the Abbey. She had found someone who had tickets – Lilian. Lilian got a lot of invitations.

Lilian had had a chance to read the piece of Sally and the Ship of Dreams that Anna had sent her a few weeks earlier. One of her many good qualities was that she was efficient. You didn’t have to wait for weeks for Lilian to answer an email; you always got the reply by return of post.

‘I think it’s wonderful,’ she said of the novel, the novel for young people or those who are young at heart. When she said ‘wonderful’, the word did not sound tired and clichéd. It sounded like a genuine endorsement. ‘It’s really original and entertaining.’

This was what Anna wanted to hear. Who would not?

‘I’ll look at it more closely,’ Lilian went on. They were walking down Lower Abbey Street in the cold dark November night, past the China Showrooms. Anna stole a look at its interesting, shiny window as she passed – she always hoped she would see some gem there, amidst the heaps of crockery, china tea-sets, crystal ware, towels, duvets, and sweatshirts, which it contained. The shop windows on the north side were always more mysterious, more miscellaneous, than those south of the river. ‘But honestly,’ Lilian was continuing, her mind on the topic in hand, as always, ‘I don’t think there is anything in it that I would change.’

Anna was in very good humour indeed as they walked into the theatre and upstairs past the big portraits of Lady Gregory and the Fay brothers, up to the bar. Their seats were on the balcony so they had to go there anyway.

There, just at the top of the stairs on the velvet seats that backed onto the banister, was Vincy, drinking a coffee with some friends – one male, one female, neither known to Anna. He saw Anna as soon as she came in but he was out of her line of vision as she entered the bar area and glanced ahead, trying to see who was there, in the large throng that had already gathered.

Vincy could not contain himself. He stood up for a second and called to her, to catch her attention.

Anna turned and saw him, lanky and loose-limbed, with his too-thin face surrounded by his untidy hair, like a bony little bird in a rough nest. He looked younger than he was, and vulnerable. He seemed to sense that she was looking at him, because he turned immediately and saw her. His eyes lit up and met hers. For a few seconds they held the gaze. Then they both smiled, amused rather than embarrassed.

Lilian, observing this interplay with some shock, and the woman at Vincy’s table knew at once that Vincy and Anna were attracted to one another. Anna and Vincy knew it too – at that moment the muddled emotion he engendered in her, which had been confusing her for weeks, seemed to define itself. It was as if an electric wire had run across the Abbey bar and enlightened both of them.

Lilian and the woman with Vincy could sense this, and it made them uneasy.

The man at Vincy’s table, however, noticed nothing. He did not even wonder why Vincy had stood up abruptly. All his attention was directed at his coffee cup, which he was trying to empty before the play began. He glanced at his watch and said, as Vincy sat down again, ‘We better go in; it’ll be starting soon.’

The woman at the table – it was Kate’s colleague, Lauren – glanced knowingly at Vincy and wanted to laugh at her partner’s insensitivity, which she found both touching and amusing. But of course she did not laugh. Both she and Vincy pretended that nothing at all had happened one second before, just as Anna and Lilian were doing, as they walked quite naturally through the room, to the other side, where the toilets were and where Anna wanted to fix up her hair.

In another part of the room, the little place at the window, Kate stood, her heart pounding, her stomach sinking. She had come in her official capacity to the opening, and it was she who had given Vincy a ticket and invited him. (She was chalking it up as another ‘date’, nevertheless.) Earlier in the evening she had sat at that table with Vincy and Lauren and her boyfriend, and then left them to talk to some other people with whom she was duty bound to network. But all the time she was making conversation with people who might be useful to her organisation, chatting about the producer and the play and productions of Hamlet she had seen previously, she was conscious of Vincy, drinking coffee at the table near the top of the stairs. She had placed herself in a position where she could see him, because observing him gave her pleasure. She loved the look of him. It also gave her pain. She was for some reason always anxious, worried that she would lose him, even though she had not, strictly speaking, gained him yet, so if she thought about it, she had nothing to lose. Lauren had a live-in partner – the man at the table. She would never steal a boyfriend from a friend and colleague and she didn’t even think Vincy looked very attractive. Still, Vincy might be attracted to her. Kate kept an eye on them, just in case, as she chirped and chatted to the first-nighters.

She had seen Anna come in with Lilian, since she had half an eye on the top of the stairs, spotting whoever came up. Lilian was a writer who was somewhere in the middle of Kate’s B list, as indeed Anna was. Lilian was the sort of person she said hello to at events like this, but with whom she would not normally engage in conversation. Anna, of course, was a different matter, since she was Gerry’s sister. Kate was busy with Carl Thompson and Katherine Molyneux, who were posing for a photograph by one of the press photographers who were rushing around. Even as the photograph was being taken, and Carl was putting his arm around her, she was examining Anna, fairly idly. Anna was wearing a black velvet coat, which suited her perfectly. The coat was open and underneath was a blouse or some garment made of rich cream lace. Kate saw the clothes first, and saw how perfect they were, how unusual, how well they suited Anna’s personality and style.

And then she saw the look that passed between Vincy and Anna and she too saw that they were connected and that there was nothing she could do about it, nothing.

The conversation with Katherine Molyneux and Carl Thompson lost all its sparkle. Even when the celebrated John Marvell joined them, Kate could hardly bring herself to talk to him. Luckily, the bell rang and the doorman began to shout in a voice that was both singsong and authoritative: ‘Ladies and gentlemen please take your seats; the performance is about to commence’, using the formula, and probably the same tone of voice, that the ushers in the Abbey had used since 1904.

Anna was already inside, tucked into her seat in the front row of the balcony, a seat she always liked. She looked down over the rows of heads to the big wide stage and tried to concentrate on the play.

It was an experimental production. The characters were dressed in modern clothes, and the ghost of Hamlet’s father appeared on a television screen. All the actors screamed a lot and Hamlet was interpreted as a manic depressive.

This much she took in, but for most of the time she could not hear what the actors were saying, even though they spoke very loudly and it was easier to hear in the Abbey on the balcony than it was anywhere else in the theatre. But they might have been speaking a foreign language that she did not understand. All she could think of was Vincy. His image was foremost in her mind and blocked out everything, even what was right before her eyes. She was not considering what sort of a person he was, what his attributes were, what his history was, not even what he was doing just now. He was simply on her mind, a large image that would not be blotted out, even by the vision of a manic-depressive Hamlet shopping for skulls in a skull supermarket.

Occasionally his image was displaced, but only by worrying thoughts about what she would do during the interval, or after the play. There would be an interval; people would leave their seats and go out for a coffee or a drink in that big bar. Should she talk to him? Should she avoid him? If she talked to him, would she blush and stammer and give herself away? Would he do that? Would they embarrass one another?

She decided about halfway through the first half that she would not go out for the interval and so solve the problem.

But when the lights went up, just after the play-within-a-play scene, she immediately turned to Lilian and said, ‘Let’s go out.’

She sat at one of the little wooden tables while Lilian went to the bar and got two glasses of wine – the wine was free and the glasses were standing there, waiting for people to take them, since it was a first night.

After what seemed like ages, Vincy came up the stairs from the stalls, with Kate at this side. He saw Anna straight away and smiled at her. Everything was fine; Vincy was so experienced, he knew exactly how to deal with the situation, to calm everyone down. He smiled as a friend would smile, and then he and Kate came over and asked if they could join Anna and Lilian. Vincy ushered Kate forward with a warm proprietary gesture, his hand lightly placed on her waist, and she looked happy and relaxed.

They talked about the production, and about other productions of Hamlet, and about other productions of other plays by the same director, who was young and talented. The conversation was exactly the same, with minor variations, as that which was taking place all over the theatre, in the bar and on the stairs and downstairs in the foyer, out on the street under the awning where people went to have a cigarette. Anna and Vincy preserved their dignity. No locking of eyes occurred. And still, in spite of all their good management, something buzzed around the table; everyone sensed that something strange was happening, as if there were a strange ghost hovering in the room. This spirit animated Vincy and Anna, so their conversation sparkled, while on Kate and even on Lilian it had the opposite effect. What they said, what they heard, seemed flat and dull to them. They gulped their wine. They were relieved when the ushers started shouting, ‘Ladies and gentlemen please take your seats; the performance is about to recommence.’ Up they jumped, at the first word, although Anna had not touched her wine and wondered where the time had gone. Kate would have liked simply to go home and sleep.

When the play was over, Anna wrapped her velvet coat tight around her, hurried out and down the stairs as soon as she could, saying goodbye to Lilian, who wanted to stay and enjoy the reception. Lilian shrugged, annoyed and puzzled, as she watched Anna darting out onto the street, where she was going to take a taxi all the way home.