by Gabi Moore
My heart skipped a beat.
The lights warmed on the heads of my sisters around the fire. The crowd was silent. I took a breath and then stepped out into the light, and as it touched me, I became Boulotte, the deliciously hapless heroine who, slowly but surely, would land herself in the delightful jaws of a predator…a predator sexy as the devil himself.
My mouth opened and the lines spoke themselves through me, perfectly on cue.
And just like that I was swept along.
Chapter Twenty-One
Later that month, very much later, I went to visit my parents.
The newspaper clipping felt dry and rough against my skin, bundled in my jacket pocket with my cold hands. My breath came in clouds as I walked. It was the dead of winter now, right at the apex of the pendulum where it seems as though everything pauses completely before coming back down into another swing. Spring was poised, but not yet quite ready to bloom. Everything around me felt frozen in time for a moment.
I walked on, winced as I unlatched the icy cold iron gate and walked into the cemetery. No graves, just a plaque. Some crispy carcasses of flowers that may have been white to start with. Fans of my father, most likely.
I knelt down before the grave, the frozen ground hard as steel against my knees. I took the clipping from my pocket and unfolded it. The bitter wind tried to snatch it from my hands but I held it, cleared my throat, and started to read.
“That the daughter of late stage legend Norman Westling should so thoroughly replicate her father’s frightening talent is no surprise. But after watching Blackworth College’s offbeat reworking of Fairy Tale Bluebeard, what is surprising is just how much further the young actress is willing to go. Together with the adept Adam Morgan, Nyx Westling brings to life a tale so deliciously macabre, I watched with delighted horror throughout every second of the production – which on the down side was a touch too long.
This is a young, viciously talented generation of new artists that I for one will be watching closely – not least because, yes, the whole thing is dripping with sex appeal. The producers are not afraid to lay it on thick and then some. As the female lead gets into worse and worse trouble, the audience flits between obvious sympathy and concern for her, and a truly morbid desire to see just what form her ruin will take.
By the time the final scene rolls round (no spoilers from me!) all pretense is gone. The viewer is fully complicit. The entire effect is more Marquis de Sade than Fifty Shades. The audience feels involved not in a mere play, but in a dark ritual of sorts; a ceremony of sex, magic and death. I left the theatre with the strong sensation that I had taken part in something sickeningly real. A solid ten out of ten. Don’t miss it.”
I crumpled the newspaper clipping back into my pocket and wiped away the wet at the end of my cold nose. I looked at the silent plaque. What would my parents have said, if they could see me now? Well, dad would have made a dumb, off color joke, obviously, and mum would have slapped his arm and tried to pretend she didn’t find it funny.
Some slate grey clouds skidded across the horizon and threatened further drizzle. I thought of saying some words. But now was no time for a performance. No point now in tears or drama. I knelt in silence for a moment, then rose and dusted my knees. A bundled figure came hobbling slowly up the path. We both paused when we saw one another. Aunt Lila, I realized with a start.
She, too said nothing. She simply positioned herself next to me and together we looked at the plaque. I hadn’t seen her since the day we fought. It had been months.
“Well done,” she finally said, voice as dry and brittle as the roses, which I now began wondering – had she left them?
I looked at her.
Even in her sharp collared jacket, even in the harsh cold, there was something warm in her face. In my memories she always looked like so much more of a harpy. But now her eyes were damp and soft and she looked utterly harmless. It made me feel strange.
“Your production, I mean,” she continued. “You did very well.” She said these words slowly and deliberately, as though each one cost her a great deal, and she was taking pains not to say the wrong thing.
“You heard about it?” I said, trying to sound casual.
The corner of her mouth flickered into a little smile.
“Nyx, I watched it,” she said. “I came to every performance, obviously.”
I looked away.
“Oh. Well, that’s not so obvious to me,” I said.
When she sighed it came as the same little white clouds. Not much different from my own.
“Nyx I’m proud of you,” she said quietly, although to the plaque, and not to me.
“Yes, well, it seems like whoring around and embarrassing you has all worked out pretty well in the end, huh?”
I was surprised at the venom in my voice. It had been almost nine months since she had cancelled that stupid direct debit. Nine months since I had moved into a dingy student hovel with four others and nine months of working 12 hour days, seven days a week. Not a lot of time, in some ways. But in other ways, a lifetime. I had learnt a lot since then.
“I’ve had a chance to do a lot of thinking, Nyx. The way I handled things was …well, it left something to be desired. I know that. But you must understand, I was grieving too. I missed your father terribly. I still do.”
I wanted to tell her that I didn’t care. That it wasn’t any of my business what she did now. But before I could, she was speaking again.
“I was even a little envious of you, to be honest.”
I shot her a confused look. Envious?
“You know, you running around, being so young and carefree. And I thought I was helping. You were always a difficult child, Nyx. The thought of being your legal guardian …I cannot describe how terrifying it was to me. There’s a damn good reason I didn’t have children, you know,” she said, and chuckled quietly to herself.
It suddenly didn’t seem quite so important that I gloat about my good review. At least not now.
I let the conversation fizzle and float off with her white breath.
“I miss them,” I said quietly.
“Me too.”
We stood together a little longer.
“Do you …do you need anything? Are you alright sweetheart?” she asked carefully.
I narrowed my eyes at the glaring light that seemed to be slicing through the horizon now that the sun was starting to dip down.
“No, thank you.”
Her lips tightened but she said nothing, gave a little nod and walked out of the cemetery the same way she had come.
Chapter Twenty-Two
November 21, 2021
Five Years Later
I looked down at the photographs and try to decide which one I liked better. Five slightly different versions of myself gazed back up at me from the screen.
“This one, I like this one,” I said and pointed to a glossy portrait where my head was tilted slightly down, and my eyes seemed a bit cloudier somehow. I was wearing a black-ish, trendy kimono, you could see my sleeve tattoos and my hair was tousled and half-tucked into my collar. A proper artsy-fartsy affair, that was for sure. I liked it.
“Yes, I like that one the best, too,” the photographer said, and handed it with a flourish to an assistant. The interviewer with Deep End magazine was waiting for me in the foyer. I wiped my hand across my forehead and looked down to see a white streak of makeup left on the skin. I smiled. It was beautiful.
I was still warm, still buzzing. I could still feel his fingernails dragging deliciously down the skin of my back. Could still taste him. Could still feel the weight of his body all around me. And in me.
I settled down into the big sofa and the interviewer kicked off with all the usual questions. I tried to answer them with all the wit and tasteful candor you’d expect from the youngest woman to ever win The Stage Awards Producer of the Year Award. It was utterly embarrassing and ridiculous, but …I liked it. All of it. Plus, it was good publicity. The interviewer sud
denly changed tack and began asking slightly more personal questions.
“So, I’m sorry but I’m going to have to ask you, as far as, what can I call it, tabloid scandal and so on, how deliberate is all of that?”
The interviewer was a cheerful gentleman with sharp teeth and manic hands. He crossed his legs and leaned in close, notebook perched on his knee even though I had signed two separate documents agreeing to be recorded. I smiled at him knowingly.
“Ah. You’re talking about Adam. Yes, he certainly finds his way into the tabloids and--”
“No, I meant you,” he said, eyes smiling.
“Me?”
“Well, yes. It certainly appears that of the two of you, you’re the more daring, no? The more fiery one? I just wanted to know if what we see in the tabloids is a true picture of the real Nyx Westling. Jeremy Fontain said recently that your habit of courting scandal must be something like a second art for you, what do you say to that?” he said through a good-natured grin.
I was still turning over the idea between Adam and me, I’d be considered the more ‘daring’ one. I’d have to remember to tell him that for sure.
“Well, uh, if there’s anything Adam has taught me, is that there are no real distinctions between life and art and so on. So I’m not sure what that even would be, a ‘true picture’. I try to be authentic. That’s all. I try to create something that I don’t just think is good, but which I actually feel is good.”
I pressed a clench fist to my chest to demonstrate exactly where this feeling would emanate from.
He nodded.
“As you’ve said in other interviews, an instinctual process,” he said.
“Exactly. An instinctual process. Like sex.”
He scribbled something into his notebook.
“Like sex?”
“Well, yes. When people make love, their sense of self is more elastic. The boundaries between them disappear almost completely, especially at the peak of ecstasy. It’s not about what looks good or sounds good, it’s just about pleasure. Just about what feels good. With good sex, there is no question about what is real or not, what comes next, or any of that. We all have the instinct in us, I think, that inbuilt timing. Good sex is always like good theatre. The ultimate performance. And so when I work on a production, that’s what I mean about working instinctually. Feeling the flow of what to do and when, in the same way as you’d ask yourself that during the act of lovemaking.”
He lifted an amused eyebrow at me. I could see the article already, see the over-the-top headline they’d splash on everything. Maybe I did court scandal after all.
“Well, that’s certainly an interesting take, and rather gutsy if I’m honest,” he said and gave an uncomfortable laugh.
I liked it. I liked that I put him slightly on edge.
“But it was always a very obvious move for you, wasn’t it? Coming from a family already so heavily involved in the theatre, anyway?”
There was something a bit nasty in his smile this time.
“Actually, in the very beginning, the plan was never to act at all.”
“Really? Some would say that you’ve been extremely fortunate, privileged even …certainly many talented young people didn’t start life with nearly the connections you did, and from what I’ve heard…”
“What have you heard?” I said bluntly.
He smiled. His teeth weren’t so sharp as they had first seemed.
“Oh, only the rumors of course, but you know people do have their theories. Your critics for one say it’s easy to create the kind of fantasy theatre you do when you’ve had such an easy rise to fame.”
“Easy?”
“Well, you’re basically theatre royalty. You’ve had many opportunities handed to you.”
“Nothing was ever easy for me,” I said.
He held up his hand and looked apologetic.
“No, of course not. Of course it wasn’t. I suppose the question to ask is, would you see yourself going into acting and directing if you hadn’t, by some chance, been born the child of a great actor? Would you have pursued that path anyway?”
“There’s no question in my mind that I would have,” I said.
The light glinted off his teeth as he smiled once more, and extended his hand.
We shook.
“Miss Westling, it has been an absolute pleasure.”
“Well, that’s what it’s all about, isn’t it?” I said and laughed. “Pleasure.”
The photographer gave me a sly look as I put on my jacket and left the building. I took a glance at my phone. It was getting late. My fingers tapped quickly over the screen:
Interview was ghastly. You were right. I should have turned it down!
The reply was instant.
Should have …but didn’t. But I do know how much you love having your picture taken, though ;)
Even now, nobody could make me blush harder than he could. It was his special talent, riling me up like this, with minimum effort. Sending me into an urgent frenzy with a look, a naughty word. I pulled the collar up round my neck and found my car, turned on the ignition and made my way home.
Chapter Twenty-Three
“Mommy’s late again! Mommy’s late again!” came a shrill little voice from inside the house. I threw my car keys into my handbag and walked up the driveway, pretending to hide my face in my hands from shame. There was a time when Adam was the late one. I suppose life goes on, though.
“No, I’m not that late!” I mumbled and when I parted my fingers I saw her standing in the doorway, very pleased with herself indeed.
“Yes, late. Too late. You can’t come in,” she said and grabbed the door jamb, blocking my entry with her little arms.
“Yeah? Well what do you want, a magic word or something?”
“Yes.”
“OK, is the magic word Nelly?” I said.
She looked crestfallen. She was only three, granted, and I don’t think she knew that many words period, nevermind magic ones.
“Noooo, it’s not Nelly,” she said and gave me a naughty smile.
“It’s not?”
“No!”
“Really? Are you sure?”
“Uh huh.”
“I’m pretty sure it’s Nelly though.”
“No!”
“Then what is it then?”
She looked around at my feet, then her little face brightened.
“It’s flower!” she said.
“Oh, OK, not Nelly?”
“No!”
I scaled the steps and stood before her.
“Wait, you can’t come in yet! You didn’t say the magic word!”
“But I know the magic word. It’s flower,” I said, and kissed her cheek. Her little face scrunched down into a frown. She had deep, expressive eyes and cheekbones to make a supermodel jealous.
“No it’s not!” she said, getting flustered.
“Hey hey hey, what’s all this commotion?” came Adam’s voice from inside the house. I looked up and smiled to see him there, tall, shirtless and with a paperback in his hands, all bent out of shape.
“It appears I can’t come in because I don’t know the magic word,” I told him. Our eyes locked for a moment. My home. Those eyes. Of all the roles we had played in our time together, of all the lines I had seen him deliver, of all the expressions, all the costumes, there was one role I never tired of sawing him in. And it was this role right here. This bare chested Adam, clear eyed, something mischievous playing on his lips, and nothing but a silent smile. God, I loved him like this.
“Well that’s perfectly all right, I happen to know the magic word,” he said and bent down to grab her round her little belly.
“No! Don’t tell her!” she squealed and giggled in his arms, but he had hoisted her up high and now had her perched on his shoulder where she looked at me red-faced and indignant.
“It’s Nelly,” he whispered loudly to me.
I laughed and stepped inside.
“Nelly Nelly N
elly!” he said and blew bubbles on her stomach and she squealed and wriggled on his shoulders as I shut the door behind me and put my stuff down on the kitchen table. He put her down and she gave me a poorly aimed kiss on my knee, then scampered off to another room, no doubt to figure out a more reliable magic word.
“Interview no good?” he asked. He came over to me and wrapped warm, dry hands round the back of my neck. I smiled, shut my eyes and sunk into the comforting musk of his neck.
“Ugh,” I said and I heard him laugh quietly from somewhere inside his chest. He stroked my hair to the side and kissed my brow.
“Don’t worry, Leah will be here soon and then you can tell me all about it, hm?” he said quietly.
I smiled at the thought. It had been a hell of a week. Two interviews, too many late nights meeting with the cast of Sinderella, too many scripts and lines and ring binders. But in Adam’s arms, none of that seemed to matter quite as much. We had come a long way together, me, him, and those naughty eyes of his. The doorbell rang, and Nelly ran off to go and answer it and, presumably, tell the visitor that they couldn’t pass unless they guessed a very, very obvious magic word.
Adam pecked my cheek and disentangled himself.
“Here she is! Let me dash off and put a shirt on quick,” he said and disappeared off to the bedroom. I could already hear Nelly’s bossy little voice through the hallway.
“No, it isn’t Nelly, that’s not the magic word!”
I came up behind her, swooped her up and let Leah in.
“Blimey, Nyx, she’s definitely your child, isn’t she? Stubborn as a mule, I swear,” she said and came in laughing.
“What, me? Nah that’s all Adam, promise. He’s taught her all that magic word shit” I said and closed the door.
“Daddy! Daddy! Mom said a swear,” Nelly squealed in my arms.
“Mommy don’t swear,” came Adam’s voice from the bedroom.
“Charming,” Leah said and leaned in to give Nelly a big kiss on her cheek. “You all right love? Ready to come with auntie Leah?”