I Am Dust

by Louise Beech

  ‘What will I know? About your killer?’

  Silence.

  ‘Tell me.’

  EVERYTHING

  ‘Everything about what?’

  There was no response. Chloe knew Morgan had gone, the way you know when someone sharing your bed has succumbed to sleep. She felt as wretched as she had when Jess walked away. She wanted to die.

  35

  Chloe’s Bedroom

  2005

  When Chloe got home, she found her mum watching a documentary about the keto diet while her dad slept in the other chair. Wordlessly, she sat on the sofa next to her and snuggled in for a hug, the way she had when she was small. In this safe place, she could forget witches and spirits and daggers and blood.

  ‘I like someone who doesn’t like me.’ The words choked Chloe.

  ‘Ah, unrequited love,’ sighed her mum, stroking Chloe’s hair. ‘Such sweet pain.’

  ‘It’s a…’

  ‘Girl?’ asked her mum.

  ‘Yes.’ Chloe was surprised, and then relieved. ‘How did you know? I never said…’

  ‘My darling girl, how did I know? Because you’re mine. Because I gave birth to you and I love you and I know you like no one else. Of course I knew. Just like I know who she is.’

  ‘Do you?’ Chloe sat up.

  Her mum nodded and touched her cheek. ‘I think you should try and remain friends, sweetheart.’

  Chloe remembered the elegant theatre-mask charm she had seen in the nearby jewellery shop yesterday. She decided now, despite her mum’s advice, to save up the thirty pounds to buy it for Jess.

  ‘I think she likes the boys,’ said her mum.

  ‘Ryan,’ spat Chloe, the word, venomous.

  Her mum looked surprised at the outburst.

  ‘Sorry.’ Chloe felt ashamed of her rage.

  ‘No need. It’s hard to see someone you love with someone else – especially a … well, perhaps we could say unsuitable someone else.’

  ‘It hurts,’ she admitted.

  In her room, Chloe knew – she could see it as though it was acted on a stage in front of her – that Jess had gone to Ryan’s house. She could see them kissing on his bed beneath a James Dean poster. Rage simmered in Chloe’s gut like boiling lava. Jealousy erupted from her throat in a stream of snarls. She had never felt like this.

  It was terrifying.

  ‘Never lash out in anger,’ Grandma Rosa once said. ‘Only in love.’

  She had to control it. Temper it. Release it safely.

  Cut, bleed, release…

  Who said that?

  No one. The words had dropped into her head. The words Morgan had said earlier.

  Cut, bleed, release…

  Chloe went to her special wooden box, one Grandam Rosa had left her, where she kept cherished items. She took out the dagger. It was an ordinary carving knife, belonging to Ryan’s mum, but she would call it the dagger for as long as she, Jess and Ryan were together. She held it up to the light. She had stolen it the other night when she went back into the theatre for her phone; when she had walked along the aisle to the stage; when she felt breath on her neck. The sun had been dying but she could see in the dark. She found her phone.

  And then she had heard it.

  Chloe.

  ‘Who said that?’ she had whispered.

  You know what you really came for.

  Did she? Yes, she did.

  You want it. You like it. Have it. Take away your pain.

  ‘How?’

  You’ll see. It worked for me…

  Chloe had found the key for the storage cupboard and taken the knife. It was as heavy as she had imagined. She had put a finger to the blade. Gasped when it nicked her skin. She was about to suck the blood away but enjoyed the feel of it gliding hot along her finger. Liked how her emotional hurt over Jess ebbed away with the flow. How the after-pain made her throb with relief, and something else. Something she had never felt before.

  Power.

  Yes, Chloe. Cut, bleed, release.

  The dagger belonged to her now. Ryan – as Macbeth – would have to kill King Duncan in his sleep with another one. She wanted to feel like she had when she accidentally nicked her finger; that buzz of power; the sharp, exquisite pain followed by a rush of release; a release that let her pain over Jess ebb away.

  Chloe put the blade to her thigh.

  Cut, bleed, release…

  She cut her flesh. Gasped. Watched the blood trickle. Felt the jealousy and rage flow with it, away, away, away.

  Cut, bleed, release…

  36

  The Dean Wilson Theatre

  July 2019

  In the final ten minutes of tonight’s show Chloe decides that if Elvis were still alive, he’d sue the Dean Wilson Theatre for defamation of character. It’s Saturday night, and the show is a one-off performance by a tribute act, Pelvis Presley, who in the weeks leading up to the show Chloe had felt sure was a comedian. Apparently huge in Japan, he flew onto the stage via hidden wires, wearing a cheap imitation of the iconic white, sequined suit, and burst into a drunk-sounding version of ‘Suspicious Minds’.

  Now he’s crooning ‘Can’t Help Falling in Love’ to a mortified audience member sitting in the front row. Beth has been dancing in her position by the door, hair now as violet as a field of lavender. Chloe catches Paige’s eye on the other side of auditorium, and they smile. Nights like this – if nothing else – break the tedium of long-run shows, and it’s definitely eased the tense, manic atmosphere in the theatre right now.

  Chloe has been off work for a week with a nasty stomach bug that had her throwing up for three days. She can’t decide if her nausea now is the remnants of it, or if it’s because Pelvis Presley just slut-dropped and then staggered backwards against the stage. The radio crackles in her ear. She tenses.

  ‘Five minutes until lights down,’ says the techie.

  Thank God. Though tonight’s show sold out in hours, numerous patrons asked for a refund in the interval, and she dreads the complaints at the end. Cynthia will have plenty of feedback for the show report. As the lights in the auditorium come up and the smell of sweat drifts from the stage, Chloe opens the doors and hands out the Dust flyers, such a pointless promotion when it has sold out.

  Chester is in the box office when they finish and is quieter than usual.

  ‘You alright, Ches?’ Chloe asks him.

  He shrugs. He’s not like himself at all. Cynthia is in her office, face unreadable. She ignores the ushers and types furiously on her computer. She was meant to have started Chloe’s duty-manager training two weeks ago, but it still hasn’t happened. She apologised, said she was under a lot of pressure at the moment with the Dust stuff, and asked Chloe to give her a few weeks.

  Beth is taking out her radio earpiece and rolling up the wire. Chloe hasn’t stopped thinking about her words: Never say anything to anyone, but I have something from the original dressing room. Beth seemed so agitated when she questioned her about it. She needs to talk to her again, alone.

  ‘Bye,’ calls Beth, leaving despite the rubbish not having been taken out yet.

  ‘Come with me and take this out, Ches.’ Chloe shoves one of the bags at him.

  With a sigh, he takes it and follows her into the foyer. When they are away from the box office, she asks him what’s wrong.

  ‘It’s over for me,’ he says as Chloe keys in the backstage code.

  ‘Over? What is?’

  ‘This. Here. Being an usher.’

  ‘What the hell have I missed?’ she asks. ‘I was only off a week.’

  ‘You don’t wanna know.’

  ‘I do.’

  Pelvis Presley is in the dressing room on the left, talking on the phone to someone about an order of gold thongs. Chloe covers her mouth to suppress a giggle, and they hurry out the back to the wheelie bins. The summer evening is clammy, the sky not yet fully dark, thin ribbons of orange flickering behind the roofs. She suddenly recalls a similar sky above the church w
here the youth theatre was held. Sees a black bird watching her.

  ‘Cynthia gave me four weeks’ notice.’

  Chester drops the rubbish bag into a wheelie bin; Chloe jumps from her reverie.

  ‘Shit. No? You’re sacked?’ She can’t believe it; he can’t go. Not Chester. What will she do without him? ‘Why?’

  ‘OK, so I might have told one of the film crew – that one who looks like a young Marlon Brando – that Cynthia fancied herself on the stage, just like most of us who work here. I mean, it’s true, isn’t it?’

  ‘Is it?’ asks Chloe.

  ‘Yeah, she told me once. She said she always wanted to do it but never quite got her act together. She was here, of course, when Dust was first on, though she was just an usher then, like me. She covered my shift you know, that night. When I had flu and missed the show where Morgan was killed. I missed the whole damned four-night run.’ Chester leans back against one of the wheelie bins, making the bottles clank inside. ‘Anyway, I told the film guy this…’

  ‘Why is that a problem?’ asks Chloe.

  ‘I might have suggested that Cynthia poisoned me, so I was ill, and she got to work all the Dust shifts.’

  ‘Chester!’ Chloe is genuinely shocked.

  ‘I know, I know. He wanted a story and I gave him one. The thing is … well, he may have then suggested that she had good reason to get rid of me.’

  ‘What do you mean good reason?’

  Chester fiddles with his cuff. ‘That she might have needed to be there … so she could kill Morgan.’

  ‘Oh, Chester, that’s too much, even for you.’ Chloe shoves him. ‘No wonder Cynthia gave you notice. How did she find out? What happened?’

  He holds her gaze for a moment. ‘The bloody film guy – Mr I’m an Even Hunkier Marlon Brando – told her what I’d said and asked for an exclusive interview. Said she might have been one of the last people to see Morgan alive. Asked if she’d ever been interviewed by the police.’

  ‘Shit.’ Chloe puts her face in her hands.

  Since Chester showed her that breaking Morgan Miller murder story about a letter and new evidence a couple of weeks ago, it’s featured in every single headline and hashtag. The Dean Wilson Theatre has received thousands of calls from journalists desperate for an exclusive; the film crew has interviewed every Dust cast member about their thoughts on what it might be, and who might have done it.

  ‘That’s irony for you,’ sighs Chester.

  ‘What is?’

  ‘Didn’t work Dust back then and won’t be this time either. And it’s far too late to get a ticket now.’

  ‘That’s not irony,’ says Chloe, unable to stop laughing. ‘That’s you being a total shit-stirrer!’ When she stops laughing, she pauses. ‘You didn’t really think that, did you?’

  ‘Think what?’

  ‘That Cynthia poisoned you so she could work instead?’

  Chester shrugs. ‘Don’t think so. Never thought of it until Marlon Brando asked me.’ He pauses. ‘What if she auditioned like Beth did?’

  ‘What? Cynthia? For Dust?’

  ‘Yes. What if she was pissed off at not getting it?’

  ‘Nah, she’d have said.’

  ‘Would she?’

  ‘Ask her.’

  ‘Erm, like she’s gonna talk to me. You ask her.’

  ‘I’d like to keep my job for now, Ches, thank you.’

  They pause. Look across at the almost-inky sky.

  ‘I can’t believe you’re going,’ says Chloe. ‘I’ll miss you so much. You’ve been here since the start. You’re a part of the building. Can’t you take it higher? To Edwin Roberts? You’ve been here longer than he has.’

  ‘What? Give him a blow job in the staff toilets and hope he argues my corner? Don’t think I’m his type.’

  ‘You could say sorry,’ suggests Chloe. ‘To Cynthia.’

  ‘Think that ship has sailed, darling. We should go back. Cynthia will be looking for us and you can’t afford to get in trouble too.’

  They head back inside. As they pass the stairs leading from the dressing rooms up to the rehearsal room, Chester pauses.

  ‘Do you reckon they’re all still rehearsing up there?’ He grins at Chloe.

  ‘You’re already in trouble,’ she berates him.

  ‘So I’ve got nowt to lose, have I? Let’s get our stuff, then sneak up and watch them.’

  The idea is tempting. Chloe has only seen Ginger twice since they had coffee in the theatre bar, and those were brief moments between Chloe’s shifts and Ginger’s rehearsals. Ginger seemed distracted, and they only got to talk for a few minutes before she was called away each time. The second time, Chloe managed to tell her what she had read about Daniel Locke, Harry Bond and Amelia Bennett being dead – to Ginger’s obvious horror – but as she began to describe how she thought it was curious that there had been three of them – Ryan, Jess and herself – years ago, just as there had been three of the dead teens, Edwin Roberts came and swept Ginger away for ‘urgent discussions’.

  Each night, after seeing Ginger, Chloe’s dreams have been vivid and violent. Before falling asleep she fantasises about kissing her again. She slides a hand between her legs as she sees them in a passionate clinch, perhaps in Ginger’s dressing room, perhaps against a backstage wall, but always mouths locked, hands hungrily exploring skin, bodies pressed close. Dark nightmares follow Chloe’s sexual release; swirling images of black birds and smoking cauldrons and bloody knives have her even sweatier. She wakes with such a sense of dread that she tries to stay awake to avoid more dreams. In the blackness one night, she decided that she should speak properly to Ginger soon; it was time for them to recall everything.

  ‘Come on, Chlo,’ says Chester, making her jump.

  They fetch their belongings from the box office, where Cynthia ignores Chester as they call goodbye, and instead of leaving, they go up the stairs to the rehearsal room. Sweet music meets them halfway up the steps. Ginger’s voice eddies around them, the familiar words like a soft blanket on a cold night.

  Then it stops, abruptly.

  Chester opens the door a crack and they peer through, into the rehearsal room. The actors are now doing what’s called a speed run of the main scenes. This is when they churn through at lightning pace – it isn’t to rehearse as much as to reaffirm the muscle-memory of learned lines. Actors often employ unusual accents for their lines when doing this, switching between them to mix things up, and physically moving around the space at a fast tempo too.

  Last week Chloe watched them doing a circle exercise, where the cast stand in a ring and someone jumps into the middle and says a random line from the show, cuing another actor. She loved how graceful Ginger was when she swept into the centre, pausing as though knowing all eyes were drinking her in, and then speaking two lines from the scene where Esme Black leaps from the balcony to her death.

  ‘If I go, I go now so I fall right at his feet. If I don’t, I stay here, forever in the shadows, never in the light. Look up, my darling Chevalier, see me here, see my love, see what I’ll do for you.’

  Now Ginger is racing between the other actors, chanting her lines as though to cast a spell, repeating them over and over: ‘Never forget me, nor ever let me go. Never forget me, nor ever let me go. Never forget me, nor ever let me go.’

  Chloe’s heart contracts.

  Never forget me, nor ever let me go.

  ‘John Marrs thinks he’s some kind of God,’ whispers Chester, despite not having taken his eyes off him. ‘He’s not even all that.’

  Two members of the film crew are in there too, trying desperately to follow the two main stars as they weave wildly about the floor. Chloe notices that each time Ginger sweeps past Marrs, she touches him in some way; his arm, his back, his neck. Is it just part of how they rehearse? Is she trying to recreate the chemistry they must share on stage? Or is it more? Chloe suddenly feels like she did when Ryan was the third person. Remembers that hot jealousy and rage.

  W
asn’t that when she started cutting?

  It comes to her vividly.

  Yes. Yes, it was.

  ‘They’re finishing,’ hisses Chester, pulling them back from the door before Chloe can argue. They scuttle back down the stairs like two teens caught making out in a staff room.

  As they pass Ginger’s dressing room, Chloe pauses. ‘I’m going to wait and see Ginger.’

  ‘I bet you are. I might go and see if that slag is in Propaganda. Laters, Chloe.’

  When he has gone, she waits by the gold star with Ginger Swanson in the centre of it. After a while, the door to the stairs opens and Ginger emerges. Sweaty hair is stuck to her face, but her cheeks are aglow as though she’s just left a lover’s bed.

  ‘Hi,’ she says, breathless, utterly beautiful.

  ‘Hi,’ says Chloe, feeling sixteen again.

  ‘Were you waiting for me?’

  ‘Yes.’

  ‘I just need to freshen up and we can get a drink if you want? Or do you want to come inside and wait?’ Ginger opens her dressing room door.

  The last time they were in there together, the lights turned red.

  The last time they were in there together, the door locked shut.

  The last time they were in there together, they kissed.

  Chloe goes inside.

  37

  The Dean Wilson Theatre