Chapter Twenty-Three

Meg

22nd October, 1886

I was quivering with anticipation as the door opened, and flung myself at the man who entered when he was barely over the threshold.

"Papa!"

"Hello, birthday girl," he caught and lifted me in his arms, but they trembled as though I weighed too much for him. "How is my favourite little ballerina?"

"Happy to have you home," I buried my face in the curve of his shoulder, trying to reclaim him as one of the family. He smelled of stale sweat and something musky, not the usual familiar scent of his cologne and cigarette smoke.

"Meg, darling, let your father get settled back home before we engulf him," Mother said gently, following him into their apartments with his suitcase in hand, and closing the door behind her.

"Of course."

Father set me back on my feet and stepped back to admire the green dress I wore, a hand-me-down from Lycette, but still a recent favourite.

"Look how tall and grown-up you are, Meg. How does it feel to be in double figures now?"

"Not much different to being nine," I admitted, and he smiled and reached out to ruffle my curls.

"Well, you look like quite the grown-up lady to me."

He looked different. His clothes were hanging off him and his hair had still not grown back from the shaving it had gotten to prevent lice. He went into the bedroom with Mother, and a moment later she returned to the drawing room alone.

"Your father is just washing up, and then we can have your birthday tea."

"Is he alright?" I chewed at my little fingernail and she took my hand.

"Don't do that, sweetheart, it's a bad habit. Father is feeling much better, but he is very tired. He'll be back to normal when he has had a few days rest and some good, home-made meals."

"Really?" I smiled. "He won't be sad anymore?"

"Meg, everyone gets sad sometimes."

"But he won't get so angry and hit me with his belt again?"

It had been months since the incident, but the skin on my back where the scar had formed still felt tight and a shiver ran through me when I remembered it.

"Meg, he's not going to hurt you like that again. And you know not to use bad words now, don't you? Even if they are in German."

"Yes, Mama."

Father joined us a few minutes later, and we had my birthday tea, filled with the sweet treats that I loved.

"Now time for our birthday girl to have her birthday present," he said, and handed me a flat object wrapped in purple paper. I unwrapped it to find book of dark green leather that closed with a tiny golden lock and an even smaller key.

"Now that you're becoming such a grown-up young lady," Mother said, "we thought that you might like to keep all your thoughts in a diary."

"Thank you both," I hugged Mother, and then Father. "I have something to give you too, Father."

"Oh? But it is not my birthday."

I reached into my pocket, and tipped the small item of jewellery into his open palm. An unadorned solid silver cross, about an inch and a half long, on a silver chain.

"Mother told me that they made you take this off when you went into the hospital, so I've been keeping it safe for you."

"Thank you, sweetheart," his voice was full of emotion as he fastened the chain around his neck. "This cross is very important to me."

He could not finish his slice of cake.

"I suppose it's all the excitement of being home," he said. "Why don't you finish this for me, Meg?"

I leaned back in my chair and gave an exaggerated sigh with my hands over my tummy.

"If I eat more cake, I'm going to pop!"

"Oh, is that so?"

He reached over to tickle me, and I squealed and jumped up, inviting him to chase me.

"You'll be sick," Mother warned.

"Mama is right," my father agreed, smiling at me tiredly. "We mustn't get over-excited and waste all this marvellous food, must we?"

"No, Father," I nodded and resumed my seat, a little unsettled and full of sugar. I suppose that was the cause for my vomiting half the night.

Despite all that was said to me, it still seemed that my father had not returned to himself. The sadness that that had so plagued him before he was sent to the asylum still seemed to shadow him like a goblin stalking his footsteps. He was better, he assured me, had not gone through all of that to come out just the same, and yet I could not help but doubt.

I only truly believed it a week after his return, when I found him in one of the Opera House's rehearsal rooms sitting at his favourite piano, the one with flowers and vines carved on it. I had just finished a ballet lesson and followed the sound of music to a rehearsal room with walls of mirrors, and when he caught sight of my reflection, he smiled at me. My confidence came flooding back, and a beam spread across my face. He finished the piece that he was playing from memory as I crossed the room.

"Mother was telling me how helpful and good you have been," he told me and I nodded.

"I wanted to make things better. We both missed you so much."

"And I missed you," a look of sadness flashed across his face before he rearranged it into a faux stern expression. "Now then, daughter mine, have you been practicing the piano while I've been away?"

"Oh yes, Father, I have."

"Honestly?"

"I promise. I learned your favourite song."

"Oh, you did?" He raised his eyebrows and shifted on the piano bench, patting the space beside him.

"I can't play it without the music," I admitted sheepishly, and he laughed and rose from the bench.

"Well, it just so happens that I have the music here."

"Why?" I asked as he pulled a libretto from the hollow inside of the piano bench.

"Because it is my favourite song from one of my favourite operas. And because it comforts me to play it." He opened the libretto to the right page and smiled at me again. "Come now, Meg, show me how well you have learned."

I sat down, spread my skirts and placed my fingers on the black and white keys, looking up to read the music. I could see Father's reflection in the mirror opposite; he was standing behind me and staring at my back.

"What's wrong?" I asked.

"Nothing," his reflected eyes met mine for a second and then dropped again. He reached out and ran his fingertips very lightly over the scar that his belt had left, the line exposed by the cut of my rehearsal dress. "Meg, I am so sorry."

There was silence between us as his warm fingers caressed my back, and I felt the heavy weight of grief and shame descend around us like a fog.

"Father?"

"Yes, Meg, love?" He blinked, seeming to come back to himself.

"Play it for me."

"Now, now. You said that you had learned it. You promised."

"Play it with me, then."

He took the seat beside me. "If you will sing."

I nodded, and we began to play. The introduction ended, and I sang the words that I hardly understood:

"When other lips and other hearts their tales of love shall tell

In language whose excess imparts the power they feel so well

There may, perhaps, in such a scene some recollection be

Of days that have as happy been and you'll remember me

And you'll remember, you'll remember me."

We spent an hour together, playing pieces of music from the opera, and then just creating silly little tunes on the piano for our own amusement.

"Father?"

"Yes, Meg?"

"I'm so glad that you're home."

"And I'm very glad to be home, sweetheart."

We both looked around as something clunked across the room, as though a lantern had been dropped to the floor. For a moment, the light from the rehearsal room windows seemed to flicker off a pair of eyes that were not ours, deep within the reflections of the mirrors.

"What was that?" My voice had gone tight.

"Maybe the Opera Ghost is up to his tricks again," Father patted me on the shoulder. "Don't look so worried, ghosts can't do you any harm as long as you behave yourself. Come on, now, you go and get changed and then we'll start thinking about what to eat for dinner."

"Can Christine eat with us?"

"Yes, if she wants to."

He was happy again, lifted by the music, and we left the rehearsal room hand in hand. But over the next few weeks the happiness seemed to dim and flare, as though it were a candle caught in a draft. He couldn't manage as much food as he used to before he went away with his reduced waistline, and there were dark shadows under his eyes.

"I'm just having a little trouble sleeping," he told me when I expressed concern. "I have been having some bad dreams."

I nodded, having experienced the same myself. Again and again I saw in my sleep the man on the tiled floor of the asylum, bleeding from the nose, screaming at me to help him. Again and again his face changed into that of my father, and then I was in his place, beaten and bloody, and would wake with a start.

"Do you want to go for a walk?" I offered.

"I can't, love, I have to play the piano for Monsieur Poitiers at the rehearsal for Sampson and Delilah. You have to be there too, you know."

"But not until late this afternoon. I saw Sampson's wig today; he's going to have hair longer than mine! Monsieur Soirelli says he used horse's hair. Monsieur Talbot is going to cut his real hair off for the bit where Delilah cuts Sampson's hair and takes his strength away!"

My father laughed at my wide-eyed consternation. "It's only hair, Meg, it will grow back."

"When will your hair grow back? I don't like it so short."

"Neither do I really," he ran his hand over the brutally shaven spikes. "I look rather like a toothbrush, don't I?"

I laughed and he chucked me under the chin. "That's better, there's my happy girl. My hair will grow back in time, don't you worry. And I'm very pleased that you've been looking after your mother, she needs you. She loves you very much, and so do I."

"I love you too," I replied, and hugged him around the waist.

He dropped a kiss onto the crown of my head. "You stay my happy girl, hmm?"

"I will, I promise."

The days passed, and if his hair was growing then I could not see it. If his mood was improving then it was invisible to me, and his relationship with Mother was strained. They argued over the dinner table, keeping to stiff, stilted comments in an effort not to reveal the conflict to me, but I knew a row when I saw one.

"Well maybe you would like it better if I had stayed in that hellhole!" I heard him shouting at Mother through the door one day. "Maybe it would make life easier for you!"

"Claude, love, I never said that. I never even implied that. I love you, and Meg loves you, and we need you. I thought you were feeling better, Claude, now that you have come home to us."

"It's… it's just so difficult, Annie, I really thought things would be better too. But I am not going back there, I'd sooner throw myself in the Seine."

"Don't say things like that."

My ballet slippers had gone missing. In a fever of frustration and impatience I retraced my steps, from the stage to the dressing room where the scents of greasepaint and power still hung in the air like the dust motes. From the dressing room to the rehearsal room where Mother was working with Fabienne the prima ballerina, and then to the dormitory where Christine was writing a letter to Madame Valerius, the woman who had arranged for her to live at the Opera House. From the dormitory to my parents' apartments. In the drawing room, I got down on my hands and knees to check whether my slippers had been kicked under the sofa or caught under a leg of the dining table, and then vividly remember that I had been in the bedroom when I took them off, so that mother could treat the bruising on my toes.

"… and for all that I am and all that I have done, may God have mercy on my soul…"

I heard the whispering as I approached the bedroom door in a voice choked with sobs that I hardly recognised.

"Hello?" I pushed the bedroom door open. "Father?"

He was sitting on the end of the bed that he and Mother shared, dressed in only his shirtsleeves despite the November chill not yet dispersed by a warm fire. The shirt was unbuttoned, and the silver cross around his neck gleamed at me from his reflection in the full-length mirror that stood opposite him.

Father had his eyes squeezed shut and tears ran unchecked down his cheeks. In his lap he held a Bible, the pages rumpled where he clutched at them, and in the other there was a small, black pistol, pressed against his temple, so firmly that his hand was shaking.

"God receive my soul," he mumbled. "Christ accept my soul."

"Papa?"

I do know how loudly I spoke, but my father opened his eyes. He did not turn around, but looked into the mirror, and saw me in the doorway behind him. He smiled at me through his tears, and in that smile my world shattered.

"Look after Mama," he said, and pulled the trigger.