Innocence. Kathleen Tessaro

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      ‘“Thou art thyself, though not a Montague.’”

      ‘“What’s Montague? it is nor hand, nor foot.’” They take each other’s hands. ‘“Nor arm, nor face, nor any other part Belonging to a man!”’

      And so they dance, turn, vault around the room, throwing the words back and forth, volleyball in iambic pentameter. It becomes in turns breathless, urgent, fanciful—laced with longing, then drenched in desire; everything a young girl with her first crush would be, standing in the moonlight of her own private garden.

      ‘I want you to remember this.’ Boyd pulls both his Juliets in closer. ‘I want you to remember what it’s like to be alive, to be young; to have the most wonderful language ever written rolling about in your mouth—the flavour of the words on your tongue and this rhythm, driving you. It’s a sensual experience. Acting’s all about the senses. Well done, both of you.’ He releases them.

      They stagger, elated, back to their seats.

      ‘So.’ He stretches his arms high above his head and yawns. ‘How many Hamlets do we have today?’

      Tentatively, I raise my hand.

      Imo looks at me.

      ‘I see.’ Boyd gestures for me to stand up. ‘So, a bit of a Sarah Bernhardt, are we?’

      I knew this would be tricky.

      ‘And what, exactly, is your difficulty with the traditional women’s roles?’

      ‘They’re boring.’ I’m pretending to be more confident than I am. ‘I’m not good at being young and pretty and…well, that’s all they are; young and pretty’

      He grins. Even sitting, he gives the impression of looking down from a great height. ‘Well, then. Let’s see what you’ve got.’

      It’s strange standing in the middle; quite different from how I imagined it. All eyes are on me and my heart feels like it’s going to burst out of my chest, the adrenalin races through my veins. What is it he said? Make the most daring choices you can? Do something worth watching? Scanning the room, I suddenly spot the old piano. And a brilliant, bold scheme forms in my mind.

      I push it towards the centre on its creaking wheels, then sit down and start to play, plucking out the tune to Mendelssohn’s ‘Wedding March’. I’ll slowly build in speed and intensity, a macabre reference to Gertrude and Claudius’s incestuous wedding, and then whirl round and hit them with the first line.

      Da da dada…da da dada…

      My hands start to shake.

      I haven’t played a piano in years.

      The tune is only barely recognizable. In fact, it sounds more like the Captain and Tennille than Mendelssohn. But the longer I play, the harder it becomes to break off and swirl round.

      I’m stuck.

      Shit! I have to stop playing the piano! I have to stop! I’m panicking! I have to stop panicking and I have to stop playing the piano!

      I twist round and nearly fall off my seat. A sea of bewildered faces greet me. I feel like a lounge singer. ‘“To be or not to be,’” I shout, sounding remarkably like the guy who sells the Evening Standard outside Baker Street tube station. ‘“That is the question!’”

      OK. Calm down. I’ve begun. That’s the main thing.

      Only now I’m trapped behind the piano. I try pushing the bench back dramatically. But it makes a hideous, spine-crunching, scraping noise. The whole room gasps in agony. Once up, I attempt to recover by leaning nonchalantly against the side of it. The lid slams down and I end up screaming like a girl.

      Sadistically, Boyd allows me to work my way all the way through. And when I finish he just looks at me, arms folded across his chest. ‘Thank you, Miss…?’ He pauses, waiting for my name.

      ‘Miss Garlick,’ I mumble.

      The speech had seemed a lot more impressive in my room last night.

      ‘Yes, well, Miss Garlick, I believe you’ve given everyone a valuable lesson about props.’

      There’s a twitter of laughter.

      I want to die.

      ‘So, what’s a nice girl like you doing wrestling with a piano?’ He leans back in his chair.

      I stare at the floor. ‘I don’t know…I thought it would be…a good idea.’ I sound like an idiot. Why doesn’t he just let me go? Why does he have to keep torturing me?

      ‘How old are you?’ he asks.

      I pause. Is this a trick question? ‘Eighteen,’ I admit.

      ‘And what do you like to do?’

      ‘Uh, well, going out, being with my friends…’

      ‘You like boys?’

      I flush. ‘Yeah.’

      ‘So pretty much the same stuff Hamlet likes: girls, hanging out with friends, being at school and away from home…normal student stuff. Only, of course, Hamlet isn’t eighteen, he’s thirty’

      ‘Oh.’ This is obviously important. I only wish I knew why.

      He looks at me, tilting his head to one side. ‘Doesn’t that seem strange to you? You see,’ he continues, not waiting for my answer (perhaps already knowing that there isn’t one), ‘long before the play begins, way before his father’s murdered, there’s already something wrong with Hamlet. He enters, fucked.’

      I’m not really getting this.

      ‘That’s what’s so interesting. The hero of our tale is a loser. The most famous play in the world is about a guy who can’t pull himself together, doesn’t have a job, can’t get the girl and who takes four hours to accomplish something he was told he needed to do in the first twenty-five minutes! And then he dies!’

      I nod as if it’s all starting to make perfect sense.

      It isn’t.

      He leans forward eagerly. ‘To be or not to be isn’t about indecision—it’s about failure. He goes through the whole speech, thinks about every angle of the question and then ends up back where he started. So why does the world love Hamlet, Miss Garlick?’

      I shrug my shoulders, inwardly kicking myself for not learning Juliet instead.

      ‘Because’—he speaks with sudden intensity, his face illuminated with feeling—‘very few of us relate to what it’s like to be a hero. But everyone understands what it’s like to fail.’

      Boyd stares at me, searching my face for some flicker of recognition.

      He’s lost me. I avert my eyes, concentrating on the worn surface of the wooden floorboards, hoping he’ll release me soon. I can sit down and be anonymous.

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