Chapter Two

To the anon Angela who left a review: Thank you so much for that. :) I love Tristan too although Siegfried is also my favorite right alongside him. The two of them are so much fun to write for. Thank you again for your kind words and I hope you'll enjoy what I have lined up in the future. Oh and feel free to point me toward your ACGaS stories and I will check them out.

A week later, Tristan sauntered into the living room and plopped down onto the couch, swinging his legs around so he could lie on his back and gaze at the ceiling.

Business was somewhat slow at Skeldale these days which meant that Siegfried and Tristan had extra time to attend rehearsals and practice their lines on their own. Still, the combination of jobs and frequent sessions of acting made it so Tristan wasn't as free to do the other things he enjoyed. Such as visiting the Drovers or going out on dates.

Tristan let out a sigh. None of this would be so bad if his plans had gone the way he had expected them to. But, recently, Sally started to express concerns about the dedication Tristan was giving to his role.

"Tristan, how can I develop my performance persona if you keep wanting to practice our scenes in act three over and over?"

"We must build our characters' story journeys in the order that they unfold in the plot or they won't make sense."

"How can my character express the true complexity of her passions if we don't fully explore the nuances of how we talk to each other in the chemist shop in the first act?"

Tristan huffed and scooted back up into a sitting position. He understood that she wanted to do well in this play and wanted to support her. However, he still couldn't see the value of some of the suggestions Sally had for "adding nuance" to their acting. Like practicing their lines blindfolded or totally in song. She claimed that she had gotten these ideas from a book, but she never could quite remember the name of it whenever he asked her about it.

"Well, I didn't expect to see you here. Early night, little brother?"

Tristan craned his neck around to see Siegfried marching into the room, his glasses perched on the end of his nose. His elder brother carried a stack of papers over to the table and sat down in his usual spot.

"Thought I'd do some swotting," Tristan shrugged. "Haven't had much time for it with rehearsals and all."

He got up and walked over to the stand where the tantulus was sitting. "Do you mind if I…?"

Siegfried looked up from his pile of papers. "Oh very well. Pour me some too while you're at it."

Tristan grinned and poured out a generous portion of whiskey into both tumblers. Then he placed one tumbler next to his brother and went over to sit down next to Siegfried. As he predicted, Siegfried didn't seem to notice the amount in their glasses. His elder brother was far too busy with the papers in front of him, paging through them and then writing things along the margins.

At first, Tristan paid no attention, figuring that Siegfried was busy with practice-related paperwork. He started to make plans to sneak out of the room when he was finished with his drink. However, while he was sipping his whiskey, Tristan happened to glance at a page that Siegfried had just filled with copious notes. A page with text that looked all too familiar.

Even though Tristan really did know better, morbid curiosity took hold.

"Siegfried?"

"Yes, Tristan?"

"Isn't that your copy of the Parkers' script?"

"Yes. Honestly, little brother, I'd think you'd recognize it by now. That is if you are actually practicing your lines. You are, aren't you?"

An indignant look appeared on Tristan's face. "Of course I am. But what are you doing?"

"What?" Siegfried said, finally lifting his head. "Oh um, just making a few changes."

Tristan frowned. "Changes? But Janice said she'd make sure to take care of all the misspellings and things like that. Don't tell me you found more."

Siegfried smiled at him. A patient smile which only made Tristan even more wary.

"Yes, my dear boy, but those are not the only changes that need to be made. Today's rehearsal has convinced me of one thing: some of these lines simply won't work. Not if Nathan really wants to convey the sort of meaning he claims to want in this play."

Tristan fell back against his chair and rolled his eyes. Deep down, he knew he should have expected something like this to happen. His brother had this weird sense of obligation to make every endeavor "worthy" of his efforts. That wasn't such a bad thing when it applied to the jobs they did or to the actual running of the practice. It was far less endearing when it extended to something as frivolous as a local theatre production.

Still curious, he picked up one of the pages that Siegfried had set aside and scanned it.

"Siegfried."

"Yes, dear brother."

"You've re-written the entire opening scene."

"An absolute necessity, I can assure you. What was that man thinking, beginning the play with a protracted conversation with that blasted imaginary dog?"

"Well all right, that was sort of rubbish. But now we'll all have to learn new lines."

"That won't be a problem."

Tristan's brow furrowed. "It won't?"

Siegfried sat his pencil down and looked up at him again. "Of course it won't. While there might be some new lines and a slight increase in their actual number, these changes will ensure that the story makes far more sense. And everyone knows that it's easier to remember a coherent narrative than to commit a load of nonsense to memory."

"I suppose you're right," Tristan mumbled before taking another long sip of his whiskey.

Siegfried nodded at him and then picked up his pencil so he could continue his work. Tristan shuffled through a few more of the pages Siegfried had already written on. He glanced through them and soon made an unwelcome discovery.

"Hang on…you took out all of my scenes with Sally!"

"Yes, I needed to make room in the plot to develop the progression of the love story between the hero and heroine of the play."

"You didn't need to cut out all my scenes with her to do it," Tristan grumbled.

Siegfried looked up and gave Tristan another one of his patient smiles. "I don't have unlimited space to work with, so something had to go. And those scenes were completely nonessential to the overall plot."

Tristan glared at him. "Nonessential? I'll have you know that they were quite essential to me."

Siegfried's smile turned into a smirk. "Really, little brother, I think you've made it abundantly clear why you think they are."

"It's so easy for you to mock, but I happen to think that there was some good stuff in there," Tristan retorted. "The tragedy of unrequited love and all that."

"That may be, but I doubt that the audience will be able to believe in the sincerity of the heroine's feelings for the hero if she keeps kissing your character in her back garden," Siegfried said.

Tristan's scowl deepened, but his eyes became distant. "It is possible to long for someone else even when you're busy being happy with others, Siegfried."

Siegfried gave him a quizzical look, but Tristan didn't notice. At that moment, his mind was in Edinburgh. Back in a quaint little garden of flowers behind a hotel. The sun was beating down, but its warmth and light couldn't compete with the lovely face he was staring at. A face with a smile that could make his heart soar.

The spell was broken when Tristan felt a hand on his forearm. He blinked hard and was surprised to see that his glass had been refilled and that Siegfried was gazing at him with genuine sympathy in his eyes.

"As tender and poignant as those feelings are, this is not the play to explore them in, Tristan," he said. "In order for the rest of the plot to make any sort of sense, you'd have to rely on cheap melodrama to justify the existence of those feelings. And that is not giving them the weight that they deserve."

Siegfried leaned back in his chair and finally took a drink from his glass before continuing. "No, I have something much better for you in mind. Scenes that will make far better use of your talents."

Tristan's lips twitched into a smile. "Really? Well, I always did think that I could have been quite the presence on a stage. A man of real mystery and intrigue."

A twinkle of mischief appeared in Siegfried's eyes. "I agree. What with your propensity for dissembling on a regular basis."

"Oh ho, ho, ho," Tristan smirked back at him. He finished what was in his glass and was about to leave when Siegfried started to pat his arm again. The annoyance he had felt quickly evaporated with this gesture of real affection.

"Trust me, little brother, I do have your best interests at heart. And I'm sure you can find another way to work your charms on Miss Hancock. If that is what you really want."

"And what is that supposed to mean?" Tristan said with another frown.

"Nothing," Siegfried said. "Nothing at all. What's important is that you get to experience what it's like to have a truly memorable moment onstage. Believe me, it's an experience that's irreplaceable. You'll understand when the time comes, I can promise you that."

Tristan chuckled and went back to reading through the edited pages of the script. Specifically, he focused on the new dialogue Siegfried had written for him. As he read, he was forced to admit that his elder brother had a real flair for writing and that many of the lines Siegfried had come up with made his scenes miles better than they were.

At one point, he took a break so he could refill his glass, but then he went right back to studying his revised scenes. Did Siegfried really believe that he had the acting skills needed for this new dialogue? Or did his elder brother just succumb to his own weakness for overly grand gestures again?

Tristan suspected that answer was somewhere between those two ideas. Still, he couldn't deny that he felt gratified that Siegfried saw the potential in him to inject some real substance into his performance rather than only act as a plot device to add tension to the actual romance of the play.

Tristan chuckled softly and took another long sip of whiskey. Leave it to Siegfried to actually find a positive in being robbed of a perfectly acceptable excuse to enjoy some romance with a lovely girl like Sally Hancock.

It really did seem to be almost worth it.

The next day, Siegfried brought his revised script to rehearsal and began to show it to the cast while they waited for the Parkers to show up. As Siegfried had predicted, the other actors didn't mind the changes as they were much simpler lines to remember.

Sadly, his elder brother's words also turned out to be prophetic in another way.

"Don't you see, Tristan? It's fate," Sally had said after glancing through the new script. "Your brother's words…well they helped me to finally realize that in order to maintain my artistic integrity, I have to devote myself to Matthew. Both onstage and off. He is playing my character's one true love, after all. As an artist yourself, I'm sure you understand."

At the time, Tristan had thought about reminding her that he was a vet student and she was a part-time clerk at a solicitor's office in Brawton, but he doubted that that would make a difference.

Besides, as it turned out, he wasn't as disappointed as he thought he would be. Not when he had already arranged to share some coffee and sandwiches with Janet, the costume girl, after rehearsals were over. Right then, that seemed far more appealing than any of the "artistic kissing sessions" he had had with Sally had ever been.

Later, Tristan had a successful prophecy of his own when he predicted what Nathan's reactions to the script changes would be.

"You deliberately got rid of Scene 36!" Nathan fumed.

"Well, of course I did," Siegfried scoffed. "You couldn't really expect your audience to take your play seriously if you left in that musical number between your leading man and the patrons of the blacksmith shop."

"It's called levity."

"More like absolute rubbish. No, I think you'll find that the quieter moments of humor, like the mix up at the chemist's are much more effective in the context of the play as a whole."

"I noticed that you didn't cut out any of your scenes," Nathan grumbled.

"Only because they seem to have the best writing," Siegfried countered. "You do appear to have a talent for crafting megalomaniacal despots. Hitler and Mussolini would approve. And after seeing how you handled directing that scene with the children on Monday, I have a notion of why you might be inclined toward such characters."

Nathan narrowed his eyes at Siegfried. "And what is that supposed to mean?"

"It means that you are approaching your work as a director all wrong," Siegfried replied. "As a director, you should be inspiring your cast to band together and do their best. You need to act like a true leader who fosters an atmosphere of confidence and assurance. Not simply wallow in self-indulgent mediocrity and denial."

"Why you... And just who do you think you are? Winston Churchill? This is still my play and I'll not have you making all these…these…execrable changes to my…."

"Execrable? I hardly think that," Siegfried interrupted. "Are you sure you understand what execrable means?"

Nathan's face turned an interesting shade of magenta, and his hands kept clenching into fists. Tristan took a step closer to Siegfried, ready to intercede if he thought it was necessary. However, before Nathan could say anything else, Janice held up her hand.

"Nathan, have you already forgotten that this was originally my play?" she said. "I only invited you to collaborate with me because you said that you could add some spice to my dialogue. Well…you certainly did that, but then you went too far."

"But Janice…."

"Nathan, that song and dance number was rubbish. Admit it. I never really wanted it in my play. I just couldn't think of anything else to fill that scene. And you know that poor old Mr. Wilbly couldn't carry a tune in a bucket. Mr. Farnon's changes are a godsend. There's no other way of looking at it."

"But, but, Janice…I…."

"Nathan, do you want me to phone Aunt Veronica?"

Despite having lived in Darrowby for most of his life, Tristan was at a loss as to who 'Aunt Veronica' was or why phoning her could be considered a threat. Still, whoever she was, the specter of Aunt Veronica certainly had an effect on Nathan who paled and shook his head as he became the very picture of meekness.

Janice smiled and nodded her head before turning her attention back to the rest of the cast and crew. "All right everyone. We're going to go with Mr. Farnon's changes in the script. Now, I know that this will mean some extra work for everyone, but I also believe that it will mean a much better show. My brother will still be directing, but please, do remember that this is a group effort and that we're all here to have some fun too. So let's pull together and put on a smashing show. All right?"

Everyone clapped, including Tristan who wondered why Janice didn't just take over being the director herself. Still, even though she seemed content to stay out of the spotlight, he figured it was best to simply relish the fact that rehearsals would likely be much more productive and enjoyable now.

Siegfried turned his head and gave him a wink before walking off to get into costume. Tristan chuckled and pulled out his copy of the script, which Siegfried also edited, out of his pocket. Yes, he knew he was going to savor his lunch with Janet after rehearsals were over.

Especially now that he didn't have to worry about taking part in that bloody awful song and dance number in the blacksmith's shop.

The next three weeks seemed to fly by as sets were completed, rehearsals ran smoothly, and Tristan found himself sharing coffee and sandwiches more and more often with Janet. In fact, it didn't seem like hardly any time at all had passed before opening night arrived, and Tristan found himself fidgeting about backstage.

Every once in a while he peeked out to see more and more people shuffling into the theatre. There didn't seem to be an end to them. Withdrawing back behind the curtain didn't really help his mood either as all of the crew rushed about to put on the finishing touches for the props, sets and costumes.

Tristan groaned and fell back against a nearby wall. He was confident that he had thoroughly learned his lines, even after all the changes Siegfried had made to the script. However, that confidence wasn't enough to quiet the nerves that were starting to creep in. He desperately wanted to light up another Woodbine, but he knew that Nathan would throw a fit if he caught him. And if Nathan didn't, Siegfried probably would.

He was about to start weighing the risks of sneaking in a quick smoke for the third time when Siegfried strolled over to him. His elder brother was dressed in a black, antiquated business suit and was wearing his glasses.

As Tristan watched him approach, he thought again about how Janet really had done a wonderful job on the costumes. He had arranged to have a date with her this weekend and planned on spending plenty of time letting her know how impressed he was.

"Isn't it thrilling, little brother?" Siegfried said, taking in a deep breath. "The lure of the stage, the excited murmur of the audience, the anticipation in the air."

"The butterflies in the stomach," Tristan mumbled.

Siegfried turned toward him, his wide smile not the least bit affected. "You're not nervous, are you Tristan?"

"Oh no, of course not," Tristan said with an overly syrupy tone. "The Parkers only advertised this play all over Darrowby and Brawton which means we're probably sold out. Helen was just out there, and she told me that the turnout is higher than she's ever seen it."

"Did she?" Siegfried said, reaching to grab Tristan's forearm. "What wonderful news. This play is sure to be a tremendous success, mark my words."

Tristan nodded his head. His legs wobbled if he stood in one place for too long and sweat was starting to trickle down the back of his neck. At that moment, he was grateful that he wasn't in the first couple of scenes, but that still didn't give him very long before he'd have to appear onstage. And thanks to Siegfried, he had a lot more scenes to be in than when he had first signed up to do this play.

Tristan swallowed hard. His mouth was so dry. He really could do with a pint right now. Several in fact. If by some miracle he did make it through this play, he promised himself at least a couple of hours at the Drovers afterwards.

A roar of applause came from the crowd as the Parkers came onstage to introduce their play. Tristan shuddered and squeezed his eyes shut, his breaths shaky. He opened his eyes back up when he felt someone take hold of both of his arms and found Siegfried standing in front of him.

"Calm yourself, little brother," Siegfried said in a quiet, relaxed tone. "I have every confidence in your performance."

Tristan goggled at him. "You do?"

"Of course I do," Siegfried said, his smile become magnanimous. "We did rehearse your climatic speech to my character just last night, and it was quite the tour-de-force."

Tristan grinned and Siegfried gave him an appraising nod.

"In fact, I think you should consider trying your hand at more theatre projects in the future. Something from Shakespeare, perhaps?"

"Oh now you're just having a laugh," Tristan huffed.

"No, no, no, I'm serious," Siegfried said. "I really do think you could do well with such a challenge. The trick would be to pick just the right role for you. Marc Anthony, maybe or…."

Siegfried paused and then struck a fist into his other palm. "No, wait, I've got it! Hamlet. Yes, yes, that's it. Imagine, playing a character who is wrestling with love and loyalty while haunted by the shadow of revenge. And just think of the satisfaction you could have by making such a classic role your own."

Tristan's disbelief grew, but so did his grin. "Siegfried…do you really mean it?"

"Yes, I do," Siegfried said with an emphatic nod. "Of course, the part also calls for a healthy dose of madness, a quality I have never thought was in short supply with you."

Tristan let out a loud sigh, rolling his eyes. "Oh yes. I thought as much."

Siegfried chuckled and patted Tristan's arm again before finally regaining his serious demeanor. "Now, Tristan, I'm not being totally facetious. I meant every word that I said about giving yourself a real challenge on the stage. At least consider it."

The smirk on Tristan's face faded, leaving him with a thoughtful expression. He still found it difficult to believe that Siegfried could think so much of his acting talents. Then again, he also knew his elder brother well enough to know when Siegfried was having a joke at his expense and this wasn't that.

"All right," he said, his face breaking into a grin. "I will."

"Excellent," Siegfried cheered. Then he gave Tristan's back a hearty pat. "And now, little brother, get ready to join the rest of the play. As the Bard himself once said, 'all the world's a stage'. So let's relish the parts we shall play on it."

Tristan laughed. He doubted that their little production would go down in the annals of great moments of theatre, but at that moment, it didn't really matter.

Not with the way his heart felt lighter than it had in quite a long time.