He had thoughts only for the Prima Donna
Written to the idea of that first line
Oh but She was last night. It was finished, over. Now the kitchen was reality; the faint smell of chip fat, breakfast food strewn about on the grease spotted table cloth, cornflakes, plastic carton of spread, marmalade jar trailing stickiness. His mother shuffled between the table and the sink, adding to last night’s dirty dishes. Mum, in her housecoat, once fluffy and pink, now coarse and greyish, its surface rubbed into little hard balls where she moved and where she sat. Her long dark hair, uncared for, fell across her face as she leaned over to pick up the bread knife and cut into the loaf.
No, not over. Still there. Still there in Martin’s mind, the theatre, and the darkened stage where she, Tosca, stood; her red velvet dress flowing to the ground, her shining black hair gathered up with glittering jewels. And he saw again, as she turned her head in the candlelight, her face, contemptuous and defiant. He had hardly been able to breathe. The box of Quality Street his Gran had given him fell noisily from his hands. ‘You don’t take sweets to the opera, Bristow’ his teacher hissed glaring at him. ‘Who wants to listen to stupid opera anyway?’ he muttered under his breath. But he already knew the answer.
‘I do! I do!’
Tosca was groping among the remains of the lavish meal on the table behind her, feeling for the knife, as her enemy stood before her gloating and triumphant. Martin was no longer an angry, sullen teenager. It didn’t matter that his jeans had been bought in the market, that his trainers didn’t have the right name on them, that he was thin and pale and couldn’t kick a ball straight. That was in another world. That was there. Her enemy moved towards her, his arms open wide, and she waited there, in her blood-red dress, the knife behind her back, and then began to move slowly towards him.
‘ Go on! Do it! Do it!’
‘Don’t chew with your mouth open love.’ His mother’s weary voice shattered the image. ‘You’d better get a move on or you’ll miss the bus.’
‘Don’t have to.’
‘What?’
‘Catch the bus.’
‘It’s school.’
‘Not today. There’s a test. I need a pound.’
‘What test?’
‘A test that’s all. Nothing.’‘
Test for what? What’s wrong with you?’
‘Nothing. Nothing’s wrong with me.’
“Why are they testing you then?”
“It’s nothing.”
‘It can’t be nothing. Don’t keep saying nothing.’
‘We had it at school. I’ve been picked. It’s in town. I need a pound.’
‘Tested for what?‘
‘For singing’, he muttered, his head down and away from her.
‘For singing?’
‘At the college. They do lessons on Saturdays.’
‘You?’
‘Yes, me.’
‘How much does it cost?’
‘Nothing.’
‘Nothing?’
‘Nothing, just my fares. I need a pound.’
‘I don’t know what your father will say.’
Fear flickered between the two pairs of anxious brown eyes.
‘Don’t tell him, Mum. You don’t have to tell him.’
‘He’ll find out?’
‘Don’t tell him, Mum.’
‘He’s getting up. I can hear him. You’d better go. Here’s your pound, love. Go.’
Even as he fumbled in his haste to tie his shoes, even as he scrambled into his jumper and coat and pocketed his coin the music was driving on in his head. The candlelight still flickered on Tosca’s smooth white skin, her red dress. Her necklace and tiara glittered. Her enemy embraced her, and he embraced his death as she plunged the knife into him. Her voice rose harsh against the swelling orchestra. ‘Mori! Mori!’ The brute was dead.
His father came into the kitchen and slumped down onto a chair, knocking over the cereal, scattering the brittle flakes and leaving the happy family on the packet smiling blandly upwards at nothing. He ran his fingers through his dark curly hair before looking up. His eyes in their dark hollows, not able to deal with the brightness of the morning light, closed wearily, and his head dropped onto his heavy arms. He seemed to fill the tiny kitchen with his bulky body, and the sour, stale smell of yesterday’s beer and cigarettes. Martin and his mother were rooted in their places; helpless creatures watching a venomous snake, waiting for it to strike.
‘God, I need a drink.’ With his head still slumped down on his arms his voice came muffled and mournful, harmless even. Martin’s mother started forward to pour him some tea, which he took gratefully in shaking hands. He spat out the first mouthful. ‘This tastes like warm piss’. The voice was shouting now and he started to rise shaking the little table as he gripped it. ‘Make some fresh, you useless bitch.’ Then he turned on the boy standing still by the door. ‘What are you gaping at you dozy little sod? Go on, get out’’ But his hand seemed raised in the direction of the boy’s mother who backed away, staggering against the draining board clattering the crockery.
Martin had long ceased to notice the way his mother started back when his father spoke to her; the way she brought her arms up in front of her body when he came near her. Ceased to notice that the hair that fell carelessly across her face often hid patches, sometimes red, sometimes purple and yellow. It was just the way things were. Much, much clearer in his head at that moment was Tosca, kneeling beside the corpse to prize the letter from his hand. And then, he frowned, remembering her strange actions as she put a Crucifix in the hands she had laid gently across his chest, and placed candles, with reverence, at his head and feet. Surely she could not feel anything but hatred for that man? He was better dead wasn’t he? Torturer! Tormentor! Rapist! Martin was mystified. Why had she lingered in that room?
Mechanically he picked up his rucksack and swung it onto his back with a thud. Mechanically he turned halfway through the door to say goodbye. And it was then that he saw the little kitchen clearly, sharply, and his mother, and his father. And lying on the table between them, the half stale half cut loaf, and the bread knife.