The Tragedy of Arthur_ A Novel - Arthur Phillips [131]
If I were a better version of me, I would not react faster than I think, would not be wounded when no harm was intended, would understand before too much time had passed to forgive, would not—in my clumsy efforts to make amends—so often make things worse. I would not have lived and written such an ugly story, and I would not so resemble this vile picture of me that my father drew, before I was even an adult (or, worse, that Shakespeare drew centuries before I was born).
Those who know me personally know to a fine degree how much of all this is true, how much an apology (and how sincere), how much a boast or a con job. To the rest of you, it’s a muddle or it’s a thing of beauty. And if it pleased you, and you found in its candor and lies and sobbing cross-dressed confessions some hours’ entertainment, then well and good.
I will send this off to Random House now, proofread the galleys, give this work all the care Shakespeare could never give his own, then cash my checks and send my winnings from this venture to bank accounts established for my boys, my ex-wife, my mother, and for Petra, Dana, and their little girl, whose birth I was not allowed to attend, whose face I have not yet earned the right to see, whose breath I have not yet smelled, whose cheeks I have not yet touched, whose whole first year I will have squandered, whose name I do not know, and whose gender I learned only from a mutual friend (whose indiscretion was subsequently clarified for him, and whom I can now no longer get to return my calls).
I did consider, in chiming midnights of pounding self-pity, killing myself. My favorite line in Shakespeare: When the players are all dead, there need none to be blamed. But I’m not the type, and it’s not that kind of story. And my sons are coming for Christmas, or a little after; Jana’s very generous to allow it, just as my mother was with another shabby father named Arthur. I’ve planned a lot for me and the boys to do in frozen Minneapolis. Also, they like detective fiction, and I am starting to think I might write a novel with them as the heroes, twin-brother PIs in Prague. Lots of plot.
For now I will do as Dana (and RH legal) instructs. I will not lie and say the play is real, not even for her. She didn’t say I had to. I will not say her version of our life is truer than mine. But I will say again that I’m very sorry, for whatever that’s worth.
What sort of story is this, then? Not quite a tragedy, not for anyone else, anyhow. Not quite a comedy, not for me, anyhow. A problem play, I suppose we could call it. With time we will fit it into some genre or other. Endings are, after all, artificial, until the last one. It all depends on how you like the book. If you think I mean it, it reads a certain way. If you think I don’t, it reads another. Just like the play.
So. The curtain drops, maybe snags a little on its way down, and stagehands scamper around trying to free it, while this actor in his one-man show stands there staring out into the darkness with a stupid smile and darting eyes as he squints from row to row, trying to find one particular face, to see if she liked it.
ARTHUR PHILLIPS
Minneapolis
November 2010
THE TRAGEDY OF ARTHUR
BY WILLIAM SHAKESPEARE
Lines of succession to the British throne in the story of Arthur, from Holinshed’s Chronicles, Shakespeare’s source material
LIST OF PARTS
THE ENGLISH-WELSH COURT
ARTHUR, Prince of Wales, later King of Britain
Duke of GLOUCESTER, Arthur’s guardian, later adviser
Constantine, Earl of CORNWALL, later King of Britain
GUENHERA, his sister, later Queen of Britain
Duke of SOMERSET
Duke of NORFOLK
Earl of CUMBRIA
Earl of KENT
Sir Stephen of DERBY
Bishop of CAERLEON
LADY CRIER and other Ladies of the cour
Guenhera’s NURSE
THE PICTISH-SCOTTISH COURT
LOTH, King of Pictland
MORDRED, Loth’s son, Duke of Rothesay, later King of Pictlan
CALVAN,