Chapter 61: New Light On the Road

As Wednesday evening wore on from twilight to the true darkness of night, Cully's monologue was improved from yesterday. Tuesday afternoon before Tom returned home and dinner was laid, Joyce had sat with her daughter for an hour or so, listening to her recite the short extract from The Murder Room with a week and a half remaining before her audition. She had offered more corrections than she was used to, even when she reminded herself that Cully had hardly been studying it for a few days. She usually memorized her lines quickly and easily; that nascent play of her career, she had learned most of her role—really learned it—in the course of a week or so. Of course, Joyce remembered, that had been over a break from uni, without much else to worry about.

Tonight, nestled in one of the armchairs in the front room, Joyce crossed her legs, folding the front cover of the script back as Cully prepared to start over. The first recitation had been fraught with clipped sentences here, a garbled phrase there. "Are you sure you don't want a few moments to review it properly, Cully?"

"No, Mum," her daughter said, shaking her head and tucking her hands into the back pockets of her jeans, crossing the room yet again; she had refused to sit since they'd begun, more than once chewing on her thumb as she scrambled for her words. "I just needed a moment to focus, that's all."

"If you're sure." Joyce pressed her finger to the first line of the marked selection. All through their first reading, the first signs of this different woman had broken through the confused words. At first Cully had paced, as though terrified of her own actions as Mavis. A few moments later ("The phones rings," Joyce had prompted.), those same movements came through clearer, like she was remembering a stage, no longer reciting words in the sitting room of her parents' home.

"'Edgar! Edgar!'" Cully began again, clutching her left arm to her elbow, her face clenched with fear. "'Oh, what have I done! What have I done!'" She flung an invisible pistol aside, now wringing her hands. "'This is—dreadful.'" She stopped, turning away for a moment. "'I must—I must...' Sorry," she said, pressing a hand to her cheek.

Joyce's eyes had dropped back to the thin book in her hands, finding her daughter's place on the page as she searched for any missed words or dropped phrases, and now rose again. "Cully?"

"Mum, can I ask you something?"

"Of course," Joyce said, closing the script and dropping it into her lap. "Is something wrong?"

Cully finally spun back around, that same hand now covering her mouth for a second before she left it fall away. "I've been wondering..."

"What?"

She dropped her head back. "Do I get..."

"Sit down, Cully, if you want to talk," Joyce said quietly, folding her hands around her knee. "What's the matter?"

"I don't need to—"

"Well, if you want me to listen, please stop pacing like that."

She heard her daughter release a long breath before collapsing into the settee a few feet across the room, peering at the floor before drawing her feet in their dark socks up into the chair and tucking them into a far corner of the cushion. Pulling her worn jumper closer—even with every window latched tight, the cold night air had trickled through the cracks and beneath the door—Cully opened her mouth, closed it again, then..."Am I...am I too harsh, sometimes?"

"I don't think that's a fair question."

Cully leaned forward, propping her elbows onto her thighs. Twisting her fingers together, she balanced her chin on her knuckles for a short moment until they fell into her lap, her gaze still trained on them. "But you would tell me?"

"I wouldn't be the first to tell you—you know can be sharp."

"Yes, I know, Mum." Cully still didn't look up, tracing a circle on her knee.

"Then what's brought this on?"

"When Dad and Gavin came round yesterday," Cully said quietly, the circle she was drawing on her knee growing larger and faster, "when I was out for the day..."

"What about it?" Joyce asked, finally sliding Cully's script aside.

Her daughter's hand stilled. "He said I sounded so angry on Saturday, he didn't even know if I wanted to talk with him again."

"Gavin?"

Cully nodded. "Yes."

"Did you?"

"Of course!" Cully said loudly, her face finally rising for a moment.

Joyce heard the memory of anger laced through Cully's words, but...was that it? Something else from the past, or now? "Then why would he think that?"

"Saturday, I was just so..." Cully stopped again, curling her hands into the hem of her jumper. "I was so upset then, I couldn't really stop and listen to what he had to say." She shook her head. "I didn't really hear what I had to say."

"Did you think about what that sounded like to him, especially when you said you were planning to be away for a few months."

"I wanted to, but he didn't say anything, at least about—what just happened."

"What do you mean?"

Cully dropped her feet back onto the floor, nearly grinding her toes into the pale carpet. "He kept talking about the past, and all I wanted to talk about was now."

"Perhaps he was hurt by the past," Joyce said quietly. It wasn't even gone a week that the world had shifted in everything she saw and heard from her daughter. She hadn't seen or spoken a word to Gavin since he dropped Cully off that Friday evening, both of them soaked with an expanding puddle around their feet just inside the front door as the deluge still dripped from their faces and clothes. It was a scene from a movie, she recalled thinking as she handed each of them a towel to mop away the rain, not a moment that happened to your daughter and her boyfriend. All those years ago, she had called Gavin that in jest: perhaps a gentle swipe at Tom, Cully's irritation with him palpable as he dashed out of the house yet again, his mind already back at CID where it had been for those last few days. She'd always felt he deserved that jab, feeling him bristle and watching him scowl as she settled her arm around his back. It was no joke now, she knew, hadn't had the feel of one since...well, the opening night of Pygmalion, two months ago. The following weeks—despite Cully's rehearsals and performances, and the wild goose chases that increasingly dominated Gavin and her own husband's workdays—Joyce always picked out those happier moments, no matter how much her daughter kept her words to herself. A brighter smile in the evening, more energy before she left the next morning, like a new happiness.

"As though I wasn't?"

Cully's voice surprised her. It's not the time for that, Joyce thought, worrying about what you've seen change. "Yes, but isn't he allowed to remember—what happened?"

"I know."

Joyce pushed herself forward, nearer to the edge of the armchair. These moments, she wished something different for Cully. Her stubbornness and sharpness had seen her through many an obstacle—some of her own doing and choice—but now, perhaps, they were becoming their own stumbling block. "Wouldn't you want to really know, if he would be now?"

"I don't need his—" Shaking her head, Cully stood again, tracing the same path she had begun to wear into the carpet a few minutes earlier. "I didn't know what to think."

"Cully—"

"But sometimes, Mum..." Turning back around, she buried her hands beneath her arms. "I—I can't know if he trusts me."

"Why would you say that?" Joyce asked quietly.

Cully spun around again. "I don't know, it feels like he won't confide in me, the last couple of weeks."

"Have you thought that maybe he's trying to decide how to tell you some things? Or that he feels the same about you?"

"Maybe. But that's all I want him to do, is to..."

"What?"

"To trust me. Just to tell me..."

"What?"

She shook her head again. "Sorry, Mum, I don't know."

"You've wanted to forget your words before," Joyce said slowly.

Cully dropped back onto the settee, clasping her hands behind her neck. "I didn't mean it."

"I know, Cully. But do you remember how many times you've said that over the years?"

Cully dragged one of her legs up against her chest, folding an arm around her knee as she crushed herself further into the cushions. "But I didn't—really I didn't this time, Mum." Across the room, Joyce thought she heard a quiet sniffle, but surely not. As she watched Cully grow, she sometimes wondered where that stubbornness and tendency to cut straight through with her words and thoughts was born. Certainly much of it came from Tom—it was no accident that he had swiftly risen through the ranks—but more than once, Joyce had asked herself if it wasn't merely her daughter's nature, but a choice as well. Prickliness and thorns weren't regret, but they held some of the unhappiness at bay, or perhaps that was all Cully hoped for.

"So why didn't you call him on Sunday, rather than waiting for him to?"

"I—didn't know, I suppose, if he wanted to say anything to me," Cully muttered as she tugged her other foot up, bracing her chin on her shoulder. "Or listen, after...Saturday."

"Was it that bad?" Cully didn't answer. "So why not ask now?"

She shrugged. "I don't know if I should ask, if there's any point."

"Cully, sooner or later, you have to decide what you want."

Crossing her legs again, Cully sighed. "I know—"

"And that's not an answer you'll have from me," Joyce said quietly, reaching for the script and flipping to the passage she had already listened to her daughter recite twice this evening. "And probably not from yourself tonight. Shall we start again?"

Cully nodded. "Sure."

The third read through of the night saw Joyce flag only two or three phrases—and these were merely words flipped around rather than completely forgotten. Cully's movements sharpened, and as she apparently listened to an unknown lover at the other end of a phone call, growing more agitated all the while, the tension of the last few minutes melted away into the darkness. The distraction was dissipating, Cully remembering to vanish into Mavis Hollister as she'd managed to do so many times before. The darkness was lifting in her daughter's eyes, though whether ignored or just forgotten in the moment, Joyce couldn't decide.

At the end of that third recitation, she retreated to the kitchen to brew them each a cup of tea, checking in on her husband in his study as she did, slouched back in his chair leafing through a worn book. ("Care for a cup of tea, Tom?" "No thanks, love. How are things going?" "Well, I think." "Oh?" "She didn't sound quite so happy at the thought of shooting Edgar this time." "For the best, isn't it?")

As Joyce returned with the delicate cups and they began another reading, Cully remained seated, just centering her mind on the words and her voice. Perhaps it was that break earlier, but now only one or two issues lingered through it all. "'He all knew about us!'"

"'He knew all about us,'" Joyce corrected, sipping on her tea as her thumb followed the passages on the page. All through the evening, that line had been a thorn in her daughter's side, the words flipped around each time she arrived at them.

"Of course," Cully said, rubbing at her eyes and stifling a yawn. "I guess I've managed to learn that bit wrong."

"Haven't you always said it's manageable, as long as you move on?"

"I know."

"Where do you want to start again?"

"From 'Unfortunately', I think."

"Whenever you're ready," Joyce said, her eyes rising a few lines as she set her tea cup down on the side table.

This partial reading reached the end without a transposed or dropped word, Cully's pitch rising and falling, her lines louder or gentler as Mavis transformed from a cold-blooded and newly minted adulteress to a fresh widow feigning grief.

"'...make me do it? Why? Why?'"

Releasing the front cover she had bent around the spine with her left hand, Joyce let the script fall closed once more. "It's really sounding quite good now, Cully."

For the first time that evening, Cully smiled. "Thanks, Mum," she said quietly, her arms and legs no longer curled up and around her body to leave her looking closed and small.

"Do you want to run through it once more?"

"No"—she shook her head as she stood—"I don't think so. I'll probably just review it again before I go to bed."

"All right," Joyce said quietly, returning the script as Cully held out her right hand, her empty tea cup in her left. "I wish we'd be able to see you in this as well. I think you'd play Mavis well."

Peering down at the thin book in her grasp, Cully sighed. "Maybe. But we can't have everything in life, can we?"

"No, not really."

"And thanks," Cully said lowly, still looking down at her script, running her thumb along its edge.

Joyce knew that look well, her daughter turning over thoughts in her mind, wading through them time and time again. Always looking for a new way to reconsider those that troubled her. "Your father and I are always here to help."

"That's not what I meant. But thank you for listening."

"Of course." Standing quickly, Joyce wrapped her arms around Cully pulling her tighter as she pressed a brief kiss to her daughter's cheek, almost feeling the jumper crushed beneath her embrace. "We always are."

"I know. Have a good night, Mum."

Cully first went off to the kitchen—Joyce heard the tap run for a second, probably rinsing the tea cup, the final film of milky tea now down the drain—before she waved good-bye, hurrying up the stairs to her bedroom with those final thoughts she couldn't quite share.

Only best to give her some time, Joyce thought, taking a final sip of her tea, already cooling and stagnant after their last reading. A few days earlier, any answer from Cully about...well, whatever really happened on Saturday had been akin to wringing blood out of a stone—and even tonight, she had remained the one their conversation back to her monologue and their review. Cully may have been the one to stop and ask, but any answers that she had to Joyce's questions danced hither and yon, clipped and unclear. "You have to decide for yourself first, Cully," she said quietly, her eyes rising along the staircase, "before you can ask me much at all."

As she sat with her script reviewing the lines that continued to trouble her in the few minutes before she tried to find a few hours sleep, Cully struggled against another yawn. She was used to being awake well into the evening; the last play schedule in Causton had been easier than she expected, perhaps tailored to a theater-going crowd who expected an earlier night than in London. On her own, she tended toward a late night and then a later morning. But the last few days and nights left her troubled, just wondering…

The script fell closed in her hands, the feathery pages scraping against her thumb as she finally released them. Just laying on her lap, Cully wanted to scowl against the title and the author, against the thin yellow book she still clutched. 'Why did you make me do it?' Every time she reached that short sentence, her mind drifted and the words melted into the white page. Seeing Gavin the day before even for those few brief minutes had soured the rest of it, leaving her in a dark mood that she buried beneath a small smile whenever feet clattered on the van's steps. It never lasted much beyond when she found herself alone again.

But that's not really true, she thought, grinding her fingers against her left temple. She hadn't anticipated seeing him again so soon, all the memories and wounds still fresh and raw—yet that wasn't what troubled her. With so much to do and say, what good were just a few minutes? And if she couldn't say more than she had on Saturday, what good would it do, if she didn't even know herself?

Slapping the script down beside her, Cully just listened to her breathing for a moment. Was that it, was it really that simple? She couldn't really expect him to know what she wanted if she couldn't be certain herself. More than this—skirting about at the edge of the shadows, hoping if it was fine to come into the light—but what more? "There's not much point to it," she muttered as she curled her knees up against her chest, clutching them tight. How had did he still play on her mind so strongly? In the short pause earlier when her mother had offered to brew them both tea, rather than reviewing or double-checking those troubling lines...her mind had been on Gavin: missing him as the lingering guilt throbbed.

Cully shivered, pressing her forehead into her legs and closing her eyes. She couldn't simply forget it, after so many months—years, really—of needing an answer. What did every gaze, each stumbled over word, all the tense silence mean—what was it all for?

You already know, that quiet voice haunting her mind whispered. Why are you asking?

"But I don't."

Of course you do. Why are you still worrying about it now?

"Stuff it," Cully hissed, wrapping her arms around her calves, the words muffled against her jeans. "If I did know, I wouldn't care."

That's one answer. But you've been hoping for something more, haven't you?

"No—"

Yes.

"Stop telling me that," she whispered, inhaling sharply through her nose against a quiet sniffle. "Don't tell me what to do."

Then why are you upset?

"I'm not—"

Yes you are, and you know it.

"Don't tell me what to think," she said, "or what to do."

Then who else—

"Don't tell me!" Cully snapped, lifting her face to look at…no one. "Just stop." She crushed her cheek back to her legs, ignoring the tears beading at the inner corners of her eyes.What is he doing now? she wondered like before, tightening her arms around her knees. Was it too much to hope—to want?—that she was still on his mind? Since Saturday, she had struggled to drive him from hers as each night grew later and she fought against her own wandering thoughts.

Her mother's words still echoed. "Perhaps he was hurt by the past," she'd said, like it was the simplest thing in the world. "I know, Mum—and so was I," Cully whispered, finally wiping the silent tears from her face before they trickled onto her jeans, smearing them with her worn sleeve. "That's—I just want to know."

There wasn't really a point in trying to study any longer. Stripping away her jumper and jeans—she'd paused in the washroom and brushed her teeth as she clamored up the stairs and a shower could wait until the following morning—Cully tugged a clean pair of pajamas over her hips and a long-sleeved shirt over her head, refusing to glance at her bedside table and her mobile. Do you want to know? she asked herself, shoving her pale quilt and sheet back as she dropped onto her bed, a wash of goosebumps rising along her neck where the chilly night air tickled her skin. Or will it be worse to know, and have no more uncertainties? She pulled her feet into her lap, tucking them into the crook of each knee.

Does it matter? that quiet voice whispered again. If he doesn't care—

"But I do."

Reaching for her mobile, Cully had it open, searching for his name with her thumb before she realized—scrolling swiftly through the list of names in her contacts. Too late to talk this evening, and would she want to? Too many thoughts and too much pain still bounced around her head, all the questions she needed understand before she could hope for an answer—and what use was there if she couldn't know herself? Finding his name, she tapped out a quick message, doubling back to correct a couple errant letters. im sorry about ystrday After a moment, she added, can we talk this weekend?

Shoving the adapter into her phone's charging port as it slipped from her palm onto her table again, Cully buried herself within the tangled blankets, clenching her eyes for a second as she just tried to breathe. Even if her phone rang—if it simply buzzed, bringing some sort of yes or no—not now. Sorry, Gavin, she thought, finally snapping her bedside lamp off and tucking her quilt beneath her chin. Sealing out the deepening night, Cully just listened to each rush of breath as it echoed in her ears. I still care—I hope you still can—but I still don't know what to say. I don't want...Closing her eyes again, her lashes caught on her pillowcase, her cheek pressed heavily against it. I don't want to go through that again.

When sleep finally found her, she dreamt of the cinema, Gavin's hand folded tightly around hers, biting back the word Cambridge for the warmth of a different path into the future, and something more, still hidden in the shadows.

A/N: This scene, particularly the beginning, is not riffing on the early father-daughter conversation in either movie version of Beauty and the Beast. It's derived from and riffing on something much darker. (And this is a rare moment for Cully to be in this head-space, I think, because she's really seeing that she might have made a very bad decision.) Also, for some reason, I keep thinking of John 1:5 in relation to what's going on in the plot, especially in moments like these: "The light shines in the darkness, and the darkness has not overcome it." (So my ESV Greek-English interlinear translation says. Sorry, I'm a word geek and one of my college majors was Religious Studies.)