to Maude, your friend at the Crown,” I replied. “There are two rooms free on Saturday, and a woman from my course has agreed to babysit. Come on, we can have a proper night out: theater, dinner, no rush to get home. A proper hotel breakfast the next day. Some people might call that civilized.”
I could see she was tempted.
“How long is it since you have been to the theater? King Lear—a tragedy, with daughters. It couldn’t be closer to home.”
We were walking by the canal in Middle Hill when the subject came up.
She paused, obviously turning things over in her mind.
“What would the sleeping arrangements be?”
I shrugged. “Two rooms. Will and you in one, me in the other. We’d share a bathroom. Think you can risk it?”
She ignored the last bit. “And who is this babysitter? I can’t leave Will with just anyone.”
“Blanche Brodie. She’s in her thirties. I lent her some money—not much—so she could visit her sick sister in the hospital and she’s having a problem repaying me. I’m doing her a favor and she’s doing me one in return.”
We walked on.
“If this woman, Blanche someone, doesn’t babysit, what happens to her debt?”
“I don’t know She will still owe me, I suppose.”
Sam agreed. The three of us caught the Saturday afternoon train from Middle Hill and were in the hotel by four-thirty. The rocking of the train sent Will to sleep almost straightaway, which meant that, as we left for the theater, just after five-thirty, in time for the six o’clock performance, he was wide awake and voicing his displeasure at the novel company he was being required to keep.
But Sam was firm. She liked what she saw in Blanche and shoved me out of the door right in the middle of one of Will’s crying bursts.
“He has to get used to the fact that the world doesn’t revolve around him,” she complained as we hurried downstairs and out of earshot.
“But I thought it did,” I replied. “For now, anyway.”
She punched me lightly on the arm. “Beast! In Middle Hill, it’s natural. But this is the first night out I’ve had since he was born. It’s new for me and it’s new for him. Am I being a bad mother?”
My answer got lost as we negotiated the lobby of the hotel and found our way to the theater—it was a fifteen-minute walk.
I had never been to King Edward VI’s school before, but Sam had and knew the way. The school consisted of some black-and-white timbered buildings, long and low, though the Guild Chapel looked more like a conventional Norman church, square and squat stone with a stocky cube for a tower, and stained-glass windows. It had room for about three hundred and was packed to overflowing.
Having safely descended the steps down from the chapel for the interval, we found the rim of a stone fountain to sit on and wait. “What’s your verdict so far?” I asked. “You’re the expert.”
“How I hate that word. But it is one of my favorite plays,” replied Sam. “It places such demands on the man who plays Lear. Although Lear is old, most old actors don’t take it on—it’s too draining.”
“Do you see anything of your family—your sisters—in Regan and Goneril?”
She smiled. “Oh no, we get on much better than they do. The psychology is different: we never had a kingdom to fight over.”
“What do you fight about?”
“Who says we fight?”
I had half a bottle of whisky with me and offered it to her. She shook her head. I took a swig.
“It was just a question. Most families fight about something.”
But she was shaking her head again. “My father was so awful, that drove us together. Solidarity. We were always watching out for each other. Our mother was so pretty, she and our father must have been in love at the beginning, before we girls came along. She had such plans for us. Meeting Sir Mortimer gave her hope for all of us, though she would never say bad things about our father, not after he—he died. ‘He gave me four lovely daughters,’ she would say.” Sam paused. “Three lovely daughters now and one black sheep, one tart. She would hate the way I’ve turned out.”
“Sam!” I said.
She shook her head. “You didn’t know her. She was pretty, bustling, busy, always moving, restless, like these new automobile things when they’ve been cranked into action—you know, the way they rattle, shake, throb with energy and power. Our mother had an engine inside