Epilogue
PLAYLIST: JACKIE O – IZZY ESCOBAR
Victoria
“You will, for Christ’s sake, get your arse onto that stage right now,” I say as I push her like a reluctant child towards the main stage of the Royal Opera House.
“There will be no one there except Walter and me. You have read to me a million times. Just pretend it is only you on that stage. You won’t even see us. ”
“But—“
“No but. You told me to decide for you, and I did. You belong on this stage. There is no point in dwelling on the past.”
“And what if he thinks I am horrible?”
“He won’t because he has already seen the video I made in the King’s Vault of you reading Shakespeare to me.”
“You didn’t!” she shouts.
“Oh, I did,” I say and add hissing, “Now go, or I’ll make you stand there naked.”
Her face falls. I would never make her do it, and my threat is thereby empty, but she mustn’t know that.
“Remember what Brené told you,” I say.
“Live true to yourself, Mia,” she repeats Brené’s words when we met her last year.
“Exactly. And this is your true self,” I say.
Her eyes are filled with dread.
“Go, now! End of discussion.” I say harshly and give her the final push. She stumbles onto the stage, and I join Walter in the auditorium.
“Excuse the delay,” I say. “Some convincing was necessary.”
“I heard,” says Walter. “Those with a natural talent are generally the ones who need some persuasion,” he adds.
Mia stands on the stage of the Opera House, making herself as small as possible, clutching the book in her hands to her as if her life depends on it.
She glances at me, or wherever she might believe me to be, I am certain she cannot see us with the little light on the stage and the darkness in the auditorium.
She breathes in and out and opens the book.
I see a small smile on her face as her eyes fly over the pages.
I don’t know how many times she has read Macbeth to me, probably a couple of dozen times. I myself am so affluent in it by now that I might do it very well for her.
Only I do not have her talent when it comes to emotional presence and variability. I am a woman of the stage, but my stage has clear rules and does not require me to become so many things at once. I am a Mistress, and that is my role.
Mia is many things, with a talent for becoming everything and everyone, which is why she belongs on stage.
Mia does not read a screenplay. She becomes it. She becomes her books. She becomes the characters, switching seamlessly between them. Which is why she can deliver a performance that even Walter, in his role as the Royal Opera House’s artistic director, has never seen.
Mia begins with the first act, becoming Duncan, the King of Scotland, with a deep voice, then switches to Malcom, one of the King’s sons, with another rich, deep voice—and she bids them all honour with her performance.
“She’s good,” whispers Walter in my ear. Walter is rare in his compliments, but I did not expect anything else.
She reads, no, plays the entire first act, including Lady Macbeth. At some point, she doesn’t even read; it comes from a place deep within her.
“False face must hide with what the false heart doth know.”
She ends her act with the last words of the first act and red cheeks.
Her chest heaves up and down, and my eyes wander to Walter, who claps his hands, getting up and walking down to the stage.
“That was a phenomenal performance, Miss Phillips,” he says and gets onto the stage. Mia flushes like a red rose, and I am falling in love with her all over again.
“Walter Campebell,” he says to introduce himself. “May I issue a special request?”
“Thank you, Sir,” she says and stares at her feet. “Of course.”
“Something your heart speaks truly of,” he says. “I wish to see your emotional depth.”
I can see the horror flicker through her eyes all the way to my seat. I am not going to interfere. This is her moment.
“I am sure there is something,” he says.
“Yes,” she says hesitantly, a weak smile hushing over her face, as she turns towards the auditorium. Towards me. “Something I wrote myself.”
“A universe so vast we only know infinity to describe it, with stars illuminating the darkness of the void, even though they may already have burnt—
When I look at you, my eyes gaze into the endless roam of our galaxy, losing myself in the vastness of your light—
When I hear your voice, my soul travels into the depths of Gaia, becoming one with the force of life within you—
When I feel your touch, my body knows home in the calmness of your ocean, trusting the wisdom of your touch—
And all I know is: Even when your star burns it’s brightest for one last time, I can always look up at the sky to find you shining within the realm you belong.”
My heart stumbles, goosebumps prickling my skin as warmth rushes through me—something that has never happened before to this extent—as I walk down the rows and up the stage, a fluttery sensation surging through me.
We have never talked about what the difference in age means to her; I have always feared she might one day realise the extent of it, and now I have my answer. She already knows. She and her million thoughts have already figured it out—and found peace with it.
I have never called myself romantic, never understood the point of it, but now I do.
My palms cup her face. Her cheeks wet, her lips salty as I pull her into a kiss.
The world around us stops.
There is only her and me, and before I can do anything about it, the words slip from my mouth.
“I love you, my beautiful princess. I love you.”
Mia
“You know what?” I shout with spitting anger at the phone in my hand while I walk up and down the drawing room. “You can go to bloody hell! Take you useless husband, your ignorant existence and your judging arse and leave me the fuck alone!”
“Mia, love,” says my mother on the other end. “Don’t you see what that woman does to you? Never would you have dared speak to me in a tone like this—“
Oh, how I want to strangle my mother right now.
“What she does to me is show me my worth,” I say dangerously, trying to keep myself from shouting. I look at Victoria, who stands opposite me, signalling me to breathe. I do. And then, I say what I should’ve said a long time ago.
“You have done everything you could to keep me small, and now that I ain’t, you can’t stand it.
You can’t stand it because you profited from me being small, enduring all your moods, judgments, and expectations,” I say, and my voice gets threateningly silent.
“But I am done with you. The only person you ever loved was you. You never loved me for who I am, but for what I can gain for you, which was never enough, and I am done with it.”
With that, I hang up.
I stand there, panting, as I realise what just happened.
Victoria looks at me, smiling.
“I am so proud of you,” she says.
I bite my bottom lip with all my teeth as a grin appears on my face. I stood up to my mother.
I did it.
And everything feels so much lighter. As if a burden was lifted from my chest.
“Henry!” I shout so loud it might be audible in the entirety of Glenmere Manor. My voice echoes from the stone walls quite painfully into my own ears.
He enters after a soft knock on the door.
“You called?”
“What for the bloodiest of damning hell is this?” I ask him and hold up poor Porridge, who hangs lifeless in a suit made for cats, so he looks like he’s wearing a tailcoat. Pebbles lies on the floor like dead, with a train fixed to her collar.
Henry laughs.
“Well, they need to be properly dressed, too.”
“The hell they do! They’re bloody cats!”
“Yes,” he says. “But they’ll also be the flower cats, as you both made it abundantly clear there won’t be any kids at the wedding.”
“Yes!” I shout. “But this?!”
I put Porridge down; he usually runs away whenever I shout, but the suit has completely immobilised him, and he flaps onto the floor.
“I don’t want to get bloody married anyway!”
“Did you tell her that?” he asks dryly.
“A million times. She keeps telling me it’s just a formality so I can inherit all the shit tone of money I don’t want. I don’t want to even think about it…her not being—for heaven’s sake, I just hate her sometimes!”
“You could open a cat shelter here at Glenmere,” says Henry. “Reason enough?”
I consider him for a moment.
“Okay,” I say, and thereby end the conversation rather awkwardly.
“Anything else?” he asks.
“Yes,” I say and look at Pebbles and Porridge, who both now lie like dead on the floor. “Make these cats stand! It was your bloody idea!”
Henry looks at them, and we both burst into tearful laughter.
“I will,” he says and takes them both with him, one under each arm.
“Mia,” he says and turns when he stands in the door. “There’s a small package on the table. Do not open it until tonight.”
“What is it?” I ask.
“Wouldn’t be a surprise if I told you, would it? It will be…useful, hopefully.”
I roll my eyes.
My level of surprise on this day has already been reached. I hate this entire day.
“Does it have something to do with what I told you to do?” I ask.
“I believe so, but I added a…surprise,” he says cryptically and nods towards the stylist. “Get ready, we’re rolling in five. Bella is freaking out.”
“Tell her to get it together. I am the one marrying, not her.”
Henry laughs. I don’t know what exactly they do, but there is more between them. Bella was out with Henry and his boyfriend twice, and they have just bonded. I know, because I have been seeing a lot of Bella here at Glenmere lately.
“Everything alright?” asks the stylist to me, who has kept silent in a corner during my small freakout.
I glance into the mirror. My hair shimmers red, a new colour Victoria thought I should try out, and I love all about it. The stylist has put my hair up, fit to the tailored female suit I am wearing.
I am so used to Victoria’s world, our world, by now that I see myself in the mirror as me. Not a dressed-up version, but me.
“Yes,” I say, “Stressful day.”
“Always is,” the stylist says. “It’ll all be over before you can blink.”