Once

by Elisabeth Grace Foley et al.

  I slipped my feet into my shoes and stood up, pulling my scarf more securely around my shoulders, sliding my fingers through the fringe on my dress to brush off any bits of bark.

  Fear seethed in my stomach.

  I took two slow breaths, closed my eyes, and conjured a memory of music to calm myself. Tonight I had to sing, and I couldn’t do that with my stomach and shoulders in knots. Humming under my breath, I started up the hill.

  In the darkness behind the marquee’s solid rear wall, Edie Jackson met me as I’d asked. She clutched a worn book to her chest, and her voice was nervous in the darkness.

  “Are you sure about this, Ruby?”

  Softly, I followed the wall and stood on the fringes of shadow, looking into the light. Under the glow of coloured lanterns, the quartet launched into a new set and the open dancefloor filled with couples. But I saw them, Max and Ava, sitting at a far table.

  The pianist hammered the keys unmercifully. Edie whispered, “You know it’s horribly out of tune.”

  “He’s still here,” I said. “Max Moran.”

  “He extended his booking. Come on, Ruby, why not leave it another week? We could do with more practice.”

  “No. It has to be tonight. Tell Mr. Hunt I’m here.”

  She bit her lip. “All right.”

  Tonight I would not be singing jazz. My lips moved, repeating the words under my breath. Tanto amore, segreto e inconfessato… My mind was suddenly full of colour and sound that blocked out everything else. Instead of lanterns, I saw the glare of limelight. Instead of hectic jazz, I heard the ardent swell of strings and felt the cool weight of costume jewellery on head and throat.

  How long was it since I last used my voice? How long since I had done anything but hide it and hope for it? Two years, while I’d chased a distant dream that would probably never be anything more.

  Edie came back to me.

  “You’re so calm,” she said, wonderingly.

  But it was not the performance that filled me with dread.

  The band finished and Mr. Hunt stepped to the microphone. “Ladies and gentlemen,” he boomed, his amplified voice crackling around the edges, “you all know our lovely Ruby Black!”

  Beside Ava’s pale slim paw resting on the table, Max’s hand slowly clenched, tighter and tighter.

  “Ruby won’t be joining us tonight.” A chorus of groans from the tables. “But never fear! Tonight, I have the special pleasure of welcoming a wanderer from ancient China—” he squinted at a paper in his hand— “Puccini’s Liú!”

  Edie slid onto the piano bench and began to play.

  I opened my mouth. And the music welled out.

  Princess, it is love…

  Love…

  I stepped onto the stage, into the light, and heard the smash of broken glass. I thought it came from Max’s table.

  I took no notice. My body was stiff, hands half clenched on air, chin tilted up, as I battled two years’ cobwebs in a once-silver throat.

  A secret and unconfessed love,

  so great that these torments are sweet to me,

  because I make a gift of them to my lord,

  because, keeping silent, I give him your love.

  I give you him, Princess,

  and I lose everything!

  Even my impossible hope!

  Bind me! Torture me!

  Let me suffer every torment!

  Ah! as the supreme gift of my love!

  The final chords of the death aria faded away. I drifted back to the moment, gradually aware that my palms were sweating, my heart racing, and the marquee utterly silent.

  I looked at Max. He was leaning forward a little, and there was a triumphant glitter in his eyes.

  The chair beside him was empty. Ava had gone.

  Then the marquee erupted into applause. Edie got up from the piano and hugged me. A shadow fell between me and the light, but it was only Mr. Hunt, beaming, with an applejack.

  “It’s on me,” he said, putting the glass in my hand. Then he leaned over so that the microphone caught his next words. “Well, I don’t know much about the opera, but who knew you could do that, Ruby?”

  Before I could stop myself, I glanced across the dance floor again to the corner table, and this time my eyes locked with Ava’s. She stood by Max, clenching a white napkin to her black satin bosom, her eyes huge and reproachful.

  There were dark, red spots on the napkin. Her hand was bleeding. It was her glass that had broken.

  As she bent down and spoke to Max, she never took her eyes from my face. I tasted my applejack and my teeth rattled against the glass.

  Max got up and offered Ava his chair. The band had already filed back into place; up went the big string bass like a flag. Ava sank down, still clutching her hand against her bosom. When Max started toward me, I fled unashamedly to the bar.

  If I was wrong about this—

  The lights blinked out behind his shoulders. “Ruby! I’ve been looking high and low for you. Where did you go?”

  He was too close, too loud and accusing. I shrank back against the bar. “That’s my business.”

  “Ruby?” Bill Fisher materialised next to us. “Is he bothering you?”

  “Not at all,” I said. “I was about to leave.”

  I swallowed the last mouthful in my glass and set it down on the bar. Max grabbed me by the shoulder and spun me around.

  “You think you get to slap me in the face and walk away? You think you get to make a fool of me?”

  His voice sliced through the music and the tread of dancing feet. At the same moment, Bill moved almost too fast to see. There was the sound of a blow and Max reeled back, losing his grip on my shoulder.

  I bit off a shriek. There was a collective gasp, and the music stopped.

  Max straightened, gingerly touching his face. Bill Fisher stepped between us, fists clenched.

  “Look here, Moran, I don’t care who you think you are. But on this island Ruby Black chooses her own company.”

  In the silence, someone yelled, “That’s right!” Jim Harper. And in the midst of all that chaos, warmth flooded through me. I ignored Max’s glare, and took my scarf and purse from Edie. “I’m leaving.”

  “Jim will walk you to the ferry.” Bill must have seen the protest in my face, for he leaned down and his voice dropped. “Please, don’t stay on the island. Go ashore and wait for me at the chalet.”

  There was no way to explain to him what I had to do. “All right. But let me walk myself to the ferry.”

  Bill glanced doubtfully at Max.

  “I don’t imagine Mr. Moran wants to find himself made a laughingstock in the Mirror again, Bill.”

  At that barb, Max’s jaw flexed, but he kept silence. I pushed past him to reach the south path to the jetty, and he stood unmoving to let me by. But only I heard the words he murmured:

  “You want to be careful out there, Ruby.”

  I pretended I hadn’t heard.

  Most likely I would not be followed. Most likely the ferry would still be docked at the jetty at the foot of the island. But if it came to the worst it was only a short swim, barely a quarter of a mile across a deep strait which I had swum before—swum, and floated over the brink of an underwater cliff which, in the crystalline water, could be seen plunging to unfathomable depths.

  But it was dark now, and I was wearing my red dress.

  I went down the path that traced the length of the island’s backbone, reached the jetty, and paused. No ferry.

  That made things simpler. The cabin at the north end of the island was still well hidden; the police had never discovered the moonshine or the still. Instinct told me I would be safe if I stole back to my old hideaway. If I walked along the shore, the thick scrub and the steep, shelving flank of the island would both screen me from the path.

  At once I slipped off stockings and shoes and eased down onto the pebbly shingle.

  The jetty faded into the night behind me. The wavelets of the lake lapped, lapp
ed, lapped endlessly on the stones.

  On the path above, I heard footsteps. At once I looked up and saw his head and shoulders silhouetted against the night sky. It was Max, of course. Alert and listening.

  “Ruby?”

  You want to be careful out there.

  I sprang into motion. In the same instant his shape quickened against the stars. I left him on my right, fighting through the scrub toward the shore, and bolted for the north end of the island. If he meant me harm it was the only sensible thing to do; the shoreline would take me close enough to the cabaret to scream for help.

  I couldn’t help crying with pain as I ran barefoot over the stony shingle, but even if it had been safe to wear them I didn’t dare stop to buckle on my shoes. In another moment Max gained the shore behind and I heard the steady crunch-crunch of his feet as he closed in. I scrambled up the short bank rising on my right, and regained the scrub. Twiggy fingers clutched at my dress. I tore through the branches, not without a twinge as the chiffon ripped.

  Focus, Ruby!

  I pelted through the scrub, shielding my face with my arms. Under the trees, it was too dark to see anything. At the last moment, some sixth sense pulled me to a halt.

  Too late. My arms jarred against stone.

  For a moment I stood groping with outstretched arms against the rock. Behind, Max thrashed the undergrowth. In the dark I’d borne too far to the right, and instead of striking the concealed path that skirted the hidden cabin further north and reached the marquee by an easier slope, I’d trapped myself where the island’s flank reared up in a low cliff.

  The only way was up.

  The wall of rock rose against the stars. I remembered how it looked in the daylight, its face seamed along sedimentary layers. I liked to climb. I had climbed it before, at a different place, and in the light.

  But I could not hesitate. I dropped shoes, stockings, and scarf, kilted up my skirt, and sought with splayed toes and fingers for a hold. By the time Max emerged from the scrub below, I was halfway up—well out of reach, even for a tall man.

  I paused to catch my breath, tensing for what might happen next.

  “Blasted Chink,” he groaned.

  It was hard to believe this was a matter of life or death, not some madcap game the two of us were playing. “Lousy pakeha,” I yelled. Then I pushed up, reaching for a handhold I couldn’t see. Unless I kept moving, my arms would weary and I’d fall.

  He chose not to hoist his two hundred pounds’ weight up the face of that cliff in the dark. Instead, he pelted through the undergrowth, aiming north, doubtless looking for the first path up. He was famous for his speed on the playing field. It was a race I had to win.

  I scrambled recklessly skyward and finally rolled over the upper edge with a sob that was half relief, half the pain of a skinned knee. Not far away, heavy footsteps quickened as Max found the north path.

  I couldn’t move until I’d caught my breath, but my mettle was up and triumphant. This was my island, and no one would run me to earth here. I rolled to my feet and came up running. Ahead were the cabaret lights and the slow croon of the night’s last song and lanterns bobbing one by one down the path to meet the ferry.

  Up here there was less undergrowth. The trees were either winter naked or solitary stilted pines. The moon came out from behind a cloud to light my path. To the left, I heard Max change direction as he left the path and charged directly to cut me off. I refused to focus on him, instead fixing my eyes on the cabaret, putting on one last desperate burst of speed—

  He struck me in a low tackle and wound his arms around my hips. We ploughed into the ground barely fifty metres from the edge of the light. I felt the hem of my much-abused dress give way with a low shriek, and released my breath in a scream of my own. A moment too late, his hand found my mouth and cut me off.

  The music stopped. The last scattered couples crowded toward this side of the floor, peering into the dark.

  “Who’s there?” someone called.

  Max hesitated. For one moment his silhouette above me was perfectly still, staring at the marquee. For one moment, his attention was off me.

  I bit his hand and yelled as he yanked it away. Mr. Hunt said, “It’s Ruby!” and jumped over the railing at the marquee’s side. Max hissed through his teeth and jumped off me.

  “I am coming back for you,” he said. Then something rose up in the darkness. There was the rush of air and the sound of a blow, and Max crumpled to the ground.

  I screamed again, this time for pure shock. Mr. Hunt reached me and helped me to my feet—I was shaking, I realised, like I had that first morning when Max pulled me out of the lake. Out of the shadows, the pale oval of a face coalesced and I stared with dizzy stupidity at Ava’s bodyguard.

  No. No. This was wrong. This was not part of the plan.

  “Is that Moran?” Mr. Hunt quavered, pushing me behind him into an outstretched array of comforting hands.

  “You leave him to me,” said the bodyguard. “We’ll see him to the police station. Won’t we, ma’am?”

  He spoke to someone beyond us. In the breathless silence Mr. Hunt turned, and after a moment so did I. Ava Wu came across the grass from the pavilion with the light making a spun-gold halo of her hair. One bandaged hand was pressed to her heart. The other fluttered before her like a sleepwalker’s.

  I don’t think she heard her bodyguard’s words. I don’t think she saw anyone but me.

  I’d always known that the moment she laid eyes on me, my charade was done. Ava had known me so much better than Max ever had. She knew me, and above anything else she knew my voice.

  “Xue Bai,” she choked. “Xue Bai. Oh! to think I should hear that voice again!”

  Xue Bai.

  The name sounded like a death sentence. I was lightheaded and almost nauseous as Ava pulled me into her arms. “I’ve got you, darling,” she whispered. “It’s going to be all right. Everything will be all right.”

  “Ava.” I tried to pull away. “Daddy… they tell me Daddy’s gone.”

  “Don’t. You can barely stand.”

  “Where’s Bill?”

  “Already gone back to town,” Mr. Hunt said, “in the Chalet launch—said he was meeting you at the hotel.”

  Ava helped me across the uneven ground and onto the dance floor, then eased me into a seat under the coloured lanterns. “Speak to me, Xue Bai. What happened?”

  I fought back the fuzziness in my head. “I think Max Moran is trying to kill me.”

  “Don’t be afraid; you’re safe now. Did he hurt you?”

  “No. I just feel a bit—” I let out a nervous, high-pitched laugh—”a bit grummy.”

  “Grummy! I thought you were dead. It wasn’t until I saw the photograph in the Mirror—and even then I could hardly believe it. Not till Max sent a telegram.” She shook her head. “I’ll get you a drink.”

  “No,” I said sharply, and she stared at me with her lips parted. My hands were shaking on the tabletop. “A smoke, maybe.”

  The murmuration of onlookers in the air around us became suddenly more animated, and half-a-dozen cigarettes offered themselves. Ava made an imperious gesture, rather like the princess in the opera signalling to her executioners. “Stand back and give her air!”

  Someone put a lighted cigarette in my hand and then they must have dispersed, for the murmuration faded. Ava sank down in the seat opposite me. She was not smiling; the moment was too solemn for a smile.

  “Selections from Turandot at Otago Girls’. Do you remember?”

  “I remember. You played Liú.” The part called for a voice of fragile beauty. Ava to the life.

  “You made a magnificent Turandot.” Ava lit a cigarette of her own, sat back, and gave a wispy sigh. “I told you at the time you were too young for the role. That you’d ruin your voice trying to hit those notes. But it didn’t stop you. It never stopped you.” She looked into the night, to where we’d left Max with the bodyguard. “Turandot. Butterfly. You always had to be the pr
ima donna, didn’t you?”

  “You must admit I looked the part better than anyone else.” I managed a faint smile and went to drag on my cigarette. But my hands wandered, and I could not get the thing between my lips. I stared at it. An ice-cold fear slid into the pit of my stomach.

  Ava followed my gaze. “What is it?”

  “I feel—I feel awfully—” My voice got lost in the dizziness of my mind. In the background, I heard voices and pattering feet. Nearly everyone had left the cabaret by now. Someone leaned down and spoke to Ava. Dimly, I realised I must have had something more than a shock tonight. But how?

  There was a tilted curve to Ava’s smile as she turned back to me. “You’re feeling dizzy and disoriented,” she said. “Your head aches and you’re nauseous. I’m surprised; the symptoms usually take a little longer to appear. But then, you’ve had a rather taxing night.”

  I stared at her, my lips parted.

  “A methanol overdose. Oh, Xue Bai. It’s so dangerous to drink applejack.”

  But the only thing I’d drunk tonight came from Mr. Hunt. After my song.

  When Ava was at the bar getting a napkin for her hand.

  When I turned my head, the lanterns spun around me. Light and darkness and hurrying shadows. “Mr. Hunt!”

  My voice was too faint to break through the commotion.

  “He was here a moment ago.” Ava’s voice was relentlessly calm. The hand holding her cigarette was shaking, whether from fear or excitement, I had no way of knowing. “But he’ll be halfway to the jetty by now. It seems the police think he has a still hidden on the island and are coming out to find it.”

  I watched the shaking hand. “What are you going to do with me?”

  “I told Hunt you were feeling ill, that I’d see you to land myself. And I will, as soon as Angus returns with the boat. My chauffeur, you understand. He’s taking Max ashore.”

  But the police were coming, and I was still alive. Ava walked a tightrope, and she knew it. I slowed my breathing, cleared my mind with an effort, and managed to stamp out my cigarette in the ashtray.