When the Curtain Falls

  The most physical harm Walter had ever inflicted on anyone had been in the pub the night before and so his history of inciting pain and trouble had only just begun – and what a beginning it would be. Even though he would have been able to jam anything down the barrel of the prop gun, it felt significant that it would be the pearl from the necklace that Hamish had broken whilst trying to strangle Fawn. It felt right that Hamish’s own violent acts would ultimately bring his own life to an end.

  At every moment he kept reaching into his pocket to make sure that the pearl was still there and he kept reaching into his heart to make sure he had the courage to carry out such a terrible act. It may have been Walter’s idea, but having an idea and making that idea a reality are two very different things and he hadn’t thought as far as how he would feel when the time came. Not only was Walter going to be the cause of someone’s death but he was going to force someone into unwittingly pulling the trigger. Although the guilt weighed heavy on his heart, he knew that had he been the one holding the gun, his makeshift bullet would never leave the barrel.

  Violence had never played a part in Fawn’s life. Whilst her father was distant, cold and ruled his household like a kingdom in which the women were his subjects, he’d never raised a hand to his wife or daughter. So the idea of causing harm, let alone death, to anyone was unspeakable to Fawn. That was until she was exposed to men like Hamish and her mind had been quickly changed. It was funny how a single event in one’s life could change you as a person; now Fawn believed that if you were spending your life causing pain, leaving a path of destruction in your wake, then maybe, just maybe, you didn’t deserve to live that life at all.

  Their plan was perfect. Once all the props had been moved to their rightful places in the interval, they were left unattended in the stage left wing, until Lawrence picked up the gun ready for the beginning of act two. The gun was loaded with a hollow wax bullet that disintegrated when fired. It made a bang and flash which convinced the audience that a real bullet had been fired. But it still was a real gun. If something small were to get lodged down the barrel, then when the trigger was pulled and the charge of gunpowder for the hollow wax bullet was ignited, that something small would be propelled from the gun and act exactly like a real bullet. Walter had no doubt that Hamish’s death would be put down to an accident; it wasn’t beyond the realms of possibility that a stray pearl could roll into the barrel without anyone noticing. Walter also had no doubt that the man’s death wouldn’t cause too much grief, if any at all. The show would come to an untimely end, leaving Walter and Fawn to escape to the life they’d been dreaming of.

  The curtain was due to rise, and the hum of the audience was steadily dying down in anticipation. Walter ran down the stage left wing to try and catch a glimpse of Fawn’s face, to give her the sense of hope that things were going to be all right, but her gaze was fixed in front of her, her expression stoic and almost mournful.

  Fawn had been able to think of nothing except Hamish’s face hovering above her. She’d not been able to get the sound of his moaning out of her ears nor the feeling of his fingers from around her weakened throat. Hamish had impounded her senses and she felt the little of herself she’d managed to cling on to slipping neatly through her fingers like smoke. She looked at Walter in the wings, trying to instill in her whatever hope there was for their future beyond this fateful performance, but she didn’t see him. He may as well have been a ghost.

  Walter spent the entirety of act one going over his every move. The trigger would be pulled, the hammer would hit the primer, the primer would ignite the gunpowder, the gunpowder would propel but melt the hollow wax bullet but this time, take the pearl along with it. A pearl propelled at seventeen hundred miles per hour would most certainly be lethal. What if the pearl slipped out of the barrel of the gun in Lawrence’s pocket? he thought. Walter figured he’d wedge it down the barrel with a bit of cotton wool and reckoned that would still do the trick. What if it didn’t work and he and his scheme were discovered? Walter thought it was better to try than surrender to the hell Hamish was putting Fawn through. His brain flip-flopped a thousand times like a coin being tossed in the air, but no matter how many times he flipped it, the decision had already been made. Hamish had to die.

  In her dressing room, Fawn reached for her silk gown to cover her shivering shoulders. She flung open the windows and although she didn’t like to, she rummaged in her bag for a packet of cigarettes her mother had given her for when she was in times of need. Her hands were shaking so vigorously, it took her several attempts to light one and she inhaled deeply. Fawn wasn’t needed for the first three scenes of act two, and she was glad that she could stay in the silence of her dressing room until Danny came to collect her. Until those hopes were dashed in three simple knocks at the door.

  ‘Come in,’ she called, not caring that she wasn’t supposed to be smoking in her costume. She expected Danny or even Walter, but she certainly wasn’t expecting Hamish’s henchman, Randall. ‘What on earth could you possibly want from me, Randall?’ she said, taking a long drag on her cigarette. ‘I don’t think I’ve got anything left for you to take.’

  Randall closed the door behind him and made a point of turning the lock on the door slowly. Fawn turned away from him and looked out the window, trying to pretend he wasn’t there. People passed by in the street below her, never looking up, never noticing her and she felt like Rapunzel trapped in her tower. Never before had she had any reason to consider taking her own life. Not once had the thought ever flitted across her mind, even for a brief second. She had a loving mother, a warm bed to sleep in every night and more money than most people would make in several lifetimes. She had everything and yet just one night had made the pull of the cobbled pavement outside her window more enticing than all the luxury and money in the world.

  ‘It’s interesting what you see when you’re stood on the fly floor, Fawn,’ Randall said as he leant against the door and took a cigar out of his inside pocket, snipping off the end with a cutter and letting it drop to the floor. He took a small box of matches out of his trouser pocket and lit the cigar, the smell instantly making Fawn feel queasy. ‘That’s where you’ve been spending a lot of your time recently, so I thought I’d take a look for myself and boy, is it interesting what you can see from up there.’ Fawn felt the familiar feeling of dread placing its hands on her shoulders and squeezing until she was filled with it.

  ‘How long have you known?’ she said, without turning around to see his face which she knew would be plastered with smugness.

  ‘Oh, since the beginning. Since you were chasing each other around the auditorium like children. Neither of you thought to look up to the dress circle.’ He chuckled, and Fawn sighed.

  ‘What do you want, Randall? Like I said, I have very little left to give you and your master.’ She leant out the window and stubbed out the cigarette on the ledge.

  ‘Well, it’s just… that boyfriend of yours seemed to have a very keen interest in that gun in the stage left wing.’ Fawn not only felt the dread running through her veins now, but the fear and defeat coursed through her in waves as well.

  ‘What do you mean?’ she said over her shoulder, but she already knew her denial was pointless. Randall had seen Walter slip the pearl into the gun and he knew full well that their makeshift bullet was intended for Hamish.

  ‘Fawn. Let’s not play games. The second act has begun and so we’re on the clock here.’ He puffed on his cigar, letting the putrid smoke fill the room. ‘Don’t let Lawrence fire the gun. It’s as simple as that.’

  ‘He’s on stage. It’s already in his pocket. There’s no moment I can get to him.’ Fawn shrugged. She folded her arms over her chest and hugged herself tightly, feeling like she was holding the broken pieces of herself together for long enough to get through this encounter.

  ‘Find a moment.’ Randall’s face never changed and Fawn wondered if he felt anything at all. Any fear, compassion, humanity, or whether life was just mone
y and business to him.

  ‘Why can’t you do it yourself? I owe Hamish nothing,’ she said, trying to ignore her trembling knees.

  ‘Don’t you? He’s the reason you’re here, isn’t he?’

  ‘My father is the reason I’m here.’ She spun around to face him.

  ‘Hamish didn’t have to take your father’s money.’ He laughed breathily through his nose.

  ‘Hamish has taken far more than just my father’s money!’ she spat. ‘He’s taken everything! My dignity! My sanity! Nothing can take back what happened last night, Randall.’

  ‘You slept with the man who has begun the career you always wanted?’ He rolled his eyes, which stung Fawn’s already aching soul.

  ‘I was forced to sleep with a man whom I do not love and will never love.’ She spoke slowly, trying to keep the wobble out of her voice.

  ‘Your immaturity is astounding, Fawn. Sex doesn’t always have to be about love,’ Randall laughed.

  Fawn was fed up with biting her tongue and with wondering whether she should say what she was thinking just in case it would cause a tremor in the foundations of the fragile egos of men. In a brief moment of strength, Fawn’s bitten tongue slipped from between her teeth.

  ‘Your cruelty is astounding, Randall, because even after helping a man rape a woman you still can’t see how you, nor Hamish, could possibly have been wrong.’

  Randall pushed himself away from the door and his repellant nature made Fawn retreat against the windowsill but her voice still held steady. ‘I’m forever marked by that man,’ she said, the tears catching in the corners of her lips. ‘It’s him that owes me. He’s taken far more than what may have been indebted to him and he just… keeps… taking.’ Fawn walked over to her dressing table, her breathing getting faster and shallower.

  ‘Fawn —’

  ‘And he’s never going to stop, Randall.’ She could barely see for her tears now.

  ‘Fawn, you’re hysterical.’ Randall watched her fumble her way around the room, like a caged and injured animal trying to remain strong in the face of adversity. He moved around the other side of the room, always maintaining his position opposite her, wherever she went.

  ‘And he’ll just keep going and going because nothing’s ever enough for him.’ She put her back against the door and gently unlocked it behind her, hoping to make some kind of escape. ‘He’ll take everything I have until —’

  ‘Fawn, I will kill the boy,’ Randall said softly and she stopped fiddling with the lock and the room fell silent.

  ‘No!’ she sobbed.

  ‘If that trigger is pulled and Hamish dies as a result, I will be waiting to pull the trigger of my own gun which will be pointed right between the eyes of your little man.’ Randall stubbed the last of his cigar on the ledge and threw it out the window.

  ‘You can’t.’

  ‘I can, and I will.’

  ‘You’re a monster —’

  ‘Says the girl plotting the death of her own future husband. And forcing someone else to pull the trigger for you.’

  ‘Lawrence…’ Fawn’s lip trembled.

  ‘Don’t tell me it’s only just dawning on you? Definitely not as sweet as you look. Your friend could go down for murder.’

  ‘No – no, it’d look like an accident.’ She tried to wipe the thoughts away along with her tears.

  ‘Would it?’ Randall raised an eyebrow and let the question hang in the air for a moment.

  ‘You wouldn’t.’

  ‘Neither of us is any better than the other.’ Fawn clutched a hand over her mouth to stifle her sobs. ‘Stop Lawrence from pulling that trigger and Walter won’t be harmed.’

  ‘But Hamish will find out…’

  ‘I’ll make sure he doesn’t. I’ll make sure Walter gets out of this theatre safely and he can live his life elsewhere and you and Hamish can figure out whatever needs figuring out between you.’ There was a hint of kindness to Randall’s voice. A glimmer of fondness in his eyes and Fawn couldn’t have hated him more in that moment.

  ‘You think you’re doing me a kindness, don’t you?’ she sniggered. ‘You don’t realise that by stopping this from happening tonight, by saving the man who has caused so much misery and harm, you are sealing my own fate. By saving him you’re killing me.’

  ‘No one will die tonight, Fawn.’ He sighed, shoving his hands deep into his pockets, having had enough of such girlish drama.

  ‘A life with Hamish is my death,’ she hissed. Why can’t he understand? she thought.

  There was a knock at the door. ‘Miss Burrows. This is your call to stage!’ Danny called.

  ‘Thank you, Danny.’ She couldn’t quite raise her voice loud enough to call out. Her stomach was somersaulting, and she could feel the bile starting to rise in her throat. Randall strode to the door and gently pushed Fawn aside so he could take the handle. He opened the door while she desperately tried to push it closed again.

  ‘I’ll stop the show. I’ll faint onstage. I’ll cause a scene.’

  ‘No. The show continues as normal, Fawn. We don’t want the punters upset. It’s bad for business.’

  ‘Randall, that’s the only way…’

  ‘Stop Lawrence from pulling the trigger —’

  ‘He’s already on stage!’ She tried to keep her panic subdued, but it was starting to take over.

  ‘— or Walter dies.’

  ‘RANDALL, PLEASE DON’T DO THIS!’ she screamed but Randall opened the door, her efforts to close it wasted, and he was gone.

  She whipped off her dressing gown, slipped on her shoes and ran as quickly as she could down the stairs towards the stage. She had six more scenes before the finale but only one moment in which she and Lawrence would be offstage at the same time. That was her only chance to convince him not to fire the gun. To get him to pretend it had malfunctioned mid-scene and just wouldn’t fire. She hoped Walter would forgive her and she hoped no one would figure out it was him who had sabotaged the gun but if Randall stuck by his word, no one would ever know.

  During her next scenes, the ins and outs of the deal she had just struck with Randall were whirling round her head, but she kept having to bat them away. The only thing that mattered was saving Walter. Everything else could be dealt with after the show had ended but even so, the idea of spending any portion of her life in the same vicinity as Hamish, let alone as his significant other, made it hard to concentrate on stage. The moment was drawing closer to when Lawrence would exit the stage while she was dancing in the bar scene. He would be bundled off stage by two ensemble members and then her character would exit to chase after his. She only had seconds with him in the wing before he would need to enter upstage for the final scene in which the gun would be fired. She heard the familiar muffled yelp as he was taken off-stage and she was supposed to wait to notice him gone. She was supposed to ‘act’ but tonight she gave a feeble attempt at ‘noticing’ he wasn’t there, and ran offstage, stage right, before the music had even finished. She ran down the wing through the double doors and round to stage left where Lawrence already had his foot poised, ready to make his entrance.

  ‘Lawrence, don’t fire the gun,’ she whispered, but the music was still playing.

  ‘What?’ he said, smiling at her.

  ‘Don’t fire the gun!’ She pulled at his lapels, trying to get closer to his ear. He heard her this time and looked at her face, now serious, taking in what she had said, and a little flutter of hope soared through her… but then he rolled his eyes.

  ‘Funny!’ he laughed and walked through the curtain.

  ‘No, Lawrence… LAWRENCE!’ she hissed but it was too late. Lawrence was now Lars and Lars had a gun he needed to fire at Hamish who would do his best attempt at acting as the character of Melvin. Fawn heard the scene begin. She heard Lawrence speak and she was only moments away from entering the stage to watch Hamish and Walter be slaughtered seconds after one another. She ran down the wing to the downstage entrance and took a deep breath. She heard something
move and turned her head to see Walter standing where she had just been. Fawn heard her cue and did her best to smile at Walter, knowing that whatever was about to happen would change their lives forever and she entered through the black curtain.

  ‘You were never supposed to find out this way,’ she said, her voice sultry and low, no longer her own.

  ‘You didn’t do well to hide it.’ Hamish’s acting was stiff and wooden; he was a better villain offstage than he was on.

  ‘Leave her be, goddamn it.’ Fawn looked at Lawrence, pleading with him with her eyes but she knew that anything she did now onstage, he would take as her acting as Eliza and not as herself. There was nothing more she could do.

  ‘Please. Go back inside. Go home. Go anywhere but here.’ Fawn looked behind her and her eyes settled on Walter in the wings.

  Watching Fawn onstage, Walter found it difficult to breathe evenly. His clammy hands held onto a set piece, to try and steady his buckling knees as beads of sweat poured down his back. There was a dullness in Fawn’s eyes that he couldn’t explain. He’d watched her do this scene a million times before and usually she would glide effortlessly across the stage, but this time he noticed she stood awkwardly, and when she moved it was almost like she were walking ankle deep through a marsh. She must be nervous, he thought, as was he. He’d only ever seen death in the movies and here he was about to witness one he had orchestrated. He kept reminding himself that it was for the greater good. For Fawn’s good.