I dreamt I was back in the Opera House; Masson was there, and Miri-ange, but Christine was a skinny little ballet rat, no more than eleven years old. I was working with her on her phrasing, unseen, as I used to be, and feeling frustrated at how much easier things would be if I could only touch her.
For the music, of course; get your mind out of the gutter.
Meanwhile, the children kept wandering off down the corridor and I had to hiss and stomp: "Masson! Get back here! Miri-ange, ah-ah!"
"What is it, Angel?" says Dream Christine.
"Strange echoes in this old building; nothing more, Child." Dream Erik doesn't want Dream Christine to know he's a father. Completely odd, yet utterly sensible in the way dreams are.
Dream Christine resumed singing; I turned toward the children with a dawning horror that Miri-ange was…nowhere to be found.
"Miri-ange! Miri-ange!"
Inexplicably, the familiar darkness of my caverns overwhelmed me, and I realized suddenly that I was falling.
I hit the bedroom floor with a thud and a howl. I glared as dangerously as possible at my moon-faced assailant; she was peering over the edge of the bed at me, oozing malice. Most unlovely, sadly, as on the whole Christine is the most adorable pregnant woman in the world. However, it was August, the baby was due whenever it chose to appear, and she had Had Enough. She'd not been heavily pregnant in the dead of summer yet—which was most fortunate for anyone who had any dealings with her. It was enough to put a man off snuggling during autumn's first chill--almost.
"What have I done to deserve that, I'd like to know!" I stood, groaning; my poor bony hip. "Treacherous harridan," I grumbled, attempting to climb back onto my side of the bed. She was having none of it.
"You know what you've done," she hissed. Somewhere around mid-July, Christine's predicament became entirely my doing; I was the blackest of all fiends.
"Yes; well I recall it, too. The way you screamed and fought me," I snickered. "How you slapped my face and turned me away. All my fault,indeed." I hitched the sheet up and turned my back to her.
I knew she was uncomfortable, and hot, and not sleeping well—but I wasn't sleeping well either; she made damn sure of it. Perhaps it was petty of me, but I was definitely feeling hard done by. Certainly, in the strictest sense, it was my fault, but when had I ever laid an unwelcome hand on her? Never, that's when; I've no death wish. How could it all be my fault?
"Shut up. You're a hateful old goat!"
The bed was churning like a happy baby's bath water, and Christine's huffing and puffing was increasing. I glanced back over my shoulder; she was flailing, a helpless turtle on her back. I slipped out of bed and around to her side; there was no chivalry in it, only self-interest.
"You should be kinder to me, Comtesse, considering that without me you'd be wetting the bed," I cracked, helping my rotund little Venus to her feet. For my trouble, I got my ear boxed.
"Without you I'd be skinny as a stick and sleeping happily." She flounced off in a rolling sort of way.
I remained at my station beside the bed; I was needed to resettle her as comfortably as possible upon her return. While I waited, I considered how changed her silhouette was tonight in the shaft of light from the hallway, how different from the first time I'd seen it. Different, but no less lovely. I wondered if the day would ever come when Christine ceased to be breathtaking in my eyes; I couldn't imagine it.
As I tucked her back in and offered her an additional pillow for between her knees, I smiled. My irritation was gone and I kissed her precious forehead. She threw her arm over my neck, peevish and wanting comfort.
"I'm sorry, Angel. I would take this discomfort from you if I could," I whispered.
"I know you would," she sighed. "I wish it would come, Erik!"
"Close your eyes," I suggested, brushing a curl from her brow. I sang to her and she clutched my hand. In no time, she was asleep.
-0-0-0-0-
Masson's brow dimpled as he watched Christine haul herself up the stairs. She'd come all the way down to my music room to berate me for letting her oversleep. But, where did she have to go that she shouldn't oversleep? Nevermind asking impertinent questions, Erik.
After she'd vanished from sight, my son remained in contemplation.
"She's grumpy," he worried.
"She feels uncomfortable and wants the baby to hurry along," I shrugged mildly. "You know how it feels when you eat way too much? I think it feels like that, only more so."
He nodded, setting his violin aside and crossing his knees identically to the way mine were folded.
"Papa."
"Mm."
"How does the baby get out?"
Oh dear. Actually I think I did rather well. We discussed bodily orifices in a general way; how sound goes into ears, how sound comes out of mouths and food and drink go in.
"And throwup. Throwup goes out," he observed.
"Mm."
Well, he ended fairly satisfied that women have a way to get the baby out and departed with a chocolate. I remained below in the dark and fretted about when he'd be back, asking how the baby gets in there to start with.
Masson was just a bit past five, and in many ways clever well beyond his years—but in others he was just a little boy. It was hard determining the age of the part of him that I was conversing with at a particular time; sometimes I worried about my lack of experience with small people in general, but I suspect none of us parents is ever really prepared, regardless of how much experience we have, to deal with some questions. Before Christine came to me, I felt I had all the time in the world; now, everything was moving very quickly.
-0-0-0-0-
Miri-ange and Masson were settled in bed and I wanted a cognac and a few minutes' adult conversation. Christine had been quiet since supper, so I slipped in to check on her before heading downstairs. She was resting quietly, though not exactly sleeping. Her face betrayed that I was once again persona non grata; another day had passed with no labor pains, so I took the better part of valor and made myself scarce.
I was halfway downstairs when I ran into Silke, on her way up; after me, as it happened. My dreams of a cognac and a bit of ribald banter with Reza were not to be; it seemed a contingent of Perros' good citizenry had come to call. 'A couple of ladies,' Silke put it.
I thanked her in as unvexed a manner as I could muster; not very, under the circumstances. You'd think being an ugly bastard would have its compensations and I could be avoided by the fair sex generally, but no. I had learnt—the hard way, some might say—that it was best that I not entertain these creatures unless they happened to be members of my own dear family, or at least very nearly so. That is to say, Christine, Miri-ange, Manon, and Silke—not Anci, thanks very much; even dear Silke had had her perilous moments. While I'd found them decorative enough from afar, I'd discovered on closer inspection that strange women made me nauseous--if I was lucky. If I was unlucky, it didn't bear thinking about.
I hit the bottom of the stairs just as Reza was trying to make good his escape, thereby to leave me to Those Women's clutches. I caught the blackguard by the arm. "Where the devil are you going? You won't slink off and leave me with those devils!"
He had the nerve to turn his mildest old man's smile on me. "But it's you they've asked for, my friend. The Opera Ghost, Darius said."
"God's teeth!"
"Yes, well; here's that opportunity to brush up on your Phantom's scowl." The fiend tried squirming free, but I held him fast.
"Stop skewering me, Reza; you can't leave me alone! What'll I do?"
"Depends what they want, I should think," the daroga's grin was shameless.
"If I go in there and die of fright, you'll be left with Christine and her belly, and it'll serve you right. You're a heartless old man."
"For heaven's sake, Erik, don't get yourself in such a lather. They're a couple of harmless, perfectly respectable women, they're not about to ravish you in the front parlor."
Easy for him to say; he's not been nearly ravished. "What do they want then?"
"Pull yourself together, man, and find out."
It was my friends from the fountain, the impertinent ones who'd called me the Comtesse de Chagny's paramour. It took awhile for me to recognize them, as the thin one was no longer blue, and the round one was no longer brown. It was as I'd feared; they had designs on me, but not of a romantic nature. They were the President and Treasurer of the Perros-Guirec Amateur Player's Guild, God help us all, and wives of Monsieur le Mayor and Monsieur le Prefect of Police, respectively. They confided in me quite seriously that they felt their little troupe had advanced as far as it could go without benefit of an Experienced Theatrical Personage, and waited, big-eyed as babies on Christmas Eve.
I suspect that preoccupation with my darling bride's overdue confinement could be blamed for my being somewhat slow on the uptake; either that or I'm just soft in the head. I confess it did take several beats for me to realize that I was the Experienced Theatrical Personage to whom they hopefully, breathlessly referred.
"Yes. Well. Ahem, Ladies, I fear I am not the man you seek; I have no formal training, you see, and my experience…working with others…is rather…limited."
Well. Madame thin Prefect was godmother to a young man whose cousin, once removed, was at my theater with her intended the night I burned it down, and so had heard all about it. It seems the young lady was quite transported by my performance before all the trouble ensued. She sounded rather too much like the Creole for my taste, but be that as it may…the young woman's brilliantly-woven tale had been sufficient to convince Madame round Mayor and Madame thin Prefect that I had to be their man.
I was about to refuse them again, more forcefully. My patience, never my most salient characteristic, was in short supply. In the short term, I was overdue for my brandy; in the long term, the last thing I wanted was to play nursemaid to a bunch of bored ladies biding their time between child-bearing and grandmothering.
Then the Old Erik surfaced; the dapper, twisted fellow who used to sit on my shoulder and exhort me to take liberties with Christine, never mind he had no idea what those liberties should consist of. Full of marvelous ideas, the Old Erik. On this occasion, though, I thought he might be onto something when he pointed out that it could be useful to have the Mayor and Prefect kindly disposed toward the Phantom-in-Residence, retired though he may be.
I agreed.
Yes, I know; I never learn.