ACT THREE

Don isn’t interested in me my anymore. I know, because he doesn’t look at me when I speak. We have become one of those couples where the man looks openly at other women for entire evenings. I used to wonder how the wives put up with it, but now I know: it is just one element in a certain type of marriage – mine.

He does look at me sometimes: his eyes slide towards me when I bend down to slip out of my skirt or when I pull a top over my head and my stomach is exposed. But his is not a lustful look, no: his eyes criticize my flesh and the pale brown moles like flattened sultanas on my skin. Perhaps they are what have put him off me.

I’ve decided to take an acting part with the local drama society. It’s ridiculous really, I’m playing opposite a man in his early twenties, and we’re supposed to be childhood sweethearts reunited, but as all the other men in the society are well past retirement age, Matilda, the director, cast Mark in the role. He’s terribly good looking and has his heart set on becoming a professional actor.

At first I told Matilda that I couldn’t take the part; that I’d feel silly and Don wouldn’t like the kissing scenes involved. She retorted: “When did Don last come to one of our plays? Don’t mind him!”

And after our recent anniversary dinner, during which Don spent two long hours gazing at a twenty-year old girl in a short black dress, I decided that Matilda was right and I took the part.

Mark plays a successful businessman who returns to his hometown for a weekend. He calls me up to invite me to his hotel room with the excuse of catching up on old times. I’m star struck by his success and nervously accept the invitation. He does a fantastic job of flirting with me and after the first rehearsal or two I look forward to his appraising glances and increasingly daring touches upon my body, even if he is only a boy acting the part of a lecherous businessman, it’s the most attention I’ve had in years! One evening I decide that I should tell Don that I have the part. It’s after a particularly steamy rehearsal of the last scene of the play. Mark has to unzip the back of my dress and push me back onto a bed. We’ve done this scene a few times before but this is the first time that Mark plants a kiss on my bare shoulder as he does it. I’m so embarrassed that I don’t know what to say but Matilda shouts excellent when we’re finished which cements the kiss into the production.

“I’m acting in this year’s play,” I tell him while he eats his dinner.

“Is there no salt in this?” he asks peering at the stew before him.

“There should be. I put it in.”

He continues eating and I tell him again. “I have one of the leading roles.”

“No, there isn’t any salt in this!” he grumbles grabbing the saltcellar from the centre of the table and applying a liberal dose to his meal.

“Mark Traynor from down the road is acting with me. He’s very good.”

“There’s too much in it now!” He pushes the meal away glaring at me. “What else is there to eat?”

“Try looking in the fridge.” I turn back to the dishes.

We continue on with rehearsals and the kiss on my shoulder stays. There is another kiss in the third Act, on the lips this time. I feel terribly sorry for the poor boy having to kiss me, so I come up with the ingenious plan of putting my fingers between our lips in such an way that the audience won’t see.

“What are you doing?” Matilda shouts when I attempt the manoeuvre.

“I’m trying to avoid the intimacy of the whole thing!”

“It’s not going to work,” Mark says with an American drawl that young people tend to use these days.

“Mark can stand with his back to the audience and you put your arms around him and pretend,” Matilda instructs.

“All right then,” I say and prepare for my second launch at the boy but this time when I open my arms out for him, he grabs me suddenly, swings me backwards into a Clark Gable style embrace and plants his young lips full square on my own.

“Well done you two!” Matilda shouts up from the back of the hall where she sits during rehearsals. “That looks very convincing!”

I have my mouth open ready to object when Mark smiles warmly at me and I realise that he mustn’t hate kissing me so much after all or perhaps his ambition to succeed as an actor makes it all worthwhile. In any case I close my mouth and say nothing. Don won’t be attending the play after all so it hardly matters.

Our opening night meets with a hugely positive reception. Mark becomes more audacious in his advances towards me and my imagination succeeds in convincing me that Mark is in his mid thirties and I am just a few years older. By the third night I am acting as sexily on stage as he treats me.

“You two are really warming up!” Matilda tells us pleased. “The local press are here this evening so give it all you’ve got!”

Mark whoops in excitement, sure that this will give him the break in his acting career that he needs.

“Don’s here as well, Mary. Funny how a bit of competition gets them interested!” Matilda says punching me playfully.

“WHAT?” I jump up so fast that I rip the hem of my figure hugging skirt.

“Now don’t fuss! You’re only acting. He knows that.”

“Where is he?”

“In the front row, sitting beside Marjorie Philips.”

I hurry out to the stage where the crew are busy setting up and peek out a crack in the curtains. Immediately I see Don sitting just a few feet below me. His spindly legs are stretched out in front of him and his belly protrudes like an expectant mother’s. Marjorie Philips mutters something in his ear and he throws back his head to laugh. Instantly I suspect that it was a derogatory remark about me.

“Are you all right?” Matilda asks anxiously when I return back stage.

“Fine!” I clip back. “Mark, make sure to kiss me long and hard this evening!”

“You betcha!” He winks over.

Matilda looks at me, alarmed, but wisely says nothing.

By the time of the interval, Don’s legs are no longer blocking the front aisle as he is sitting bolt upright in his chair with people milling around him going for cups of tea.

“It’s going very well!” Matilda says in jubilant form. “I think we’ll skip the raffle this evening. I don’t want to break the mood.”

“Good idea.” I agree, the quicker we get Act Three over and done with the better. Don and Marjorie are no longer looking so cosy. She has gone off to talk to someone else; and it occurs to me that perhaps they weren’t laughing at me after all.

“A nice long one tonight,” Mark reminds me with a smile as he walks back on stage. He is true to his word and on cue holds me backwards in a kiss for at least double our usual time. My neck muscles begin to cramp and my lungs ache with the pressure of not breathing in his face.

Then, when he unzips my dress and plants the kiss on my shoulder, I hear a commotion coming from the audience.

“That’s my wife!” someone shouts. “Take your hands off her!”

Mark and I continue with our lines. I’m too terrified of Matilda’s rage to stop and Mark’s ambition won’t let anything become between him and his role. “Get off her, I said!”

At this point I recognise Don’s voice, and his potbelly, which is now level with my eyes where I lie back on the bed.

“They’re acting you idiot!” Matilda screeches from the wings.

“I’m going to have you now,” Mark continues his part looking deep into my eyes.

“Oh no you’re not!” Don grabs him by his padded suit and swings for his face.

I hear a roaring sound in the hall as if we are at a rock concert and turn to see people in the front rows shouting and laughing while others, standing at the sides, are wolf whistling.

“Dim the lights!” I hiss over my shoulder at the stage crew but no one is listening so I have to say my next line, which only causes further hilarity amongst the crowd:
“My husband won’t like this!”

“Damn right he doesn’t!” Don says stomping around the stage like an angry bull.

Then clever Mark gives me one last lingering kiss, pushes me towards Don and exits the stage. Matilda deems this an appropriate time to cut the lights and the audience are left with a final glimpse of Don and I standing together holding up my dress.

It becomes the most talked about play in our town for a decade and we get a rave review in the local paper. The success of the production is subsequently mirrored in the personal lives of both Mark and I. Mark is talent spotted by a professional drama company and embarks on an acting career. And, since that performance, Don always looks at me, and listens, whenever I speak.