by David Haynes
Yes, tomorrow he would take a cab into town and pay a visit to Soames, who knew all the best musicians from the theatres and was the best man to arrange such matters.
Foulkes climbed the stairs wearily but happily. The machine was too heavy and too cumbersome to carry upstairs, yet had the hour been more sociable he would have gladly wandered the streets and found a pair of men to take it, and Iris, to his room.
He undressed slowly and hung his clothes in the wardrobe. Iris had always kept her best gowns in his wardrobe and there they remained. He allowed one of his hands to brush against the silk as he placed his jacket on the hanger. The sensation was as powerful as any taste of gin but twice as sweet.
He fell into bed and stared into the dark space above his head. He could not quite believe how successful his creation had been. He had hoped for success, of course, but expected it? No, he had not expected it but now it was here he would not question it. He closed his weary eyes and fell asleep beaming with happiness.
Around and around she turned; faster and faster until she was nothing but a crimson blur.
“Bravo!” he called from the side. “Bravo, Iris!” She smiled coquettishly and waved. Oh, she was so beautiful; quite clearly the most alluring woman in the entire building and simply the most wonderful dancer. He was such a lucky man.
“Again!” the crowd cheered and Foulkes cheered with them.
Iris curtseyed and danced on. The orchestra was magnificent and had played for the Queen only yesterday. They were the finest in all of Europe.
Louder and louder they played. Faster and faster Iris turned until the room span in a great and nauseating whirl before his eyes. It was too much. He must stop it before he was ill. Before he...
Foulkes sat up suddenly. He could feel his heart pounding in time with the waltz; in time with the orchestra. The orchestra?
He sat up too quickly and instantly felt dizzy. Had the beautiful sound of an orchestra really fallen upon his ears? Of course not, it was a dream, that was all; a vivid and wonderful dream but a fantasy nonetheless.
He lay back down and pulled the covers to his chin. The old grandfather clock in the hall chimed two. He had slept longer than at any time since Iris’s death.
“It was all the dancing,” he murmured.
He closed his eyes and at once the orchestra started up again. He opened his eyes and lay motionless. There was no mistaking it, he had heard the music many times before.
“On The Beautiful Blue Danube,” he whispered breathlessly.
His heart was filled with joy for it had been Iris’s favoured piece for many years, but he had not once heard it since her death. He was surprised by his reaction for he had always thought he would weep if he ever heard it again. Yet here he was, smiling like an old fool.
Yet how was it possible for the music was as clear as if the orchestra were in this very house? He pinched himself hard enough to make his eyes water; he was not dreaming. Slowly he swung his legs off the bed and padded toward the closed bedroom door. He put his ear to the wood and listened. The music played on.
He looked through the gloom toward his bed and considered jumping back in and closing his eyes again but he could not. Instead he opened the door and stepped across the threshold. He had not thought to light a candle in the bedroom, but as he stood at the top of the stairs he realised he did not need one. A narrow beam of light daggered across the hallway and illuminated the lower half of the grandfather clock. It came from the parlour along with the sound of an orchestra in full flow.
“Hello?” he called and started down the stairs. “Is anybody there?”
He took the stairs quickly and almost fell down the last three. He paused at the parlour door and listened to the music. It was as sweet as ever yet without Iris it lacked depth.
Without the music, Iris lacked life.
He stepped into the parlour and at once the music stopped. Not a trace of a clarinet or a harp could be seen yet Iris danced on as if the music still played. Foulkes looked around desperately. He had heard the music. He had heard the violas and the timpani, the harp and the flutes. He had felt the emotion of the musicians as they played for Iris and he had not been mistaken.
He reached around the Zoopraxiscope and pulled at the cable. It was possible he had forgotten to disconnect the machine from the electricity supply. He pulled again and the cable flew toward him. Yet Iris danced on.
How was this possible?
“Iris?” he whispered and watched his late wife spin as gracefully as ever. A cold chill swept across his neck and the Zoopraxiscope fell dark once more, sending Iris once again into the shadows; to her death.
Foulkes stood in the blackness for a moment wondering if he was still asleep. He touched the raised skin on his arm where he had pinched himself a little too hard. No, he was not asleep. He placed his hand on the machine and felt the warmth spread along his cold fingers. His mind felt sharp and clear and if it was betraying him, and he was destined for Bethlem, then his body was helping matters along. He raised the warm fingers and touched his cheek. He was neither mad nor asleep.
“Iris? Will you not speak to me?” He looked to the wall where not seconds before she had danced to her favourite music. “Iris?” he called again.
He waited a few moments longer before walking away. “Silly old fool,” he muttered.
*
The remainder of the night passed slowly and once again Foulkes listened to the old grandfather clock mark the passing of the hours. With every chime, he expected the orchestra to start up and for the sweet sound of the harp to come drifting into his bedroom. Yet it did not happen and he was not surprised.
As he dressed, he thought back to the events of the early hours. He could dismiss the Zoopraxiscope’s trick as a result of the erratic electricity supply, but he could not reconcile his mind to the notion that he had imagined the orchestra. He had heard it and that was all there was to the matter.
He had not washed or breakfasted for several days, yet now it seemed only proper to do so before once again looking upon Iris. She would not have enjoyed seeing how dishevelled his appearance had become of late.
After satisfying himself that he was adequately presented, he entered the parlour and immediately switched on the Zoopraxiscope. Iris danced as she had always danced and he smiled as he had always smiled.
“Good morning, my love,” he called across the room. “You look as beautiful today as you did on the day we first met!”
He sat on the chair and edged closer. He so wanted to touch her again, to feel the soft flesh of her cheek against his fingers. He yearned to put his hands around her slender waist and pull her toward him. But she was nothing more than an image painted on glass. A phantom created by an artist with a talent for realism.
She twirled and whirled across the wall yet her dress was as lifeless as the wall itself. It did not flow as it had in the halls and palaces of their former life. The artist had done a wonderful job yet he could not create reality. Her dress would not flow again. Her dress...
It lay lifeless and unused on one side of his wardrobe but it did not have to be that way. It did not have to be that way.
Foulkes jumped up and ran to the foot of the stairs. He turned to face Iris. “I shall return!” he proclaimed triumphantly.
Armed with a knife, he set about her crimson gown in the wardrobe. He was no seamstress but he did not need to be in order to accomplish his task, and before long he had cut a series of triangular swatches of the silken fabric from the hem. He gathered them up from the floor and smiled. “Your gown awaits!” he announced.
He almost leapt down the stairs. He had not felt so alive and invigorated since... since Iris had taken his hand in hers and announced that she loved him, and would very much like to be his wife.
Carefully, he removed the glass disc from the machine and placed it on the table. The red silk looked a little crude next to the artist’s exquisite work but it did not matter for once he had glued it into place it woul
d float around her body as it had always done.
“I bought you this gown on our first trip to Vienna. The gentleman said the silk was from Chennai and it was the most extraordinary of garments. It cost a small fortune but I would have bought you ten had you asked.”
He worked carefully and glued each section of material to the disc. The silk felt luxurious between his fingers and he smiled as he remembered how Iris had felt on the first occasion it had adorned her.
It took longer than he had anticipated but when, at last, the glue had set he took the disc and placed it back inside the waiting mouth of the Zoopraxiscope. He grew anxious and impatient as the electricity once again sent life through its wiry veins.
He held his breath as Iris appeared on the wall. The silk gown drifted behind her like a crimson cloud, yet he could almost see the subtle and sensual outline of her legs as the material clung to her body. She floated across the wall like an angel.
“My God,” he whispered. If he had been transfixed the day just gone, he was now lost entirely. Hours passed without notice and all except Iris fell away to nothing. At some point during the afternoon, a fierce banging on the door threatened to hurl him from his reverie. Yet even that savage sound was absorbed into the fantasy and became an elegant tapping of shoes on the wooden floor of the palace ballroom. He could not move, he did not want to, and had the function of breathing not been autonomic, he would have gladly stopped that too.
He felt his eyes grow heavy and begin to close but he fought the compulsion for that would be to sleep and that would mean leaving Iris again. He would not do that. He would remain with her for...
*
Somewhere, someone was smoking a cigar and tapping their feet. The spicy and pungent aroma drifted through his senses but it was pleasant for it reminded him of a different time; a time of happiness and frivolity. It was a time of music, of love and of glorious waltzes with beautiful Iris. It was a time for orchestral brilliance and dancing the night away in dignified bliss.
The violin played a sombre solo and Iris swayed to its entreaty. The harp and then the violas joined in until the ballroom was awash with flowing silk and lavender smoke.
Foulkes felt a painful thud to his forehead and jolted awake. He had fallen asleep at the table and banged his head as it fell. He opened his eyes and glimpsed the flickering light of the Zoopraxiscope through his blurred vision. Beside the machine and in perfect harmony with Iris was the orchestra. Their forms were ethereal and without definition, yet they were here in the parlour and they played with the opulent grace of the musicians in the Vienna Opera House.
He dared not fully open his eyes for it might discharge whatever magic spell was at work within the room. Iris danced with newfound energy and the crimson silk flowed and fluttered as she weaved across the room. No longer did she merely whirl and spin but she now moved with a smooth and fluid finesse across the floor. Above the orchestra he could hear her feet tapping across the floor as if she was a mouse.
On how many occasions had he witnessed the same wondrous sight? A hundred? Perhaps more, but none had seemed as sweet. He wanted to applaud the orchestra and to applaud Iris but to do so would be to lose the magic.
“I know you are here. I know you are really here, Iris.” He spoke quietly but as he opened his mouth to speak again, his words vanished amid the chimes of the grandfather clock. Four o’clock, could it really be so late? Yet even as he considered it, the members of the orchestra slipped quietly away leaving nothing but the wisps of a hazy memory.
“No! Please do not leave me!” he called. The Zoopraxiscope stopped suddenly, leaving the parlour in the darkness of a winter’s morn. Foulkes shivered and hugged himself. His neck and shoulders were stiff and spending the night at the table had rendered him an immovable statue.
With some considerable effort, he pulled himself upright and wobbled uncertainly to the parlour door.
“And once again you leave me exhausted in your wake, my love.” His body creaked as he took the stairs slowly and collapsed painfully in bed.
*
It was not the chimes of the clock which woke him but an incessant banging on the front door. He lay and listened to it for a minute before it stopped. He closed his eyes against the daylight limping into the room. The knocking was quickly followed by the sound of gravel being thrown at the window. The muffled cry of, “Father!” accompanied it. Daniel had come to disturb him.
Another fistful of gravel played a lively percussion against the window. Would the man not go away?
“Father?” Daniel called louder this time and with more urgency.
Foulkes knew his son well. He would not leave until he was satisfied.
“I’m coming,” Foulkes spoke quietly and shuffled his aching body from the bed. He had slept soundly these last two nights yet he felt more weary than he could ever remember feeling before.
He reached the top of the stairs and shouted as loudly as he could, “Daniel, for heaven’s sake stop yelling or you will wake the whole of Knightsbridge!”
He stepped gingerly down the stairs and opened the door. “Are you quite insane, Daniel? Why...” He turned and looked at the grandfather clock. It was after three. There must be a mistake. He had neglected to wind the clock for several days and it must have stopped.
Daniel stepped inside. His expression was one of anxiety. “Father, are you well?”
Foulkes closed the door behind his son. “Yes, yes. Tell me what time is it?”
Daniel pointed at the clock. “Nearly a quarter past three. Were you in bed?”
Foulkes rubbed his neck. “Of course not! I was merely...”
“You look terrible, father. I think I should send for Theobold.”
“He couldn’t help your mother,” Foulkes said without emotion and stepped into the parlour. “I am quite well I assure you, Daniel. Now what can I do for you?”
“Do for me? Why, nothing. I called around yesterday and gained no response and so I am here again today. I was about to fetch a constable to break down the door when you appeared.”
The parlour drapes remained drawn and Foulkes was pleased. He knew he looked a state and sunlight would only make him appear worse. “I went for a stroll yesterday. It was quite bracing but invigorating. It must have worn me out.”
Daniel regarded him closely. “Yes, you look tired. Are you eating?”
“Eating? Why of course. You do ask ridiculous questions. I ate at Foster’s yesterday evening and it was as poor as ever.” His stomach ached powerfully for he could not recall the last meal he had eaten.
“Then I must insist you eat with us tomorrow. I shall be here at nine o’clock tomorrow morning and take you to my house where you shall eat the most glorious breakfast you have ever tasted!”
Foulkes knew the only way to make Daniel leave was to cede and give him the answer he desired. Besides, the thought of salty bacon and fresh eggs made his belly grumble and saliva gather in his mouth.
“I should be delighted to!”
*
With Daniel satisfied, he was content to leave Foulkes to do what he wished with the remainder of the day. Foulkes had only one thought on his mind – Iris.
He connected the power and listened as it fed the machine. The bulb spluttered once, illuminated Iris briefly then grew dim before extinguishing entirely. He felt a wave of nausea wash over him and leapt up from his seat. This could not be happening, not now when he had just got her back. A terrible pain smashed into his chest with all the force of a smith’s hammer and threw him onto the floor. A great weight lay across his torso and forced every last ounce of breath from his lungs. The pain was almost unbearable. He closed his eyes and waited for it to be over; for everything to be over.
Iris’s chestnut hair tickled his nostrils as they danced. Her hair had been tied back in the style which was popular now but several loose strands had escaped her touch and toyed with his nose. It would be very much like her to do it on purpose just to tease him. He smiled and blew them awa
y. He reached out to touch her skin but she drifted away and melted into nothingness.
Foulkes coughed and opened his eyes. He waited for the pain to re-emerge but it had gone entirely. He sneezed violently and rubbed his nose. He had been so close to her; close enough for her hair to leave the ghost of a scent in his nostrils.
He rose unsteadily and kicked out at the Zoopraxiscope. It remained lifeless. Had it been used too much and its lifespan now expired? He rubbed his eyes. He was tired, so very tired but he would not cede to a machine. It needed a rest, that was all. A few more hours to allow its overheated components time to cool down would render it operational again. Yet he could not bear to be without Iris for the few waking hours of the day that remained.