This was supposed to be the penultimate chapter but I've done something I hadn't planned on doing - I've split it into 2 shorter chapters. You'll see why when you read it... The second "half" will follow very soon. Please read and review, and thanks for all the reviews so far!
Needless to say, Christine's arrival turned our lives upside down. Helen was adamant that she did not want to hire a nanny, and I agreed with her, but we did hire a cleaning lady to come in each day, to relieve some of the burden.
It was not always easy with a crying baby in the house, but Papa and I worked hard on my – our – Snow Queen opera, my father determined that it would be performed some day. For such a reclusive man, he had a surprising amount of influence in the opera world. We worked in the Aerie as much as possible, where it was quieter, and he stubbornly insisted on climbing every one of those stairs, despite his walking stick. Sometimes he even allowed me to help him. Eventually I persuaded him to work at home, at ground level, which was a huge relief for me.
Our lives were thrown into even more disarray when Charles arrived three years later, but I was overjoyed to have a son and looked forward to teaching him all the things Papa taught me.
That year, the year I turned thirty-one, was difficult for me. I was now older than Mother had been when she died and Papa seemed to understand how I was feeling. Yet again I wished she could still be here, knowing what a brilliant grandmother she would have made.
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Helen amazed me with the way she could stand up for herself and get her father in law to do things, like eat a decent meal. Sometimes Papa would take just a few mouthfuls of his dinner then politely excuse himself and rise to leave the table. But Helen's hand on his arm would stop him in his tracks.
"Oh no you don't, mister. I've worked hard on that and you're going to sit and eat it, even if I have to stand over you."
Her words would earn her a dirty look, but then slowly he would sit down again and begrudgingly lift his fork then eat with deliberately slow movements, giving his daughter in law an occasional glare. But he ate, and often cleared his plate too.
I could never understand how she could do this. If it had been me… But Papa seemed to have a deeply rooted respect for women and secretly he was very fond of the lady that his son had married. It was mutual, once my wife got used to his eccentricity. Helen even cleaned his mask for him and went to the pharmacy to collect the lotions he used on his chafed skin and itchy scalp. They sometimes argued over their favourite piece of music or art, or other such matters, which could be quite amusing sometimes. To be honest, I think they both enjoyed their disagreements; Papa certainly did, and he revelled in his occasional victories.
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One evening I got home from Phantasma to hear a blazing row erupting in the sitting room.
"Erik, for heaven's sake, she is three years old, she was just playing a game!"
"It is not a game for me!" Papa bellowed.
"What on earth is going on?" I demanded, stepping into the room. Christine was clinging to her mother, crying her eyes out. When she saw me, she ran to my arms and I lifted her up, trying to comfort her and sort everything out. It transpired that Christine had grabbed Papa's mask playfully while he was napping and run off with it, laughing. He had woken straight away and completely lost his temper with her, which, not surprisingly, had frightened the life out of the poor child.
My father was sitting in the armchair, his head in his hands and utterly contrite. "I'm so sorry, truly I am! It's just I'm not used to people doing that in a playful way... " Just then a baby's cry was heard from upstairs and my wife sighed in exasperation.
"Great! Now Charlie's awake!" she snapped. She gestured towards Papa. "Gustave, can you please talk to your father? I have a crying baby and a distraught child on my hands, and I don't have time for his…problems." With that she breezed out of the room.
He was sorry. He adored Christine and didn't mean to upset her, he never stopped to think about what he was doing… Gently I reassured him, and the two managed to become friends again.
But Helen was not happy and we had a heated discussion about my father's temper later on.
"He didn't hurt her physically, he would never do that, I know it," I contended, in response to her concerns.
She shook her head slowly.
"That's the problem, Gustave, you don't know that. Even he doesn't know that."
We were silent for a while, and I realised she could be right.
"He's sorry, he really is. It's just.. With the life he's had…When he first came to New York and he was in the freak show, they used to pull his mask off- "
She held her hand up to interrupt me. "Are you going always going to make excuses for him? Christine's fine now but what about the next time? Maybe I need to have a serious chat with him?"
"No, don't upset him,"I urged her, "He's calmed down... I'll take him for a walk tonight, get him out for a little while."
"Tonight! Honestly, it's like living with Dracula sometimes! All those scary looking novels in his room, and I can't even persuade him to wear brighter colours."
"You knew what he was like when you married me, Helen," I reminded her pointedly.
She sighed. "I know, I know… But you need to be firm with him about these outbursts."
"It's not that easy… I owe him so much and Mother would have wanted me to be patient with him. She knew what he was like, and still loved him."
But she'd had enough of my meekness.
"For heaven's sake, Gustave! You've been dancing around your father since you were ten years old, trying not to do or say anything that would upset him or make him angry. Look, I'm sorry his childhood was horrible. I'm sorry he was put on display when he came here. And I'm sorry your mother was killed, I truly am. But how much longer are you going to use the past as an excuse, both of you?"
I did not want to hear these harsh words, because they were the truth.
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But there were good times too. One of my fondest memories is leaving my father alone with his grandchildren on his knee while I worked on Phantasma business and returning to find the three of them fast asleep together, my daughter and baby son snuggled against him. Christine loved his stories and songs, just as I once did, and always wanted him to tuck her in. Charlie, although very small, was fascinated by him too. Papa had missed out on these early years with me, so I didn't mind the three of them spending so much time together, and when they took their first steps, on both occasions it was their grandfather's arms they walked towards.
He enjoyed watching us dance with the children to jazz records on the phonograph, despite his dislike of the tinny, crackly sound that came from the large contraption. He preferred pure, live music and he and I often played the piano or violin in the evenings, with Helen's beautiful voice accompanying us.
When he was calm, he was wonderful and his grandchildren were the joy of his life. After that misunderstanding with the mask, he gradually learnt to use it as a toy. He would hide it for Christine to find and laugh with her as she returned it to him triumphantly. Now when she snatched the mask off him, he would chase her playfully around the room.
They were both dearly loved by the Trio too, who continued to be regular visitors and got along well with Helen, who was always bemused by their outlandish costumes. Dr Gangle entertained them with funny faces and impersonations while Miss Fleck taught Christine handstands and cartwheels from an early age. And Mr Squelch... he was so funny when he held them upside down, or threw them over his shoulders. Right up to the end he regularly met us at the gates of Phantasma, with his two friends following behind of course, greeting us with that booming voice. Then he would effortlessly lift up the two of them together, put one on each shoulder and carry them into the park.
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Things were not looking good for Phantasma by the time Charlie was about a year old. There was so much competition now from other resorts on Long Island, New Jersey or even further afield. More and more families owned cars now, and they could travel wherever they wished. But Frank and I were determined not to give up and concentrated our advertising on our newer attractions such as the indoor, heated swimming pool or "Mister Y's Deluxe Movie Experience".
The Trio continued to..well, be the Trio, with Miss Fleck now training the acrobatic troupe and the trapeze artists. Dr Gangle remained as strange as ever, at least in public; one minute he would be chatting with me about visitor numbers, the next he would be doffing his top hat and welcoming bewildered visitors : "Welcome to Phantasma, my friends, allow me to invite you to our Haunted House… You'll love it, it's an absolute scream…"
The 1929 stock market crash hit us hard. Not only did we lose many of our stocks and shares, the poverty and unemployment of that era had a highly negative effect on Phantasma. We did not even have many jobs to offer people. Papa and I threw ourselves into our opera, trying to take our minds off things. He did not spend as much time at the park now, and trusted me implicitly, although he always attended meetings. A bad dose of pneumonia that winter left him with a weak heart and I was increasingly concerned for his health. He hated doctors and always preferred to use his home made potions, which he sensibly kept out of the children's reach.
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On the 1st September 1931, our opera had its wonderful premiere at the New York Met. It was a glorious spectacle, with lavish costumes and sets, in addition to a very realistic blizzard on stage. And the singers portraying Kai and Gerda were amazing, just as I had envisaged them. The innocence they exuded more than made up for the fact they were much older than the characters, by necessity. Also we'd had to change the story to make it fit into the medium of opera, but we were more than happy with the result. The three of us sat in our private box, soaking it all up.. Here was our opera, finally on a stage!
How many in that audience that night would have guessed that the opera they were watching had been twenty six years in the making?
"Thank you, Papa," I told him as the interval began, squeezing his gloved hand briefly.
"Thank you, son, for making me care about music once more."
I could not help but think of that little boy in the drawing room of a French chateau, trying to play the notes in his head, knowing that he had no choice but to compose that opera but not knowing how… The story seemed so much more alive to me now; a tale of a boy and a girl who loved stories and playing together, one of them getting lured away by an evil force, the other child setting out to rescue them.. and I was not sure who I had written it about – Kai and Gerda of the original story, or Mother and Raoul.
The director came on stage at the end and asked the composers to stand up, which we didn't expect. We glanced at each other nervously and slowly got to our feet to look out at the grateful audience. Papa had refused to go on stage and I refused to go on without him, but now here we were with the spotlight shining on us, receiving a standing ovation…All eyes were on me and the mysterious Mister Y, no longer hiding in the shadows but loved for his music, just as he should have been all along.
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We did nothing but talk of that opera for the next week. Every scene, aria and movement was broken down and analysed by the two of us until Helen jokingly threatened to leave me if we spoke another syllable about it. Papa seemed to come alive again, despite his increasingly grey complexion and frailty. He needed help with doing most things now and sometimes allowed Helen to make up a bed for him in the sitting room. He hated being old and dependent, and who can blame him when he was self-sufficient for so long? I offered sympathetic words, but it's easy to do that when you're young.
The closing show was poorly attended, which had been the case for the last few years. Frank did his best to attract more visitors but it felt increasingly like we were flogging a dead horse. The visitors that did come were not always there to have fun either. One day during the summer I arrived to find Mr Squelch escorting a troublemaker from the park by the scruff of his neck.
"Get your hands off me, you filthy half-breed!" he shouted indignantly.
"Quarter breed, to be precise," my friend retorted, "And I'm all strongman!"
With that he dumped the young ruffian unceremoniously outside the gates. "Next time I'm calling the police!"
But despite his bravado, he was just as worried as I was and anxious to make the park as safe as he could. I tried not to burden Papa with these concerns. Helen was right; I was always trying to protect him.
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After the closing show, in which I played the piano as usual, I returned home to find Helen on her way to bed and my father still awake, just sitting on the sofa."He's been looking forward to you coming home," my wife told me just before she went upstairs.
When I entered the room to join him, I saw that he was holding the musical monkey he had given me all those years ago, before we'd even met in person.
"Sit with me for a while, son," he said to me in French. Ever since my marriage to Helen, we'd mostly used to English with each other, even when we were alone. Exhausted, I sank on to the sofa next to him and told him all about the show, the different acts and the tunes I'd played. It was good to unwind and talk in our mother tongue for a while, or just sit there and listen to the clock tick. After a while he wound up the monkey toy and we listened to that strange tune, the one from that long ago world I'd never known.
"Masquerade.." he sang softly and slowly.. "Paper faces on parade.. Masquerade.. Hide your face so the world will never find you…"
I'd heard the tune many times but he'd never sung the words until now. Without thinking, I laid my head on his shoulder.
"You haven't done that in a long time," he remarked, turning his head to look at me.
"No.. But I'm just tired, I guess. Hope you don't mind. It's been a busy week, with the opera, the end of the season…"
"A beginning and an end," he remarked weakly, .. " Yes, you must be tired.…You are always working so hard as well as taking care of me. Such a good son, you know. It's been hard for you, having a father like me.."
He did not look well at all and I offered to call the doctor.
"No," he growled, "Money grabbing imbeciles, the whole lot of them..I'll be fine."
Then his voice returned to the gentler, melodic tone that I loved.
"Well, perhaps later, if I'm still unwell, thank you. Just sit with me for a while, please, Gustave.. I was so proud of you last week, when the audience stood up at the end. I've always been proud of you.. I remember you often fell asleep on my shoulder or in my arms when you were young. Do you remember that?" Nodding, I chuckled softly and kept my head on his shoulder, feeling as contented as I did when I was young.
"You were a lovely, innocent boy," he continued, "I could never quite believe you were mine.. Yet you are… You changed my life when you came to live with me."
"Well, you changed my life too," I replied, yawning.
"Why don't you sleep for a while, dear?"
"I need to go to bed…" I murmured sleepily, although I was dimly aware that he had started to sing again.
I tried to stay awake. I truly did. But sleep overtook me and I when I woke the clock on the mantelpiece informed me it was over an hour later.
I sat up, rubbing my eyes. "Why did you let me sleep so long?" I grumbled. There was no answer and I could see that Papa's eyes were closed.
"Don't tell me you fell asleep as well!" I teased, rising groggily. "What a pair we are!" I shook him gently. "You're not sleeping here, Papa, you'll wake up stiff in the morning and be even grumpier that usual. Come on, let's-"
I looked at him. He was lying still, absolutely still. I shook him harder, half expecting him to jolt awake and start grumbling. But nothing happened.
His complexion was greyer than ever and my heart began pounding like a drum. Slowly I leaned down and laid my head against his chest. Nothing. Then I checked his pulse. Again nothing. Frantically I checked both again, praying silently for a different result.
Oh God. Oh God.. no, please..
"Papa, please wake up! Please… Don't leave me…"
But I knew the truth. With my whole body trembling I sank to my feet and laid my head on his chest, a cry of pain erupting from my throat.
My father had left me forever.