Chapter 8- Stay With You
It was a warm night and so far Christine was happy with the way the week was progressing. It had only been three days since she had found out that she would be in the new opera and already she was feeling comfortable with the sequences she would have to perform. In fact, she had spent much of the last two days rehearsing and rehearsing because she knew that she now had the chance her mother never had.
She was standing on the rooftop looking out over a quiet Paris as the dark night set in. It was peaceful up here so when she heard a rustling behind her she was startled and spun around, heart racing.
Meg smiled. 'I like it up here,' she said, as she sat on the step by the door.
Christine joined her. 'Me too,'
'What are you escaping from?' Meg asked quietly, staring around her as mist settled over the now dark night.
'Not escaping, as such,' Christine said. 'Just catching my thoughts,'
'He told you then,'
'Told me what?' Christine asked, glancing at her friend.
'Joseph,' Meg continued. 'He tells everyone...' When Christine did not respond Meg simply sighed and turned her face away. 'About the Phantom...'
'Yes, he told me,'
'I saw him,' she said. 'Telling you on the stage,'
Christine said nothing in response.
'He shouldn't have done that,' Meg took a long, deep breath. 'Not on his stage, not even in the building...'
'I don't understand this...'
'Did you know...' she looked back at Christine. 'That this is the safest place at the Opera Populair...'
Christine frowned.
'It is the safest place because he haunts everywhere else, he is everywhere else,'
'This is a little...'
'He is everywhere, Christine, can't you just listen?'
'It doesn't make sense,'
'You'll soon discover that nothing here ever really makes sense,' Meg said. 'If you do as you are told nothing happens... but cross the line, enter a part of the building you shouldn't,,, speak of him in his theatre and bad things happen- horrible things,'
Christine stared silently at Meg, unsure what to say. 'Are you sure this is a ghost and not some... criminal?'
'A criminal who is somehow in every room and every corridor, who hears every word and every whisper?' Meg asked, her eyes wide and fixed on Christine's face.
The silence fell between them and mingled with the darkness of the night. This was the most tense that Christine had ever felt around Meg and she could see, quite clearly, that Meg felt the unease too.
'I tell you because you are my friend,' Meg said softly.
'You're frightened,'
'I have good reason to be,'
Christine blinked. 'Has he hurt you?'
Meg shook her head.
'Then why are you so afraid?' Christine asked. 'If he has never done anything to you, if he has never hurt you...'
'He has hurt others,' Meg interrupted. 'Killed...'
Christine watched her friend as a tear trickled slowly down her cheek. What was she to say now? It seemed so ludicrous that a ghost was in the theatre yet so many people believed it. Meg had seemed so well balanced, so thoughtful, yet this had brought fear to her face and tears to her eyes.
'If the shows go well, if the manager pays his money,' Meg said. 'If we obey him... we remain well,'
'If not...'
'You will hang,' Meg whispered. 'He carries a noose... my mother calls it Punjab Lasso... he kills with it,'
'Who has the ghost killed?' Christine said and on hearing the words felt silly.
'An old caretaker who somehow got into one of the ghosts corridors...' Meg swallowed. 'We found him in the closet... and the other was an old singer we had here who could not stand the thought of someone taking his place... broken neck,'
'Are you sure it was the same killer,'
Meg laughed. 'Same weapon,'
Christine nodded. 'I thought you liked working here,'
'I do,'
'It doesn't seem that way at the moment,'
'Well, I do,' Meg said quickly. 'But a healthy level of fear if essential,'
Meg pushed herself to her feet and held out her hand to help Christine. Meg hugged her friend and then walked towards the door to the stairwell, she turned back to look at Christine.
'It's safe here,' she said and then let the door slam shut behind her.
Scott Giry sat in the quiet glow of the open fire, cut crystal glass in his right hand, half full with Brandy, and his head in his other. He had come to the slow realisation that his life had become miserable over the last few years. The life he led now was not that of a happy content man, with a family that loved him, with money to play with... he felt none of this anymore.
He saw Antoinette's shadow on the wall as she opened the door before he heard it's creak. Standing to greet her he placed his glass on the mantel and forced a smile.
'Evening,' he said, but his voice did not seem at all like his own. She glanced at him from near to the doorway before closing it behind her. 'How were rehearsals this evening?'
Try to sound pleasant, he thought, try to sound as if you are glad to be here.
'Fine,' she answered, and he was suddenly deflated. She did not sound as though she wanted to be there and he wondered, at that moment, when it was that everything had changed between them.
'Would you like a tot of brandy?' he asked, keeping his tone as light as he could.
'No,' she said, and then checked herself quickly, adding; 'Thank you,'
Scott paused for a long moment, thinking about what he should do and what he could possibly say. He stared at her, let his eyes drift over her slender figure, her dark hair... soft cheeks...
'Why don't you sit with me?' he asked hopefully, watching her face for reaction.
'I need to bath,' she said simply.
'Please,' he choked the word about before he even though it.
Antoinette looked at him, stood there in silence just looking at him as if she barely knew him at all. He could not help but wonder what he had done to her to make her to cold to him. Eventually, she walked into the room and took the chair nearest the fireplace... and furthest from him.
He sat back down, glass in hand. 'Were the girls good today?' he asked, smiling... or at least trying to.
'Some were,'
Scott waited for her to say more but she did not, she simply sat there looking at him. A hardness to her that he had not seen coming, had not seen taking her over.
'And Meg?' he tried again. 'Was she good tonight?'
Antoinette nodded. The silence enveloped them once more, that uncomfortable sound of nothing that now rested on their shoulders. He wondered if she felt it, weighing her down, as he did.
'Where are you?' he said quietly, staring into the bottom of his glass.
She looked at him, he could feel her eyes on him. 'What do you mean?' she asked.
'My Nette,' he said softly, unable to bring himself to look at her. 'Where is she?'
Antoinette opted to say nothing but Scott was not prepared to let this go. Did she not see how she hurt him, how this was killing him?
'I want you back,' he said simply, finally finding the courage to look at her. 'I miss you... I want you back,'
She looked at him, a flicker of something in her eyes. 'I'm here,' she said, but her conviction was not there. Her voice was quiet, timid.
'No,' he said, with a deep sigh. 'You're gone, the real you is gone from here, she is gone!'
With the realisation that he had raised his voice he placed the glass on the table in front of him and buried his head in his hands, feeling his hair fall over his fingertips.
'I...' she began, but stopped.
He looked up at her through his fringe. 'I miss you so much,' he whispered, a desperate plea. 'Is it me? Is it something I did... God... is it my age?'
Silence.
'Tell me!' he said. 'I want to know what I did to lose you!'
'Nothing,' she said softly.
'Then why don't you love me anymore?' he murmured, the words hurting him. He had said it and he knew it, she did not love him anymore.
She stood up, looking down at him. 'Scott...' she said quietly.
'Why won't you tell me why?' he asked.
She walked to him, placed a hand on his head, ran fingers through his hair. He closed his eyes at the touch he had not felt in so long, the softness of the gesture, the warmth of her skin. Antoinette knelt down and took her hands in his, for the first time in months she looked into his eyes, let them stay there.
'I do love you,' she said and Scott actually believed her as she kissed his lips softly.
'Then why...'
She placed her arms around him and pulled him close. He gave in to the pressure and wrapped himself around her, squeezing her body to his.
'Please...' she said softly, into his hair. She kissed it, his heart thumped. 'Don't think that I don't love you... please...'
'I don't understand us,' he said, kissing the top of her ear.
She pulled away and looked into his eyes. 'Neither do I...'
'But you... we can try?' he asked. 'We can try can't we??'
A nod, a kiss to his cheeks, so soft. 'We can try,'
He paused, let the weight of the statement fall between them. And what if we try and fail, he thought and he knew that she was thinking it too.
