by Louise Beech
MURDER
Had she meant her own? Already – as though the night was being swallowed by dirty water – it was hard to recall. Already, the details of the Ouija board were fading like dreams did over the day. Hadn’t Ryan, or maybe Jess – it was hard to recall now – said that when the game was over, those who had played often forgot what happened? Chloe wanted to forget it; and she wanted to remember every detail.
She closed the theatre door after her, climbed through the toilet window, stole along the dark passage, and emerged at the front of the church. She looked up at the turrets, at the inky sky beyond, at the stars scattered like distant Ouija board cards.
And slowly, in the weeks after, she forgot it all.
Like a jigsaw broken up, piece by piece, the memories died. Chloe forgot their words and the spirits and Morgan talking to them. She forgot Ryan and the upturned glass and how to push and where the knife had come from. Jess remained in her heart though, a feeling more than a physical memory, an ache, a pain that compelled her to continue cutting.
Like Esme Black, Chloe woke from her fall a different person.
Like Chevalier, she was forever haunted.
53
The Dean Wilson Theatre
September 2019
Chloe opens her eyes. Above, dust dancing playfully in a circle. Nearby, the cracked Dust poster and Ginger’s charm bracelet on the floor, the ghost looking her way. She sits up. She is on the dressing-room floor, but it’s empty now and the door is wide open, looking out onto a quiet, empty corridor.
What happened?
Where the hell did everyone go?
Chloe tries to remember the last thing she saw. There was blood, she is sure of it. Ginger. Ryan. But where are they now? Where’s the dagger? Did they take it? What time is it? She looks at the clock – 12.45. It’s been hours. She has never blacked out for this long. The show will be long finished, the theatre probably deserted now. How could they have just left her on the floor like this all that time? Maybe they tried to rouse her and couldn’t. But didn’t Cynthia wonder where she had gone and come looking for her?
Maybe she thought Chloe had gone home.
Chloe picks up the bracelet, grabs her bag from the floor and stands. She expects to feel dizzy and is surprised at how alert she is. Maybe she hallucinated the blood. Maybe she saw it the way she has seen so many other curious things recently. Ryan and Ginger are clearly not injured. Maybe they tried for a while to rouse her and then had to go. Maybe Ginger got on stage in time after all; maybe Ryan went back into the theatre to see the rest of the show.
Did they forget her, lying here? But wouldn’t Ginger have come back at the end? To freshen up? Maybe not. Maybe they all partied the night away, and went back home or to hotel rooms, and forgot about her. Though she’s relieved not to have hurt anyone after all, Chloe feels sad that they would do that. The rage has died now, and she feels calm. Sad but calm.
Is she maybe still unconscious and dreaming?
No. This feels too real. She is too … here.
Chloe takes her phone from her bag – still switched off for her shift earlier – and turns it on to see if anyone has messaged, asking where she is. It won’t turn on. Surely her battery can’t have died without her knowing. Maybe it broke in the fall. Damn. She should just leave. Go home. Charge it up. It’s late now.
She looks down at her uniform. Remembers her radio in the bin. Will she even have a job tomorrow? Probably not, after abandoning her shift on such an important night. Does she still want it? Without Chester? She’s not sure.
You have your script.
Yes, the script. Her show. And she knows it’s more than quite good and that Edwin Roberts has probably read it too now. She can go to him and tell him she knows what he and Ginger were plotting. Then he’ll have no choice but to do whatever she wishes, or she’ll expose his corruption.
Chloe steps out into the corridor. The silence is thick.
She sees it then, almost like a vision – a poster for She Haunts Me on the opposite wall. The title is silver; the background is the hundred blues of a sparkly ocean meeting a starry sky; in the foreground is a woman on the balcony of a ship, facing away from the camera. Is it her? Or is it Ginger? Chloe can’t tell. She blinks and the poster is gone.
She puts a hand on the door that takes her out back to her bike. And then she hears it. Singing. Is it Ginger? Still here after all?
It’s coming from the stage.
Chloe abandons the exit and goes to the backstage door, which is closed now, and she listens.
‘Forever, together, we are dust. Pieces of everything; pieces of all of us…’
She smiles. And opens the door. Morgan Miller is on stage. Dressed as Esme Black, in the original costume. It all comes back to Chloe. Her first trip to the theatre, seeing Dust with her mum, except now she’s watching from the wings. She half imagines that if she looks out into the audience, she’ll see herself and her mum sitting there, faces entranced. But the seats are empty. It’s just her and Morgan. She really must have fallen and hit her head hard to be seeing this. Morgan stops singing and turns around. She shines like she is lit from within.
Is she real though?
‘I always come here when they’ve gone,’ she says.
‘Really?’ asks Chloe, stepping closer. ‘Every night?’
‘Where else would I go?’
Chloe doesn’t know what to say. ‘How are you … here?’ she asks after a long pause. ‘I mean … I’ve heard you, before now, when I was working. I thought I saw you up there, once. But I’ve never seen you, not as real as this.’
‘I don’t think Dust will ever resume now,’ says Morgan, ignoring the question. She glances at the Chevalier house behind them. Without the special lighting, it is shadowy, like a spooky mansion in a gothic novel.
‘What?’ Chloe is confused. ‘Why? Didn’t it go well? The audience seemed to love it at the interval. I thought the first half was wonderful. And Ryan said it was incredible…’
‘It’s not about how well it went. It never should have happened at all…’
‘Why? What do you mean?’
‘Remember what I promised you?’
Chloe wants to ask more about Dust. Did Ginger make it back on stage for the second act? Was her performance not up to scratch after the argument in the dressing room?
‘I’ve been waiting here so I could tell you,’ says Morgan.
Chloe realises. ‘That’s why you’re here? Seriously? To tell me…’
Morgan nods. She wanders into the Chevalier house. ‘I think you’re ready now. You weren’t then. You were just a child. And besides, if you’d known then, it would have changed everything for you.’
‘Why?’ Chloe goes to the Chevalier doorway, watches Morgan run her hands over the drapes at the window. She realises Morgan is wearing the single pearl earring. Her other ear is unadorned.
‘You’ll know when you know.’
‘Who killed you, Morgan?’
‘Like you, we messed around with a Ouija board.’ She stops at the vase of flowers and pretends to smell one. ‘The three of us. In the weeks before I got the part. But she wanted the part too. She was just a friend of Clive’s; I didn’t know her that well. She was this actress he’d taught. He was a drama teacher, you see. She had more ambition than talent. I only met her a handful of times when we used that stupid Ouija board – and then again the night I died…’
‘Who was she?’
‘We both asked the spirits for the role in Dust.’ Morgan moves into the garden, gravel crunching beneath her satin-shoed feet. ‘We knew it was going to be huge.’
‘How?’ Chloe follows her. ‘It was new. It’d never been seen then.’
‘The spirits told us. They said we only had to ask – so we did. I asked first. Maybe that’s why I got it…’
‘No, you got it because you were an incredible actress. You’d got that big award for All About Eve the year before, hadn’t you? Why did you, of all peop
le, need a Ouija board to get anything?’
‘Even award-winning actresses feel insecure, Chloe.’ Morgan pauses. ‘She asked for the part too. Then the spirit said there was a price. He said none of us should ever be under the same roof again.’
Chloe shivers and wraps her arms around her body.
‘I knew I couldn’t do that – not see Clive. I loved him and he loved me. But our relationship started to become tense. We argued a lot. What we had done affected us. It felt like we were … cursed.’
‘Who was she, Morgan?’
Morgan looks up at the balcony where Esme falls to die at Chevalier’s feet. Then she looks at Chloe. ‘Come back to the dressing room with me, and I’ll show you what happened that night.’
‘What do you mean?’
‘You’ll see it, just as it happened.’
‘I’m… scared.’ Chloe is curious, but also wants to run, escape, go home, not see.
‘Don’t be. You’re safe. We’re only watching a long-gone event. I see it all the time. Now I’ll show you. You always wanted to know. Now you will.’
Morgan leaves the Chevalier garden and heads backstage. Chloe watches her leave.
She is alone on the stage. What if the next time she’s here it’s to be in her own show? Could she do it? Is she good enough? Chloe anticipates Morgan’s voice, telling her she is. But she is left with only her own. ‘Yes, you’re good enough,’ she whispers.
And then she follows Morgan.
54
The Dean Wilson Theatre
1999
It is Morgan Miller’s dressing room again. The door is shut, and the original star is back, not tarnished though, but polished gold with her name in the centre. Chloe approaches the door, heart wild in her chest. Reverently, she touches the star, expecting it to disappear beneath her fingertips; but it remains, original, perfect.
Should she knock? Just go in? Or leave now and never know?
Chloe turns the handle and opens the door. Laughter inside, sweet and high. A heavy scent of flowers. The original Dust poster on the wall, not yet faded. Everything pure white – the walls, the dressing table, the floor, the bouquets of roses. And there at the dressing table, incandescent in the glow of the mirror lights, Morgan Miller. It must be the interval because she is wearing her ghostly Esme Black costume and applying gold eye shadow. Tiny, delicate pearls dangle from each ear.
Can she see Chloe?
‘Morgan,’ she whispers.
She turns, as though maybe hearing her, then frowns and resumes her make-up. A ten-minute call filters through the speaker; it’s like déjà vu. Chloe’s anticipation is so intense she wonders how Morgan can’t feel it simmering in the atmosphere too. Chloe approaches the flowers. Everyone must know Morgan likes white roses. The most ostentatious display has a card in it that simply says, Love Eternal, Clive. Has he been here already? Delivered them by hand?
Morgan starts to sing. ‘Never forget me, nor ever let me go…’
Chloe smiles.
Then there is a knock on the door.
‘Come in,’ calls Morgan cheerily.
It opens and Beth enters. She’s younger, her hair longer and streaked with pink and blonde. In her arms are flowers – blood-red roses. She can’t know Morgan that well. Chloe realises she has her hand over her mouth as though to stop herself speaking. Does she want to scream, to warn Morgan what’s to come? Is Beth the killer after all? Did she lie all along?
Morgan is frowning at Beth. ‘It’s…?’
‘Beth,’ she says, a little haughtily.
‘Oh, yes.’ Morgan nods. ‘You auditioned too, didn’t you?’
‘Yes.’ Beth pauses as though the words take effort. ‘You were amazing.’
‘Thank you.’
Beth thrusts the flowers out at her. Morgan takes them with a gracious smile. Chloe can’t help but laugh when she dumps them on the dressing table near a Coke can and some make-up-soiled tissues.
‘Wow – is that the award you got?’ coos Beth.
That’s when Chloe first notices the bronze statue near the mirror. Laurence Olivier as Henry V is immortalised on its side. Morgan received it for her supporting role as Karen Richards in All About Eve. Chloe freezes as Beth picks it up; she knows it was used to murder Morgan.
‘I guess no one else had a chance of beating you when you have this,’ says Beth, as though forgetting Morgan is there. Perhaps remembering, she looks up and adds, ‘Sorry, did I sound bitter? I’m not.’
‘I have to get ready.’ Morgan’s tone makes it clear their chat is over.
But Beth doesn’t put the award down. Chloe moves a little closer and remembers this is just a scene, just some curious flash from the past she is witnessing, and there’s no point in trying to intervene if anything happens.
‘Has it been worth it?’ asks Beth.
‘What do you mean?’ Morgan turns around in her seat.
No, Morgan, don’t speak to her like that, thinks Chloe. Just let her leave…
‘It hasn’t made you popular. Lots of actresses hate you.’
‘I don’t let that bother me.’
Beth takes a step closer. ‘Not sure I believe you.’
Morgan holds out her hand. ‘My award?’
Beth looks at it and then Morgan. She raises it. Chloe inhales. Then, finally, she hands it over. Chloe breathes a sigh of relief. On her way out, Beth pauses by the door, having seen something on the floor. It’s a tiny silver goblet, perhaps from a costume. She picks it up and slips away. Morgan shakes her head at herself in the mirror.
A voice filters through the speaker. ‘Ladies and gentlemen of Dust, this is your five-minute call.’
Then there’s another knock on the door.
Chloe holds her breath.
‘What now?’ calls Morgan, clearly not happy at being disturbed again.
The door opens.
‘Oh, for fuck’s sake,’ she says. ‘I told you to stay away.’ She stands. ‘I want you to leave, right now. Clive told you, we don’t want to see you anymore.’
Chloe watches the visitor enter the room. She knows her; she saw her earlier. She knows she will kill Morgan. And she knows why Morgan never told them back then, on the Ouija board. Chloe wants to escape, run, go home, and not witness the murder of Morgan Miller.
55
The Dean Wilson Theatre
1999
Lynda Swanson closes the door after her. She is exactly how Chloe remembers her from back then, when she and Jess were just ten. She always dressed as though she was about to go on stage. Whether she was driving her and Jess to youth-theatre rehearsals or doing laundry, her hair was always coiffed, her lips always red. And she was always telling Jess to work harder, be the prettiest, the best; Lynda was the personification of the pushy mum.
Tonight, Lynda is wearing a black dress that hugs her curves and killer heels that strike with each step she takes towards Morgan. ‘I don’t care what Clive said,’ she says.
‘How the fuck did you manage to get backstage?’
‘It wasn’t difficult. This woman with pink-and-blonde hair held the door for me. Must have thought I was one of the cast.’ Lynda pauses. ‘I should have been, shouldn’t I? We both know the part belonged to me. You cursed me.’
‘What are you talking about?’ Morgan speaks angrily, but there’s fear in her eyes.
Chloe understands it.
The Ouija board. The effect of using one. The nightmares. The darkness.
‘You know exactly what I’m talking about,’ says Lynda.
She always was daunting. Jess cowered under her glare. Chloe remembers Ginger saying in the theatre bar that her parents were getting divorced; she remembers all the stories about it in the papers. She thinks that Lynda’s husband – what was his name? – must have realised long ago that she was the killer. When they split up, he must have decided to tell the police. Maybe he didn’t have the courage to do it in person, so he sent the letter. Sent a clue he knew they might eventually link to her.
The pearl earring.
Chloe looks at the earrings now, shivering like two wilting snowdrops as Morgan moves.
She wants to stop this before it happens.
But she can only watch.
‘You made sure I was ill the day of the auditions, didn’t you?’ says Lynda, standing right behind Morgan so they are both reflected in the mirror, one seated, one towering.
‘How the hell could I have done that?’
‘I have no idea, but I was as sick as a pig that day, and I never am. I couldn’t even get out of bed.’
Morgan stands up, but in her satin, Esme Black slippers, she’s tiny next to majestic Lynda. Chloe moves closer, cries, ‘Please, stop now,’ but they can’t hear her.
‘Why is everyone so bitter about me and this part?’ demands Morgan. ‘Why can’t you just be happy for me? It ages you, you know. Being bitter.’ She touches Lynda’s powdered cheek. ‘You should watch yourself. Everyone knows you lied when you said you were thirty-two on your CV.’
‘Fuck you.’ Lynda swipes her hand away.
‘No, fuck you.’
‘Is Clive here?’
Morgan frowns. ‘Of course. He came to wish me luck earlier. He’s been to every performance so far, and he wasn’t going to miss press night.’
