Chapter 14: Practice

"'What the devil have I done with my slippers?'"

"'There are your slippers. And there. Take your slippers; and may you never have a day's luck with them!'"

"'What on earth— What's the matter? Get up...Anything wrong?'"

"'Nothing wrong—with you.'"

"God, she's mad at him, isn't she?" Troy said, dropping the book to the patio table, the binding worn enough that it lay open on its own.

"And with good reason, Gavin!"

It wasn't the first time Troy had interrupted the flow of the play, but after nearly two weeks of reading through it time after time, it was of little consequence. It was now rare that Cully dropped a phrase, or added a word, or forgot a line. But Troy never turned down her requests for help, especially as her rehearsals were about to begin in full force.

That evening two weeks prior, she had briefly reviewed the play for him—his memory of the second half was more than vague—at least at first. The conversation had rapidly turned away from Pygmalion, but not to the current investigation as it often did. There was little to say about it, anyway. Every possibility pursued yielded nothing, forensics had exhausted the evidence collected by SOCO, and whoever they were chasing blindly remained enveloped by shadows.

Instead, the discussion had turned to the past: old memories, childhood pastimes, widely divergent experiences at Causton Comprehensive, all the things that were both meaningless and more important than ever. Hours of happy, easy words had disappeared in minutes, only ending when Troy realized just how late it had become. Despite the arrival of the weekend, another day of brief, veiled accusations and a stagnated case loomed too close to indulge in her presence for another second—or hour.

Yet after he had driven her home and walked up the sidewalk with her to the door, unwilling to lose a moment more of her presence than he had to, Troy wished he had said nothing and ignored the time altogether. What did the next day matter, Barnaby's glares and sudden silences, all that nonsense? It didn't, Troy knew as he kissed her again, starved for her touch for almost a week. His hand had reached for her—just to hold her closer, nothing more—before he remembered not what but where.

Cully had moved with certainty, opening the door and stepping inside to a mercifully empty sitting room without hesitation, knowing the evening must come to an end eventually. Barnaby's ire would rise to the top some day, but not now, not when she turned back to Troy, touched his hand, and said quietly, "I'll talk to you tomorrow."

In the past two weeks, he had seen her more often—not every day, but nearly—always with a copy of Pygmalion in her hand. He collected her from the library each afternoon, their time together spent over tea or coffee, reading her lines. Or intending to: sometimes their meetings had begun and finished without looking at the play once. Never intentionally—it was simply forgotten. And those evenings together were growing longer; as the burglary investigation had worn on, his workdays had become shorter, now almost comparable to the rest of the country's. There was no point in reviewing tired ground again and again.

And when the next weekend had arrived, those two days finally free of interviews and hours staring at whiteboards rereading the same facts, Troy knew he had spent almost every moment with Cully. On Saturday, after a cricket match that yielded victory rather than embarrassing defeat, a quick dinner had not touched on the play at all. Then on Sunday, sitting on the patio behind her parents' house, the conversation had again drifted from the play to so many other things.

Despite how easy it was to talk to her, Troy's skin still prickled—even sitting across from her stoked the apprehension. Once or twice that Sunday, he had to look around, certain he felt Barnaby staring out a window, though Cully had laughed. Thankfully, he had never seen the chief inspector, like the man was avoiding the garden altogether. Not that Troy minded; the afternoon already felt supervised enough without knowing it as well.

Today—Saturday again—was the same, though the sense of observation was less oppressive. For the best, Troy thought. They were on the patio again, and he was sitting rather closer to her than before, holding the only copy of the play. Cully was near enough to glance at the text if she forgot a line entirely, but—disappointingly—far enough to be unable to see it with an easy glance.

"'I've won your bet for you, haven't I?'" Cully said, anger laced through the words. "'That's enough for you. I don't matter, I suppose.'"

"'You won my bet!'" Troy responded, just reading the line in a flat voice. After two weeks, he knew half of every character's lines except for Eliza's, but he never did anything but recite them. He was no actor, and he never would be. "'You! Presumptuous insect! I won it. What did you throw those slippers at me for?'"

"'Because I wanted to smash your face.'" And now her face was furious as well, tight and drawn back, her mouth in a snarl. "'I'd like to kill you, you selfish brute. Why didn't you leave me in the gutter? You thank—'"

"Sorry, hang on," Troy said, leaning forward, his arms on the table. He ran his eyes back along the page. "That's not it. 'Why didn't you leave me where you picked me out of—in the gutter?'"

The rage vanished. "No one's perfect, Gavin," she said, like she had never been angry. "'Why didn't you leave me where you picked me out of—in the gutter? You thank God it's all over, and that now you can throw me back again there, do you?'"

"'The creature is nervous, after all.'" She was so different in this moment, no longer the woman whom he had embraced and kissed. And it was not even another side of her: this was someone different, someone new. The first few days Troy had hardly noticed how quickly and easily she transformed, pushing herself aside in favor of a person who had never existed outside of actresses like herself. But as his own knowledge of the play increased—more time to look at her rather than the text in the book—he saw her again and again, an unfamiliar woman wearing Cully's face.

She was silent, just looking at him. Waiting. "It's still your line."

"Uh, it says here you're supposed to scream at me," Troy said, his finger pressed to the page.

"At Higgins, yes," she said, nodding before a small smile appeared on her mouth. "I'm sure I could find something—"

"No, it's fine," he said, waving his hand.

"Only if you're sure, Gavin."

Troy looked down again, rereading the text quickly to find his place. "'Ah! would you? Claws in, you cat. How dare you show your temper to me? Sit down and be quiet.'"

"'What's to become of me? What's to become of me?'" Her anger—Eliza's anger, Troy reminded himself—evaporated, confusion taking its place as Cully dropped her head, her hands shaking with Eliza's worry.

"'How the devil do I know what's to become of you? What does it matter what becomes of you?'"

"'You don't care. I know you don't care. You wouldn't care if I was dead. I'm nothing to you—not so much as them slippers.'"

"'Those slippers.'" It was ridiculous, correcting another's grammar, even if it was only a play; Barnaby pointed out enough errors in his.

"'Those slippers.'" Annoyance, resignation. "'I didn't think it made any difference now.'"

"'Why have you begun going on like this?'" Troy set the book down, the pages pressed to the table to expose the worn, wrinkled spine. "Not the most pleasant bloke, is he?"

"Not really," Cully said lightly, the façade of Eliza vanishing.

"It doesn't make any sense: she hates him here, but by the end it sounds like she's going to stay on anyway. Or he thinks she might."

"Well, she does, in a way." She settled back in her chair—farther away.

"I never saw that."

"Didn't you read the notes at the end, Gavin?" she asked, grinning as he remained silent. "It's everything Shaw wanted to reader to know, but couldn't be put into the play."

"Answer everything, do they?"

"Mostly. She marries Freddy, becomes like a daughter to Colonel Pickering, and remains a very sharp thorn in Higgins' side." Cully laughed, shifting forward again and setting her elbows on the table, her hands folded under her chin. "I think she likes being the thorn the most."

She really is beautiful, he thought, his eyes tracing the edge of her jaw, the line of her neck, the curve of her shoulders— "It's still odd," he said, sitting straighter. These afternoons and evenings were as torturous as they were pleasant. Picking the book up again, Troy flipped through the pages to the back where the broken text gave way to paragraphs. She would drive him mad for no reason at all and never even know it. "Why would she stay on if she hates him?"

"She finds him—and his indifference—interesting," Cully said, still looking directly at him. "He doesn't need her, but he's gotten so used to her being there that, in a way, he does. And it's not just him she doesn't like. Here." She pushed her chair closer to his, reaching for the book and turning to one of the final pages. "'She likes Freddy,'" Cully began, "'and she likes the Colonel; and she does not like Higgins and Mr. Doolittle.'" She stopped, her eyes narrowing. "'Galatea never does quite like Pygmalion,'" she continued after a moment, "'his relation to her is too godlike to be altogether agreeable.'"

Troy shook his head; that name was completely foreign to him. "Wait—who's Galatea?"

"She's the statue."

"What statue?"

"You don't know much mythology either, do you?" she asked as she closed the play once more.

"Not enough, I guess," he said. She would drive him mad and irritate him. "I didn't need mythology to pass my exams."

She slid the book back to his hand. "It's the inspiration for the play, or at least one of them."

"Is that where the title comes from, too?"

Nodding, Cully said, "Yes."

"What's it about, then? It's still a weird name for a play."

"It's classical mythology," she said, laying her arms flat on the table, one of hers against his own. "Pygmalion was a sculptor who carved a woman out of ivory. He had rejected women—"

"No wonder, if he was an artist," Troy said, scowling. "You almost expect it."

"Because Venus had cursed them, not because he—" Cully released a heavy sigh, then slapped his hand, harder than he expected. But her other arm had not moved. "Come on, Gavin!"

"I didn't say—"

"You're impossible, sometimes. You really are."

"All right," Troy said, trying not to think about it, "he rejected them because they'd been cursed."

"By Venus," Cully continued, pushing a lock of hair away from her eyes. "But he fell in love with the statue he had carved, and he prayed for Venus to send him a wife who looked like her. When he went out and kissed the statue—"

"He kissed the bloody statue?" Troy's voice was weak in his own ears as he looked at her, almost stared at her.

"Yes, Gavin. And when he did, it came to life."

"So—that's Galatea, is it?" Her last words had been an echo—distant and faded—as he watched her face, her hand, just her; he had almost forgotten to listen.

"Yes."

"Why the hell would he fall in love with a statue, Cully? Even if it is just a myth."

"She's the ideal," Cully said, pulling one of her legs up into the chair, pressing her body further back. "I suppose that's what he meant, right at the end."

"Shaw?" Troy already missed her touch, even something as meaningless as her arm laid beside his.

"'Too godlike', remember? Pygmalion's already created her physically, why shouldn't he try to mold her mind, too?"

"Brainwash her?" he asked, opening the book from the back, flipping forward to find the beginning of the notes.

"No," she said, laughing softly, "transform her completely into the ideal."

"I guess." The pages slipped through his fingers to the end once more. "God, that's a lot."

"They don't really matter for the play itself—only if you're interested in the story."

"Oh, thanks," Troy said, squinting at the first lines. He preferred her just sending him out of his mind. "When does this open, anyway?"

"Three weeks from this past Thursday." She looked at her hands for a moment, clasped around the knee she had propped against the edge of the chair. "You will be there opening night, won't you?" she asked.

She almost sounded nervous, Troy realized. "I told you I haven't missed one in years. I won't start now," he said quietly.

"Good." Cully uncurled her leg, setting it on the patio again before she stood up. "Do you fancy some coffee, Gavin?"

"Sure." Pushing his chair back, he began to stand as well—

"Don't worry," she said, setting a palm on his shoulder, almost holding him down, "I'll be back. You can start reading the author's notes."

"It feels like I'm back at school. Sort of." It certainly felt like an assignment.

"Is it better this time round?" Cully asked.

"Of course," Troy said. He had never hidden his hatred of Causton Comprehensive for anyone; she had called it absurd. "It couldn't be any worse."

Taking her hand from his shoulder, she brushed it through his hair; the longer sections at his temples were beginning to curl, as they always did. Beneath her fingertips, his skin burned. "Good."

Even in the afternoon sun, Troy shivered as her footsteps disappeared, and god only knew which reason was to blame. Her touch, her absence—no matter how brief, he already felt it—the eyes he knew were almost certainly stationed inside the house and watching every second...The possibilities were so knotted together, it was impossible to know.

In the end, it might be safer to remain outside.