Read Online Last Act by Jane Aiken Hodge - Free Book Online

of spring. The road, dividing on the far side of the bridge, ran up either side of the valley, below shelving flights of steps that led to the buildings. Straight ahead, at the top of the valley, a classic pillared portico joined the two curving wings. And below it, a stream came plunging out of a dark crevice under the road, to flash and sparkle down the centre of the meadow and then vanish again under the bridge beside them.
    â€œIt’s extraordinary.” Anne was taking deep, reviving breaths of pine-scented air.
    â€œExtraordinary good or extraordinary bad?” Michael asked, as Carl came round the car to join them.
    â€œDo you know, I’m not quite sure. It’s … too much, somehow? Too good to be true?”
    â€œA stage set,” said Michael, pleased with her. “For
The Tempest
perhaps. Or maybe for tragedy.”
    â€œYou’re talking a great deal of nonsense.” Carl said impatiently. “For God’s sake let’s get on up to the rehearsal room.”
    â€œSorry I’m sure.” Michael sketched a mock salute. “I just thought Niobe here ought to get a look at what she’s in for.”
    â€œWhy Niobe anyway?” Carl put a protective arm round Anne’s shoulders.
    â€œShe was so wet when I found her. I’m sorry.” He meant it. “I’d forgotten it was tears. I’d meant a water nymph; a nereid; you know; Sabrina fair, something like that. Forgive me, Miss Paget?”
    â€œOh, call me Anne, and forget it. I was close enough to tears, goodness knows, when you rescued me.” But there had been something disconcerting, just the same, about his choice of name. Had he somehow felt her state of despair? She changed the subject. “Is it really all there? The whole opera complex?”
    â€œYes, ma’am. The opera house is in the centre, behind that fine, fake portico. It’s cut deep into the mountain. Very hard rock we have here in Lissenberg. Administrative buildings, your hostel, all that kind of thing on the left.” He waved a hand towards a cloister where she could see people moving to and fro. “And, over there, on the right, the conference centre and the international hotel—when it’s finished. Note how much better the road is that side. We’re expecting every Rolls and Bentley in Europe in three weeks’ time.”
    â€œWill it be ready?” Trucks and scaffolding in the cloisters of the hotel and conference centre suggested that work was still in progress there.
    â€œOh, I think so. Our Rudolf pays well. Has to”—Michael’s voice was sharp—“to keep the trade unions out.” He turned to Carl. “Have you asked Miss Paget yet?”
    â€œOf course I haven’t.” He might as well have said, “Mind your own business.”
    Anne turned to Carl. “Asked me?”
    â€œYou don’t belong to anything, do you?”
    â€œBelong?” And then, understanding. “Oh, you mean Equity? No, I wish I did.”
    â€œLucky you don’t,” said Michael. “No trade unions in Lissenberg, Miss Paget, by order of our ruler. ‘We are allbrothers working for the same cause.’” He dropped his voice to a deep rumble on the words and struck a heroic pose. “The only snag is,” he went on in his own voice, “that some brothers seem to get paid a lot better than others. And as to the sisters … well, maybe we won’t go into that now.” He opened the door of the front passenger seat for her and she felt Carl’s arm stiffen on her shoulders. But it would be rude and ungrateful not to sit beside her rescuer for this short last lap of the journey and she climbed in, ignoring a kind of strangled grunt from Carl.
    â€œTrouble-making young sod,” he said at last when Michael had dropped them at the foot of the steps just to the left of the central portico. “I
am
sorry I didn’t meet you at