Chapter Twenty-Two #2
I stumble into the corridor and make my way backstage. I feel suffocated, as if a sack of bricks is pressing down upon my chest, preventing me from breathing properly. I want to cry but I suppress it with a strength I didn’t know I had.
A door is open a crack and I see the auditorium, full of people now. The play must be about to begin. I quicken my pace. I don’t know where exactly I’m going, but I must find Nessa.
I pass Ned Pollock who is so engrossed in his script that he doesn’t even see me.
He’s reading through his lines in the hope of not forgetting any.
But it doesn’t matter. He won’t be performing tonight.
I ignore the stagehands, the prop people, anyone whom I encounter.
I’m in a trance and I’m staggering blindly.
But everyone is focused on the play. No one has time to notice me.
I might as well be wearing the invisibility cloak after all.
The sound of raised voices causes me to stop outside Gilda’s dressing room.
People are arguing. Nessa and Gilda. They’re having a fight.
I press my ear to the wood panel to hear better.
The words are ejected so quickly, it takes my ears a while to tune in.
When they do, one sentence is ejaculated louder and clearer than all the others.
‘If you don’t let me perform tonight, I will tell him what I saw … ’
And thus Nessa seals her fate.
Silence.
I sense a presence moving towards the door and scurry down the corridor and dive into Ned’s dressing room which is now empty. Through the adjoining wall I hear Gilda’s door open, and slam shut.
Did I hear the turning of a key? Could I have, or was it my imagination?
‘I’ll deal with you later,’ Gilda hisses through the door.
Footsteps fade as she makes her way hurriedly up the corridor in the direction of the stage. Gilda has locked Nessa in her dressing room so she can’t go out and spoil her performance. So she can’t go out and tell Cavill what she knows.
The place falls silent. Everyone has gone. Everyone but me and Nessa. There’s an eerie lull. Like the theatre is holding its breath. Like the weird empty beach before the onslaught of a tsunami.
I don’t move a muscle. I remain petrified like a statue, my senses alert. Only my eyeballs swivel from side to side, while my ears strain through the strange stillness, anticipating what I know is about to occur.
Then the silence is broken at last by a loud and furious scream, followed by a crash. Breaking glass. In a rage, Nessa has thrown something against the door.
I wait. It feels like time is standing still.
As if all the clocks in the theatre have stopped and we are all frozen in suspended animation.
I don’t know what to do now. Nothing is happening.
Gilda has gone to play her part. Nessa is here in Gilda’s dressing room.
I am in Ned’s. I cannot move. My legs have gone numb.
All I can feel is my heart thumping dully against my ribcage and the blood throbbing in my temples.
I strain my ears for a sound, any sound, but my anxiety deafens me.
And then there’s a whoosh. A dreadful whoosh. It’s like the roaring of the ocean, or the rush of wind in the trees. The sound of air being sucked into the open gullet of a dragon. Then the fiery exhale and I know it has begun. The fire. It has begun.
Nessa must have thrown Gilda’s lucky lamp against the door and the room has caught fire. And she’s locked in there.
Through the din of my nerves, and the bellowing of the fire, comes the urgent rattling of the doorknob.
I can’t stand it. I can’t remain here and witness this part of Nessa’s story.
I want to shout for help, to kick down the door, to save her. But I know I mustn’t. I can’t. This has happened before. The fire, Nessa’s death. It’s simply being replayed. One cannot edit a movie purely because one doesn’t like the ending.
It is written in the Book of Life.
I leave Ned’s dressing room. Smoke is escaping through the gap beneath Gilda’s door. Nessa is trying to open it. She then begins to scream.
I clutch my stomach, the bile rising.
I do the only thing I am able to do. Run. I run away and leave Nessa to her fate.
I must save Eddie now.
Panic seizes me like cold hands winding around my neck. I no longer have feeling in my body.
It’s time to go.
I stagger through double doors and up the flight of stairs.
I follow my intuition, not knowing where it’s taking me, but trusting that it’s taking Eddie to safety.
I blunder down the corridor, tears distorting my vision so that the theatre looks like it’s under water.
I open the nearest door. The box within is dark.
I blink in rapid succession to clear my sight.
The play has begun. The witches are on stage.
Smoke is swirling around them like spectres.
Lady Faversham is watching them through theatre glasses.
Cavill is seated beside her. He turns. Our eyes meet.
I hold his gaze for a second, then, drowning in regret and misery, I close mine for the final time.
Good-bye, my love.
I will myself out of Eddie’s body. I will myself up up up, into the beautifully moulded ceiling of the Aphrodite, which will now be destroyed by fire. I have done my duty, but at the same time broken my heart. I don’t know how I will survive it.
I see Eddie collapse and Cavill rise out of his seat and rush to her aid.
Up I go. Up up up. I leave them all behind. In the past.
I’m a feather on the breeze, light and gentle and free. Into the ether I go, towards the veil that separates their time from mine. Seamlessly, I slip through it. For a blissful moment I am without a body. Without pain and hurt and heartbreak. I’m pure consciousness and it’s blissful.
Then I open my eyes, and I’m as heavy as an anvil.