Time of Her Life

by Josephine Scott

"Of course."

  "I have to say the purple suits you, Abbey. It goes well with the black hair. And Stevie, you look delicious in the red and black!"

  Would anyone believe he had been talking dry facts and figures to Mr Wilkins that afternoon? No one would, if they hadn't seen it for themselves.

  I was walking like this then, too, thought Abbey, retiring to the back of the stage, smoothing the purple folds down over her hips. I took tea in for both of them. He just didn't notice a thing. Here, he's a different person.

  And Stevie did look delicious in the red and black. It was a much better choice for her. Her blonde hair shone in the stage lights, the red brought out her pale skin and the black added drama to her pouting looks. The perfect leading lady.

  "Right, everyone, places - let's run through it from Scene five."

  Shuffling of feet as everyone moved around. Lights dimmed and went up again, Alfred retired into the darkness like a vampire retreating to his coffin come the touch of rose dawn. Abbey had no words or entrances to make for a while, so she slipped quietly off stage left, came down the steps and stood in the shadows at the side, out of the way, awaiting her cue.

  The theatre was chilly as always. Without an audience the great cavernous darkness held nothing but cold, whispers, memories of past productions. You could almost imagine ghosts walking here.

  "Okay, people! Action!" Charles, the leading man, strode onto the stage, dark blue doublet and light blue tunic, sleeves slashed with pale blue ribbon, blue trousers, large boots, huge plumed hat in his hand. Black hair fell round his shoulders (a wig), the Van Dyck beard gleamed in the light (real) and Abbey caught her breath. She hadn't seen Charles for a couple of weeks. The beard suited him and reminded her of...

  Lord Danverson.

  "So, my lady it has come to this, has it?"

  Above her head the drama went on, lines she had memorised without realising it. Her lips moved silently.

  Someone came down the aisle at the side. She turned and caught sight of the caretaker, flashed him a smile and was shocked when he shouted out in surprise.

  "What's wrong?" A shout, everyone stopped, crowded to the edge of the stage. The caretaker, a little old man with thick pebbled glasses and bald head, collapsed onto the nearest seat, one hand held approximately over his heart.

  Abbey reached him just as Alfred arrived, half grinning, half annoyed.

  "What's the matter, Jim? Seen a ghost?"

  "Damn right, Mr Fitzpaine, I thought this young lady here was the lady in purple what haunts this place!"

  Alfred laughed.

  "No, that's Abbey, our Goodwife Manderson! Oh, I see, Abbey was in the shadows there! You'll be all right in a minute." He laughed again and went back to his place. "Old Jim thought Abbey was a ghost, that's all!"

  Amid the laughter Abbey put her hand on Jim's shoulder and made him jump again.

  "Why did you think I was a ghost, Mr Melville?"

  "It was said by some a lady in purple haunts this place, Miss Abbey. Floats round in the shadows like you were there."

  "Have you ever seen her?"

  "Nah, not till now!"

  "Jim, Abbey, can we have some silence?"

  "Sorry, Mr Fitzpaine." Jim Melville got up and staggered back into the aisle. He nodded to Abbey and clumped out of the auditorium again. Abbey took her place, waiting for her cue.

  Wondering.

  Sunday was summer-bright but autumn chilled, edging toward September, with a sharp blue sky and clouds so white they might have been rain-washed. An occasional gold leaf drifted past the window. Abbey frowned over her typewriter, glancing back at the words.

  She had told Kenneth Thompson she was writing a book, but had done nothing more than write a few notes for herself. She had decided it was time to really begin work, to prove she could do it. The thoughts had been bothering her for weeks.

  And, like a lot of thoughts, they were best laid to rest as soon as she could arrange it.

  The mirror seemed to call me. I had no intention of going in the shop, no intention of pushing past damp mouldering furniture and gewgaws, the cheap gimcracks and mementoes of another time; even possessions from a few years earlier seem like things from another time when you wander a house-clearance place. Do they come with the smell of mould and damp, poverty and death trapped within the walls? Is it a requirement laid down by the planners that the place should smell and look like that?

  For whatever reason, they all seem the same, and I usually avoid them like the proverbial plague. But the mirror called me.

  It was behind a tattered dirty screen, hiding itself from the world. I found it by weaving my way through the tables, lopsided chairs, water-stained upholstery, and then pushing away a large coat rack that threatened to decapitate me. The mirror hung there, reflecting -

  Nothing. It should have showed me the cheap print opposite, the lady in the garden picking flowers, thatched cottage background, a Victorian printmaker's dream, a reality that never existed.

  But showed me nothing.

  I had to have it.

  "Damn pleased to get rid of it," the man grumbled, greased-down hair showing a parting sharp enough to cut paper. He looked and smelled like his shop, a house clearance in himself. Had he come with a van load of furniture one day, and stayed ever since?

  "Give us £20 and I'll be glad to see it gone."

  "Is it an antique?"

  "Don't know. Ask the Antiques Roadshow if they comes here again. All I know is, it gives me the creeps. Don't reflect anything, do it?"

  "No, it doesn't." And I had the strongest feeling I should not look into it.

  Yet.

  I moved a picture on the wall of my two-roomed share-bathroom flat, and hung the mirror in place. The elaborate ornate gilt/gold frame blended well with the warm peachy emulsion I had painted the walls, and didn't look out of place with a relatively modern three-piece suite I'd got cheap from my aunt. I had the distinct impression it would blend in with whatever surroundings it found itself.

  It glowed, softly. And still I didn't stand in front of it.

  Not until nighttime when I put on a Victorian nightdress, all frills and high neck, ruffled cuffs and ribbons. Not me at all. Not modern at all. A copy of a Victorian lady. I put my hair up in a plait and stood in front of the mirror.

  And in a second - less than that - I was gone.

  There was a fleeting sensation of being nothing, and then I found myself in a large overcrowded bedroom hung with red velvet drapes. There was a clutter of china ornaments and the scent of lilies drifted in through the open leaded window. A large dressing table stood waiting. I looked at it with curiosity: rouge, powders, perfumes and potions.

  "Oh, there you are." A voice, a man, gold-haired and elegant, smart suit, gold-topped cane. "Bertie said he'd send someone to the bedroom for me."

  I had no idea what he was talking about, where I was, or what I was expected to do, but he obviously did. He tumbled my hair around my shoulders as he kissed me, and pushed me back on the bed.

  And I knew I wouldn't fight him.

  How?

  I don't know. There was a sense of freedom somehow, I could make it with this man and -

  Never have to see him again.

  How did I know this too? How did I know I could look in the mirror and escape when it was over?

  It was soon over, for he'd had too much to drink. The cock wasn't hard enough but it was a reasonable attempt; with lips and fingers and a little coercion we got a semblance of an erection going, a short thrust or two and he was done, tumbled face down on the bed, snoring. I moved him onto his back so he wouldn't suffocate, gathered up my nightdress, glanced in the mirror -

  And was back in my room.

  And I thought, this is great! This is what it's all about! I can be pure and good in Walchurch, in 1993, and a whore in the past!

  My appetite for sex could be satisfied without my getting a reputation. For no matter how hard you try, someone talks. And I had a job to keep,
a flat to keep, a reputation to secure, and parents to keep happy, even if they didn't live in Walchurch and never spoke to me. They would if they heard anything unsavoury! What an opportunity!

  Lunch time already! Abbey glanced at the clock, shocked at how much time had gone by. She had an appointment that afternoon, a preview of the local history classes, a walk round Walchurch. She had to go, she had to learn as much as she could.

  Over lunch Abbey thought about her book. It was a bald statement of what had happened, not the romantic story she had intended it to be. But what could be more romantic than flying back to the past to find sex and excitement? What I'll do is carry on writing it like that, she decided, gathering up the remains of the crispbread and salad lunch, add a strange pen name - something elaborate, and very Victorian, a distinctly old-fashioned name - and send it off. When it's done. There's a long way to go.

  And not much time to get there. The clock showed one-thirty. Abbey changed swiftly into a pair of tailored jeans, added a tee shirt with an environmentally friendly trendy message and picked up a lightweight cardigan. Her bag was in the lounge. She snatched it up and went out.

  The group was meeting at the White Hart, the large pub in the middle of the road; an island in itself, the traffic normally swirled around it. This sunny, lazy, end-of-summer afternoon the town was almost silent, only litter scraped along the ground as it fought its way out of rubbish bins and went dancing around the empty streets. Abbey approached the pub, wondering how many people would be on the walk, surprised to see quite a large group there already.

  Mrs Dawson-Page was among them. With a tall gold-haired man on her arm.

  Jefferson Nathaniel Stewart.

  At the back of the group, in animated discussion with a couple of young girls, was a leering dark-visaged man with arms like mooring posts and heavy tattoos, if not quite as many as the man she had seen, wearing a leather jerkin and a huge belt that would anchor the Queen Elizabeth.

  She stopped dead, almost hearing her jaw drop in astonishment. First the lady from the ball and her companion, now this man, and - where did the thought come from? - all I need is to see Nigel now. Abbey closed her mouth, pasted on a smile and walked toward the group.

  Mrs Dawson-Page nodded to her, leaned towards the man, whispered in his ear. He looked curiously at Abbey. She blushed and moved away.

  What were they doing here? Did she have to sit with them through the classes?

  And what about the other man? Had he signed up for the classes? Her thinking was disrupted by their guide hurrying up, a small man in an anorak (despite the sunshine) and flannel trousers, thin brown hair blowing in the cool wind, glasses catching the late sun.

  "Hello everyone. Nice to see such a large crowd. I'm George Matheson, your guide for the afternoon. Let's start, shall we?"

  The group shuffled their way around him, anxious not to miss a word. A car or two went by, a double-decker bus tore words from his lips and cast them wildly into the slipstream. He smiled nervously and started again.

  "The pub where we are is an old one, although it doesn't look old from the outside. It's been built and rebuilt on and off since 1705. The coach stopped here on its way to London, picking up mail and passengers. This used to be the very end of Walchurch, apart from the church itself up there on the hill, of course. The town, or village as it was then, stopped here. If you follow me ..."

  They set off, crossing the now empty road, tracking the course of Walchurch history: here a new shopfront, above it a timbered facade from the 18th century and ancient rooms. Here a sign painted on a wall no one had noticed before. Above eye level who sees history?

  Dane Park, gifted to the town of Walchurch by a Victorian benefactor and edged with elms and oaks older than the park itself, was an old people's home now, once a fine old Georgian building. Abbey felt her head spinning. History crowded in on her. She wondered at her inability to cope with it thrown at her in one go. The man with the eyebrows walked close and kept looking at her as others did who had come from her past into today.

  Sooner or later he would say: "Haven't I seen you before?" and she would lie and say: "No, how could you?"

  They walked back from the park, along a row of elegant houses with Georgian porches and window frames set back from the road, not noticed before. History, history, history.

  Ancient pub here, no longer standing; ancient pub there, still standing; how many pubs had Walchurch had? Many more than it had left, for sure, and there seemed to be more than enough now!

  "Danverson Lane, named for the local lord of the manor many years ago." Danverson Lane, where the Dawson-Page family lived and now wanted to leave (the house was on the market). What would it feel like to live in Danverson Lane knowing you had fucked Lord Danverson himself?

  The man with the eyebrows edged closer.

  "Haven't I seen you somewhere before?"

  "No." Abbey walked swiftly in front, catching up with the guide.

  "We'll go to the church next. The Methodist church is relatively new, late 1800s. It's the parish church which holds the interest. Any questions so far?"

  "Yes." Abbey got even closer. "I read there used to be a castle somewhere around here, was there?"

  "Not sure what book you've been reading, Miss ..."

  "Brandon."

  "Miss Brandon, an old one by the sound of it! Yes, there was a castle here, many many years ago. It burned down somewhere around 1750, we believe."

  "Where was it sited?"

  "Right where the King's Theatre is now."

  If there was any more commentary about the town, Abbey never heard it. Blindly she followed the group into the church, saw the memorials to the town's dignitaries on the walls, vaguely heard the guide say the Danverson Chapel was blocked off for essential maintenance work, and that they couldn't go in there, it was too dangerous. She looked without seeing at the war memorial, read without reading the names of the glorious dead, saw without registering the strange looks Mrs Dawson-Page gave her, saw a hand sneak out to touch her arm and draw back at the last moment. She must look pretty strange if she was causing that kind of attention.

  "Our last call is Dane House. We can't go in but we can look through the gates." Dane House, on the edge of the town, where she had fucked a Roundhead in a tent, while a battle built up in the nearby field. The Royalists were gathering, he had said, gathering in force, but he wanted to live before he died.

  They stared through wrought-iron gates at a gravel path and fine-fronted mansion house, saw a man strolling the lawns, a man who looked remarkably like a guy called Nigel who had a City flat and knew how to fuck even if he didn't know how to really treat a girl. Because if you knew she was into spanking, you shouldn't expect her not to want it.

  And the man with the eyebrows watched her every move, her every expression, and wondered no doubt why she never spoke another word.

  And Lucinda Dawson-Page clung to the arm of Jefferson Nathaniel Stewart as if afraid he would take off in a puff of wind. And yes, he did move with the grace of a jungle cat.

  At the end of the tour Abbey said her thanks and goodbyes and went home to ponder strange thoughts.

  She had visited Danverson Castle to retrieve her dress, wearing a purple dress. The page had seen her go into Danverson's room and never come out again. She would have appeared to be a ghost.

  The Castle was where the theatre is now.

  The legend had persisted.

  The legend she had created.

  The theatre was built in the 1850s. If the guide was right, the site had stood empty for 100 years. And the legend had persisted for all that 100 years.

  Or, her image, the projected image had hung around all that time, and enough people had seen her to keep the legend alive.

  And - another crushing thought - the Danversons had been big enough and rich enough to warrant a whole chapel in the church! And she couldn't get to see it, but she would; as soon as the work was done she'd be in there, looking.

  In the mean
time there was a book to write, a play to perform, work to do, and classes to attend.

  And a few more adventures to be had, for sure. If the book was to be anything, it had to have adventures in it, and that meant experiencing a few more.

  A thought entered her head, a wicked evil little thought and she laughed aloud.

  Well, it would be one way to experience everything, wouldn't it?

  Abbey opened the door to Des" ring and was surprised to find a smart-looking Dracula on the doorstep.

  "Like it?" He paraded in his evening clothes, scarlet bow tie and cummerbund, eye makeup darkening shadows around his eyes, making them seem larger and deeper than usual.