“You, er, want to sit here, Colonel?” he asked, passing the buck and hating himself for passing the buck.
“Why not?” Larkin said.
They sat down, acutely embarrassed, aware of their defection and aware of the astonished eyes.
“Hey, Colonel!” Brough leaned over, a smile creasing his face. “You’ll get handed your head. Bad for discipline and all that jazz.”
“If I want to sit here, I’ll sit here.” But Larkin wished he hadn’t agreed so readily.
“How’re things, Peter?” the King asked.
“Fine, thanks.” Peter Marlowe tried to overcome his discomfort. He felt everyone was looking at him. He had not yet told the King about the sale of the pen, what with being on the carpet in front of Smedly-Taylor, and the brawl he had almost had with Grey…
“Evening, Marlowe.”
He glanced up and winced as he saw Smedly-Taylor passing. Flint eyes.
“Evening, sir,” he replied weakly. Oh my God, he thought, that’s torn it.
There was a sudden quickening of excitement as the Camp Commandant walked down the aisle and sat down in the very front row. The lights dimmed. The curtain parted. On the stage was the five-piece camp band, and standing in the center of the stage was Phil, the band leader.
Applause.
“Good evening,” Phil began. “Tonight we’re presenting a new play by Frank Parrish called Triangle, which takes place in London before the war. It stars Frank Parrish, Brod Rodrick, and the one and only Sean Jennison…”
Tumultuous cheers. Catcalls. Whistles. Shouts of “Where’s Sean?” and “What war?” and “Good old Blighty” and “Get on with it” and “We want Sean!”
Phil gave the downbeat with a flourish and the overture began.
Now that the show was on, Peter Marlowe relaxed a little.
Then it happened.
Dino was abruptly at the King’s side and whispering urgently in his ear. “Where?” Peter Marlowe heard the King say. Then, “Okay, Dino. You beat it back to the hut.”
The King leaned across. “We gotta go, Peter.” His face was taut, his voice barely a whisper. “A certain guy wants to see us.”
Oh my God! Shagata! Now what? “We can’t just get up and leave now,” Peter Marlowe said uneasily.
“The hell we can’t. We both got a touch of dysentery. C’mon.” The King was already walking up the aisle.
Nakedly aware of the astonished eyes, Peter Marlowe hurried after him.
They found Shagata in the shadows behind the stage. He was nervous too. “I beg thee forgive my bad manners in sending for thee suddenly, but there is trouble. One of the junks of our mutual friend was intercepted and he is presently being questioned for smuggling by the pestilential police.” Shagata felt lost without his rifle and knew that if he was caught in the camp off duty he would be put in the windowless box for three weeks. “It occurred to me that if our friend is questioned brutally, he may implicate us.”
“Jesus,” the King said.
Unsteadily he accepted a Kooa and the three of them went deeper into the shadows.
“I thought that, thou being a man of experience,” Shagata continued with a rush, “thou might have a plan whereby we could extricate ourselves.”
“He’s got a hope!” the King said.
His mind raced back and forth and it always gave him the same answer. Wait and sweat.
“Peter. Ask him if Cheng San was on the junk when it was stopped.”
“He says no.”
The King sighed. “Then maybe Cheng San can squeeze out of it.” He thought again, then said, “The only goddam thing we can do is wait. Tell him not to panic. He’s got to keep tabs on Cheng San somehow and find out if he talks. He’s got to send us word if the goddam shoot blows.”
Peter Marlowe translated.
Shagata sucked air between his teeth. “I am impressed that the two of thee are so calm while I am fluttering with fear, for if I am caught I shall be lucky if they shoot me first. I will do as thou sayest. If thou are caught, I beg thee try not to implicate me. I will try to do likewise.” His head jerked around as there was a soft warning whistle. “I must leave thee. If all goes well we will keep to the plan.” He hurriedly thrust the pack of Kooas into Peter Marlowe’s hand. “I do not know about thee and thy gods, but I will certainly talk to mine, long and hard, on our mutual behalf.”
Then he was gone.
“What if Cheng San lets the cat out?” Peter Marlowe asked, his stomach an aching knot. “What can we do?”
“Make a break.” The King shakily lit another cigarette and leaned back against the side of the theater, hugging the shadows. “Better that than Utram Road.”
Behind them the overture ended to applause and cheers and laughter. But they did not hear the applause and cheers and laughter.
Rodrick was standing in the wings glowering at the stage hands setting the stage for the play, chasing them, hurrying them.
“Major!” Mike rushed up to him. “Sean’s throwing a fit. He’s crying his bloody eyes out!”
“Oh for the love of Heaven! What happened? He was all right a minute ago,” Rodrick exploded.
“I don’t know for certain,” Mike said sullenly.
Rodrick cursed again and hurried away. Anxiously he knocked on the dressing room door. “Sean, it’s me. Can I come in?”
There were muffled sobs coming through the door. “No. Go away. I’m not going on. I just can’t.”
“Sean. Everything’s all right. You’re just overtired, that’s all. Look—”
“Go away and leave me alone,” Sean shouted hysterically through the door. “I’m not going on!”
Rodrick tried the door but it was locked. He rushed back to the stage. “Frank!”
“What do you want?” Frank, covered with sweat, was irritably perched on a ladder, fixing a light that refused to work.
“Come down here! I’ve got to talk—”
“For the love of God, can’t you see I’m busy? Do it yourself, whatever it is,” he flared. “Do I have to do everything? I’ve still got to get changed and still haven’t got my makeup on!” He looked up at the catwalk again. “Try the other banks of switches, Duncan. Come on, man, hurry.”
Beyond the curtain Rodrick could hear the growing chorus of impatient whistles. Now what do I do? he asked himself frantically. He began to go back to the dressing room.
Then he saw Peter Marlowe and the King near the side door. He ran down the steps.
“Marlowe. You’ve got to help me!”
“What’s up?”
“It’s Sean, he’s throwing a tantrum,” Rodrick began breathlessly, “refuses to go on. Would you talk to him? Please. I can’t do a thing with him. Please. Talk to him. Will you?”
“But—”
“Won’t take you a second,” Rodrick interrupted. “You’re my last chance. Please. I’ve been worried about Sean for weeks. His part would be hard enough for a woman to play, let alone …” He stopped, then went on weakly, “Please, Marlowe, I’m afraid for him. You’d do us all a great service.”
Peter Marlowe hesitated. “All right.”
“Can’t thank you enough, old boy.” Rodrick mopped his brow and led the way through the pandemonium to the back of the theater, Peter Marlowe reluctantly in tow. The King followed absently, his mind still concentrating on how and where and when to make the break.
They stood in the little corridor. Uneasily Peter Marlowe knocked. “It’s me, Peter. Can I come in, Sean?”
Sean heard him through the fog of terror, slumped on his arms in front of the dressing table.
“It’s me, Peter. Can I come in?”
Sean got up, the tears streaking his makeup, and unbolted the door. Peter Marlowe hesitantly came into the dressing room. Sean shut the door.
“Oh Peter, I can’t go on. I’ve had it. I’m at the end,” Sean said helplessly. “I can’t pretend any more, not any more. I’m lost, lost, God help me!” He hid his face in his hands. “What
am I going to do? I can’t face it any more. I’m nothing. Nothing!”
“It’s all right, Sean old chum,” Peter Marlowe said, deep with pity. “No need to worry. You’re very important. Most important person in the whole camp, if the truth be known.”
“I wish I were dead.”
“That’s too easy.”
Sean turned and faced him. “Look at me, for the love of God! What am I? What in God’s name am I?”
In spite of himself, Peter Marlowe could see only a girl, a girl in pathetic torment. And the girl was wearing a white skirt and high heels and her long legs were silk-stockinged and her blouse showed the swell of breasts beneath.
“You’re a woman, Sean,” he said as helplessly. “God knows how—or why—but you are.”
And then the terror and the self-hatred and the torment left Sean.
“Thank you, Peter,” Sean said. “Thank you with all my heart.”
There was a tentative knock on the door. “On in two minutes,” Frank called anxiously through the door. “Can I come in?”
“Just a second.” Sean went to the dressing table and brushed away the tear stains and repaired the makeup and stared at the reflection.
“Come in, Frank.”
The sight of Sean took Frank’s breath away, as it always had. “You look wonderful!” he said. “You all right?”
“Yes. Afraid I made a bit of a fool of myself. Sorry.”
“Just overwork,” Frank said, hiding his concern. He glanced at Peter Marlowe. “Hello, good to see you.”
“Thanks.”
“You’d better get ready, Frank,” Sean said. “I’m all right now.”
Frank felt the girl’s smile, deep within him, and automatically fell into the pattern that he and Rodrick had begun three years before and bitterly regretted ever since. “You’re going to be marvelous, Betty,” he said, hugging Sean. “I’m proud of you.”
But now, unlike all the countless other times, suddenly they were man and woman, and Sean relaxed against him, needing him with every molecule of being. And Frank knew it.
“We’ll—we’re on in a minute,” he said unsteadily, rocked by the suddenness of his own need. “I’ve—I’ve got to get ready.” He left.
“I’d, er, better be getting back to my seat,” Peter Marlowe said, deeply troubled. He had felt more than seen the spark between them.
“Yes.” But Sean hardly noticed Peter Marlowe.
A final check of the makeup and then Sean was waiting for a cue in the wings. The usual terrored ecstasy. Then Sean walked on and became. The cheers and wonder and lust poured over her—eyes following as she sat and crossed her legs, as she walked and talked—eyes reaching out, touching her, feeding on her. Together she and the eyes became one.
“Major,” Peter Marlowe said as he and the King and Rodrick stood in the wings, watching, “what’s this Betty business?”
“Oh, part of the whole mess,” Rodrick replied miserably. “That’s the name of Sean’s part this week. We’ve—Frank and I—we always call Sean by the part he’s playing.”
“Why?” the King asked.
“To help him. Help him get into the part.” Rodrick looked back to the stage waiting for his cue. “It started as a game,” he said bitterly, “now it’s an unholy joke. We created that—that woman—God help us. We’re responsible.”
“Why?” Peter Marlowe said slowly.
“Well, you remember how tough it was in Java.” Rodrick glanced at the King. “Because I was an actor before the war, I was assigned the job of starting the camp theatricals.” He let his eyes stray back to the stage, to Frank and Sean. Something strange about those two tonight, he thought. Critically he studied their performances and knew them to be inspired. “Frank was the only other professional in the camp so we started to work getting shows together. When we got to the job of casting, of course, someone had to play the female roles. No one would volunteer, so the authorities detailed two or three. One of them was Sean. He was bitterly opposed to doing it, but you know how stubborn senior officers are. ‘Someone’s got to play a girl, for God’s sake,’ they said to him. ‘You’re young enough to look like one. You don’t shave more than once a week. And it’s only putting on clothes for an hour or so. Think of what it’ll do for everyone’s morale.’ And however much Sean raved and cursed and begged, it did no good.
“Sean asked me not to accept him. Well, there’s no future in working with uncooperative talent, so I tried to have him dropped from the company. ‘Look,’ I said to the authorities, ‘acting’s a great psychological strain …’
“‘Poppycock!’ they said. ‘What harm can come of it?’
“‘The fact that he’s playing a female might warp him. If he were the slightest way inclined …’
“‘Stuff and nonsense,’ they said. ‘You damned theatrical people’ve pervert on the brain. Sergeant Jennison? Impossible! Nothing wrong with him! Damn fine fighter pilot! Now look here, Major. This is the end of it. You’re ordered to take him and he’s ordered to do it!’
“So Frank and I tried to smooth Sean down, but he swore he was going to be the worst actress in the world, that he was going to make sure that he was sacked after the first disastrous performance. We told him that we couldn’t care less. His first performance was terrible. But after that he didn’t seem to hate it so much. To his surprise, he even seemed to like it. So we really started to work. It was good having something to do—it took your mind off the stinking food and stinking camp. We taught him how a woman talks and walks and sits and smokes and drinks and dresses and even thinks. Then, to keep him in the mood, we began to play make-believe. Whenever we were in the theater, we’d get up when he came in, help him into a chair, you know, treat him like a real woman. It was exciting at first, trying to keep up the illusion, making sure Sean was never seen dressing or undressing, making sure his costumes were always concealing but just suggestive enough. We even got special permission for him to have a room of his own. With his own shower.
“Then, suddenly, he didn’t need coaching any more. He was as complete a woman on the stage as it was possible to be.
“But little by little, the woman began to dominate him off stage too, only we didn’t notice it. By this time, Sean had grown his hair quite long—the wigs we had were no damn good. Then Sean started to wear a woman’s clothes all the time. One night someone tried to rape him.
“After that Sean nearly went out of his mind. He tried to crush the woman in him but couldn’t. Then he tried to commit suicide. Of course it was hushed up. But that didn’t help Sean, it made things worse and he cursed us for saving him.
“A few months later there was another rape attempt. After that Sean buried his male self completely. ‘I’m not fighting it any more,’ he said. ‘You wanted me to be a woman, now they believe I am one. All right. I’ll be one. Inside I feel I am one, so there’s no need to pretend any more. I am a woman, and I’m going to be treated like one.’
“Frank and I tried to reason with him, but he was quite beyond us. So we told ourselves that it was only temporary, that Sean’d be all right later. Sean was great for morale and we knew we could never get anyone a tenth as good as Sean to play the girl. So we shrugged and continued the game.
“Poor Sean. He’s such a wonderful person. If it wasn’t for him, Frank and I would have given up the ghost long ago.”
There was a roar of applause as Sean made another entrance from the other side of the stage. “You’ve no idea what applause’ll do to you,” Rodrick said, half to himself, “applause and adoration. Not unless you’ve experienced it yourself. Out there, on the stage. No idea. It’s fantastically exciting, a frightening, terrifying, beautiful drug. And it’s always poured into Sean. Always. That and the lust—yours, mine, all of us.”
Rodrick wiped the sweat off his face and hands. “We’re responsible all right, God forgive us.”
His cue came and he walked onto the stage.
“Do you want to go back to our seats?” Pete
r Marlowe asked the King.
“No. Let’s watch from here. I’ve never been backstage before. Something I always wanted to do.” Is Cheng San spilling his guts right now, the King asked himself.
But the King knew there was no value in worrying. They were committed and he was ready—whatever card came up. He looked back at the stage. His eyes watched Rodrick and Frank and Sean. Inexorably, his eyes followed Sean. Every movement, every gesture.
Everyone was watching Sean. Intoxicated.
And Sean and Frank and the eyes became one, and together the brooding passion on the stage soared into the players and into the watchers, ripping them bare.
When the curtain descended on the last act, there was utter silence. The watchers were spellbound.
“My God,” Rodrick said, awed. “That’s the greatest compliment they could ever pay us. And you deserve it, you two, you were inspired. Truly inspired.”
The curtain began to rise, and when it was completely up the awful silence shattered and there were cheers and ten curtain calls and more cheers and then Sean stood alone drinking the life-giving adoration.
In the continuing ovation, Rodrick and Frank came out a last time to share the triumph, two creators and a creation, the beautiful girl who was their pride and their nemesis.
The audience filed quietly out of the auditorium. Each man was thinking of home, thinking of her, locked in his own brooding hurt. What’s she doing, right now?
Larkin was the most hit. Why in God’s name call the girl Betty? Why? And my Betty—is she—would she—is she now, is she now in someone else’s arms?
And Mac. He was swept with fear for Mem. Did the ship get sunk? Is she alive? Is my son alive? And Mem—would she—is she now—is she? It’s been so long, my God, how long?
And Peter Marlowe. What of N’ai, the peerless? My love, my love.
And all of them.
Even the King. He was wondering who she was with—the vision of loveliness he had seen when he was still in his teens, still on the bum—the girl who’d said with a perfumed handkerchief to her nose that white trash smell worse than niggers.