I nodded. On Friday, her revelations might have hurt, might at least have bruised my ego. Today, I couldn’t really care.
Jen said bluntly, “Is it Rab?”
I nodded. In the mirror I could see Sarah, the make-up artist, approaching at high speed. Jen slid off the table to give me a quick hug. “He’ll be on a bender,” she comforted me. “He’ll turn up at the show, probably, outrageous as ever.”
Which is more or less what the bastard did.
***
The curtain rose to reveal a sea of expectant faces, each indistinguishable from the next. I shut them out, made my opening line with just the right trace of ennui. Jen responded, and from then on the scene carried itself. For once, it was if our curtailed rehearsals actually acted in our favour. At least to my ear, it all sounded fresh and interesting, as if we had no more idea than the characters we played what would happen next.
And when Rizzio and Mary Flemming left me, I paused meaningfully, gazing at the audience to convey my loneliness and determination before I went into the board meeting.
The faces were clearer now. Someone actually waved to me, and I saw that it was Tony, seated at the end of a middle row. Beside him was his sister Anne-Marie, tugging his hand back down with annoyance. And behind him sat the two CID men from Glasgow. What the hell were they doing here?
I scanned on, as I was supposed to, as if gazing out of a window, trying not to recognize anyone else. A few did look familiar, though, including the two fans who’d accosted me in the theatre back yard yesterday to ask for my autograph. They’d got seats right in the centre of the front row.
I turned, walking briskly away from the audience to my “office” door, reached for the handle and caught sight of another familiar face. In the balcony. I hadn’t reacted to Tony, or the cops. But now I did a double take. Because it was Rose Colvin, Rab’s medium.
Gazing intently at me, she might have been just another punter. A fan. I was still in shock that I had any, so believing she was one of them was uncommonly difficult. My heart pounded. Nothing whatever to do with stage fright. But the professional part of me covered my slip, giving one more sweep toward the “window” before I walked through the door and into the wings to prepare for the next scene.
***
My most difficult scene in the first act was a love scene with Bothwell. We’d begun an affair which I was trying to end, and he was convincing me that I wanted him rather than my husband Darnley. Not to put too fine a point on it, it was a sex scene, daringly but discreetly done on stage.
It involved Menzies standing behind me in the “boardroom”, with my power-suit skirt pulled up at the back, while he, with movements that were suggestive, but actually too gentle to do much even if he had been inside me, supposedly brought me to orgasm facing the audience. It was a powerful way to show Bothwell’s sexual hold over Mary, but we walked a thin line of taste here that we were all very conscious of. Which was why Menzies had insisted on rehearsing it so often this morning.
If I broke into giggles, it would really destroy the atmosphere.
Fortunately, I didn’t feel much like giggling. I put up my show of easily overcome resistance, gasped as he supposedly entered me and relaxed back against him while he murmured his sexy words of love into my ear with that famously beautiful voice.
I could feel his semi hard-on against my bottom, growing as I began to move with him, as if almost against my will. Acting the physical pleasure wasn’t difficult because my head was so full of what Rab had done to me last night. This scene brought it back in waves of technicolour detail so that I truly was aroused, my knickers soaked with my own lust for a dead man, while a very live one caressed me before an audience of hundreds.
Menzies’s hand moved up from my waist to cover my breast and his voice grew a little ragged. It was all in the script. Until I turned my head in passion—and discovered Rab glowering at me from the boardroom table.
He leaned his denim-clad hips against it, arms folded, staring at me. He looked furious. Like any jealous husband catching his wife in the act.
Now, now he chooses to be a jealous husband? When he’s dead and I’m acting…!
But for that instant, I was incapable of acting. Fortunately, it didn’t matter much. I was putty in Bothwell’s hands. All I had to do, in a few moments, was loll my head back against his shoulder and make a few very discreet orgasmic pants. For the time being, stunned shock would have to stand in for sexual bliss.
Rab stood and stalked across the stage to us. Menzies’s hand moved on my breast, his other roved across my hip. Under my petrified gaze, Rab came right up to me, stood gazing down at me, a jumble of fierce confusion boiling in his dark eyes. He reached up, touching my hair and my cheek.
“I can’t do it,” he whispered, drowning out Menzies’s sexy monologue. “I want your happiness, Lil, truly I do, but not with him…”
I’m acting, you imbecile! Can’t you see I’m acting? I tried to say it with my eyes. Fortunately, my tongue had cleaved to the roof of my mouth
“It has to be with me. I’ve got to go, Lil. I’m losing it. But I can’t bow out while he…” Abruptly, he pressed his mouth fiercely over mine. His hand covered the breast Menzies’s didn’t and, while Menzies’s semi-erection pressed into my bottom, Rab’s full one pressed against my abdomen.
I moaned, an inarticulate sound of helpless, panicked arousal. Rab’s hand swept across my bottom, between Menzies and me. He bent, reaching between my thighs.
“Did he make you this wet?” he said in anguish. “Did he? Fuck, it doesn’t matter—I’ll finish it!”
I was already so aroused, from thinking of him, if only he knew, that it took only seconds. A few swipes of his clever, sensitive fingers around my clitoris, which strained through my knickers for him, and I hovered on the edge. When he squeezed it, I fell into helpless bliss.
My head lolled back against Menzies’s shoulder. “Oh yes,” he exclaimed in soft, wicked triumph.
Rab’s fingers left me. He straightened and kissed my mouth, pressing his cock into my pubic bone to enhance the pleasure. For a moment, it was as if Menzies supported us both. I could feel the audience’s emotion pounding into me as I hung between my two lovers, the real and the pretended.
“See? You’re mine, Mary,” Menzies said. He stepped back, letting my skirt fall back into place. I would have fallen if it hadn’t been for Rab. “You always were, and you always will be. Get rid of Darnley.”
And he walked off stage. The lights faded, leaving me alone in the spotlight in the arms of the lover only I could see. Rab’s eyes stared down into mine, raging with lust and a sadness so desperate I couldn’t move.
Then the stage began to revolve.
There was one more short scene before the interval, but I wasn’t in it. Just as well—I felt completely dazed and incapable. Menzies had gone off at the other side of the stage. Rab pulled me forward, past the crew and the few cast members who were grinning at me with their thumbs up in approval. I’d carried it off, clearly. Really well. Only no one but me could see the reason.
The short passage from the stage to the dressing room was deserted. Rab stopped and pushed me up against the wall, wrenching open the zip of his jeans.
“One for the road, sweetheart—I love you.”
I couldn’t respond to that, for he shoved aside my damp knickers and thrust straight inside me, making me gasp aloud. He gave me no time to get used to him either, but began pulling and thrusting immediately in a feverish struggle for release. As I had moments ago on stage, he hovered too close to the edge to last, and he didn’t. Freshly aroused, I let the new pleasure flood me, wriggled the way he liked it to help bring him to completion, and in the process, felt my own begin again.
As Rab collapsed on me, emptying his seed into me—how could ghosts have seed?—I seized his mouth in mine, kissing him fiercely. His mouth moved, kissing me back, even while his whole body shook.
“Lili? What the hell are you doing?”
>
It was Jen, dashing up the passage toward the dressing room. She had been in the final scene of the first half. It must be over.
“It’s over,” whispered Rab.
“You wouldn’t believe me,” I muttered breathlessly to Jen. But I stared at Rab. He was fading, the bastard, before I’d quite reached orgasm.
And I didn’t care. Because there was something different about this vanishing. Something about his face.
I’ve got to go, Lil. I’m losing it, he’d said on stage. One for the road.
“No,” I whispered. “Please, Rab, not yet, not yet. Please. I love you, I’ve always loved you, please stay…”
He didn’t say anything. He couldn’t. He was no longer there.
It’s over.
Chapter Six
Sometime, I thought dully, I might laugh at the spectacle I must have presented to Jen. Wriggling against the wall, with my mouth wide open and my arms up around a big bunch of air. But for the moment, the hugeness of Rab’s departure drowned me.
I’d lost him all over again. Only this time, I knew he loved me. I knew how much I loved him. And there was no coming back from death.
But we’d made it right between us. We’d been given the chance for that. Didn’t that count for something? I’d be grateful for it one day. I was grateful now, only…
Only it seemed so wrong.
It was so wrong! This whole bloody situation was so wrong.
“Lili?” said Jen, looking truly alarmed. “Are you crying?”
Behind her, the others were coming—voices raised in excitement, even in triumph. The show was going well. We had the audience with us all the way. I should care. Somewhere I did.
I swallowed. “Jen, do you believe in ghosts?”
“Nah.” She looked around nervously. “Do you?”
Something pulled at me, made the hairs on my neck stand straight up, churned my stomach till I thought I’d be sick. “I only ever saw one ghost in my life. Don’t people who see ghosts tend to see them? You either see ghosts or you don’t. I don’t.” And yet I’d seen Rab. “Mediums do. Anne Marie does!”
In sudden decision, I gave into the pull, pushed my way through the crowd of congratulatory actors toward the foyer.
“Lili?” It was Menzies. “Well played, darling, seriously well played!”
“Thanks. You, too.” Distractedly, I fought my way into the foyer. The feeling was stronger here, but the place was so crowded. I could spend the whole interval looking and never find either of them.
This was urgent.
Lifting up my voice, I yelled like a fish wife. “Tony! Tony Ianucci!”
Into the sudden silence, I could hear a few whispers of my name, or my character’s. I could feel all eyes upon me, was aware of the crowd moving and heaving to get a better view. The Glasgow cops hovered around the exit.
Tony stepped out from behind a couple of trendy students. “All right?” he muttered with a mixture of sheepish pleasure and nervousness before all those eyes and ears. I ignored him, going straight to the girl who stood grinning beside him, delighted to have been singled out.
“Anne Marie, you’ve seen ghosts, right?”
“Aye. Loads.” She cast a defiant glance at her brother.
“See any tonight? In the theatre?”
“No… Why?”
“I did,” I whispered. “I did.”
I swung away from them, seeking the feeling I had no name for—and came face to face with Rose Colvin, Medium.
I stared at her, and she stared at me. I had no words, but she understood my silent plea.
She said sympathetically, “I can’t help you, dear. This is all about you.”
“Didn’t you see him?”
“I spoke to him last night, sort of. I can’t see him.”
I couldn’t see him now either. He’d gone.
The crowd pushed nearer, closing in on me. With a gasp, I rushed back the way I’d come, looking for air, looking for…
I made it into the corridor and without hesitation ran right along to the end, to the door that led to the back court. The key hung on a hook at the side of the door. Reaching up, I took it, shoved it in the lock and opened the door.
As I went outside into the approaching dusk, the cool air hit me hard, almost as if I’d just emerged from the pub after several hours drinking. I stumbled, but kept going.
Behind me, I heard a familiar voice intoning, “Excuse me, stand aside, please. Police. Stand aside, please.” But I didn’t pause; I walked quickly across the yard. The pull was more urgent, dragging at me. I broke into a run, shoving at the bushes that half-covered the narrow lane between the yards, and charging down it. Thorns caught at the sleeves and skirt of my suit. Uncaring, I tore them free.
As I’d thought, the passage did lead onto another street. A quiet one, or at least as quiet as any round here at Festival time. But blocking the exit were my two fans, the same men who’d asked for my autograph yesterday and sat in the front row of the audience tonight.
One stepped forward, unbelievable menace in his stance. I couldn’t stop now. I didn’t even slow down.
It was the policemen who halted me, holding me back by the arms so they could push past me. My fans—how had I ever imagined they were fans, skulking out here?—swore obscenely and took off without further invitation, the police hot on their heels.
Other people pushed forward behind me: Jen, anxious, pleading; Tony, mostly scared. I didn’t know who else came with us, was barely aware of them. I stepped out of the lane, turned left.
The police and their quarry had gone the other way. I saw only the white van parked in front of me. Without hesitation, I strode up to its back doors, wrenched at the handle. It was locked.
In frustration, I beat on the door, sobbing, uncaring of the pain in my knuckles.
“Lili, stop it!” Jen yelled, almost crying in her bewildered concern for me. She caught at my arms, which is when Tony strode past me, stuck something into the lock, fiddled with it and stood back.
I stared at him, silent now.
“What?” he said guiltily.
His sister said disparagingly, “Ned.” Which is Glaswegian for hooligan, scallywag or other flouter of the law.
I reached up and opened the van doors. I smelled stale body, sweat, and blood. Blindly, I climbed in. There was still enough daylight to see by and I saw him at once, lying perfectly still on the floor in ragged denims and a black T-shirt soaked with blood.
Rab, my Rab.
“Ambulance, please.” The medium’s voice penetrated my frozen brain.
Too late… I sank down on my knees by my murdered husband. No longer ex. Never ex.
Beside me, Rose Colvin said urgently, “He was never dead, Lili. He came back to his body for you.”
“But…”
Of all the stupid words to say, “but” had to be the worst. So I shut my mouth on it and stared down at Rab while the medium spoke into the phone, giving her name and the location of the white van. It didn’t make much sense—none of this did—but there was a rough, stained bandage stuck among the torn mess of his T-shirt.
Rose said, “Spirits of the dead are different from travelling spirits of the living. Rab left his body through trauma and because of the strength of his urge to see you before he died. He knows that now. He also knew he had to return to his body to have any hope of keeping it alive.”
I’ve got to go, Lil…
With an effort, I lifted my gaze to hers. I wanted her to tell me he would live now, but she couldn’t possibly know that. Neither could Rab. One for the road… He’d been saying goodbye because there was a very real possibility he wouldn’t make it.
Rose said, “That, too, he did for you. For the hope of you.”
I took his cold hand in mine, laid my cheek against his, felt the splash of tears pouring onto his face from mine. “Say something, you bastard,” I whispered. “Are you dead or aren’t you?”
His fingers twitched feebly in mine. With
a gasp, I lifted my head. His eyes were open, staring at me. His lips moved, as if trying and failing to speak. In the end, I laid my lips on his, and, with a movement so weak it tore me apart, he kissed me.
The ambulance arrived at the same time as Menzies, who demanded in outrage that I return to the theatre immediately for the second act.
I opened my mouth to tell him exactly where to go. But Rab’s grip on my hand tightened. For the first time since I’d found him, he spoke.
“Do it,” he whispered. “For me.”
I blinked. “For you?”
He tried to smile. “Don’t you know how proud I am of you?”
It was a night of revelation.
***
When I returned to the hospital after the show on Monday night—optimistically carrying flowers and a freshly loaded MP3 player—I could hear the noise from halfway down the corridor. I should have known that it was Rab’s family, yet it somehow never entered my head that such a racket could be coming from the room I still associated with silence.
I’d sat there all last night, after the show, listening to his breathing, afraid it would stop. They’d operated by then, and he was so drugged there was no way he could have wakened up if he’d tried. Apart from one meeting at the theatre, I’d spent all day there, too, but there had been no change. When I’d left him for the show, he was still unconscious. I’d had the feeling I was only kidding myself when I imagined he was more peaceful.
There was certainly no peace now. Slightly stunned, I halted in the doorway. There were two beds in the room, although fortunately Rab’s was the only one occupied. Or at least it had been. Half of his family sprawled over the spare one—well, two brothers and a sister, with a newspaper spread out between them. Aileen was reading aloud from it, while the others all hooted or laughed or made their own loud comments.
Rab’s mother, Moira, who in appearance might have inspired Billy Connolly’s description of a “wee fat coat”, sat beside the patient.
White-faced and drawn, propped up on pillows, Rab was awake and even smiling faintly. He wore a white, sleeveless shirt, a welcome sight after the bloodstained black one. I drank him in, lingering over his quick, sensitive hands with their long, too-clever fingers, lying unusually still on the crisp sheet. My gaze moved up over his bare arms and biceps, bigger, more powerful than I remembered, reminding me all over again that this was no ghostly Rab but the real thing.
Requiem for Rab Page 6