Autumn Reunion
She began to read a little, but she found it difficult without her glasses. She would have to wait until one of the nursing staff came outside , and ask her to retrieve them from the cabinet beside her bed., Still with the book open upon her lap she fell to musing about the message she had been given that morning: someone was coming to visit her.
There had been a telephone call the previous afternoon. The caller had told the staff that she was an old friend who happened to be in tha area, staying in a nearby town, and would visit if convenient at around eleven in the morning. Was there anything she could bring as a present for the old lady?
The line had not been good - it had not been easy to hear against the background of a vacuum cleaner in operation, but it was thought that the caller had given her name as Linda something or other, perhaps Linda Price. Did she know anyone of that name?
As she at in the morning sunshine she thought long and hard about that name. It meant nothing to her. She was very surprised as her memory for names and faces was still surprisingly good, but the name rang no bells and no face came to mind.
It troubled her, but when at last one of the staff emerged onto the terrace she was able to ask for her glasses, and soon she dismissed the puzzle from her mind and began to read the play where the book had fallen open: Rosalind, banished into exile, resolves to seek her likewise banished father in the Forest of Arden, in the guise of a young man to escape the attentions of thieves and robbers.
"Were it not better, Because that I am more than common tall, That I did suit me all points like a man? A gallant curtle-axe upon my thigh, A boar spear in my hand; and - in my heart, Lie there what hidden woman's fear there will. We'll have a swashing and a martial outside, As many other Mannish cowards have, That do outface it with their semblances..."
What a delicious ambiguity is there. In Shakespeare's day boys played women's parts. Here was a boy playing a woman playing a man. In school productions boys perforce had to play the female parts, usually with extremem reluctance, never quite managing the feminine touch. That is, all except one...
She remembered him now, a new boy, in her last production at the school before it closed down - this very play, her favourite, chosen as her swan song. This boy, she had sensed, was likely to be the best Rosalind she had ever coached, and she had been right.
She saw him now in her mind's eye as clearly as if he were standing in front of her. He was of slight build, soft skinned, fair haired. For a twelve year old he carried himself with an amazing maturity, his movements were graceful, almost feminine. He was quiet, reserved, self sufficient, unpeturbed by the ribbing of his peers. He had an air of authority about him which enabled him to ride any difficulty with the other boys without appearing to be in any way affected by it. In a word, he was unruffled.
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