Betrayal at Lisson Grove - Anne Perry [64]
Bridget looked away just as her husband became aware of her again, and switched his attention from the stage. They spoke to each other briefly.
In the audience below, O’Conor turned back to the stage. His neck was stiff, his head unmoving, in spite of the scene in front of them reaching a climax where the actors all but hurled themselves at each other.
In the second interval, McDaid took Charlotte back outside to the bar where once more refreshments were liberally served. The conversation buzzed about the play. Was it well performed? Was it true to the intention of the author? Had the main actor misinterpreted his role?
Charlotte listened, trying to fix her expression in an attitude of intelligent observation. Actually she was watching to see who else she recognised among those queuing for drinks or talking excitedly to people they knew. All of them were strangers to her, and yet in a way they were familiar. Many were so like those she had known before her marriage that she half-expected them to recognise her. It was an odd feeling, pleasant and nostalgic, even though she would have changed nothing of her present life.
‘Are you enjoying the play?’ McDaid asked her. They drifted towards the bar counter, where Cormac O’Neil had a glass of whiskey in his hand.
Did McDaid know how little she had watched it? He might very well. She did not want either to lie to him, or to tell him the truth.
Now O’Neil was also waiting for her answer with curiosity.
‘I am enjoying the whole experience,’ she replied. ‘I am most grateful that you brought me. I could not have come alone, nor would I have found it half so pleasant.’
‘I am delighted you enjoy it,’ McDaid replied with a smile. ‘I was not sure that you would. The play ends with a superb climax, all very dark and dreadful. You won’t understand much of it at all.’
‘Is that the purpose of it?’ she asked, looking from McDaid to O’Neil and back again. ‘To puzzle us all so much that we will be obliged to spend weeks or months trying to work out what it really means? Perhaps we will come up with half a dozen different possibilities?’
For a moment there was surprise and admiration in McDaid’s eyes, then he masked it and the slightly bantering tone returned. ‘I think perhaps you overrate us, at least this time. I rather believe the playwright himself has no such subtle purpose in mind.’
‘What meanings did you suppose?’ O’Neil asked softly. He had said it as if it were mere conversation to amuse during the interval, but she thought he was probing to learn something deeper.
‘Oh, ask me in a month’s time, Mr O’Neil,’ she said casually. ‘There is anger in it, of course. Anyone can see that. There seems to me also to be a sense of predestination, as if we all have little choice, as if birth determines our reactions. I dislike that. I don’t wish to feel so . . . controlled by fate.’
‘You are English. You like to imagine you are the masters of history. In Ireland we have learned that history masters us,’ he responded, and the bitterness in his tone was laced with irony and laughter, but underneath the pain was plainly real.
It was on her tongue to contradict him, then she realised her opportunity. ‘Really? If I understand the play rightly, it is about a certain inevitability in love and betrayal that is quite universal – a sort of darker and older Romeo and Juliet.’
O’Neil’s face tightened and even in the lamplight of the crowded room Charlotte could see his colour pale. ‘Is that what you see?’ His voice was thick, almost choking on the words. ‘You romanticise, Mrs Pitt.’ Now the bitterness in him was clearly overwhelming.
‘Do I?’ she asked him, moving aside to allow a couple arm in arm to pass by them. In so doing, she deliberately stepped close to O’Neil, so he could not leave without pushing her aside. ‘What harder realities should I see? Rivalry between opposing