(A/N: This story was originally published in French about a year ago: I am uploading this translation with the author's permission because I feel that it deserves a wider circulation. Subsequent chapters will be uploaded as and when I finish translating them. Credit for the characters and situations belongs to Chamidontrachiva: any infelicities in style are my own!
For a link to the original, see my profile. (And for my own Phantom/Love Never Dies stories, see my profile also...)
Please Pretend by Chamidontrachiva
What if Christine had chosen Erik? After one final night shared with the Vicomte, she leaves for Coney Island with her husband to begin a new life there. Ten years later, the couple have a son - but unexpected guests turn up at their theatre, setting into motion a situation which is awkward to say the least...
I / Once Upon Another Time
As Christine was pushing home a final pin into the back of her hair, the door of their bedroom opened softly. Sitting in front of her dressing table in the maroon dress she had just put on, she glanced into the mirror and caught sight of her son Gustave.
He was trying to remain unseen behind the door, but he had barely crossed the threshold before a male voice could be heard from another room. "Gustave! Gustave, don't disturb your mother while she is getting dressed!"
And appearing behind Gustave, the boy's father swiftly shut the door without a glance at his wife, who was smiling in front of her mirror.
Shaking her head, she laid down her comb and rose. The bedroom was not especially large, but it was her favourite room in their apartment for obvious reasons: it was richly decorated with green curtains and beautiful tapestries, and furnished with a dressing table, a wardrobe, shelves and a magnificent bed.
She opened the door and went out into the corridor. Her son's bedroom door was open, and she paused on the threshold and knocked gravely for admission.
Gustave was sitting in the middle of his room, playing with a mechanical toy his father had made for him. When he caught sight of her, he got up to give her a kiss.
He was ten years old, but he looked younger: he was small, with rounded cheeks and a mischievous air. As his father liked to claim: "That child will come to no good" (to which Christine's retort was "Just like his papa!")
"So, did you sleep well, darling?" Christine asked, opening the window.
Outside down below there stretched Coney Island and Phantasma, their domain. She had never liked fairgrounds, nor had Erik either, for obvious reasons (given that during his childhood he had been displayed as a monster at travelling shows), and on their arrival they had first of all bought the Theatre. Afterwards, due to lack of money with which to operate the latter, they had invested in the construction of Phantasma, the amusement park. And once Christine's singing talent had become recognised and she had achieved worldwide fame, they'd had enough money to run both enterprises.
Without wasting time on the big wheels and the multicoloured tents, she turned back to her son who had launched into a long monologue about his dreams of the previous night.
"...and the monkey insisted I should tap-dance."
Christine nodded gravely and asked if he had seen his father.
"Not since he stopped me coming to see you this morning," Gustave said sulkily, fiddling with his toy in an attempt to take it to pieces, "but I think he's gone to meet someone."
Raising her brows, she went to check the rest of the apartment. Decorated tastefully throughout, it consisted of a large salon, three bedrooms, Erik's workroom in the basement, bathrooms and a large office shared by herself and her husband. But he was not to be found in any of these rooms. She even went so far as to knock on the workroom door without daring to open it, but there was no reply.
For a moment she thought about putting her head round the door to check, but decided against it.
Erik had always been very secretive and liked to have a private place where he could hide himself away to compose, and she had always respected his wishes in this... even if she hankered after the time when he had composed in front of her, saying that he had need of her presence for inspiration. Sighing, she recalled the early days of this strange marriage of theirs.
;;
Those first months had been dreadful. Consumed by guilt, remorse or hate - sometimes all three at the same time - she had not wanted to speak to the husband who had forced her into marriage against her will. The Phantom-who-was-not-a-phantom had allowed her to shut herself up alone for three days in the room which he had assigned to her in his lair. On the third day he had breached her privacy to announce that they had to leave. Since everyone in the Opéra was searching for them as a result of the murders of Piangi and Buquet, he had found them a room in a hotel until such time as they would be able to catch a boat or train and flee far from Paris.
All her cries and protests were in vain: he had dragged her with him to this hotel, which she discovered at once to be a filthy place. Their room was even worse: bare of furniture save for one bed in the centre of the room, it was a constant reminder that soon she would have to fulfil her marital duties.
He had been very courteous towards her and had played the part of a perfect gentleman, spending the nights on a mattress on the floor. During the day she shut herself into stubborn silence, dreaming of Raoul.
The situation had rapidly become quite impossible. To be shut up so close to her for hours on end was a torment to Erik, who was unable to compose and spent the whole day checking the small ads and the price of train tickets. He spent hours sitting and watching her rock herself backwards and forwards with a vacant stare.
And one day, able to bear it no longer, he had seated himself beside her on the bed and begun to talk.
He had explained how difficult and unpleasant the situation was for him. He had apologised to her for his clumsy and awkward manner. He had reminded her that they had made an agreement, and that she was obliged to honour her part since he had fulfilled his part of the bargain by sparing Raoul. Finally, seeing that she had come far enough out of her comatose state to meet his eyes, he had promised her diffidently that he would never seek to force matters between them and that he would give her as much time as she needed to accept their new relationship and all that this implied - however difficult it might become for him to restrain himself.
Christine had nodded and choked down her sobs along with her grief, burying the image of Raoul and the life they might have had together deep in a corner of her heart.
From that day onwards life became less painful for Erik, and to all appearances for Christine also. She made an effort, served him the meals sent up to them by the hotel every day, dressed in a more feminine and attractive manner. And - supreme joy! - each night, before laying himself down on his mattress, he would kiss her on the forehead with all the love that was in him, and she would bear it in silence. As the days passed this ceased to be an ordeal, and she would even take his hand before he left her.
And so one day he allowed her to leave the hotel, as he himself had an appointment to attend at which he would finally be able to buy what he had been dreaming of: a Theatre, far away on Coney Island.
He gave her his trust. And she could not resist the opportunity.
She went to Raoul.
She hung around outside the Opera for two hours before she saw him arrive. She forbade him to speak or to summon anyone, and she embraced him. She let him know that she was leaving and that they would probably never see each other again, and that these few hours together would be their last: an act of farewell and of unconditional love.
He rented a room for two hours and took her there, and together they forgot the rest of the world.
When it was time to leave, Christine lost all her will and courage and clung to her lover with the force of despair.
"Christine..." Resigned to their fate, he tried to make her see reason.
But she had forgotten her promise and all her good resolutions. And so he had to detach her hands gently from his shirt-front, murmuring in her ear:
Little Lotte, I beg you, forgive me
ah, what fools we once were
Long ago in our youth ...
But now I must go, our choices are made
May your angel of music watch over you now
And give you what I wish I gave you somehow
And he went with her back to the Opera, Christine having forbidden him to ask anything about the location to which Erik had carried her off.
On her return to the hotel, Erik could plainly see that she was distraught, but preferred not to enquire; she had come back to him, and that was the vital thing. He announced that they had just become the owners of the Theatre and that they were about to leave.
That was the last time she saw Raoul.
;;
Returned to present-day reality, Christine moved away from the door to her husband's workroom. She checked that Gustave was still playing in his own room, and sat down next to the bookcase in the office to immerse herself in a volume.
But she could not help thinking of those early days of their marriage and of the trials they had had to endure to get this far.