When the Curtain Falls

  ‘Yes, Larson. Do as she says.’

  ‘Please, Lars. Not here,’ she begged and never had the words been so real to her before now.

  ‘She’s not yours,’ Larson hissed.

  ‘Actually, Lars… I am.’ Fawn held up her right hand to reveal the engagement ring and she worried how soon it would be before she was wearing a real one given to her by Hamish.

  ‘Eliza… no. NO!’ Lawrence pulled the gun from his inside jacket pocket and the audience gasped. Fawn looked at the gun in his hand. She realised that she’d never properly given it any attention before. It wasn’t her prop and so she’d never had any reason to interact with it outside of this scene and yet here it was, right in front of her, about to seal her fate.

  ‘Oh, Larson. When will you learn? It doesn’t matter how well you scrub up or…’ Hamish’s voice became muffled in Fawn’s ears as her heart started beating faster and faster. She thought of pushing Lawrence’s arm away as he fired the shot but she knew that would give the game away, and what would Hamish do to her if he knew she’d tried to kill him? Then she thought of the life she would lead if she did stop Lawrence from pulling that trigger. A life of ‘yes, Hamish. Of course, Hamish’. A life of sitting still and being quiet, of being seen and not heard. A life next to a man who thought of women as objects or trophies. A man who took things from people against their will. A man who forced himself on those too weak to stop him. Hamish was a monster. And life with a monster would be no life at all.

  ‘Please don’t listen to him, Lars. Just go back inside.’ She put her hands on Lawrence’s arm.

  ‘Do you love him?’ he asked. ‘Do you?’ he demanded again.

  ‘I fear you’ll kill him either way.’

  ‘Eliza, if you tell me yes, how could you think that I would kill the man you love and put you through that misery? No, Eliza. Should you say yes, I will turn this gun on myself and the bullet will be destined for me.’

  The audience was well and truly captivated by a scene that was more real than they’d ever know and would ever watch again. They sobbed and blew their noses into their handkerchiefs, unaware of the turmoil happening in Fawn’s mind.

  ‘Must we have all this drama? It’s terribly dull. We all know you don’t have the gall to shoot a rabbit, let alone a man. Just put the gun down, Larson.’

  ‘Do… you… love… him?’

  ‘I…’ She hesitated. Walter could feel the sadness pouring off her in waves that lapped at his feet. He wondered if maybe she’d forgotten her line. Was she having second thoughts about their plan? Had she suddenly decided Hamish was the man for her and didn’t want to see him die?

  ‘I…’ A tear rolled down her flushed cheek.

  A life with a monster is no life at all.

  A life with a monster is no life at all.

  A life with a monster is no life at all.

  Fawn took a breath so deep it almost split the seams of her dress.

  ‘I… do not,’ she said and immediately stepped forward into Lawrence’s line of fire. The pearl, travelling at seventeen hundred miles per hour, along with the little ball of cotton wool that Walter had wedged down the barrel to keep the pearl from falling out in Lawrence’s pocket, only had to travel a mere inch through the air before it pierced Fawn’s left temple, shattered her skull and lodged itself in her brain. The lights blacked out and so the audience didn’t see Fawn slump to the floor, but Lawrence felt her body fall at his feet.

  ‘Bring up the lights! THE LIGHTS!’ Lawrence yelled. Danny relayed the order in the wings, Eddie gave the signal and the lights slowly came up to reveal Fawn’s body to the audience.

  ‘NO!’ Walter couldn’t look away. Her eyes were open but glassy and he vomited at the sight of her.

  ‘I demand to know what’s happened!’ Hamish shouted. The crowd jostled, and the sound of sobs echoed through the air. Some could see that this was not a part of the show at all, but some were still trying to figure out how the clever trick had been done. The crew and most of the cast ran on stage to see what the commotion was but as soon as they saw her, no one moved any closer. They all simply stood in a circle, looking down at the body of the girl they once knew, her blood pouring from her and trickling down the rake of the stage. They all knew there was nothing they could do. She was already gone.

  ‘Someone needs to explain what’s happened!’ Hamish kept shouting.

  ‘Hamish,’ Lawrence said, tears starting to spill from his eyes.

  ‘I demand to know!’

  ‘HAMISH!’ Lawrence yelled. ‘This… this was an accident.’ Lawrence still had the gun in his trembling hand. He knelt down and placed it on the stage.

  ‘Was it? We all know what sort of man you are, Hamish,’ spat one of the ensemble girls. ‘We all know what you did to her.’

  ‘You drove her to it,’ spat another. ‘We barely knew her because you kept her to yourself. Locked away.’

  ‘She only had to speak to someone other than you and she’d end up battered and bruised.’

  ‘Keep your voices down,’ Hamish hissed.

  ‘Or what? We’ll end up like her?’ said Lawrence. ‘No. Maybe I was wrong and this wasn’t an accident. This is… this is murder.’ Some of the boys came to Lawrence’s side, let him lean on them as he covered his mouth, not sure of what else to say.

  ‘Murder…?’ Hamish looked at Fawn’s limp body. ‘Who was it, exactly, who murdered her?’

  Randall came up close behind Walter so that he could feel the gun in the small of his back. ‘Run.’

  Walter turned to face him. ‘No,’ he said, wiping his mouth on his sleeve.

  ‘Walter. I’m warning you.’

  ‘They’re looking for a murderer, Randall. You kill me now and you’ll be the one they’re looking for. And your boss? The finger is already being pointed in his direction and I don’t know if this is the sort of thing Hamish will be able to bribe the police to overlook.’ Walter could feel another wave of nausea pass through him, but he swallowed it down. ‘This is the problem with making enemies, Randall. When things spiral out of your control, no one will have a problem pointing the finger at you, whether you’re to blame or not.’ Randall lowered the gun as Walter’s words sank in.

  ‘As long as you remember one thing, Walter.’ Randall quickly put his gun back in his waistband. ‘It was you that loaded the gun that killed her.’ He ran back down the wing and left, Walter hoped, for good.

  ‘Is… is she dead?’ asked a man from the audience, but those on stage remained silent and staring. No one had the words to express what had just happened. All they knew was that Fawn was gone. The ensemble girls clutched each other’s hands. The boys around Lawrence all held each other’s shoulders. A lady in the front row wiped her tears with her handkerchief and wobbled to a standing position. Her husband in the seat next to her did the same. The man who had been concerned enough to raise his voice now raised himself out of his seat as did the group of men with whom he had attended. One by one, every member of the audience, not able to take their eyes off the actress centre stage, rose to their feet and bowed their heads, giving Fawn her final standing ovation.

  21

  Finale

  Oscar shed his jacket. The little office room had a draught running through it so strong they might as well have been stood on the street outside, but Oscar was sweating from climbing up and down the ladder and chasing ‘ghosts’ around the theatre. Walter had been a man of few words up until now. In all honesty, he’d been a man of little significance at all, unless Oscar had wanted his keys or his fan mail. Never had Oscar thought that the quiet old man at stage door would somehow hold the key to the strange goings-on within the theatre. If Walter held some part of the puzzle as to why Doug had just had his arm crushed under a falling stage light, potentially not by accident, then Oscar needed answers and he needed them immediately.

  ‘What’s going on? Why has this theatre suddenly been overrun by… well, I don’t know what by! But something’s going on and I n
eed an explanation.’

  ‘There isn’t one.’ Walter creaked as he fell back into his armchair.

  Oscar scraped his fingers over his scalp, frustration starting to take over his nerves. ‘Why am I here, then? Look, old man, I don’t need screwing around. I’ve had enough of that this evening.’

  ‘There isn’t an explanation anyone would believe,’ Walter shrugged.

  ‘Try me.’ Walter looked at Oscar, trying hard to keep the amusement off his face in such serious circumstances, but he just couldn’t help it.

  ‘All right.’ Walter leant forward, leaning his elbows on his bony knees. ‘The girl who died here in 1952. I’m assuming you’ve heard that story?’

  ‘Yeah, yeah. I’ve heard that one.’ Oscar dismissed it with a wave of his hand. ‘Fawn Burrows died on stage after a stunt went wrong during the performance and she was shot with a real bullet instead of a wax one the gun should have been carrying.’

  ‘I’m impressed. But did you know she wasn’t shot with a bullet? What was in that gun that night… was a pearl.’

  ‘Okay, now you’re having me on.’

  ‘See!’ Walter sat back in his chair and pulled his blanket off the floor and onto his legs, settling in for the night.

  ‘All right, all right! I’m sorry. A pearl… go on,’ Oscar encouraged.

  ‘Someone slipped a pearl into the barrel of the gun that night. But it was never meant to kill Fawn. Someone else was supposed to take that shot but for some reason… Fawn got in the way.’ Walter was looking down at his wrinkled, wringing hands.

  ‘How do you know? That it was a pearl, I mean?’ Walter sighed and looked up at Oscar, his eyes beginning to shine in the lamp light.

  ‘Because I put it there.’

  ‘You what? You were there? Wouldn’t that make you like… a hundred?’

  ‘I’m eighty-eight, thank you very much! A little way off a hundred but I’m sure I’ll still be here when that century turns.’ Walter rolled his eyes. Oscar leant against Walter’s desk and nudged it a little too hard. A picture wobbled and almost fell but Oscar reached out to steady it and something about it made him take a closer look.

  ‘Is that… is that her?’ The black and white photograph was of a young girl, her hair curled to perfection, a neat bow slightly to the left on the top of her head. Although she looked young and naive on the surface, there was a glimmer in her sparkling eyes and a little tweak in the corner of her smile that made Oscar feel like she was far more playful that she’d ever let on. He wondered how he knew all this, and then he realised it was because he’d seen that look before in someone else…

  ‘Yes,’ said Walter, looking at the picture fondly and Oscar was looking at Walter as if he were a mirror, the same doe-eyed look on both their faces. ‘That’s her.’

  ‘You were close?’

  ‘Close? We were inseparable. We didn’t think anything could keep us apart. Until…’ Walter seemed breathless. He coughed a little then reached over to his desk for his flask of tea. ‘Until Hamish,’ he said, spluttering.

  ‘Hamish? Hamish Boatwright?’

  ‘You’ve heard of him, then?’

  ‘Yeah, he was the original producer of When The Curtain Falls, wasn’t he? His name’s on everything.’

  ‘Believe it or not, back in the day, he starred in it too. Played Melvin,’ Walter said.

  ‘Blimey. A producer and an actor. Was he —’

  ‘Any good? No. On neither account. Just an all-round awful man.’

  ‘So what happened?’ Oscar asked.

  ‘I wasn’t the only one that had my eye on the rising starlet that was Fawn Burrows and Hamish… well, he thought he had ownership of her because her father had paid for her to be in the show,’ Walter huffed.

  ‘Was she any —’

  ‘The best,’ Walter smiled. ‘She was better than the majority of actresses I’ve seen come and go over the years.’

  ‘That’s quite a claim!’ said Oscar. I hope he’s not including Olive, he caught himself thinking and was surprised at his own sudden defensiveness. ‘So, why are you still here?’

  ‘I’m getting there, boy. I’m not as young as you. Not as fast,’ Walter laughed.

  ‘Sorry,’ said Oscar, quickly glancing at the clock on the wall.

  ‘Hamish kept her close. Always kept her on his arm, showing her off at parties, practically forcing champagne and caviar down her throat…’

  ‘Sounds… awful?’ Oscar raised an eyebrow.

  ‘It was when it was him. The man was a… monster. He’d… hurt people. Or he’d get his right-hand man to do it for him so he never got his own hands dirty. And the temper on him. If he didn’t get his way he’d turn into a child and his answer was always violence. No exceptions.’

  ‘Didn’t the police ever get involved?’ Oscar asked, not knowing what he’d do if anyone ever laid a hand on Olive.

  ‘Back then, if you had money, you had everything. If you wanted the police to turn a blind eye you could make it happen. Hamish had it all. The money, the sold-out show but… not the girl. Fawn despised him and did everything she could to get away from him but that just made him hold onto her even tighter and eventually he… he ruined her. Drove her mad.’ Walter looked down into his flask, the tea rippling and sloshing inside.

  ‘Did she… kill herself?’ Oscar asked, not knowing how to be delicate.

  ‘To this day, I still don’t know what went wrong. The only way out we could see was getting rid of Hamish. If we’d run, he would have followed us. He had eyes everywhere so we couldn’t hide and if she quit he threatened to kill her.’

  ‘So… you planned to kill him?’

  Walter laughed but this time, didn’t smile. ‘It sounds rash to you, I suppose, but you just don’t know what he was like. I look back and wonder if we were crazy but… there’s no way of knowing now.’ He took one last swig of his tea to avoid Oscar’s scrutiny and screwed the lid back onto his flask.

  ‘So what happened?’

  ‘During the final scene when Hamish was supposed to be shot… Fawn stepped in front of the gun,’ he said, without flinching. ‘At the very last second. The makeshift bullet I’d made killed her instead.’

  ‘And you don’t know why she did that?’

  ‘I don’t know why.’ Walter shook his head sadly. ‘Between you and me, I tried ending my life so many times after it happened. The guilt and the sadness never let up and I just couldn’t figure out a way to live without her but as it turned out, I didn’t have to.’ Walter narrowed his eyes at the young man sitting in his office. ‘You don’t seem like the type for ghost stories…’ he said, trying to gauge how Oscar was handling the story so far, and Oscar tried to gauge how crazy he would sound if he admitted he may have seen a ghost.

  ‘I didn’t think I was until I came here,’ Oscar replied.

  ‘Met her, have you?’ Walter smiled.

  ‘I think I have, yeah!’ Oscar laughed, somewhat hysterically, swiping his hair back and feeling a sense of relief that perhaps he wasn’t going completely mad.

  ‘When I realised her ghost was still inside this theatre, I couldn’t leave. I didn’t have much of a life before I came here, so I dropped everything. Moved in. Kept her company.’

  ‘Haven’t you asked why she did it?’

  ‘I asked once. Maybe two or three years after she started appearing. I’d always get a little bit of time with her before she would be pulled back to the stage to re-enact her death in the final scene of the show but when I asked that question, she was always pulled away from me early. As if asking that question was the trigger that sent her away. Whether it’s because she couldn’t cope with telling me the answer or whether something else in this theatre was stopping her, I’ll probably never know, but I stopped asking, just so I could have that time with her.’ Walter didn’t look like a man desperate for answers. It seemed to Oscar that, in his old age, Walter had made peace with the things he might never understand.

  ‘Usually she only appe
ars on the anniversary of her death but ever since you turned up, she’s started turning up more often, too.’

  ‘Me? What have I got to do with this?’

  ‘You tell me! I’ve yet to figure it out, but Fawn said it was something big.’