Stage managing performances kept Sophie alive, so she was careful to spend some of her time away from the office and on the stage. She was in the Concert Hall running rehearsal for a one night performance with Cristophe Velis, the Greek god of pop music.
Sophie stood at the front of the stage and faced the twelve-piece band.
‘Ladies and Gentlemen, we’re going to run through the lighting cues to make sure we have your sconces plotted into every cue so you can see your music stands. If you could put down your instruments for a few minutes, we’ll get this done as quickly as possible.’
Every player put their instruments in their laps or on the floor and looked at her expectantly. These musicians were so different from the orchestral players who never paid attention to anything other than the newspaper or novel they kept hidden under their music.
‘Freddy, we’re going to flash through the cues to check we’ve got everyone covered,’ she said over her headset. ‘Let’s start with pre-show and take it from there. Give me a sec to get back to prompt corner.’
Sophie looked at the changes of lighting states on the monitor. The Concert Hall had a solid wall between her and the stage. Someone had installed a window in the wall, but it was covered with a blind to prevent her reading lamp leaking through.
When the cues were complete, Sophie went back on stage. ‘I’d like to run the first number in real time with the music so you know what to expect.’ She gestured to an older man in a black polo shirt standing next to her. ‘This is Bruce, the head of lighting. He’s kindly offered to stand in for Cristophe Velis.’ The band gave him a light round of applause. ‘Remember, you’re already pre-set on stage when the audience come in. Your cue to begin is once I’ve finished the announcement and the house lights go out. Okay everyone, please standby.’
Sophie again disappeared to the side of stage.
‘House lights to half — GO.’ She switched off her show loop microphone and turned on the PA microphone.
‘Good evening Ladies and Gentleman and welcome to this evening’s performance of Cristophe Velis in Concert. May I remind you that the use of photographic equipment and recording devices is strictly prohibited. May I also remind you to please switch off your mobile phones. Thank you.’
She switched microphones.
‘House Lights out and LXQ 1 — GO.’
She heard the band start to play the first few chords of the opening sequence and smiled. The overture lasted three minutes and then transitioned into the introduction to the first song.
‘Dome one and two, please standby to pick up Mr Velis as he enters stage left on your visual.’ She put her hand over her mic. ‘On you go, Bruce,’ she said. ‘Domes, he’s on his way.’
As Sophie switched off her microphone she felt someone behind her. She turned to see Cristophe Velis standing in the wings.
‘Have I been replaced?’ he asked. His smile flashed white in the darkness.
‘Only for this afternoon,’ said Sophie. ‘Bruce can’t sing very well so we’ll need you tonight.’ Cristophe Velis laughed. ‘I’m Sophie,’ she said. He took her outstretched hand and lifted it to his lips. His kiss felt hot against her skin. ‘Pleased to meet you, Sophie.’
‘Do you want to go on, or are you happy to watch?’ she asked. He hadn’t released her hand.
‘As much as it pains me to drag myself away from you,’ he said, his finger stroking the base of her thumb, ‘I should warm up the vocal cords.’
Sophie felt a blush warm her cheeks. She disengaged her hand.
‘But don’t say anything to Bruce,’ he said, ‘I want it to be a surprise.’
Sophie moved from the desk to the place where a large door opened onto the stage. She wanted to see Bruce’s reaction.
The band noticed Cristophe Velis first and nodded their head to him in greeting. Bruce stood at the front of the stage and looked up at a truss supporting the lights positioned over the auditorium. When Cristophe Velis put his hand on Bruce’s back, Bruce jumped, turned around and then laughed when he recognised the star. He shook Cristophe Velis’ hand and passed him the microphone.
‘I guess we’re sound checking as well now,’ said Sophie. ‘Cristophe Velis wants to sing.’
That evening, the Concert Hall was sold out. The audience consisted of mostly women in their thirties and forties who had been mesmerised by Cristophe Velis’ mischievous personality and his ability to make it seem as though he were singing directly to them about how much he wanted them.
At ten minutes to eight, everyone was held in the twilight between finishing their pre-show preparations and waiting for the show to start. Sophie ran over the cue sheet on her desk, making sure she knew where every cue was positioned. The operators all took responsibility for what to do, they just needed Sophie to tell them when.
From the auditorium Sophie heard the sound of excited voices, calls of greeting and shrieks of laughter.
‘Sounds like they’re a lively bunch.’ Cristophe Velis stood framed by blue light at the entrance to the wings. He wore a slim-fitting grey suit with a mandarin collar. His white shirt was also collarless. His dark wavy hair swooped down over one eyebrow.
Sophie nodded. ‘You have lots of fans.’
Cristophe Velis made his way towards Sophie. He stood close enough so she could smell his aftershave. His skin was the shade of toast, and unblemished. He had shaved so closely that Sophie was unable to detect a trace of stubble on his chin. Young, still in his twenties. Still a child.
‘So tell me about you?’ asked Cristophe Velis. ‘How are you doing?’
‘I’m fine.’ Sophie smiled.
‘No, I’m serious,’ he said. ‘Tell me how things are going. I want to know.’
It was the first time someone had wanted to know about her in a long time. How was she doing? Not so great. Now that she had given up devoting all her energy to planning her diet and training her body, large gaps of space had opened up in her life. She didn’t know how to fill them. She didn’t fit in with her fitness friends online, and she couldn’t bother Pip all the time. Michael didn’t seem to be interested in what Sophie was doing, but that wasn’t new, she just noticed it more. She felt restless, lost, drifting along without any idea where she was going.
‘Have you read the Narnia book The Magician’s Nephew?’ she asked.
‘Yes. I love CS Lewis.’
‘In the book, Polly and Digory put on magic rings which take them to a sleepy wooded place which turns out not to be their destination, but a world between worlds. That’s where I am right now. I’ve left one place and I’m on my way somewhere else, but at the moment, I’m stuck in the world between worlds, in limbo.’
‘I understand what you mean,’ said Cristophe Velis. ‘I’ve been there myself.’ He touched her arm. ‘You describe it so beautifully. You’d better be careful, I might steal the idea and write a song.’
‘Go right ahead,’ said Sophie. ‘But you might have to pay off CS Lewis’ estate.’
A light flashed on the desk to indicate the phone was ringing. ‘Prompt Corner,’ said Sophie.
‘It’s Peter, from Front of House,’ said the voice on the phone. ‘Everyone’s in. You’re right to go.’
‘Thanks Peter. I’ll ring the bells three minutes before the end so you know when they’re coming out.’
‘Cheers,’ said Peter.
Sophie turned to Cristophe Velis who was pacing the floor and humming quietly to himself. ‘Here we go,’ she said. ‘Have a good show.’
Cristophe Velis stood still, stopped humming and listened to Sophie call the opening sequence. Once the band had started playing, he put his arm around her shoulder.
‘Ouch, that trumpet player is flat. He needs to blow harder.’ Cristophe Velis’ eyes danced as he laughed.
‘That’s not your band?’
‘No I just rent one in each city. Most of what you hear is pre-recorded on ProTools, but don’t tell anyone.’
Sophie wrestled with the urge to tell Cristophe Velis he should be getting ready to go onstage but she decided he knew his own show and would do things in his own time, no matter what she said.
He leaned down and kissed Sophie on the lips, catching her by surprise. The kiss ended as quickly as it began, the kind of kiss you give an intimate friend or an old lover you no longer sleep with but still adore. Sophie’s face arranged itself into an expression of shock.
‘You’ll find your way home soon, I promise,’ he whispered in her ear. Sophie felt the drop in air temperature on her neck as he moved to the side of stage. The music changed.
‘Dome one and two, please standby to pick up Mr Velis as he enters stage left on your visual,’ she said. Cristophe Velis gave Sophie a small wave and walked out into the light. ‘He’s on his way.’
Cristophe Velis sang flawlessly, told gentle jokes, and made every woman in the audience fall in love with him. Two hours later he came off stage, breathing heavily, his eyes wild. The audience clapped and yelled and banged the soles of their shoes on the polished timber floorboards. He shrugged off his jacket revealing a shirt soaked through with perspiration and placed the discarded garment into Sophie’s outstretched hand. He slipped his arm around her waist, pulled her to him and kissed her for a full ten seconds. Sophie stiffened at first and then relaxed into his chest. His tongue slipped gently into her mouth just before he pulled away. He grinned and disappeared back onto the stage for his encore.
Sophie forgot to warn the Dome operators he was coming back on stage. Fortunately, they were expecting him and picked him up. Her pulse prickled through her lips against her fingertips.
When Cristophe Velis came off stage at the end of the concert, he took the jacket Sophie had put over the back of the chair and went to his dressing room without pausing to say anything. The show was over, the magic had gone, waiting to be conjured up in another theatre, in another city, on another night. It was the transience of performance, moments charged with meaning and emotion which disappeared once the curtain fell and the house lights came up. It was what Sophie both loved and hated about her job. So much beauty and feeling disappeared like wisps of fog evaporating underneath the heat of the morning sun.
Sophie put her backpack down in the dining room and kicked off her shoes. She was hungry and hadn’t eaten much for dinner. Her appetite always seemed to disappear before a show. She opened the fridge and searched for something to eat. A plastic container of what looked like curry hadn’t been there when she had left this morning. Michael must have had Indian for dinner.
‘What kind of curry did you get?’ she called.
‘Beef vindaloo,’ Michael shouted from the study. ‘Have it if you want.’
‘No thanks, too spicy.’
She pulled out a loaf of bread which the label proclaimed was wheat-free and yeast-free. It tasted like cardboard but it was healthy.
Michael walked into the kitchen while she was waiting for the toaster to finish cooking the bread. ‘You look pleased with yourself,’ he said. He took a long-neck bottle of VB from the fridge.
‘I need you to kiss me,’ said Sophie.
Michael squinted at her. ‘Don’t be weird,’ he said. He took the lid off the beer with the bottle opener.
‘Can you just kiss me?’
‘Do I have to?’ said her husband. The toaster beeped and the bread popped up.
‘Tonight at work, Cristophe Velis kissed me on the lips at the end of the show. I need you to kiss me to cancel it out.’
‘Why would he kiss you when he could get any woman he wanted? He’s not desperate, surely?’ Michael headed back towards the study.
‘So I guess that’s a no, then,’ she said to his retreating back. She put the toast on a side plate, buttered it and spread a thick coating of Vegemite on top.
She was putting her empty plate in the dishwasher when Michael called out from the study. ‘Is that true?’ he said, ‘Did that slimy bastard Velis really kiss you?’
Sophie went in to him. ‘Yes,’ she said. ‘It was only a peck though, nothing to worry about.’
Michael’s eyes didn’t leave his computer screen. ‘I’ve arranged a gaming session with a guy in Dusseldorf in an hour. Don’t wait up for me.’
‘You can’t go to work tomorrow without any sleep,’ she said.
He looked at her with cold eyes. ‘Stop criticising me. I don’t need your help.’
It was almost three a.m. before Sophie went to sleep. When she woke up it was after nine and Michael had already left for work. She wasn’t needed at the Opera House until lunchtime so she padded around the house in a t-shirt and shorts, not knowing what to do with herself. On the kitchen bench, she counted twelve empty long-neck bottles of beer. Not only was Michael at work without any sleep he was probably still drunk as well.
It was a warm November morning, hot enough to suggest that it might reach over thirty degrees by the afternoon. The North Sydney pool was quiet, the early morning exercisers having gone to work and the frazzled mothers not yet arrived. Sophie swam over to the slow lane and chose breaststroke to glide through the water.
Sophie’s thoughts were stuck on Michael. Ever since she had returned from Melbourne, he had seemed more angry and depressed than normal. Never one to be optimistic, he appeared to be getting worse. He found fault in everything she did. The bathroom wasn’t clean enough, the dishwasher wasn’t loaded properly, the bottles were stacked the wrong way in the recycling tub. His offhand comments were what hurt the most. You’re getting old, you’re no longer attractive, you let people take advantage of you, you’re only interested in yourself, you’re hurtful and unkind. Perhaps he was right. Sophie had found herself judging Michael’s decisions. He hated his job in the bookshop but he didn’t try to find anything else. He spent all his money on DVDs and gaming subscriptions. He rarely left the house on the weekends. She should try to keep her opinions to herself, leave him alone. It was easier than upsetting him.
She stopped at the shallow end to catch her breath. Puddles of water turned the concrete from white to grey. When she thought about leaving Michael and being on her own, a space opened up in her chest and began to ache. She didn’t want to give up on her marriage when it got tough. She wasn’t a quitter or a failure. It was just a stage they were going through. She had lost sight of herself as it was, she didn’t want to be alone without knowing who she was. Finding herself in the world between worlds, she needed someone familiar. Michael was that person. He had watched her travel around the world, build a darkroom in the laundry, paint herself orange and parade in a bikini, without suggesting she settle down. They had a partnership, equal independence, freedom. Sophie didn’t want to lose him. She loved him for never asking her why she did the things she did.
Sophie swam a few more lengths before she got out of the pool and lay in the sun. On the way home, she heard a kookaburra singing his laughing song. The ache in her chest remained.