CHAPTER 26

"Monsieur Erik!" I injected as much delighted astonishment as I could. "Salut."

He looked up at the sound of his name, his mask a flash of white in the dark street.

"Good evening, Meg," he replied, his golden tones tinged with surprise. "What are you doing here?"

"Just coming home," I said brightly. It was true. "The foreman let us go early." True; in theory I could have entertained another client in the forty-five minutes before my shift was officially over, but de Tourney said I could leave. "I was just seeing a colleague to her door." True. Belle resided in de Tourney's brothel, and had said goodbye to me as I left.

"What about you?" I enquired, feeling the tense smile tugging at my lips and tried to relax in the knowledge that I hadn't actually lied.

"I am shopping," Erik replied after a tiny pause and I furrowed my brow. It was the slight hesitation I had heard from him before, when he was deciding exactly what to tell me. It was as though we were both crossing a patch of broken glass, and trying to avoid getting cut. If Erik were lying he could do so reflexively, but I couldn't see any reason for him to do so. He had as much right to be in this Brooklyn street as I did, and perhaps more. It wasn't as though he had a secret second life.

"Can I help?" I offered.

"No need," he said smoothly. "I have been unable to find exactly what I was looking for. Shall we return to the apartment?"

Even after months in America, he always referred to our apartment like this, and never as 'home'.

"Of course."

I took the arm he offered and we walked companionably side-by-side for a few steps, until to my horror he turned into the very alleyway I had just exited, where the brothel was located. I could feel the tension seeping through my body, pulling my spine straight, and I kept my eyes directly on the way ahead. In my mind's eye, de Tourney's seemed to be sticking out like a red boil on the skin of the buildings, its presence obvious and ugly. Why did we have to come this way? I knew that in reality it looked the same as every other structure on this street, grotty and unremarkable, but I knew Erik was observant, and would see it for what it was.

"When do you think you will start working at the docks again?" I asked Erik, too fast, the words tripping off my tongue as I tried to distract him from his surroundings.

"I am looking for other employment," he replied. "That cannot be shut down because of the weather."

He scowled into the snowflakes around us, and we were past the brothel, going away from it with every step.

"What sort of employment did you have in mind?"

"I'm not entirely sure, but anything that will pay the bills and not... demean me."

I nodded, trying not to think about his job as a human oddity in Granjin's fair. Somewhere behind us a door opened, and a voice shouted into the night:

"You found time for one more, then?"

I knew, without a doubt, that the voice belonged to one of my co-workers at de Tourney's, and that the words were aimed at me and tried not to react in any way. Erik himself appeared not to have noticed, his jaw set in a pensive line.

"Have you given any more thought to the theatres?" I enquired. "You are a master of the violin, organ, piano, and goodness knows what other instruments. Any orchestra would be blessed to include you."

He gave one of his short barks of laughter that revealed genuine amusement.

"What a display of flattery! It would not harm you either, I fancy, if I were connected to one of those establishments. Help get your pointe shoe in the door, so to speak."

"I didn't mean it selfishly," I objected.

"Of course you didn't, ma fille." His breath frosted in air, shifting the light snowflakes. "There are currently no vacancies in any of the New York theatres for anyone in our strange little..." I could sense him reaching for the word 'family' and rejecting it. "...Group. And as you well know, there are standards of appearance to adhere to. Even when the orchestra is unseen by the audience, they must wear white tie. How would such a dress code permit a man in a mask?"

I kept silent as we walked on, having no honest answer to give and hoping it was a rhetorical question. Perhaps Erik sensed my growing discomfort, for he continued:

"Besides, playing someone else's music may no longer grant me the satisfaction it once did. Bach, Gounod and Saint-Saëns have their appeal, to be sure, but there is more of a thrill in having one's own work performed."

I lifted my eyebrows in surprise.

"Another performance of Don Juan Triumphant?"

I couldn't help but be intrigued by this idea; the premiere of Erik's opera, his magnum opus, had never been completed. He must be curious to see the production through from overture to final curtain. But something akin to anger flashed through his heterochromatic eyes.

"My Don Juan has perished. All traces of it burned with the Opera Populairé."

I nodded, holding my tongue and not needing the warning look he gave me. Don Juan Triumphant was too full of memories, of Christine. Even if he had not destroyed the music, what would it be like for him to hear another soprano sing the role he had written for Christine? There would be other music, perhaps, and other sopranos, but Erik had poured his heart into Don Juan. Let him forget it, then, and leave the hurt back in the smouldering ruins of the Opera Populairé.

"Even so late into the nineteenth century, a freak such as myself, however talented, is not welcomed in the genteel circles of New York's opera society." Erik's tone was matter-of-fact, even light. "Americans are still too close to their Puritan ancestors, despite the influx of foreigners from all over the world. Perhaps the dawn of a new century will change matters, perhaps not. In the meantime... tell me, Meg, what do you know of Coney Island?"

xxxxx

As January became February, March and finally April, I felt as though the weather were playing some kind of cosmic joke upon us. The lingering snow had a negative impact upon my mother, and she spent a week bedridden, her temperature fluctuating in and out of feverish. I was desperately worried, but Erik told me that we could not afford a doctor, and that his own gypsy medications would treat what he described as a bad chill, nothing more.

Erik had found fresh employment, which meant that we both spent all day out of the house, leaving Mother alone, which left me feeling guiltier and more worried than ever. Suppose she were to become delirious with fever, or leave her bed, fall and harm herself? I tended to her as much as I could, spending my time at home preparing food that she could consume cold during the day, and ensuring that there was a hot meal awaiting Erik when he returned. He was once again doing manual labour, and would return from work every evening with his temper barely in check. When I asked him repeatedly at the end of the first Thursday what was wrong, he leapt up from the sofa where he had settled and snarled:

"Why do you insist on plaguing me with questions, you wretched child?!"

I had taken a step back, surprised by the abrupt movement and even more so by his words.

"I just wanted to know if I could help," I could hear the defensive tone in my voice, but tried to keep it lowered so as not to wake my sleeping mother.

"Help?" He sneered. "What help could you be, ballet rat? What good are you, beyond eating my food and diminishing my resources?!"

I stared at the rage in his blue-green eyes, feeling the fire of it burning within my own soul, and turned to stalk back into the bedroom. Mother was still asleep, thankfully, and her breathing seemed better than it had since I had given her the latest dose of medicine. I fumbled in the envelope I had been given that day, took out a couple of bills and shoved them into my corset. I could hear Erik pacing back and forth before the drawing room fire, and stormed back in there without looking at him. Instead, I went into the narrow kitchen, reached up to the cupboard and pulled down a glass and bottle of disgusting, cheap brandy that was all we could afford. I slammed both glass and bottle down on the coffee table, and Erik turned to glare at me.

"There!" I declared. "Drink yourself into a stupor and much good may it do you! Your dinner is on the stove and you can bloody well serve yourself! And there!" I threw down the envelope containing the remainder of my salary. "My contribution towards 'your' food and diminishing resources!"

I felt as though there must be steam coming out of my ears, I was so angry at the way he was treating me. If he only knew what I was doing for him, what I had already done! For a moment I was tempted to tell, and glory in the shock that would cross that masked face, but decided against it. I snatched at my cloak and gloves, and Erik spun in a whirl of coattails, and seized me by the upper arm.

"Where the devil do you think you are going?!"

"Out," I snapped. "Out for a walk! To give myself time to clear my head of your rage! And to give you time to cool your temper."

"You are not leaving this apartment!"

"Stop me!" I wrenched my arm from his grasp and opened the door. "Mother will need more medication in an hour and a half, if you are still sober!"

I was out on the landing, my hand already on the balustrade, when he darted around me and stood on the second step, blocking the staircase. Given the difference in our heights, this put us almost eyeball to glaring eyeball.

"Do not disobey me, vous brat peu!"

"Va te faire foutre!"

It was the worst thing I had ever said in front of him, and I could blame no-one but myself for his reaction. I should have known by now not to meet his temper with my own. His left hand caught me so hard on the right cheek that I would have fallen over, had his right hand not slapped my other cheek and brought me upright again. I stood, panting with the shock of it, clutching the balustrade. He was breathing hard too, and looked as white as I must have done, as though the violence had surprised him. I wanted to ask him if he felt better now, if striking out at me had had some sort of cathartic effect, but I kept my thoughts to myself, determined that my stinging cheeks would not make me cry. He moved past me, back into the apartment, and after a moment I followed him, closing the door behind me. Erik was standing in front of the fireplace, his hands by his sides, his fingers twitching. I went to the coffee table and poured brandy into the glass with a hand that trembled only slightly, downing the foul tasting liquid in one swallow. I went into the bedroom, closing the door softly. I filled the basin Mother and I kept in the room from the jug and put my head into it, submerging my burning cheeks.

I put on additional make-up the next day to hide the marks that had erupted overnight, and it wasn't until I was joined in room 15 of de Tourney's brothel that the make-up was thought unusual. Thomas Seymour wrinkled his forehead and turned up his nose when he saw me in the glare of the gas light I had just turned on.

"Why are you covered in war paint, Saffron?" He asked. "If I wanted someone who looked like they had just come off of a stage, I would have specified it. Do wash it off, there's a good girl."

I tried to protest, but Seymour insisted. When I had washed my face clean, he lifted my chin, turning my cheek to the light.

"What has happened here?" He sounded almost angry. "Who did this to you? Another of your clients? Saffron, I can pay enough that de Tourney would grant me exclusivity of you. What brute left these bruises on my poor beauty?"

"It wasn't a client," I told him. "It was... a domestic quarrel. It was my own fault, I'm bright enough to know that I should not talk back to my elders."

"This was a man," he studied the bruises. "A man with large hands, I would say. Your father? Brother? Landlord?"

"It was my fault," I repeated, and he stepped away from me, stabbing at the fire with the poker. He looked back at me over his shoulder as I began to undress.

"I have never raised my hand to my wife," he said. "Nor to my children. I do not believe it is necessary to resort to violence in a household, especially within a family. A man may be the master of his domain, but he need not rule that domain with his fists. No gentleman should behave like a thug. Did he give you the scars on your back as well?"

"Please," I went to him, stripped down to my corset and petticoat, and wrapped my arms around his waist from behind. "Let's not discuss it, hmm? Let us forget the outside world. All that matters here and now is you and I."

He placed down the poker and turned, wrapping his arms around my own waist and pressing his mouth to mine.

"You are so beautiful, Saffron," he whispered. "I cannot bear to see such beauty marred, and to see you in pain."

"Then kiss me better," I murmured against his lips. "Kiss the hurt away."

And he proceeded to do so, tracing feather-light kisses over the bruising on my cheeks, telling me that I was beautiful, and that he wanted to protect me.

"I cannot be protected from a Ghost."

He sketched me, undressed me, and made love to me, his focus on my pleasure, and we lay naked together, limbs wrapped around each other, chests pressed so close that I could feel that Seymour's heart was racing along with mine. One of his hands was in my hair, winding a strand around his fingers, and with the other he traced the shadows under my eyes.

"You are exhausted, little one," he said. "And not just through my efforts at lovemaking. Why don't you get some sleep while I work on this sketch a bit more? Put these on, we mustn't have you catch cold." He eased my petticoat back up over my hips and I raised my arms so he could drop the white cotton chemise over my head. He tucked the sheets around me as if I were one of his own children, and pressed those beautiful lips to my forehead. "And I shall order some food for us both. I swear you've gotten thinner than you were when I first started this collection."

I did not feel any thinner than I had been a few months before, but stress can do all manner of things to the body, and there were days when my evening meal with Mother and Erik would be my only meal of the day.

I allowed myself to be soothed by the satisfaction of orgasm, the wail of the wind outside, the crackle of the fire that warmed my skin, the sound of Seymour's pencil against his drawing pad.

I was somewhere in the dark, and there were whispers around me, the flash of faces. A piano, a mirror.

"Look after Mama."

"A murderer deserves nothing less, don't you agree?"

Pinned down, unable to move, suffocating in the dark, a gunshot, a ruined face, a broken neck, too much terror.

"Saffron!" Someone was shaking me, and I was tangled in sheets and with someone's hands touching me. "Safrron!"

I fought to get away as dark turned to light, and I could see a beautiful, blue-eyed man's face creased with worry. His hands were on my shoulders, shaking me back into wakefulness, but the feeling of terror came with me from the nightmare like the sticky threads of a spider's web.

"It's Thomas! You're alright, you're safe with me. Saffron, dear girl..."

I could hear myself gasping, great dry sobs with no tears to accompany them, as though in my nightmare I had been robbed of the ability to scream. Seymour sat on the bed, on top of the disarranged covers and pillows, and drew me into his lap so that my head rested against his chest.

"Shh..." he whispered, dropping a kiss onto my hair. "Shh, darling, it's alright."

He was half-dressed too, in his white shirt and brown trousers, and I turned my face into his shoulder, trying to remember how to breathe. He rocked with me in his arms, one hand stroking my hair, the other rubbing my back in slow circles, shushing the distressed sounds that I was desperately trying to control.

"What is it, Saffron?" He asked after my breathing was calmer. "What are you so afraid of?"

"I don't know," I admitted, and inhaled a deep, shuddering sigh. "I just remember the feeling of it, the terror. It's like I forgot where I am and who I am. Just darkness and such, such terror."

"No one was hurting you, in the dream? There was no assault?" His lips brushed across my bruised skin.

"No."

"You are always safe with me." The hand on my back travelled down, caressed my buttocks, and went down further, disappearing under the hemline of my petticoat. "Relax, my darling. Let me help you."

I parted my thighs for him as his fingers slid between, stroked, probed, found that spot that made me shiver. A moan escaped my lips and he caught it in a deep kiss, his tongue meeting mine as two long, clever fingers entered me, and his thumb rubbed that special place.

"Oh, God..."

"That's it..." he kissed me again. "Who are you?"

"I'm yours," I told him, and would have given anything to stay in this moment forever, in his arms, under the pleasure of those magic fingers. "Thomas, please..."

"That is not what I meant," his fingers pumped slowly and I moaned again. "Tell me your name."

"Saffron," I gasped. "Mon Dieu..."

"Your real name." He kissed me hard, his fingers working me.

"Meg," I whispered. "My name is Meg."

And I dug my fingers into his shoulder as my climax came.