by Louise Beech
‘He said what?’
‘Nothing.’ She shrugged.
Until Ryan had come between them, Jess had never kept anything from Chloe. What had they got up to last night? The thought of them kissing was acutely painful. Before she could push further, Ryan turned up, all swagger and overpowering aftershave, wearing a white T-shirt and red jacket like a cheap, wannabe James Dean.
‘What’s up, bitches?’ he joked, and Chloe wanted to hit him.
He headed around the back of the building, and Jess immediately followed. Chloe went too, last as always, watching Jess’s ponytail swing. They climbed through the window and headed for the theatre.
Once they were inside, the air changed. Chloe was sure of it. She almost wanted to return to the corridor and walk back in to feel it again; a tightening. As if the space in the theatre was smaller than it had been yesterday. As if it had been waiting for them; as if it had not breathed since they left.
Ryan took the shoe box from the cupboard and laid the letters and words in two circles as though he had been doing so for eternity. Jess looked nervous but hid it with a too-big smile. The evening sun slanted between the window boards; dust danced there. Chloe thought of Esme Black’s haunting song. I’m still here; I am dust. I’m those fragments in the air, the gold light dancing there, the breeze from nowhere.
Was that what happened when you died? Was that where you went?
‘Let’s get started,’ said Ryan, sitting down and lighting the three candles.
Jess joined him. They shared a look that Chloe couldn’t read.
She sat too. ‘Aren’t we going to talk about what happened yesterday?’
‘What is there to say?’ Ryan put a finger on the glass. ‘It worked.’
‘Maybe we should discuss it.’
‘Later,’ snapped Ryan. He handed Chloe the pad and pen.
‘Did anyone else feel like they were being watched last night?’ Jess put her finger next to Ryan’s. ‘At home I mean.’
He didn’t answer. Which said everything. Chloe couldn’t lie and say she hadn’t felt that if she had turned around someone would be standing right behind her. So she also said nothing. She just put her finger on the glass. The three of them swirled it around a few times and then settled it in the middle.
‘Is there anyone here with us tonight?’ asked Ryan in the tone he’d assumed for Macbeth. ‘If you are, move the glass and talk to us.’
Nothing. One of the candles flickered but not the other two. Odd. Chloe frowned. She leaned towards the flame, hypnotised. The heat stopped her when she got too close.
‘We know there was someone here last night,’ said Ryan. ‘Are you with us again?’
Nothing. Chloe squeezed the pen, its tip against the pad.
‘Is there anyone there?’
Slowly, the glass moved. They gasped in unison. Chloe couldn’t help but be thrilled, despite her previous apprehension. For a moment, she was sure a tiny finger joined theirs on the glass as it scraped across the floor to the ‘Hello’.
‘Hello,’ said Ryan. ‘Who are you?’
STILL HERE
‘Are you who we spoke to yesterday?’
FOREVER HERE
Chloe wrote the words down as they were spelled out.
‘Tell us your name,’ said Ryan.
YOURE MAKING ME KILL YOU
19
The Game
2005
‘Shit,’ whispered Jess. ‘I don’t like that.’
‘Keep your finger on the glass,’ hissed Ryan.
‘I don’t think it’s the same person,’ said Chloe.
‘What? Why?’
‘It’s a different voice. Someone … younger.’
‘You can hear it?’ Jess was studying her, eyes bright with nerves.
And Chloe realised she could. Shit – she could. Or was it her imagination? Was she just imagining the sound of a physical voice? As she had written each of those awful words, had she imagined she had heard them, softly, right by her ear, spoken by a small child?
‘No, it’s just an instinct,’ she lied.
YOURE MAKING ME KILL YOU
‘Shit,’ whispered Jess.
‘Tell us who you are,’ continued Ryan. ‘Are you a different person to yesterday?’
I WAS A BABY
‘A baby?’ asked Ryan.
NEVER GREW UP
‘What happened?’ asked Ryan.
YOU KNOW
‘Do we? Tell us anyway.’
WOODS
‘Which woods?’ asked Ryan.
Chloe could smell talcum powder, and the kind of skin cream you put on a baby’s body. These innocent odours merged with the thick, sickly sweet stench of blood, and crawled up her nose. A child’s voice whispered woods, over and over, in her ear. She gagged.
‘Are you OK?’ asked Jess.
Chloe nodded, even as the horrible reek intensified.
‘Which woods do you mean?’ asked Ryan.
SCOUTWOOD
‘Shit,’ whispered Jess. ‘We camped there last summer … It’s where…’
‘Where that baby was found,’ finished Chloe.
‘Fuck.’ Ryan looked nervous now. ‘The one that had been … killed.’
‘It was wrapped in a blanket covered with all those weird Satanic symbols,’ said Chloe.
‘Are you Erin Moore?’ asked Ryan.
Chloe could visualise the headline: ‘Baby Sacrificed by Sadistic Satan Worshippers in Local Woods’. She remembered reading about how Erin had been cold, blue, and perfect, except for a neat cut around her neck. When Ryan suggested they camp in those woods last summer, she hadn’t slept a wink. Kept imagining she could hear a baby crying.
YOU SLEPT WHERE I DIED
Where I died, whispered the child in Chloe’s ear.
‘We did,’ said Ryan. ‘We camped there. Shit.’
YOURE MAKING ME KILL YOU
‘What do you mean?’ demanded Ryan.
‘Say goodbye to it,’ said Jess.
Ryan nodded.
They all moved the glass towards ‘Goodbye’. Chloe could feel it resist like it was stuck on the floor. They pushed harder. Looked at one another when it still resisted. Pushed harder. Chloe remembered yesterday. When she had wanted to push Ryan away from Jess. Will it and it shall happen. Push. And she did it again; she pushed. Not with her finger. Not with her body. With her heart.
The glass shot towards ‘Goodbye’.
‘Thank fuck,’ said Jess. ‘Can we stop now?’
‘Hell, no,’ said Ryan. ‘It’s just getting good.’
‘I don’t want to talk to dead babies,’ she said softly.
‘Me neither,’ agreed Chloe, and Ryan looked at her with contempt, like he knew her real reason for siding with Jess.
‘We can’t just say goodbye the minute we don’t like them!’ he cried.
Jess didn’t look convinced, but she kept quiet.
‘Is there anyone else there?’ asked Ryan. ‘Anyone who isn’t a dead baby?’
‘Stop it,’ hissed Chloe. ‘Aren’t we supposed to respect the dead?’
‘Whatever. Is there anyone there?’
‘Let’s ask about the three,’ said Jess.
‘What three?’ Ryan frowned.
You know which three, thought Chloe.
‘That one yesterday who said they were one of an eternal three. They quoted the line from Macbeth. Sorry – the Scottish play…’
‘Shit, of course. OK – are you with us? You said you’d come back and tell us who you are. Are you here now?’
ALWAYS
‘That was fast. OK.’ Ryan seemed to think. ‘Did you die a long time ago?’
NO
‘But you say you’ve always been here.’
NO ALWAYS WITH YOU
Ryan looked around at the girls. ‘Always with me? Or always with us?’
ALL OF YOU
‘When did you die?’
LAST YEAR
‘How?’
CAR
‘Were you driving?’
NO
‘Were you in it?’
NO
‘How did it happen then?’
WALKED IN FRONT OF IT
Chloe shivered as she wrote the words down. Once again, she could hear the voice as though he was whispering the words in her ear. A male. And then she saw him. Sitting behind Ryan. Cross-legged. A teenage boy. Grinning. Face bloody; the crimson flow from the ragged gash across his forehead pretty in the flickering candlelight. She had seen his face before, less broken, on the front of a newspaper. She knew who it was.
‘Who are you?’ asked Ryan.
DANIEL LOCKE
‘Fuck.’ Jess pulled her finger from the glass.
Chloe blinked and he had gone. But he was still here. She knew it even if she couldn’t see him. She could feel it. His heat. His hormonal scent. Blood. She felt him get up and walk around behind them. What the hell did he want? Round and round the glass went, like a dark game of Scrabble, while dust danced in the candlelight.
‘You’re moving the fucking glass,’ cried Jess, glaring at Ryan. ‘You went to school with him. He died and they did a Ouija board too. You’re pretending he’s here to scare us!’
‘You think it’s me?’ cried Ryan, red-faced. ‘Right – let’s fucking test it. Prove it ain’t me.’
‘How?’
‘I’ll leave the room and you ask him a question only I know the answer to – if he gives the right answer, I can’t be moving it, can I?’
‘It might not even work without you here,’ said Jess.
It will, thought Chloe.
‘Only one way to find out.’ Ryan stood up. ‘Ask Daniel what his mum’s name is. I know the answer. Do you two?’
Chloe and Jess shook their heads.
‘OK. I’ll be in the corridor.’
Ryan left the theatre, the candles dancing as he opened and shut the door. Chloe looked at Jess. Despite the orange glow, she looked as white as new snow.
‘You OK?’ Chloe asked.
‘I feel a bit sick,’ Jess admitted.
‘We can stop. We should if you don’t want to do it.’
‘I’ll be fine. Ryan really wants to do it. It’s all he talks about when we’re alone.’
‘Jess, you don’t have to do what he wants just to make him happy.’
‘But I like him,’ she said simply. ‘So let’s do this.’
‘You think you can win him over by going along with it?’ asked Chloe, struggling to keep her tears back.
‘He likes his girls to be daring. Up for anything. I don’t think I’m enough for him. I’m too … I don’t know… I’m nobody.’
‘You are not nobody,’ cried Chloe.
You are everything.
‘My mum’s always on about me being someone.’ Jess shrugged.
Chloe knew this was true. She’d pushed Jess into acting lessons and demanded the absolute best from her, paying for extra singing lessons and insisting she diet.
‘Because Mum never achieved much, she’s relying on me to do well. She’s always nagging me to rehearse, rehearse, rehearse. To be better than the other actors. Be prettier than the other girls.’
‘You are prettier than the other girls,’ said Chloe softly.
There was a moment then, a moment that fell into its place. It dropped quietly like a feather. They looked at one another. Chloe saw herself in Jess’s eyes and wondered if Jess could see herself too. They each took a slow breath at the same time, and it felt to Chloe like they drank in atoms that would change them – strengthen them, join them. Chloe reached out and put the finger that had pushed the glass over Jess’s mouth. She traced the dampness and then leaned forwards to put her lips there instead.
Then Ryan opened the door and yelled, ‘What’s the fucking wait?’
The spell was broken.
20
The Dean Wilson Theatre
March 2019
Chloe wonders if the currently trendy torn jeans are supposed to mirror self-harm scars; if they are some sort of statement about cutting. Are women wearing their lives? She bought a pair that in the changing room perfectly paralleled her scars and therefore hid them – until she stretched her arms, and the ragged gaps moved up. Chloe felt it was a triumph that she even bought them.
Now – sitting in the DW Theatre foyer wearing them – she is afraid they will gape and reveal everything she wants to hide. What had possessed her to choose them today? She takes her jacket off and places it over her knees.
Jess will be arriving in ten minutes – if she’s on time, anyway.
Chloe hoped that, with it being daytime, the foyer might be less busy, but there’s a tour of the building going on. They happen once a month. Today it’s led by Edwin Roberts, the artistic director. He’s explaining the process for choosing scripts with animated gestures, his customary fedora hat absent, his hair as wildly thespian as his hand movements. These tours are usually full of people morbidly fascinated by Morgan Miller’s haunted dressing room.
‘Are we going to that dressing room?’ one of the group asks on cue.
‘All in good time,’ says Edwin.
Chloe turns her back to them and hunches over, pretending to read her phone. Except for Chester, she hasn’t told anyone that she’s meeting Jess today. She hasn’t eaten a thing, sure she’ll be sick if she does. For the fifth time she checks her lipstick in a small mirror. What time is it? Five minutes to go – if Jess is on time. Chloe knows without turning around that the box-office staff are watching her. She knows they’re itching to ask what she’s doing here on her day off.
The new Dust posters have gone up in the foyer. They are stunning: a simple black-and-white image of Ginger Swanson and John Marrs as Esme and Chevalier, swept up in a passionate embrace, is overlaid with gold lettering; it’s very noir, very 1940s movie, despite the Victorian setting. Chloe knows the marketing team want to attract a new and younger audience. There is no need. It has sold out.
A tap on Chloe’s shoulder.
She turns.
In that moment, the sun slants through the large window overlooking the street. It slips between two posters and she is blinded. She remembers sun through wooden window slats. Sees dust, dancing. Sees sixteen-year-old Jess, face pale, asking Chloe, ‘Where do you think we go when we die?’
And Chloe blacks out.
When she comes around, faces lean over her, blurred at first and then emerging as though the lights have come up on a stage. Cynthia, her hair covering her face as she bends down. Chester, fanning Chloe’s face dramatically. And Jess. No, she’s Ginger, whispers a voice. Ginger is beautiful; her golden hair is a soft halo around her face, her sculpted lips speak incoherent words, and her eyes are bright blue with concern.
‘Talk about falling at your feet,’ Chester is saying, nudging Ginger like he’s known her for years. ‘Bet this happens to you all the time!’
Chloe gets up, rubbing the back of her head. How embarrassing. She must look an utter state.
‘Jess,’ she croaks.
There’s a brief flicker of uncertainty in Jess’s eyes; then she shakes her head, smiles warmly and says, ‘No one calls me that anymore. They haven’t for years. Please, it’s Ginger or just Ginge.’ And she helps Chloe to her feet.
When their hands touch, Chloe sees a glass tumbler with their fingers on it. It’s gone as soon as it appears. She’s going to have to call her Ginger now. After all, she isn’t Jess; she isn’t an insecure teenage girl. She’s a woman who moves with the grace of someone totally confident about her beauty, a woman whose hand is warm. Chloe doesn’t want to let go of it. But Jess – no Ginger – does.
‘I often have these blackouts,’ Chloe explains, blushing.
‘Do you two know each other?’ asks Cynthia.
‘We did,’ says Ginger. She’s wearing an expensive-looking coat, the softest of pinks, and smells of exquisite perfume. ‘Back at school.’
‘Amazing,’ says Chester. ‘You’ve got load
s to catch up on, then.’
‘What are you doing here, Ches?’ Chloe asks him, pointedly.
‘Oh, I’m helping with the next backstage tour.’
Yeah, yeah, thinks Chloe.
‘Anyway, I’m OK now,’ she insists.
Cynthia heads back to her office; Chester leaves them too but glances back with a knowing look. Chloe feels stupid. Doesn’t know what to say now they are alone. Ginger is so effortlessly gorgeous. The scars on Chloe’s thighs and upper arms throb. She can feel the heat through her clothes.
‘You really haven’t changed,’ Ginger says.
You have, Chloe wants to say. But there’s still something about you…
‘It’s like I just saw you last week,’ Ginger says.
Chloe smiles.
‘It’s weird,’ starts Ginger, frowning.
‘What is?’
‘I can see all this strange stuff too.’
‘What do you mean?’
‘Like…’ Ginger sits in a chair near the window; Chloe sits in the one opposite. A Dust poster hangs between them. ‘Well, I can see you … and me … at the youth theatre. Really vividly. Remember that place? God, we were there for – what – five or six years?’
‘Yes,’ says Chloe.
‘I’ve always been able to remember us at school quite clearly, and I’ve often laughed at what we got up to, but the youth theatre was a haze until … well, until I walked in and saw you.’