Bedtime Reads

by Janet Pywell

  Michael realised then just how far she would go to destroy all their lives.

  It is almost time for the interval. Michael slips out from his aisle seat and makes his way to the bar where uniformed waiters are polishing glasses and waiting for the interval onslaught. Keeping his eyes downcast Michael starts at the near-end noting names of the pre-booked drinks along the shelf. He eliminates clusters of more than two glasses but there are so many he can’t read the names quickly enough. The theatre doors open and people surge around him collecting their drinks. His heart thumps louder. He would have to be quick. Panicking, muttering his surname, over and over, reading names, then suddenly he sees it.

  Orrisey, the ‘M’ was smeared on the flimsy paper:

  One red wine and one whisky. He glances over his shoulder. The white hair of his father weaving through the crowd toward him.

  Michael fumbles.

  His father is close. He is almost-

  Michael’s shaking fingers takes the vial from his pocket. He quickly tips the contents into the wine glass.

  ‘Excuse me, Miss,’ his father’s voice is close to his ear. He reaches over Michael’s shoulder and takes the glasses.

  Michael ducks away inhaling his father’s familiar aftershave. He steps aside holding onto his wig, his heart palpitating furiously. He walks unsteadily to lean with his shoulder against a cold wall pretending to be absorbed in the programme, swallowing repeatedly, hardly daring to watch his parents.

  His mother flashes a smile at a passing stranger. She takes her first sip.

  Michael holds his breath.

  She sips again, then again. It seems an eternity until she’s drained her glass.

  The bells rings.

  His father places their empty glasses on the nearby shelf.

  In the early seventeenth century, Giula Tofana had sold her poison to over six hundred people. Those who died were invariably husbands of unhappy wives. There had even been unfounded rumours that Mozart might have been poisoned using Agua Tofana.

  Michael hangs back long enough to collect her glass. Then he mixes with the crowd and files back to his seat. From his vantage point in the dress circle he watches his mother. She places the programme across her knees and the curtains part.

  Listening to Zerlina’s soprano, ‘Batti, batti, o bel Masetto’ - Beat me, beat me, o dear Masetto - Michael imagines the poison: arsenic, lead and belladona sliding through his mother’s veins. A colourless, tasteless liquid that mixes easily with wine. She would begin to feel hot, develop a headache and feel dizzy.

  Death would be quick.

  On stage the actors gathered outside Elvira’s house where Leporello threatens to leave Giovanni. His master attempts to calm him with a peace offering of money and they sing the duet, ‘Eh via buffone’ - Come on, buffoon.

  Michael watches his mother as she raises her programme and begins to fan her face. She leans forward and slides her jacket from her shoulders.

  Michael watches and waits.

  After the final scene he stands with the audience to applaud. Below him his mother does not rise from her seat.

  He must get back to the hospital. Since Anna’s attempted suicide he has hardly left her side. She is making slow progress but the damage she suffered at her mother’s hand has been profound.

  Now, at last, their past has been vindicated.

  He takes one last look around the majestic theatre and then straightening his skirt he makes his exit, head bowed, out into the darkness of Dublin’s crowded streets. As he walks he whistles, shedding his disguise, tossing his wig, his jacket and his skirt into various trash bins along his haphazard route knowing the items will be picked up by the homeless sleeping on the streets.

  Nearing the hospital he pulls a long jacket from his bag. He hums the Champagne Aria and when he sings he’s reminded of Gary who he met on a catering course a year ago. They became friends, then lovers. He understood Michael immediately. He knew the hurt, frustration and anger that seethed inside him and Gary had been positive, kind and supportive.

  One night, laying in the darkness of their bedroom with the moon glowing though the shutters, Michael had confided in Gary.

  ‘I need to do something.’

  ‘It’s not worth it,’ Gary had replied. ‘You must let it go.’

  ‘I can’t,’ Michael had whispered. ‘I just can’t do that.’

  In a dark alleyway Michael tosses the last piece of evidence into a bin where it smashes into smithereens, shattering his past into tiny shards of sharp glass.

  Tonight Gary was his alibi. Together they will protect Anna and get her well again.

  Michael was determined that they would all live happily ever after.

  APair of Shoes

  Gail let herself into the house as she’d done every Saturday but now she couldn’t believe she’d spent the whole summer abroad, in the sunshine. As she opened the door she couldn’t believe she’d been away for five months.

  Now she was back. She felt different. Older? Wiser?

  Even the neighbourhood seemed to have changed. The streets seemed a little bit wider, the few trees on the pavement a little greener and the houses a little smaller.

  She was surprised her sister’s house looked slightly drab and the garden needed weeding.

  Filled with excitement, she called out from the back door.

  ‘Monica?’ she laughed, ‘I’m home!’

  ‘I’m here - in the lounge.’ Monica jumped to her feet, sweeping three-year old Alfie from the floor and into her arms. ‘Look who’s here. Auntie Gail’s home.’

  The girls met in the hallway and Alfie was squeezed between them as they hugged. A tumble of words fell from their lips like marbles bouncing down the staircase.

  ‘Look at the colour of you!’

  ‘Your hair has grown!’

  ‘I’ve put on weight!’

  ‘Not as much as me.’

  ‘You’re so tanned.’

  ‘Oh Alfie, aren’t you so adorable.’ Gail took him in her arms and smothered his face in tiny kisses making him giggle. ‘Haven’t you grown up, little one?’

  ‘I’ll pop the kettle on,’ said Monica moving into the kitchen. ‘We can have a glass of wine after we’ve put Alfie to bed. He’s been so desperate to see you I couldn’t take him up just yet.’

  Gail carried Alfie expertly on her hip and smiled indulgently into his blue eyes while surreptitiously watching her sister move around the kitchen. She seemed different: slower, lethargic, tired. Or was it something else?

  Monica carried their mugs into the lounge and the girls sat beside each other on the sofa. Alfie took up most of their attention, chatting intermittently, as he pulled a book, a truck and finally a teddy onto Gail’s lap. Then he curled up for a cuddle and some special kisses from his Auntie.

  ‘So, where’s the handsome hunk?’ Gail smiled at her sister and gave her a slow, knowing, wink.

  ‘Showering. He’s going out with the boys tonight. You look fabulous, Gail - bumming around the Greek islands really suited you.’

  ‘I was born to travel.’ Gail’s eyes were bright and alive with excitement. Her tanned skin only emphasised her piercing blue eyes and once again Monica was reminded that her younger sister was the prettier, slimmer and funnier of the two and she shifted her legs uncomfortably under the weight of her body on the sofa.

  ‘I want to hear all about it…’

  ‘Monica, honey?’ Heavy footsteps bound down the stairs. ‘Have you seen my- oh my God, Gail? Is it really you? Welcome back, stranger…’

  Gail leaned forward with Alfie still in her arms and she wrapped one arm around Neil’s neck for a hug.

  Monica watched him as he kissed Gail’s cheek. They looked like an ideal couple; tall, blond with muscular shaped bodies and they held hands as they smiled at each other.

  ‘Alfie’s grown.’

  ‘He’s a little boy now,’ Neil agreed ruffling the boy’s head.

  ‘You look lovely, Gail.’ Then he turn
ed his attention to Monica. ‘I’m in a hurry, sweetie, have you seen my leather jacket?’

  ‘It’s on the back of the chair in the kitchen, where you left it.’

  ‘Thanks, baby.’ He bent to kiss her cheek and spicy cologne she’d bought him for his birthday hung like an invisible cloud around his head. ‘I’ll see you later, honey. You two have a good catch up.’

  They listened to him in the kitchen and when the back door banged shut Monica said. ‘Come on Alfie. It’s way past your bedtime. We’ve a lot to catch up on.’

  Alfie’s eyes were closing when the sisters took him up to the bedroom, chatting and fussing quietly over him. Even though he was almost asleep Gail read to him, savouring the sweet moment while Monica tidied the bedroom. After fifteen minutes they were back downstairs and pouring a glass of chilled Pinot Grigio from the fridge.

  ‘Cheers!’ They tapped glasses and giggled.

  ‘It’s been a long time.’

  ‘Too long.’

  ‘So, Neil’s gone out with his mates to give us time to catch up?’

  ‘I’ve made a shepherd’s pie. It’ll be ready in twenty minutes.’ Monica didn’t say that Neil was out most Saturday nights now and sometimes during the week. It was too early for that conversation. ‘So, tell me all about your holiday.’

  ‘It was fantastic. I can understand how foreigners want to live over there and work in bars and restaurants. It’s such a completely different way of life.’

  ‘Did you meet anyone special?’ Monica laid knives and forks on the table. ‘Costas? Stavros? Mykonos?’

  ‘That’s an island, silly,’ Gail laughed. ‘I did meet someone who was quite special. Loukas - he was - quite different.’

  ‘Only quite special?’

  ‘Well.. yes. I mean, it’s not like you and Neil. Loukas didn’t sweep me off my feet. He wasn’t muscular and handsome and well, you know, lovely…like Neil.’

  ‘But you fancied him?’

  ‘He made me laugh.’

  ‘That’s the main thing.’

  ‘And he was kind.’

  ‘That’s important.’

  ‘But he wasn’t thoughtful like Neil.’

  Monica stared at her sister. ‘Neil, thoughtful?’

  ‘Yes. You know, you told me how Neil brings you flowers each Saturday and how he came home early once to pick Alfie up from nursery classes – and do you remember that time you were in the park and you said Alfie was cold and Neil went and bought him a new jacket?’

  ‘We weren’t living together then.’ Monica took the pie out of the oven, picked up a spoon and dug into the crispy potato topping and served large helpings.

  Gail refilled their glasses. ‘Weren’t you?’

  ‘Neil only moved in ten months ago.’

  ‘Really? It seems longer.’ Monica seemed lost in thought so Gail continued. ‘He was so kind after Richard left you.’

  Monica didn’t reply. Instead she ate silently without looking up.

  ‘Have you seen Richard? Has he been in touch?’

  ‘No.’

  ‘I can’t believe he doesn’t want to see his own son. Poor Alfie.’

  ‘He doesn’t want the responsibility.’

  Gail sipped her wine. ‘But Alfie is so…oh, I don’t know gorgeous.’

  ‘Let’s not go on about the past. I want to hear all your news. So, what did you get up to with Loukas?’

  ‘I met him on Aegina. I was wandering around the harbour and I thought he was a fisherman, but he’d borrowed the boat from a friend.’ She pulled out her phone and flicked through photographs and hesitated at snapshot memories.

  ‘You didn’t put any of him on Facebook?’ Monica said.

  ‘He’s not particularly good looking.’ Gail turned the phone around and Monica peered at the screen.

  ‘Are you in love with him?’

  ‘I don’t know.’

  Monica squinted at the screen. ‘His eyes are too close together and I’m not sure about the ponytail but so long as he is nice to you, that’s the main thing.’ She handed the phone back.

  ‘I know but-’

  Monica held up the palm of her hand then placed her knife and fork together on the empty plate.‘Please don’t say he’s not like Neil - again.’

  ‘I won’t, but it’s just that I‘ve never seen anyone so in love. You know, like you when you met Neil you lit up. You were so depressed, Richard had just walked out and you were struggling to bring up Alfie on your own and Neil was there for you.’

  Monica placed her hand over her wine glass to stop Gail refilling her glass. ‘I’ll be up at six again with Alfie. I’d better take it easy.’

  Gail filled her own glass. ‘Neil is just so wonderful with everyone.’

  ‘That’s a slight exaggeration.’

  ‘It’s just that when you and Neil met – it was so special. He couldn’t take his eyes off you – let alone his hands. You laughed all the time and you had fun. Do you remember how you took Alfie to the swimming pool for the first time, together – you didn’t stop laughing.’

  ‘Are you in love with Loukas?’

  ‘It’s not like real love-’

  ‘How do you know?’

  ‘Well, with you and – well, with you I could see how happy you were. Neil is attentive. He makes you feel special-’

  ‘Isn’t Loukas like that?’

  ‘He’s more laid back. He won’t put himself out. Like, one day I didn’t fancy going across the island to look at another bloody Greek temple so I said I’d prefer to stay on the beach – and Loukas just said okay, and went off on his own.’

  ‘That’s good.’

  ‘No! It wasn’t good, Monica. I wanted him to stay with me, not go sailing off to another island.’

  ‘But you’ve got to be true to yourself. There’s no point in trying to please someone – let alone you,’ Monica teased.

  ‘But Neil would have stayed with you. He wouldn’t have gone sailing. He would have put you first.’

  ‘Not necessarily.’

  ‘He would. Don’t you remember the time we were going to the cinema and he wanted to see that action movie but he came to see Hotel Marigold with us?’

  ‘That was before he moved in.’

  ‘Neil is like that – he idolises you and Alfie.’

  Monica sighed. ‘He might have done before.’

  ‘What do you mean?’

  Monica shrugged. ‘Things change.’ She stood up and began to place the dirty plates in the dishwasher. ‘I’ll just go and check on Alfie.’

  When Monica came downstairs Gail was sitting in the lounge with her legs curled under her and a fresh glass of wine in her hand.

  ‘What’s changed?’ she asked.

  Monica pretended she didn’t understand the question.

  ‘Come on? Talk to me. What’s happened?’ Gail insisted.

  ‘Nothing.’

  ‘Has Neil changed?’

  Monica shrugged, sat in the armchair and folded her legs under her bottom.

  ‘Well, has he?’

  ‘He’s bound to – it was bound to happen.’

  ‘Are you still in love?’

  ‘Not like before. Things change,’ Monica added.

  Gail stared at her. Monica had everything. She had a beautiful baby and a handsome boyfriend, yet she was never happy. Gail would swap her life in a heartbeat for Monica’s. Even as bad as Richard had been to Monica, Gail knew she would have been different with him. She would have coaxed out his softer side and his gentler nature. She would have looked after Richard.

  ‘So what’s wrong with Neil?’

  ‘Nothing’s wrong with him - people change.’

  ‘Is it because he knows Alfie isn’t his son? Does that make a difference? Do you want children together?’ It’s what Gail would have wanted had she been in Monica’s shoes.

  ‘I’m not ready for another child, Gail. I’ve got enough on my plate besides, I need to feel more… stable.’

  ‘Stable?’ Gail laugh
ed. ‘You’ve got a stud between the sheets and you’re talking stable…’

  ‘It’s not always about that - although the sex has changed too.’

  ‘Don’t tell me, he’s no longer the stallion he was?’

  ‘I guess when you live together, you get into some sort of…routine. It’s not make-believe any more. It’s not all fun and laughter. There’s the practical side of life, getting up, going to work, washing, dressing and feeding Alfie so things are bound to change.’

  ‘But you do still fancy him? Don’t you?’

  Monica laughed. ‘God, yes of course but…’

  ‘But what? Monica – he’s gorgeous. I know him. He’s a lovely guy.’

  ‘He’s changed.’ Monica blinked and wiped tears away with the back of her hand.

  ‘How? He seemed just the same tonight.’

  ‘I know. But it’s the detail. All those lovely things he used to do have just fallen away. It’s like he doesn’t care any more.’

  ‘Have you spoken to him about it?’

  ‘Of course but he doesn’t understand. He doesn’t see it – or doesn’t want to.’

  ‘How has he changed?’

  ‘All those small things that he did, you know the little things you talked about and the ones you remember, well – now he’s stopped doing them.’

  ‘Why?’

  ‘I think it is my fault. I used to say things like Richard never took me out for dinner or Richard never bought me chocolates and so Neil always did it. It was like he was trying to make up for Richard and he wanted to prove he was better than Richard. So, he did nice things. Like that time when he bought Alfie that jacket - I was in tears that day – he was so kind.’

  ‘Isn’t he kind now?’

  ‘He’s not unkind. There is a difference.’

  Gail sipped her wine and listened.

  ‘The magic disappears,’ Monica continued, ‘That initial euphoria that we had when we were in love - goes. It vanished - poof - just like that.’ She clicked her fingers. ‘And it won’t come back.’

  ‘Maybe it will? Maybe it’s just a phase.’

  Monica shook her head. ‘Before he moved in, he was always putting Alfie and me, first. It was always what we wanted and I thought this is how it would always be. I felt wanted again. I felt loved and important. Neil made me feel so special…’