The Room Beyond by Stephanie Elmas Page A

Hamlet. Unfortunately a charitable event which
I foolishly overlooked has clashed with the outing and I am much relied upon to
man the tombola. Although I adore the theatre I’m sure you will understand
where my duty lies. Perhaps instead we should have tea together one day?
     
    Yours sincerely
    Mrs Whitestone
     
    The headache turned into one of the worst yet: a grotesque
kaleidoscope of garish colour and cruel confrontations. She curled herself up
as tightly as she could in the armchair, but nothing could stop that miserable
hollow thud, endlessly approaching, louder and louder all the time until she
longed for it to just take hold of her and complete whatever it had set out to
do.
    Snatches of her childhood came back to her. Things she hadn’t
thought about for years. Her father proudly leading her along on a new pony. Her
mother, cold and far away. And then that time when she’d walloped nanny clean
across the face with her old doll Amelia. How she’d cried after that; having to
watch Amelia dying on a bonfire, her face disintegrating into ash.
    And yet between those flames dolphins suddenly appeared, blue and
silvery, swimming up into the sky towards something garish, canary yellow.
Betsey with her insipid smile. And then the whole world was laughing at her:
people in restaurants, passers-by on the street, Hamlet in the midst of a
soliloquy pausing to hunt her down in the audience, his face wrinkling up in
hilarity. Thud thud thud .
     
    When she woke up it was pitch black in the room. The headache had
gone, but in its wake had left her with a strange hollow feeling, as if a part
of her brain had been removed. It was eleven o’clock. Downstairs the house was
empty but Sarah had left her a meal. She took it to the library.
    Funny that they’d called it the library, because it didn’t have much
in the way of books. There were an awful lot of shelves, filled mainly with old
theatre programmes from The Empress. She stroked her hand along the grand
piano, the best bit of the room. It felt so sleek and glossy, like patting the
flank of a prized racehorse.
    The air was stuffy. She raised the window to let in the night, but
with it came the pungent smell of a cigar. She leaned out and there was Tristan
Whitestone, smoking idly in the street. He was lounging against the railings;
such an elegant figure, so perfectly proportioned.
    She glanced at herself in a mirror on the opposite wall and pinched
her cheeks. The evening shadows had smoothed out her skin a little and her hair
still looked good at least, unadorned and hanging loosely down her back.
    Heart galloping, she tip-toed to the front door and, with just
enough of a click to make sure that the still night air was only a little
disturbed, she unfastened the latch. The door yawned open an inch or two so
that a thin sliver of light poured out onto the street from inside.
    Back in the library she drank whiskey and waited. The smell of the
cigar slowly faded away but nothing happened. Not a sound, not one ripple of
movement in the air. The minutes passed and soon her pounding heart smothered
itself in disappointment. The bottom of her glass peered mockingly up at her.
    ‘You have a funny way of inviting people into your home Mrs Eden.’
    Her eyes darted up and there he was, leaning against the doorframe.
    ‘I didn’t. But now that you’re here you might as well help yourself
to a drink.’
    Tristan Whitestone undid the top button of his shirt and found the
whisky.
    ‘Nice piano.’
    ‘Thank you. It was given to me by a rich American.’
    ‘Why?’
    ‘Because he liked my husband’s theatre and our old piano caved in
when an opera singer sat on it.’
    ‘I own you an apology,’ he said.
    ‘How strange, your wife said exactly the same thing in her note.’
    He looked confused.
    ‘Cancelling Hamlet?’
    ‘Now that doesn’t surprise me.’
    She could see the annoyance shifting across his features.
    ‘So, what do you feel the urge to apologize for?’ she