The Shining Fragments by Robin Blackburn McBride

Author:Robin Blackburn McBride
Language: eng
Format: epub
ISBN: 9781771832670
Publisher: Guernica Editions
Published: 2018-11-06T16:00:00+00:00

23

“Do not look at the moon sideways. Face it directly,” Nanny often warned.

Tonight, from his seat in the nineteenth row, Joseph stared at a painted moon. The play was Tennyson’s The Cup. Having consumed three tumblers of Rossin House whiskey unusually early in the evening, Joseph longed for coffee.

In the second act, Phoebe entered, a maiden faithful to both the goddess, Artemis, and Camma, the protagonist. From the moment the actress set foot on the stage, everything changed. In her pool of light, Phoebe called out to Artemis, and Joseph held his breath at the sound of her voice. From that moment, the play was lost on him. He had eyes only for Phoebe.

Joseph returned over and over to see Phoebe brought to life by a bit player, Miss Cyrena Ayre. Fair-haired and radiant in a gown of the palest, spectral blue, she moved from window to priestess and back again, almost dancing.

In the same company’s Othello, Cyrena Ayre played Bianca a different way each night. Sometimes she sidled barefoot to Cassio; sometimes she cartwheeled, producing a flurry of murmurs in the house.

By the time A Midsummer Night’s Dream opened, Joseph’s knee had noticeably improved. “You’re not limping as much,” Bette said, surveying with some apprehension a portico that had appeared above the head of Saint George.

“I can move it over to Saint Paul if you like,” Joseph said. When he shaved his beard, Bette broke the stunned silence with a giggle. “You have a face, my dear Joseph. And a nice one at that.”

Joseph’s face was not nice, though some scars had begun to fade.

In the Dream, moving to the notes of a hidden flute, Moth danced alone. Joseph watched the winged creature, enthralled, as she turned circles in a beam of light.

An hour later, at the backstage exit, Joseph waited in the falling snow. Moth stepped into the alley on the arm of a player struggling to open a tobacco tin. She laughed, stealing the roll-up cigarette from his cold-stiffened fingers.

“Deary Avery,” Joseph said.

The couple stared. “Do you know this man?” the actor asked.

“You’re Deary — Deary Avery.”

“I’m afraid that you’ve mistaken me.” She patted her companion’s arm, loosening its hold. “I knew a Dora Avery. Or was it Doran? We did some shows together. You’re not the first to confuse us.”

He couldn’t speak; she was so near.

“Did you like the performance?”

He nodded.

“Would you like an autograph for your book?” She gestured to his sketch book, which was open to a picture of Phoebe standing at the window of Artemis’ temple. “Your name?” She held his book now, flipping through the many pages of Cyrena Ayre.

“Joseph Conlon,” he said at last.

“I like this one.” Hippolyta: silent, regal, and somehow still ethereal after her transformation from Moth. “Where did you know Miss Avery?”

“Here,” Joseph said. “When we were children.”

She reached into her bag for a pen. “Michael, go on without me.”

“But, Cyrena — ”

“This man knows Miss Avery, my old friend. I want to talk with him about her. A few minutes.

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