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 beena 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, potentiallynot 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 need 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 hisbony 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 witha bullet? What was in that gun that night… was apearl.’
‘Okay,nowyou’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 tokill 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 photographwas 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 becausehe’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 tohis desk for his flask of tea. ‘UntilHamish,’ he said, spluttering.
‘Hamish? Hamish Boatwright?’
‘You’ve heard of him, then?’
‘Yeah, he was the original producer ofWhen 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 producerandan actor. Was he —’
‘Any good? No. On neither account. Just an all-round awful man.’
‘So what happened?’ Oscar asked.
