The Tragedy of Arthur_ A Novel - Arthur Phillips [29]
She came with me to the Drama Club party that night, where I pompously accepted pompous toasts and we all congratulated ourselves for striking a blow for freedom in South Africa. Dana drank with us, smiled at me in a way that invalidated all the nonsense, not smug but desmuggifying, and I truly didn’t mind. “I love that sweater,” she enthused to the girl who played Winnie Mandela. Her gaydar had improved exponentially since high school.
“Seriously,” I asked despite myself, several hours later, back in my dorm, Dana stretched out on the common room’s futon couch. “Did you like any of it?”
“The play?” she sighed, behind closed eyes.
“The play, yes.”
“No.”
“Don’t soften the blow. Just tell me.”
“It wasn’t like a play. It was like … like a tender for bids on your penis. Please don’t waste your talent writing things to meet girls.” I liked the mention of my “talent” as though it were a fact. That was more than enough. I thought she’d fallen asleep until she added, “You know you don’t give a rat’s furry pink ass about South Africa. You as much as said so in every line of that play.”
None of this angered me in the slightest, while my father’s fainter uninterest had brutalized me. Dana was right, and I loved her. I spread a blanket over her, tucked her in, my best and wisest and never-wrong critic.
10
AS A GIRL, Dana was, like Dad, an author lover. It mattered to her to know about the person who had written the stories, books, and plays she loved. Shakespeare, for example—a man about whom a very small number of things are known—was her friend. She felt grateful to him for what he had made for her to enjoy. I have some of the letters she wrote to our father, describing her feelings as she read each play. Here’s part of one dated March 29, 1974, so she was not quite ten years old:
You know what I thought? In Love’s Labour’s Lost, everyone in court is so mean to the bad actors when they put on their show. It’s a very cruel scene, don’t you think? Well, guess what I discovered? The next play he wrote after LLL was Midsummer, and in that one he has bad actors again, and the court watches again, and the play is really bad again, but this time everyone in the royal audience is really nice. Did you ever notice this? I think I might be first and I think have a theory. After LLL somebody in the real court probably said to him, “We’re a good audience to you, Mr. William Shakespeare, so don’t make fun of us. Show us being nice to actors.” And he did! Don’t forget it’s Arthur’s birthday next month. Hint … hint … hint … give up? Yes, and mine! And Shakespeare, too, but you knew. First me, then Artie and Will—10 and 410, if you’re counting. I would get Will something after reading LLL. I love that play. Is it one of your favorites, too? It’s one of mine now, and he deserved a big reward from the queen. I hope she gave him a diamond or something for that one. I am making something so cool for Artie. I know you can make him something, too. How about a license plate? I am joking. I hope that’s funny. Silvius is taking him to a Twins game, I know. And Mom is taking me to the Lincoln Del with three girls of my choice. Have you ever heard of Love’s Labour’s Won? They know it existed and it’s by him but they can’t find it now. I would like to find it and read it and not tell anyone about it, so it’s just between me and Will. I’d share it with you, of course. Please continue to be good, so we can see you, okay? Please? Promise? [He did pretty well: it was three years before his next imprisonment.] “Sir! I love you more than word can wield the matter! You have begot me, bred me, loved me. I love as much as child e’er loved.” Dana.
My sister’s girlishly precise handwriting (better than mine even now), in pink ink, fills four pages of lined notebook paper on this occasion. The pages still cling to one another at the twisted spade ends where each sheet was from its spiral binder ripped, and here and there my father nursed the creases with Scotch tape, now as yellow as watered Scotch. I asked