A Winter’s Tale Read online

  ‘There’s no shame in asking for help,’ Cesca said softly. ‘I should know, I thought I could do everything on my own, and I just ended up digging my own hole.’

  Cesca’s problems were well known among the Shakespeare sisters. At the age of eighteen she’d written an amazing play, and won a contest to have it staged in the West End. What had followed was a spectacular fall from grace, leaving Cesca destitute and depressed, barely able to support herself.

  Thank goodness she was on the mend now. During her time in Italy she hadn’t only managed to fall in love with Sam, but she’d also written a new play.

  ‘I’m not at rock bottom yet,’ Kitty said lightly, though sometimes it felt as though she might be teetering on the edge. ‘I’ll keep practising – who knows, maybe I’ll be able to get through one without breaking out in a sweat. But if things get worse, I’ll let you know, OK?’

  ‘OK.’ Cesca sounded reluctant to agree. ‘But seriously, think about the offer. Sometimes all you need is a little step up.’

  ‘I’ll think about it,’ Kitty promised, knowing full well she wouldn’t.

  ‘And we’ll see you for Christmas in London, won’t we?’ Cesca asked. ‘Have you booked your tickets yet?’

  Kitty rolled her bottom lip between her teeth, thinking about her negative bank balance. She really needed to find some extra hours at the restaurant she’d been working at. ‘I haven’t made any concrete plans,’ she told her sister. ‘I’ll let you know when I do.’

  There was a pause for a moment. Kitty could hear the pounding of the rain against the window wherever Cesca was. ‘You do that,’ Cesca finally said. ‘Because you know that Lucy will be grilling us all about our plans on Sunday.’

  As the eldest of the four Shakespeare sisters, Lucy had played the maternal role in their family since their mother’s death when Kitty was only ten. She was the one who took care of them all, worried about them, and made sure they all video conferenced once a week.

  ‘I might be working on Sunday,’ Kitty said, trying to remember her rota that week.

  ‘You can run but you can’t hide,’ Cesca warned her. ‘If you don’t dial in, you know she’ll track you down.’

  There were pros and cons to being the youngest of four sisters. Being constantly nagged was a definite con, even if their concern made her feel secretly warm inside.

  After they ended their call, she started up the Fiat, driving in the direction of her small shared apartment in Melrose.

  She needed to pause, regroup and work out how the hell she was going to find an internship. Her future depended on it, after all.

  Her supervisor paused the video, turning in his black leather chair to look at her. ‘This is great, Kitty, really imaginative. I love what you did with the effects in the second half.’ He clicked on his mouse, dragging the cursor back across the screen to highlight what he meant. ‘What was your budget for this one again?’

  Pretty much non-existent. Thank goodness for struggling actors desperate for any kind of exposure. ‘We did it on a shoestring,’ she told him. ‘Does it show?’

  He shrugged. ‘A bit, I guess, but you’ve managed to achieve a lot out of very little. That’s a skill in itself.’ He scribbled something down on the printed assessment sheet in front of him. ‘I noticed a couple of errors at around ten minutes in, and near the end the boom was in shot a few times, but apart from that you’re doing great. If you do another run-through of edits, it should be ready to submit in January.’

  She couldn’t hide the grin that threatened to split her face in two. This short movie was part of her final assessment, and if it was good enough it should smooth her path to graduation.

  ‘And how’s the search for an internship going?’ he asked her.

  Kitty’s smile faltered a little bit. She tried to stabilise it, the muscles in her cheeks complaining at the effort. ‘I’ve had a few interviews, but nothing concrete yet.’

  ‘You’ll be fine. Even Kevin D’Ananzo has got a placement.’

  That was supposed to be reassuring, Kitty guessed, but it was anything but. Even if he was bottom of the class, Kevin D’Ananzo’s interview skills were obviously better than hers. It wasn’t hard – a stuffed rabbit would probably have impressed Drake Montgomery more than she could.

  Stuffing her laptop back into the leather case, she said goodbye to her supervisor and headed out across the campus and to the Young Research Library. The sun was high in the pale blue sky, the light casting shadows on the concrete pavements as the rays were halted by the leafy green trees. The campus was quiet – most undergrads had already returned home for their winter break, and her mind filled the silence with worries, about her lack of internship, her showreel, the two assignments that were due in before she left for Christmas.

  She had almost reached the steps to the library – a grey, concrete building that always looked more like a parking garage than a place of learning – when her phone started to buzz. She crouched down, rifling through her heavy leather bag, eventually locating her cell on the third ring.

  ‘Hello?’

  ‘Is that Kitty Shakespeare?’ The female voice had a valley twang. For a moment Kitty held her breath, wondering if she was finally going to be offered an internship.

  ‘That’s me.’ Ten out of ten for originality, Kitty. She was really going to knock them dead.

  ‘My name’s Mia Klein. I hear you’re looking for a job.’

  It felt a bit rude to say she had no idea who Mia Klein was. ‘Um, yeah, that’s right.’ She frowned, trying to work out who it was. She’d been to so many production companies they were all blurring into one. Mia Klein… hmm.

  ‘That’s wonderful. Can you start tomorrow?’

  Kitty blinked in the bright sunlight. Tomorrow? ‘I don’t graduate until January,’ she pointed out. What was the best way to politely ask who Mia was and what company she was calling from? ‘I wasn’t looking for a placement until after that.’ She felt a little bit of excitement growing inside her. Had she finally managed to get an offer?

  ‘Can you work part time?’ Mia asked. ‘I really need you as soon as possible. It’s very important.’

  ‘I guess,’ Kitty said, still bent down on the concrete in front of the library. ‘Though I work part time in a restaurant, and it’s their busiest time of year. I’d need to work my notice.’

  ‘You’ll be fully compensated. If I give you an address can you come over tomorrow? Make sure you bring your ID and your references.’

  ‘Will a reference from my college supervisor work?’ Kitty asked. She didn’t think the restaurant manager would give her anything if she walked out at short notice.

  ‘I was hoping you’d be able to give me the details of your previous employers. The ones in London.’

  Kitty frowned. ‘But I was a nanny over there.’

  ‘That’s right.’

  ‘They won’t really be able to say if I’d make a good intern or not,’ Kitty told her, still blinking away her confusion. ‘My supervisor here at film school will be much better placed to say that.’

  Mia laughed, a tinkling waterfall of a chuckle that made Kitty feel about two foot tall. ‘Oh no, I’m not calling about an internship, I’m calling about a nanny position. I need somebody to look after Jonas, my son, over the holidays. His last nanny quit, and the new one can’t start until January.’

  ‘I’m sorry, did you say your name was Mia Klein?’ It was beginning to make sense.

  ‘Yes. My husband’s assistant passed me your resumé. Drake Montgomery. I believe you met him.’

  ‘Oh yes. I definitely met him.’ He’d made a big impression, after all. Especially when he abandoned the interview halfway through.

  ‘So can you make it tomorrow?’ Mia asked. ‘At about two.’

  ‘Um.’ Kitty looked up at the library, at the grey walls, the shiny windows, her crouched body reflected in the glass.

  What was it her eldest sister always said? Never look a gift horse in the mouth. The only prob
lem was, she wasn’t sure if this offer would turn out to be a gift or a poisoned chalice. It wasn’t an internship after all. Nowhere near. But it was an opportunity to prove herself, to get close to one of the top producers in the town.

  She thought again of that pile of rejection letters, and of Kevin D’Ananzo, the student at the bottom of the class who’d still managed to achieve what she’d found so elusive.

  ‘Sure, I’ll be there,’ she finally said, standing and picking her bag up. ‘Just text me the address.’

  2

  Speak what we feel, not what we ought to say

  – King Lear

  ‘So your brother is back in town. How does that make you feel?’

  Adam looked at his therapist for a moment, rubbing his bearded jaw with his hand. He felt like a blinding spotlight was shining on him every time the man asked him a question. How many more hours would he have to spend here, answering questions that made every muscle in his body tense up? It had been what, three months since his first appointment, which made it another month until he’d fulfilled his commitment. The one he’d made when the LAPD had agreed to only issue him with a caution.

  Another month of inquisitions. He could do that, couldn’t he?

  He moved his hand around to the back of his neck, rubbing the itchy skin there. His hair was getting long – longer than he’d ever worn it before. ‘I haven’t seen him,’ Adam admitted, pulling at the collar of his checked shirt. Even the mention of Everett made his skin crawl. ‘So it doesn’t make me feel anything at all.’

  Martin – his therapist – stared at him for a moment, as though he could see through the bluster and the hair and the muscle Adam had cultivated as a shield. ‘But he’s here in West Virginia? He’s staying with your parents, right?’

  ‘Yeah.’

  ‘And you still haven’t seen him?’ Martin frowned. ‘Are you actively avoiding him?’

  Adam stretched his long legs in front of him, noticing the dirt encrusted on his old, frayed jeans. It had been a while since he’d bought any new clothes. A while since he’d done much of anything, except whittle and sledge and pretend everything was OK. He was teetering on the edge between ‘he’ll get over it’ and ‘we need to talk about Adam’. He’d like to stay on the easier side if he could, even if that meant doing a little clothes shopping.

  ‘It’s a big house,’ Adam pointed out. ‘And I don’t even live in it. I’m at least a ten-minute walk from the main building. I don’t need to be going over there every day.’

  ‘When did they arrive?’

  ‘Three days ago.’

  Martin raised a single eyebrow. Adam wanted to swallow the words back down. He knew way too much information for a man who was pretending not to care at all, and Martin knew it too.

  ‘Has he tried to speak to you?’ Martin asked, tapping his pen against his bottom lip. Over the past three months – and countless sessions – Adam had noticed Martin do this often.

  ‘Not that I know of.’ Adam couldn’t work out if that was a half-truth or a lie. At the end of the day they were both the same thing – he of all people should know that. Lies were never white, they were dark and sharp and cut people like a knife.

  ‘I really think it would be good for the two of you to meet again.’ Martin’s voice was earnest. He leaned forward, resting his elbows on his woollen trousers, the pen still grasped in his hand. ‘You’ve not spoken to him for so long, you’ve built him up in your mind to be some kind of demon. If you talk to him, you’ll realise he’s as human as you or me.’

  Adam shook his head. ‘Not gonna happen.’

  ‘You sound very sure about that. Why do you think that is?’

  Adam shifted his head to the side, trying to work Martin out. If you looked at it from a distance, the two of them had a lot in common. They both made money by coaxing out the truth, especially from unwilling mouths. Or at least they did, until Adam had messed it all up. Now he got by on the remains of his savings and his trust fund – supplementing it with income from his handmade furniture when he felt like it.

  ‘Because Everett’s an asshole.’

  The briefest flash of a smile curved on Martin’s lips. ‘According to you he’s been an asshole for all your life, and yet you were willing to spend time with him before. I want you to think about what’s different right now. What you’re trying to avoid thinking about by avoiding your brother.’

  ‘OK.’

  There was a silence for a moment, and Adam waited for Martin to break it. Instead the therapist stared at him until the pause became uncomfortable, enough to make Adam shift in his seat, and rub the back of his neck once again.

  Damn, he knew these techniques. He could have written them all. He’d used them on businessmen and world leaders and military personnel who tried to bluff their way through his documentaries. And yet when they were used on him, he felt as awkward as hell.

  He wasn’t going to fill the silence in.

  He wasn’t.

  Goddamn it. ‘I don’t want to see him, because every time I do I want to rip his fucking head off.’

  Martin nodded slowly, showing no elation at his technique having worked. ‘OK. And do you think it’s a valid reaction to seeing him?’

  ‘Yes, I do.’ Adam could feel the blood starting to rush through his veins, hot and thick. ‘And I think I should listen to my instincts. Look what happened last time I confronted him.’ And look where he ended up. Here, in therapy, having to explain himself.

  ‘Do you recognise how your body reacts when we talk about Everett?’ Martin asked. ‘I want you to check in right now. Explain to me what’s happening.’

  Adam closed his eyes, breathing sharply in through his nostrils. He felt torn between wanting to engage, to see if this thing they were doing could really make him feel better, and resisting it, having a little fun until he pushed Martin too far.

  Maybe that’s why he’d been so good at his job. He found people fascinating, but he found their reactions irresistible. Some of his best experiences had come from coaxing stoic men into revealing their inner emotions. Strange how being on the other side of the fence didn’t feel quite so satisfying.

  Ah hell. What did he have to lose? ‘My heart is pounding,’ he said quietly, trying to tune in with his physiological reactions. ‘And my pulse is racing, I can hear it rushing through my ears.’

  ‘What about your hands?’

  Adam opened his eyes and looked down to his sides, where his hands were tightly rolled into fists. ‘Yeah, I kind of want to punch something.’

  ‘Do you recognise what you’re experiencing?’

  ‘Fight or flight,’ Adam said softly. ‘Except I really want to fight.’

  ‘Now look around you. Breathe in a mouthful of air. Take everything in. Tell me what you see.’

  Adam scanned the room, his eyes taking in the details that most people overlooked. The way one of the blind slats was at an awkward angle, as though somebody had tugged the cord too tightly that morning. A gap in the bookshelf – dust free – where something had been removed recently. Martin’s car keys, slung on the table next to the door, alongside his wallet and a yellow piece of paper – was that a parking ticket? As though he’d arrived late and carelessly dropped them down, without thinking of the security risk.

  ‘I see your office,’ Adam said, taking in another mouthful of air. ‘I see your desk, and your books, and the half-drunk mug of coffee on the table next to you.’ He glanced to his right. ‘And I see your window, with the broken blind. It’s snowing outside, and the flakes are sticking to the glass, as if they’re trying to claw their way into the room.’

  ‘That’s good.’ Martin nodded encouragingly. ‘Can you see any threats in here? Anything that should cause your body to react the way it did?’

  Adam’s eyes darted around the room once again. ‘No.’

  ‘So how would you classify your reaction?’

  Adam’s lips felt dry and sticky. He picked up the glass of water Martin always lef
t for him on the table – next to a box of tissues in case of client tears – and swallowed a mouthful. ‘I’m reacting to something that’s not there.’ He put the glass down and rubbed his eyes with the palm of his hands. Somewhere in the past ten minutes he’d allowed himself to engage in the therapy. It didn’t feel quite as bad as he’d expected.

  ‘It’s there,’ Martin told him. ‘But it’s not in the physical world. It’s in your mind, or in your memories. It’s like those guys who came back from Vietnam in the seventies: you’re fighting a war that’s long since over.’

  ‘You think this is just a reaction to what happened in LA?’

  Martin shook his head emphatically. ‘No, that’s too simplistic. There are a lot more layers to it than that. We have to peel them back one by one, until you start to recognise them for what they are.’