When he could no longer stand silently in the living room, he entered the kitchen, approached Rose from behind, and wrapped an exploratory arm around her waist. She let him but did not reciprocate. She didn’t even turn to him. She just ladled out two bowls of the stew and stepped out of his arm to set them on the heavy wormwood table. Nicholas, his arms empty, had no choice but to take a seat. They sat at opposite sides of the table, neither of them hungry, staring into their stew as it cooled before them.
Finally, Rose looked up at him, and he could see she was quaking, tamping down the explosion she really wanted to release. Her jaw flexed as she clenched her teeth.
“What was that all about?” she finally asked. Their eyes met and froze.
“I haven’t a clue,” he replied. “Who knows why anyone takes their own life?”
He knew that’s not what she meant.
“She was one big secret,” he offered. “It’s sad.”
It was sad, but not the reason unspilled tears began to well in her eyes.
“She was talking to you,” Rose said. “Why was she talking to you?”
“I swear to you I don’t know,” he lied, his stomach roiling.
“Were you fucking her?”
“Jesus, Rose!”
“Were you having an affair?”
“Of course not!”
“Then why was she shouting at you when she jumped? Why did she do it?”
“I don’t know.”
“Did you love her?”
“Goddamn it, Rose, no! I love you!”
She went silent, accepting the answer for the moment, staring down into her stew. Nicholas watched her, hoping things would calm down now, when she suddenly picked up her heavy ceramic bowl and threw it at him with all her might. Nicholas ducked, and the bowl shattered against the wall, spattering it with meat and gravy.
—
It was dark out, and theater class had long been over. Gemma and Nicholas were dappled with paint from their overhaul of the ambitious Romeo and Juliet set, but the chore had been finished. The stage stank of linseed oil and tempera and whitewash, and it clung to them like a blithe spirit. Nicholas loved the smell, had been away from it for far too long. His own painting efforts had practically vanished once he started teaching. And here at Ravensbrooke, with all the problems adapting to life in small-town England with a wife given to dark rounds of depression, inspiration had fled him, and only blank canvasses sat waiting in his closet for his attention. So even though it was only slathering sets and cycloramas with paint, it felt good to wield a brush again.
They toiled in silence after the last of the students had left, so when Gemma asked Nicholas to tea, he was taken by surprise by her invitation.
“That would be nice,” he said, warming to her smile when he accepted.
Gemma’s apartment on the campus was on the other side of the academy from his own, on the fourth floor of the Music and Drama Building. It was set up pretty much the same as his, though the rooms were a bit smaller. However, the walls were filled with framed showbills from ancient pantomimes, West End productions, and even some obscure motion pictures. It was a collection: Some of them seemed quite valuable. There were a couple awards that he did not recognize sitting on the old upright piano in the corner, as well as an assortment of photos chronicling the life of an actress named Gemma Featherstone, all in heavy antique frames.
Nicholas roamed the tiny parlor, taking it all in as Gemma brought the water to a boil, admiring the theatrical artwork and, finally, the photos.
“Are all of these you?” Nicholas asked, just before the teapot began to scream.
“All of which?” she asked, entering the room with a mug of steaming chamomile in each hand.
He looked up from the photographs and beheld her face as she entered the lemon-warm light of the parlor. He hadn’t realized before quite how lovely she was, how delicate were her features, how deep the soul in her eyes.
“Oh, those…” She blushed charmingly.
“Don’t ‘Oh, those’ me. They’re quite beautiful.”
She wanted to say “Stop it,” but instead thanked him.
“You said you had modeled before,” Nicholas said. “Photographic or paintings?”
“Both,” she said, shyly. “And that sculpture, too.” She pointed at a small bronze nude statue under the glow of an old lamp on a wooden side table. It was, well, provocative, and a freshly fascinated Nicholas began to see her in a new light. “It’s just a sketch; the actual piece is life-size, in a museum in Leipzig.”
“I’m impressed!” he told her. And he was. He looked closer at the photos: Some were obviously from stage productions, but a couple of them looked like publicity photos from films.
“Did you give up acting to teach?”
“Did you give up painting to teach?” she shot back.
“Touché.” There was a large photo album sitting on the side table next to the sculpture. Nicholas was dying to give it a look.
“Did you do any films?” he asked her.
“A couple,” she answered evasively. “A dozen years ago.”
“Anything I might have heard of?”
“I hope not. Nothing I’m particularly proud of. Which is why I sort of gave it up.”
“I’d like to see them,” he said, meaning it. He wasn’t just being polite. “What were they called?”
She just shook her head, her face rosy with embarrassment, only piquing his interest further.
He walked over to the table and picked up the photo album. “Do you mind if I take a look?”
“Drink your tea,” she replied, and he sipped, burning his lip. She watched him wince, and he watched her watch him.
“Really,” he said, “can I take a look?”
She sipped at hers like one of those little toy birds that bob in and out of a glass of water. “If you must.”
“I must,” Nicholas said, as he sat on the piano bench and hefted the album onto his lap. He patted the seat next to him, and she sat down, their thighs touching. Perhaps it was intentional.
He opened the book, which groaned from a lack of use, flipping through the heavy pages, taking note of the yellowed newspaper clippings and reviews, lovely photographs of this shy little drama teacher, in an entirely new light. She was pretty here with a touch of makeup, her hair tousled artfully, dressed to impress—maybe even beautiful in some of the shots—and even, dare it be said, sexy.
“They’re beautiful, Gemma, really lovely.”
“Thank you.”
He kept turning the thick black pages, taking in the pleasing images of this newly alluring creature whose thigh was melting heat into his. He hit a couple blank pages, but that didn’t stop him. She sat silently in anticipation as he turned another page to discover a small gallery of tasteful, artistic nudes. Nicholas dared not look up at her yet…though he could feel that her eyes were fixed on him.
Another turn of the page, and there was an 8 x 10 from a press kit for a smutty British trifle from the nineties called Confessions of a Chimney Sweep. Topless, save for the bottom half of a maid’s costume, her hands up and her mouth in the classic startled whoops-m’dear pose that could be found only in a British sex comedy, Gemma was barely recognizable in this playful, farcical, artless frame blowup.
“That’s enough,” she said, folding the dusty old book closed, but leaving it sitting on Nicholas’s lap. He looked up at her, not knowing exactly what to say, and she did not evade his gaze this time. She stared boldly back at him, waiting to hear what he had to say, now that he had seen her two-dimensional form naked.
“No,” he said. “It’s not.”
They faced each other, the place where their legs met catching fire. Her face, lit by the mellow tone of the lamp, turned into a Renaissance portrait, her deep, wide brown-and-green eyes hooded now, reflecting the light in her wide-open pupils. You could hear the heavy gothic clock in the bronze-sculpted form of Pan on the mantel tick away the seconds as they were caught in each
other’s hearts. Without looking away from him, Gemma reached down and lightly touched his hand with her fingertips, then lifted it to her cheek, and he let it form around her face. She closed her eyes and cradled her face in his hand, letting her lips delicately kiss the skin of his palm. He brought his other hand up to hold her head close to his, then dared to bring his mouth to hers, and lost himself in the taste of her kiss. He tasted each of her lips before exploring her more deeply, unlocking the tactile, sensuous, needy woman that had been hiding within the mousy little drama teacher. She was as voracious as he and showed not a trace of shyness when he opened her blouse and dropped it to the floor. She opened his shirt, running her hands up and down his chest, bringing her face to it and burying it in the curls of his hair, kissing and tasting him.
With her face flushed, she stood up, slid out of her skirt, and stood shamelessly naked before him. Her pale body was hairless, smooth as an ivory sculpture, and gleaming with a sheen of perspiration. Her tiny breasts, the taut sinews of her slender arms and legs, and the mess of her hair now sticking to her sweaty flesh, filled Nicholas with a desire he had not felt in years. Breathing heavily through her mouth, she stared at him, needing him, and turned and walked into the bedroom.
Nicholas had no choice but to follow, of course, and when finally the inevitable coupling occurred, it was an unleashed, acrobatic exorcism of heretofore-unknown passion and lust. It lasted for a couple hours before it drained them of heat, fluids, and new ideas and left them panting, waiting for their hearts to slow and their wind to return to normal. That would take another half-hour or so.
“I love you,” Gemma told him as they lay on the damp sheets.
That made Nicholas smile, even let out a silent little laugh with the sweet absurdity of her words after mating with him but once. She turned away from him, suddenly going cold, and he realized in hindsight that this might have been a fatal error. He went still, his mind not yet returned from the cave it had run off to during the course of their fevered lovemaking. He answered her with a sweet, gentle, decidedly uncarnal kiss on the lips, and she snuggled into his armpit and pulled the sheet over them, not daring to look him in the eyes again.
“You okay?” he asked her.
“Shh,” she said, placing her fingers over his lips as she clicked off the lamp and thrust them into darkness, then settled into him as if for the night.
Nicholas glanced at the alarm clock that glowed blue numerals from the nightstand: It was after seven.
“Oh, Jesus,” he said. “I’ve got to go.”
He climbed out of her bed, but she clung to his hand. “No. Don’t.”
“I have to, Gemma.”
It may have been awkward for him, but it was devastating for her.
—
The school had been somewhat somber after Miss Featherstone’s death. Chatter was softer, the mood darkened; even the sky stayed gray, with a shroud of snowfall piling high on the leafless trees and hedges. The fabled laughter of schoolchildren was muted and hesitant.
David was the youngest pupil in his composition class but easily the most talented. Though his reach was less than an octave, his hands were active, adventurous, agile. His playing skills were impressive, especially for a nine-year-old, but it was his writing that was his most prodigious talent. He created music that twisted and turned on itself, muscular exercises that stretched the boundaries of the musical scale, that had mathematical logic but sought and found beauty in the most unimagined places. The melodies he produced were fragile, delicate, and wrapped in cadences that came from someplace otherworldly. It was the rare creature like David that spawned the idea of divine inspiration. Surely a child, a protected, unworldly, shy child like this, could not draw from a lifetime in the arts to create such original, imaginative work. But David, who hated God for letting Miss Featherstone die at his feet, had no room for divinity; his music was his own, borne of his own brand of rapture.
So as he performed this new piece for the class, for Mr. Potter, and for Miss Featherstone, he lost himself in his music, grunted and hummed in blissful oblivion as he laid his grace at the feet of the woman he loved. When he finished, the room was momentarily silent, and David had been transported elsewhere, to a void, a deep and distant blackness where he floated as he played. But the sudden outburst of enthusiastic applause from the other students—most of them teenagers and unlikely to enjoy the creations of a mere nine-year-old—along with Mr. Potter’s own cheers of “Bravo!” brought David back to our planet, where he gave a simple nod to acknowledge his gratitude.
But he was not really playing for any of them; he was playing for his beloved, in the hopes that his devotional might bring her back from the dead.
When class was over, David sought solitude as he walked alone down the hallway and out of the building. It was afternoon, and in winter, afternoon was practically night. Shadows were vanishing like ghosts in the waning light, and David was alone with his thoughts as he watched the other students head anxiously to their dormitories. David sat at the feet of an old stone lion, sketching notes on a staff as he notated changes in his new creation. It would be his greatest composition yet. Snow settled on him like ash as he worked until it was too dark to read and write.
He closed his notebook and looked across the schoolyard to the dormitory, where warm light filled the windows, then up at the heavens, where the moon had yet to reveal itself. The Music and Drama Building towered and glowered over him, the lights of the classrooms blinking out for the night, one by one. The rooms he knew had been occupied by Miss Featherstone until only days ago were dark. David was cold; David was lonely; David was in love.
He stepped back into the Music and Drama Building and into the empty ground-floor corridor. It was quiet, peaceful, inert. He stood and listened, but there was no movement, no footsteps, not even a breeze leaking through the double doors. He stepped quietly to the stairwell and climbed: one, two, three floors above.
The fourth floor was carpeted, lined on either side by two apartments for the instructors. The rooms were silent, unoccupied so early in the evening. David made his way to the end of the hallway, to the rooms he knew had been the home of his beloved, and stopped, staring wide-eyed at the door. He looked at the distorted reflection of his face on the shiny brass doorknob, which was obliterated by the growing image of his hand as he slowly reached out to wrap his fingers around it. The door, of course, was locked, as he knew it would be. But this was an old building with old doors and old locks, and David could easily trick such a lock with the awl in his Swiss Army pocketknife. So he did.
The door opened to him, and he entered Miss Featherstone’s warren, pulling the door shut carefully behind him. He dared not turn on any lights, but he didn’t really need to; the dim, emerging moonlight offered sufficient illumination for him to inspect her shrine. He stood in its center, transfixed by her magic, at the heart of her mystery, enveloped by her home. The scent of rose tickled his nostrils, and he walked to the piano to look at all of the framed pictures of the most beautiful woman in the world. He couldn’t help but touch them, and as he did, they came to life, movies that portrayed snippets from her life: a laugh, a tear, a somersault, a dance in the rain. They were but moments, pieces of time, but each of them was enchanting, each of them made him smile, each of them proclaimed more loudly his love for her. She could not be dead if she lived in these frames. He walked to the little sculpture by the lamp, tracing its naked-lady form with the tip of his finger. If it had a tail, it would have been a mermaid; as it was, it seemed to swim in the cool, gray moonlight.
He picked up the photo album, which was heavy with her history. He opened it, flipped through it with fascination, seeing the stages of her lives from girlhood—a picture of her from a school production when she couldn’t have been any older than him, where she wore painted-on freckles and a red-and-white checked Raggedy Ann dress—to angelic adulthood. When finally he reached the chapter of her story that featured an appearance in Confessions of a Chimney
Sweep, he breathed a shocked gasp at her so inelegantly revealed body and closed the book with a bang. He felt his face go red and hot, and felt a surge down below that he’d felt only at night in his dreams. He looked around to see that none of the pictures were looking at him. Somehow they were not.
He passed through into the bedroom, that most private chamber of his Gemma’s life. The bed was neatly made, but the furnishings all seemed of another era—as she did—and all of exquisite femininity. A place for everything, and everything in its place. Cut roses were drying up in a vase on the nightstand, but their smell was undiminished. It was her smell, the scent he would always equate with her, and with love.
The bed looked soft, inviting, even beckoning. He sat tentatively on its edge before he dared to lie on it, nestling his face into the Featherstone scent of her pillow, where he promptly fell into sleep and dreamed of her sweet, chaste kiss on his cheek.
He jolted awake only minutes later, his sweet dream overpowered by a black-feathered, ivory-clawed beast with six-inch fangs ripping his angel to wet, meaty pieces. His heart battering his rib cage, David sat up, breathing heavily. He looked around the room, and it took a moment for him to remember where he was. He didn’t like to dream; dreams always woke him up. But this was the worst one yet.
He heard a distant, muffled door slam in the apartment next door, the sound of heavy footsteps going deep into the chamber. A television was flicked on, and he heard voices rumbling through the walls, with the attendant laughter of a silly comedy. It had to be Mr. Potter, who loved The League of Gentlemen and was always trying to imitate them. Potter, who was famously hard of hearing, had the volume up high, but the walls were thick enough that David could not make out the words. He sat up in Gemma Featherstone’s bed and let his legs dangle over the edge, staring at the open door that led into the bathroom. In the dimness, he could make out her silk robe hanging from a peg just inside the door, and he slid to his feet to go and touch it.
Dark Screams, Volume 7 Page 15
