Strutting and Fretting: chapter five (a)
“What mortals need is some other way to get our children. We ought to have no female sex and then men would be rid of all their troubles.”
“You’re not supposed to be that sad about it,” Sylvie says.
“It’s fine, carry on,” Porthos says, eyes on the script. He can’t iron away all of Aramis’s sadness about children, it’s impossible. Porthos frowns. “Could we give Jason a lover? Aegeus. Who he also betrayed, by marrying. But he cannot marry Aegeus because he needs children and heirs?”
“That would turn him sympathetic,” Sylvie says. “Or more sympathetic.”
“Well, he’s already sympathetic, seeing as Medea murders his children, his wife, and his father in law. And his betraying another person… well, his choice is definitely a choice, then, isn’t it? His priorities are clearly on display. Politics, power. Not love, not his wife, not his lover. Himself.”
Sylvie nods. Porthos makes a mark on the script, flicking through to Aegeus’s entrance, and quickly scribbles a makeshift line.
“As I told you, I wanted to save you and have children, royal princes, with the same blood as my sons. That way my house has more security,” Aramis says, coming out of his sadness, back to logic and reason and unfeeling. Porthos nods.
“May I never want a merely prosperous life, accepting pain or great wealth at the expense of happiness here in my heart,” Sylvie spits, hand over her heart, turning from Aramis to Constance, then back to Aramis.
“I like the Johnston translation of this bit,” Porthos tells Aramis, when they’re done with the scene. They’re sat on the grass, Porthos going over the script to add in Aegeus as Jason’s lover. “He makes it so clear that it’s an argument that’s still pertinent. Woman as emotional, man as logical. The whole ‘I won’t talk to you about this until you’re willing to be reasonable’ and ‘your emotional response is silly of course I didn’t tell you earlier or you’d have been silly earlier’, Jason’s dismissal of Medea, it’s familiar, isn’t it?”
“Very nice,” Aramis says, sprawled at Porthos’s side.
He’s holding Porthos’s shorts, worrying the fabric between his fingers. Porthos has stripped to his binder and his shorts, the heat and closeness making anything else uncomfortable while he ran about directing and setting things up.
“We’ll have children, one day,” Porthos murmurs, turning his attention to Aramis, dipping to kiss him. “I promise you. When one of us has a steady income and we can afford to stay in one place, maybe they’ll reconsider our application to adopt.”
“It’s never going to happen.”
“It will. If you want it this badly, it will happen. There are still things we can do. Changing careers, for example. Or you could apply for that theatre company, they really liked your work on my last play. That would at least be steady.”
“I want to do television.”
“I know. I just mean that there are options, that it’s not the end of the line or the end of the day. Children are in our future.”
“You’re so certain. How are you so certain?”
Porthos sighs, going back to the script. He doesn’t have any answers for Aramis, he never has. He doesn’t ache for it the way Aramis does. He wants to be a father and he wants a family, with Aramis, and he trusts that one day it will happen for him. For Aramis it’s very different.
“I still want children with you,” Porthos says. “We can make it more of a priority, if it’s hurting you. Is there anything you want, right now?”
“No,” Aramis says. “Carry on with that, I’m alright.”
Porthos turns to give him another kiss, then goes back to his script. He’s cut most the lines he thought would be the more painful ones, but Aramis does find a way to read into it and now he’s made it a central part of Jason. Maybe it will be cathartic. It will certainly turn the play into something else. Aramis is very intense, as Jason. Sylvie is a willful, skilled, determined Medea, playing up the aspect of the children being part of the agreement between her and Jason and not something she deeply wanted for herself.
“It’s like they’re opposite,” Porthos murmurs, rubbing Aramis’s chest, his shoulder. “Medea’s political and logical about her children, and emotional about the breakup, and Jason is emotional about the children and political and logical about the breakup. Their priorities are very different. I bet Sylvie could make something of that and still bring it across that Medea loves her children.”
“She’s really good,” Aramis says.
“Yeah. Connie says she’s a good writer, too. She won’t show me anything, apparently Athos suggested she show me and now she won’t. On principle or something.”
“I’ve read a few things, a while ago she showed me some. She is good, she’s got a way with words. Her stuff used to be very polemical, but I think that’s probably evened out.”
Porthos grunts, going back to his script, sending the revised version to everyone. He attaches notes for d’Artagnan and Aramis, on how they can play it. When he looks up again, Constance is coming over. She flops down in the grass beside him.
“You’re not sad too, are you?” Porthos asks, closing down his document and locking the screen.
“No, I got bored of Athos and d’Art debating politics,” Constance says. “They set Sylvie off, and I decided to leave them to get eaten. She’s amazing. She has so many thoughts and feelings, and her heart is so big and willing. You guys have got to be really good to her, okay? Every one of you. No protecting Athos if it means hurting her, okay? He’s not coming first. She’s too good.”
Porthos nods, still focused on the script. Aramis gets up and goes for a solitary walk, muttering something about finding a church. Porthos usually ignores his religious leanings. His faith is a gentle part of him, but an annoying one. He’s so fervent sometimes, about it all. Porthos stays with Constance, sprawling in the grass with her.
*
“You hard and wretched woman,
just like stone or iron-
to kill your children,
ones you bore yourself,
sealing their fate with your own hands.
Of all women that ever lived before
I know of one, of only one,
who laid hands on her dear children-
and that was Ino,
driven to madness by the gods!”
Constance shouts it, without actually shouting until the last. She jumps from the barge and holds Sylvie’s head, and they rock, turning, twisting.
“That sad lady
leapt into the sea,” Constance says, pulling Sylvie towards the canal, the water. “But what horror remains after what happened here?”
She lets Sylvie go and turns away, refusing to speak. Sylvie wraps herself around Constance from behind, but Constance stands still and silent. They’re back to back when Aramis gets back up from the stern, stepping to the bank and coming over.
Constance gives Aramis the news of Jason’s murdered children, Aramis pushes between them, parting them, and rattles the hatch on the boat. He kneels for the last exchange with Medea, arms out, head back. Porthos sighs with the ending, Constance’s last speech sombre and careful and from the top of the boat again, Aramis standing at the bows, Sylvie at the stern, each facing away from the other.
“Well, that’ll be great,” Porthos says. “Constance, just the one shout, yeah?” Porthos says. Constance nods. “Aramis, when you push between them, try to just… less with the waving arms. And try to not hurry over for the scene. You have no idea what’s happened yet.”
Porthos makes a few notes on the script as he talks, then gets to his feet, stretching. They’ve just done a run through of the whole thing. It’s coming together, he feels. He likes what they’re doing, though he’s not sure about some of the staging. He has a few question marks against some of his ideas.
“Let’s go through again tomorrow. For now, d’Artagnan and Aramis? Can we do the short bit from the start again?” Porthos says, sitting himself down again to watch Aramis and d’Artagnan play at being lovers.
“I’m going to make dinner,” Athos says. “We need to get more wine, tomorrow. We’ll be close to a good wine shop. I timed it all perfectly.”
“I don’t think I want to drink anymore wine ever,” Constance says.
She and Athos bicker quietly as Aramis and d’Artagnan go over their scene, Porthos stopping and starting them to get the movement right, to make the timing right. When the day finally gets done, Aramis is tired. Exhausted, even. Porthos claims the double bed, pulls it out across the cabin, and lies on his back, allowing Aramis to curl up against him.
“Just achy,” Aramis whispers. “Inside. Like I creak.”
“I want to read to you. Yes?” Porthos says. Aramis nods, so Porthos finds Wyrd Sisters, the Discworld book he’s currently on, and goes to the start. “It might make you laugh. If you laugh I won’t think you’re magically better.”
“Christ, Porthos, you’re so stupidly good. You’re just so good.”
“‘The wind howled. Lightning stabbed at the earth erratically, like an inefficient assassin. Thunder rolled back and forth across the dark, rain-lashed hills.
“‘The night was black as the inside of a cat. It was the kind of night, you could believe, on which gods moved men as though they were pawns on the chessboard of fate. In the middle of this elemental storm a fire gleamed among the dripping furze bushes like the madness in a weasel's eye. It illuminated three hunched figures. As the cauldron bubbled an eldritch voice shrieked: 'When shall we three meet again?'.
“‘There was a pause.
“‘Finally another voice said, in far more ordinary tones: 'Well, I can do next Tuesday'.’”
Aramis giggles, and Porthos congratulates himself on his voices and dramatization of it. He snuggles down, wrapping an arm around Aramis, so his mouth is close to Aramis’s ear, and continues. It’s comforting for him, too, to have Aramis this close. Not just in a physical sense. Aramis has a habit of mentally wandering off, and having him present and close and listening, holding Porthos’s arm, whispering to him about what they’re reading, is like a balm.
He’s dozing, the tablet he was reading from fallen at Aramis’s back, when d’Artagnan comes and plonks himself down on the bed. It doesn’t disturb Aramis, who truly wakes for nothing, but it shakes Porthos back to the surface. He sighs, wondering who wants advice or help or support from him this time.
“Mm?” he says.
“Are you alright?” d’Artagnan says. Porthos opens his eyes, startled, and stares at d’Artagnan, mouth open. d’Artagnan grins, looking far too pleased
with himself. “Only, it’s about seven pm and you’re already halfway asleep, and we’ve roped you into working on holiday, and you work far too hard.”
Chapter Five (b)