The Indulgence

By Leslie Hall Pinder

Pinder's The Indulgence resonates with our times. It is a courtroom drama about what happens when love turns to hate and everyone turns to the law. The endorsements say it all:

"The Indulgence is a gripping, powerful read. The protagonist, actress Lucinda Yates, is a compellingly original character, wonderfully impossible to categorize. She is articulate and self-reflecting; her sexuality is in free flow; she belongs to no camp. Yet she is caught in the compulsion of a ruinous, limiting relationship. Hers is an heroic struggle to escape the tragedy of falling in love with someone who does not have the capacity to return that love."
Juliet Stevenson, British stage and screen actress (Truly, Madly, Deeply; Bend it Like Beckham; Lawrence Olivier Award, Best Actress)

"The book is wonderful, full of elegance, and the narrative — not to mention the writing — so powerful. Such story-telling. A triumph."
Hugh Brody, filmmaker and author (Maps and Dreams; The Other Side of Eden)

"This is a powerful, blistering novel, a startling premise, a page turner, beautifully written, a novel that will remain with me for a long time. There are so many layers, such a myriad of involving and troubling themes that left me thinking way beyond the page... [A] cracking story, one that engages the reader right down to the wire."
Gillian Stern, freelance editor in the U.K.

• Language: English
• Publisher: Tellwell Talent
• Release date: Jan 31, 2019
• ISBN: 9780228807483

Book preview

Act I

To live life at a pitch. Not to be half asleep.

Lucinda Yates

(Sixteen Years Earlier)

1994

Meeting at the Theatre

Lucinda Yates sat in front of a mirror framed by bare lightbulbs. From the vast quantity of bottles, potions and make-up brushes, she took a cobalt-blue jar, fingered a mound of startlingly white cream, and paused.

A sweatband held back her hair which was still flat from the man’s wig she had worn during rehearsal. She would delay cutting her hair for as long as possible.

Wiping her fingers against the inside of the jar, she removed most of the cream, then put her hands against her temples, stretching back the skin of her face. At twenty-eight, she wasn’t too old to play Prince Hamlet, but she wished the lines around her eyes were tighter, less visible. John Carey, the make-up artist, would have to banish these crow’s feet; and she needed to get more sleep. Why Arthur felt he was entitled to take most of her furniture when they separated kept her awake at night. You cannot, sir, take from me anything that I more willingly part withal—except my life…

As she started to remove her make-up, there was a knock on the door. She checked her diary: Eva Ryder 3:30 p.m. She’d forgotten about this interview.

Hold on a moment, will you?

Over her jeans and a low-cut yellow t-shirt, Lucinda wore a somewhat tattered terrycloth dressing-gown; some of the threads were pulled, as though a bird got at it to make a nest. It would have to do. If the journalist wanted a photograph she’d refer to her agent. She checked her face; it was asymmetrical, half submerged by the mask of the stage and half in the raw. Will she think I’m too short for a woman who is going to play a man? The make-up artist couldn’t help with that. Nor that her body was like a dancer’s, thinner than the Dane of Denmark should be.

When Lucinda opened the door, she apologized. Sorry I took so long.

Lucinda dragged a heavy wooden stool across the floor. And sorry about this old thing. It’s the only other chair I have.

Lucinda leaned forward with a calm intensity, and looked at Eva Ryder. She had closely-cropped, dark curly hair — she was boyishly beautiful — probably Lucinda’s age but younger-looking. Yet her eyes were already hooded, maybe even sad, it was hard to tell.

Forgive me, Lucinda said, but I’ve forgotten — you’re doing this article for which magazine?

"I don’t have — I’m hoping to place it with Macleans.

A tough business, publishing.

They’ve shown some interest. A profile. Of course, focussing on your career.

Lucinda smiled and waited.

Does acting come easily to you? Eva asked.

Easily? Good heavens no. She closed her eyes and turned her head; for an instant she regretted this interview. With the rehearsal just over, she hadn’t yet shed Hamlet. She could certainly talk about him, but she didn’t have a roster of things to say about herself. She’d have to think of everything afresh. Can we come back to this? Well, I guess it’s at the heart of the matter, in some way. She put her hand against her forehead, felt a residue of cream and rubbed it into her face. Before we really get launched, I want you to know — and this isn’t modesty — I’m not a great actor who can turn any role into a meal for the gods. I need good — even difficult — parts and then I can come alive on stage – or at least manage.

And why do you find it hard?

Lucinda smiled at the journalist’s tenacity. When I am trying to get a character, it comes in to me like — a series of shocks I guess. Quite bracing. I have to be able to receive those shocks and from them discover my character’s core.

Lucinda felt vulnerable, almost flensed. Was she masking her vulnerability with pretentiousness? With her habit of self-reflection, she imagined how Eva Ryder might see her: something unaligned about her face (her nose had been broken as a child); blonde roots showing beneath the black dye of her hair; her fingernails immaculately manicured; a winning smile -- yes, attractive, and her upper teeth perfect, but not her bottom ones (her father stopped paying for orthodontics); her eyes were closer together than with most people, as though she was pursued rather than pursuing.

What profile would Eva Ryder create from these all too human and somewhat quirky qualities that made up her very self? Although Lucinda knew she had talent, she hadn’t been discovered yet. And would Ryder wonder if the actress could transform all these qualities into Prince Hamlet who, despite his brooding inaction, was responsible for seven deaths before the end of the play?

How do you prepare yourself for a role such as Hamlet, especially having to cross-dress? How will you play the role?

I won’t play Hamlet as a woman, but try to create the male character Shakespeare wrote. It’s about finding correlatives in myself and then pulling them out. Lucinda decided not to say that she wandered around with an enormous pile up of uncatalogued feelings. The best thing about theatre was that a new character she was attempting to enrol would suddenly clatter open the gates of these emotions, and let them out. Rage, for example. She never expressed anger aside from a furious Medea or Electra. Passion was always at hand, but not rage. How much to say to this determined but restrained journalist turning the pages of her notes? Don’t misunderstand. It’s just something about me, like the colour of my hair. She laughed then, because her blonde hair was dyed brown. Well, you know what I mean. She paused. Do you?

You use this emotionality in a role, is that what you are saying?

I guess so. Sure. I can’t figure out, before I engage Hamlet, who he is -- in the abstract I mean.

Abstract?

Uh huh. I don’t decide whether he takes sugar in his coffee, or even if he drinks coffee – did they have coffee in 1601? I suppose. I hope there’s always been coffee. I just put him into the situation and boom, he becomes himself. Hamlet isn’t just a cluster of qualities.

We don’t think that about ourselves, either.

Right. The concept wasn’t that obscure, still Lucinda was pleased to be understood. She was warming to Eva Ryder.

But he’s a fictionalized character.

Yes —

Whom you have to become.

Yes. Hamlet isn’t a list of things: melancholic, thoughtful, shrinking from revenge. I mean his character -- all character, don’t you think -- is the combustion of yourself with events. You don’t really know beforehand how you’re going to respond to a situation.

Lucinda feared she was saying too much, but she persisted. It’s important to resist complacency. I just have to dive into the experience. It’s exhausting and exhilarating and everything I love. Without it, I’d probably be slightly daft, slouched over on a blanket in front of Sunshine Drugs, begging food for my dog.

Eva shifted in her chair. Somehow the idea of such a descent seemed discomforting to Eva. They were both spared by the first of a series of interruptions.

Many of the theatrical luminaries in town that day dropped by. As Lucinda watched Eva write their names in her notebook, she guessed Eva was counting on her being a rising star.

When the renowned British actress, Fiona Johns, knocked lightly on the partly open door, and asked if she might come in, involuntarily Eva stood.

So sharp and intense was her presence, Johns made the ample room seem tiny. Needlessly, she introduced herself, apologizing for the intrusion. She had a shy quality about her, of a prodigy still ripening. I don’t suppose you got my note, Johns said to Lucinda. I read a notice about your doing Hamlet. She explained that she’d been in L.A. that morning and came to Vancouver to mount ‘The Four Quartets’ -- a little, experimental thing.

Because of doing Richard II, I have a sense of what you’re up against in playing Hamlet. Watch out for the critics. They’re tougher than the role. They’ll say you’re ‘the bellwether for the times’ and that you’re ‘seriously outdated,’ both in the same review. And, thankfully, you have Sarah Bernhardt as a mentor. She was 60 when she played Hamlet.

And had a wooden leg, Lucinda added. Thank god I don’t have that disability.

She wore a beanbag in her tights, to change her centre of gravity.

Maybe I’ll try that.

Fiona Johns smiled -- puckish, wry -- and scribbled her London phone number on her card. Call me. She backed out of the room, taking her leave. I wish you an abundance of what we glibly call ‘luck’. She was gone.

Lucinda was more confused than flattered by this last visitor. Distracted, forgetting her guest, she adjusted the position of various jars on the table and took a cloth to smudges on the mirror, then suddenly stopped, as though pulling together a disbursed self. Say, why don’t we go for a drink? The Sandbar?

Although Eva agreed, Lucinda thought she’d have been happier to simply wait for the next celebrity to show up.

As Eva found her briefcase and assembled her notes, Lucinda let down her hair and reapplied her make-up. Looking in the mirror, she saw the customary change in herself. She no longer looked vulnerable and exposed. Her features were augmented: her lips full, her eyebrows arched – sharp, alluring, almost haughty.

Eva drove them to the restaurant in a two-door, beige Lexus, her husband’s car.

Under the Girders

Over drinks at the Sandbar, Eva was more disclosing. She said she had a knack for discovering genius. Her test run was Lawrence Ryder, whom she had married when they were university students; he was determined to become a famous architect. My brilliance, if I have any, is in being able to identify brilliance, the exceptional talent, the headliner. I’m smart, but I don’t have the creativity or imagination to be an artist. I’m hoping my ability to identify star-quality makes up for that. She’d built a successful home life on her canny aptitude, and would now construct a career. She was impatient both for Lawrence’s and her success to begin.

And I’m banking on you, just as Fiona Johns has placed her bet.

Although certainly not humble, the persistent journalist now seemed honest and forthright. Lucinda liked it.

The restaurant was perched above the water, under the massive structure of the Granville Bridge; the setting sun hit their table broken up by the shadows of criss-crossed girders.

The irony wasn’t lost on Lucinda that as she sipped her second glass of Chardonnay, she gave an opposite assessment of her own ability to evaluate others: while she was good at interpreting character for the stage, off-stage she was a terrible judge of people.

That surprises me, Eva said. I’d think you’d need to be good at it, on and off-stage.

The theatre requires a tremendous effort of empathy, even love, to investigate and endorse a character in order to embody them. Faced with a real person, I tend to forget -- actually, not even notice -- the really unlikeable qualities in a friend. But I understand someone like Hamlet. In many ways, he can’t control his passions. He doesn’t know what to do with them, or where his duty lies. He’s my kind of guy.

Eva smiled. Why is he your kind of guy? she asked.

Lucinda put her chin in the crook of her hand. Actually, before I agreed to the part, as I was re-reading the play, I discovered Hamlet and I have a lot in common.

Such as?

We’re both obsessed with the theatre. We make jokes all the time, often inappropriately. His continuous wit gives the effect of making him seem endlessly high-spirited, even as he mourns. She paused. With Hamlet, we can never be sure when he is acting Hamlet. Nor with me. As though descending by rungs, My mother died when I was eight years old, and, like Hamlet, I ended up with a loathsome step-parent, a step-mother. I never wanted to kill her but I certainly wanted her dead. Eva flinched. Too strong? Well, anyway, I didn’t seek revenge against my step-mother, but in a way I wanted to avenge my mother’s death. This is all too psychological, and I’m probably making myself sound a little strange. Lucinda felt skinless. She needed a role, someone she could portray on stage, to give her an epidermis, a protective layer, so she wouldn’t lose herself in the past. She was sure that Eva could see all of this about her. But what could she do? Flee the restaurant? Spill her wine? Cause a raucous?

Instead of any of these things, because she felt immersed in disclosure, Lucinda merely continued. For Hamlet — well, for most of us — we don’t understand, anymore, taking the risks he does to avenge an injustice. The stakes are extraordinarily high. It’s not only beyond our comprehension, it’s beyond our capacity.

And do you have to find that capacity, in yourself?

Lucinda’s answer wasn’t forthcoming; then the actress smiled, as though deciding she liked being challenged. Yes.

And do you do that? Play the high stakes?

Yes.

Why?

I don’t know. The intensity. The danger. The sense of faux intimacy produced by probing questions from this stranger felt a little like foreplay. You pursue me. Eva tipped her head at a slight angle in a courtly response to Lucinda’s remark. She’s initiating me, Lucinda thought; it’s an artful manipulation. Lucinda had never met anyone quite like the intriguing Eva Ryder.

Although Lucinda was enjoying this sometimes waggish conversation, she couldn’t release the grip of the serious. In truth, my well-being comes from taking risks on stage -- overcoming my cowardice and pushing these emotions to their extreme – she struggled to find the right word -- to their charmlessness, beyond wanting to be liked or loved. Thank god I’m able to do this within the discipline of the theatre – to avoid complete wreckage in my private life. More coyly than she intended, she added, I have an inkling you understand all of this.

Oh, no, not at all. Eva was again forthright. I mean I understand what you’re saying. But I don’t like taking risks.

Well, you’re lucky. I guess. I suppose the worry is, if you don’t take risks, then you’ll be bored. She wasn’t sure why, but as Lucinda looked at Eva she thought of Hedda Gabler. Perhaps it was her willfulness — and a hint of coldness, which felt threatening and alluring at once.

Yes, boredom is a worry, Eva said.

She’s unnerved by me, Lucinda thought. She feels unmasked, and doesn’t believe I am dumb about another’s character.

Back to you. What’s the cowardice about? Eva finally asked.

I don’t quite know why it’s important for me to be afraid. Anyway, I always am before going on stage. But I tend to run towards fear rather than away from it. It’s like entering an enormous blank, hoping to emerge. It makes me alert, as long as I can live with it. Lucinda was at the worn edge of something quite bewildering to her. Whatever it was seemed immature and undeveloped. She was annoyed with herself for landing there.

She changed the subject. "I’ve been reading outside sources. Oscar Wilde’s letters to Bosie. Now, there was a man who knew about compulsive love. And listening to a lot of opera, thinking about my father’s obsession with my mother."

The restaurant was filling up and becoming noisy. Eva moved to sit directly beside Lucinda.

Lucinda felt the familiar sense that she was slipping away from herself, bobbing like a cork on water. Her views on avenging her mother’s death now seemed hyperbolic. A kind of lethargy set in which always attended thoughts of her mother. She wondered if she were getting a little drunk. She’d had three glasses of wine to Eva’s one. Food was necessary.

Not much is known about your private life, at least not by me. Eva was on the hunt again. There is some talk you’re a lesbian playing a man who loves his friend Horatio more than he loves his betrothed.

Aren’t you the bold one. I haven’t heard this ‘talk’. Lucinda was curious at Eva trying to expose her.

Eva pressed on. And?

The homosexual production values in the show are pretty high. Lucinda grinned at the theatrical concept she’d just coined. But actually I’ve never had a woman lover. I’m pretty busy.

Now it was Eva’s turn to laugh at this arch deflection.

Lucinda didn’t so much shift ground as drop a conversational level. The play is about human tragedy on a grand scale, yet it’s actually a family tragedy. Claudius, who has killed Hamlet’s father, calls Hamlet his son. He calls Hamlet’s mother ‘our sometime sister, now our queen.’ There’s a great mix-up here. I guess a shrink would say the boundaries between people are askew. Am I going on too long?

I should have brought a tape-recorder. Actually, I don’t really want to be a writer. I’d rather use my talents in radio, then television. So, what do you see as the relevance of the play today?

Lucinda’s response was quick.Nietzsche declared ‘God is dead’ and we’re still trying to absorb the blow of that insight. Now the same declaration can be made about the family. The family is dead, because of the death of the mother. The confusion which results is colossal.

How does that work?

I’m talking metaphorically, but it still corresponds to the actual. Death throws everyone in the family into a mythical realm. It’s like being irradiated. What are the rules in a world which allows a parent to die, let alone be murdered?

Lucinda was tired of herself and all these opinions she didn’t even know she had. Eva Ryder was a smart cookie. Strangely, her attractiveness was in her very effort to be withholding which, obversely, showed her vulnerability. What was the pile up of events that had made her this way? Lucinda would never know. She felt a little exhausted. An interview was like having a fling before breakfast: it seemed way too early in the day for such intense, momentary devotion. But Lucinda didn’t want to disappoint.

It’s not a happy play, but I hope in my performance to give the audience a certain amount of hope, a woman playing a man who is trying to redress the rotten state of society.

This sounds a little radical to me. Maybe even dangerous.

Yes? Why?

Order, I guess. Civility. The family.

The family is dead.

Eva smiled; Lucinda changed the subject again. "I’m working on launching an acting school for young children. There’s such a great cross over between a child’s creativity and her emotional development. A safe space where a child can take risks. And one day I’d like to do a stage adaptation of Bellini’s Norma. Do you know the opera? The love between the two women is gorgeous. It seems stronger than either Norma’s love for Pollione or Adalgisa’s love for him."

You’re finished with the death of the family?

She assumed Eva was gently teasing her for being grandiose. Yes, for the moment.

As the waitress approached, Eva waved her away without looking up.

Lucinda rested her head on her right hand, as though it were too heavy, and smiled, as though she were pleased with Eva.

I’m unlucky in love, Lucinda said. But I’m lucky in parking. With the abrupt, fractured segue back to herself, Lucinda knew she was trying to entertain Eva with her self-deprecating humour. She should start to drink more water than wine.

What do you mean? Eva was genuinely confused.

"Just the way it is. If the O.J. Simpson trial were on, I’d find a place to park right in front of the courthouse. But love? Not so fortunate. Most recently I ended up living with a man who euthanized his cat on the day of his father’s funeral. He had a good explanation for it, one that made sense to me at the time. Until he euthanized his dog the day we broke up. I’m lucky in parking; in love, not so much.

Eva was playfully brazen. How were you to know your partner was a vivisectionist?

Lucinda laughed. A breeze caught a corner of the curtain; it billowed out, covering her face. She pushed the cloth away, more amused than annoyed.

I like a woman who makes a joke of such things, Lucinda said. But you mustn’t write about any of this. Should I have said this was off-the-record? You’re discreet, aren’t you? I’m pretty lucky in critics.

You were saying earlier, about your father and obsession?

Lucinda frowned. Was I?

You said you’d been thinking about him in relation to obsessive love, and your mother.

I think I said infatuation. Did I say obsession? He was probably a little obsessed because he didn’t get enough of her. Time ran out. The opposite of a lot of marriages, where wives are somewhat hysterical with dissatisfaction because they’re not sure they love their husbands, and time is too long.

I think that describes my sister.

How interesting. Lucinda wanted to hear about Eva, wanted to stop being a self-disclosing actress with too many comments about families, her father and her most recent ex-lover.

Not hysterical, though. My sister is more restrained than that. We try not to be hysterical in my family – our mother picks up the slack. Do you know how your father’s preoccupation affected you?

I’m not sure. Lucinda raised her water glass, looked at it, and exchanged it for the wine. I was very young when she died. But I told you that. She’d been ill for over a year. If I have any acting ability at all, it’s probably because of her.

Why?

Sitting with her. Reading to her. Having to really understand -- almost become -- the state she was in. Because she couldn’t communicate — To Lucinda’s relief, the waitress interrupted them, and she didn’t have to finish her sentence. This was rough terrain for her, and time had not levelled it.

Eva was annoyed at the waitress, but she ordered enthusiastically and without consultation. The quality of your attention is so cultivated, towards everything except food. You’re too thin. Let’s have euphemisms for dinner. Eva gave Lucinda a rakish smile. The sweetbreads to start, and then the squab –

Isn’t squab -- aren’t they the pigeons we saw pecking around outside —

We’ll share. I’ll buck up your courage.

They were taking turns being flirtatious.

When Eva drove Lucinda back to her townhouse, Lucinda said, You can park there, in the cul-de-sac. You won’t get towed.

Do you want me to come in then? Eva asked.

I assumed you would. She hesitated. I don’t know why.

So your vivisectionist isn’t in the picture any more?

Lucinda tried to focus on Eva’s face but it was dark and she’d had too much to drink. Eva’s hands on the steering wheel were small and delicate. She’d never peeled a potato in her life, Lucinda thought. She wasn’t wearing her wedding ring. Where had it gone? She was sure she’d seen it earlier. Or perhaps not. Had she taken it off? That would be strange.

Is he? Eva repeated.

Lucinda had lost the thread of the question. Is he? Who?

The vivisectionist. I won’t be meeting him?

Good grief, no.

They made their way over the cobblestones to Lucinda’s townhouse which faced the waters of False Creek.

You live here? A young, aspiring actress —

I inherited money from my mother.

As they reached the door Lucinda turned around, not wanting to go inside just yet. Where’s the moon tonight? Oh, there it is. She pointed to the small, bright orb tangled in the spires of the boats moored in front. I can never keep track of whether it’s waxing or waning. Can you?

Nope.

Let’s go inside.

Although large, brightly coloured abstract paintings covered all the wall-space that wasn’t windowed, the townhouse was sparsely furnished: only a couch and a small table in front of the fireplace.

The place echoes a bit, Lucinda said. The euthanizer – that’s cruel, I shouldn’t call him that. His name was Arthur. Arthur was modest about a lot of things but not about relieving me of my furniture. I haven’t finished refurbishing. However -- she said with mock triumph -- I did retain the corkscrew. A nightcap? Eva shook her head. Lucinda poured herself a glass of merlot.

My guess is you’re not as cavalier about him as you make out.

Lucinda liked her for saying that.

As Lucinda leaned over to put her drink down, Eva touched Lucinda’s cheek with her finger, cupped her chin in her hand, stood, raised Lucinda up, and they were kissing.

A kind of zap went sizzling through Lucinda’s body, so sexual, precise and sharp she wanted to laugh at its figurative, cartoon quality. The alcohol which had muzzled her brain was cooked off by the passion of this first kiss. She felt almost singed with clarity. She was taken by how soft and sensuous Eva’s mouth was, how full and inviting. In truth, the touching of tongues hadn’t been there much in her relationship with Arthur, and kisses had become friendly and collegial. The buttery taste of Eva’s mouth, despite the overtones of alcohol, was one of the most pleasurable things she could remember.

Slowly Eva lock-stepped Lucinda backwards and pressed her up against the dining room wall, her breasts on the breasts of another woman, her tongue exploring another tongue, the ribbed roof of her mouth, her teeth. They couldn’t stop. Lucinda wanted to infuse herself into Eva. She didn’t know how to do this, what moves to make; she only knew she felt, not desire, but lust.

She was a little afraid.

As if Lucinda were the aggressor, Eva pushed away from her. She chose something irrelevant to say. We’re almost the same height. I’ve never kissed anyone at the same level as me. Lance is quite tall. She added, quietly, matter-of-fact, I like kissing.

So do I. Lucinda moved back to the couch to recover her ground. To be a good kisser -- it’s the only requirement I’ve had in a lover. She was using a joke to rub out a sand-painting, diffusing a jet-stream, obliterating heart. And then inviting it all back.

You might consider adding a few other qualifications. They both were having trouble finding the right tone.

I think I could hang in there despite infidelity, sleep apnea or alcoholism, but not bad kisses. Lucinda’s humour was a flak jacket for her complicated feelings. Regaining her candour, she said, You asked me but I didn’t ask you. Have you ever been with a woman? Eva shook her head. And you have a husband. It was meant to be a reminder to them both, but it sounded like an accusation.

And that was just a kiss, was Eva’s rejoinder.

Lucinda tugged Eva’s arm, bringing her onto the couch. I think we should be careful. Neither of us knows what we’re doing.

It was just a kiss. And I do have a husband. Eva was smiling.

A friend of mine had a relationship with a woman after she was married. She was pretty upset when it was over. She said she didn’t even know which sex she was.

That’s how it ended? How sad. Eva stood.

May I ask you — I hope I’m not being too forward —

Eva grinned, and then Lucinda caught how overly polite the comment was in the circumstances. Well, anyway — you spoke of your husband. With him, did you ‘dance yourself tired’ and then marry him?

Is that a literary reference? Do you mean did I dance myself tired of waiting for you?

No, I meant —

That’s a pity.

I meant tired of waiting for someone else, I guess. I’ve done that. Lose faith.

Without answering the question, Eva moved to the door. What’s the fragrance in the room? She looked around for flowers but there were none. Citrus?

I don’t know, I can only smell the gardenias in the perfume you’re wearing.

Actually it’s essence of bergamot. Eva put her hand over Lucinda’s mouth. A discreet critic says goodnight to a discreet actress.

Lucinda had thought Eva might call and obfuscate the event, or even backtrack on what had happened. She hadn’t expected an ambiguous, witty note delivered to the theatre the next day.

A two-hander? I’ll play Adalgisa to your Norma. Phone for an audition, daily after 9 a.m. when Pollione has gone. 684-5893. Parking in front. We need to talk.

It was unsigned.

She folded the paper and put it in her wallet.

Her body warmed with the lure of the words and the still-felt pressure of Eva pinning her against the wall. Across her chest, however, was a strap of dread. She knew she would respond; she almost wished she wouldn’t.

If she did get close to this restrained, flirtatious, challenging and private woman, something new might happen. From such boldness bloomed temptation.

As this thought took hold, she momentarily forgot that Eva was married. She didn’t act like a married woman.

Of an Afternoon

When Lucinda phoned in answer to Eva’s note, Eva asked her to come to her apartment the next week, Tuesday, before the afternoon rehearsal of Hamlet.

Her attraction to Eva was disquieting. She’d always been infatuated with her basketball coaches in high school, but so were all the girls on the team. Eva Ryder wasn’t about to be her basketball coach. Whatever this was, she was prepared for it to be the shortest dalliance, both in time and distance, in the history of romantic love: approximately one minute, the length of the kiss; approximately six feet, the space from the couch to the wall.

Lucinda pressed the number on the outdoor panel at the entrance to the building. It’s me, she said.

Eva’s voice, magnified by the intercom, crackled into the street, I – it is I.

Lucinda realized it was a correction of her grammar and not a responsive declaration of self.

She took the elevator to the penthouse on the 5th floor.

The door was ajar. Tentatively, she pushed it open and moved into the foyer. Eva? she whispered. There was no answer. She walked down the long hallway which opened into a capacious living-room so drenched in light the colours were evacuated. Blinded, Lucinda bowed her head.

Backlit, Eva sat on the bleached white couch wearing only a black tuxedo necktie, her legs crossed, her hands on the knee of her right leg. Her powdered face was pale like a geisha’s. In contrast was the blood-red lipstick on her mouth.

With the staid composure of a safecracker, Eva raised her forefinger and beckoned Lucinda to come forward. She did.

Perhaps this wouldn’t be the shortest dalliance ever.

Eva held up her hand, indicating stop. Lucinda obeyed. Eva beckoned. Lucinda moved forward. Eva was tumbling the lock.

She undid the tie around her neck, snapped it out, and proceeded to bind Lucinda’s hands, not moving from her position. She then raised herself and led Lucinda into the bedroom.

Without knowing what to do, lust guided them like a lodestar.

When Lucinda returned to the theatre later that afternoon, the octogenarian concierge at the actors’ entrance gave her a quizzical look. The stage manager’s was more bemused. Was her inner state of exaltation so apparent? In her dressing room, she saw herself reflected in three mirrors. Eva’s dark lipstick was smudged on Lucinda’s face; she looked like a clown.

Each drawer she opened, and into which she reached -- each portal or hole or gap into which she extended her hand, felt erotic. She knew what inside was. She had touched inside another woman’s body.

For Lucinda, the afterimage of this first visit was shot with light: sun coming through all the open windows; the silken duvet, ice-blue, as were the sheets into which their bodies blended and arched and softened. It was the moral whiteout of their illicit affair.

Lucinda imagined that for Eva, the experience was more unexpected. She had cooly choreographed Lucinda’s mounting sounds of pleasure as she kissed her mouth, then withdrew, kissed her breasts, then withdrew. What Eva hadn’t counted on was the excitement in her own body which seamed her open in a red-hot break. Eva seemed ungovernable, an outlaw on a rampage, as if she was afraid of it happening again and she wanted it now.

After that first afternoon, Lucinda always proclaimed the correct form of the pronoun, It is I, said into the grid of the intercom. She came to like how awkward and ungrammatical it sounded, and always did sound, as if she were announcing sight rather than self.

The only thing that made Lucinda’s sense of corruption bearable was Eva’s insistence that although the husband was not to know of their affair, it was actually a good thing for their marriage. Lucinda, her body defenceless and her mind vigilant, asked her to leave it at that.

As Eva closed the door on the conjugal relationship, she kept open the door to the conjugal bedroom.

As