by Sam Stone
‘It’s a nice little house ...’ I explained. ‘Senora Rossi is the housekeeper. She’s a widow with two small boys of her own, who I hope will be good companions to you as you recover ...’
My son drifted to sleep with the lull of the carriage and my cheerful promises for his future. I watched him breath softly, propped up against the soft cushions we’d bought in the town market. For the first time in over a week I felt some relief. Everything would be all right. The plague had not killed him. He would get better now; it was just a matter of time. And then, I could redeem myself.
The journey was arduous but uneventful and after a hard day’s fast travel we reached Padua where my new housekeeper waited with broth and a blazing fire.
But Gabi should never have been moved. On arriving at the villa, his fever had returned. So weakened had he been by the plague that my poor child caught a chill. He slipped into a fevered sleep.
Three days after arriving at his new home, Gabi died.
Chapter 26
Pulling the headphones away from my ears, the sound of Puccini drifts outwards and upwards like the echo of past music that haunts my dreams. Standing, I switch the stereo off and look around at the chaos. At my feet two cardboard boxes rest half packed with crockery from the kitchen. A stack of old newspapers are piled on the floor, and across the room, almost against the glass wall that faces Deansgate is a tea chest. Inside are the carefully wrapped ornamental contents from the apartment: Austin figurines mostly, made exclusively for me over the years - lithe nymphs with long flowing hair - and the lockets.
The apartment is in complete silence. I am no longer used to it. I like to listen to the familiar rustle of Lilly moving around. I enjoy hearing her humming under her breath or singing softly as she showers. She has a naturally good singing voice. But now she doesn’t sing, doesn’t move and not even the lap of water echoes behind the closed bathroom door.
The quiet deafens me with the roar of doubt, filling my head with its incessant mewing. Even my memories feel more real than this moment, for I am distanced, in shock. My brain feels as muffled and as chilled as my heart. I shake my head to clear it of the anxiety of remembrance but I can’t clear away all the hurt and pain of the past.
And now there is Lilly to consider. An irrational nagging in the back of my head makes my eyes ache ... She’s been in there over an hour. I am ... afraid.
My feet feel heavy as I drag myself through the apartment, past the kitchen out into the hallway, to her room. At the open doorway I look at her possessions old and new, folded and packed or half wrapped. A new purple suitcase lies open, filled with the delicate underwear I bought her; the bras, corsets and French knickers, hold-up stockings; all of the things I have yet to see her in. Some still have the price tags attached; it is almost as if she feels that by removing them she will be accepting me, as well as my gifts.
Since our return from her parents the bathroom door has remained closed and locked to me. I step over the threshold into her domain, stealthy by nature I make no sound. I see that the mess she’d made earlier has been tidied and stuffed into the black bin liner she was using to dispose of rubbish. The gypsy skirt and off-the-shoulder top, a lovely shade of burgundy with pretty embroidered flowers of gold around the hem of the skirt - which I know will look lovely against her pale skin - are now on hangers, not crumpled and tossed onto the bed; along with the pale green satin dress. All the things I’d bought her. Her trouser suits, one lilac, one navy with pinstripes, are folded and lay on top of the trunk on the other side of the bed; the sheer peach nightgown and robe spread neatly over the dressing table stool as though waiting to be used.
But it is too quiet. My eyes dart around the room. Has she left me? Disappeared? Gone from me forever? Oh God! Her make-up bag is on the dresser, unzipped and tipped over on its side with compact, mascara and lipstick half spilling out. Blind panic paralyses my limbs. I can’t lose her. Not now.
I shuffle forward like an inpatient on lithium, stopping a few feet from the bathroom door. I press my ear against the white painted wood.
‘Er ... are you okay?’
She is lying in the bath and I hear the sudden sloshing of water over her body as if I have disturbed her; maybe she has been sleeping or lying in some distressed daze?
‘Yes ... Why?’ Her voice sounds distant.
‘You’ve been in there for ages.’
‘I just needed to chill.’
We monsters are a rare breed. Who would have thought that she would need time and space, need to relax, despite her physical strength? As vampires, and yes, I suppose it is time to admit that is what we are, all our senses are heightened; even our feelings and emotions are extreme and sometimes ... sometimes we overload. Sometimes we need to switch off. Just like mortals. How else could we ever survive eternity?
Her movements are normal now. Hot steam tingles my nostrils as she turns on the tap, re-warms the water. The tangy smell of lavender soap wafts through the thin joints of the door. I take a breath, calmer. Dread is sucked away like the vapours through the vent. Her noise is like a melody I’d forgotten. It feels like ... home.
‘Who was this Michael?’ I ask, forcing the teasing tone back into my voice even though I am still afraid to press her.
‘No-one.’
‘Your father didn’t think so ...’
She is silent for a moment, I am almost sure I can hear her thinking even though her mind has become acutely closed to me of late.
‘Michael was “a good catch”. The truth is ... I wasn’t interested in fishing. You’re not ... jealous, are you?’
‘No.’ Of course. ‘Do you want to talk about it?’
‘No point.’
The water sucks at her body as she stands. I want to rush in and ravish her, wipe away all traces of any other possible lover.
But I content myself with listening to the gentle brush of the towel against her flesh as she wraps it around her body. I can almost see it smoothing across her flat stomach, removing the beads of moisture from her now paler skin. I imagine the dance of muscles beneath her slender arms, the stroke of fabric on her breasts, between her thighs.
My hand is on the door handle before I realise. Pulling back, I force myself to breathe evenly. Wanting her has become a dull ache that the slightest thoughts can arouse; my body responds too readily. Even though I know that right now, my lust, my needs are the last thing she should have to deal with. I take away my hand from the door handle just in time. She opens the door wrapped in a white towelling bath robe.
‘I just want to forget it, put it all behind me and move on.’ She smiles but her eyes are glassy and pinched.
‘Perhaps I can help you forget?’ I just can’t help it; I have to ruin things.
I run my gaze over the gape of the rope which reveals her full cleavage.
‘We have to leave tomorrow,’ she reminds me.
Interesting. She hasn’t said ‘no’.
‘So?’
‘Don’t we still have some packing to do?’
I love the way she says ‘we’. Does this mean she really is part of my life?
‘Spoil sport.’
She laughs, tugging her robe closed in a subconscious display of her awareness of my interest.
‘Are you really okay?’ I follow her into her room, sit on the bed that I am not allowed to share as she takes a seat at the dressing table, unwrapping her wet hair. ‘I mean, you seem too ... together.’
I don’t understand this abrupt change of mood. The histrionics are so rapidly forgotten. It seems too simple and I feel like a sidekick waiting for the punch line.
‘What choice is there? I have to ... accept my new life.’
‘I think that’s a sensible attitude.’ But strange; didn’t I hold onto my humanity with anxious claws for as long as possible?
She unravels the towel from her wet hair and begins to comb it vigorously.
‘Why the sudden change?’ I just can’t leave it alone.
‘Maybe I’m just tired of fighting ...’ She shrugs.
She looks at me long and hard through the mirror until I get the hint; she wants to dress. I stand, begin to leave the room.
‘Gabriele ...’
‘Yes?’ I turn to her.
‘It will stop hurting eventually, won’t it?’
She’s looking down at the jewellery box and I wonder how I didn’t notice she had taken it from her parents’ house. By its side is the mug - the mug she’d bought her mother; Some days are a complete waste of make-up ...
‘Yes,’ I promise. ‘It will.’
She stares a moment longer before she raises the hairdryer and begins to dry her hair. I walk to the door and then stop.
‘Let’s go out tonight. Forget the packing. We’ll take personal things only.’
Her eyes grow round as she switches the hairdryer off.
‘Leave everything? Not even your ... lockets?’
‘Especially not the lockets; I don’t even want them put into storage. I ... I’ve destroyed the ... hair. They are all empty now.’
Her silence burns the air like smoke left over from a fire.
‘Okay. Give me time to get ready.’
But there are still some things that I need to take and while Lilly dresses I unlock the one cabinet she has not been permitted to open. Inside lies a pile of dusty frames containing preserved parchment. The old documents are yellowed, stretched over the canvases with specialist precision, by the best professional care I could find more than ten years ago. I had always tried to protect them but the rot that had moulded two of the precious sheets together had determined that it was time to get some help from modern science. These were the remaining and original musical scores of some of my uncle Giulio’s songs, all written in his own hand.
My uncle found me in the darkened bedroom where Gabi had spent his last hours. I sat among my son’s strewn clothes and possessions, breathing in his odour; it was all I had left, all I could cling to. Giulio arrived in Padua two days after Gabi died. The funeral had already taken place and I was distraught. As he stood in the doorway, looking thin in his hose and doublet of black and gold, I hated him.
‘My only son is dead ... and I barely knew him.’
‘My dear nephew ... tell me what I can do for you ... Let me help you ...’
‘You should have told me about Ysabelle ...’ In some obscure part of my brain I imagined that things would have been different if I had known about the children before my transformation.
‘Gabriele ... I did what I thought best ... You must believe me when I say ...’
My uncle’s breath caught in his throat. In my anguish, my fangs had extended and my fingers, grasping the arms of the chair, looked liked hooked claws. Giulio stiffened; he was paralysed with fear.
‘What h-h-h-has be-c-c-come of you?’ he asked finally.
‘I am a parasite, uncle. I am a fiend. I have the strength of countless men, even the ability to read minds. And yet, I couldn’t save my son ...’
My uncle stepped back. My heart tightened in my chest as pain and sorrow echoed through me from his horrified expression. I must have been a loathsome and terrible sight.
‘How?’
‘It doesn’t matter ...’
My uncle’s fear appalled me. I bowed my head, forced my wayward canines back into my gums with painful determination. When I looked normal again, tears flooded my eyes and poured, hot and stinging down my pale cheeks.
‘Will you help me, uncle? One last time?’ I cried and he took a small step closer to me though his body was trembling.
‘Yes. Gabriele ... always.’
There was panic in his voice and it saddened me to think that he was frightened of me; that he would consider that I could ever hurt him. Even though, of course, it was possible. I had already caused so much pain and misery to those I loved what would make my uncle safe from my destructive nature?
‘I have to leave. Marguerite will need a reliable mentor. She has talent, uncle. A beautiful voice ... Will you find one for her? In Venice? Will you make sure she is safe?’
I gave him the letter I had received from Switzerland. Marguerite did not know that Gabi was dead; she was still waiting for me to collect her. My heart was so heavy with the death of my son and Marguerite’s pleading letter left me exhausted. She begged me to collect her from the school like I had promised, but I just couldn’t. Marguerite was my last hope. She had to live, have a successful life, and I believed that the only way she could do that was if she was far away from me.
‘I want you to have these.’ Uncle Giulio pressed the parchments into my hand. ‘So that wherever you are, whatever you do, you will remember your childhood. I want you to remember your humanity, Gabriele.’
I looked down at the music scores. These were the originals. First drafts of Amarilli, Ave Maria and his opera Eurydice. ‘I don’t understand.’
‘Remember your voice. Sing, Gabriele, as I always taught you. Let my music live on through you. Take my music with you. Wherever that leads ...’
I pressed the precious parchment against my chest and stood, hugging him carefully. My Uncle had suspected long before I had the importance of my transformation and what it meant. This was his only request for immortality and that was for his music to live on.
‘It will be an honour.’
After establishing a trust fund with a substantial dowry for my daughter, I left Padua. I never returned to Italy. After changing my name, I ensured that Marguerite would be unable to find me. It also meant that I would never know what became of her. Running away was the only way I could guarantee that her eventual death would not destroy what little heart I had left.
So I took board on the first available ship; a cargo ship by the name of the Sea Witch, bound for Scotland.
Weeks later I stood on the deck as the ship, tossing on the water, approached the coast of Scotland with its sails at full speed. My senses were assaulted by the clean smell of land, mingled with the sickly-sweet tang of fish as it was hauled up by a half dozen crew men onto the deck three feet away. The water splashed onto the deck and wet my white stockings, breeches, and shoes. Pulling an embroidered handkerchief from my overcoat pocket I bent to wipe my shoes clean of the salty water before they stained.
According to the First Mate I had ‘good sea legs’. I had put it down to my long years in Venice because every day for more than ten years I had crossed the water, regardless of weather conditions. The sailors laughed at me as they watched me clean my shoes. They thought me foppish, despite the fact that I had not spent the journey nauseated in my cabin. Even so I encouraged their view; I had soon learnt that it was often better to seem stupid if you wished to appear innocent. As a result, other than to laugh at my court manners, they barely gave me any attention.
Two sailors appeared from below deck wearing their clan tartan. They were clean and groomed in a way I hadn’t seen before. Even their hair looked combed and washed. They walked starboard, thick shore boots slapping on the wooden deck. The redhead, Garrett, I had heard the Second Mate call him, deftly untied the sturdy knots that held a lifeboat in place, while the other crew member, Stewart, threw back the stiff canvas that covered the boat.
‘I’ve got a rare beauty waitin’ in port,’ bragged Garrett.
‘Ya, wouldnee know a beauty if you fell ofver it ...’ Stewart laughed shaking his dark head. ‘Now I noo a woman ...’ Stewart rolled his hips, thrusting rapidly. ‘She screams when I d’that to ’er’.
Their laughter stopped as the lookout shouted to the captain, drawing my attention back once more to land.
‘Ayr ahead, Sir!’
Ayr. Scotland. Thi
s was to be my new home.
‘Come on then, Mr Cimino,’ they called, and for a moment I forgot that they meant me.
As I rode over the Scottish highlands hoping to lose myself on the desolate, barren moors, I was determined to mourn the loss of my mortality; my only concern to isolate myself, to never allow myself to love. Then my eyes fell on the maid who would continue my obsession. Her seduction would begin a pattern of behaviour that would continue for four hundred years. I did love her, in my own way ... the dark and exquisite Gaelic waif, Colina, just like I loved all of my conquests. She was a witch’s daughter, the villagers said, and they had feared Mordag. But how can a monster fear a lesser evil than itself? And how could I resist her, this pale beauty? Naturally I stole her away one night - after feeding all of my desires with her beautiful virgin body and rich, pure blood.
God, he’s got a lovely bum.
Lilly is sitting on the chaise, one leg folded over the other. Her eyes are warm and curious. She is wearing the pale green dress I bought her and it makes her eyes all the more intense green. The memory of her hands digging into my buttocks as I took her floats out into the air and I freeze. Through the corner of my eye I watch her eyes drift over me in appraisal. Her face soft and sensual, she is unaware that I can feel her gaze. For once she is unguarded and her natural expression is very revealing because she doesn’t know I can read her thoughts sometimes.
Was it as good as I remember?
I straighten; stand up from my crouching position by the chest on the floor. Lilly sits up, smoothing the palms of her hands over her dress to iron away some imaginary wrinkle. She looks like a child caught with her hand in the cookie jar.
‘You’re back,’ Lilly states.
‘I haven’t been anywhere ...’
‘Yes you have.’
I wonder how many times she has sat silently observing me while I reminisce. How many times has she thought about the one time we made love? It seems so long ago, yet I know every curve and groove of her youthful body. I can recall every detail of our love-making.
