Chapter Fifteen
Six hours later, Petra woke to find the haze-dulled sun was high in a pearl gray sky.
Oops sorry, she texted. See you at the churchyard in twenty minutes?
A thumbs-up came back so quickly that it seemed he had been waiting, poised.
Petra scrambled to dress and brush her teeth. Locking up the shop behind her, she risked keeping Ross waiting even longer
so she could pop into Finn’s shop for coffee.
“Sorry,” she told him, as she approached the lych-gate to the churchyard where he stood, waiting.
She handed him his coffee.
“Well, you look like shit,” she blurted, clocking his pale face and his eyes that were puffy and shadowed.
Mind you, she probably wasn’t exactly looking radiant herself.
Sweetly, it seemed he was too gallant to reply, merely lifting his coffee to her in ironic salute instead.
It was still early enough to be misty as they went down into the valley, the cold clamminess touching their faces as if with ghostly fingers, but—as they climbed and approached the summit of their hill—they burst through the low clouds into glorious, yellow spring sunshine.
By the time they reached their little bench, they were both sweaty and panting a little.
Flumping down on the seat, they each peeled off an outer layer and then sat, catching their breath.
“So . . .” said Ross at last, without turning to look at her.
“So,” echoed Petra carefully, gazing out over the valley.
There was a pregnant silence, while she thought about what to say. “It’s beautiful,” she told him at last, her voice cracking
at the memory of it. “Obviously. Your writing is assured . . . lyrical but—at the same time—spare and en pointe. The subject matter . . .” She paused, thinking.
“Well, it’s stunning. Not the first Tempest retelling there’s been, naturally, and the whole Caliban thing?
It’s a personal favorite of mine, I have to admit, but—yeah—it
feels as if it’s very personal for you too?”
She looked at Ross questioningly. He seemed to be avoiding eye contact, gazing at the view, but after a pause he nodded, just
once.
“Also,” she said slowly, watching his face closely, “some would feel the Caliban-Miranda vibe is problematic.”
“Prospero’s thinly veiled rape accusation?”
“Well, yeah.”
“I want to rescue Caliban’s reputation from that. To rehabilitate him. He’s a victim of character assassination, in my view.”
“Motive?”
“It’s obvious, isn’t it? Prospero creates him, and he thinks he owns him.
He’s bound to think poor Caliban isn’t good enough for his daughter.
He has Miranda on a pedestal. She’s a chattel destined—as far as he is concerned—to inflate his consequence by making a strategic marriage.
And—I suppose—Caliban is a chattel too. But Caliban is there to serve him, and Miranda is there to further his prestige. It’s all pretty narcissistic.”
“Not great parenting,” Petra agreed. “But sexual assault?” she went on. Ross wasn’t na?ve. He must know the publishing industry
would shy away from anything potentially controversial. Anything that might cause a writer to be canceled. The success of
a book was already too arbitrary to risk bringing it down over something unnecessarily divisive.
“It’s an allegation,” persisted Ross, “and I want that allegation to shine a light on Prospero’s behavior, not Caliban’s. Caliban is an innocent.
Pure of heart. The story is about love, of course—between Caliban and Miranda—but it’s also about having a mentor that creates
you and makes you fully emotionally dependent on them”—he swallowed, screwing up his eyes as he looked at the sky—“so they
can control you.”
His use of the third person didn’t fool Petra. “You’re Caliban?” she ventured.
He shrugged, then nodded again and hung his head as if the admission weighed heavily on him. “When I was first playing with
these ideas,” he told her, “I started with Frankenstein’s monster, you know? The freak, the outcast, the rejected son who
wants nothing more than to be loved by his creator—his parent, whose job is to protect him . . .”
Sheesh, this was heavy stuff, Petra thought. “I mean, you’re ugly,” she joked gently, “but you’re not that ugly,” she said, pleased to see him crack a smile.
“Then,” he continued, “I realized Caliban was a better fit for this idea I wanted to explore. For me, the whole thing with
my first novel was about me becoming the creature of the people who were invested in my work. I was the ‘creature’ of”—he
hesitated— “the publishing industry, required to do its bidding. A being with no agency. Kind of a facsimile of an author,
who didn’t even exist outside this role that she—they,” he corrected himself, “had created for me, you know?”
Hmm. She? thought Petra.
Now, at last, he turned to her, his eyes pleading for her to understand.
“I get it,” she said, placing her hand gently on his forearm. “It’s not as rosy in the garden as people think it is, looking
in from outside. I do get it. Truly.”
Ross nodded again sharply, satisfied, it seemed, by her understanding.
“But still,” Petra went on, “that accusation Caliban tried to rape Miranda? That’s heavy stuff to get around. People don’t
stop to absorb the nuances if they sense an issue . . .”
“Ah, but in this retelling I absolutely want to show how Prospero completely invents the slur as part of his cruelty toward
Caliban. It’s character assassination to achieve his goal of ostracizing Caliban now that he constitutes him as a threat to
his ambitions for Miranda.”
“Okay,” said Petra. She would have to read the whole thing, but this kind of risky content could be more than enough to prevent
Ross’s ideas from getting out into the world. “So how does it end?”
He sighed. “Well, in Shakespeare’s version, not well for Caliban, if you remember?”
“Hmm . . .” Petra frowned, trying to recall. “Ariel gets released by Prospero, doesn’t he? I remember it’s Prospero’s final act before he leaves the island, to free the little sprite in return for his good service. I actually don’t remember what happens to Caliban in the play.”
“That’s because it’s left open,” Ross explained. “The audience doesn’t get to hear, and I suppose the suggestion is that Caliban
has been surly and resentful, so he’s left there, discarded and unwanted. Trapped in purgatory forever.”
“Perhaps,” said Petra gently, “this time Caliban can have a happily ever after?”
“Yeah, maybe,” said Ross quietly, staring into the middle distance. “I don’t know yet . . .” And then he seemed to gather
himself. “Have you had breakfast?” he asked suddenly.
“Nope,” said Petra, who had been thinking longingly of pancakes with syrup or a big, squishy bacon sandwich. She was starving.
“I know a place,” Ross said, standing and holding out his hand to help Petra to her feet. She was a little stiff. It must
be the climb. Or the cold. It was still just barely April. The sunshine was weak, and the wind was cutting.
Going down the hill was considerably easier than going up. Ross seemed elated now and full of energy, whereas Petra was definitely
still feeling the effects of her late-night reading session, despite getting up late.
Ross didn’t stop at the turning to the lane where his cottage was but slipped his arm through Petra’s, marching her through
the churchyard to the top of the main street and down.
“Where are we going?” she laughed, panting a little, buoyed by his sudden high spirits.
“You’ll see,” he told her, as they strode together in lockstep down to the quay. Out at the harbor now, the wind from the sea sliced like a knife and Petra clamped her hands to her cheeks, trying in vain to imbue warmth with her icy fingers.
Suddenly, Ross took a sharp left, grabbing her arm and wheeling her around into a little greasy spoon café on the seafront.
Inside, the air was fuggy, warm, and redolent of bacon fat and wet wool. Most of the Formica tables were occupied, but Ross
steered Petra to a little table that had just become vacant by the window, sitting her down and efficiently stacking the detritus
of the previous occupants out of their way.
Petra blew her nose on a plasticky white napkin from the stack in the middle of the table. Ross was truly seeing her at her
most radiant, she thought, wiping her eyes that had been streaming from the cold.
“Full English twice?” Ross queried, looking at Petra as the bustling café owner came to take their order.
Petra nodded. “Totally,” she said, nodding at the lady. “But just once is plenty for me,” she added.
“Even the lorry drivers don’t manage two,” the lady agreed. “I’ll get you some nice hot tea straightaway, my darlings,” she
went on. “You look like you need warming up.”
Two steaming mugs of strong milky tea arrived, and Petra warmed her hands around hers gratefully.
“I had you down as an avocado-on-sourdough kind of girl,” teased Ross as two plates piled high with bacon, sausage, eggs,
baked beans, tomato, and mushrooms arrived, along with side plates of sliced white bread and stacks of little foil butter
packets.
“I eat avocado,” said Petra defensively, before shoveling a forkful of sausage and bacon into her mouth.
It was as hot as lava, and she panted desperately, fanning her hand in front of her open mouth.
This must look utterly charming, she thought to herself, rolling her eyes at Ross, who was laughing at her predicament.
“Classy,” he deadpanned. “Listen, I like to be around women who actually eat,” he went on, in response to her pseudo-outraged expression. “I dated enough avocado
toast girls when I was living in London.”
Dated? Is that what this is? thought Petra, hoping her blushes at the word were lost in the general ruddy-cheeked-ness of
chilly Sunday morning walks with no makeup on. Suddenly, she hoped that Ross was a man who liked the natural look.
“Tell me about your London life?” she said, fiddling with a butter packet and spreading her bread so she had an excuse not
to meet his eye.
“Book launches, interviews, parties filled with people who don’t actually like each other . . . leggy, clever women throwing