Rating: PG

Disclaimer: I own nothing but this story. No infringement intended.

Notes: Written for Yuletide 2007. Many thanks to my betas Isis and Stulti, neither of whom even knew I existed before I went on my mad Yuletide Beta Search and propositioned them out of the blue. They were both exceedingly helpful; any remaining strangeness in the story is mine alone.

EXTRA-PROSCENIUM, IN LOVE WITH A SPEAR-CARRIER by Jayne Leitch
2007

The Importance Of Being Earnest

It's only summer stock, Ellen tells herself. It doesn't matter if you're cast opposite a theatre-major dropout who can't fake an accent to save his life. In fact, it's probably better if you are; that way, you'll be the best thing on stage. Jesus Christ, how are all of these idiots fucking up Wilde??

She slumps a little lower in her seat, glaring at the talentless hack onstage. From his place in the second row, Dominick's making suggestions for the hack's next read--"Okay, now, this time, don't be quite so...forceful? With the humour. Just let it--ah--flow. With the dialogue."--and she rolls her eyes at the strained patience in his tone. "Stop trying to help him, Dom," she mutters, disgusted. "He doesn't even have the faintest idea what you're trying to tell him."

"That's hardly his fault, now, is it?"

Ellen jumps, letting out a strangled squeak of surprise that--fortunately--doesn't carry to the front of the theatre. Guiltily, she turns and finds a puckish man--older than her, vaguely familiar, with floppy hair, suspenders, and a scowl pursing his long face--leaning against the wall between the door and the seats. "Sorry, I--I didn't mean--" she begins meekly, but he cuts her off with plummy distaste.

"How is he to know the first thing about humour when it's obvious he's never understood a joke in his entire life? I mean, honestly."

Ellen glances back at the hack, who exaggerates a mincing bow and bellows, rapid-fire, "Miss Fairfax ever since I met you I have admired you more than any girl I have ever met since I met you!" Swallowing another squeak--this one of laughter--she agrees, "Yes, it's clear he's suffered dreadfully."

"Although not as much as we and the audience might, unfortunately." Without further ado, he slides into the seat next to her and makes himself comfortable. "Oliver Welles," he introduces himself, "this fine production's Algernon Moncrieff, and feeble grasp at British legitimacy."

Ellen gasps. "You're Algernon! I'm Ellen Fanshaw; I'm your Cecily."

"A pleasure to meet you officially, Ellen. Of course, I noticed you at the audition."

"You did?" She leans forward, flattered. "Did I make a good impression?"

He gives her a considering glance. "Good enough, I suppose. You were the only girl auditioning who I thought I could imagine myself kissing."

Ellen takes a closer look at Oliver, then leans back again. "Great. My first professional love interest is gay."

It earns her a look of withering indifference--with, she thinks, an undercurrent of amusement. "His name is Algernon Moncrieff, darling. It's not as if it's not on the label." A movement from the stage catches his attention; they both turn to look. "Oh! It would seem we're still on the hunt for a Jack." The hack, walking up the aisle with great, wounded dignity, passes without sparing either of them a glance. Oliver remains silent until he's gone, then sighs. "How bittersweet."

Ellen frowns. "Bittersweet? Why?"

"That young man could easily have been outperformed by a chimpanzee on barbiturates," Oliver declares; then, leaning close so their shoulders brush, he adds in a conspiratorial whisper, "but his buttocks were the approximate shape and firmness of two very fresh melons."

Ellen meets his twinkling gaze straight on. "I take it you had no problem imagining kissing him."

Somehow, without moving a muscle, he shares her small, sharp smile. "None whatsoever."

Cat On a Hot Tin Roof / Unnamed Work By a New Canadian Playwright

"I hate Canadian plays," Oliver says, the scorn in his voice clear as a bell even across their tinny long distance telephone connection. "They're just like Canadian novels: obsessed with detailing repression amid vast fields of wheat. Or snow. Or both."

Ellen stares at herself in the hotel mirror as she dabs night cream under her eyes. "They're not all about repression. Barbara was telling me about one where a woman gets lost in the wilderness and has sex with a bear."

Oliver is silent for a moment. Then, his tone thick with suspicion, he asks, "Book or play?"

"Book."

"Damn." Ellen imagines his sulk; she smiles at her reflection. "Imagine that stage adaptation. The logistics alone..."

"I'll get you the title."

"Please."

Ellen turns away from the mirror and wanders over to the bed, playing with the phone cord as it slackens. "So except for your hatred of the material, is it exciting, directing again? You liked it so much the first time."

"Yes, well, the first time was Blithe Spirit. Noel Coward is not quiet desperation in the frozen tundra." There's a pause; then, after the crackling noise of an After Eight being divested of its wrapper, he moans, "God, Ellen, I wish I were on the mainstage. They're doing Titus Andronicus."

Ellen burrows her feet under the covers, jams a pillow behind her back and says, "You hate Titus Andronicus."

"Of course I do! Shakespeare's gothic phase--and that's only half a pun, mind you--it's so vulgar. But at least it's proper theatre. And," he adds archly, "they've got a new spear-carrier."

"Ah." Ellen smirks, pleased to have hit upon fresh gossip. "What's he like?"

The sound of Oliver sucking his After Eight is an aural illustration of lurid transparency. "Beautiful young man, Ellen. Face like the wet dream of an angel. One day he'll be some desperate schoolboy's salvation during the Hamlet portion of the curriculum."

"He's a Hamlet?" Ellen closes her eyes, conjuring up a mental image. It's remarkably easy, when Oliver waxes Shakespearian. "Mmm. You'll have to introduce me when I get back."

"Yes, and when will that be, exactly?" Oliver demands, switching from lecherous to petulant in a bare instant. "You cannot convince me that the demand for Tennessee Williams is sufficiently insatiable in the barren reaches of northern Saskatchewan that you'll be out there the entire rest of the month."

"You'd be surprised. The audiences have been eating us up, Oliver--speaking of repression in the fields of snow-covered wheat."

He snorts. "Well, then. Just try not to fuck any bears, will you?"

"I won't if you won't."

Oliver's wistful sigh comes with crinkling-wrapper accompaniment. "While I've got Geoffrey to adore from afar? Hardly."

"Is Geoffrey--"

"The spear-carrier, yes. He hasn't a single hair on his lovely broad chest, you know."

Ellen wriggles happily against her pillows.

The Country Wife

"I can't believe we're doing this," Ellen says, her hushed voice strained with glee.

Beside her, Oliver's practically vibrating. "I can't believe Fiona didn't hold out for two hundred," he mutters. "It still would've been money well-spent." He clasps her hand; his palm is sweaty, and Ellen gasps, astonished.

"You're nervous!" she hisses, and has to bite her tongue to keep from howling as he shushes her frantically.

"Of course I'm nervous! Look around! I'm at least ten years older than everyone else in this room, and right now I'm standing directly across from The Bobby Odour!" He spins to face her, a look of slow horror mottling his features. "What if he doesn't come?" he whispers, as if the words are too awful to speak aloud. "What if he's shy about his body? Not that he has any reason to be, but what if he is? What if he's secretly an asshole and considers himself above this kind of thing? What if--" his eyes widen into huge pools of appalled terror. "What if he's a prude?"

Ellen just squeezes his hand and smiles brightly over his shoulder. "Hi, Geoffrey!" she calls, and pretends she isn't already undressing him in her mind as he gives her a smile and wave in return.

"God, he's beautiful," Oliver moans, his panic of a second ago apparently forgotten. Then, whip-tense with excitement once more: "Is he--?"

Geoffrey Tennant, rising theatre star and the walking masturbatory fantasy of 86% of the New Burbage company, takes a place in the loose circle of his fellow cast members--right next to Robert Lorrie, the man not-so-affectionately known throughout the troupe as 'The Bobby Odour'.

And, chewing vigorously on what looks like three pieces of strongly-flavoured gum, he smiles again, straight ahead, directly at Ellen and Oliver.

"...probably not a prude," Ellen says faintly, fighting a ridiculous urge to blush.

Oliver makes a little keening noise in the back of his throat.

"All right, everyone, your attention, please." Fiona Martelle, fearless director--and, apparently, shameless taker of brazen bribes--turns away from the doors and addresses the company. "Thank you all for coming. I know this is a new experience for some of you--"

At the slight emphasis on 'some', Ellen and Oliver squeeze each others' hands and look studiously everywhere but at each other.

"--and I applaud your bravery. Or, as I'm sure applies to many of you, your utter lack of physical humility." She waits for the chuckles to die down, then continues, walking slowly around the inside of the circle as she speaks. "As actors, we must always be willing to explore not only ourselves, but also those around us who influence our art. There are many ways to make such explorations, but sometimes--when we're staging a sex farce, for instance--the method that is most helpful, most edifying, and most liberating, is also the most...primal."

"Dear God," Oliver breathes, and Ellen, similarly transfixed, finishes his thought:

"...the rationale!" She listens a little longer, then adds, "It's like art."

Oliver gives her a very eloquent sidelong glance. "What did I tell you? Money well spent."

"...all of which is a lot of preamble for something that's really very straightforward," Fiona says finally. She comes to a halt right in front of Ellen and Oliver and, in a rather decided manner, turns her back on them and faces everyone else.

"Ladies and gentlemen, your glow-paint is before you. It's time for Belkovsky."

Romeo & Juliet

Geoffrey starts giggling when Tybalt mentions his trembling flesh.

Ellen stares fixedly at her copy of the text, bites the insides of her cheeks with cannibalistic determination, and prays for Oliver to interrupt rehearsal. Just for a minute, just to make him stop laughing, I can't look at him if he's laughing, he swore he wouldn't do this to me, the utter bastard...

Oliver--whom Ellen had been thrilled to learn was going to share her and Geoffrey's first Romeo & Juliet--stares straight ahead, a blank look on his face, before burying his nose in his notebook. His mouth twitches at the corners. Ellen vows revenge.

And then it's her cue. Focusing all her attention on the play, she walks dreamily across the rehearsal hall to her mark, and watches the dancers with quiet delight, and pretends to be surprised by the touch on her hand (pretends because her Juliet is cannier than some, and has been watching the dashing stranger who's been watching her since she arrived; she took this path across the dancefloor because it brought her close enough for him to touch), and turns, blushing, to gaze into the eyes of--

--Geoffrey Tennant, florid with muted hysterics. The second they look at each other, Geoffrey lets out a strange, strangled, stuttering sort of laugh and falls against her, helpless; Ellen, staggering under his weight, manages to squawk an indignant, "Jesus CHRIST!" before her own nerves dissolve and she joins Geoffrey in a tangled heap of giggles on the floor.

"All I can think of is the blushing pilgrims!" Geoffrey wheezes in her ear. "The blushing pilgrims st-standing ready because of my hand!"

It sets her off into another shrieking peal of mirth. "Good pilgrim, you--you do wrong your hand too much!"

"I know, but I can't help it!"

"Oh, for God's sake!" Ellen wipes the hand that isn't clutching the front of Geoffrey's shirt across her eyes, and blinks up to see Oliver--and the entire rest of the cast--looking down at them with expressions varying from indulgent to annoyed.

"I'm sorry, everyone," Ellen says, gasping a little as the laughing fit begins to recede. "Sorry! It was Geoffrey, he set me off!"

"I set you off?" She doesn't dare turn to look at him again; he smacks her rump with irritated affection. "What did you think you were doing to me? I had to kiss you in fifteen lines--"

And they dissolve once more.

"Shut up, the both of you!"

It takes a moment for the genuine anger in Oliver's voice to penetrate the fog of hilarity in Ellen's mind. When it does, she looks up again--and sobers into confusion at the way he's glaring at her. "Oliver--"

"Do you honestly think anyone's bought your coy little act, Ellen? Geoffrey? Hmm?" He fixes his glare on each of them in turn, then indicates the rest of the cast with the sharp spread of his hands. "Every single person here knows the two of you have been fucking for weeks. You've no excuse for this sort of cutesy, amateur bullshit." He draws himself up, bristling, then turns and stalks toward the door. "Take fifteen, everyone," he calls, his tone dripping contempt. "Hopefully that's long enough for Romeo and Juliet to grow up."

He throws his notebook savagely onto his chair as he passes; its ringing slap echoes in the room's awkward, deathly silence.

Hamlet

"Oh, fuck. Oh, fuck, Ellen. Ellen, fuck, oh fuck, oh-phelia fuck oh fuck, yes, Ellen, FUCK--"

"Geoffrey--!"

Geoffrey collapses on top of her, sweating and shaking and making breathy whimpering noises against her collarbone. When Ellen can move again, she wraps her arms around him and holds him close, rubbing his back and kissing the lines in his forehead that weren't there before Hamlet.

After a while he shifts against her, turning his head so his cheek lies on her breast. "It's just so...so fucking unfair, Ellen."

His voice trembles; it has a strange, high pitch, as if it's about to break. She brings one hand to his head and begins carding her fingers gently through his hair. "What is, Geoffrey?"

"All of it. All of it!" His right hand slides up and down her ribcage, palm flat to her skin, pressing almost too hard. Then, abruptly, he pushes himself up onto his forearms and looks down at her, his eyes wide and full and fathomless. "It's never going to get any better than this," he says, almost too loudly.

Ellen's breath catches in her throat. "What do you mean? What won't?"

"Everything! Everything, right now, is the best it's ever going to be--perfect--life, the play--" His mouth goes slack. "That play," he whispers. "Ellen, Jesus..." And he doesn't even blink as the tears spill over.

He's just overwrought, Ellen tells herself. They're going to finish the play; they're going to get married; they're going to have children. She and Geoffrey will be forever: the two of them, and their family, and their life together--and of course they'll always have the stage, which is the really wonderful thing because the stage is...everything. Everything, for both of them.

Ellen holds him as he weeps, and blinks back her own tears.

When they're finished, Ellen hugs herself under the covers, forces herself to look at him, and asks, "What are you thinking about right now?"

Oliver's staring at the ceiling. She sees the corner of his mouth turn up, sharp and unforgiving. "Oh, Ellen, please. Is it really necessary for me to state the obvious?"

She dresses without turning on the lights, leaves without saying goodbye, and goes straight home to Geoffrey.

A Midsummer Night's Dream

Ellen prepares herself for Oliver's memorial the same way she's prepared herself to take the stage a thousand times before: with soft music and the ritual application of makeup and costume in the solitude of her dressing room. She's glad, actually, that Oliver died during the season; having her dressing room ready and waiting allows her to keep her distance--a performer's distance, necessary to maintain the illusion--from tonight's audience of gossipers and their mistaken--or predatory--sympathy.

And from the showy trappings of theatrical grief. When she put Sybil in the green room, she'd been assaulted by Oliver from every angle: here a collage of pictures, there a display of playbills, over there a list of quotations from his better reviews. Some truly sadistic individual had dug up a copy of The King of New Burbage; it played on mute on the ancient TV in the corner, its steady, imagistic pap an almost relaxing counterpoint to the stage monitor's view of Richard's garish funereal extravaganza.

They'd asked Ellen to be interviewed for King, but that had been after Hamlet, and she'd said "sorry" five times on her way out the door.

"Five minutes, everyone."

Maria's voice, warped metallic by its passage through the loudspeaker, makes Ellen jump as she's applying her lipstick; the movement leaves a vivid, wine-coloured blotch on her upper lip. "Shit," she says mildly, reaching for a tissue; then, much more vehemently, "Fuck!" as she knocks over a bottle of scent. Ellen grabs for more tissues, but in a bare second the small puddle somehow manages to soak into everything on the counter--

--the edge of an old photo from her first touring company, the cast posing on the side of a road, fields stretching to the horizon in the background--

--the petals of a silk rose she'd stolen from the set in her early days of summer stock--

--the faded ribbon that Juliet had worn around her neck, that Romeo, murmuring, "I have more care to stay than will to go," had untied so erotically every night--

--the postcard print of Hughes' Ophelia--

--and fills Ellen's senses, horribly and inescapably, with the dry, familiar spice of Oliver's cologne.

She stands up so quickly her chair wobbles, and stands in the centre of her tiny space as if braced for attack. It's a long, breathless, heart-racing moment before she remembers: she'd bought the cologne as an opening night gift. Oliver had been so busy--and she'd been so angry--she hadn't given it to him; its presence was perfectly natural, perfectly ordinary. Just another reminder of the distance between them.

Just another reminder of how far they'd come.

Ellen's hands ball into fists at her sides. Defiantly, she steps forward again, snaps a tissue from its box, and glares at her reflection. "I refuse to be haunted by you, Oliver," she says, wiping away the blotch on her lip, controlled, contained, and viciously precise. "You had your chance. You don't get another one now. Death doesn't excuse a thing." Finished with the blotch, she throws her tissue into the pool of cologne. She reapplies the lipstick--perfectly, in two sharp, smooth glides--and casts a critical eye over her reflection. Satisfied, she raises her chin, her eyes glittering. "I refuse to let you haunt me," she says again--simply, clearly, the end of the matter--and turns away from the mess on the counter, and goes to the door.

Opens it, and finds a ghost.

End.

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