Chapter Sixty-Six
This time, when Ava stood in the darkness behind the curtain, she wouldn’t leave a part of herself behind.
The part that’d been scared, or nervous.
The part that was fearful, or whispered anxious thoughts in her ear.
This time, she carried it with her. For it was a part of her – it was a part of who she was, of who she had become – and that thought no longer made her stomach prickle, nor her palms clammy.
In fact, she found she wanted the curtains to draw back.
Not because it would take her out of the darkness that swaddled her – because it would mark the start of something. A new beginning. A new chance.
Not to show the world who she truly was. Not because she wanted the audience to love her. But because she wanted to show herself. Wanted to prove it to herself – and no one else.
And for once her heart didn’t thrum in the darkness. Her breath didn’t rattle in her chest. And when the lights drew up, and the audience hushed – Ava knew she could do it.
She stepped forwards.
‘There was a time when I thought memories were a gift,’ she began – her voice low.
Steady. ‘That being able to give someone back their memories was the greatest thing I could do. But there has also been a time when I thought they were a curse. They taunt us – when the past feels sweeter than our present. When all we want to do is curl into another place – escape into our memories, that place where it feels warm, and safe.’
She looked out over the crowd. A sea of dark faces.
‘But I think memories are both,’ she said.
‘They are a gift and a curse. But what’s important is that they make us who we are.
Each of you, sitting there, owes who you are to the sum of your memories.
What your mind tells you is safe. What your mind tells you is good – all of that comes from what you remember.
Falling and scraping your elbow as a child.
Sitting upon your mother’s knee, rocking in front of the fire.
The feeling of grass beneath your toes. Warm sun upon your face.
The good and the bad – together. That’s what makes us human. ’
Bertie swung the limelight around so that it dazzled the audience, rather than her. So that she appeared as nothing more than a shadow upon the stage.
‘And it’s human to have regrets,’ she said.
‘Just as it’s human to wish to forget them.
But each time we fall – each time we make a mistake – we learn something.
About ourselves, perhaps – or about the world – and it helps us.
It helps us become the people that we want to be.
The people that we are. And that’s why memories are special.
Why they are important – because without them, who are we?
‘When my mother was on this stage, she called herself the Memory Binder,’ said Ava.
‘But that’s not who I am. I’m not my mother – and I don’t wish to be.
So tonight I will show you something different.
I will show you who I am, but most importantly, I’ll show you who you are.
I’ll help you rediscover the stories that shaped you – the ones you thought you’d lost.’
Unbidden, she saw Damien. Light dappling his face. The sweet ache as he’d pressed his lips against hers in that small room at the apothecary.
Damien.
He was running – so fast it felt as though his heart would burst through his ribcage – through the wide, carriage-littered streets and north, towards the theatre.
He would make it.
He had to make it.
The limelight flared again, swinging back to the stage, dazzling Ava.
She peered into the crowd, trying to pick out a single familiar face – but it was impossible. Each time she blinked she saw only the dark circles from glancing too long at the lamplight – the audience before her one large, bristling shadow.
‘What you will see tonight, what I can offer, is a story from your past. This is not magic – but nor is it strictly science. Your mind will do most of the work, with just a few suggestions from me, to help you move that memory from a place where it might become lost, to a place it will always be found. A page in a book you can re-read time and again.’
Usually that raised a reaction, but today only silence bored back at her, but for once – Ava didn’t care. It didn’t feel like it had before. It didn’t feel like she was on the edge, waiting to fall.
‘Now all I need is a volunteer. Who wants to walk away from tonight with a memory they’ll keep forever?’
‘I should like to volunteer,’ a voice called, cracking a little with the effort of speaking over a sea of hatted heads. ‘I should like to remember.’
Ava nodded, beckoning to the figure. ‘Come up here, sir. Into the light. So that I may see you.’
There was a rustling, and she watched as a row stood, watched as a shadow eased himself from it and walked down the aisle towards her. And it wasn’t until he had reached the stage steps that she realized who it was.
She felt her breath catch in her throat as he climbed towards her – his blond-brown hair flattened beneath his cap, his white shirt pressed and ironed beneath a dinner jacket she had not seen since that night of Mrs Foster’s dinner, the night Jem had proposed.
‘Pa,’ she said, her voice low enough that only he could hear it. ‘I didn’t know you would be here.’
‘I wouldn’t have missed it, my dear.’
He gave her a tremulous smile in return, taking a seat upon the lone chair, and turning to face the waiting crowd.
‘Tell me.’ She raised her voice once more, so that it rang like a struck bell across the theatre. ‘What is it you wish to remember?’
‘My wife,’ he said, and she saw how he had tightened his hands into fists, saw the white streaked across his knuckles. ‘Or rather, my late wife.’
A ripple through the crowd.
‘When she—’ Her father blinked, swallowing hard.
‘When she passed away, she had been ill for a long time. A long time. And for a long time after that, when I thought of her that was all I could see. The pain she had felt. How tired she had become. And it felt like – those memories felt like – like I was keeping her there. In pain. Freezing her in that moment, and—’
Ava felt her throat grow tight.
‘And so I tried to forget her. I tried to push it from my mind. But you see – it pushed everything away. The day we met. The day we married. Painting the sitting room in our house the most awful shade of blue. The birth of our children. And I think …’ He wasn’t looking at the crowd now, but at Ava.
Directly at Ava. ‘I think I pushed part of myself away, with it. The man I’d been with her.
The person I was. And I’m sorry for that. ’
‘You don’t need to be sorry,’ she whispered. ‘You were grieving.’
‘As were you,’ said her father. ‘As was your brother. But I put my own grief before all of that. I let myself sink so deeply into that hole that I had no idea how to get out of it again. But you knew. You and your brother. And Mrs Moss, too – with all her damned nagging. You pulled me back out of it. And I’m grateful for that, Ava.
And I think … I think I am ready now. I am ready to remember her the way she was.
When we were happy together. I think … I think I can do that now. ’
Ava smiled, feeling the warmth drip from her cheeks to her collarbones as she rested a hand upon her father’s shoulder, and squeezed. ‘Then close your eyes,’ she said. ‘And let us begin.’