Masque (24 page)

I heard the sound of her mounting the final step, felt the scaffold vibrate as she edged forward a few feet and then, suddenly, stopped. I heard her breath come faster. I did not know if it was fear or excitement, until she spoke.

‘Erik?' He voice was trembling. So it was fright.

I would not turn and startle her. I would answer. We could, at least, speak.

‘Christine.'

The blood was pounding in my skull. I hardly heard the sound of her sprinting. I felt the scaffold swinging as she ran. I felt the collision. It was almost an attack.

She wrapped her arms around my waist and buried her face into the back of my jacket, reaching around my chest and gripping my hands so fiercely that I felt my knuckles crack.

She was trembling, almost shuddering, and when her voice came again it was muffled by mucous and fabric, her throat, her great instrument, was terribly choked. ‘You're alive, you're alive. I waited so long for you. I didn't know I was waiting. Thank God, you're alive.' She tried to turn me to face her, I stood firm.

She laughed, nervously, attempted to detangle herself from my clothes. Her will was as strong as her embarrassment, yet she could not manage it. She remained where she was, ‘You said “Come as you are”. Well, this is what I am, now. A silly old idiot. You haven't seen me yet.' Her voice suddenly chilled, softened, ‘I am much changed, even from the shadow that I show on the stage. I feel like I have been trying, and failing, to remain who I was.'

She squeezed my hand, more gently this time. I ceased to worry about the buttons on my jacket.

‘Oh Erik, please speak to me.'

I opened my mouth and found my voice had fled. I coughed, once, to clear it. ‘I have seen you, my dear. Last night in the park. You walked beneath the streetlights. You looked almost as though you were weeping.'

And now it was my turn for trembling.

I let my free hand fall upon the scaffold, supporting myself, braced against metal. I said, ‘You have changed, Christine, not beyond recognition, and the change is not unpleasing, but you are not the girl you were. You have altered. I, unfortunately, have not – or not enough.'

‘You have not turned to face me.' She was not clinging now, merely resting her face between my shoulders. I could feel her warm breath through my silk. ‘You came without your mask to test me. Do it.'

I drew a long breath, felt her detach herself from me, stepping backward into the dust.

I turned, happy to finally be able to look at her, terrified that it would not last, terrified of what I would see in the seconds before she fled.

It appeared that she shared my trepidation. Her hands were clenched at her sides, nails boring into her flesh. She was staring at my feet. I was pleased to see her face again, even bowed away from me. She was as beautiful as ever in the afternoon of life.

With a shock, I recalled that I was entering the evening myself. How had we survived so long without each other's voices?

Her dark eyes climbed my legs, lingered a moment on the place where the wound she bound formed a secret scar beneath my clothes. She shook herself, forced her head higher. When she looked up into my face her teeth were clenched, her muscles bunched beneath the skin. Her near-black eyes were focused as a hawk's.

I saw her body jerk with supressed repugnance, I saw her thighs tremble beneath her skirt, but she would not look away. She did not run. She took in every inch of my face, until our eyes locked, held. Finally, after what felt like a century had passed with me in the burning, her jaws relaxed. She smiled.

The expression was small, a little sickly round the edges, but it was real enough.

After a while, she spoke, ‘Forgive me, please, for my revulsion. I cannot help it, but I will overcome myself.' She tried to take a step forward, and found that she could not manage it. ‘I kissed you once, you know, while you were hanging there unconscious, before I brought your body down and hid it in the bed. I had to close my eyes to do it, but I did. Your breath was sweet. I have never forgotten.'

I smiled at her; she flinched slightly at the effect. I was sorry for that – it was the best that I could manage with the ruin I was born with – before her revelation rocked me like a hammer-blow and I felt myself sinking to the floor, spreading my legs across the filth, the dust and rat bones.

I could not control my voice when I spoke, and that frightened me. It was the one thing left to me that I could rely on, and now even that had fled. ‘I had no idea.' I buried my face in my hands, a mercy for both of us. There was so much wasted time that we could have spent together, so many wasted years alone.

After a moment I heard the rustling of silk, felt the warmth of her body pressed so close to mine that if this were a play, we would have been considered obscene, an implied event occurring off-stage, to be hinted at only.

She leaned her head across my shoulder, spreading her faded hair across my collar. She spoke, ‘And now I find that no matter the age we are always children sprawled in the dirt.' She laid her hand atop my own, covering the poison of my life with her soft flesh. ‘We are filthy, stupid, but alive. Now that I know that you live, I will never leave your side.'

I had to laugh at that; I meant to laugh. It sounded like screaming, ‘And how are we to manage, then, if I will not mask myself and you cannot stand to look at me?'

Self-blinded as I was, I felt her body shift until I could not feel her. Convinced she was leaving, that I was missing my last glimpse of her, I reached out, groping for her hands in my fevered desperation.

I caught hold of her shoulders. They were inches from my chest. I had kept my eyes closed; now I opened them and found my Christine.

She was kneeling in front of me, her knees pressing into the waffled iron on either side of my thighs. Her face and dress were streaked with dirt, with clean paths her tears had carved for her.

Christine was looking at me; not staring. To her I was not some animal that needed to be caged. It was a soft look, kind, if a little ill around the edges. She reached forward, cupped my face in her hands, and in a firm voice that brooked no argument, she said ‘Teach me again, Erik. You taught me to sing, now teach me to look. I am a fast student. I am ready to work.'

What could I say, but ‘Yes'?

About the Author

Bethany W. Pope is an award-winning author. She has published several collections of poetry:
A Radiance
(Cultured Llama, 2012),
Crown of Thorns
(Oneiros Books, 2013),
The Gospel of Flies
(Writing Knights Press, 2014),
Undisturbed Circles
(Lapwing, 2014), and
The Rag and Boneyard
(Indigo Dreams, 2016). Her chapbook
Among The White Roots
will be released by Three Drops Press next autumn.
Masque
is her first novel.

Originally from America, Bethany has lived in five states and five countries including, for several years, an orphanage in South Carolina. She has now made the UK her permanent home. In her life, she has played many roles: minister's daughter; the monster under the stairs; farmhand; midwife for cattle; caster of lead printing plates; veterinarian's surgical assistant; high-school drop-out; roller-skate-wearing waitress; university lecturer – all of these things have contributed to her career as a writer. She knows a thing or two about wearing a mask.

Bethany is an avid sabre fencer. She lives with her husband and a small yellow budgie who answers to Diogenes. You can find out more about her work at BethanyWPope.com

Acknowledgements

I would like to thank the following people for their encouragement and aid: Sarah Kennedy and Menna Elfyn, for setting me on the path; Tiffany Atkinson, for teaching me how to write a novel and being a brilliant poetical badass; the academic staff in the Creative Writing departments at Mary Baldwin College, the University of Wales Trinity Saint David, and Aberystwyth University; my poetry publishers, Cultured Llama, Oneiros Books, Lapwing, Indigo Dreams, and Three Drops Press; Penny Thomas, for taking a chance on my work and then editing it to a fine sheen; my very patient friends (you know who you are) for putting up with the angst which I would like to believe was artistic and charming but which was probably actually very annoying; and finally, last but not least, Matthew David Clarke for his unwavering love and support. I would also like to thank you, reader, for taking the time to travel with me this far down the road.

Seren is the book imprint of

Poetry Wales Press Ltd

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© Bethany W. Pope, 2016

The right of Bethany W. Pope to be identified as the author of this work has been asserted in accordance with the Copyright, Designs and Patents Act, 1988.

ISBNs

Pback – 978-1-78172-324-1

Ebook – 978-1-78172-325-8

Kindle – 978-1-78172-326-5

A CIP record for this title is available from the British Library.

All rights reserved. No part of this publication may be reproduced, stored in a retrieval system, or transmitted at any time or by any means, electronic, mechanical, photocopying, recording or otherwise without the prior permission of the copyright holder.

The publisher acknowledges the financial assistance of the Welsh Books Council.

Cover Design: ‘At the Masquerade' by Charles Hermans, photo of Palais Garnier by Charlotte Chen, Flickr: Labmove /CC BY-SA 2.0, back cover image ‘Curtain' by Shelah, Flickr: Gosheshe /CC BY 2.0.

Printed by Latimer Trend & Company Ltd, Plymouth.