Final Act

Act III - Dreams

"I saw some of your work recently." Harry says as he leads Suki down the dark strip of corridor towards the stage.

"Oh! Where?" Suki stumbles slightly over an uneven floorboard and Harry turns back, checking she's ok before continuing.

"These bloody floorboards." He sighs, "same in every theatre. They won't do anything about backstage until someone breaks their neck... But you're not going to believe how much work they've done to the stage since I was last here..." He trails off, gathering his thoughts as Suki's question comes back to him. She picks her way along in the darkness behind him and the low drawl of his voice travels back to her; "I saw a sculpture in an gallery in Camden and knew it was yours straight away. It's in my living room. It's beautiful. Everyone always comments on it."

A lump rises in Suki's throat. Harry bought one of her sculptures, after all this time apart. After the divorce, whilst she was living her life and he his- at some point he'd connected to her and the most she'd known of it was the letter that informed her of another sale.

She knows exactly which sculpture it'll be and the knowledge makes it all the more poignant. Two separate arms, one male and one female, beginning at the elbows and meeting in the middle via their tightly clasped hands. Both arms show signs of decay and rotting. They're perfect, aside from the odd patch of exposed ligament, peeled muscle.

This piece she'd made after the divorce. After long, sleepless nights and days of zero inspiration, she'd thrown her heart and soul into it. It seems incredible, obscene, ridiculous that of the 10 million people in London, Harry should be the one to buy it, knowing who had made it, knowing that it signified the breakdown of his own marriage. She wonders how he can even bare to look at it. It was raw and vicious and brutal and the fact that he has taken it into his home reminds her that Harry was always better at facing up to pain than she was. He always confronted what she always tried to avoid. Still, she wonders how he can bring himself to look at it everyday.

Neither of them speak as Harry finally pulls back the thick red velvet curtain on to the stage. To her surprise, there is a light shining there, illuminating the stage and casting a glow over the rows of maroon seats.

"Did you light this one too?" She says, trying to sound offhand and hide the dryness in her throat, the tears she's tried to push down since Harry's revelation.

"What?" Harry glances at her with a frown, before realising that she's pointing at the light. "Ah, no. Don't you remember?" She shakes her head and he laughs lowly, holding back the curtain for her to walk through. "It's a ghost light."

A vague thread of recognition tugs at her memory but it's not enough. The theatre was Harry's world, she merely observed the outcome of his labours, a happy spectator at the end, the way he was with her sculptures.

Harry steps onto the stage behind her and in a booming circus voice he says; "And tonight, for one night only, the beautiful Ms. Suki Styles..." She rolls her eyes with a snort and he sniggers.

"Is it always on?" She asks.

"What, the ghost light?" He frowns. "Of course it is. 24 hours a day, aside from performance time. Have you really forgotten that much? Every theatre in the world has one. It's so that anyone who has to pick their way across stage while the theatre is shut doesn't fall off the bloody thing and break their neck."

"Ghost light is a bit of an eerie name." She points out, gesturing around the empty theatre.

"You know what superstitious creatures actors are." He laughs. "They think that every theatre has at least one ghost and they believe the light has to be left on to guide them on stage. They think terrible things will happen if they ghost isn't allowed to perform... I'm not joking!" He protests at the look on Suki's face. "I worked with Ralph Fiennes last year and he flat out refused to rehearse one day because the ghost light had been switched off the night before and he thought it was bad luck."